Cowboy Rebel--Includes a bonus short story

by Carolyn Brown

  “I’m very serious. I’m getting cabin fever. I can clean it without a boot on my foot,” he said.

  “We’ve got a rodeo tonight and we’re going to the Rusty Spur tomorrow night. You ain’t much of a dancer right now, but you can sit at the bar and draw in the women like flies to a honey pot and then turn them over to us,” Maverick teased.

  “Y’all don’t need my help, but I’ll think about it,” Tag said.

  “Mam would say that you’ve done got moonstruck, my friend,” Maverick said. “Never knew you to turn down a night in a bar, and this is not your first rodeo on crutches.”

  “Your grandma might be right.” Tag hopped over and took his jeans and a work shirt from a dresser drawer.

  “Mam also told me that if you can’t tell a girl that you love her in six months, you should move on and not waste any time for either of you,” Maverick said.

  “Did you tell Bridget that you loved her?” Tag tugged a knit shirt over his head.

  “No, I didn’t and that was a mistake for sure. I thought it should be six months so I didn’t say the words. But when we got home and I was moping around like a lovesick puppy, Mam told me that I hadn’t showed my Irish blood one bit, and she was disappointed in me. She said when everything clicks with a woman, then there will be no doubt in your mind. It will overtake you like a web around a cocoon. It will calm you. And it will inspire you. I lost my Bridget. Don’t you make the same mistake.”

  “It’s only been a month for me and Nikki.” Tag removed his pajama pants, tossed them on the bed, and pulled on his jeans.

  “Ask yourself if it’s clicking and if you are calm, and if she’s inspired you to be a better man. I’m going to finish my coffee while you finish getting dressed, and then we’ll go to work. Sometimes hard work is better than a therapy session. When you’re working with your hands, your mind can figure things out,” Maverick said.

  “Amen.” Tag shoved one foot into a cowboy boot and the other into a sneaker. “Let’s go to work.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The ER was full when Nikki checked in to work that Friday night. They spent a few minutes getting caught up, and then she and Rosemary hit the floor in a run. Another type of influenza had hit the area and every cubicle was full and folks were practically standing in line in the waiting room.

  There was no letup until dawn, when everyone had been treated and either admitted or sent home. Nikki and Rosemary collapsed into chairs behind the nurses’ desk, leaned back, and closed their eyes.

  “I’m putting in for a day shift soon as summer is over,” Rosemary said.

  “Why’d you ever start working weekends?” Nikki asked.

  “We don’t have to hire a babysitter or pay for day care. I take care of them through the week while my husband works. He spends time with them on Saturday and Sunday while I work. But the youngest will be in preschool this fall, so I can go to days,” she said. “I’ll miss working with you.”

  “Me too,” Nikki said.

  “So how’d things go with the cowboy this week? I didn’t hear of him having to get on his white horse and go rescue you,” Rosemary said.

  Nikki gave her a rundown of the week, ending with, “How do you know when you can fully trust someone? I’ve tried it a couple of times and got burned.”

  “First of all, you ask yourself if that person has ever given you a reason not to trust him. Has he lied to you? Cheated on you? That kind of thing. Then you ask yourself what it is that makes you distrust him. If it’s that fool that you let into your life and then found out he was married, it’s not fair to the cowboy. My granny used to call that judgin’ one person by another’s half bushel. Never did figure out what all that meant,” Rosemary said.

  “Makes sense to me.” Nikki stood up.

  “How do you know that?” Rosemary asked.

  “I hear sirens.”

  The ambulance backed up to the ER doors, and EMTs brought in an older man who thought he was having a heart attack. His wife came with him, sat down behind the curtain with her purse in her lap, and watched every move Nikki made.

  “I been with that man sixty years. We got married when we was sixteen and eighteen, and I ain’t about to leave him, so don’t tell me to,” she said.

  “Congratulations,” Nikki said. “You don’t hear of folks stayin’ together like that so much anymore.” She thought of her own parents and the horrible marriage they’d had.

  The gray-haired lady smiled. “Thank you. He was a rounder, that one was. Took me a while to tame him.”

