More Than a Cowboy (The Carmody Brothers Book 3) Read online

  It was half an hour before Dr. Wilson came to talk to them in waiting room.

  “Okay,” he said, letting out a long sigh as he sat down. “We’ve completed an initial neurological exam, and it’s clear Gideon’s suffered significant damage. There are still more tests to do, but at the moment I’d put him at a twenty-eight on the stroke scale. In the severe category.”

  His mother made a small, distressed noise.

  “But that will change with rehab, right?” Garret asked.

  Dr. Wilson paused a moment before answering. “At the moment, he has profound paralysis down his right side. He’s lost his speech, and his swallowing reflex is weak. We’ll put him straight into intensive rehabilitation and speech therapy, but there is no guarantee what gains he might make or how long it might take. Rehab is a process, and it’s never a straight line. I’m sorry, I know that’s not what you want to hear, but it’s all I can tell you right now.”

  They talked about next steps—moving Gideon to a general ward, intensive rehabilitation—for a few minutes before Dr. Wilson excused himself.

  His mother plucked a handful of tissues from the box on the table and blew her nose noisily after he’d gone.

  “Hang in there, Mom,” he said. “We’ll make sure Dad gets the best care. And you know how stubborn he is.”

  She nodded. Then she took a deep breath, as though girding herself for a difficult conversation. “Garret, we need to talk about the business.”

  “Okay. I can call Ron—”

  “No. You have to take charge, Garret. Not Ron. I don’t want him swooping in and taking over everything.”

  His mother held his gaze, urging him to agree. He studied her face, trying to understand what was going on. Ron Gibson had been with Tate Transport for more than thirty years, working his way from truck driver all the way up to general manager. There was no one his father valued or trusted more, and Garret knew for a fact that the man was a frequent guest at the ranch. There was no one more qualified or better positioned to take over the day-to-day running of the business in the short term. Long term was another story, but that wasn’t a discussion for today.

  “I thought you loved Ron.”

  “Your father loves Ron. Tate Transport is your father’s legacy, your inheritance. You need to be the one making decisions, not Ron. I want you to take over as CEO immediately.”

  Garret thought of his business partners back in Seattle and all the plans they’d made together. After years of back-breaking work, their fledgling coffee machine manufacturing business was on the verge of really taking off. The deal they’d signed in Rome was just the beginning.

  But Tate Transport was responsible for the employment of more than a thousand people, some of whom had been with his father for decades.

  There was no arguing with those kinds of numbers, or the look on his mother’s face.

  “Don’t worry about the business,” he said, aware that he was about to upend his whole life. “I’ll take care of everything. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  Chapter Two

  Late the next day, Sierra sat back on her heels and contemplated the pile of weeds in front of her. She’d been out in the kitchen garden for hours now, weeding and tidying things up. She’d already put in a full day’s labor doing ranch chores, but she’d needed to stay busy, to keep moving.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about those fraught, tense minutes in the Bell, even though they’d happened two days ago.

  Gideon’s hand in hers.

  The minutes that had felt like hours.

  The terrible sense of helplessness.

  There was dirt beneath her nails and in the creases of her hands, highlighting the swooping curve of her lifeline. She contemplated it for a long moment, thinking about how quickly—how irrevocably—Gideon’s life had been altered thanks to a microscopic blood clot in his brain.

  He’d seemed so unassailable. Rich, powerful, dynamic.

  But no one was immortal, and sometimes life turned on a dime. She knew that better than most people—thirteen years ago, her parents had died in a car accident when their car skidded into the path of Gideon’s powerful SUV on a cold winter’s night. Those few seconds had changed Sierra’s family forever, just as a tiny blood clot had derailed Gideon’s life two days earlier.

  She dusted her hands off and was pushing herself to her feet when her phone rang with a call from Jack.

  “Hi,” she said, hoping against hope he wasn’t calling with more bad news.

  “Sierra. I need to ask a favor,” Jack said. There was a thinness to his voice, an oddness that made her frown.

