by Stuart, Amie
The Cowgirl Rides Away
Amie Stuart
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THE COWGIRL RIDES AWAY, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
THE COWGIRL RIDES AWAY Copyright © 2015 Amie Stuart
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Chapter One
Jessa
Las Vegas, Nevada
"So…you finally decided to wake up?"
I looked up into eyes the same pale blue as mine, my brother's eyes, and blinked, trying to push past the drug and pain induced fog. I inhaled through my nose then winced, groaning deep in my throat.
"Yeah, that's broken, too."
"Hurt," I croaked. My nose was broken.
"What the hell did you expect, Jessa?" Jace frowned at me, then moved out of my line of vision. I blinked again and slowly turned my head, watching him pour water into a small plastic cup. Suddenly I realized just how thirsty I was. Jace held the straw to my lips and I drank. A gasp of air set more pain radiating through my chest to all extremities.
"What happened?"
"Duster's Twister kicked your ass."
Talk about a bad draw. I sighed and sifted through my thoughts a minute, trying to remember, filter and take stock. Trying to orient my new reality with memories and impressions, but the last thing I could remember was me in the chute on Duster's Twister's back, adrenaline coursing through my veins as I raised my free arm and gave the ready nod.
"How long ago? How long have I been out, Jace?" I rasped after taking another painful sip of water.
"You've been in and out, mostly out, for a couple of days."
"Daddy?"
"Gone. Mama was raising hell about getting home for Christmas, so they took off. There were...snowstorms coming."
And that was way more important than me. My brother's announcement coincided with a twinge of pain in my chest. Surely it was from my injuries and had nothing to do with Daddy leaving me. I pushed it away, locked it up tight, and wet my lips with a tongue that finally decided to work. "How bad?"
Jace turned his attention to the cup in his hand. He set it down, refusing to meet my eyes. My brother wasn't normally one to sugar coat things, so his body language set off alarm bells in my head. "I should tell the nurse you're awake."
"Jace!" I growled as loud as I could without hurting myself.
He headed for the door. "You should hear it from the doctor. I might get it wrong."
"I'm through," I announced with all the certainty of a death row inmate receiving their last meal. He stopped halfway to the door and his head dipped. It wasn't every day a girl became a washout at twenty-six, but I didn't need a catalog of my injuries to confirm it, I'd known as soon as I'd woken up, and Daddy's desertion only confirmed matters. My heart sat like a boulder in my chest but to my surprise, I had no tears to shed. Jace turned to face me and while I lacked tears, he didn't. "Don't cry, Bubba. We had a good run, but it's over."
Jace scrubbed at his face, took a deep breath and crossed the room to my bedside. "I'll be here as long as you need me."
I woke up a second time, gasping for air and struggling to get my bearings. How long had I been asleep this time? I blinked a few times, focusing on the ceiling, aware that every inch of me hurt, and hurt worse than anything I'd ever experienced. You rodeoed, you got hurt. It happened and I'd accepted that when I'd started riding, but this was worse. Way worse.
The door to my room was open, the other bed empty, and the day was nearly gone. But I had no idea what day. I'd done my first-class wipeout on the last night of the National Finals—in front of thousands of people. Jace had mentioned three days, which meant the finals were over.
The sky outside my window was blue and edged with black and orange and purple—like the bruises that were probably covering every inch of me. At home in Utah the sky would probably be a bluish gray. In Montana, where my family was preparing for Christmas without me, slate gray and snow heavy. Hospitals were hospitals. I could have been in New Mexico or Missouri but no, I was in Vegas. Funny how the rooms all looked alike.
I smelled food and antiseptic, heard pages on the intercom, the occasional soft chime of a bell, footsteps and voices in the hall, and watched the machines hooked up to me track my vitals. I tried to take inventory of myself but failed miserably. My left leg was in a brace and elevated. It also hurt like hell. Did I break it? I couldn't remember, but also couldn't seem to do much more than wiggle my toes. My left arm was immobilized at a ninety-degree angle with a sling and I felt a bit like a mummy. Especially breathing through a broken nose with cracked ribs. And bruises. Lots of bruises. I might not have been able to see them but I could feel them.
"You're awake," announced a nurse at the door.
Well, duh. "Where's Jace?" It came out a growl.
"Your brother? He went to get some dinner." She came closer, pushed a few buttons on the machine and pressed something into my hand. "Morphine. I'll page your doctor." Nurse Handy disappeared back through the mysterious doorway.
Many minutes of staring out the window later, a gray-haired man in a white coat appeared. "Doctor Death, I presume."
With a chuckle, he introduced himself as Dr. Kilgore and picked up my chart from the foot of the bed.
"Water." I felt more and more like a dried up sea sponge with each passing second. He moved around the bed and refilled my cup, holding it for me. A post-drink sigh of pleasure brought on a painful coughing fit that left me near tears.
"That would be your fractured ribs," Dr. Kilgore announced, setting the cup on the nightstand beside me.
"How many?"
"Three. You also suffered a pretty severe concussion and your left femur was broken." He rattled off my breaks and pains like a laundry list, any attempt at false humor now gone.
