“Don’t leave yet, Mommy,” Vicki said quickly, her gaze darting back toward the barn where several of the men had climbed onto the railing for a ringside seat. “Come watch, okay?”
“Now, Vicki—”
“Remember when Daddy got his ribs busted and you helped the doctor patch him up?” Vicki’s attempt at looking innocent was so pathetic Karen had to laugh.
“I guess I can stay for a few minutes,” she conceded, shoving the floor shift into reverse before switching off the engine.
“You could stay for dinner, too,” Vicki bargained as she reached for the door handle. “Daddy wouldn’t mind.”
“I’m sure he would,” Karen said as she, too, opened the door.
“Uh-uh. I asked. He said you were always welcome here.” Vicki reached behind the seat for her backpack and overnight bag before slamming the passenger door. As she turned, Karen noticed a rip in the sleeve of her new sweatshirt, and the seat of her jeans were dirty, as though she’d sat down hard in the midst of mud puddle.
“Victoria Sylvia, have you been fighting again?” she asked over the sound of Rags’s impatient yapping.
Vicki shrugged thin shoulders that seemed far too vulnerable.
Give me patience, Karen prayed to whatever deity looked after exasperated moms and troubled little girls.
Though it was a mild day under the lowering clouds, the wind still carried a bite, causing Karen to huddle into her bulky wool sweater as she went around to release a now-frantic Rags, who all but exploded past her in his eagerness to be home again. With an exuberant yelp, the sturdy Aussie streaked at full speed toward the corral.
“I know how you feel,” she muttered under her breath as she joined Vicki, who was waiting impatiently a few feet away, her gaze darting back and forth between her slowpoke mom and the nearly irresistible sight of her father handing the still skittish gelding’s reins to Billy before vaulting himself to the top rail.
Still laughing at something Cassidy had said, Billy turned his head their way. Seeing them approaching, he grinned and lifted a hand in greeting while at the same time saying something that had Cassidy twisting toward them. Even with a good thirty feet between them, she felt the impact of his gaze before he turned away.
Seconds later, she saw him tug his hat lower, watched Billy hand him the reins and saw him slip from the fence to the saddle in one fluid, controlled movement of muscle and sinew and bone.
Her heart gave a traitorous leap before resettling into the erratic rhythm of arousal. How long would it be, she wondered, until she no longer reacted to the sight of that magnificent body with a dizzying hunger? Or longed to pull that proud head to her breast and stroke away the hard lines of bitterness and self-hatred his past had seared into that rugged face?
“Uh-oh, there he goes!” Vicki shouted, breaking into a run. At the same time, Cassidy gave a curt nod, and Billy leaned forward to strip the bandanna free.
With a shrill scream that seemed to tear at Karen’s eardrums, the horse went straight up in the air, only to crash down on stiffened legs. Karen saw Cassidy’s head snap back, saw his back muscles ripple under the buckskin as he controlled the horse’s head with the reins. She was running before she realized it, her heart racing and her breath coming in harsh gasps.
“Just in time for the show, Miss Karen,” Billy said as she squeezed into a spot between him and Vicki, who was screaming like a banshee while Rags barked steadily at her side.
In the corral, the frenzied horse was spinning wildly, sidestepping, plunging, going high in the air again, determined to dislodge the equally determined two-hundred-pound man clinging to the saddle with powerful legs and sheer cussedness.
“He’s crazy,” she muttered, her fingers trying to dig handholds into the rough wood rail.
“The boss or the horse?” Billy drawled, his gaze still welded to the action in the arena.
“Both,” she muttered, then gasped as the horse reared, pawing air with those lethal steel-shod hooves. Still Cassidy hung on and even managed to keep the horse moving forward between bouts of bucking, drawing a ragged cheer from the men gathered to watch.
“Hot dang, I do love a good tussle,” Karen heard someone say over her right shoulder. Twisting to look, she saw Travis Stockwell, his grin a white slash in his bronzed, weather-beaten face, his chocolate brown eyes glittering with excitement and—if she wasn’t mistaken—envy.
