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“Traveling from rodeo to rodeo.”
He nodded.
“I don’t know how you guys do that, especially climbing onto bulls. My younger brother did rodeo for a while, but he was a roper. At least he wasn’t cheating death every time he got in the chute.”
“Most of the time I don’t even think about it.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. I’ve been around rodeo all my life. It’s nothing out of the ordinary.”
Dr. Brody shook her head slowly. “Maybe all of you have just had one too many concussions to know better.”
“Maybe, but the crowds love it. We crazy bull riders help to bring people in to events like your town’s rodeos.”
“Yeah, but I end up patching you guys up. Do you all have contests to see who can get the most broken bones or stitches in a year?”
“No, but maybe I should start that bet. I’d have a good chance of winning.”
She snorted a little laugh that told him just what she thought of that idea.
Another loud boom of thunder set off a car alarm outside, and in the next moment the electricity went out. Dr. Brody immediately jumped to her feet and headed for the door, but before she got there the backup generators kicked in.
“Be back in a bit,” she said then disappeared.
He listened to the flurry of footsteps out in the hall, as the staff checked on patients to make sure all the necessary monitors and equipment were operating correctly. Wyatt glanced at the TV and realized the angriest part of the storm sat right smack on top of Blue Falls. After a storm like this, there would no doubt be necessary cleanup. If only he weren’t a prisoner of his injuries, maybe he could pick up a couple days of work. Lord knew his wallet could always use the extra cash.
That thought took him back to Dr. Brody’s comments about how he put his life in danger every time he settled himself atop a bull. But it was all he knew beyond basic manual labor. Maybe he could have done something else if he’d applied himself, but rodeo had gotten into his blood early and he’d not thought much beyond it. Good damn thing that bull two nights ago hadn’t done anything that was irreparable.
But what if it had? He’d be totally screwed.
Maybe he needed to think about a plan for when his rodeo days were over. Even the best of the best had to quit riding sometime. If he started chatting up some of his contacts now, maybe he could plant the seed that would grow into some sort of rodeo-related job after he quit riding. Maybe he’d even follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and become an announcer.
But that was down the road. All he needed to do now was heal enough to escape this damn bed and get back on the road. He was losing precious time, points and money, none of which he could afford.
Dr. Brody stayed gone so long that he’d begun to think maybe she’d headed home. He hoped not, and not just because he liked her company. The storm hadn’t slackened much. Even he would have pulled over in this mess and let it pass. He might ride bulls for a living, but that wasn’t as dangerous as driving when you couldn’t see the road in front of you.
Using the dim light above his bed, he started flipping through the fishing-and-hunting magazine. He honestly wasn’t much for hunting, but he liked the solitude and quiet of a morning of fishing. He had a lot of fond memories of fly-fishing with his grandfather on the Laramie and North Platte Rivers, outings he often wished he could relive just once.
Not wanting to travel down memory lane, he tossed the magazine back onto the table and looked at the TV screen. It appeared the storm was moving quickly. As if to confirm that observation, the rain subsided outside. He shifted his focus to the doorway and watched as people walked back and forth, but none of them were the person he wanted to see. He’d barely had that thought when she popped her head in the door.
“I’m going to see if I can float home now. Behave yourself.” She gestured toward the magazines. “And good luck figuring out the mysteries of the female mind.”
He snorted. “I’ll settle for figuring out your name. I’m confident I’ll get it right tomorrow. I’ve got two good guesses ready to go.”
“You’ll have to hang on to them. I’m off for the next couple of days.”
Wyatt’s heart sank. The days were long and boring enough without her brief visits. What the devil was he going to look forward to without them?
“Then I get six guesses when you come back.”
She smiled. “You’ll need them.”
Wyatt tried to occupy himself with some more channel surfing and reading the magazines. He even pulled out the crossword-puzzle book and worked a few. But his mind wandered and he started writing down all the C names he could think of down the margin of one of the puzzles.
When a nurse came in after the shift change that evening, he chatted her up a little before springing the question uppermost in his mind. “Hey, could you tell me what Dr. Brody’s first name is?”
“Sure,” she said with a smile that made her eyes twinkle. “It’s Chloe.” The nurse lowered her voice. “Don’t tell the other docs, but she’s our favorite.”
His, too.
