A Son for the Texas Cowboy

by Sinclair Jayne

  The cowboy stuff that popped in her mind made her blush. She had to stop remembering anything to do with Axel. And she had to keep her life G-rated now that she had Diego. The sensuality that had ruled her with Axel seemed so foreign now. It was as if she’d been someone else.

  Where had that sensuous, passionate and adventure-loving woman gone?

  “Cowboys Like That” by Alyssa Micaela came on the radio as if taunting her.

  “No! I love that song!” Diego protested when Cruz reached to change it. She was still recovering from “Better Man.”

  Punished by the country music gods!

  She grit her teeth and changed the station back. Diego began to sing. Cruz bit her lower lip. She would not think of Axel. She would not think of…

  “Why aren’t you singing? You always sing with me.”

  Cruz managed a smile, but she just felt too keyed-up and a bit too raw to go there. She was a mature adult. A skilled and highly trained professional. A mom. She had to do better than be a jumpy ball of nerves. She used to be a nationally ranked barrel racer. She’d been urged to go pro. It was humiliating that the memory of an ex could still arouse her. And that the prospect of accidentally running into him should terrify her. “Okay, girl,” she softly whispered. “You’ve got this. Nail your win. Take it home.”

  She slowed down as she came to the outskirts of town. Her father had had several horse-training gigs in Texas when she’d been growing up, but never in the Hill Country. The minute the first of the two-story brick buildings—some with blue tin roofs—came in to view, Cruz was charmed.

  And then it happened. She saw a blue truck hurtle across an intersection a few blocks up, crash into a bus, spin away and flip on its back, which caused the small tour bus to swerve and drive through a large wood plank building on the opposite side of the road. The impact was so severe, the glass from the large windows seemed to implode as the front of the building buckled.

  Cruz slammed on her brakes, almost unable to process what she was seeing, and then her nursing instincts kicked in, and she steered her car to the side of the road. She noted the curb was yellow, but was in too much of a rush to care.

  Heart pounding, mouth dry, she grabbed the advanced first aid kit she always kept under her front seat.

  “Stay in the car,” she ordered as she rolled down the windows. “I mean it, Diego. There’s a lot of glass, and people might need help.”

  She didn’t want to think about the injuries she might find.

  “I can help,” he said, his eyes wide and his hand on his seat belt buckle.

  “No.” She tried to soften her voice, but she was running out of time.

  A few people from a nearby restaurant ran toward the truck that had crashed into some sort of bronze statue of a man. Flames licked along the underbelly of the vehicle.

  Oh. No.

  Cruz pushed open her door and looked directly into Diego’s dark blue eyes.

  “Do. Not. Get. Out.”

  She didn’t know if anyone was in the building or how many had been on the bus. Her attention went back to the flaming truck and then the damaged building where the back of the bus still protruded. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw three men disappear into the recesses of the destroyed building.

  The truck looked like a loss, although a man was clearly trying to pull someone out. Likely more people were injured in the building or on the bus, so she ran full speed toward whatever disaster she would find, mentally cataloging the supplies in her first aid kit, as she dialed 911.

  Cruz ducked through the ragged gash in the building, slowing enough to avoid the glass and splintered wood. It took a moment to adjust to the dimness inside after being out in the bright sunshine. She picked her way toward the bus, cursing her cute gold sandals when her nursing shoes or cowboy boots would have been more appropriate footwear.

  A soft moan had her spinning around. Cases of wine were scattered on the floor. Some of the boxes had burst open, and bottles had broken. Tables were tipped along with chairs and some of them were splintered.

  “Help,” a voice called out. “What happened?”

  Cruz used the flashlight app on her phone and climbed carefully through the rubble toward the back of the room and knelt by a young woman, who lay prone of the floor. She was trying to sit up, holding her head, which was bleeding.

  “Easy,” she said, and felt her initial shock and adrenaline ebb into a professional calm. “My name is Cruz Lopez,” she said to the young woman. “I’m a trauma nurse and a PA. How can I help?”

