yet, an early death. A Champion All-Around Rodeo Cowboy, Hank had ridden in all the rough-stock events and amassed a sizable fortune by the time he retired at the ripe old age of thirty-eight. But instead of spending his winnings on pleasurable pursuits, Hank had started the Last Chance Ranch for troubled boys, because as he had told them time and again, there was no such thing as a lost cause when it came to people. They had the free will to change—to rise above their circumstances and make something better of themselves.
Sam took a deep breath as he thought about the man whose life was cut short way too soon by a massive heart attack. Hank had wisely used ranch work and rodeo to help him and his brothers work through the anger and aggression they felt over the injustices they had suffered in their young lives. He had counseled them, been their mentor and taught them how to be honorable upstanding members of society. He’d encouraged them to stay in school, tutored them when he could, hired someone to do it when it was a subject he knew little about and set up trust funds to help them get a college education. Hank Calvert was directly responsible for making them the men they were today, and they owed the man and his memory more than any of them could ever repay.
That’s why it irritated the hell out of him that Bria had insisted that the divorce papers couldn’t wait one more day. She knew how important this particular rodeo was to him—to all of them. Why did she have to be so damn eager to be rid of him?
Scanning the crowd in the grandstand, his gaze went to the end of the bleachers, then came back to zero in on the auburn-haired woman climbing the steps to the section of seats reserved for the wives and girlfriends of the riders and rodeo personnel. Even with everything that had happened between them—all the angry accusations and painful disappointments—Bria Stanton-Rafferty still took his breath away, still made his heart beat a little faster whenever he saw her. He had a feeling she probably always would.
When their gazes met, his chest tightened and a knot twisted in his gut. They had reached an impasse and he wasn’t going to stand in her way, if ending their marriage was what she really wanted. He cared too much about her to try forcing her to stay in a situation that caused her so much unhappiness.
“Sam!”
“Watch out!”
“Get out of the way, Rafferty!”
The urgent shouts of his brothers and the personnel behind the bucking chutes suddenly broke through his disturbing introspection.
Turning to see why they were so intent on trying to gain his attention, Sam heard the angry bellow at the same time he caught sight of two thousand pounds of pissed-off beef coming at him like a runaway freight train. A big brindle bull had somehow escaped the channel of fence panels and was loose behind the bucking chutes.
With no time to scramble to the top of the fence and nowhere else to go, Sam knew his best hope of avoiding disaster would be to use his hands to try to push off the animal’s head and launch himself to the side. Doing just that, he might have been successful had there been more room. But the close quarters in the section of fence panels prevented him from completely avoiding the bull’s pass and he felt his head collide with the steel gate at the same time he heard a woman’s terrified scream.
Pain shot through his skull with the intensity of a lightning bolt a moment before a dark curtain descended around him. He tried to fight it, tried to keep his eyes open. He needed to reassure Bria, needed to tell her that no matter what happened to him, he wanted nothing but the best for her and for her to be happy. But the throbbing ache in his head was excruciating and closing his eyes, Sam had no choice but to give in and allow himself to sink into the peaceful black abyss of unconsciousness.
One
Standing in the hospital waiting room, Bria wrapped her arms around herself as she tried to chase away the chills. It did no good. In spite of the fact that it was early June in Texas and already extremely warm, she couldn’t seem to stop shivering.
Terror like nothing she had ever known had clawed at her insides as she’d helplessly watched the angry bull slam Sam into the fence, then pummel his limp body repeatedly with its large head. Thankfully, the bull didn’t have horns and therefore Sam hadn’t sustained any puncture wounds, nor had he been stepped on by the massive animal. Nate and Sam’s foster brothers had immediately jumped into action and diverted the bull’s attention as quickly as they could. But it seemed as if they’d all moved in slow motion and took forever to get the beast away from him so the emergency medical crew could move in and take over.
She drew in a shuddering breath. There was no getting around it, she was responsible for Sam’s accident. If she had only waited for another day, another time to bring the divorce papers for him to sign or if he hadn’t seen her and been distracted, she wouldn’t be standing in the waiting room while he underwent tests to see just how badly he was injured.
But the rodeo was only a two-hour drive from her new home in Dallas and she had wanted to get the papers signed and everything finalized before she started her new job as a marketing consultant for one of the major department stores. If she hadn’t run into a traffic jam on the interstate, she would have arrived with plenty of time to get things taken care of and left before the dangerous bull-riding event even started.
Her breath caught on a sob. It didn’t matter why she had been running late or that she had wanted to get on with her life. Sam was the one having to pay the price for her impatience.
“Have you heard anything, Bria?” Nate called from somewhere behind her.
Turning around, she watched Nate and his brothers hurrying down the hall toward the waiting-room entrance. Tall and ruggedly handsome, all five men were cowboys from the top of their wide-brimmed Resistol hats to their scuffed Justin boots. All six of the boys Hank Calvert had fostered had grown up to be extremely wealthy men, but to the outward eye, they were down to earth, hardworking cowboys who passed up designer clothing in favor of chambray shirts and jeans. Nate was Sam’s only biological sibling, but the other four men they called brothers couldn’t have meant more to them if they’d had the same blood flowing through their veins.
“Th-They just took him … to the imaging department … for X-rays and a scan of his head,” she said, unable to keep her voice from cracking.
Nate stepped forward and, putting his arms around her, pulled her to his broad chest. “He’s going to be all right, Bria.”
“Sam’s as tough as nails,” Lane Donaldson added. The same age as Sam, Lane had a master’s degree in psychology that he used quite successfully as a professional poker player. Bria didn’t think she had ever seen the man look less confident.
Ryder McClain, the most easygoing of the group, nodded. “Sam’s probably already being a pain in the butt about getting out of here.”
“I hope all of you are right,” she said, feeling helpless.
“Can I get you something, Bria? A cup of coffee or some water?” T. J. Malloy asked solicitously. He was the most thoughtful of the brothers, so she wasn’t the least bit surprised that T.J.’s concern extended to her.
“Get some coffee for all of us, T.J.,” Nate commanded, without waiting for her to respond.
“I’ll go with you to help carry everything,” Jaron Lambert offered, turning to follow T.J. Stopping, he turned back to ask, “Do you want anything else, Bria. Maybe something to eat?”
“Thanks, Jaron, but I’m not hungry. I doubt that I could eat anything even if I was,” she
