Liddy did not normally slam a cell phone shut unless really miffed.
“Nothing. No one.” Liddy stuffed the cellular phone back into her purse.
“No one? Really? Just a boatload of crap stuck in a dry desert? You were talking to someone, just called whoever it was an asshole, and to me it sounded as though it was about me. I’m not stupid. What did they want?”
“Some dumb ass reporter, asking some pretty dumb ass questions. Who, unfortunately, got ahold of my cell phone number somehow?” She mulled this fact over, staring at Julia.
“Why is a reporter calling you? What did he say?” Julia sat down quickly. She was barely able to stand on her legs much longer. She was dead tired and hungry. Saber had promised her dinner. The only thing she’d eaten since consuming two glasses of wine during the rodeo was a bag of potato chips out of a hospital vending machine down the hall.
He also promised her he would not get hurt.
He lied about that, too.
“Nothing that the rest of this town won’t be asking in a day or two.”
“The rest of…why?” Julia rushed out.
“Kiddo, you were seen inside the private box of the man they call Eight Second Wonder, along with all the other wives. That says, more than anything, that you are his girl. And it gives every reporter within a hundred mile radius covering the rodeo circuit the right to ask personal questions when Patterson gets his ass hurt this badly.”
“I—I am not his girl,” Julia sputtered, biting on her lower lip.
“You’re not?” Liddy raised a brow. “Then what the bloody hell were you doing in that VIP box? And now, pacing a hole into a hospital floor, if not?”
Julia gave her friend the evil eye as she muttered out, “Well, I’m not. Not technically.”
“Oh, yeah?” Liddy ruled. “Well, I would say technically you are.”
And Liddy should certainly know the definition of the word. She’d tried using it to describe that she was technically not married to Jake when Mack Wells proposed to her.
One of the doctors, who came out to hand Julia a very injured Saber’s personal effects, cut off the rest of Liddy’s argument. “He said to give you these if surgery was required.”
Julia felt ill.
Liddy rose quickly to help her sit down, fast, before she fell and they’d have two injuries to deal with.
“Is surgery required?” Liddy asked.
Julia’s white-knuckled fingers wrapped themselves around a pair of dusty cowboy boots, size 12, which were a little worse for wear. The left side of his boot had a huge hole in the leather from the bull’s horn.
Oh God. That horn missed his chest by mere inches and milliseconds. If there was a shade worse than white, Julia knew she was it.
“He has a torn spleen. One of many broken ribs decided to make a quick detour and head in the wrong direction, doing a bit of damage to the bottom of his lung. We need to operate. Other than that, he should be fine in a month or two, with proper physical therapy. Mental therapy I can’t help him with.”
“Should be?” Liddy grasped upon.
“The guy was thrown by a super large, super angry bull. He was pounded into the ground for at least a full three minutes before anyone could get him out of there. He was kicked in the head, numerous times by a hoof twice the size of my fist. He was beaten to a pulp by a creature twelve times larger than his body weight. Yeah, he’ll be fine.” The doctor rolled his eyes to say otherwise, adding, “Once we cut open his stubborn jackass hide and repair the damage to his internal organs.”
“That’s pretty sympathetic talk, coming from a man of medicine,” Liddy smarted, likely because she knew Julia would do it, if she could.
But Julia was too in shock and barely blinking to state an opinion.
“I’m not trying to be sympathetic here. I’m being honest. That’s all I can ever be. In my professional opinion, the guy is either brain dead or he is an absolute fool. He threw away a very promising career in heart surgery just because his kid died on the operating table while under his knife. Dr. Patterson was …Well, he’s a damn fool in my opinion. Anyone who rides bulls in favor of a real job is a damn fool. And it’s professionals like me, who have dedicated their lives to saving others, and have to stitch fools back up so they can do it all over again. You’d be better off by not getting involved too deeply with this one, Miss.”
He looked over at Julia, who found her vocal chords still intact and her anger readily available. “What did you just say about Mr. Patterson?”
