Cowboy On Call

* * *

“NICKY’S BACK IN the hospital?” Logan asked, sounding tense. Sawyer could hear the hum of the highway in the background, the blast of a horn from what sounded like a semi blowing past Logan’s car. “Why?”

He’d told Olivia he would call his brother, the last thing he’d said to her before he escaped the waiting room.

“He’s being admitted.” Sawyer tried to downplay the seriousness of the situation. He’d made a quick report to Olivia after first speaking with the doctors, but he didn’t know exactly how bad Nick’s condition was yet.

Sawyer had been pacing the hospital cafeteria for the past hour. He’d memorized every food item available, but the sight of bins of meatloaf with onions swimming in gravy, pale yellow corn and anemic-looking peas, limp french fries, and slices of lemon meringue pie turned his stomach. With every step, he’d been debating with himself. Rush back to the waiting room? Be there for Olivia, assuming she would want him by her side? Or—and he was leaning most strongly toward this option—hurry out to the parking lot and borrow her car? Get away from here? He could pick her up later or Shadow could drive her home. On the other hand...

He was licensed to practice in the state of Kansas. He’d gotten his degree, done his internship and residency here after he left the Circle H for good. And then, overseas, he’d failed in the most basic way when someone needed him most.

Nick is a different person, he told himself. Nick was his nephew, as Olivia had pointed out. But to Sawyer, that was splitting hairs. He didn’t have an affiliation with this hospital. You could study his chart, though. You could discuss his treatment plan. You could screw up again.

“What did the doctors say?” Logan was asking. “What do you think?”

Sawyer couldn’t answer. He didn’t want to admit he’d all but recused himself from the case, as he had every right to do. Nick was a close family member, and because of emotional involvement, Sawyer could opt out—as if he’d been asked to take part. But Logan was his only brother. Didn’t he owe him more than that? Wasn’t a nine-year absence from all their lives enough? If he couldn’t atone for Kedar, he should at least try to make up for that. And the other doctors were willing to talk to him as a professional. He could share his views. Although they had disagreed, he suspected Nick’s headache might be due to a hematoma. Had they since scanned his head?

“I’m turning around,” Logan said.

In the background, Sawyer heard Blossom agree. “We have to make sure Nick’s okay. Poor little guy...”

Of course they did. Sawyer didn’t try to dissuade them. Maybe by the time they got here, Nick would be out of danger and released again, and they’d all share in various expressions of relief sprinkled with laughter, as if they’d been foolish to even think he could be in real trouble. In any event, Sawyer knew Logan needed to see his boy for himself. “Drive safe,” he said.

After the call ended, he resumed his circuit of the cafeteria. The lemon pie’s meringue was starting to curl with beads of moisture glistening from the overhead lamp. The meatloaf’s gravy had congealed in its steel bin and... You’re a coward.

Sawyer made an about-face. What kind of brother, uncle, friend—ex-friend, to Olivia—was he? He’d been trying to protect himself to the point of being unable to protect a vulnerable child. Nothing new there, but not very admirable, either.

He marched toward the exit, out into the hall and down another back into the emergency department to collar Nick’s doctor. Even the well-known smells of antiseptic, of medications and of illness and fear, including his own, didn’t stop him.

Olivia was nearby, waiting. Reason enough.

She didn’t need him to treat her child, but she did need his knowledge.

Sawyer went to see about that scan.

CHAPTER FIVE

“TELL ME,” Olivia said, rising from her seat as soon as Sawyer reentered the waiting area. While he’d been gone to call Logan and she’d been trying to hang on to her sanity, the small TV on the wall had kept playing the same video loop over and over again, informing any viewers about the most recent treatments for diabetes and elder incontinence. Olivia had been about to lose the rest of her mind. The only ailment she wanted to hear about was Nick’s. Leaving Shadow, she marched out into the hall with Sawyer following.

He ran a hand over the nape of his neck. “Try to be patient. The doctors are doing all that’s necessary, Olivia.” Sawyer focused on a point beyond her shoulder. “This is all I know right now—we’ve finally agreed that Nick has a hematoma.”

