Like finding a missing horse.
“Are you a friend of Suzanne’s?” she asked.
“You’d have to ask her about that. I suspect she’d say no right now, but I’ve always thought of us as friends.”
“Just friends?”
He looked down at the shiny white floor and thought about lying, just to keep himself out of hot water. But as he stared down at the nurse’s hot pink Crocs, he knew the lie would follow him into Suze’s hospital room and make all kinds of trouble. He shook his head.
“Just friends,” he said. “Suze wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Oh.” She thought a moment. “Would you?”
Brady was surprised at the answer that rose to his lips. “Yeah.” He looked her full in the face and smiled. “Yeah, I would.” He looked at the other nurse, the one who wanted wildflowers from her Harley. “Room 320, you said?”
She nodded, and Brady headed down the hallway. When he reached room 320, he paused, sucking in a deep breath. Oxygen gave you energy; deep breathing was calming. And he had a feeling he’d need all the energy and calm he could muster to face Suze.
Chapter 25
Suze looked longingly at the plastic pitcher beside her bed. She’d tried to manage a drink of water on her own, but her splinted wrist wasn’t strong enough to hold the mug and she ended up pouring half a cup into her lap. She wished a nurse would come and check on her. She’d dropped the call button while she was trying to pour the water. You’d think they’d notice she was kind of quiet, but they probably thought she was asleep.
Like that was going to happen. She’d spent the night racked with pain, relieved only by ibuprofen. She’d refused the stronger drugs the nurses offered; she kept her body clean and never took anything stronger than an aspirin. She was starting to reconsider that policy as she lay in bed throbbing from head to toe, her only entertainment the sharp pains that sped through her nerves to emerge in various locations—her wrist, her knee, her neck, her ankle, her foot.
Where was the doctor? Weren’t they supposed to do rounds in the morning and check on their patients? They did on Grey’s Anatomy. Maybe Dr. McDreamy would show up and ease her pain with his sympathetic eyes and perfect hair.
Yeah, right.
She didn’t want a doctor anyway, or even a nurse.
She wanted her dad.
She felt tears rising, threatening to overflow, and blinked them away. It was okay to cry from the pain, but tears of self-pity were not allowed. Not in her world.
When she finally heard footsteps outside her room, she smoothed her hair, grateful for any kind of distraction. She’d been flicking channels all morning, restlessly rotating through inane cartoons and even more inane reality shows. She’d tried a news channel, but it was even worse, with talking heads screaming at each other about food stamps and farm subsidies.
She was expecting a nurse to take her vitals again or maybe, just maybe, her father. So she was stunned into silence when Brady entered, followed by the floor’s entire nursing staff.
Funny, he didn’t have any trouble getting a nurse to help him.
“Hey.” He set a vase full of flowers on the table beside her bed and sat down in the plastic chair provided for visitors. “Thought you might like a little bit of home.”
She wanted to tell him to get out of her room. The whole incident in the rodeo arena had come back to her now, and she knew it was Brady who’d landed her in the hospital. She might have urged him, even dared him, to do the stunt, but he was the one who’d held on to the rope a second too long. If he couldn’t do it right, he should have said so.
She wanted to tell him she never wanted to see him again. She wanted to ask him how he had the nerve to come here after what had happened, and she wanted to grab that vase of flowers and throw it at him, water and all. But she couldn’t throw anything at him with all the nurses watching, their hands held prayerfully together as though they expected some romantic scene to play out.
So she burst into tears.
It must have been something they put in her IV, because Suze was not a crier, and these were big, fat, hot tears that wouldn’t stop no matter how much she hiccuped and swallowed and choked. Huge sobs wracked her chest, making her bruised ribs ache. She hated herself for them. Her dad said tears were for sissies, and she was not a sissy.
So how could she cry in front of Brady Caine, of all people? Literally, figuratively, every way you looked at it, Brady had bashed her to bits. He’d broken her heart and bruised her body. It was hard to face him laid out in a hospital bed, helpless as a newborn calf. It was even worse to have to lie there and mop her streaming eyes while he handed her tissues.
She finally got ahold of herself and sniffed, then wiped her nose on the arm of her hospital gown. Now that was attractive.
The gaggle of nurses that had followed Brady into the room finally figured out they weren’t going to get the warm fuzzies they were hoping for and left.
Suze plucked self-consciously at the neck of her hospital gown. The thing was hideously uncomfortable and the ultimate enemy to modesty. Half the time it gaped in the worst possible places, and the rest of the time it wrapped around her like a mummy’s shroud and wouldn’t let her move. The ties at the back kept coming undone, and she couldn’t tie them herself, so right now she was barely covered. If it weren’t for the sheet, she’d be practically naked.
Why were hospitals so determined to make you feel helpless? Weren’t they supposed to make you feel better?
She let out a particularly loud and unfeminine honk into one of the tissues Brady had handed her and shot him a glare, daring him to comment. He smiled gently, his brown eyes soft and caring, and she hated him even more for being the only person she could ask for help.
“Could you do something for me?” she asked. Crying had stuffed up her nose and it came out “subthing.”
