“Poppy. What’s wrong? Poppy!”
Nash saw the worry on Harlow’s face as she looked down at the phone and then at him.
Eyes wide, she said, “He hung up.”
There was enough fear in those hazel depths to shoot a bolus of pain-relieving adrenaline into his bloodstream. The hair on his scalp actually tingled.
“Does he need help?”
“I think so. He didn’t say for certain.” She shoved the cell phone into her back pocket. “I don’t know what’s happened, but he told me to come out there. Now.”
Nash tossed the damp dish towel onto the butcher block counter and reached for his jacket. Gus wasn’t an alarmist. Just the opposite. If he called for help, something serious was wrong.
From his years of growing up on a farm-ranch, Nash knew that agriculture was one of the most dangerous occupations on earth. Accidents happened. Big animals and bigger machinery increased the risks. Sometimes a rancher got too comfortable with those risks, let down his guard, and tragedy struck.
Gus was a crippled old man with too much stubborn pride to admit when he could no longer do something.
Nash swallowed against a suddenly dry mouth. “Where is he?”
“One of the hay meadows. He didn’t say which one.” She shrugged into her own jacket and flipped up the hood. “Probably the one closest to the house.”
“Let’s go.”
For once she didn’t argue that he was too sick to help. Maybe he was, but he was going out there anyway.
Harlow bolted through the door and ran toward the loafing shed where the flatbed farm truck was parked.
By the time Nash slammed inside the vehicle, his breath wheezed harsh and fast. His knees even shook a little. Rotten virus. After the morning jog and now this mad dash to the truck, he was wearing down fast.
Before he could find his seat belt, Harlow yanked the gearshift into four-wheel drive and barreled across the muddy pasture. Tires spun on the slick earth. The engine whined, bore down, grabbed purchase and jumped forward.
“I hope we don’t get stuck,” he said.
Harlow shoved the gas pedal to the floor.
Nash pitched toward the dashboard. Each bump jarred his shoulder, shot pain up the side of his neck.
The old truck bounced up and down on the uneven terrain, spinning, growling. Mud splattered and pinged against the undercarriage.
Harlow drove like he remembered. Fast. Hard. Focused.
She was scared. And that shook him. Harlow did not scare easily.
She was, however, a tigress about her family. Understandable after losing her parents in a car accident.
“Horses would have worked better,” she muttered, “but I didn’t want to take time to saddle up. Poppy didn’t sound good. Kind of breathless and faint. I’m afraid he’s hurt. If he is, I’d need the truck anyway.”
She gnawed her bottom lip, hands tense on the wheel as she leaned forward, scanning the distance for signs of her grandpa.
“Hey.” Nash tapped her elbow. “Don’t borrow trouble. Maybe he’s found a sick cow and can’t get her up. Or maybe it’s a pack of coyotes.”
For her sake, and Gus’s, he prayed he was right.
Funny that he’d prayed more since his arrival at the ranch than he’d prayed in the past four years.
Not funny really. Kind of sad. Mom would be disappointed.
But wondering if you were dying coupled with a bad dose of depression from sustaining an injury and going broke all within the space of a week could scare a man into praying.
“I hope you’re right.” Teeth tight, she glanced his way. “You don’t look so good yourself.”
He wasn’t feeling too great either. Besides the pain in his shoulder, which shouldn’t be there, he felt as weak as damp tissue paper.
“I’m all right. Out of shape.” He tried for diverting humor.
A man had his pride, and his included not fainting in front of a pretty woman. Even if that woman was once his best friend. Or maybe especially because the woman was Harlow.
An odd consideration, but there it was. He’d missed Harlow a lot more than he’d realized.
“You run fast...for a girl. Got me chugging like a freight train.”
Harlow smirked, apparently appreciating his attempt to ease her anxiety. “For a girl” had been another joke between them back in the day. Even with his superior size and speed, she’d had the endurance of a mule and managed to keep up with him.
There was nothing wimpy about Harlow Matheson.
He grinned at her. She grinned back.
Good memories seemed to leap between them. They flooded his thoughts.
The time they’d gotten lost together in the woods while searching for blackberries. They’d been nine. Harlow had gripped his hand, claiming not to be scared because she was with him. He’d felt ten feet tall that day when he’d guided them safely out of the woods.