The doctor looked down at her white knuckled grip to a shredded pair of size 12 cowboy boots. “I said it’s people like me that have to…”
She swiftly interrupted this with a wave of the hand. “No, the part of Doctor Patterson leaving his kid on an operating table.”
Liddy took over quickly and whipped out, “What does it matter, Julia? I’m sure this good man needs to get back to prepping Saber for surgery.”
She seemed as if trying her damnedest to change the subject as fast as humanly possible. But Julia had to know the truth. “No, he does not. He needs to answer my question.” She rose from her seat and glared down at her friend. “Who left whom to die?”
The man answered her—in spades. He told her every single detail of Dr. Saber Patterson’s past history, down to the last minutes of the son’s life on an operating table. He’d left her visibly shaken and ready to puke.
“You knew? And you said nothing to me?” She rushed toward Liddy.
Her best friend in the whole wide world was unable to look at her face. Liddy had lowered her gaze, while biting on her bottom lip, a surefire sign that she hadn’t wanted to tell Julia the truth from the very beginning.
“He told me not to say anything to you. Not until he could tell you himself. I’m sure he would have, had he not gotten himself so badly injured tonight,” she justified.
“Would have? Like when, Liddy? After I slept with him?”
Liddy cocked a brow. “Are you planning to sleep with Saber?” Her interest suddenly piqued.
“No. Heavens no. I barely know the guy.”
Had the opportunity presented itself she certainly would have tried—after she weighed out the pros and cons of sleeping with a man like Saber. However, she’d not gotten that far into their evening, thanks to fate.
“Then why do you even care? Why should a man’s past life mean anything to you if you don’t care?”
“It just does.”
“Why?” Liddy would not give up until she got Julia to admit the truth.
“Damnit Liddy! Neither you nor he said anything to me about his being a doctor.”
And that was the real gist of it. It mattered because he lied to her. Well, not really lied. A man could not lie about something he never meant to tell in the first place.
It suddenly made sense to her. The seemingly natural ability to give her the required insulin shot, the caring nature from a man with so many bulging muscles, the compassion toward what others thought, and the gentle hands of a skilled man.
Julia did not like being lied too, especially by her best friend. Saber, she could do nothing about. But Liddy?
“He was a doctor and his son died. I care because I have compassion for a man losing a child. Especially while the father was that child’s doctor,” she argued, as her friend gave her the room to add more. “I have compassion, Liddy. Perhaps a little too much. And I am more than certain there is an answer for whatever purpose he had to keep it from me. Yet, he should have told me. You shouldn’t have kept this from me, either. We’re supposed to be best friends, Liddy. Friends do not keep secrets like this from one another.”
“They don’t?” Liddy smarted. “Then why is it you did not tell me you were dating Sexy-as-all-Hell Patterson before now? Or, that you dated my husband while I was out of the picture?”
Julia paled, while Liddy covered her mouth with her hand. They’d been over this a thousand times before. To bring it up now was Liddy being spiteful because of being called
out as a best friend.
It took both women a few seconds to calm down.
“Julia, he’ll tell you when he’s good and ready to tell you.”
Unfortunately, Julia didn’t believe a word of this.
Chapter Sixteen
Liddy’s thoughts moved to the fact friends do keep secrets from each other. To protect them by the only way they knew how.
She’d kept plenty of secrets from the woman pacing a hole in the floor, and now glaring at her. Her living in Miami and becoming engaged to a full-fledge lawyer, Mack Wells, among one of those more substantial secrets. She was simply doing her best at making up for all of those secrets before it was too late, and before it would somehow change the outcome of their friendship.
If she’d let Julia know the truth before now it would have done too much damage. Besides, a promise was a promise. She’d promised Saber she would let him tell.
“But what if he doesn’t confide in me? What if he was planning to keep me in the dark permanently? Am I supposed to just sit around and pretend that I don’t know a thing about it? Pretend the both of you made a pact to keep me in the dark?” Julia asked.