“You’re all nuts, every one of you,” she told him scathingly, only to have his grin widen.
“Yeah, ain’t it great?” he said as he brought his hands down on Vicki’s shoulders in a surprisingly gentle gesture that had the little girl grinning up at him.
“Hi, Travis,” she said before returning her excited gaze to the center of the corral. At that moment, the enraged animal bucked, not once but a half dozen times. More.
It seemed to Karen that man and animal were perfectly matched, each throwing his all into a battle that only one would win. The maddened gelding’s eyes showed white, then flashed with black fury. Cassidy’s determination was more controlled, and all the more lethal, Karen decided. He seemed driven, she realized as the horse and rider spun crazily, sending Cassidy leaning far out over the saddle until he seemed airborne. Yet his boots remained hooked in the stirrups and his thighs seemed made of steel.
“Why is he doing this?” she blurted out, her voice shaking.
“Three parts ‘can’t quit’ and a stiff measure of black temper,” Billy said, turning to look directly at her. In his world-weary gray eyes she saw a gentle reproach mingled with the humor and understanding.
“You’re saying he’s doing this because I left him.”
“More like he’s mad ’cause he couldn’t ask you to stay.”
Karen scowled. “Damn him, doesn’t he know the kind of damage he could do to his spinal column?”
“Reckon he’s more concerned with his tailbone at the moment,” Billy replied with a chuckle. But Karen noticed that the tough little man’s knuckles were white where they curved over the railing.
Karen’s jaw ached as she watched Cassidy gently tap his spurs into the black horse’s side, urging him into a ragged trot, punctuated now and then by the animal’s renewed attempts at escape. The cheering grew louder, and in the periphery of her vision, she saw Randall Whitehorse consult a stopwatch, then scowl as he dug into his jeans for a wad of folded bills, which he handed over to a gray-haired cowboy she didn’t know.
“All right! He’s got ’im now,” Travis shouted, looking almost as excited as Vicki, who was now jumping up and down.
It did look that way, Karen decided as the intervals between bucking and rearing grew longer. Cassidy was no longer leaning forward, but the rigid line of his shoulders and the angle of his head signaled a focused caution as he urged the exhausted mount into another circuit around the octagonal enclosure.
As he passed in front of her, his head down, his expression fierce and his brows drawn, she had the oddest feeling that he was watching her, and had been watching her the entire time.
She drew in air and forced her fingers to relax. As soon as Cassidy safely dismounted to accept the congratulations of the now laughing, cheering hands, she would slip away and—“No, Rags,” Vicki screamed suddenly, but the excited dog suddenly bolted under the bottom rail and headed straight for the gelding’s flashing legs, apparently taken with a notion to play tag with the intriguing creature.
Then everything happened at once. Travis grabbed Vicki by the scruff of her sweatshirt an instant before she, too, would have slipped between the rails. Billy vaulted to the top of the fence, poised to leap to the sodden corral floor. The gelding stopped dead, then with another scream of pure animal fury, leapt into the air, and at the same time twisted in response to the iron control Cassidy exerted.
Rags dodged the flailing hooves, barking ecstatically. The horse came down hard at the exact moment Cassidy tugged on one rein, intending to bring the animal’s head around. The result was an inevitable tumbl
e.
“Kick free, boss!” Billy shouted. Other excited voices called similar warnings. But it was too late. The gelding was already going down, carrying Cassidy with him. Just before the horse hit, Cassidy managed to pull his feet from the stirrups, but the collision with the ground sent him flying over the horse’s head. A collective gasp rose from the spectators as he hit with a sickeningly loud thud—and lay still.
Billy was off the rail and running while the others were still frozen in shock. The gray-haired man was also moving, splashing mud in his wake as he pounded earth. He and Billy reached Cassidy at the same time. The new hand grabbed the trailing reins just as the struggling horse gained his feet. Rid of the man on his back, he was surprisingly docile, allowing the man to lead him toward the barn.
“Daddy!” Vicki screamed, struggling against Travis’s iron grip.
All this Karen saw in the blink of an eye while her heart lodged in her throat. And then training kicked in and a welcome calm came over her.
