Cowboy On Call

He was halfway down the hall, and Olivia was still shaking, before the thought crossed her mind. He hadn’t just meant Jasmine. He hadn’t even meant Nick.

* * *

LIZA WILSON STEPPED out into the hallway of the pediatric neurosurgical wing. She’d gone in to visit Nick again until she could no longer blink back tears, so she’d finally left his room to get control of her emotions. Since his admission several days ago, she’d been running back and forth from Wilson Cattle to see him, but worry was never far from her mind. Liza didn’t have children of her own, and she’d taken a shine to Nick the instant they’d met.

The feeling seemed to be mutual, bless his heart. Which only made her worry more for his well-being. So far, surgery hadn’t been on the schedule and for that she felt grateful, but Nick wasn’t out of danger yet.

Understandably, Olivia was still a wreck, but she wasn’t inclined to lean on Liza, who had left her in the waiting area with Blossom, Logan and Everett. Liza knew Olivia liked her, yet they weren’t friends, much less stepmother and stepdaughter—family—except in legal terms. Neither Olivia nor Grey had fully accepted her, and Liza couldn’t blame them. As adults, perhaps they felt they didn’t need another mother, especially one who was only four years older than Olivia.

At thirty-six, Liza was twenty years younger than Everett Wilson. And his grown children already had a mother. A mostly absent one, Liza thought, but still... She might never be accepted, and the reality saddened her. The Interloper. Liza didn’t fit in here. But oh, she wanted to.

Halfway down the hall, she spied Sawyer and her opportunity to learn more about Nick’s condition. He was standing at a window that looked out onto the parking lot, his broad shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets.

Liza laid a hand on his forearm. “There you are.” Her pulse beat heavily. Why had he left the waiting room? Overcome, like her, by his feelings for Nick? Sawyer knew him less well than Liza did, not that that precluded concern. But, she realized, she hadn’t seen him in Nick’s room once. Had he just heard bad news? Or, no. Maybe he felt unwanted as she did. The Prodigal Brother.

“Hey, Liza.” Sawyer turned, forcing a smile. “I couldn’t take all the gloom and doom in there,” he said with a wave toward the waiting room. “Thought I’d catch some air, but no one opens windows here. The AC doesn’t cut it for me. Summer in the mountains of Kedar can be brutal, but here in Kansas...” Outside, heat and humidity shimmered off the pavement. Liza was used to that in Texas.

She couldn’t keep from asking. “What have you heard?”

“Nothing more. ‘Watchful waiting,’ his doctors say.”

“Do you agree?”

Sawyer glanced out at the blacktop. “They don’t need me to. I’m lucky to get a look at Nick’s chart now and then and try to read the scribbles. Olivia seems convinced I can read ‘doctorese,’ but that’s only my own. You’d think Farrier would have gone to electronic records by now, but handwriting’s closer to what I’m used to at my clinic. Or was,” he added.

“What do those scribbles tell you?”

“The brain swelling isn’t any worse—but it’s not that much better, either.”

“I see.” She’d been wrong. Apparently something hadn’t gone well between him and Olivia. If only her stepdaughter would let Liza hold and comfort her. Yet even in Nick’s room, standing together by his bed yesterday, Olivia had kept her distance and Liza had taken to seeing Nick alone or with Everett.

“I’m sure Olivia is grateful to you for staying close,” Sawyer said. “Grey told me he’s glad you and Everett decided to extend your visit.”

“Did he?” Her spirits brightened. Maybe Sawyer had noticed Olivia giving her the cold shoulder and was trying to comfort her. Liza had already seen that he was a sensitive person, one with a deep-seated pain he tried not to reveal to anyone else. “Grey’s a good man. Everett is proud of him.” So am I, she thought, though he probably didn’t want her approval.

Sawyer smiled without it reaching his eyes. “I hear Grey went through some hard times with the ranch, but he sure looks happy now. His cattle are back, and he’s engaged to Shadow. Guess there’ll be another wedding in your family soon.”

Liza couldn’t smile. My family. She wasn’t about to tell him that was a first for her, as if she truly belonged. She didn’t care to ponder her own painful past. “Everett and I eloped to Palm Springs. We had just the two of us and a pair of witnesses we tapped from among the other resort guests.”

“You didn’t want a big wedding here?”

Liza decided they were both sticking to safe topics. “No,” she said, not willing to mention that at the time Olivia had seemed to oppose the marriage, possibly wondering why her father needed to tie the knot a second time with someone so much younger than he was. Grey had said little and Liza had chalked that up to his usual reticence to talk about his feelings. Oh, they were both polite to her and included her in family events now, so maybe this would be a gradual thing, but Liza could always feel their reluctance to consider her a real part of the group.

Or was that her insecurity showing? “I was more than happy with a quiet ceremony and—” she added with a smile “—a good glass of wine to celebrate.”

