Pregnant with the Rancher's Baby: Reclaimed by the Rancher

Jumping to her feet, she covered her mouth with her hand to hold back her scream. Terror like she’d never known flowed through every vein in her body at the sight of Nate being dragged like a rag doll while the bull continued to buck. She wanted to do something to get Nate away from the furious animal, but all she could do was watch helplessly as Ryder ran along on the opposite side of the bull, trying to free Nate’s hand from the rope.

“Nate’s gone down in the well,” Bria said, her expression worried. “He’s hung up in the bull rope and can’t get to his feet.”

Both Bria and Summer were used to seeing all kinds of things go wrong during the rough-stock events and if the women were upset, Jessie knew it had to be bad.

Another bullfighter did his best to distract the beast as Ryder worked to untangle Nate’s hand, but when it finally slipped free and he slumped to his knees on the dirt floor of the arena, Nate didn’t get up and sprint to the fence like he’d done after his other rides. While the other bullfighter managed to entice the bull away from Nate, she watched Ryder kneel down beside him and Jaron run over from the chutes to see what was wrong. Her heart sank when Ryder and Jaron both motioned for the Justin Heelers to enter the arena.

Knowing the medical team would get him out of the arena and take him to a triage area to assess his injury, Jessie turned to Summer. “Where will they take him?”

“Follow me,” Summer said, picking up her daughter’s diaper bag and starting down the steps of the grandstand. As a former public relations director for the rodeo association, she led them to the area behind the chutes where several officials stood. “Where’s the training room?”

“Sorry ma’am, but y’all can’t go back there,” one of the older men said, shaking his head. “It’s authorized personnel only.”

“Try and stop me,” Jessie stated determinedly.

“If you need authorization, talk to Sam Rafferty about his wife and sisters-in-law going into the training room to check on his injured brother,” Bria said, stepping forward. “I’m sure he’ll tell you that it would be highly inadvisable to try to stop us. Now get out of the way.”

The man looked at the two women holding sleeping babies, then at Jessie, who was obviously pregnant. He immediately stepped out of their path, having decided it wasn’t worth the fight. “It’s the second door to the right, Ms. Rafferty,” he called after them as they hurried down the corridor.

When they reached the training room, Summer motioned toward an open door down the hall. “We’ll wait for you in the press room.”

“Thank you,” Jessie said before hurrying in.

Entering the training room, Jessie was relieved to see Nate sitting up on a cot with his legs stretched out in front of him. One of the medical staff was using a pair of scissors to cut the right leg of his jeans from the hem up to the knee. When the man peeled back the blood-soaked denim, she could see that Nate had a deep laceration on his calf, but otherwise looked to be all right.

“I’m fine, Jessie,” Nate said quickly when he looked up and saw her.

“What happened?” she asked as her gaze traveled from his head to his feet to make sure the cut was his only injury.

“My leg got caught between Whiplash and the latch on the gate when he left the chute.” He shrugged. “It isn’t the first time I’ve needed stitches after a ride.”

If she could have gotten closer to him, she would have bopped him on top of the head. She had been worried to death about his welfare and he was dismissing the incident as no big deal.

“How does your arm feel?” she asked, knowing that it had been under a major strain when he was hung up in the rope.

“It’ll be okay.” He winced when he tried, but failed to lift it above his head. “It’s sore, but nothing that an ice pack won’t fix.”

“You’re lucky it wasn’t dislocated at the shoulder.” She made it over to a chair in the corner to sit down when her knees began to wobble. Now that she’d seen Nate was going to be all right, the adrenaline started to wear off and she was as weak as a newborn kitten. “And don’t you dare say it wouldn’t be the first time you had a shoulder injury,” she warned. “It’s the first time I’ve ever seen you get hurt and it’s a very big deal for me.”

He stared at her for a moment before asking the man cleaning the wound on his leg to give them a moment. “Come here, darlin’.” When she walked over to him, he pulled her down next to him. “Jessie, I’m sorry. I forgot that this weekend was the first time you’ve seen me ride. Are you all right? You aren’t so upset that it’s causing you problems, are you?”