She felt her body drain of strength. “Sam also had a blood clot, or whatever,” she pointed out. “Didn’t he?”

“No. Well, as far as I know, he had a concussion. This is subdural.”

“What does that mean?”

Sawyer rubbed the back of his neck again. “I didn’t like the look of his pupils last night and this morning—”

“Then why didn’t you say something? Do something?”

“I’m not practicing right now. I’m not his primary physician. All I could do was make sure his head stayed elevated during the night in a midline position and that he remained responsive. Otherwise, I don’t make the decisions—for which you’re probably glad.” Sawyer’s explanation made her head spin, but he went on. “Nick’s initial score on the Coma Scale we use was around fourteen when Nick was sent home last night, meaning he didn’t need to be admitted. But today, as you know, his condition became worse.” He softened his tone. “He’s had a CT scan now, which they didn’t do last night. With kids, we worry about the radiation exposure, so we avoid CTs if their initial scores indicate only mild head trauma. As in a certain percentage of cases, he has a faint linear skull fracture and now, some brain swelling.”

Olivia shook her head to clear it. “Does that mean surgery?”

Sawyer cupped her elbow, as if he guessed she might faint. “I hope not. His other signs are pretty good. Unless the swelling gets worse, and fast, it’s likely a wait-and-see scenario. In lots of cases, the swelling goes down on its own. But I’ll talk to his doctors again later.”

She was shaking now, and she poked his chest with her index finger. “Your silence—your selfish silence—could have resulted in tragedy for Nick. It still might, from what I hear. You might not be his doctor, but you still could have said something last night, if you thought— And you haven’t even bothered to visit his room. All you can say now is that waiting’s just part of medicine?”

“Olivia, he’s getting good care. What else would you have me do?”

She glared. “Nothing, I suppose. Or no, maybe I should be grateful you didn’t intervene like years ago when—”

His mouth tightened. “Seriously? You want to bring that up now? Compare then, and a horse, to your own child? It’s not the same, Olivia.”

“I know it’s not. But you were guilty then. As far as I’m concerned, you’re guilty now—and this time it’s my son who has suffered.”

Sawyer’s blue eyes darkened. He seemed to collect his thoughts before he said, “Fine. You want to rehash the past? Okay, let’s. If you remember, years ago, yes, I challenged you to that race across a dry field littered with stones. There’d been no rain for weeks, but I had a sudden urge to fly like the wind. To hear you laugh,” he said. “I knew we shouldn’t, but it wasn’t like we hadn’t done it before. All of us.”

Her mouth turned down. Olivia didn’t welcome the memory, but she’d started this. And that day they had been alone, not with their brothers. By then, she and Sawyer had been seeing each other for about six months, their childhood friendship left behind for a new relationship that was turning into love...until her feelings for him had led to tragedy.

Her eyes filled with fresh tears, and he tried to reach for her hand but Olivia stepped back. She knew they were both picturing the same moment: galloping neck and neck until, suddenly, Jasmine had lurched, stumbled, then fallen, taking Olivia down with her. Reining his horse to an abrupt stop, Sawyer had jumped off, dropped to his knees to make sure she was all right. Bruised but unbroken, Olivia had already started to cry. It took Sawyer another second to realize how badly hurt her horse really was.

Her beautiful black mare lay on her side, breathing hard, her normally calm brown eyes wide with pain and fear before they rolled back in her head. Her left foreleg had been shattered by the fall.

“I’m sorry, Olivia. I should have known better. If I hadn’t argued with Sam again that morning, maybe I wouldn’t have suggested the race at all. But I did. And that’s no excuse. I’m not sure if I’ve told you before, but we were fighting about med school. About my being away from the Circle H so much. Sam wanted me there more often instead. I had so much anger then. Probably still d—”

“She died.” Olivia’s tone held the unshed tears that had filled her eyes, partly for the horse, partly now for Nick. Maybe—no, definitely—it was best that Sawyer hadn’t tried to treat Nick. “You didn’t even give her a chance. You shot her, right in front of me.”