“No. You’re supposed to give him some time,” Liddy rushed. “You do know how to do that, don’t you? Give a man time? Or are you so cold-blooded these days, you can’t allow one single guy who comes into your life the freedom to confess his sins, without stepping over a few dead bodies lain in the way? He’s only human, Julia. With, I am sure, more than a few skeletons in his closet. When the time is right, he will tell you. Being such a bitter bitch isn’t going to get you your answers any sooner than that.”
Her friend turned, took a deep breath, then slapped her right across the face—a little too hard.
Liddy took it all in stride. She wanted Julia good and pissed. She wanted her friend to get the initial anger out of her system, then work past that anger.
Julia was raised by a mother who could’ve cared less she’d even been born. At eighteen, she was pawned off on her father, a man she’d never been allowed to see for more than a few months out of any given year. And most of that time, any allowance done in secret.
Liddy wanted her dear friend to get the anger out of her future too; where shooting insulin into her body on a daily basis wasn’t on her mind, every hour of every day.
And, she wanted Julia to let go of what life was becoming to her; exercise, diet, staying as healthy as she could possibly stay.
Lately, Julia kept things bottled up inside, and she’s let none of it out. She was going around in limbo over the past few months with her head stuck in a fog. She had a disease. So what? A lot of people had diseases, even diabetes. They conquered whatever came their way. It would probably take her friend time to adjust to the fact any conquering would be done from the inside out; as it will take all of them time to adjust to her being sick. But eventually, Julia would be fine.
Saber would tell her the truth when he was ready.
If Liddy could take a bit of the sting out of it, Julia wouldn’t take her anger out on Patterson. She was simply protecting the both from the inevitable. But she could not help saying, “Jesus Almighty, Julia! That really smarted,” as she rubbed her flaming cheek with her hand.
Julia’s hand flew to her mouth. “God Liddy! I am so sorry. I should not have done that to you.” She looked so shocked at what she’d done and why she’d done it that it was suddenly scaring her closest friend into thinking something was terribly wrong all of a sudden.
“No. I deserved that, and more. But still, did you have to hit me so bloody damn hard?” Liddy quipped.
“I said I was sorry. What more do you want from me?”
A uniformed nurse, who came into the private waiting room, interrupted the argument. The nurse’s eyes traveled over both women. One of those women with eyes wide, white as a ghost, the other with angry red welts splayed across her left cheek.
“Ms. Hillard?” she questioned both.
Julia answered her identity.
With a nod, the nurse spoke. “Mr. Patterson has asked to see you before he goes down to surgery. If you will come with me, please?”
Liddy looked at Julia; a trepid smile held on her friend’s face as she stepped toward the uniformed woman. “Not his girl, huh?” she teased.
When Julia glared back, Liddy added, “He’ll be fine, Julia. And he will tell you about his past when he is ready to tell you. Don’t push him. You may just push him away. Don’t blow a good thing on the account of stubborn Hillard pride.”
Julia nodded. “Here, take these.” She handed Liddy the man’s boots.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, positive. I’ll need both hands empty so I am better able to strangle his gorgeously stubborn neck before it’s too late.”
The nurse looked stern, stopping Julia dead in her tracks. “There will be no strangling of anyone. Not on my watch. This is a hospital. We do not like to take time out from things far more important in order to fix strangling,” she claimed.
Both Julia and Liddy startled by this news, Liddy laughed aloud as Julia grinned at her friend, slowly following the nurse down to Saber being prepped for surgery.
Liddy did not know what Julia would find, but whatever it would be, it wasn’t going to be good.
**
Julia cautiously moved into the sterile surgical room. Stainless steel, bleached whites, and tubes of every shape and size were either sticking out of Saber or attached to some part of his beaten-to-a-pulp body. To see him like this made her sick. She had to take deep gasping breaths to steady her rapidly beating heart; and, to keep from crying the waterworks pooling at the corners of her eyes.
