The Cowgirl's Little Secret

by Silver James

  “They’re cute in the petting zoo.”

  Jolie rolled her eyes. “I’m not talking about baby goats.”

  “Neither am I.” His eyes twinkled, though he managed to keep a straight face. The theme song from Pirates of the Caribbean filled the air and he dug his cell phone out of his scrubs. With a wave and a wink, he disappeared around the corner.

  Leaning back in her chair, Jolie exhaled. So far, they’d dealt with a suspect bitten by a police dog, a teenage girl who’d twisted her ankle during a fast-pitch softball game and a guy who’d tried to amputate his thumb with a chain saw. The cops had flirted with her, the softball player’s parents had been upset the girl might miss the rest of the tournament and Chain Saw Guy’s wife had yelled at him for being stupid. Jolie sort of had to agree with that assessment.

  Just then, the statewide emergency network radio squawked. Dr. Perry appeared out of nowhere and snagged the microphone before she could. He acknowledged the call and put it on loudspeaker without missing a beat. Jolie took triage notes while he questioned the EMT on the other end.

  An accident on a drilling rig. Three patients. The most critical would be arriving by the MedFlight helicopter currently being dispatched. Jolie activated a second chopper to bring in the second patient, a man who’d fallen twenty feet.

  Trauma One looked like an anthill that had been kicked. Scurrying people appeared from nowhere, everyone intent on preparing the ER. Jolie kept track of the trauma clock—the indefinable golden hour providing the best odds for full recovery.

  The electronic exit doors whooshed open and closed but she heard it—the whap-whap-whap of helicopter blades. The radio crackled. She breathed—and it seemed as if Trauma One breathed with her as the pilot’s voice ghosted from the speaker.

  “MedFlight One to base.”

  She cleared her throat before keying the microphone. “This is base. Go ahead, Med One.” Jolie wrote on the whiteboard as the flight nurse gave her the rundown on the patient’s life-threatening injuries while the chopper landed.

  “Roger that, Med One.”

  Medical personnel scrambled to the helipad, returning quickly with the first victim. As Jolie fell into step beside the gurney, she glanced over and saw the patient’s face. Then faltered and tripped. One of the interns bumped into her, but kept her from going down with a steadying hand under her elbow. She murmured apologies and trotted to catch up.

  This wasn’t happening. That was not Cordell Barron on that gurney. Oh, God, it couldn’t be.

  Two

  Instinct kept her making notes as her conscious brain froze. One word kept screaming through her mind. No. No, no, no, no, no turned into a litany. This was so wrong. Things weren’t supposed to end this way.

  The flight nurse passed Cord’s driver’s license to her and Jolie accepted it with numb fingers. “Patient’s ID says his name is Cordell Barron. Thirty-three years old. Wonder if he’s one of the Barrons?”

  Jolie nodded mutely. Oh, yeah. Cord was definitely one of them. Her fingers shook as she tried to type in information on the computer pad.

  The gurney was wheeled into the trauma bay but she stopped at the edge of the curtain. She had to call his next of kin. It was her job. That would be his father. Cyrus Barron. The man who’d ruined her life. She couldn’t do it, couldn’t speak to that man for her life. Or Cord’s.

  The steady beeping of the monitors switched to a sharp alarm. He was crashing. Jolie forgot everything but saving the life of the only man she’d ever loved. Reflexes honed by five years working trauma kicked in. She passed off the pad to another nurse, pulled on latex gloves and waded into the mix.

  Thirty nerve-wracking minutes later, Dr. Perry and the trauma surgical team finally stabilized Cord and whisked him off to the operating room. Jolie watched the elevator doors close behind the gurney before she turned back to the ER bay where they’d worked so feverishly to save his life. Her knees wobbled, and she had to lean against the wall to stay upright. Her night wasn’t over yet. Cooper Tate was still being worked on by the orthopedic team, his compound fractures serious though not life threatening. He’d be following Cord into surgery shortly.

