by Amanda Renee
“For Stinker One, Two and Three, yes. Wes said Travis’s was slightly better, but not by much. I don’t know if it’s their formula or what. They have a two-month checkup at the pediatrician’s next week, and it’s at the top of my list.”
“Oh hey, Delta.” Maddie wrinkled her nose as she entered the room. “Welcome to the danger zone. Enter at your own risk.”
“You think after working around horses and their manure for most of my life, a baby would smell like roses. Okay.” Delta squared her shoulders. “Where do we begin?”
Jade bet if Delta had goggles and a hazmat suit, she’d have put it on. “Neither one of you need to help me. Go get some breakfast and ogle your men.”
“Nonsense.” Delta hip checked Jade out of the way. “Three babies, three of us. Let’s do this before they claim a victim.”
As if on cue, Audra, Hadley and Mackenzie stopped and stared up at the women laughing at them for a brief second before continuing to cry.
“Oh, did we insult you?” Maddie lifted Audra out of the crib. “We’re sorry. Just like Aunt Jade is sorry she labeled you with a Sharpie when she first got here.”
“You did what?” Delta’s eyes widened at she lifted Mackenzie.
“Ah, I’ll take her.” Jade eased the infant out of Delta’s arms. She didn’t want her getting that up close and personal with the triplet that resembled Travis the most. “Mackenzie’s the fussiest.”
“She is?” Maddie asked. “Since when?”
Jade scrambled for an excuse. “Monday. You were at work when I noticed it. I’ve been double-checking to make sure she doesn’t have a rash or anything. I should have mentioned it before.” Jade hated having to lie to the one person who’d been the greatest and most unexpected help to her over the past week.
“I think all three of them have been a little more gassy than usual.” Maddie grabbed a diaper blanket from the dresser and knelt on the floor to change Audra, giving Delta the changing table. “Definitely let Alyssa and Megan know when they come today.”
Jade had met with two of the sweetest teenage girls after Wes had helped move her onto the ranch. His future sister-in-law, Emma, had personally used them many times and highly recommended them. At first Jade wondered if hiring two people was overkill, but she liked the idea of them having each other for companionship so they wouldn’t get bored. Jade needed to devote her full attention to work, and she didn’t want to feel compelled to entertain a babysitter.
“Someone please tell me the baby labeling story,” Delta asked.
“Maddie will never let me live this down. I was afraid of mixing up the babies so I wrote their first initial on the bottom of their feet.”
“With a permanent black marker,” Maddie added.
“It washed off...eventually.” Jade rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I had them tattooed.”
“Why didn’t you use nail polish?” Delta asked as she changed Hadley.
“Because I thought they’d chew it off.”
“Not if you put it on their toes.” Delta held her nose and shoved the offending package in the Diaper Genie. “They’re not coordinated enough to reach them.”
“In case my sister hasn’t told you already...babies were never my thing. Liv wanted a big family. I wanted the big house in the Hollywood Hills.”
“And now you have the kids and you’re living in a log cabin on a ranch.” Delta refastened Hadley’s onesie and rubbed her belly. “There you go, little one. All clean and sweet smelling.”
“I’m here temporarily,” Jade quickly added. “I have a lot invested in my business. I can’t be away from it forever. I’m already taking major financial hits after one week.”
At least when she had visited Liv when the babies were born that had been planned. Her clients had known in advance she wouldn’t be around during those dates, with the understanding Liv could have gone into labor early instead of getting induced. She’d had months to plan for her absence and some clients had even chosen to push their events out so Jade would be in town overseeing them. She couldn’t blame them for being furious she was gone again.
“Do I hear someone’s phone ringing?” Delta asked.
“That’s mine.” Her assistant’s familiar ringtone beckoned from the kitchen. Jade glanced up at the wall clock. It was shortly after seven and she knew he was eager to go over today’s schedule. “It’s Tomás. We have a big event tonight.”