In high school, she’d stayed up half the night to help him study for a science final. He’d needed that A, and he’d gotten it.
Before he could reminisce out loud, Harlow jerked her gaze away. Most every time they got into a friendly conversation, she’d shift away like this, as if she couldn’t stand to remember. She would appear to be enjoying herself and then suddenly freeze like a Popsicle. This time, however, he understood, at least in part. Worry for her gramps crowded out everything else.
Again, she leaned toward the windshield in search of Gus, muttering through clenched teeth, “Where are you, Poppy?”
“Does he still drive that big orange tractor?”
“Yes.”
Though the tractor was old, like its owner, it must still be a workhorse. Again, like its owner.
The orange color would help their search.
Slogging along a worn path, leaving deep, muddy ruts someone would have to smooth when the weather cleared, they passed a long row of giant round hay bales.
No sign of Gus.
“He hasn’t started moving these yet.” She squinted to the left. “He must have started on the back side of the south meadow.”
Without slowing down, she whipped the steering wheel toward the south. Nash grabbed the dashboard again and grinned at her need for speed.
“Why is he moving the round bales? They’re okay left out in the rain.” The square bales required a barn, but not the round ones.
“He wants them closer to the house. Easier for us to feed on really cold days.”
Right. He remembered that, though his own dad left the big bales wherever they landed. Mostly, though, Dad had square-baled, and he and Nash hauled that hay to the barn during the hottest part of summer and stacked it high in the stifling tin building. Come winter, Nash had been the one loading hay on the truck again, by hand, this time in the bone-chilling cold, sleet and high winds to feed the cattle.
Jobs he’d vowed never to do again.
Maybe he should sell the ranch along with his Corvette and boat. At least he’d have plenty of money to live on for a while.
Thinking of his own problems depressed him, so he trained his eyes on the open fields in search of an orange tractor.
“There,” he said, pointing. “Is that it?”
Harlow jerked the wheel in the direction he indicated and pressed the gas pedal. Tires spun. Mud splatted against the doors and shot big brown blobs onto the windshield. The sturdy Dodge found purchase and lurched ahead.
As they drew closer, Nash’s stomach, already a “tad tetchy,” tumbled to his running shoes.
Harlow gasped, her peachy skin bleaching pale. “Oh no. Nash. He’s rolled the tractor. Oh, Lord Jesus. Please. My Poppy.”
Fear snaked up Nash’s back. Inwardly, he repeated Harlow’s disjointed prayer.
A tractor rollover was one of the most common and deadliest of farm accidents.
And Gus was an old man with bad knees. He didn’t move fast anymore. If he hadn’t jumped clear of the tractor, he could be under it. Getting crushed by three thousand pounds of farm equipment meant a disaster neither he nor Harlow wanted to consider.
Nash put a reassuring hand on Harlow’s arm. Her muscle was tight with tension. “Don’t panic. He was able to use his phone. That means something.”
Still pale and without looking at him, her head bobbed once.
She was scared to pieces, and Nash wanted desperately to comfort her.
The truck jerked to a halt next to the overturned tractor. Harlow bolted out of the vehicle and raced across the soggy earth before Nash could maneuver his door with one hand. His bad shoulder still didn’t cooperate very well, and he was growing more fatigued by the minute.
Dratted virus on top of the surgery had left him short on energy and weaker than a newborn mouse.
Not that he’d let on to Harlow. She’d already seen him at a painfully embarrassing low.
By the time he reached her side, she was on her knees beside Gus, cradling her grandpa’s head. The older man was a good two feet from the overturned tractor, though his squashed hat and one boot protruded from under the heavy machine.
Relief flooded Nash like the recent rains.
Gus hadn’t been crushed. He’d either been thrown clear or the tractor had caught only one foot and Gus had wiggled out of the boot to crawl away.
Nash closed his eyes and said a quiet prayer of thanks.
Another prayer.
He hoped God would listen after his long silence.
“Poppy.” Harlow patted her grandfather’s cheek. “Talk to me, Pop. Can you hear me?”
The old man’s eyelids fluttered up. “Just resting my peepers.”
A ghost of a grin twitched Harlow’s mouth. She flashed a glance toward Nash and back to Gus. He read the worry lingering behind her eyes. They weren’t out of the woods. Gus was alive, but his skin was the color of ashes and he lay abnormally still. A well Gus would be blustering and trying to get on his feet.