  *

  No. No. No. The words were a chant, a prayer dredged up from his soul. Not that God had ever answered one of Axel’s prayers. He’d watched one brother die, helpless to save him. He couldn’t do it again.

  Even as Axel watched the wine tour bus plunge through August’s tasting room where he knew his brother and wine crew were hard at work, Axel was on the move. Champagne sloshed as he roughly put the glass down on the table, then hurdled over it, easily clearing the birthday cake and presents. He didn’t even bother with the door, just one-armed it through the wide-open windows. Strangely, the one part of his brain that seemed to be working noted that his motion over the table and through the window was reminiscent of dismounting a bull.

  And like vaulting off the back of a bull, the moment he hit the dirt—or in this case sidewalk—he ran.

  He smelled burned rubber, fuel, hot metal and the tang of blood but none of it mattered. The truck was nearly engulfed in flames, and he saw Shane Highwater valiantly working on helping a passenger out. The man hadn’t hesitated, even though he’d been hurt trying to rescue another person from a blazing car this past year. Axel looked at the chaos, not knowing where to start. Ultimately, August was his brother. He came first. So Axel ran across the street and kicked the shattered glass, hanging in sheets from the window frames, out of the way.

  His custom Kelly dress boots hadn’t been made for this type of action, but he soon cleared a path along with Dr. Graham McBride and police detective Sean Highwater. Once inside, both Graham and Sean headed to the bus, while Axel scanned the room for August. Inside, it was complete chaos. The bus had careened through the front window and hit a support beam. A chunk of the ceiling from August’s upstairs apartment had collapsed into the tasting room, leaving a gaping hole. A love seat had fallen through and a burst pipe showered part of the tasting room in cold water. Broken tables and chairs were upended, scattered around the room and a two-hundred-year-old wine bar that August had imported from Italy had been totally destroyed.

  It was disorienting.

  A damaged wine barrel lay on its side, pumping out wine like a busted artery spraying out blood, and the smell nearly made Axel gag. Glass was everywhere, crunching under his feet. He walked further into the tasting room, his heart thundering so loudly, it muted the sobs and moans.

  “August,” he shouted, his voice hoarse and hurting. He stepped in a puddle of something dark and sticky with a viscosity that made his stomach lurch. “August?”

  Fear and anger warred inside him. He wanted to kill August for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He couldn’t go through this again—retrieving a brother’s body.

  “August!”

  “Axel…” Finally, he heard his brother over the din and confusion, and his knees nearly sagged in relief, especially when he heard some cursing. “Axel. Help. My crew is hurt.”

  Axel homed in on the voice and shoved boxes, crates and the love seat out of his way to reach his brother. August struggled to rise, his face pale and edged with pain.

  “It’s Erika,” he said in a weak whisper that reminded Axel of when August had been little and afraid to go to his kindergarten class alone for the first few weeks of school. Back then, Axel had walked him there and met him at the end of the day. “She was behind the bar loading up the glasses and wine bottles. She was teasing Derek, her husband—he’s my winemaker—about the beard he was trying to grow. It was too straggly. They’re…they’r
e both back there,” he said. “Not sure where Pete was. I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember?”

  August was rambling. He tried again to get up and slipped in red liquid that Axel hoped was not blood.

  Axel was a trained volunteer first responder for Last Stand’s fire and medic trucks, and every instinct screamed at him to keep August still, then find his friends. But getting August to listen to him—no matter how injured—was a no-win proposition from the beginning.

  “I’ll check on them,” he said, one hand splayed over his brother’s chest to keep him flat. August slapped weakly at him while Axel ran his hands over his brother deftly, checking for broken bones or blood.

  August colorfully cursed. “Let me up. I have to help them. I also have Brent Houghton, the construction lead and his sister Haven helping in here today. Did you see them?”

  Axel looked around, judging if the structure was still sound. Sirens filled the air.

  “Please, Ax. I’m fine. Find Derek and Erika and Pete and the others. Please, I’m fine,” he repeated.

