and replaced the receiver. Where was she going to get that kind of money?
The singing maniac ripped into a third, even heartier, chorus of the children’s church song.
Determined to muzzle her unwanted serenader before he disrupted the other twenty patients on her wing, Becka pushed the nagging worry about her on-its-last-legs car into the background and padded on soft-soled shoes toward the E.R.
As charge nurse for the day shift, keeping everything running smoothly and under tight control was her responsibility. Control was what she did best. Every chart was neatly updated and in its proper slot, every medication carefully accounted for, and every patient given the best care a small-town hospital could manage. That included quieting down any and all drunks that passed through the doors.
“‘He’s got the little bitty babies in his hands,’” the man sang.
Irresponsible drunks. Didn’t they understand, as she did, that even a few beers at the wrong time could be deadly? For the past three years she’d had to live with the horror of learning that the hard way, and every time a drunk showed up in her E.R., the memory returned in full force.
Face set in a stiff, professional mask, she pushed the pneumatic door open. A swoosh of cool, antiseptic air wafted out.
“Would you please stop that caterwauling before you send someone into cardiac arrest?”
A vaguely familiar cowboy was propped on the exam table. His hat was askew. His black western shirt was filthy, and a wide abrasion marred his high, handsome cheekbone.
Becka clenched her teeth. So he was not only drunk and disorderly, he’d been fighting, too.
Hushed by her sharp command, the cowboy looking momentarily abashed. Then his glazed gaze roamed over her and a wicked little grin split his face.
“Well, lookie here, Jackson,” he said to the tall, silent cowboy standing beside him. “It’s the queen of the rodeo.”
The man called Jackson removed his white Resistol and grinned, too. “I don’t think so, Jett. Looks more like a little, mad redheaded nurse to me.”
“A nurse? What’s a nurse doing out here at the rodeo?” Mr. drunk-and-disorderly wobbled up from the gurney, his muscles rippling, his crystal-blue eyes showing alarm. The process knocked his black hat to the floor. “Did somebody get hurt?”
Becka captured his flailing arm and reseated him. Rock-hard muscle swelled beneath her fingers before the singing cowpoke collapsed wearily onto the pillow. With a moan he grabbed his head with both hands.
“I can’t make my head be still,” he mumbled.
“This is not a rodeo arena, cowboy, and it’s no wonder your head is spinning. How much have you had to drink today?”
Both men turned curious faces toward her. Her patient looked more stupefied than curious.
“Have we been drinking, Jackson?” he asked, frowning.
“Nope.”
“Didn’t think so.” His head wobbled crazily from side to side. “We haven’t done that in a while, have we?”
“Nope.”
“Then what’s she so mad about?”
“I don’t think she likes your singing.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” Becka huffed in exasperation. No doubt this wasn’t his first visit to a hospital, and common sense said the E.R. was serious business. But when had any drunk shown common sense?
“If he hasn’t been fighting, why is he here?”
“A bull didn’t take too kindly to his showboating.”
“A bull?” Becka came to full alert, her irritation washed away in a sea of guilty concern. “He’s been in a rodeo accident?”
“Why else would we be in an emergency room on Sunday evening?”
“Good heavens.”
Guilt sliced through her with the strength of a bone saw. She was a good nurse. A compassionate, go-the-extra-mile nurse, but this time she’d allowed painful personal memories to interfere with her job. Instead of recognizing an obvious concussion, she had jumped to the conclusion that he’d been drinking.
Would that awful day from her past ever stop haunting her?
Hustling to the blood-pressure monitor hanging on the wall, Becka pulled it down and wrapped the length of cloth around the man’s well-developed biceps. Her patient had the typical body of a professional rider, athletic and strong enough to stay on a writhing bull, but not overly large. He had what she would term the perfect body—if she were interested in such things, that is.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” she said to the tall cowboy called Jackson.
The injured man lay back, quiet for the moment, his eyes closed. A crooked little bump atop his nose suggested this wasn’t his first rodeo injury, though his was still an incredibly attractive face, the kind of good-looking hunk of cowboy that had women lining up. She’d seen him somewhere before, she was certain. A woman didn’t forget a face like that.
“He took a head butt from the back. Got his bell rung.”
Becka filed that away. A two-thousand-pound bull could pack a real wallop. “And?”
The big guy shrugged. “And he toppled over like a hundred-pound feed sack.”
Wincing at the unpleasant image, Becka pumped the sphygmomanometer bulb, listened for the familiar thump-thump while watching the needle dance rhythmically down to zero. His pressure was okay.
She reached for his pulse. Deeply ingrained calluses and the more recent red stripes of rope burn crossed the palm of his leatherlike hands.
She pursed her lips in disapproval. Like every rodeo cowboy she’d ever met he had no sense at all. Living on the edge, throwing caution to the wind, endangering himself and those around him.
“How long was he unconscious?”
“Unconscious? Me?” The cowboy on the table opened bleary eyes and struggled up on his elbows. “Never fainted in my—” He melted onto the pillow like hot wax.
The man called Jackson grimaced and shook his head. “Out like a light.”
Someone pecked at the door. Then without waiting, an admissions clerk entered. She thrust some papers toward the tall cowboy hovering over the gurney. “Are you the patient’s next of kin?”
“No ma’am. Jett is my traveling partner. We look after each other. But his brother lives around here if we need him.”
“Becka,” the woman asked. “Can he still sign the E.R. papers? Or do we need to wait on Mr. Garrett to wake up?”
“Garrett? Jett Garrett?” Memory flooding back, Becka turned toward the unconscious patient. “I remember him.”
No