“On a Wednesday?” Maddie lowered Audra into her crib, then gently nudged Jade out of the way. “Go take your call. I can do this.”
“Thanks.” She stepped aside and walked toward the bathroom to wash her hands. “Hollywood doesn’t care what day it is.” The phone stopped ringing, and she envisioned Tomás huffing impatiently as he waited for her outgoing message to finish so he could leave a voice mail. Jade hesitated in the doorway, watching Delta’s reaction to the triplets. If she detected any family resemblance, she didn’t show it. Then again, don’t a lot of babies look similar at that age? Maybe Wes had been overreacting. Maybe they both had been and everything would work out the way Liv had planned.
* * *
“WHAT’S WRONG WITH you today?” Wes’s agent asked as the medics wheeled him through the arena’s corridors and outside to the mobile sports medicine trailer. “Your head clearly wasn’t in it. I picked up on that before you ever entered the chute. You blew me off when I asked. I hate to say it, kid, but you seem a little soft this week.”
Maybe if he could get the image of Jade sitting on his lap out of his head, he might be able to concentrate. He’d never been more attracted or infuriated by any other woman. And yeah, in a perfect world, he’d like to see where things might lead with her, but their lives were far from perfect. Once he’d explained to his brothers yesterday about Liv’s disappearance and asked if Jade and the girls could move to the ranch, it had raised all sorts of questions. Adding Maddie to the mix had been the only reason they stopped. His brothers didn’t even think he’d keep two girlfriends in the same house.
“I’ve been in Montana and I haven’t had a chance to ride or work out for over a week.” The multimillion-dollar rodeo training facility he taught at in Texas had a top-of-the-line fitness center and both real and mechanical bulls for training. The pay was great, but the perks were even better. He’d taken every advantage of it when he wasn’t on the road.
“That’s no excuse,” Pete argued. “You lived in Montana up until you moved six months ago, and you were fine then.”
He was right, and Wes couldn’t fight the truth. “Look, man.” Wes reached with his good arm and tapped the medic’s leg. “I’m fine to walk. I dislocated my shoulder, not my feet.”
“You know the rules,” the man said without slowing down. “We can’t do that in case you have other injuries. Just be glad we didn’t take you out strapped to a stretcher.”
“Very funny.” The dig was a not-so-subtle reference to an injury he had last year during finals. He’d been furious at himself for miscalculating the bull’s rotation and wound up unconscious on the arena floor after the animal headbutted him. He knew the second he’d awoken he’d been eliminated from the competition. He’d gone out kicking and screaming louder than Audra, Hadley and Mackenzie.
“What’s got you all in knots. Is something going on with your family that I don’t know about?”
“You could say that.”
“As long as it doesn’t involve a woman,” Pete scoffed.
“Try four.”
“Four what? Four women?” Pete almost tripped over his own feet.
“Right on!” The older medic walking alongside them tried to high-five Wes before realizing he was on his dislocated side. “Whoops, sorry. My bad.”
“You’ve gotten in more trouble with women than anyone I know.” Pete clucked his tongue. “Don’t let them get in the way of your career.”
Once th
ey reached the trailer, Wes insisted on walking up the steps himself. He refused to be wheeled up a ramp despite the medical team surrounding him. After he stripped off his safety vest and shirt, Dr. Shelton began assessing his injuries.
“What’s this...your third dislocation in two years?” he asked, reviewing his charts on a tablet. Deceiving from the outside, the forty-foot-long trailers housed state-of-the-art mobile medical centers that traveled nationwide treating sports injuries. Competitors no longer had to go to the emergency room since they could perform everything including X-rays, minor surgery and casting on-site. They were also his largest sponsor and trying to hide any injury was futile.
“Just pop it back in, Doc.” Wes ground his back teeth from the pain.
Dr. Shelton handed his tablet to one of the nurses. “You know the drill. Sit up straight and shrug your shoulders.” The man gripped Wes’s wrist and eased his elbow into a 90-degree angle, keeping it close to his body and in line with his shoulder. He slowly began to rotate the arm outward until the pressure increased on the dislocation. “Now try to relax as much as you can.”