There were two other uniformed nurses starting the process of pre-op. They were checking and rechecking the tubes and monitors. A third was writing something on a chart, barely gave Julia a cursory glance.
The nurse who escorted her to the room leaned down to Saber and whispered something into his right ear. Saber’s eyes opened. His head turned toward her with tremendous effort.
“Can we have a moment?” he asked all of them. His deep dimples growing wide settled the request.
The nurses gave each other a look that spoke volumes, but moved quickly when the fourth woman physically shooed them out the door.
“Don’t tax him too much. The surgeon is ready for Dr. Patterson, and we have to get him downstairs as fast as we can. He may fall asleep on you. Don’t worry about that.” She gave Julia a hasty, reassuring smile. “It’s only the large dose of sedative that is already stuck in his veins. Those that are not completely blown apart, that is.”
The nurse grinned down at the sexy Eight Second Wonder, the devilish cowboy winking back as the woman moved out the door.
A badass bull nearly broke every part of his body… but damned if his eyelids did not work properly.
For one brief moment, Julia was actually jealous of each of these women. They’d gotten to see Saber completely naked; when it was she rush-dressing for her non-date earlier tonight, and wanted to be the only woman who got to see this man in the buff tonight.
She’d missed the only opportunity she would likely ever have with this man.
She turned her head to smile down at Saber. Her heart broke in two at the terrible sight of him, as his dimples slowly disappeared.
He raised a battered right hand up to her. His left arm placed in plaster cast.
She took his hand in hers with trembling fingers. The IV needle and tubes were barely noticeable by this point.
“I’m glad you’re still here,” he rasped.
“Where else would I be?” she offered. “You owe me dinner, Patterson, and a walk. And a whole lot of kissin’, once we get you out of here.” Her eyes wrenched from the numerous tubes that were stuck into his body, Julia grabbing for air that could not come quick enough. “I will be expecting payment with interest. And I won’t take ‘No’ for an answer. No matter how much you try to get out of it.”
“Yeah, I do ow
e you dinner, don’t I, Little Darlin’?” His eyes closed. They seemed to have rolled back in his head. “I owe you big time.” It took him a few more seconds and a lot of effort to add, “For much more than just that.”
“Saber? Are you okay? Should I get the nurse back in here?” Julia was alarmed that his eyes had suddenly closed. His face was turning paler than before, his skin cold to the touch.
As his silver-blue, melt-her-into-a-puddle of forgotten promises reopened, he answered. “No. I’m fine. Just a slight …twinge.”
**
This was the absolute understatement of the year. Saber’s entire body felt as if it had been recently crushed under a twenty-ton truck. There wasn’t a single inch of him that did not hurt. Nor, hurt badly. Jesus A Christ, I’m a damn fool! Riding bulls, just to prove something to myself?
Was it really worth all this pain, or worth hurting others in the process?
Hell yes!
And, well …Hell, no!
Maybe there was some good to being insane. He was famous, after all. Yet he was famous for all the wrong reasons, and not for what he’d put his heart and soul into, but for what he’d put his muscles and lack of brains into. Riders hurt as bad as he generally did not take up riding again. This might be it for him, and if it was, then what? He already gave up a promising career as a surgeon. What more would there be asked to give up?
“I’m so sorry, Julia,” Saber whispered out, checking his emotions. “I’m so damn sorry.”
A slow tear fell down her cheek as she leaned closer to his horribly bruised face. That tear was followed by another, then another.
“For ruining our date,” he added. He was about to go into surgery and needed to apologize, the risks great.
“Don’t you worry about ruining our date. You just get yourself healed up. There’ll be plenty of time for us to have that, um, date.”
God, it was killing him to see her like this. Would it always be this way? He knew she wasn’t made of stone. Julia was a fragile being. She hurt whenever anyone else hurt. Right now, her entire body was telling him something quite significant. His apology might be a little too late.
Seduction of Saber (Saving the Sinners of Preacher's Bend #3) Page 13