When Johnny surfaced post-surgery, his ex-wife was sitting beside his bed and…smiling at him? He blinked again and saw that of course he was hallucinating. It was Iris Jacobs perched in the beige vinyl hospital chair, looking slender and unfamiliar.
After a lifetime of a seeing a person a certain way, it was damned unnerving when they up and changed.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
Numb. Disoriented. The sudden nothingness of anesthesia freaked him out—waking up with hours of his life lost, no sense of the time passing, and the slim but ever-present possibility that he might have zonked out and never come back.
The niggling suspicion that no one would really miss him.
And that was just morbid. Iris and Steve had dropped everything to be here with him. He and Melanie had talked on the phone while he’d been waiting to go into surgery. There’d been a flurry of calls from folks in Earnest, checking up on him. What more could a man expect?
Nothing…at least from his son. No call. No visit. No mention of Hank by Iris or Steve, who had to know he was back.
Johnny hadn’t rushed to the hospital when Hank broke his arm. Wouldn’t have even if he’d known about it at the time, instead of finding out months later by way of Melanie. Oily guilt churned in his otherwise empty stomach at the thought of his son waking up like this—broken, vulnerable, a little scared, and half a country away from the people who were supposed to look out for him. But when a man chose that kind of career, he couldn’t expect his daddy to come running every time he lost a fight with a bull.
Besides, who would feed the damn cows?
“The chores…” It came out as a croak.
“Done.” Iris held a plastic cup of ice water so he could sip from the straw. “And Cole got those cows loaded and off to the sale.”
“Thanks.” From the bottom of his checkbook, which could always use a boost. Throw in the cost of this surgery, and…no, he wasn’t going to think about that when his head was muddled and throbbing.
He closed his eyes and settled back into the pillow, but he couldn’t switch off the slow trickle of worry that leaked into his brain. Where would he find a hand he could trust on short notice? Melanie was tied up in the red tape of becoming a foster parent, so she couldn’t fly home to take charge at the ranch, and in less than a week the Jacobs crew would load up their stock and head for the National Finals.
He must have dozed, because he had to shake himself awake when a nurse bustled in to poke and prod and tap notes into one of those tablet gizmos. Iris was still there, and now Steve was with her. When they made as if to leave, the nurse gestured for them to remain seated.
“The doctor is on his way, and he’ll want at least one clear head in the room.” She tapped Johnny’s knee through the sheet. “There’s no saying how much this one will remember.”
The surgeon ambled into the room, still wearing scrubs and the blue shower-cap thing. “How are you feeling?”
“A lot better than when I came in.”
“That’s the pain meds talking.” The doc turned to Iris and Steve. “The discharge nurse will give you his prescriptions and go over the signs and symptoms of infection or a blood clot. The biggest concern is falls, so for the next week, you’ll need to keep a close eye on him…”
A week? The rest of the doctor’s spiel was drowned by a wave of shock. “I can’t sit on my ass for a week,” Johnny blurted.
“I agree,” the doctor said. “You need to sit on your ass for at least a month. Possibly more, depending on how well the bone is healing.”
“But I…the ranch…” Johnny started to lift his arm in an ill-advised attempt to show it wasn’t that bad. Pain speared through the haze of morphine, stealing his breath and crossing his eyes.
The doctor clucked his tongue. “If you can refrain from being stupid, you should be good as new before calving. If not…well, it’s up to you how much of my kid’s college tuition you end up paying.” He left the threat hanging in the air as he turned to Iris. “As soon as he’s had something to eat and held it down, he’s all yours.”
She smiled. “We’ve got it handled.”
Johnny scowled at her. He did not want to be handled. He wanted to go home. He wanted…dammit, why wasn’t anyone asking him what he wanted?
Iris’s smile widened. “If I had a nickel for every time I saw that look on Melanie’s face. Or Hank’s.”
She’d have a lot more nickels than Johnny, since she’d seen a helluva lot more of Hank than he had. His son had made no bones about preferring the Jacobs ranch and their bucking stock over the Brookman place with its roping arena and beef cattle.
“Listen to the doctor.” Steve’s voice was like the low rumble of thunder, impossible to ignore. “If you don’t give it time to heal up proper, it could turn into a long-term problem.”
And Johnny could afford that even less. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a hired hand you can spare?”
“Cole has someone in mind.”
Probably some broke rodeo cowboy looking to build a bankroll before the new season started. And who might, please, God, have a clue about ranching. Exhaustion rolled over Johnny, flattening him into the pillows.
“If you trust Cole’s judgment, we’ll tell him to go ahead and take care of it. Can you manage seven hundred dollars a week?” Steve asked.
