Shit. Shit. Shit. Please don’t let it be serious. Not now. Not when he was so close to a world title he could see his reflection in the gold buckle. Joe crouched beside Violet again. She let him wipe mud from her neck and shirt as she watched the EMTs quiz Delon, poking and prodding, heads bent low to hear his answers to their questions. Finally they hooked their hands under Delon’s armpits and eased him to his feet. He didn’t put any weight on the left leg.
They took one tentative step. Then another. On the third, Delon’s uninjured knee buckled. He clamped his arm across his ribs, face contorted, the noise he made part groan, part gurgle. Fear shot ice into Violet’s veins when he folded, crumpling like a broken puppet. The techs lowered him to the ground and knelt over him, movements urgent, faces grim. As they worked, a single, plaintive voice echoed across the hushed arena.
“Daddeeee!”
Chapter 30
They burst through the emergency room doors, Violet carrying a tear-soaked Beni with Delon’s dad on her heels. Merle Sanchez erupted, a frantic jumble of words about mud and horses and passing out and where the hell was Delon. The prune-faced nurse at the reception desk grimaced at the mud they tracked in and began rattling off the usual bullshit about patient privacy.
“I want to see my daddy,” Beni whined, cutting through the din.
The nurse eyed him with slightly less indifference. “Is he the one who got hurt at the rodeo?”
Beni swiped at his nose with his shirt sleeve as he nodded. “Mommy ran him over with Cadillac.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose, Beni!” Violet protested. “He fell right in front of me.”
The nurse took a step back, one hand reaching for the phone as if she might call for backup. What the hell? Did she think Violet had run him down with her car?
Delon’s dad went halfway over the counter and into the woman’s face. “I want to know how my son is right now.”
“I’ll check.” The nurse gave them all a scathing once-over and escaped into the bowels of the emergency room.
Beni whimpered against Violet’s neck. “Is Daddy okay?”
“He will be, sugar,” Violet said, her throat closing behind the words. Please, God, let him be okay. Terror coiled around her heart and squeezed it dry. She’d seen them through the open ambulance door, yanking Delon’s vest and shirt open to expose his chest, shoving a tube down his throat, pumping air into him with a big rubber-ball gizmo. Footsteps squeaked on tile and the EMTs appeared, their uniforms caked with mud.
Merle pounced. “What is wrong with him?”
They exchanged a glance, as if uncertain whether they were allowed to tell.
“I’m his father, dammit. Tell me.” The final two words were hissed between bared teeth.
“Traumatic pneumothorax,” the shorter one said.
At Merle’s impatient curse, the second tech hurried to add, “He broke a couple of ribs and one of them punctured his lung. We intubated him immediately, and he’s stable. He never even lost consciousness.”
Relief washed through Violet like a riptide, sweeping her almost off her feet. She plunked Beni down and grabbed onto the edge of the desk as the room did a slow spin.
“Hey,” the tall, skinny EMT said. “You don’t look so good. Did you get hurt out there?”
Violet tried to shake her head, but the movement shot an arrow of pain from her left shoulder blade to the base of her skull. Maybe her landing hadn’t been as soft as she thought. The tech took her arm and eased her back a couple of steps, to the nearest chair. Her butt hit the seat with an audible smack.
“Just a little shaky.”
Heat and pressure built behind her eyes. Dammit. She couldn’t let Beni see her cry. The radio on the EMTs belt beeped, followed by a stream of dispatcher lingo. The shorter man answered, while the skinny one frowned at Violet.
“We’ve got another call. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes.”
He stood, reluctant, but his partner was already moving toward the door. “If you start feeling worse…”
“I’m in the right place.”
He gave her one last, worried look, then trotted after his partner as the nurse came bustling back. She avoided Violet’s gaze, addressing Merle as she repeated what the EMTs had said and added, “The doctor said you can come back while they’re waiting for the radiologist on call to get here and do a CAT scan.”
“CAT scan?” Merle echoed, alarmed.
