he thought with an appreciative grin. This one’s definitely not a kid. He was in the midst of a rather nice perusal of her other petite but womanly assets when she laid an ice pack against his leg.
Pain, violent enough to be rated F5 in the tornado world, shot from his kneecap to his head and rattled around inside his brain long enough to make him forget his name.
He clamped down hard on the inside of his cheek to keep his big mouth from squealing like a stuck hog. He’d had pain before, didn’t really even mind pain that much since it was an expected part of his job, but this wasn’t regular pain. This was hot-metal-in-the-eye pain. Steel-toed-boot-in-the-groin pain. Hold-me-down-and-stomp-my-nose pain.
The little nurse looked up with sympathetic eyes. “Would you like me to ask Dr. Clayton if you can have something for the pain?”
“Pain?” he grunted, sucking in air through his teeth. “I don’t need anything for pain. What I need is my pants.”
She cast a sideways glance at Jackson who looked way too serious. And Jacks was not a serious kind of guy. All of a sudden, Jett had a real bad feeling.
“Did something terrible happen to my pants?”
Jackson laughed. “Yeah. She cut ’em off.”
“She did?” The dynamite blast in his leg had subsided a little. He managed a lascivious grin in the nurse’s direction. “And what did she do to me while I was helpless and naked?”
B. Washburn, RN, never even blushed. Guys must come on to someone as cute as she was all the time.
Was that what he was doing? Coming on to her?
Nah. He couldn’t afford to let himself get distracted right now with the NFR within reach. But she was cute.
Maybe later.
“So how am I going to get out of here without any pants?”
A cute little dip formed between Nurse Washburn’s eyes. “Don’t you remember talking to Dr. Clayton?”
That bad feeling came back, stronger this time. He cast a glance toward Jackson, who once more wore a troubled expression.
“’Fraid not. What’s up?”
“We’re sending you to Amarillo tomorrow to an orthopedic surgeon.”
“For a headache?” He refused to think about that teensy-weensy twinge in his knee.
“At the very least, you have a severed ACL that will require surgery.”
“How bad?” He looked to his partner for reassurance, but Jackson got that hang-dog look again.
Ignoring the incessant school of sharks ripping through his kneecap, he thought he’d better listen to Miss B. Washburn, RN, considering how he didn’t recall ever meeting Dr. Clayton. Or having an MRI for that matter.
What she had to say really put a kink in his good mood. He knew all about tears of the anterior cruciate ligament. Every athlete hated them because they sidelined a guy too long. But from the way B. Washburn, RN, told it, a regular ACL tear didn’t sound so bad. His, on the other hand, was way beyond torn. His knee was, as she so blatantly phrased it, “demolished.”
“So, when can I ride again?” He asked when she finished telling him that not only was his dream in jeopardy, but his career, as well.
“That will be for the orthopod to say after he’s done a scope.”
Orthopod? Was that a doctor from outer space?
He thought better of asking. And to tell the truth, if someone didn’t get the sharks off his leg, he was going to lose his sense of humor.
“But you’ll be off the circuit for at least a couple of months, maybe longer.”
“No way.” He struggled up to his elbows. “Get me some pants, Jacks. I can ride.”
To prove his point, he swung his right leg over the side of the bed, but the left one refused to follow.
B. Washburn, RN, caught him by the calf and pushed him gently, but efficiently back onto the bed. The eyes he’d thought of as honey-colored, now looked muddy with anger.
“Don’t be foolish, Mr. Garrett. It’s bad enough to put yourself in harm’s way by riding bulls, but refusing treatment for severe injury is totally irresponsible. It won’t heal and you won’t ride, maybe ever again if you make it any worse.”
He gazed down in amazement at her slender arms. “Hey, you’re pretty strong for a girl.”
She’d tossed him back onto the bed as easily as Sinsation had tossed him on his head. Dadgum ornery bull. “You must know judo or something.”
“Or something.” She favored him with a cheeky grin that sent a little spiral of interest curling through his belly. Darn if she wasn’t making him think of taking a couple days off to hang around Rattlesnake and find out just what that something was—among other things.
“Man, what’s the world coming to? I get stomped by a bull and body-slammed by a girl all in one day.” Moving had stirred the knee-eating sharks, and he was starting to feel grouchy again. “Are you gonna get my pants or do I have to call 911 and report a theft, as well as a kidnapping?”
B. Washburn, RN, pushed the phone toward him. He scowled at her. She stared back with those honey-colored eyes, as solemn and sympathetic as an undertaker. The real bad feeling settled in to stay. He got the unmistakable impression that he was about to take an unplanned vacation to Amarillo.
Chapter Two
Near the end of her shift Becka slid into a chair at the nurses’ desk to make final notations on the patients’ charts. As she leafed through Jett Garrett’s, she frowned.
Rolling her chair away from the desk, she called to the nurse standing inside the medication room directly behind her. “Mindy.”
“Yeah?” A bubbly blond head peeked around the door.
“Has Mr. Garrett in 14B had anything at all for pain since admission?”
“I haven’t given him anything. Did you give him something in the E.R.?”
Becka worried her bottom lip and looked through the chart once more. “No.”
“Those rodeo cowboys are so tough.”
Becka rolled her eyes. Tough or not, the man had to hurt, and there was no way he could sleep with a roaring headache and a throbbing knee. As uncomfortable as she was around a man as reckless as Jett, tonight he was her responsibility and, bull rider or not, she would never shirk her duty. Neatly replacing the chart, she stashed the ink pen in the pocket of her scrubs and headed for room 14B. On the way she made up a new ice pack for his knee.
As she approached the room she heard the sounds of “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and didn’t even try to stop the grin that formed on her lips. Her son, Dylan, loved that song