  Trauma One looked as if a tornado had torn through it. Jolie went through the robotic motions of cleaning up and resetting the bay for the third patient coming in by ambulance from the well site. She should be back at the admitting desk filling out the paperwork on Cord and Cooper. Should be notifying their families. The clothes Cord had been wearing, along with his personal effects, had been shoved into a plastic bin for safekeeping. She tucked the tub under her arm and shuffled back to the intake desk as the janitorial staff moved in to mop and sanitize.

  Sinking into her chair, Jolie felt as if she’d just run a marathon—her arms and legs were leaden, her brain still in shock. Shivering uncontrollably, she wrapped her arms across her chest and hung on, breathing deeply until the worst of the reaction passed. There wasn’t time to collapse. Not yet. She had to make notifications. No matter what. It was her job as admitting nurse. She couldn’t pass it off—no matter how much she wanted to do so. Bad enough she’d all but abandoned her post to work on Cord.

  The bin with Cord’s belongings sat at her feet. She bent over and dug through the ripped and bloody clothes. She flipped open his wallet. Credit cards. A couple of receipts. No list of contact phone numbers. Jolie tucked the wallet and his driver’s license into a plastic baggy. She did not stare at his photo. She didn’t sigh over those sculpted cheekbones and that strong jaw, the golden-brown eyes. She didn’t rub her thumb across the plastic pretending it was his face and she could feel his skin. Well, just once. Or twice.

  Something dinged. Startled, Jolie dropped the ID and grabbed her cell phone. Its face remained dark. The strains of something country and western played from deep in the bin. She found Cord’s phone in the hip pocket of his jeans. The caller ID read Cash.

  Knowing she should answer, Jolie let it roll to voice mail. Cash didn’t like her. Truth be told, none of Cord’s brothers liked her. Well, except maybe for Chance. While he might not like her, he didn’t hate her like the rest of the family. Chance and Cooper. They’d been the only ones to ever give her the time of day when she’d dated Cord.

  Cord’s phone was password protected. Of course it was, because nothing could be easy tonight. She stared off into the distance, thinking. She tried his birth date. Nope. On a whim, she tried her own. That had been his default password for everything when they dated in college. When the screen opened, she almost dropped the phone. Jolie scrolled through his contact list, making note of pertinent numbers for the hospital’s records. She had to stop dithering and make at least one call. Chance’s number was at the top of the list. She dialed it on her desk phone but remembered Chance was on his honeymoon, so she hung up.

  Jolie remembered the big dust up from early in the summer as she had been moving home. Seemed as if Cyrus Barron was still screwing up his sons’ lives—Chance’s this time. The woman he’d fallen for had led an old-fashioned cattle drive from her ranch to the stockyards to get her steers to market so she could pay off the mortgage lien Cyrus held on the place. She knew how Mr. Barron reacted to his sons thinking for themselves. He wouldn’t like it one little bit, especially if Chance went against his father’s dictates, siding with a woman Cyrus had declared an enemy. Jolie had heard all about that day because her dad had been waiting on Cassie Morgan to arrive so he could buy the herd. Yeah, her dad liked screwing with the Barron family.

  Worrying her bottom lip with her teeth, Jolie stared at the phone numbers on her list. Chance and Cord were close, with Cooper their third musketeer. As soon as Chance heard the news, he’d be on the next plane home anyway—honeymoon or not. Decision made, Jolie used Cord’s phone to call.

  After six rings, she was afraid her call would roll over to voice mail. Chance picked up on the eighth ring.


  “Dude, this better be important.” His voice held a teasing growl.

  Using her most professional voice, Jolie said, “This is University Hospital Trauma One calling. Mr. Chance Barron?”

  “What the— How? What the hell’s going on?”

  “I’m sorry to inform you, sir, but your brother Cord was critically injured. An accident on an oil rig.”

  “Is he... How bad?”

  “He’s—” Her voice cracked and she had to swallow around the constriction in her throat. “He’s in surgery, Cha—Mr. Barron.”

  She almost blew it, calling him by his first name. After giving him all the information she had, she heard Chance’s barely polite goodbye before he hung up on her. Jolie huddled her shoulders, shaking again. What if Cord died?