  “Really?” Nikki put in an IV, checked all his vital signs, and then hooked him up to an EKG machine. At that young age, surely he couldn’t have gotten around that much. If they wanted to see a real rebel, she could introduce them to Taggart Baker.

  “Honey, he was outrunnin’ girls when he was thirteen, and kissin’ them behind the barn at fourteen. Don’t let them wrinkles and that bald head fool you. He was quite a handsome feller in his youth,” she said.

  “I’m layin’ right here, Inez,” her husband said. “And all that talk ain’t goin’ to keep me from dyin’ if it’s my time.”

  “Hush,” Inez said. “I’ll tell you when it’s your time, and it ain’t today.”

  “I’ll take over here.” Rosemary popped into the room. “You’re needed down in cubicle one.”

  “Did Sue Ann escape again?”

  “One of your cowboys is hurt. He’s askin’ for you,” Rosemary said.

  “I didn’t have time to input information into the tablet. EKG is running. Blood pressure is good. IV is in place.” Nikki pulled back the curtain and hurried down the hall. Trust, hell! Tag had promised he wouldn’t ride tonight.

  She slipped inside the room to find a worried Tag beside the bed where Hud was lying. Both of them looked pale and frightened.

  “Bronc?” she asked.

  “No, he fell off the barn roof,” Tag said. “He said he was fine but his eyes looked dilated to me and he could have a concussion.”

  Nikki took her penlight from her pocket and checked. Tag was right. Pupils were bigger than Sue Ann’s after she’d mixed booze and pills. “Are you hurting anywhere other than your head, Hud? Can you raise your arms and wiggle your toes?”

  “Yes,” he answered, and showed her. “I’m not broke, but my head hurts. Where’s Grandpa? He was there when I fell.”

  From what Tag had told her, their grandfather had been dead for a long time. She picked up the phone and called Dr. Richards. “I think we’ve got a concussion in exam room two.” When she hung up, she said, “We’ll be taking him for a scan, but you’re probably right, Tag. You had these before, I suppose.”

  “He’s had everything before,” Hud chuckled. “Broken bones and stitches. He’s the bad twin. I’m the good one.”

  “Maybe you’re switchin’ places.” Nikki took all his vital signs.

  “What did he hit when he fell?” she asked.

  “The last of a few broken bales of hay,” Tag answered. “I was in the tack room. Maverick and Paxton were on the roof with him. His foot slipped and he fell through the rafters. If they’d had the last piece of sheet metal up there…”

  Nikki touched his arm. “We’ll take good care of him.”

  “I know you will. That’s why I wouldn’t let anyone else near him.” Tag patted her hand.

  “Hud, we’re going to roll this bed out of here and take you down to radiology for a scan. Can you tell me your name?”

  He gave her a dirty look. “I’m Hudson Baker and that is my twin brother, Taggart Baker. I’m fourteen years old. I live on the Rockin’ B Ranch and Grandpa told us to stay off the old barn roof, so don’t tell him.”

  “I won’t tattle on you,” she said. “Tag, you can go as far as the door and wait outside.”

  She pushed the bed out of the waiting room and met the technician coming down the hall. “I hate to be on weekend call. Is this our heart attack patient?”

  “No, he’ll be in next. Th
is is our concussion patient, Hud Baker,” Nikki said.

  “Well, wheel him in here,” the technician said.

  Tag sat down in one of the two folding chairs against the wall and laid his crutches on the floor. Nikki was a few minutes getting Hud situated in the right place. When she returned, Tag had his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

  “They’d just gotten up on the roof when it happened. I’m the one who gets hurt, not Hud.” His voice sounded hollow. “Now I know how he feels every time I’ve been carted off to the hospital.”

  “Still want to go skydiving?” she asked.

  Tag raised his head. “No, I don’t. I don’t ever want to put anyone through this kind of pain again. Not my brother. Not my sister. Not my parents. And especially not you, Nikki. Are you disappointed?”

  “About skydiving? Not in the least. I’m afraid of heights. It took me a while to get used to the landing outside my second-floor apartment. I still don’t look down from there.” She slipped her hand into his.