“Grey tells me you also took a cruise for your honeymoon.”

Liza laughed at the memory. “Yes, would you believe? To the Galapagos on one of those expedition ships. As you can imagine and after living in a remote area yourself, it was quite a challenge—Everett’s idea. I always tell him he was hard to keep up with. I did enjoy seeing the unusual flora and fauna there. Thank goodness for my new hiking boots. And, of course, I loved just being with my new husband.” With Sawyer, she didn’t need to hide her love for Everett.

Sawyer glanced toward the waiting room. His eyes had turned from that compelling deep blue to indigo.

She touched his arm again. “Sawyer, what is it other than Nick? I know being home again after so long has its issues, but I’m sure Logan is pleased—”

“He tries hard not to show it.” He paused. “I almost wish he and Blossom had continued with their honeymoon.”

“But there’s something even more, isn’t there?”

He shrugged. “Nothing right now.” He turned away, as if casting about for a reason to leave. “Think I’ll try to get another look at Nick’s chart. The neurologist was here just before I stepped into the hall.”

Liza didn’t get the chance to say more. Sawyer kissed her cheek, and with what appeared to be a self-assured stride, he went back toward the nurses’ desk. Despite his show of confidence, he looked to her like another lost soul.

Like Liza.

* * *

SAWYER STAYED AT the hospital for as long as he could manage without coming out of his skin. He felt constantly torn between being there for Logan and Olivia, as if she wanted him, and the desire to flee before the very smells made him fall apart. Liza was in the waiting room again, too, and he didn’t want to continue their hallway conversation within earshot of Olivia. Frankly, his problems—here or in Kedar—were no one else’s cross to bear.

Sawyer had a hard enough time keeping his mind off Nick. Before he’d left today, he’d bought a teddy bear wearing a Superman costume and a big, encouraging grin in the gift shop, then left it with Olivia, whose murmured, if cool, “Thanks,” was the only word she spoke.

Nevertheless, it had conveyed the message: Sawyer should have delivered the stuffed bear himself instead of handing it off without ever stepping foot in Nick’s room. He shouldn’t have discussed the horse tragedy with her, either; revisiting that had only raised his self-doubt.

Feeling like a heel, he strode down the hall, then through the main lobby and outside to the truck—into a blast of summer heat. Knowing earlier that he wouldn’t be able to stick around too long, he’d borrowed a ranch pickup for the ride to Farrier General today.

Olivia would probably spend another night by Nick’s side, in a chair that supposedly turned into a bed. An uncomfortable one, he thought, her sleep interrupted if not by her worried thoughts, then by the constant stream of staff checking Nick’s vital signs, giving him medication or inspecting his IV lines.

Sawyer suppressed another twinge of guilt for escaping again, then got in, started the engine and sat there, letting the AC start to cool the interior, letting his pulse settle. He hadn’t put the truck in gear before his cell phone rang.

Sawyer tried to sound calm, in control, but his most recent talk with Nick’s doctors hadn’t eased his mind. Nick’s brain swelling was now worse. So was Sawyer’s approaching panic attack. Olivia was right to resent him for keeping his distance from her son, for not stepping up, just as she’d been right to blame him for Jasmine’s death, but Sawyer was having enough trouble holding himself together. She probably didn’t want him taking part in Nick’s care now.

“Hey, Charlie.”

At the other end of the line, Charles Banfield IV, a true Boston Brahman who’d attended Exeter and Harvard before meeting Sawyer at KU School of Medicine, launched into all the reasons why Sawyer should be in Kedar. Yesterday. He finished, “I’m doing what I can, but the twenty-hour days are taking their toll. I’ve lost ten pounds and I look like hell—so bad I’ve been avoiding the mirror when I shave.”

“Sorry, Charlie. I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Tell me you’re coming back.”

“I had the impression you didn’t want me there.”

Charlie ignored that. “The other day we had—I should say, I had—a dozen kids come in. There are no more hospital beds since the landslide leveled the infirmary. I haven’t had saline solution in over a week, so I can’t even hang IVs. Two women gave birth in the clinic last night. One of the babies, a preemie, sadly didn’t make it. And I’m still stitching up cuts, treating abrasions as well as I can without enough gauze, bandages, disinfectant...”

As Charlie trailed off, Sawyer remembered all too clearly the day he’d left Kedar as if he were being chased off the mountain by his demons. He’d left Charlie to handle everything in his absence, the one he wasn’t sure wouldn’t be permanent.

“I couldn’t stay there. Not after what happened to...Khalil,” he said. But now, after dealing with the clinic’s overload of desperate patients for a while, Charlie needed Sawyer, though he probably didn’t want to.

Was Olivia right? Had he made the wrong decision years ago with Jasmine, too? At least he hadn’t tried to manage Olivia’s son’s case.

Sawyer rubbed his neck. His pulse beat in his ears so loud he could hardly hear himself. His palms grew damp.