  August clearly wasn’t fine, and the sound of so many sirens washed relief through Axel.

  “Let me get you assessed, and then I’ll find your team,” Axel reassured his brother, even as he finally helped him into a sitting position, against his better instincts. August winced, and his breathing grew ragged. Axel swore softly under his breath, worried about fractured ribs, but also noting August’s dislocated shoulder, and a little too much swelling in his wrist and right knee.

  August was more hurt than he let on, but was determined to help his friends. He continued to try to get up. Axel finally gave up treating his brother with kid gloves and helped him stand. August bit back a moan. Axel noted August’s pale, nearly green complexion and clammy skin. His right arm hung long and useless. His knee didn’t seem strong enough to hold him. August tried to push him away, but Axel held on grimly. Even with his help, August’s leg buckled.

  Dr. McBride poked his head out of one of the bus’s windows.

  “I’ve got some help in here,” he assured Axel. “What’s the status on the floor? Just August?” Graham asked.

  “Potentially three or more additional injured,” Axel said cautiously eyeing his brother. He could see the hesitation in Graham’s demeanor.

  “I’ll assess when the bus is clear,” Graham said reasonably. “Get August to a medic. He looks to be heading toward shock.”

  “I’m fine,” August denied. “My tasting room manager, winemaker and vineyard manager were all in here with me.” August tried to hobble behind the smashed-up bar. “And a small construction crew working overtime.”

  The sound of sirens shrilled nearer. Axel bet crews from Fredericksburg had been called in. The first ambulance would definitely go to the truck. He could still picture the flaming heap resting upended against the statue of Asa Fuhrmann, the town’s founder, who had done one last good deed for the town by protecting the library from the out-of-control truck.

  Unfortunately, no such statue had been erected in front of August’s tasting room. The Wolfs might have one of the biggest spreads in Hill Country, but none of them had been the type of do-gooder citizens to inspire community honors or monuments. They had, however, inspired more than their share of salacious late-night stories in bars.

  “Help is coming.” Graham flicked his practiced clinical eye around the room. “Your certs current?” he barked at Axel.

  Axel nodded. He knew the drill. Triage the scene. And August, while injured, was not critical. He felt competent to handle most emergencies, but needed to get his brother out of there first. He didn’t want August to have to deal with what they might find behind the bar. “Let’s go get you checked out.” Axel tried to not make it sound like an order.

  “Need to find everyone…” August struggled to move, holding on to the splintered bar, cutting his hand in the process. He also nearly ass-planted again. Axel bit back a curse and barely managed to catch August before he fell. To heck with this. The longer August had to wait to have his shoulder popped back in, the more it would hurt.

  “Reach up.”

  “What?” August stared at his brother blankly. His hair was matted to his forehead and stiff with blood. It looked bad, but Axel had seen worse. The blood oozed, not flowed or pumped. He was going to be okay, thank God. This afternoon, another Wolf brother had danced with the family’s dark legacy and survived.

  Axel stretched August’s arm out with one hand, trying to be gentle. Then he bent his elbow slowly. Nothing. It figured that nothing gentle would work on his brother. It always had to be the hard way.

  Axel had popped August’s shoulder back into joint twice before, so he knew what he had to do. He lifted, pulled and twisted August’s shoulder with a hard jerk. At the same time, he stepped hard on his brother’s foot, hoping to distribute the pain. August doubled over, swearing fiercely, just like he had the two times before, and Axel heard the shoulder pop back in. He felt relieved, but worried. August really needed the shoulder surgery he kept avoiding. It would be even more inconvenient now with his newly launched business and possibly injured crew.

  August cradled his arm close to his body and glared.

  “What the hell did you stomp on my foot for?”

  “Let’s find your friends.” Axel shut out thoughts of what they might find and instead began to carefully clear debris so he could hoist himself over the damaged bar.

  It was worse than Axel had imagined. August staggered to the couple on the floor. August’s tasting room manager had been on a ladder feeding stemware into custom metal glass slats and putting wine bottles on shelves. The ladder had tipped, dumping Erika on the ground along with her husband. They lay in a pool of wine, broken glass and blood. A wooden projectile protruded from Derek’s chest. It was like something out of horror movie. Or a triage how-to manual.