  He brought her hand to his cheek. “I’m scared, Nikki. Really, really scared. What if he’s like this the rest of his life?”

  “Then we’ll deal with it, but mostly people with concussions usually come out of it in a few hours. He might remember the fall, and maybe not the day before if it’s a minor one. We’ll hope for that.” She scooted closer to him and laid her head on his shoulder.

  “Thanks for being here for me,” he said.

  “It’s my job.”

  “This part isn’t. Just having you here beside me right now helps,” he said.

  “Tag, I’m always here for you. You’re my knight in a shiny pickup truck.” She kissed him on the cheek.

  Lying on the bed with his eyes closed, Hud almost looked fourteen again. Tag removed his boot and sneaker and propped his feet on the extra chair in the room. Maverick peeked in and whispered, “Okay if we come in for a minute?”

  “Sure it is,” Tag said. “They’re going to keep him for at least twenty-four hours for observation. If he comes out of it by tomorrow, he can go home. If not, they said they’d reevaluate the whole thing.”

  “We’ll go on home, then,” Paxton said. “No need in all of us missing a day’s work and we need to get that hay cut soon as we nail down that last piece of sheet metal.”

  Tag nodded. “I should be there, but I can’t leave him. He thinks he’s fourteen. He’s remembering the time Grandpa told us not to go up on the roof, but we did anyway and I fell. He thinks it was him.”

  “It’s that twin thing,” Paxton said. “You stay with him. We’ll hold down the ranch until y’all get home. If you need anything, just give us a call and we’ll have it here soon as we can.”

  “Thank you both. I’m learning it’s different when you’re at the side of the bed instead of in it,” Tag said.

  Maverick clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Kind of gives you something more to think about, don’t it?”

  Tag swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded. The Callahan brothers slipped out as quietly as possible and closed the door behind them.

  Tag’s job was to wake Hud every hour all night, ask him if he recognized him and if he knew his name. The sun was up when Hud roused on his own, looked at Tag with a frown, and said, “I’m Hudson Baker. You’re my twin brother.”

  Tag had spent time in rooms almost just like this one with an IV in his arm like what Hud had. He’d had a couple or three concussions, and like Hud had said, broken bones and stitches. Who knew what kind of damage all that knocking his brain took might lead to in the future? When he got to be old and gray, arthritis would set in where the bones had snapped. And the scars wouldn’t be nearly so sexy in sagging skin. Nikki deserved better than that.

  As if she knew he was thinking about her, she pushed into the room with a tray in her hands. “I brought food. You need to eat. And there are two bottles of water for you to sip on this afternoon. How is he?”

  “In and out. Sleeping, groaning a little. I’ve been where he is, so I know he’s got a killer headache,” Tag said. “I really hate this, Nikki.”

  She bent down and brushed a sweet kiss across his lips. “I remember when Quint was in the hospital and how much I hated feeling helpless, so I understand. I’ve got to get back to the on-call room and catch a few winks so I’ll be ready for the next eight hours. Call me if he wakes up and is lucid or if you need me for anything.”

  He pulled her lips to his for a more passionate, lingering kiss. “I love you, Nikki.”

  She blinked several times but didn’t say a word. Maybe he’d only thought the words and hadn’t actually said them out loud. He’d never told a woman that before, so perhaps it was normal for them not to answer and leave the room immediately.

  “I love you, too,” Hud muttered. “I’ve always loved you, Cactus.”

  Tag jerked his head around to stare at his brother. “Oh, really? Cactus who?”

  “Cactus Rose O’Malley. I’ve always been in love with her. Shh…Grandpa. Don’t tell Tag. If she sees him, she’ll like him better,” Hud muttered.

  “I don’t remember anyone by that name. Have you been keeping secrets from me?”

  Hud’s eyes popped wide open. “Where are we? Where’s Grandpa?”

  “You’re in the hospital. You’ve got a concussion,” Tag said. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Of course, Tag.” Hud’s brow drew down so tightly that his eyebrows almost touched. “What happened?”