“Keep her here,” she called to Travis as she climbed through the fence. “Get the first aid kit,” she shouted to Whitehorse, who spun around and headed for the barn and the well-stocked medicine cabinet.
“Help me,” she shouted to the nearest man who reached up to catch her as she surged through the rail. On her feet again, she ran, oblivious to the soupy mud beneath her sneakers.
“Out of my way,” she shouted to the wall of big male bodies between her and her husband’s inert form. Like magic, they jumped sideways, knocking into one another, slipping in the mud, muttering curses.
“Give him room,” someone ordered, and the anxious, hovering men drew back en masse, as though pulled by an invisible magnet. Already bending over his boss, Billy made room for her at his side.
“He’s breathing regular, and his pulse is strong.”
Karen sank to her knees, already running an assessing gaze over Cassidy’s sprawled body. To her great relief, he was already moving, lifting one gloved hand, flexing a knee, scowling, and though his eyes were closed, his color was good. Red clay and bits of brown mud were smeared across his wide forehead and along one side of his face.
Beneath her probing fingers, she felt the edema pushing up under skin that was already darkening to an angry purple-tinged redness. There was blood, too, she noted as she saw the crimson smear on her fingers. Possible concussion, she thought as she withdrew her hand. Worse case, a hematoma.
“Here’s the kit, ma’am,” Randall said, squatting beside her and setting the large white box within easy reach. She nodded her thanks as she laid two fingers to the pulse tripping like crazy at the side of Cassidy’s strong neck.
“Strong like I said, right?” Billy asked, his expression anxious.
“Very.”
“Don’t look like anything’s broken, either.”
Karen grunted. She was too busy shoving aside the buckskin vest in order to run her hands over his ribs. “Careful, honey,” Cassidy grated between clenched teeth. “I’m ticklish, remember?”
Billy snorted, and Karen froze as Cassidy’s thick black lashes fluttered, then lifted. As the light seared his retinas, he groaned and quickly slitted his eyes while a frown gouged lines into the bronzed skin above drawn ebony brows.
“Don’t move,” she ordered, embarrassed to her doctor’s soul by the tears of relief gathering in her eyes.
“Lucifer?” he asked, shifting his gaze toward Billy.
“Intact, and damn proud of himself.”
Cassidy snorted. “Too bad…Mick Peavy already…took a gelding knife to the…black bastard,” he muttered between testing breaths.
“I hear ya, boss,” Billy said, chuckling.
Next to her, she saw Whitehorse break into a grin. “Cowboys,” she said in shaky disgust.
“Lousy…husband material,” Cassidy said, trying to sit up. Agony splintered the surface of his onyx eyes and leeched the weathered tan from his skin.
“Watch your language,” Karen warned, seeing her daughter approaching, her hand clutching Travis’s like a lifeline. “Vicki’s here.”
“Help me sit up,” Cassidy ordered, his mouth barely moving, as if even that small movement was more than he could bear.
“Better not,” she countered, only to have him shift his attention to Billy, who shrugged, then bent down to loop an arm under Cassidy’s shoulders.
Cassidy’s skin went from gray to white as his wiry ramrod eased him into a sitting position. As soon as Vicki reached him, however, his face changed, and the suffering that had been in his eyes and in his voice was muted, as though he’d suddenly dug deep for some inner strength.
“How’d you like the show, peanut?” he asked, his hard cheeks folding into a decent enough grin—if a person wasn’t close enough to sense the toll it was taking on his control.
“Are you hurt, Daddy?” she asked, her voice trembling. Though Cassidy was well within arm’s length, Karen noticed that Vicki seemed reluctant to touch her dad.
“Nope. Just a few bruises and a bi—a whopper of a headache.”
Vicki giggled, but quickly sobered. “Please don’t be mad at Rags, okay? He just wanted to play.”
Cassidy’s mouth quirked. “Remind me to have a talk with him soon,” he said before turning to Billy to snarl coldly, “Last I heard, Friday was still a workday around here.”