  “Of course. Are you okay?” she asked.

  “You doing anything now? Reckon you’d be able to come out to the Tate place to help me put the Bell to bed?”

  “Sure. I can be there in ten,” she said. She couldn’t help noticing he hadn’t answered her question. And since when had he needed help putting the Bell into the hangar?

  “Okay. See you soon,” Jack said, ending the call.

  She could have sworn she heard the rasp of suppressed pain beneath his words and she tucked her phone into her back pocket as she strode toward the house.

  Casey and his girlfriend, Eva, were dancing in the kitchen when she entered, doing some kind of silly take on a two-step that had them both in fits of laughter. She’d honestly never seen her youngest brother as happy as he’d been in the last few months since he’d met Eva and landed a recording contract for his country crossover band, The Whiskey Shots.

  “Out of the way, losers,” she said, shooing them away from the sink. “And maybe you could tone it down on the PDA. Constant exposure to other people’s happiness is nauseating.”

  She pumped some hand soap into her palm and shoved her hands under the faucet. Casey tapped the back of her head, pushing her black straw cowboy hat down over her eyes.

  “One day you’ll understand,” he said.

  Sierra bumped her hat out of her eyes with her forearm and started scrubbing at her nails. “Jack needs some help over at the Tates’. Don’t hold dinner for me, okay?”

  She flicked off the tap and shook water off her hands, conscious of Casey’s habitual bristle at the mention of the Tate name. Like her other two brothers, he was not a fan.

  “Everything okay?” Eva asked.

  “Don’t know. Hope so,” Sierra said, drying her hands on a hand towel before scooping up her truck keys and heading out the door.

  The kitchen door slammed behind her and she took the porch steps two at a time. One advantage to being taller than most women was that when she wanted to get somewhere in a hurry, she could really cover some ground.

  Her rusty old pickup started on the first go, and seconds later she was barreling down the driveway. She sat at the speed limit for the short drive to the Tates’ place and parked beside Jack’s SUV near the hangar. The Bell was out on the helipad, but there was no sign of him anywhere.

  “Jack?”

  “Here.” His response came from inside the hangar, and there was no mistaking the edge of pain in his voice this time.

  She strode through the open door and spotted him lying on his side near the old desk he kept in the corner for dealing with various administrative tasks.

  “Jack! What happened?” Various nightmare scenarios flew through her mind as she rushed to his side, including that he’d succumbed to a stroke like his boss. He and Gideon were about the same age, give or take.

  “Damn back,” Jack said.

  Her shoulders dropped a notch. A bad back wasn’t great, but it wasn’t life-threatening either.

  “Dropped the keys, bent down to pick them up, and that was it. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t get up. Ridiculous,” Jack said, clearly frustrated with his body’s betrayal.

  Sierra was aware he’d had a niggling lower back problem for a while now, but as far as she knew this sort of collapse was new to him.

  “Has this happened before?” she asked. “Should we call an ambulance?”
/>   “No ambulance,” Jack said, lifting his head to glare at her as though she’d suggested he take up ballet dancing instead of offering a perfectly rational response to finding him incapacitated with pain on a hard concrete floor.

  Men. Always with the stoicism.

  “What about your doctor? Should I call him?” she suggested instead.

  “Don’t need any of that. I’ll just lie here for a bit, and it’ll settle. Just need you to put the Bell away for the night for me. They said there might be an electrical storm coming through.”

  It was all Sierra could do not to gape. Was Jack seriously suggesting she leave him lying on the ground while she went about the business of putting the Bell away for the night?

  Unbelievable.

  She bent so she could look him in the eye. “That’s not going to happen, you stubborn idiot. Give me your doctor’s name if you don’t want a ride to the hospital in an ambulance.”

  Jack glared at her, his dark red eyebrows crowding together in a ferocious scowl.

  “Looking at me like that isn’t going to change anything,” she said. “If you don’t like my solutions, give me another one of your own to work with. Because leaving you lying here like this is not an option.”