“Just a precaution. So if you’ll follow me…”
Merle caught an arm as Beni tried to dash past. “Slow down, pardner.”
The nurse finally looked at Violet, eyes narrowed and suspicious, as if convinced she had a severe case of spousal abuse on her hands. “You’re his wife?”
“Um, no.”
“Significant other?”
“No. I’m his…we’re…”
“Violet is Beni’s mother,” Merle said.
“Beni isn’t the one in my ER,” the nurse said, her jaw squaring.
“That’s ridiculous,” Merle protested. “Violet is family.”
“Our privacy policy states—”
“It’s okay,” Violet said. And meant it, because a pair of vise grips had clamped tight on her left trapezius muscle and now that she was down, she wasn’t sure she could get up again. “I’ll wait here.”
Delon’s dad started to argue, but Beni tugged on his hand. “Come on, Grandpa.”
He gave Violet a helpless look. She waved them away and paid the price with another stab of pain. When they were gone she let out a long, shaky sigh, closed her eyes and let the tears brim over, hot and silent, sliding down her cheeks and dripping off her chin. She was too weak with relief and pain to wipe them away. Her baby wasn’t going to lose his father. Not tonight. Thank you, God.
She couldn’t have said how much time passed before she heard the whoosh and slide of the emergency room doors. She’d expected her parents at any minute. Some of Delon’s friends, if there were any who hadn’t left after the bareback riding ended. She hadn’t expected Joe.
“Why are you out here alone?” he demanded.
“I’m not a relative.” Another shiver rocked her body and her face screwed up in pain. “Ouch.”
Joe started to reach for her, then froze with his hand hovering above her shoulder. “Where?”
“My neck. Muscle spasm. Why are you here? Where is everyone else?”
“Your dad and Cole are putting up the stock and your mother had to finish the payout. She sent me to be sure a doctor took a look at you.” He scanned the empty front desk. “Where is the receptionist?”
“Probably calling the cops to come haul me away.”
He blinked, opened his mouth, then shut it again. “Wait here.”
“Like anything short of a forklift is getting me up,” she muttered.
He pounded the buzzer on the desk. The nurse scurried out from a door down the hall, scowl firmly in place. She took one look at Joe’s cowboy hat and declared, “Unless you’re a family member, I can’t tell you anything.”
“I don’t give a shit about him,” Joe said. “You’ve got a woman sitting in your waiting room with a possible cervical spine injury. Somebody better get their ass out here before I pitch a fit they’ll hear clear down in Dallas.”
The nurse bolted like he’d hit her with a cattle prod, apologizing all over herself while she dragged a rumpled physician’s assistant from somewhere in the back. Violet tried to protest that she was fine, but Joe refused to let anyone listen. He took one arm, the physician’s assistant took the other, and they hauled her upright. She hissed in pain and called Joe a very bad name.
He patted her butt. “You’ve probably got that right, but you’re still having X-rays.”
While they loaded her on a gurney and carted her off to the radiology department, Joe planted
himself on a rolling stool in her assigned cubicle to call Iris with a preliminary report. When the X-rays were done, a younger, friendlier nurse wheeled Violet into the cubicle and helped her perch on the end of the treatment table. She was still wearing her damp jeans but they’d made her swap her shirt for a thin hospital gown.
“Waste of damn money. I’d know if I broke anything.” She tucked her arms across her ribs and shivered. “Least they could do is use my hundred bucks to turn on the heat in this place.”
“Here.” Joe shrugged out of his jacket and held it while she eased her arms into the sleeves. Then he buttoned it clear to her chin and flicked mud off her ear with one forefinger. “Better?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
He cupped her shoulders and held on for a moment, as if assuring himself she was in one piece. She slid her hands into the pockets of the letterman-style jacket, feeling like a high school girl wearing her boyfriend’s coat. Her gaze dropped to the sponsor logo plastered across the chest of the mud-speckled jersey that Joe hadn’t bothered to change.
