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Deseré pushed down her grief and straightened her spine. She was a survivor. Always had been. And always would be—especially now with her son to care for.
Her son.
Get a grip, Deseré. That’s what her sister would have told her if she were here. We do what we have to do to survive.
That’s what her sister had told her ten years ago as Deseré, acting as maid of honor, had arranged her sister’s wedding veil so Celeste could walk down the aisle into the arms of the rich and powerful neurosurgeon who would provide for them both.
Deseré had thought that being a surrogate for Celeste would make up for some of the sacrifices her older sister had made for her. And it had, until Celeste had run a red light while talking on the phone and had crashed into an oncoming eighteen-wheeler.
Even though Deseré knew it was too early, she imagined baby James moving deep inside her.
She would do more than survive. She would build a happy, healthy life for her son and for herself.
In the indigo sky, the first star appeared opposite the fading sunset. Feeling foolish, she made a wish. A miracle. Just a little one. Just a chance to prove myself, okay?
A feeling of be careful what you ask for washed through her.
She shook it off. Fanciful and unrealistic things had no place in her practical world.
The reality was that everyone would say the politically correct thing. They would say her pregnancy didn’t matter in her job hunt.
But the truth was no one wanted to hire a woman who would need time off to have a baby, not to mention time out of her workday for the morning sickness that struck like clockwork at ten a.m. each and every morning.
In less than a month her pregnancy would be evident. But by then she’d have had the job long enough to show her competence, long enough to make herself indispensable.
Her stomach lurched as she thought of how badly she needed this job.
With great willpower she stopped herself from staring at the man who could give her a safe, secure future.
Surely, her sister’s husband, the great Dr. Santone, didn’t have influence over every sleepy little town in Texas, did he?
What would a small-town country doctor care that a big-time surgeon who sat on the board of the largest hospital in Louisiana would be heartily upset if his sister-in-law found a job in the medical field?
Gathering her purse and slinging it over her shoulder, she pushed off the bench, remembering at the last moment to watch where she stepped as she walked toward Dr. Jordan Hart.
Feeling self-conscious, she looked up in time to see he was watching her every step of the way.
A challenge? Why?
Under the wide brim of his hat his eyes were too shaded by the darkening night skies to read. But his lips, so full and rich only a moment ago, were now set tight and grim.
“Dr. Hart?” Deseré called out.
“Just Jordan, ma’am.” Automatically, Jordan touched the brim of his hat, not even thinking about it until he saw her eyes follow the movement of his hand.
She held out her hand. “Deseré Novak. Your new nurse practitioner.”
Not a rodeo groupie at all. But she was an assertive little thing, wasn’t she?
Dr. Wong’s recommendation had seemed to contain a lot more between the lines than in black-and-white.
Dr. Wong hadn’t exactly said she’d worked for him. The letter had been carefully worded. What Dr. Wong had said was that Deseré Novak deserved a chance.
So Jordan would give her one. But he’d only promised an interview.
Or did she think Dr. Wong’s recommendations carried that much weight with him? Jordan was a man who made up his own mind about things.
“You’re early for your interview. We didn’t expect you until Monday.”
She gave him a smile. “I thought I’d check out the place first.”
“Makes sense.” He put his hand in hers. “Thanks for coming to Piney Woods. I know we’re a long way from New Orleans.”
Her grip was firm. No-nonsense. Assertive. With just enough give to suggest hidden softness.
Ms. Novak’s eyes flicked in worry before bravado had her lifting her chin. “I’ve already researched your practice. I’m sure it’s perfect for me. You won’t be sorry to hire me.”
If Jordan hadn’t noticed the slight quiver he would have been fooled into thinking she was totally confident that she had the job.
It wasn’t that he’d had any better-qualified applicants. How many experienced nurse practitioners wanted to move out to the edge of nowhere, taking room and board as a significant portion of their pay, when they could be pulling in the big bucks in any major city?
“We’ll talk about it in the morning.” He gestured to the open arena, still and quiet between events. “I’ve got other things going on tonight.”
She stood still waiting for—for what?
Something about her stillness made him notice the dark circles under her eyes.
“The closest hotel is back toward Longview about two hours away. You may want to head in that direction before it gets much later.”
She shook her head, shaking off his suggestion. “I understood room and board would be part of the deal. If you could point me toward this boarding house, maybe I could stay the night?”
“Boarding house.” Jordan’s smile was so tight it made his mouth hurt, way too tight to be reassuring, he was sure. “I guess, in a way, it is.”
His office administrator had drawn up the job description.
It would be just like Nancy to gloss over the details to get what she wanted.
And what she wanted was a local medical facility for the folks of Piney Woods, solving two problems at once. The town and surrounding ranches would have good medical attention.
The loudspeaker blasted over the explanation he was about to give to clear up his office administrator’s oversight.
Like everyone else in the stands, he turned to the gate to see his cousin poised over the back of a snorting and twisting bull.
Bull riding was a young man’s sport. Rusty was getting too old for this.
But, then, his bullheaded cousin would probably realize that in the morning when he was too stiff to roll out of bed.
Jordan had been there, done that, got the belt buckle—and the scars—to prove it.
The woman next to him winced as she saw Rusty drop down onto the wide back of the bull.