  * * *

  The 11:00 p.m. shift change arrived. Jolie was dead on her feet and emotionally drained. She’d finished her double shift in automatic mode. Standing in the humid air outside the ER, she stared in the direction of the parking garage. She should go home, take a long bubble bath and put everything behind her. But she couldn’t.

  Cord Barron had almost died today. Her stomach cramped so hard she had to bend over from the waist. Jolie choked back a whimper. She wanted to hate him. Had tried to hate him. She’d been the one wanting to kill him—with air quotes around that sentiment. Kill ’im dead. Every day since he’d walked out without a word. No goodbye. No explanation. Nothing. Until she had seen him sitting at the bar in Hannigan’s that long ago St. Paddy’s Day. She’d recognized the hungry look in his eyes and the bulge in his jeans. And something had snapped. She’d wanted to hurt him as badly as he’d hurt her.

  Oh, yeah. She’d really taught him a lesson that night—spending the night and then slipping out of the penthouse hotel room at dawn. Only she was the one with the constant reminder. Every time she looked into her son’s eyes and he smiled, Cord was right there all over again.

  Rubbing her temples, she breathed deeply to hold back nausea. Jolie didn’t head to the parking garage. She pivoted on her heel and headed back inside the hospital. Marching to the elevator, she berated herself for her weakness with each step until it became a mantra.

  This is a bad idea. A really bad idea.

  Cord was out of surgery, but she had to see for herself. She needed to make sure his injuries weren’t as life threatening as they’d looked when he’d stopped breathing in the ER.

  Pushing through the double doors of the ICU ward, Jolie passed her hand under the automatic dispenser for hand sanitizer from force of habit. The hushed whoosh and thump of respiratory machines were a soft counterpoint to the electronic beeps of heart monitors. Bright lights kept shadows confined to corners. Life and death battled here, with medical personnel on the front lines.

  She glanced at the board to locate Cord’s room number. Determined to just stick her head in to assess his condition and leave, Jolie parted the curtains of his cubicle. He looked drawn and pale amid the snaking mass of wires and tubes. She glanced at the monitor, judged his heart rate, respirations and blood pressure.

  A touch on her shoulder caused Jolie to clap her hand over her mouth to contain a startled scream. The charge nurse offered a crooked smile.

  “What brings you up here, Jolie?”

  Jolie nodded toward the bed. “He’s a...” A what? Friend? Lover? Ex? More? Definitely less at this point in time. “I know him.” That was a generic-enough response. “I was in the ER when he was brought in. I just wanted to check on him before I head home.”

  The nurse studied her for a long silent minute, and then her expression softened with something akin to understanding. “Sure, hon. Take your time.”

  When the nurse stepped away and ducked into another room, Jolie logged into the computer station outside Cord’s room and checked his chart. Things were serious but he was no longer at death’s door.

  She should go home, but the thought of the empty house waiting for her didn’t appeal. CJ was staying with his grandfather and Mrs. Corcoran, the nanny, was off visiting her sister. Without giving her motives too much thought, she pulled up an uncomfortable-looking chair and sank gratefully into it. She’d never get this opportunity again—the chance to study Cord, to hold his hand, to pretend what might have been. Jolie curled her fingers around his and simply devoured him with her gaze.

  Dark hair hung over the bandage circling his head. He still wore it shaggy, though one side had been shaved for the stitches needed to close the gash on his head. More bandages covered his abdomen, and a wound vac clicked with each draining suck. Though his eyes were closed, she knew they were the color of burned honey. His face was sculpted into stark planes. A dark shadow covered his cheeks and chin. Though bristly now, the stubble would be soft by morning. The fingers of her free hand curled and flexed with the effort not to stroke him.

  Cord’s bare chest—what she could see of it—and his shoulders had the raw look of a man who worked for a living. He’d always been buff. In high school, it was sports and summers working on the Crown B Ranch. In college, he worked the oil patch, getting a hands-on education supplemented by his classroom studies.

  A wide yawn cracked her jaw. She glanced at the wall clock, surprised it was almost 2:00 a.m. She started to pull her hand away, but Cord’s fingers tightened on hers and his eyelids fluttered. Thrilled, her heart and lungs performed Riverdance, but she didn’t want to examine his reaction too closely, choosing to pretend it heralded a change for the better in his condition. Not something else. As if he knew it was her.