“I’m feeling that, Doc.” Wes exhaled slowly and looked up at his agent hovering nearby. Pete had helped him build his career from junior rodeo greenhorn to champion, and he hated disappointing the man even more than he hated disappointing himself.
“We’re almost there.” The doctor gripped his upper arm and slowly moved it out and upward. “Good. Now put your shoulders back, your chest out.”
Wes closed his eyes trying to focus on anything other than the pain. He didn’t remember any of his other dislocations hurting this bad. Then he heard a pop, and the pain began to subside.
“Keep your back straight. It’s not quite all the way in yet,” Dr. Shelton said as he rotated Wes’s arm toward his chest.
“There we go, there we go.” Wes tilted his head back at the release.
“And you’re done.” The man let go of his arm. “Let’s get you into X-rays so we can see what’s going on in there.”
Wes stood, the tension draining from his shoulder. “I’m fine.”
“Look,” Pete said, stepping in front of him, “you didn’t qualify, so it’s not like you’re riding again. Let the man do his job.”
“I made eight.”
“No, Wes. You didn’t. Your time was 7.8, and it was a sloppy 7.8.”
He missed it by two-tenths of a second. “Dammit.” Wes kicked the chair behind him. “I thought I had it.” He rarely missed qualifying. His sponsorships were coming up for renewal and a few younger competitors had been slowly pushing him down in the ranks. This was not the time to screw up.
“We’ll talk about it later.” Pete pulled out his phone and tapped at the screen.
“Come on, Wes. Chaps off, gown on,” the doctor ordered.
“Fine.”
“I’ll be outside waiting.” Pete’s phone rang, and he was out the door before Wes had a chance to respond.
He unfastened his chaps and kicked off his boots. He suspected Pete was already looking to poach one of the younger riders from the lesser known agents. He may not like it, but he couldn’t blame the man. Wes intended to retire at the end of next season, even though he hadn’t told anyone of his plans yet. He wanted to have two solid final years and another championship under his belt before then. The higher he went out, the more money he could earn training the next generation of competitors. He had nothing else to fall back on.
After two hours of tests and endless waiting, Dr. Shelton’s grim expression told Wes all he needed to know. Controlling the argument building in his head, he sat patiently and listened.
“Three dislocations, extensive ligament damage and now a rotator cuff tear, the only thing I see in your immediate future is surgery.”
“No.” Wes shook his head. “Absolutely not. I’ll just rehab it again. The Ride ’em High! Rodeo School where I work in Texas is connected to the Dance of Hope Hippotherapy Center. They have the best physical therapists in the state. You know the place, Doc, and you know their reputation.”
“Tell me something.” Dr. Shelton clasped his hands. “On a scale of one to ten, what was your pain level when you rode today?”
“I don’t know.” Wes had thought the week off from teaching and competition would have given his arm and shoulder a rest. He didn’t want to admit defeat. And he wouldn’t. Not yet. Besides, it hadn’t been bothering him this bad. “Maybe a five, possibly a six.”
“Compare that to a year ago. What was your pain level then?”
“None.” Wes snorted. “I don’t get the question, Doc. I wasn’t injured then, so of course it would be zero.”
“Exactly. You weren’t injured then, now you are.”
Wes stood. He didn’t appreciate games, let alone one at his expense. “I’m not having surgery.”
“What’s this about surgery?” Pete asked from the doorway.
Dr. Shelton’s brows rose as he stared at Wes. His medical records were private and the man couldn’t legally say a word to Pete. But his sponsorship contract stipulated they were to be informed of any and all injuries affecting his ability to compete. In the end, the sponsor would tell Pete and there was no sense in delaying it.
“The good doc is recommending surgery.”
“What kind of surgery?”
“We haven’t discussed that yet.” Dr. Shelton removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Your client refuses to hear what I have to say.”