“Where are you hurt, Poppy?”
“Back’s boogered up a tad. Shoulder’s smarting some. Elbow feels out of socket.” He tried to move his right arm but grunted in pain and stopped. “Watch the elbow, and help me up. The legs are not cooperating.”
Nash went to one knee on the soggy ground beside the rancher. Cold moisture seeped through his jogging sweats. He resisted a shiver. “Don’t move, Gus. We’ll call an ambulance.”
Harlow swung her attention from Poppy to Nash. She couldn’t believe her ears. Mr. Don’t Tell Anyone I’m Here wanted to call an ambulance? If they did, the whole town would be aware of the athlete’s presence inside an hour. Was he willing to take the risk? After all his protests about privacy, why would he?
Sincere brown eyes met her shocked stare. “Moving him without medical aid could injure something worse. Better keep him still. You got a blanket in your truck?”
Reasonable. Sensible. But his concern was hard to reconcile.
One minute he was a self-absorbed big shot athlete and the next he was the nice boy next door.
“No blanket.” She usually carried one this time of year, but she’d wrapped a calf in it a few days ago. With too much Nash on her mind, she’d forgotten to replace it.
“We need to cover him.” Nash began shrugging out of his jacket. “Keep him warm ’til help arrives.”
Okay, that was really sweet, the kind of thing Nash of old would do.
A piece of ice chipped loose from her heart and melted all the way down to the toes of her muddy Justin Ropers.
“You’ll be sicker. I’ll cover him with mine.”
Nash ignored her as he carefully slid the sleeve from his injured shoulder.
Poppy clutched Nash’s ankle. “Keep your coat, boy. I’m getting up. Got my breath knocked out. That’s all.”
“You need to be checked over, Gus,” Nash insisted, “and make sure nothing worse is going on.”
Poppy squinted one eye. “So did you.”
“And both of you too stubborn to go.” She glared at Nash. “Put that jacket back on!”
He draped it around Poppy’s shoulders instead.
“You two arguing is like trying to nail jelly to a tree,” Poppy muttered. “No one gains a smidgeon. Now, get me up before my hindside freezes to the mud and we all catch epizooti.”
“Poppy,” Harlow started.
She loved him too much to lose him. Didn’t he understand that? And she was scared. Scared he was more injured than his stubbornness would let him reveal.
“Did the fall knock you out? Were you unconscious?”
Her grandpa flashed a scowl at her. Without replying, which was an answer in itself, he demanded, “Up, I said.”
When he used that tone, Poppy meant business.
Harlow shook her head. Stubborn old man.
But her grandfather’s mind was stronger than his body. He had every right to make his own decisions. Even when she disagreed.
“Are you able to help me?” she asked Nash.
With an insulted glare, Nash crouched behind Gus, his healthy left arm levering against the older man’s back as he used his superior-sized body to gently guide Gus to his feet.
Even though Harlow was concerned about Nash’s pallor, she let it go to focus on keeping Poppy upright. Nash was young, healthy and strong. He’d recover. Poppy was old and getting frailer by the day, his once powerful body betraying him. Right this minute, she was certain he was hurt worse than he let on. Wobbly, clearly in pain. Short of breath.
She gnawed her bottom lip, fretting.
Had the tractor injured his chest? Cracked a rib?
Was he having a heart attack?
A scarier thought hit her. Had he had a stroke? Was that why he’d rolled the tractor?
“I’ll carry him.”
Her gaze snapped to the sickly athlete.
“No, you can’t.” If he was fit, yes, he could probably run a hundred-yard dash carrying her grandpa. “Your shoulder. And you’re still not over the stomach thing.”
Poppy, clinging to Nash like a lifeline, straightened as much as he could and fluffed up like a mad rooster. “Nobody’s carrying me anywhere.”
Pushing away from their support, her grandpa took two steps before he started to go down.
Right before he crumpled onto the mud, Nash slid one broad shoulder against Poppy’s chest and hoisted him over his back like a sack of feed.
Poppy grunted once but didn’t protest.
Harlow sucked in a gust of cold air, worried about them both.
And Nash toted her grandpa to the truck.