by Elle Thorpe
I held my hand out for my sister’s colleague to shake. I’d momentarily forgotten she worked here at the hospital. Or at least she had, before Molly. Had she returned from maternity leave yet? Hell, what kind of brother was I, that I didn’t even know the answer to that?
One who was never around.
“Yes, I’m her brother. Is she okay? What about Shep? I mean, Lachlan Shepherd. He’s my brother-in-law. I called his parents, but they’re overseas and can’t get here until…” I was rambling with nerves, telling the doctor things he didn’t need to know but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
Thankfully, the man took pity on me. Or maybe he was just used to this sort of barely coherent response from the family of his patients.
“Jasmine and Shep are both doing as well as can be expected.”
“They’re alive?” I breathed out the words I hadn’t dared to say out loud. Because neither of them had looked good when they’d finally been pulled from the wreckage. I hadn’t been allowed in the ambulance with them, but Summer had driven me, insisting I wasn’t driving myself. Shit, I didn’t even know where my bike was. I’d abandoned it to the road the moment I’d seen that truck hit Shep’s car. Had the truck driver even stopped?
The doctor smiled at me. “They’re very much alive. And we’re going to keep them that way. But I need you to prepare yourself. Neither of them will have a quick recovery. It’s going to be long, and probably painful.”
“They’re tough,” I said with conviction. You had to be when you worked the land. Shep might have been the one doing most of the heavy lifting at the ranch lately, but Jasmine had grown up right beside me. She knew how to brand a calf, put in a fence, or fix a tractor with the best of them. She had calloused hands, like everybody else in this town. She’d fight. I knew she would. She had to, for Molly.
“Shit, Molly. Hallie.” I whirled around as if they’d just appear out of nowhere, then I realized that was ridiculous. “Do you know where they are? Jasmine’s daughter and…” Hell, how did I describe Hallie? I had no words. I never had. “The woman she came in with. I think she might have been injured.” Fuck! How had I let Molly and Hallie go by themselves? What kind of uncle—hell, what kind of man—did that? I should have been with them the entire time.
The doctor checked an iPad and pointed me in the direction of the pediatric ward. With the knowledge that my sister was going to be okay, I ran for the elevator, but when the ancient thing didn’t open instantly, I slammed my way through the doorway of the emergency stairwell and raced up the two flights of stairs. My gaze darted from room number to room number, mentally figuring out which direction room 307 would be, before taking off down the hall again.
A nurse in green scrubs gave me the side-eye as I ran past, but nobody stopped me. I skidded to a halt in the doorway, peering through the small glass peephole window.
I couldn’t name the emotion that welled inside, but it spread through me like molasses, slowing my heart rate and calming my erratic breathing. I pushed the door open, quiet and controlled, and the complete opposite to the chaos of the last few hours.
Molly was tucked into a bed much too big for her, with the white metal rails raised to keep her from falling out. She had a single monitor attached to her by a cord, but she slept soundly, no trace of the trauma she’d suffered on her little face.
Slumped uncomfortably in a hospital chair, Hallie slept with her arm through the railing, her fingers around Molly’s. But unlike the baby, Hallie’s face was lined with worry, even in her sleep. Another flash of guilt gnawed at me. I’d lumped all of this on her, so lost in my fear I hadn’t even stopped to consider the strain I’d put her under.
This wasn’t her problem. None of it was. I’d just gone straight back to relying on her the way I always had as kids. What gave me the right to do that? We hadn’t spoken in years.
A tremor ran through her body, so I grabbed a spare blanket from a pile sitting on a shelf and went to put it over her. I paused, noticing how ripped and torn her shirt was. And not only that, it was covered in patches of dried blood.
Hallie blinked her eyes open, then jolted half out of her chair when she saw me standing over her. Her fingers jerked from Molly’s grasp, and the baby made a noise of annoyance in her sleep but quickly settled again.
Hallie pushed to her feet so we were closer to the same height. “What are you doing?” she hissed.