“Did you, um, talk to anyone while I was getting x-rayed?”
“About Delon? Yes. There’s no sign of internal injuries other than the punctured lung. They’ll have to keep him here for two or three days.” Of course the nurses would talk to Joe. So much for their stupid privacy policy. He hesitated, then added, “They also think the ACL is torn in his knee.”
Violet squeezed her eyes shut and cursed. A torn anterior cruciate ligament meant surgery and a whole lot longer recuperation than the twelve weeks between now and the National Finals Rodeo.
“He could still ride,” Joe said. “Wyatt tore his up at Omaha three years ago and fought bulls at the NFR.”
“He only made it through four rounds.”
Joe could try to argue that Delon just had to ride one horse a night, not fight fifteen bulls, but they weren’t ordinary horses and it wasn’t an ordinary rodeo. To win the world, you had to make ten damn good rides on the rankest bucking horses in North America. Even if they started out healthy, by midpoint of the NFR the bareback riders looked like victims of drive-by beatings. Violet pressed her mouth into a tight line, fighting to keep everything bottled up.
Joe gripped her chin, staring intently into her eyes. “This was not your fault.”
She tried to avoid his gaze, but he leaned in until their noses were nearly touching. “Listen to me, Violet. Not. Your. Fault.”
“I should have—”
“What?” he interrupted. “Sat back and waited to see if Cole got ahold of him before his skull bounced off a fence post? Bullshit. You had to make a move. And this is Delon. No one would expect him to lose his grip. You did what any good pickup man would’ve done under the circumstances.”
Emotions churned in her gut—guilt, uncertainty, and a healthy dose of leftover terror. The whole scene played over and over in her head, a jumble of images and sounds muddled by the throbbing in her neck that radiated through her skull.
Joe skimmed his thumb gently along her jaw. “We can only do our best, Violet. We can’t save ’em all.”
She examined his face, searching for any sign that he was patronizing her, then let out a weary sigh. “That sucks.”
“Believe me, I know.”
Behind them, the physician’s assistant cleared his throat. Joe gave Violet’s shoulder one last careful squeeze, then backed away.
“The X-rays are clear and your reflexes are normal, no sign of nerve damage. Looks like a muscle strain.” The PA held up syringe. “I recommend a shot of Toradol for your immediate pain, and a prescription muscle relaxant and a cervical collar for the next couple of days.”
Violet set her jaw. “I am not walking around looking like a crash test dummy. Beni’s had enough of a fright.”
“It’s for your own comfort. You can try heat and ice but—”
“We know the routine,” Joe said.
The PA shrugged and waved the syringe. “Unbutton your jeans. This goes in your gluteus.”
She scowled at Joe. “You can leave now.”
“Do I have to?”
She snarled. Joe grinned, but left. As the PA swabbed her butt with alcohol, it occurred to Violet that the good Joe, ‘her’ Joe, was back in full force.
God, she’d missed him.
* * *
When Joe stepped into the hall, the curtain to Delon’s cubicle twitched open, held by Merle Sanchez. Delon’s dad was ginger-haired, wiry, and looked like his last name should be O’Malley. He cut his eyes toward where Violet was telling the PA she wouldn’t take the muscle relaxants because they made her dizzy. Obviously she’d never had Toradol or she wouldn’t be dropping her drawers.
“Is Violet all right?” Delon’s dad asked.
“Yeah. Just a stiff neck and a hard head.”
Delon, on the other hand, looked like hell, pasty and gray. A tube snaked from under his hospital gown, attached to a suction pump that hissed and slurped. His leg was propped on a foam wedge with the knee packed in ice. Beni had crawled up onto the bed and was tucked under his daddy’s arm, curled against his uninjured side. Joe pitied the nurse that tried to move him.
Delon’s gaze met Joe’s, the antagonism muted by shock and pain. “What was I?” he whispered hoarsely.
“Eighty-three points. You won it by two.”