“I’d do just about anything for you,” he said.
The nurses had apparently left the room, but she could swear she heard a collective sigh coming from the hallway. Yeah, they thought it was all romantic that he’d said that. But they didn’t know what he’d done. They didn’t know he was the reason she was here.
“Go to my house and ask my dad to pack up some of my clothes, okay? And maybe some shampoo. I don’t like the kind they have here.”
“I can go get it for you.”
Right. That was all she needed—Brady Caine going through her panty drawer.
“No. Just ask my dad.”
“Okay.”
“And tell him to bring them here, okay? You don’t need to be running back and forth. My dad and I can take care of ourselves.”
He paused, as if he had something difficult to say, but then he just nodded. “Okay.”
She looked back at the TV and flicked the channel, then stared up at a reality show as if Khloé and Kourtney held the keys to the universe. She had the sound down on the TV, so the room was quiet except for the hum of the machines that were keeping track of her heartbeats or whatever.
Brady didn’t seem to mind being ignored. He just sat there with his dirty old hat in his lap and watched her like she was some kind of exotic bird. His pose was relaxed, his eyes bright and interested. She’d have thought he didn’t care about anything if it wasn’t for the way he twisted the hat in his hands, rotating it around and around.
“How’s Speedo?” she asked.
“Fine.” He spun the hat faster. “He misses you. So does Bucket.”
“I know.” She thought of her horses and wished she could somehow teleport herself to the corral outside the barn. She’d lean against Speedo’s solid side, resting her head on his sun-warmed fur, breathing in his musky scent.
“I’ll take care of ’em,” Brady said.
She must look terrible. He was too polite to look at her bruised face, and spoke to the wall beside h
er. She nodded, swallowing hard. Her throat still ached, as if she was going to cry again.
She was not going to cry again.
A sudden thought struck her, and she forgot about the pain. “You didn’t put Bucket in the big pasture, did you?”
“Nope. He tried to convince me that was where he was supposed to go, but I knew he was lying. Judging from what you’re feeding him, that grass is way too rich for him. I put him in that little corral beside the barn.”
She almost smiled at that. He was right. Bucket was an incorrigible liar. Whenever she took him on the road, he’d lean out of the trailer and try to convince passersby they should feed him all kinds of terrible things, like ice cream and beer and French fries. When he didn’t want to work, he’d fake lameness so convincingly that she once took him to the vet for nothing.
She reached over and touched the flowers, feeling the warmth of her home pasture lingering on the blooms.
“Those are actually from the horses,” he said. “Bucket helped me pick ’em this morning, from around the outside of the corral.”
She knew he wasn’t making that up. Bucket would have followed him all around the corral, getting in the way, while Speedo would have kept his distance and his dignity by watching from the shade under the cottonwoods.
The tears were coming dangerously close to the surface. She’d give anything to rest her face against Speedo’s warm neck and tangle her fingers in that platinum mane he was so famous for. She missed silly, affectionate Bucket too, and the cool patch of grass under the tree in the pasture, and the peace of the dimly lit barn. She didn’t know if the scent of the flowers was making her homesickness better or worse.
She also didn’t know how she’d manage to take care of her horses if she ended up in the hospital for long. Both of them needed to be worked, or they’d lose condition. And her father hadn’t done that kind of thing since last year, when she’d won her second championship. Maybe he figured she ought to be able to do everything herself now that she was a two-time champ.
Not that that made any sense.
She’d have to hire somebody. But who? And with what? All her winnings went toward the mortgage and her dad’s medical bills. If she hired someone to help with the ranch, she’d probably end up going broke and losing it.
Losing the ranch her mother had picked out was unthinkable. Her father had told her over and over how he’d thought the house was too old, the land too rough, but Suze’s mom had fallen in love with it and had to have it. That made it sacred ground for Suze.
She felt a tear slipping down her cheek and dashed it away.
“I’ll bring you some clothes, then, or send ’em with your dad,” Brady said. “You want some magazines to read?”
She nodded, biting her lip. She wanted to tell him to leave her alone, but nobody else was volunteering to help her. Apparently the man who’d put her in the hospital with all these injuries was the best friend she had right now.
How pathetic was that?
* * *
Brady left Suze’s room an hour later. She’d finally fallen asleep, but he’d sat there awhile, wishing he could somehow trade places with her. It would have been kind of funny if Suze had roped him and dragged him off his horse. His brothers would take care of him, and his only trouble would be the teasing he’d have to endure.
He plucked a daisy from the flower bouquet and laid it on her pillow as he left, hoping the little reminder of summer sunshine would be the first thing she’d see when she opened her eyes.
He paused as he passed the nurses’ station and tipped his hat to the little nurse who’d been so eager to help him with the flowers. The manners Bill Decker had drilled into him wouldn’t let him leave without thanking her, but he planned to skedaddle as soon as he’d said the words. He didn’t want to discuss how Suze had welcomed him—or rather, failed to welcome him.
“Thanks for your help,” he said. “I sure appreciate it.”
“She didn’t seem to appreciate it.”