I held the blanket up as if that explained everything, but when she didn’t respond, I realized she wasn’t a mind reader. “You’re cold. I was going to cover you up.”
She jerked back an inch. “Oh. That’s…nice.”
“But then I saw you were covered in blood.”
She gazed down at herself and grimaced. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not. Did the nurses even clean those cuts? They’re going to get infected.”
She shrugged, peering down at Molly again. “I let them stitch the worst of them, and they brought some things to clean out the rest…” She pointed to a little green surgical bowl that held tweezers and gauze and antiseptic. “But Molly was crying, and I wanted to be the one to give her a bottle.” She looked at me sheepishly. “I know I don’t really know her. But I’ve met her a couple of times when I’ve run into Jasmine at the store. And I got her out of the car…I just felt like I was a bit more familiar than a random nurse, even though they’re lovely.”
I stared at her in amazement. She’d refused medical treatment she obviously needed, just to take care of Molly. “I should have been here to do that,” I mumbled.
Hallie bit her lip, not saying anything. Nothing needed to be said. We both knew I was right.
Hallie shifted toward the door. “I guess I should go, now that you’re here.”
“No,” I said, before I could really think about it.
She stopped and tilted her head at me, like I’d confused her. Hell, I’d confused myself. The woman had been up all night with a baby who wasn’t hers, because I hadn’t been able to get my shit together. Of course she wanted to leave.
But I wasn’t ready for her to walk out of my life again. Especially not with injuries that had at least partially been my fault. I glanced around, gaze landing on the antiseptic the nurses had brought to dress her wounds. “Can I clean your cuts?” I asked politely, as if we were complete strangers.
She frowned. “Do you know how?”
“Do you even know how many times I’ve come off a bull? Or my bike? Trust me, I know how to get out glass and gravel and clean a wound. Sit.” I pointed at the chair before she could try to leave again.
She saluted me. “Being on tour has made you bossy.”
I didn’t tell her I was still the easy-going guy I’d been when we knew each other, and that it was just her and the desire to make sure she was okay that had me ordering her around. She’d sat, so that was all I really needed.
“Dammit, Hallie,” I murmured, touching the collar of her shirt, surveying the damage. “Can I take this off you?”
She snorted on a laugh but waved her hand around. “Sure. It’s pretty much rags now anyway.”
“What are you laughing at?”
She shrugged. “It’s just those are the words I thought you’d be saying a few years ago.”
Shit. She’d gone there.
I cleared my throat. “You didn’t give me the chance. You were already pretty naked by the time I got there.”
She groaned. “You know what, do we have to do this right now? I’m tired and sore, and you don’t need this. I’m sorry I brought it up.”
I sighed. “No, I guess not. But I do need to clean these cuts.” I slid the shirt off her shoulders and down her arms. I didn’t miss the tremble that rolled down her spine as my fingertips brushed across the back of her neck and I tucked that away for future reference.
Hallie Ryan might not want to talk about our past, but she deserved to know the truth.
I wanted a second chance.
And I wasn’t leaving this town unti
l I’d explained everything.
5
Nate
Molly’s doctor gave her the all clear to go home on Saturday afternoon, releasing her into my care. I was exhausted after being awake for over twenty-four hours, but then the doctor told me Jasmine was asking for me, so I ran down to her room like a bat out of Hell. Molly griped at me the entire way, completely unimpressed that I was not her mom or dad.
I burst into Jasmine’s room without knocking. Her head turned stiffly in my direction, and when she noticed Molly, she burst into tears, holding her arms out for her daughter.
I leaned in so they could touch, but I wasn’t sure Jasmine was actually strong enough to hold her, so I didn’t dare let her go. My assumption proved correct, Jasmine’s arms dropping back to the bed. “Just sit her on the bed by me. Please. I was so worried.”
“She’s fine,” I assured my sister. “Hallie got her out and stayed with her until I could take over. She was amazing. How are you?”