  “Don’t touch the wood,” Axel warned just as his brother reached for it.

  “There’s a medical kit on a shelf under the sink.” August sounded broken, no longer the cocky younger brother constantly challenging Axel for authority. “Maybe you can find it in the mess.”

  The sink was easy to find—a pipe had broken, and gushed water on the floor. Axel made a note to find the water main once he got everyone ready for transport.

  As Axel grabbed the first aid kit, he saw Pete Wills’s legs poking out at an odd angle from under some boxes and what looked like part of a back wall. He was moving and groaning, and Axel urged his brother to check on Pete, just so he wasn’t looking at Derek’s distressing injury.

  Axel quickly checked vitals and staunched blood with pressure bandages and was relieved when another medical crew arrived to take over. He relayed what he’d done and had to bite back the request for them to check August as well. The three Verflucht employees were clearly in worse shape—something August would never forgive himself for, although there was nothing he could have done to prevent the accident.

  Except…not start a winery.

  And not tempt fate by naming it Verflucht.

  But those were unproductive thoughts.

  To Axel’s relief, August hobbled out next to Pete, his best friend from high school, who was strapped on a stretcher. Axel hoped August would insist on going to the hospital with his crew and would get his own injuries looked after at the same time. “Find Brent and Haven,” August ordered, sounding almost like he was in control again. “I’ll be back.”

  “Not a chance. I’ll strap you to a stretcher myself,” Axel muttered rudely and carefully picked his way through the debris to the other side of the tasting room searching for more victims.

  Axel had been trying to ignore the smell of wine, smoke, burned rubber, blood and fear that all combined to make a potently unpleasant brew, but then he caught a whiff of a faintly floral scent that dragged him back into the past. It was her scent. Cruz’s. Antonia’s Flowers. Subtle. Evocative.

  Axel closed his eyes against the onslaught of memories—her long, silky midnigh
t hair; husky laugh; warm, smooth skin. Why did she still have such a hold over him more than seven years later? He’d known deep down that he’d never be the same after Cruz, after the day when she’d told him—voice strained, face and body tight and looking so much like a stranger—that she wanted to break up. He knew he’d never allow himself to be that vulnerable again.

  Axel pulled on a new pair of latex gloves from the first aid kit, his attention on a crouched woman, who looked to be talking softly to a sobbing woman while she cleaned a wound and applied a butterfly bandage. He stepped aside while two paramedics carried out a young man on a stretcher. He spared a moment to look at the ceiling. Was it stable? Then he walked toward the two women, ready for anything.

  “Excuse me. Do you need some help?”

  Instead of a random Good Samaritan, Axel nearly stumbled when both women looked up at him, but only one mattered. Fast reflexes and years keeping his balance helped him stay upright. He still felt like he was falling. Axel felt sucker punched.

  For a moment, he couldn’t move. Couldn’t even get enough spit to swallow. He felt like a drunk staring at the last bottle of whiskey in the bar. Black eyes glittered, and Cruz Lopez rose to her full height—she was the most graceful, most beautiful thing he’d seen in his whole life—nearly looking him in the eye.

  He’d always loved her height. It was so sexy and had made everything—flirting, dancing, kissing and loving—even hotter.

  And here she was, rising up out of the rubble like a goddess—mysterious, unattainable, a memory to torture him. Her expression was cool and confident.

  Cruz Lopez was in Last Stand.

  Chapter Three

  Cruz launched to her feet, again wishing she’d worn her cowboy boots instead of sandals so she wouldn’t have to look up so far. How in the world did he seem taller, broader, more masculine and hotter than a Lone Star summer? He’d been hot in his early twenties, but now, at thirty-one, he was scorching. Her heart thundered in her ears, and she forgot how to breathe. He was here. Right here. She’d only been in town two minutes and now faced Axel, who loomed in front of her like an avenging angel.