“I put her down,” he said, and she bristled at the euphemism. “We were a mile from the ranch yard, the barn, probably an hour or more from the vet getting there. What else could I do?” He’d repeated the question he’d asked about Nick. “Like Logan, Grey and me, you’d been riding since you were two years old. You knew why I had that rifle with me, why any other rancher would have one, too. Warding off coyotes isn’t the only reason. There wasn’t time, Olivia.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Would you rather have watched her suffer?” Sawyer shook his head. “Jasmine broke her leg in about a hundred places. There was no putting her back together. Trying to reconstruct that foreleg would only have caused her more pain and wouldn’t have worked in the end. She’d have gone crazy shut up in a stall for weeks, maybe hurt herself again with the same result.”

She pressed her lips together, then said the words anyway. “Is that how you manage your human patients?”

Sawyer turned pale. “I’m not managing anyone. I told you that.”

He started to walk away, but Olivia went after him, grasping his arm and feeling the hard muscle under her fingers. His whole body was taut. Her voice trembled. “You just can’t say it, can you? That you were wrong—she might have survived—that you made a bad decision. That was my horse—the best horse I ever rode—a horse that could have been a national champion barrel racer.” She hadn’t ridden since, perhaps another reason she’d been against Nick getting Hero. “A horse I loved with all my heart. How am I supposed to forgive you for that?”

“You’re not.” He removed his arm from her grasp, then touched the corner of his right eye. Hysterical at seeing her horse destroyed, Olivia had struck out, cutting Sawyer with a ring she wore. “But if it makes you feel any better, I haven’t forgiven myself, either. I wish I’d had another option. I wish there was some way I could...make amends. Atone.”

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.

Charlie only said, “When are you coming back?”

Maybe I’m not. At the same time, Sawyer knew he wouldn’t be able to live with himself unless he returned, made up for his mistake somehow. Still, he feared he couldn’t make the trip to the Himalayas again. Not yet. “How’s the road in?”

“Still blocked much of the way. Helicopters have been flying in whatever supplies are available. Sawyer, I know we had a pretty bad fight before you left. I apologize for anything I said that may have come across as, well, blameful. We’re still partners, aren’t we? The clinic needs you.” He hesitated, as if he hated having to say “So do I.”

Sawyer cleared his throat. Through the windshield, he watched a man walk out of the hospital, an arm around a crying woman’s shoulders. Then he saw Everett and Liza coming across the parking lot holding hands, and he fought an urge to slink down in his seat so as not to be seen. But if they were leaving, that was a good thing, right? Nick must still be holding his own. He didn’t want to talk to them, though.

“Listen, Charlie. I have to go.” Briefly, he filled him in about Nick. “I hope you can understand why I have to stay here awhile longer.”

“Of course.” But Charlie sounded disappointed. No, resigned.

“He’s close to...Khalil’s age.” And Sawyer hadn’t said five words to Nick. Why use him as an excuse?

But Charlie understood family. He was an only child whose parents, a Harvard archaeologist and a well-known pediatrician who headed her department at Boston Children’s Hospital, had left him to be raised mostly by nannies before shipping him off to boarding school when he was Nick’s age. He’d often spent his college breaks and summer vacations with other people’s families.

When they’d founded the clinic a few years ago, full of great plans to give back and make a difference in the world, Charlie had truly come alive. He’d found his passion. Before that, during his training, he’d met Piper, and they’d married and had two children. Sawyer had never seen a man take more readily to having a family of his own, as if to make up for his lonely childhood.

“I hate to let you down, Charlie. But I need more time.”

For a few minutes longer, they discussed Nick’s case as if they were together at the clinic, treating him rather than scores of needy people with more drastic conditions and worse prognoses. Struggling to cure diseases that couldn’t be cured in the end, performing surgeries that often failed to make the difference they’d hoped to make.