He’d have to. “My wallet is in that bag with my street clothes.”
“We’ll start with a week’s wages and see how it goes.” Iris had the checkbook out and was shoving a pen into his hand before he could pry his eyes open.
Thank God he’d at least had the sense to screw up his left shoulder. He scrawled the amount, then paused, his brain stalling at the Pay to line.
“Leave it blank, just in case,” Iris said.
Right. He scribbled his name and shoved the checkbook toward her. “I need to talk to whoever he hires, get them lined out.”
A glance passed between Iris and Steve, quick and almost…sneaky? But then she was smiling again and patting his uninjured arm. “You rest until that anesthesia wears off, then we’ll get you out of here.”
Johnny closed his eyes and let himself drift. The nurse was right. He must be wonky in the head. What could his good friends have to hide?
* * *
Hank got the necessary parts—after showing a picture ID to convince the woman at the service counter that yes, he was Johnny’s son, and she could charge the stuff to his dad’s account—and rattled back to Earnest, parking in front of one of the service-bay doors at Sanchez Trucking. Inside, guitar music wafted down the hall from the dispatcher’s office, a soft, complicated tune that put him in mind of rustling grass along the river bottom.
Gil looked up from the strings, his gaze measuring Hank from head to toe. “Lookin’ pretty ranchy there.”
“Cole enlisted me.” And he would lose all faith in the Earnest grapevine if Gil didn’t know every detail of his father’s injury, including how Hank had spent the day. “Mind if I pull the chore pickup in and replace the U-joints?”
“Why?”
Hank blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Why are you fixin’ your dad’s pickup?”
“I don’t have anything better to do tonight, and the way it’s clattering, we might not make it through feeding tomorrow.”
“You’re going back?”
Heat crawled up under Hank’s collar. “Just tomorrow. Then I’ll be on the road.”
“About that.” Gil set the guitar aside, leaned back, and laced his fingers over his stomach. “Manny was supposed to do a swing through Illinois and Ohio, but everything’s screwed up from that big ice storm. I have to give him your loads.”
Dismay stabbed at him. “But I’m all set.”
“Manny’s got seniority and a truck payment to make. In fact, with the shuffling I’ve had to do, it’ll be at least a couple of weeks before I get you another load.”
Hank stared at him, his stomach knotting into a queasy ball. “What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”
Gil smiled. Shit. This wasn’t about seniority or the availability of loads. Gil reached a lazy hand over and picked up a check that was propped on his computer keyboard. Hank assumed it was his pay for their trip from Montana until he saw the name stamped in the upper-left corner.
JOHN L. BROOKMAN.
“You’ve probably heard there’s an opening for a ranch hand,” Gil said.
Hank resisted the urge to tear the check in half. Gil would just laugh at him. “You can’t make me accept this.”
“Nope. But like the sign says…” He pointed toward one that read HE WHO DISPATCHES, RULES. “I can make sure you don’t have anything better to do.”
Hank’s fingers quivered with the urge to ball up and take a swing. At Gil. The wall. Something. He drew a deep, deep breath, staring down at the check. Seven hundred dollars. More than he’d had in his possession at one time since his last bullfighting job.
At least they hadn’t had the gall to write in his name.
“That’s per week,” Gil said. “And you can stay here if you want.”
“Gee, thanks,” Hank said, his voice as dry as his throat.
“You’re welcome.”
Then the other implication of the blank check hit him. “Does he know who you hired?”
“No. They figured it’d be better to get him locked up in Iris’s house first.”
Well, shit. Hank had to swallow a laugh. Was the joke on him, or his dad? “Is this a test, or do you just enjoy torturing me?”
“Both.” Gil smirked, enjoying himself way too much. “And I like to shock the crap out of the sanctimonious pricks in this town. What’s the last thing they’ll expect from you?”
Responsibility. Maturity. Respect for his family. In case no else bothered to say so, it’s good of you to pitch in. The old cronies down at the café could kiss his ass, but if it would mean something to Grace…
He carefully folded the check and tucked it in his pocket. “Only until he can come home. I’ll work for him. I won’t work with him.”
“Fair enough.” Gil eyed him suspiciously. “I expected more of a fight.”
“Would it do me any good?”
“No.”
“Then there’s no sense wasting my breath. And we both know I can use the money.” He patted his pocket…and grinned. “Besides, I survived Norma. You might want to explain that to my old man, in case he gets a hankering to rush out and bust my ass.”
Gil watched him for another beat, then reached for his phone.
“Change your mind?” Hank asked.
“Nah. I’m just gonna share the good news.” Gil flashed a lethal smile. “And tell Cole to lock up the shotguns.”