“Because I know you’re talking rotator cuff surgery and that will take me out of competition for six months.”
“Probably longer,” Pete muttered.
“Not happening. At least not now. I choose rehab and at the end of the season, I will have it reevaluated and we’ll take it from there.”
“That’s months away,” Dr. Shelton said. “If you have surgery now, you’ll have a strong chance of recovering and competing in a full season next year. I can pretty much guarantee that won’t happen if you wait much longer. You can’t ride without pain.”
“I’m tough enough to ride through it.”
“Thank you, Dr. Shelton.” Pete clapped Wes on the back and gave him a gentle shove toward the door. “We will definitely consider all options.”
Wes opened his mouth to argue and received another shove.
“Cool it,” Pete growled under his breath. “Thank the man and let’s be on our way.”
Wes hated being corralled like a head of cattle, but Wes paid the man a hefty percentage to keep him from sticking his foot in his mouth so he might as well shut up.
“Thanks again, Doc. Seriously, I’ll consider what you said.” Just not so much.
Once outside, Wes thought Pete would strangle him. “What’s the matter with you? You don’t argue with the sponsor.”
“I don’t take orders from them, either. Besides, he only works for the sponsor.”
“And now they know you’re injured and you’re refusing surgery.” Pete pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one. “If they don’t pull your sponsorship now, they sure as hell won’t renew it next year.” He took a long drag and exhaled slowly. “We’re talking a lot of money, Wes. And that’s just from one sponsor. I know you don’t like the idea of surgery, but Dr. Shelton’s right. You get it done now, you’re only out for part of the season and next year you’ll be as good as new.”
Wes snatched the cigarette from his mouth and snapped it in half. “Don’t you dare badger me about my well-being while you’re blowing smoke in my face.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry,” Pete said sheepishly. “I just feel for you.”
“Yeah, well, this is my career we’re talking about, not yours. There’s no guarantee I’ll recover from surgery before next season just like there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to compete at all. If I wait, I have a shot. I’ll get through the pain.” Pet
e opened his mouth to speak, but Wes cut him off before he had a chance. “You can walk back in that arena, snatch up one of the young kids you’re so hot to get your hands on and they’ll get my sponsorship because I’ll be home while they’re competing.”
“You think I’d be that disloyal to you?”
“No, I think you’d be that smart. You have your own bottom line to watch out for and I can’t blame you. I need some time. I need to finish the season and see what happens. I can’t even teach after rotator cuff surgery. What am I supposed to do? Ride ’em High! didn’t hire me for my good looks.”
“Not with your ugly mug.” He laughed.
“Do you want me to fire you now or wait till later?”
“Sorry.” Pete cleared his throat.
“I need time.” If this was his last season, then he needed to make plans. He had to discuss it with his boss in Texas and see what their doctors and physical therapists had to say. More than anything else, he had to keep his head clear and away from all things Jade and the girls.
He’d fly to Montana in the morning, get through Dylan’s wedding on Saturday and then fly out that night. Three more days. He’d keep his word and check in on Jade. He’d make sure they had whatever they needed until Liv came home, and then that was it. The girls weren’t his to raise and he couldn’t get involved with Jade knowing what they’d created and couldn’t have. He had to move on. He had too much riding on the next few months and the sooner he got into physical therapy, the better. Nothing had ever interfered with his career and he wasn’t about to let anything or anyone start now.
Chapter Seven
Emma and Dylan had been gracious enough to invite Jade to the rehearsal dinner Friday night at the lodge, but she declined. After handing Tomás every key to her queendom along with check-writing capabilities, she was on the verge of a mini-meltdown. She thrived on control, as did Liv. Even though she had promoted Tomás last week, it wasn’t the same as giving him access to the business bank accounts to pay vendors and their employees along with the power to make both business and financial decisions in her absence. After a caterer almost bailed because she couldn’t transfer funds into their account on time, she realized something had to give.