It was a stupid question. Her head was bandaged, one leg was in a foot-to-thigh cast, and she’d had surgery to repair a tear in her abdomen.
“I’ve been better.” She tried to smile, but it was forced. “Shep still isn’t awake.”
The agony in her expression drove a needle in my heart. She was my sister, and even though she was older, I still had the urge to protect her. But I couldn’t. Not from this sort of pain.
I grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “He’ll wake up. His body just needs a little more rest.” I tried to sound as confident as possible, but I knew it was falling on deaf ears. There was nothing I could say or do to reassure her that her husband would wake up and be the same man he’d been when we’d left the bar last night. No one could guarantee her that. All I could do was try to ease any other concerns she might have. I didn’t need to be a parent to know Molly was her number two worry, right after her dad. “I’ve got this,” I assured my sister. “Molly, I mean.”
Jasmine lifted a hand limply, trying to wave it at me. “You can’t. You need to go back on tour. Shep’s parents—”
“Are in Australia. They’re trying to get here, but it will be a few days. Shep’s dad had some sort of business thing …”
Worry flickered in my sister’s eyes. “You’ve got to go back on tour in a few days.”
“I’ll postpone.”
“You’ll get fired.”
She had a point, but there was nothing I could do about that right now.
I didn’t want her panicking about me. “We’ll work something out. You should sleep now.”
She simply closed her eyes, too tired to even agree with me. But when I went to pull away, she grabbed my hand. “Nate?”
“Yeah?”
Her voice was barely more than a whisper, and she hadn’t even opened her eyes. “Fix things with Hallie. Tell her how you feel. It could have been you last night…If you’d pulled out first, on your bike…and then she never would have known.”
I couldn’t argue with her. I couldn’t make her understand it wasn’t just as easy as all that. I’d apologized a million times after I’d left. I’d called Hallie night and day, begging her for a chance to explain.
She hadn’t wanted to hear it.
Molly and I left Jasmine to sleep and took the elevator down to the ground floor exit. That was as far as I got before I realized I had absolutely no way of getting back to Shep and Jasmine’s place. There was no Uber in this town. No taxis. There was a bus than ran every three hours but had finished the last run of the day. “Shit,” I said to Molly, then cringed. “I mean, shoot. I’m not supposed to be swearing in front of you, am I?”
Her answering gurgle wasn’t much help, but I knew it was what my sister wanted. Not swearing in front of their child was the least I could do while I was in charge of her.
Well, that, and keeping her alive.
I wasn’t entirely sure I was capable of either. And the fact I was stranded in town meant we weren’t off to the greatest of starts.
“I went to school in this town, how is it that I don’t have a single friend to call?”
That wasn’t really true. I’d had a couple of male friends, but I didn’t even have their numbers anymore. I just hadn’t cared to keep in touch once we’d left school. Which showed how close we’d been, that we could all walk away so easily.
Hallie was my one true friend. The one I’d called on for everything.
Shit. Argh, shoot. Whatever. I couldn’t call her again. She’d only left the hospital a few hours ago and was probably asleep.
Molly let out a squawk of disapproval at waiting around so long, so I jostled her and the bag of bottles and formula samples the hospital had given me into one arm. Then I dug through my pocket for my phone and called Summer.
6
Hallie
The front door opened and closed, and I paused with my fingers gripped around the moldy old carpet I was ripping up. “What’s the password?” I yelled down the stairs.
“Daisy?” Summer called back, amongst the shuffle of dumping her purse on the floor by the door. “Like the one on your ass?”
“Wrong. But you can come up anyway. I guess I know you, since you know about my tattoo.”
Her footsteps pounded up the stairs, and she poked her head around the corner. “I need a password now?”
“Just wanted to be sure I wasn’t being robbed. That’s the last thing I need.”
Summer wrinkled her nose in the direction of the stinking carpet. “No offense, babe, but ain’t nobody going to be robbing you anytime soon. There’s nothing here to steal. Apart from flaking wallpaper and maybe asbestos.”