“You heard the boss,” Billy called over the murmur of male voices. “Y’all get on back to what you were doin’.”
After good-natured grumbling and a few parting words of encouragement for the boss, the hands did as they were told.
“You sure you don’t want to try the circuit with me this summer?” Travis asked, his grin firmly in place again. “Way you stuck to that bronc, you’d be a cinch for major prize money.”
“Or a split skull,” Karen said with acid in her tone.
“C’mon, honey, weren’t you just a little bit impressed with this poor beat-up cowboy?” Cassidy asked, watching her with still-narrowed eyes.
“Not a bit. Macho stupidity has never been high on my list of desirable character traits.”
“And here I nearly killed myself showing off for you,” Cassidy said mournfully. His tone said that he was joking. Something in the shifting currents in his eyes planted a doubt. Had he changed his mind and decided to fight for them, after all? Realizing she was scowling, she rearranged her features into the stern look she reserved for particularly difficult patients.
“Vicki was impressed, weren’t you, darlin’?” Travis interjected, surprising Karen with his perceptiveness.
Vicki nodded vigorously. “Can I try that when I’m older?” she asked eagerly, her earlier reticence apparently forgotten.
“Nope,” Cassidy said, reaching out to tug on one of her braids. “But you can give your old man a hello kiss.”
Vicki complied with gusto, before asking permission to go find Rags, who had wisely made himself scarce. “Take your things into the house first,” Karen said, casting a nervous glance at the clouds gathering above. “It looks like rain.”
Already running, she tossed a cheery “Okay” over her shoulder that had Travis and Billy exchanging grins.
“Don’t stand there looking like identical idiots,” Cassidy grunted. “Help me up.”
Before they could comply, Karen laid a hand on Cassidy’s thigh. “I want you to let Billy take you into the hospital for a thorough work-up,” she said quietly.
His face closed up. “No.”
“You could have a concussion. Or a hematoma. A hematoma is—”
His jaw turned to granite. “I know what a hematoma is, Karen.”
She bit off a sigh. “Fine. I’ll just leave you to your headache, then.” She started to rise, only to have his hand shoot out to grip her forearm.
“I’m sorry, Kari. I didn’t mean to sound…ungrateful.”
“Be careful not to jar his head,” she said, slipping free of Cassidy’s grasp. Or rather, he allowed her to go free, she thought as she stood. Anyt
hing Cassidy really valued, he held on to with an unbreakable grip.
Chapter Fifteen
Forty minutes later, Karen was alone with Cassidy in the bathroom, where he’d insisted on going in order to shower off the muck and mud. Now he was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet with only a towel around his waist while Karen busied herself disinfecting the small wound on his temple.
The two extra-strength aspirins she’d forced down his throat had done little to take the edge off the pain that had him grunting with every movement of his head.
Outside, the rain was coming down in windy gusts, which had sent most of the hands inside the various buildings to mend tack or clean stalls. Travis had jawed with Billy about the new bull for a few minutes before driving off, taking with him one of the hands who needed to leave early. Vicki and Rags were watching a movie and eating cookies in the living room. Now and then, peals of delighted little-girl laughter drifted through the house like a soothing breeze.
“Hold still,” Karen ordered, fixing Cassidy with a glare designed to quell even the most difficult patient.
He returned her glare with a cold, angry look that would melt a mountain. “Stop trying to drive a spike in my skull and I will.”
“Some spike.” Still glaring, Karen wafted the cotton ball she’d been using in front of his Roman nose. To her surprise, he took one look at the blood-soaked piece of fluff and flinched.
“Well, get to it, then,” he said, his voice suddenly strained.
“Don’t give me orders, Sloane. I’m not one of your hands.”
He closed his eyes. “I know who you are, Kari. And who you’re not.” His tone was suddenly laced with a weariness that hurt her more than his coldness.
Resisting an urge to smooth back the shock of thick, wavy hair tumbling over his forehead took almost as much concentration as staunching the still oozing gash. “This needs a couple of sutures.”
“You’re the doctor,” he said, without opening his eyes.
The Parent Plan Page 20