He waited until the nurse, Sophie, left the room before he let his mind fix on the lovely doctor’s name. Chloe. It fit her. But with his curiosity satisfied, there was no way he was going to give her the correct answer. For however long he was stuck here, he needed something to look forward to. And if “guessing” the wrong names kept Chloe coming back, he’d toss every crazy name he could at her.
He smiled and felt better than he had since she’d left.
* * *
AFTER WORKING A bit more at the clinic, Chloe raced to her car through the still falling rain. Once inside, she wiped the water from her face and smoothed back her wet hair. She stared at the rivulets streaming down the windshield. She’d done it. When she’d awakened from the dream about Wyatt being her husband and kissing her as if it were the end of time, she’d doubted she’d be able to face him without blushing so brightly she’d be mistaken for a solar flare.
She’d considered avoiding him and asking Dr. Pierce to check on him instead. It wouldn’t be unusual for the surgeon to do a post-op visit. She’d even been on the verge of calling Dr. Pierce before she’d caught herself, chastised herself for being so silly. She rarely turned away from a challenge or obstacle, so she wasn’t about to let an admittedly very nice dream about a sexy cowboy send her running.
Though she’d been antsy when she arrived at his room, the feeling had quickly faded when she’d found him looking more bored than she could recall ever seeing anyone. She’d nearly laughed and felt sorry for him at the same time. During her one hospitalization for pneumonia, when she’d been thirteen, she’d been bored out of her mind, too, and she’d had family and friends visiting her and keeping her company.
Wyatt was a thousand miles from home, stuck in a town where he knew no one, unable to even get out of bed. That had to suck for a guy like him, always on the go. He was the poster child for someone who could use a friend right now. And it wasn’t the first time she’d spent extra time with a patient she felt needed it. The other doctors called her a softie. Chloe had decided long ago she could live with that label. To her, it was way better than becoming so detached that patients became a list of symptoms on case files instead of people with hopes and fears and who would rather be anywhere than in a hospital bed.
She started the car and headed home through the rain that was letting up even more. Her thoughts drifted back to when she was a child, when she would hang out at the hospital while her mom was at work there. Her mother had been a nursing assistant, but she’d been great with the patients, calming them, making them laugh, gifting them with a smiling face and a sympathetic ear.
Chloe’s memories settled on Beatrice Collins, a tiny slip of an old woman who’d been in the hospital back when Chloe had been about eight years old. Even though it’d been more than two decades since then, Chloe could still remember how very alone Beatrice had looked in her bed. The sad part was that she’d had family. They simply hadn’t come to see her. Chloe’s mom had done what she could to cheer up the older woman, but Beatrice had still died alone in the hospital. Chloe remembered her mother being upset about it, not so much that Beatrice had died but that she’d been so lonely in her final days. Chloe could still hear her mother saying, “I think she died of a broken heart as much as anything.”
She hadn’t thought of Beatrice in a long time, but the image wouldn’t leave her. Wyatt was out of the woods now and otherwise young and healthy even if he did wear the scars of his trade. Even so, she found herself pulling into a parking space in front of the Primrose Café. Before she could talk herself into driving on home like any sensible person, she got out of her car, walked inside and proceeded to order two meals to go. While she waited, she texted Garrett to let him know the Brody men were on their own tonight without telling them why.
By the time her order was ready, the rain had moved out. A sliver of the sun setting in the west had found a crack in the clouds and spread out its rays as if comforting the landscape after the storm. She took a deep breath of the rain-scented air before slipping back into her car and retracing the route to the hospital.
Luckily, the staff seemed to be busy elsewhere as she made her way down the hallway and into Wyatt’s room. “Did you miss me?”
He looked up from where he was reading the Sports Illustrated and scrunched his forehead in concentration. “Who are you again?”
She lifted an eyebrow at him. “Just for that, I’m taking this chicken-fried steak to someone who will appreciate it.” She spun toward the door.
“Wait. Don’t tease a guy like that.”
Chloe turned halfway toward him and lifted one of the takeout containers. “So you do want this?”
“I don’t care if you have a gas-station hot dog in there. It’s got to be better than the food here.”
She honestly felt sorry for the cafeteria workers. They no doubt worked hard and got no love. Still, facts were facts. Hospital food was, as a general rule, dreadful.
Chloe placed both meals on the rolling table, which Wyatt had positioned in front of him. “Scoot.” She motioned for him to move his legs so she could sit on the edge of his bed.
Wyatt opened his container and inhaled deeply. “Will you marry me?”