I sighed. “I know. This place is a dump. But it has good bones. It’ll be amazing once I’m done with it.”
Summer rolled up the sleeves on her denim shirt and pushed them up over her elbows. “It’s going to be the best bed and breakfast in miles. You’re going to put us on the map.”
“I think you and your dad already did that with your bull riding school.”
Summer’s dad, Kai ‘Frost’ Hunt, had been a champion bull rider in his twenties and thirties. And he’d been training champions ever since. They ran a boarding program, taking in cowboys from all over the country who wanted to train under Kai’s watchful eye. But Summer was no slouch herself. She was her dad’s protégé and headed for the big time.
“What are you doing here anyway? Shouldn’t you be training? The rodeo at Masonville is next weekend. You need the points to stay in contention for the WBRA, right?”
Summer pulled at the edge of another section of carpet that had to be removed. “Yeah, but Dad won’t let me. He thinks I’ve been training too hard.”
I raised an eyebrow at that. “Is there such a thing when you’re training for the pros?”
“That’s what I said! But he thinks he knows best.”
I side-eyed her. “He did win the WBRA title about ten times.”
“Three times. Like that makes him some sort of expert.” She grinned, and we both burst into laughter. Summer and her dad were thick as thieves, and the whole town knew he was her hero. She’d been riding bulls her entire life, just trying to walk in his footsteps. And she was going to do it, too.
“I can’t wait to watch you qualify for the tour. ’Bout time a woman made it on to the team and showed all those guys what’s what.” I tossed my rolled-up bit of gross carpet out the second-story window and down into the pile I was creating outside. A cloud of dust rose, and I shut the window before any of it could come back inside the house. Renovating a hundred-year-old property that hadn’t been updated since the sixties was not for the faint of heart. This work was dirty and gross. But I’d never shied away from it. This house was my dream, and I was damn determined to make it a reality. It just sucked Summer wouldn’t be here to see it.
I pouted in her direction. “I’m going to miss you when you’re gone. Stupid WBRA. Taking all my people.”
“Nate’s your person now?”
I shrugged
. “No. But he was. You two are gonna go off and have a ball seeing the world, while I’m here YouTubing do-it-yourself tiling techniques because I’m too damn broke to pay someone to do this work for me.”
Summer tossed a grubby bit of underlay at me. “Stop it. You love this shit. Your idea of a good time is eating Cheetos while watching a home reno show.”
Couldn’t argue with her there. “I know. And I really am excited for you. You’re going to be a superstar. Remind me to get your autograph before you leave. You know, for when you’re so famous you forget my name, and just pass me in the streets like we never knew each other.” I laughed because Summer was the most down-to-earth woman I’d ever met, and the thought of her success going to her head was ludicrous.
But I’d once thought that about Nate. And look how that had turned out.
“I wish Austin were happy for me. He never comes right out and says it, but he drops enough hints that tell me he’s not pleased about the prospect of me going on tour.”
I pressed my lips together and turned away.
Summer’s sigh was loud. “Say it, Hal. I know you want to.”
Well, if she insisted. “Austin just wants you barefoot and pregnant. He hates that your dreams are bigger than his. For the five millionth time, what on earth are you still doing with him? You’re the most mismatched couple in the history of forever and—”
Her phone rang, and she rushed to pick it up.
“Saved by the bell,” I muttered. “We aren’t done with this conversation.” But it was one I knew I wouldn’t win, because we’d had it a dozen times before. It was no secret Summer’s boyfriend and I weren’t exactly friends. I might have teased her about leaving me, but she knew I was nothing but excited and proud of her.
I couldn’t say the same for Austin.
“Nate? What’s up?”
That got my attention. I widened my eyes in Summer’s direction and mouthed, My Nate?
Not that he was my Nate anymore. He hadn’t been mine for a long time, and one night of helping out during a traumatic event didn’t change that.