  Jack’s jaw worked a couple of times. “I’ve got some meds at home. Muscle relaxants. It’s just a spasm. If I can get home, lie down for a while, I’ll be good.”

  Sierra eyed him dubiously. “I’m happy to drive you home, but I’m assuming you’ve tried to get up and can’t. Am I right?”

  “Haven’t tried for a few minutes. Might have eased a bit,” Jack said.

  “Well, okay. Let’s try again. But slowly, because if it’s not just a spasm, you don’t want to do more damage.” She was no doctor, but she figured back pain was not something a person wanted to mess with.

  Grimacing, Jack rolled onto his stomach, then attempted to push himself up onto all fours. He barely got halfway before he gasped with pain and dropped onto his belly.

  “Jack. God. Please let me ring an ambulance.” She pulled out her phone, ready to dial.

  “I’ll be fine. I can do it. Just give me a moment,” he insisted, his tone sharp.

  “Everything okay in here?”

  Sierra gave a start, her head whipping toward the hangar entrance where a tall, broad-shouldered figure stood silhouetted against the setting sun.

  “All good,” Jack called.

  “Ignore him,” she said. “He’s done something to his back. We’re trying to get him on his feet so I can drive him home.”

  The man entered the hangar, his stride long and easy, and even though it had been years since she’d last seen him, she recognized Garret Tate straight away. Dressed in designer jeans and a black sweater, his dark hair windswept, everything about him screamed big money and big city.

  “What’s the problem?” he asked, crouching on the other side of Jack’s prone form. Even though he was a few feet away Sierra caught a whiff of his aftershave, something smoky and earthy and pineapple-y that made her blink, it smelled so good.

  “Just a spasm,” Jack said. “It’ll pass. Just need my muscle relaxants.”

  “Which are at home,” Sierra explained, meeting Garret’s golden-brown gaze.

  He nodded, then glanced behind the desk. “How about we use this chair? That way Jack’ll have something to push himself up on.”

  He brought the chair around so it was next to Jack’s prone form. “A friend of mine in college had a bad back. Used to wear a brace all the time for support,” Garret said. “Is there anything we could use to create a brace? A towel, a bit of canvas? Something like that?”

  Sierra watched in fascination as he unbuckled his belt, pulling the leather free from his jean loops with a deft flick of his wrist.

  “Um. Let me think,” she said, prodding her dazed brain back into action. “The tie-down sock is canvas. That could work.”

  She jogged out to the Bell and yanked open the cargo hold, pulling out the tie-down strap and detaching the rope that trailed from it. She jogged back, folding the stiff canvas into an approximation of a bandage as she ran.

  “Perfect. Good work,” Garret said, flashing her a small smile as she handed the canvas over.

  Garret asked Jack to lift his hips enough so he could slip both the canvas and belt beneath him. Then he tightened the canvas around Jack’s waist, cinching the belt to keep it in place.

  “How’s that?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Feels better already, thanks,” Jack said, and Sierra could hear the relief in his voice.

  “Let’s give standing a shot, then,” Garret said.

  It took them five minutes, but they managed to get Jack onto his feet. By that time he was white around the mouth and very pale. Sierra fetched his SUV and drove it into the hangar to minimize the distance he’d have to walk.

  “I really, really want to take you to the clinic,” she said as she and Garret assisted Jack to the car. “Just to be safe.”

  “I’ll be fine. Just need to lie down,” Jack insisted.

  Garret gave her a look over the other man’s hunched shoulders, indicating he shared her skepticism on that front.

  “Then I’m calling Tally,” Sierra said.

  Jack’s daughter lived locally. Maybe she’d be able to talk some sense into him.

  “She’s got Ruby’s dance class this evening,” Jack protested.

  Sierra felt a rush of frustrated affection for her mentor. Trust Jack to memorize his granddaughter’s schedule. He doted on Tally’s two kids and was an active and enthusiastic presence in their lives. “If you were my father, I’d want to know you were in this kind of pain.”