Chloe froze for a moment before forcing herself to laugh. She hoped he didn’t notice the jolt that went through her at his joking proposal. What was it with Wyatt and all these references to marriage? She seriously needed to get a grip. Just because she’d decided maybe it was time to start her own family before she was too old did not mean she had to latch on to the first guy who crossed her path. Sure, he was good-looking—really good-looking—but you couldn’t base a relationship on looks alone, even if that person didn’t live his life on the road cheating death most of the year.
Remembering that she hadn’t made any sort of response to his “proposal,” Chloe shook her head and opened her plastic utensils. “I think you might have that concussion after all.”
Thankfully, he didn’t pursue the topic, instead diving into his meal as if he hadn’t eaten in days. Maybe he hadn’t had a decent dinner in a long time. She’d been around enough rodeo cowboys, especially the ones who weren’t at the top of the rankings, to know they didn’t have enough cash to toss toward pricey food.
“So, what’s life like in Wyoming? I’ve never been there.”
He shrugged, and she saw the wince that motion caused.
“Probably not much different than here, just a lot colder in the winter.”
“How’d you get into bull riding?”
“Looked like fun.”
Chloe stopped eating and stared at him. “You’re going to make me work hard for every scrap of information, aren’t you?”
He met her gaze. “Frustrating, isn’t it?”
She knew he was talking about her first name. “Fair point.”
He took another bite of his gravy-covered chicken-fried steak and chased it with a drink of tea. She’d just taken a bite of her green beans when he spoke again.
“My grandpa was a rodeo announcer, so I was around rodeo from the time I was young. Can’t really say why I chose bull riding other than I was full of myself, thought I could do anything.”
“How long have you been riding? I can tell you’ve had several broken bones and probably more cuts and bruises than you can count.”
“Since I was thirteen in junior rodeo.”
“I still can’t believe they let kids ride bulls.”
“They’re not the rank ones you see in rodeos like the other night.”
“They’re still bulls with horns that can do damage.”
“Have to learn sometime. Is it any different than being a doctor? When did you know that’s what you wanted to do?”
She stared at him then sighed. “You need to stop making valid points.”
He laughed and winced again.
“Are your injuries causing you pain? We can look at the dosage of the painkillers again.”
Wyatt shook his head. “No, nothing I can’t handle. I want off those drugs as soon as possible.” The intensity of his words caused her to look at him more closely. Had he experienced a problem with painkillers in the past?
They ate in silence for a couple of minutes before she noticed Wyatt was watching her.
“What?”
“I was wondering why you decided to come back.”
This time, she was the one to shrug. “I’ve worked here long enough to know how incredibly long and boring the days can be when you’re stuck in the hospital. It’s as if time moves slower inside these walls.”
“That’s perceptive.”
She smiled then wiped the edge of her mouth with her napkin. “I like to think I’m a bit smarter than the average bear.”
“Guess you’d have to be to become a doctor.”
“It’s certainly not easy. There were times when I didn’t think I could cram one more medical fact in my head or it would explode or start oozing out my ears.”
“Nice image.”
She gave a little bow. “Thank you, thank you very much.”
“You make a habit of this, then?”
“I’ve been known to spend extra time with patients, watch a movie or two, hand out cupcakes from time to time. I’m probably too softhearted.”
“No, it’s great. More doctors should be that way.”
“There are lots of doctors who care or they wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing, especially in small communities like this.”
“But do they bring their patients dinner or sit and watch TV with them?”
“Well, no, but I understand the need for distance, especially if you want a long career. Lots of people we see don’t make it, and it carves a little part out of you if you’ve allowed yourself to get close to them.”
“But you do it anyway.”
Chloe twirled her fork in her mashed potatoes. “I can’t seem to help it.”
When Wyatt didn’t say anything in response, she looked up to find him staring at her as if he’d just stumbled upon the eighth wonder of the world. He seemed to realize he was staring and shifted his gaze back to his food.
“I’m surprised a doctor would bring me fried food.”
“You shouldn’t eat it every day, but sometimes you just need comfort food. Like when I get sick, I’m going to eat some chicken and dumplings, carbs be damned.”
When they both finished their meals, Chloe tossed the containers in the trash. She didn’t resume her seat on the edge of the bed, but she picked up the crossword book and flipped through the pages. Wyatt had already completed a dozen of the puzzles.
“Don’t look so surprised,” he said.
“What?”
He pointed toward the book. “You looked surprised I’d done any of those.”
“You just haven’t had the book that long.”