Rusty settled in—as well as a man could settle onto the back of an angry bull—and gave a sharp nod.
The gate opened, the bull rushed out, and Jordan silently counted in his head, one second, two seconds, three—
And Rusty was off the bull and on the ground.
The rodeo clowns rushed in to distract the twenty-five-hundred-pound, four-legged kicking fury so Rusty could roll away from the dangerous hoofs.
Jordan squinted through the falling light, looking for that first twitch that said Rusty was going to catch his breath, jump up and walk out of the arena any second now.
“Come on, Rusty, shake it off,” he murmured, as if saying it would send his cousin into action.
Dust hung in the air, as time stood still.
Rusty didn’t move.
But the woman next to Jordan did.
She rushed toward the arena, looking like she intended to climb through the iron-pipe fence separating her from the bull.
Without thought, Jordan reached out and pulled her close to him.
“No.” It came out harsh and uncompromising. It had been meant to. He’d been trained to give orders that were followed without question. He’d had too much practice to break the habit now.
There were a lot of habits he needed to work on breaking—like waking up in a cold sweat every night from his murky, twisted memory dreams. And jumping every time the barn door slammed closed, sounding too much like metal exploding.
And getting an adrenaline rush when he pulled a woman close to him to protect her from a non-existent danger.
Of course, she wasn’t intending to go over the rail into an arena with an enraged bull running loose. Who in their right mind would?
His stomach sank as he had a surge of doubt in his ability to judge a situation. His instincts, which had always served him so well, might be a tad on the twisted side now.
A tad?
Still, he held her tightly pressed against his body as she struggled to get free, something deep inside him telling him to hold on tight and not let go.
Under other circumstances Jordan would have tried to defuse the situation by making a joke at his own expense, along with an apology as he sheepishly laughed off his rash and inappropriate behavior.
But his cousin lay facedown in the dirt, too still for too long, and Jordan had no words, much less a laugh.
“Let me go.” She struggled against him. “Can’t you see he needs help?”
Maybe his instincts weren’t as far off as he’d thought they were.
Jordan gave a quick glance at the clowns as they herded the bull through the gate. One more second to make sure they latched it tight.
Then he let her loose, moved around her to put one boot on the top rung and vaulted over the fence racing toward Rusty with too many dire diagnoses running through his head for him to think straight.
As he knelt by his cousin’s side, Deseré knelt on the other side. Had she gone over the top, too? Or squeezed between the rails? Did it matter? All that mattered was Rusty, lying so still. He was never still. But now …
Jordan felt frozen, inside and out.
Deseré was on her hands and knees, her silk shirt and slacks getting filthy as she tried to assess Rusty’s state of consciousness.
Oh, God. Jordan thought it as a prayer, as cold dread started in the pit of his stomach, making its icy way to his heart. He hadn’t even considered that Rusty might be …
“Unconscious,” she said, her voice clipped.
She put her hand on Rusty’s back, noting its rise and fall.
“Breathing,” she reported.
Jordan nodded, realizing he’d been holding his own breath. Vacantly, he gazed down at his cousin’s body, trying to get his own breathing regulated.
Worn, dusty boots stopped next to Jordan’s knees. Jordan didn’t know and didn’t care who they belonged to.
With creaking knees Plato squatted down and touched Jordan’s elbow. “Emergency Dispatch says the ambulances and paramedic crews are tied up. A truckload of teenagers tried to beat a train across the tracks. They don’t know how long it will be. Do we need a chopper?” His calm voice, steady rheumy eyes and familiar wrinkled face piercing Jordan’s fog.
Jordan tried to make the words make sense. The only thing getting through to him was that Rusty lay still, too still.
He put his hand on Rusty’s back, willing him to take another breath.
“Dr. Hart?” Deseré prompted. “Authorize air transport?”
She nodded her head in the affirmative, giving him an obvious hint as to what his answer should be.
Jordan squeezed out a reply. “Yes.”
How long had it been between the time Rusty had hit the ground and now? It seemed like hours. Or years. But it could have only been minutes. They would have called emergency services immediately, right?
His brain seemed to be thawing—finally. He was applying logic and making assumptions. Now he needed to apply that brain to Rus—to his patient. Thinking of his cousin as his patient would help him put some distance between his panic and his personal pain.
Vacantly, he noted that Deseré was positioning herself flat on her stomach, almost nose to nose with Rusty, something he should have already done.
“I’ll stabilize his head while you check for spinal injuries,” she said, stirring the churned-up dirt of the arena with her breath.
Jordan noted her technique. Thumbs on collarbone, fingers behind shoulders, Rusty’s head firmly supported on her forearms. She definitely knew what she was doing.
She would be stuck like that until the emergency crew arrived with their cervical collar and backboard and trained crew to whisk Rusty to the hospital in Longview, the closest trauma center but still twenty-five minutes away by air.
If the last ten minutes had seemed to be a decade, the next twenty-five would pass like centuries.
The way Deseré lay flat on her belly with her arms extended, holding Rusty tight to keep him immobile, breathing in the thick red dust, each minute must be torture.
Running his hands over Rusty’s head then down, he started to check his cousin’s spine carefully.
No weird angles. But that didn’t mean much after the unnatural contortions Rusty’s body had gone through while airborne.