  “Don’t go.”

  His voice rasped across her nerves and Jolie could no longer hide from her feelings. His grip tightened around her fingers, and his respirations and heart rate kicked off alarms on the monitor.

  “Please.”

  Tears burned behind her eyelids. “Okay.”

  Her whispered assurance eased him, evidenced by the way the monitor sounds evened out. One corner of his mouth quirked into a faint semblance of the cocky grin she’d once loved so much.

  “Okay.” Darkness dragged him under again.

  * * *

  The sweet summer scent of mimosa filled Cord with a sense of rightness. Jolie. Jolie always smelled like mimosa. He cracked one eye open, ignoring the obnoxious sounds of his hospital room and the pain. He inhaled again but that sweet aroma was overwhelmed by the stench of antiseptic and alcohol, of sickness and death. Walls painted institutional gray surrounded him but he found his balance. Jolie. Here? He was too groggy to wonder about the how or why of it.

  Slumped over, her head resting on the bed, Jolie held his hand. She puffed air softly in her sleep as a sunbeam kissed her cheek. He hadn’t dreamed her. She was here. Touching him. He ached to touch her chestnut hair but knew any movement would do two things: hurt like hell and startle her into letting go. Instead, he remained content to simply be with her. He’d wanted her and here she was. Sleeping in a position guaranteeing a trip to a chiropractor, holding his hand and making those cute breathing noises he still dreamed about.

  Five years ago, during their brief and disastrous reunion, despite the fact both of them had had far too much to drink, he’d made love to her and she’d fallen asleep in his arms. He craved the feeling again like an addict falling out of a twelve-step program. He could admit, at least to himself, that he’d loved her since high school. Not that it did him—or her—any good. Jolie was a Davis, her father a rival of his. And Cyrus Barron always made damn sure Cord and his brothers played by his rules. He hated his old man.

  A commotion out in the ward ratcheted the noise level up a notch. Speak of the devil himself. Cord slitted his eyelids. Maybe his father would go away if he thought he was still unconscious.

  “What the hell is she doing here?” Cyrus Barron bellowed as he entered the room, and would have lunged for the bed if not for Cash restraining him.

/>   * * *

  Jolie jerked awake, her heart pounding from the adrenaline rush. Glancing around in an attempt to focus her sleep-fuzzy mind, she remembered. She’d fallen asleep at Cord’s bedside.

  The supervising nurse followed Mr. Barron and Cash into the small room. “Keep your voice down, sir, or I’ll ask you to leave.”

  Cyrus, red in the face and looking ready for battle, opened his mouth to launch into what promised to be a scathing retort. Cash cut him off.

  “Enough, Dad. Cord’s still unconscious. We don’t want to disturb him.”

  Lowering his voice, Cyrus issued orders. “Get her out of here. That woman is not to be anywhere near my son. Especially not with her head on his damn bed!”

  Jolie bristled, but the nurse replied before she could. “Ms. Davis is doing her job, Mr. Barron. If you interfere with her or any of my personnel, I will have you not only removed right this instant but banned from this hospital.” She fisted her hands on her hips. “I don’t care who you are. This is my department and you will follow my rules. Or else.”

  Jolie rolled her lips between her teeth and bit down to hide a grin. No one but no one ever talked to Cyrus Barron that way. The man was completely flummoxed and left speechless for a moment.

  “What is your name?” he demanded.

  “Meg Dabney, RN.” The nurse arched a brow. “I’m the day-shift supervisor.” Giving Cyrus her back, she stared at Jolie. “Do you have the patient’s vitals, Jolie?”

  Meg was giving her an out—thank goodness. Jolie stood up and quickly assessed the monitor numbers, while twisting her hand to make it look as if she’d been taking Cord’s pulse manually. She read off the statistics while the older woman made notes on her electronic pad. Jolie came close to freaking out when something tickled her palm: Cord’s index finger. She peered at him and noticed his eyelids flickering. Faker! He was conscious and enjoying the show. Relief warred with irritation. This was so like the blasted man.