I'd been injured enough times to take his assessment like a man, but that didn't stop me from wishing for a hand to hold. "Lay it out for me straight."
With a sigh, the doc pulled up a stool and sat beside my bed. "You're damned lucky to be alive, young lady."
Words failed me and all I could do was nod.
"You've been unconscious for three days. We did reconstructive surgery on your left shoulder, but you'll need therapy and there's no guarantee you'll regain full use."
Merry Fucking Christmas. I nodded. "Go on."
"Same for your leg. That horse stepped on your leg, right above where your knee and femur join. Your knee joint was replaced, and a metal rod was attached to your femur with screws to support it. That's why you don't have a cast. You'll need physical therapy for that as we
ll...and again there's no guarantee you won't have a limp."
Great. I was crippled and a has-been.
***
Over the next few days, dozens of people stopped in to say goodbye, most of them unable to meet my eyes, especially Cutter LeRoux, who'd ended up winning after I kissed the dirt. Christmas drifted by with me cracking stupid jokes about Santa and lumps of coal. Just as he'd promised, Jace never left me. Neither did Kane, my best friend and frequent traveling companion. They stayed with me in shifts, despite my half-hearted protests. New Year's Eve was Jace's shift.
"Why didn't you go out with Kane?" I mumbled, tuning out the sounds of celebrating coming from outside my room.
"I'd rather be here with you."
"Bored shitless on New Year's Eve. Yeah, right." New Year's Eve was supposed to be a time for resolutions and new beginnings. I knew I should be grateful to be alive—to even get a new beginning—but I'd given thirteen years of my life to rodeo. Beyond vague plans for my own horse ranch someday, retirement had always been a long ways off.
"Wanna play some games?" he offered, ignoring my bitchiness and motioning to my laptop.
"No." I closed my eyes against the sight of Las Vegas lit up outside my window and tried to fake sleep. Occasionally Jace would chuckle at something. Then chuckle some more. Or snort. He wanted my attention. So he could probably try to relay some secondhand joke someone had shared in the game rooms. Finally, one especially loud laugh couldn't be ignored.
"Share." Opening my eyes, I turned to face him, then watched him wince.
"Sorry, didn't mean to wake you."
"Yes, you did." I smiled, then softly asked, "Do I look that bad?"
"Green just looks so much worse than black and purple," he admitted, another wince crossing his face. I knew I looked bad, but up till now everyone had refused my request for a mirror, saying I should wait until all the bruising was gone.
"Get me a mirror."
"Aw, sis—" He frowned in obvious dismay.
"Now! 'Nuff's enough, Jacen Alden." I used his full name for emphasis.
"Yes, ma'am." He pushed my hospital tray containing the laptop toward me and went out the door in search of a mirror. I nudged the cart nearer with my good foot and caught it with a finger. To my surprise, Jace had been reading personal ads, not playing games. I scanned the one that was open and shook my head. As if people had enough hours in the day to really do all that stuff—art galleries, the opera.
"Wine tasting?" I muttered under my breath. Unbelievable. She looked like a cheerleader, to boot. A high school cheerleader with a perky smile and blond curls. Jeez!
"I found a—" Jace stopped mid-sentence as he came cruising through the door.
"Ain't you a little young to be thinking about settling down?" I drawled. He was two years younger than me!
He shrugged and came closer, handing me the small hand mirror he'd appropriated from somewhere. "I clicked on it by accident and just...started looking around."
"Accident." Lips pursed, I grinned at his now-red face. Speaking of looking, I set the mirror on my stomach and raised the bed up so I could get a good look at myself. Jace snagged the hospital tray and settled back in his chair.
I wasn't vain, but suddenly, maybe, I didn't want to look. "Jace?"
"Huh?"
"How bad is it?" I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, the hand holding the mirror suddenly clammy.
"Well—" he rolled his head back and smiled over at me "—you'll never be Miss Universe, but I bet there's a beauty pageant somewhere you could win."
I snorted, then laughed out loud, mindful of my ribs. "Maybe if I gave a shit about pageants, that'd matter."
"I wouldn't advise breakin' your nose anymore, sis. Otherwise, you'll end up needing it fixed. Like, surgically repaired."
That I did mind. Time to assess the damage. I held up the mirror and forced myself to look. Jace was right. The faded purple and green, highlighted with shades of yellow, did nothing to bring out my blue eyes or the few freckles I could lay claim to. And my dark hair just looked...greasy. But of course I'd been stuck in Hospital Hell for two weeks and had at least one more to go. The sight of my face left me feeling whiny. Or maybe it was the sight of my lumpy, bumpy nose.
"Maybe I oughta run against Caron for Miss Rodeo Montana," I quipped. We were a rodeo family: Princess Caron was our reigning beauty queen, Jace calf roped, and baby Colby and I rode roughstock—well, I used to ride roughstock.
"Maybe you could do commentary like Donnie Gay?"