  Garret cranked the passenger seat back as far as it would go and Sierra took Jack’s arm and helped him ease down into the seat. By the time they were done, he was shaky and sweaty and Sierra simply held out her hand for his phone.

  He handed it over with a resigned sigh, and she looked up his daughter’s number and called her, aware all the while of Garret standing nearby, smelling like the best thing she’d ever smelled in her life.

  She filled Tally in briefly before agreeing to meet her at Jack’s place, then ended the call.

  “You heard all that?” she asked Jack.

  “Yes,” was his grudging response.

  She gave his shoulder a quick squeeze, because she could see this situation was putting a serious dent in his dignity.

  Sierra turned to Garret and offered him a smile. “Thanks for the helping hand.”

  “You going to be okay at the other end?” he asked.

  “We’ll be fine,” Jack responded before Sierra could.

  “Apparently we’ll be fine,” Sierra said.

  Garret smiled, and the part of her brain that wasn’t worried about Jack offered the observation that on a scale of one to ten, Garret Tate was definitely an eleven.

  Maybe even a twelve.

  “Good luck,” he said.

  “Hopefully we won’t need it,” she said.

  She walked around the car and slid into the driver’s seat, suddenly very conscious of her dirt-streaked jeans and dusty flannel shirt. She wasn’t wearing a scrap of makeup either. And lord knew how she smelled, given she’d been mucking out the stables earlier in the day.

  Not as good as him, that was for sure.

  Then she realized it was pretty dumb to worry about any of that, because even if she’d noticed Garret Tate was a hottie, there was no way a guy who lived in Seattle and who smelled like he did and looked like he did would have time in his busy schedule to notice her.

  That was not the way the world worked.

  “I’ll try to be as gentle as I can,” she promised Jack as she started the engine.

  “I’m not made of glass,” he snapped.

  She put the car in gear and eased her foot onto the gas, passing out of the hangar and into the twilight. She couldn’t resist a quick glance in the rearview mirror as she hit the driveway. Garret Tate stood where they’d left him
, hands on his hips, a slight frown on his face as he watched them leave.

  Then she turned into the driveway and he was gone.

  *

  The last time Garret Tate had seen Sierra Carmody, he’d been nineteen and in his first year of college and she’d been a beanpole sixteen-year-old. Now she was . . . not a beanpole. Far from it.

  She had to be, what, twenty-seven now? All grown up.

  Old memories washed over him as he returned the chair to its place behind Jack’s desk. Once upon a time, he’d been close friends with Jesse Carmody. He’d been in and out of the Carmody house all the time back then, treating it almost like it was his own. He’d eaten at their kitchen table, played football in the paddock behind the house, ridden across their land with Jesse and Jed.

  And then the accident had happened.

  Garret straightened the chair unnecessarily, uncomfortable with the echo of old guilt. Maybe one day he’d be able to think about that night and not feel like dirt, but apparently it was not today.

  He strode to the door of the hangar and was about to flick off the bright overhead lights when his phone rang. His mother was still at the hospital—she’d practically been living there since his father’s stroke—and he half expected it to be her, letting him know she was going to spend the night in his father’s room again.

  Instead, he saw it was his father’s general manager, Ron Gibson, returning his call. He’d been playing phone tag with Ron since yesterday, but it looked like they were finally going to connect. “Ron. How are you?” Garret asked as he took the call.

  “Garret. How’s your father? I’ve been getting text updates from your mom, but I’d appreciate anything more you can tell me,” Ron said.

  “He’s doing okay. They’re giving him a lot of intensive therapy to try to improve his swallowing reflex, and he’s already working with a speech therapist, so hopefully you’ll be able to talk to him yourself soon.”

  “Oh, man. That is so good to hear. I’ve been feeling sick at heart up here, waiting to know he’s going to be okay.” There was a quaver in his voice, not surprising considering he and Gideon had been working side by side for nearly thirty years.