  “You tell me,” Tag said. “Where’s Grandpa?”

  Hud continued to look totally confused then his expression changed as if a light bulb went off.

  “He died years ago, didn’t he? Am I dying, too?” Hud asked.

  “No, you’re not dying,” Tag answered. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “Stayin’ on the bronc for eight seconds. Did he throw me?” Hud tried to sit up.

  “Be still and let me call a nurse.” Tag pushed the button on the side of the rail to raise the bed. “You fell off the barn roof, not a bronc. They think the concussion is minor, but you’ve got to stay here for twenty-four hours.”

  “Bullshit! You fell off the barn, not me. You’ve made me trade places with you, haven’t you?” Hud said.

  “Not this time,” Tag told him. “Hungry?”

  “No. The thought of food makes my stomach turn over. Are you serious? This isn’t a joke?”

  Tag smiled. “No, it’s not a joke and it’s very serious. It’s a good sign that you woke up so quickly and that you remember riding the bronc Friday night.”

  Hud stared at his brother. “I don’t remember falling off the barn or coming here.”

  “Nikki says that’s normal,” Tag told him. “But you need to rest. I’ll be right here with you until we can take you home.”

  “You don’t need to stay here. I’m a big boy. I can sleep without you by my side.”

  “How many times have I said that to you, and you never left me for a minute?” Tag asked.

  “I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count that far,” Hud answered as his eyes slowly closed and he began to snore.

  Tag dug his phone out of his pocket and called Nikki.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “He woke up and he remembers some things, but not the fall. He’s asleep now,” Tag said. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “You didn’t, and, Tag, I love you too,” she said.

  “Say that again?” he whispered.

  “I love you,” she said. “I was about to call and tell you. I couldn’t go to sleep without saying the words.”

  He was completely speechless for several seconds. “Will you tell me in person next time we’re together?”

  “Yes, I will. See you later, Tag.”

  “Sleep tight, my darlin’.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  In some ways, the weekend lasted forever; in others, it went by at warp speed. And then it was midnight on Sunday, and Nikki was free to go home. She
and Rosemary walked out together into the sweltering night air, the concrete still hot from the boiling sun pounding on it all day.

  “It was strange not seeing Sue Ann this weekend,” Nikki said. “But I’m glad her sister from Oklahoma stepped in and offered to take her for some real help. With Sue Ann signing herself into the psych ward at the hospital and then either walking out or signing herself out, she wasn’t getting the long-term help she needs.”

  “Me too. I’m glad you tracked her sister down and told her about Sue Ann,” Rosemary said.

  “Families can sure screw things up, can’t they?” Nikki sighed.

  “If you let them, they can. Maybe now Sue Ann can get clean and have a decent life. Darla June seemed to really want to help. The expression on Sue Ann’s face when she saw her sister for the first time in years almost brought tears to my eyes,” Rosemary answered.

  “Mine too,” Nikki agreed.

  “I’m getting all misty eyed again just thinking about it, so let’s talk about something else,” Rosemary said. “How are things with the cowboy and his brother?”

  “Hud went home today, and I told Tag that I love him,” Nikki said.

  “How’d it make you feel?” Rosemary stopped by Nikki’s car.

  “At peace,” Nikki answered.

  “Then it was the right thing to do. Girl, I sure hope this week is better for you than the past two have been. I’ll be waiting to hear all about it next Friday.” Rosemary gave her a hug and headed on down the row of vehicles to her own car.

  Nikki drove to her apartment, fed Goldie, and shoved a couple of outfits into a bag. As she made her way down the stairs, she caught sight of a flash in the sky and saw her very first shooting star. A warm glow filled her from the inside out as she remembered her father telling her that when she saw a star falling from heaven that she got to make one wish.

  “I wish for a lifetime with Tag,” she said as she got into her car, tossed her bag into the backseat, and headed toward the cabin.

  When she arrived, the lights were still on, so she rapped on the door lightly before she entered. Tag was sitting on the sofa, the laptop on the coffee table, and Red was curled up in front of the fireplace.