The Cowboy's Wife For One Night

“For you!” Jack said with a dark laugh. “For me it was torture, waiting for the cloud to come back, wondering when it would.” He shook his head. “It was hell. I almost got to the point that I liked the monster better. At least she was predictable.”

“Dr. Meadows told me that he had medication that might make her better. Even her out. I got her to go see him, but she wouldn’t take the pills.”

This was the most they’d talked in years. Since Jack had been a boy and stopped helping him clear the fire road to the high pasture. That was one thing they’d always done together. Something Victoria couldn’t touch. Until she seemed to touch everything.

“She had to be bipolar,” Jack said. “With borderline personality disorder and probably, when she got older, paranoid schizophrenia.”

Walter looked sideways at his son.

Jack shrugged. “I took a couple of psych classes in college.”

“If I could change it—”

“You can’t, Dad. It’s the past. And it’s over.”

“I’m sorry, son—”

Jack held up his hand, anger climbing back onto his face. “Save it, Dad. Just…save it.”

Walter nodded, the moment was done and he wasn’t going to push. He’d gotten to say more than he thought he would.

The doctor, in a white coat and those green pajamas they all seemed to wear in the hospital, came to stand in the doorway. “Jack McKibbon?” he asked.

Jack spun. “My wife?”

Walter did a double take at Jack’s words, wondering if Jack even realized what he’d said or how he’d said it. Like wife was something he said all the time.

“Your wife is seriously banged up, but she should make a full recovery,” said the doctor, smiling to put them at ease in that way that doctors did.

“Oh, thank God,” Jack sighed.

“She’s got a significant contusion on her brain and some pretty good bruising on her tailbone and shoulders, and an ankle that isn’t sprained, but she must have wrenched it.”

“She still doesn’t remember what happened?” Walter asked. That seemed wrong. Dangerous. The fear he’d kept at bay all night, watching Jack wear a path in the linoleum, trickled down through his chest, bathing his heart in cold. “Is that bad? That’s gotta be bad.”

The doctor shook his head. “It’s head trauma. Don’t worry. She’ll probably remember in the next few days.”

“She must have gotten thrown,” Jack said, looking over to Walter, who nodded quickly. It made sense; everyone knew Blue was scared of snakes and that old fire road was thick with them in the spring.

“So, can we take her home?” Jack asked, and again Walter had to look at his son. Home? Had that word come out of his mouth? Maybe Jack had some head trauma.

“Yes,” the doctor said, sounding all doctor-y all of a sudden. “But here’s the thing. She needs to rest. And I mean rest, as in bed, feet up for a week. She needs to let her body heal.”

“No problem,” Jack said, and this time Walter did laugh.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but can you maybe give us some drugs or something that would make that easier? We’ve got rope, but I don’t think that will help.”

The doctor looked quickly over at Jack who shook his head. “He’s joking. We can manage without drugs or rope. She’ll rest.”

“Good.” The doctor nodded. “You can sign discharge papers and pick her up on the second floor.”

The doctor left and Jack grabbed his coat and stepped toward the door, ready to take Mia back with orders for her to lie down for a week. Like that was going to work.

“Jack—”

“Dad, I know. I do. But we’ll figure this out.”

“We? Earlier today you were going to sell the ranch. Now you’re ready to be a nursemaid?”

“What do you want me to say? I can’t leave.”

“Yeah, and you and me can’t keep that girl off her feet for a week.”

Jack blinked, his brow crumpled. “You want to leave her here?”

“No,” Walter said. His palms were sweating like a teenager’s. And he knew, in the right light, if anyone looked at him too long, they’d see right through him. Right to where his secret, his love and guilt, beat inside his chest. Victoria had been crazy, but she hadn’t been totally wrong. She’d seen what he’d felt for another man’s wife. “I’m saying we need reinforcements.”

“Dad,” Jack sighed. “I’m too tired for guessing games. If you have an idea, let’s hear it.”

“We need to call Sandra.”

11

Mia woke up in her own bed, which was nice. The pain, however, was not. Her head felt like a bag of hammers and her body…oh, man, her body ached.

“Mia?” Jack’s voice came whispering out of the dark and she carefully turned to look at him. He sat in a chair by her bed, his stocking feet up on the bottom corner of it.

It was nice to see him. Comforting, even, and she knew it was all wrong. He was supposed to be leaving because he didn’t love her.