"Yeah, sure I could." I nodded and gave him my best fake smile while wishing he hadn't brought up my future. The one I was trying to ignore. Donnie Gay was a retired bull rider who also came from a rodeo family. "Oh my God, did you see that wipeout?" I continued, using the mirror as a pretend microphone, "Ladies and gentleman, this is what his nose is going to look like tomorrow."
Scowling, Jace snapped his fingers and then held out his hand. "Gimme."
I handed the mirror over and he tossed it on the far bed. He stood, gingerly scooted me over as much as he could, and climbed into bed beside me, pulling the hospital tray and chair with him. One leg propped on the chair, one arm around me and one finger on the mouse pad as we scrolled through ads together.
"What the hell are you looking for?" I asked after we'd finished laughing over the third one.
"A sugar mama."
I snorted with laughter again and elbowed him in the gut. "Find me a sugar daddy while you're at it. I need one to take care of my crippled, old ass."
A few clicks later and Jace pulled up a slew of men looking for their next ex. We scrolled through ads from all over the country. A few sounded sincere, while others made us laugh—there were some very talented people out there with too much time on their hands. But most of them made me shudder. After so many years on the rodeo circuit I wasn't naïve, but at the same time I never would have figured there were quite so many sleezeballs in the world. I'd decided breaking horses was probably easier...and safer.
"Oh my. Damn—" Jace's statement ended with a hoot of laughter.
"What's so funny?" I nudged in for a better look.
"A virgin. He wants a virgin. No...no damn way."
"What?" I read the caption with a frown: Wanted: One Good-Hearted Woman. "Where does it say he wants a virgin?"
"Must love the country life and want children," Jace drawled in his best hick accent.
"Read it right!" I gave him another nudge with my elbow for emphasis.
"Alright, alright." Jace laughed. "I live and work on my family's ranch in South Central Texas so relocation is not an option, but I am seeking something long-term. Why doesn't he just say marriage? I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy. I believe in love and loyalty, and I think it's important to care for a woman before you begin a physical relationship. If saying I'd like a virgin didn't make me sound like a complete chauvinist, I'd tell you that's what I want. But as it stands, what I really want is someone who understands the meaning of love and commitment.
"I'm 27 and live with my four-year-old son. I'm of average height and have red hair and hazel-green eyes. I'm a light drinker, don't smoke and would prefer you don't either. Pic available... What a lame-ass."
"What's the big deal?" I asked.
But what did I know? Bill in Tupelo, Mississippi wanted a closet whore to do kinky things to. And Jim in Phoenix wanted 'something on the side' and 'his wife didn't mind'. "I don't see anything there indicating he's interested in S&M, and he doesn't sound like a lovesick Romeo on the rebound, just someone who knows what he wants."
"Jessa! He's a fucking Neanderthal. You don't go around asking for a virgin!"
"He didn't ask," I replied with a tired chuckle. "What's so wrong with a virgin anyway?" I sleepily watched him scroll through more, but waited for him to answer.
Jace sighed. "You're not a guy, so you wouldn't get it."
"Try me." So I wasn't a guy, but I knew a hell of a lot about them. Had spent more time with 'em th
an I ever wanted. Listened to 'em rag about "bad lays" and "teases" but never once had I ever heard the "V" word.
"It's like that 'don't ask, don't tell' thing they used to have. For the military."
"Mh-hmm."
"You don't expect to find one—at least not over the age of twelve—so other than, you know, making sure your partner's...healthy, you don't discuss specifics. I cannot believe I'm talking about virgins with my sister."
"Maybe it's not a virgin he wants so much as what one represents."
I let it go before he started looking too closely my way. I finally dozed off, thinking the man from South Texas sounded kind of interesting.
***
The next morning I endured another very painful round of physical therapy. And another sponge bath, complete with a waterless shampoo. Yuck!
Jace had disappeared but been kind enough to leave my laptop behind. "Hey, Nurse Ratchet?"
"I do have a name, Jessa." Nurse Theresa Fachette stopped in the doorway and turned to face me. I have to admit she'd been good to me despite my best attempts to ignore her tendency to mother hen. I'm sure I wasn't the first patient to give her hell, but she seemed to understand how much being unable to do for myself bothered me. It was all I could do to face the physical therapy sessions that left me shaking and sweaty.
"I just don't want you gettin' all attached."
Theresa crossed to the empty bed, grabbed a pillow and tucked it behind my head. "You're far too ornery to get attached to, Miss Stratton."
"Could you...slide the table tray up here, please ma'am?"
"I thought you'd be ready for a nap after that workout."
"Not quite." I hurt like hell but was too wired to sleep. That would come soon enough.
She silently rolled the table tray within my reach and handed me the laptop from the nightstand. "You need your rest."
"Uh-huh." I deliberately tuned her out, knowing she'd take the hint to go away. I flipped the computer open, suddenly reminded of last night's personal ad. An old-fashioned man who wanted a virgin and believed in love and loyalty. As an athlete, I'd never smoked, but had a definite weakness for single malt scotch. I'd never been in love but I had the loyalty thing down pat. And I was a virgin. I guess I sort of qualified.