“Sure she did. She just isn’t feeling good.”
“Well, I thought she should have been nicer to you.”
There was an undercurrent beneath her words that made Brady uncomfortable. He wondered where the other nurses had gone. First there was a whole herd of ’em, and now there was nobody else around.
He wondered if they’d done it on purpose. He’d noticed women could be sneaky that way.
He rested his forearms on the counter, folding his work-roughened hands together. These women had the power to make Suze’s life miserable. He had to set the record straight.
“I’m surprised she’ll talk to me at all,” he said. “I’m the reason she’s here. There was an accident, and I screwed up and got her hurt. So if she’s not nice to me, it doesn’t mean she’s not a nice person. It’s just what I deserve.”
“Oh.” The little nurse still looked at him like he had a halo on instead of a cowboy hat. He hated that. It was so hard to convince some of these girls that he wasn’t who they thought he was. All those romance books and Wild West movies made rodeo cowboys seem wild and glamorous, when really he was a bum who barely worked for a living and spent half his spare time in bars and the other half in bed with women he barely knew. He was no hero, and this girl needed to know it.
“I lassoed her and pulled her off her horse,” he said, his eyes steady on hers. “I didn’t let go of the rope in time and she got flung into a gate. She could have died because I messed around and screwed up. I’ve been a cowboy all my life. I know better, but I was trying to prove something.”
She glanced away, and he waited until she looked back at him before he said more.
“That’s why she doesn’t want to see me or talk to me. Got it?”
The nurse nodded. Her eyes were wide now but a little less warm. Mission accomplished.
He stepped back shoving his hands in his pockets.
“You’ll take care of her, won’t you?”
She nodded.
“Good care?”
She cleared her throat. Evidently his admission had shocked the voice right out of her.
“Sure,” she finally said. “We’ll take the best care of her we can.”
“She’s not always easy,” he said. “But she’s got good reasons to be tough, and underneath it all she’s—well, she’s a sweetheart.” He glanced around, as if listeners might be lurking in the hallways. “Just for God’s sake don’t tell her I said that.”
Chapter 26
Brady got back to the Carlyle ranch well after lunchtime, but nothing had changed. Earl’s truck still sat in the driveway. Standing at the front door, Brady could hear the television running.
He didn’t bother to knock this time, just walked in, passing through the cluttered sun porch and into the front hall. Earl, alarmed, almost got out of his chair when Brady walked into the living room.
Almost.
“Suze needs some clothes and things packed up,” Brady said. “She needs you to bring ’em to her soon as you can.”
He needed to get Earl moving. Once he knew someone was taking care of Suze, he could start the search for Speedo in earnest. Anybody who owned a horse trailer and knew the way to the rodeo grounds knew how famous Speedo was, so they probably had the horse hidden somewhere. He planned to check a few abandoned barns in the area.
If that didn’t work, he’d do some networking in the cowboy bars and tack shops. That would get the word out. Sooner or later, Suze would find out he’d been lying to her, and that Speedo was gone, maybe for good.
He didn’t even want to think about how much that would hurt her.
Earl still had his eyes glued to the television. He seemed determined to ignore Brady, who sighed and headed for the kitchen. Lifting the dirty dishes out of the sink, he squirted in some dishwashing soap and started the hot water.
“She’s there i
n the hospital with nothing but one of those cotton gowns they give you,” he called to Earl. “You know, the ones that open in the back.”
Earl didn’t respond. Brady shut off the tap and tossed an assortment of glasses into the water. Glasses, then silverware, then plates, then cookware. That’s what Irene Decker had taught him.
“Do you want to know how she’s doing?” he asked Earl.
“I know how she’s doing.” Brady could barely hear the old man’s mumble.
“How?” Brady scrubbed at a glass with a sponge. “Did you call?”
“Didn’t have to,” Earl said. “You just told me she asked for her clothes. Guess it can’t be too bad.”
Brady set the glass down and rested his hands on the counter, breathing hard and deep. He’d had bronc rides that were a Sunday drive compared to a conversation with Earl Carlyle.
Rinsing the glass and placing it in the dish drainer, he headed back to the living room. “You want me to go up and pack your daughter’s skivvies for her?” He took another step into the room. “You want me going through her things? Because I can tell you one thing: she doesn’t want me doing it.”
Earl just waved him away.
Brady couldn’t help himself. He strode in and flicked off the TV. Standing in front of it with his arms crossed, he tried again.
“I’m going to be going through her underwear, Earl. Her bras and panties. Private stuff.”
“I don’t want to go through them any more than you do.” Earl picked up the remote and turned the television back on as if the matter was settled. Brady wanted to rip the remote out of Earl’s hand and smash it on his hard old head, but instead he leaned over and unplugged the set.
“What the hell’s the matter with you? How can you sit there in your damn chair and sulk while your daughter suffers? Your wife’s gone. I’m sorry. I’m sure it was a terrible loss. But she left you a beautiful daughter who needs you.”
“I’ve done enough for that girl. I’ve given her a good home.”
How to Kiss a Cowboy Page 16