Delon smiled faintly. “Damn. If I’d only stuck the dismount.”
Violet’s parents blew around the corner and into her cubicle, dragging Joe with them. Iris plucked the prescription from the doctor’s fingers and handed it to Joe.
“Take care of that.” Then she threw her arms around Violet and hugged her hard enough to make her whimper. “Scared the hell out of me, girl.”
“I’m fine. Honest.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” her mother said dryly.
The nurse had made an effort to clean her up, but Violet’s hair was tangled and streaked with the mud that smudged her cheek and neck and caked her jeans. She held herself stiff, her body language screaming Ouch.
“She will be fine,” Joe corrected.
How, he didn’t know. His muscles still felt wobbly as overstretched rubber from the sheer terror of seeing her slam to the ground only inches from the fence, her horse so nearly rolling over her. Behind Iris, Steve hovered like a massive thundercloud, his face mirroring Joe’s mixture of relief and horror at what had almost happened.
“I need to get Beni.” Violet stood, swaying, either from shock or the drugs.
Joe put out a hand to steady her. “He’s asleep.”
“He can stay with us tonight,” Iris said. “Joe will drive you back.”
Steve shot her a look but didn’t argue. Joe looked from one to the other, baffled. They were trusting him to look after Violet? So soon after she’d almost…come so close to…
A molecular-level shudder wracked his body.
Violet’s forehead creased as if she wanted to protest, but her eyes were coming unfocused. “Dammit. Why didn’t they tell me that stuff had a kick like a mule?”
“Because you wouldn’t have let them give it to you.” Iris prodded Steve toward Delon’s cubicle, calling back over her shoulder, “Take care of her, Joe. We’ll see you in the morning.”
Violet took two quick steps, hissed, and swayed. Joe grabbed her arm. “Easy there, darlin’.”
“I just need to see—”
Joe pivoted her toward the waiting room. “Tomorrow. You can come back first thing.”
“But I have to—”
“In the morning.”
He braced a hand on either side of her hips and pushed her down the hall like a balky wheelbarrow. Halfway to the exit, they met the sour-faced nurse. She gave them a curt nod and the evil eye as she passed. Violet stopped, spun around, and tilted back on her heels so far Joe had to throw both arms around her waist.
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“Cadillac is a horse!” she yelled over his shoulder at the nurse.
The woman’s stride hitched, then she scurried into a door marked Staff. Violet teetered again, so Joe forgot about explanations and wrestled her around to face the door.
“We’d better get you out of here.”
And into bed. That oughta be fun.
* * *
The parking lot outside the emergency room had a wicked tilt to it. Or maybe that was Violet, because when Joe wrapped his arm around her shoulders and tipped her to the left, the ground flattened out.
“You’re a mess.”
She wanted to smack him for laughing at her, but she needed all her concentration to climb into the pickup without braining herself on the door frame.
Joe buckled her seat belt and shut the door. When he climbed behind the wheel, he asked, “Are you hungry?”
“Nope.”
“Do you mind if I swing through a hamburger stand on the way?”
“Nope.”
He cranked the engine and she hunkered into her seat, letting her eyelids droop so the lights along the main drag zoomed past in streaks like when a movie spaceship jumps into hyperspeed. She was stoned. More stoned than she’d ever been in her life, including the day she gave birth and the night her son was conceived. And the second one didn’t count because she was drunk, not stoned, and they were totally different. Weren’t they? Except in that Johnny Cash song about Sunday morning, but she was kinda young and naïve back then, so maybe she just thought he was stoned on beer.
Anyway, this was nothing like being drunk. More like floating. Really high. She could still feel the pain in her neck—the real pain, not Joe, who was annoying her with the bossing and pushing and all—but neither pain bothered her if she didn’t move too fast. Joe didn’t ask if she wanted her prescription filled, just pulled into an all-night pharmacy and left her in the pickup while he jogged inside. Just for that, she ate most of his French fries while she waited.
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