Accidental Cowgirl (25 page)

As they topped a small rise, Kyla couldn’t help but let out a surprised “Oh!” as she took in the view. They were standing on a rocky outcropping warmed by the midday sun, and as cliché as it sounded, she almost felt like she could reach up and grab one of the puffy white clouds skittering around above them.

A long meadow stretched out in the valley below them, ending at the edge of a sparkling little lake. The grass was thick and long and swayed slowly in the breeze. Late summer wildflowers dotted the grasses with yellow and orange splashes of color. Kyla felt her eyes prickle with tears as she gazed down toward the lake.

Until she’d laid out her plan to Decker last night, she hadn’t even realized how much she’d actually imagined herself here in this dreamlike landscape.
Stupid, stupid, stupid
. When would she learn? At least she’d been smart enough not to reveal to
him
that she could picture herself here. That would have nixed the conversation before it’d even started.

Why had she thought he’d welcome her plan with open arms, or even an open mind? He was proud, he was racked with guilt that he hadn’t come up with a way to save Ma’s ranch, and in she’d bumbled and started blabbering about bigger barns, more horses, a new lodge so Ma could have her home back.

Oh, and money. Why in the
world
would she have thought he’d
ever
go for that part of the plan?

The words he’d thrown at her last night had landed like pierced arrows, every single one of them. But the sentence she couldn’t get out of her mind, the one that had kept her up most of the night, was his accusation that she was trying to use her money to buy a family for herself. That arrow had gone straight into her every vital organ and was still lodged there, hurting worse with every passing hour.

Kyla frowned as she looked toward Decker, who had been silent all morning. Cole had picked up his slack, yammering a mile a minute about the sights and sounds. Clearly they had an unspoken code. It figured.

As Cole was pointing down the valley and describing some ancient Native American settlement, Kismet started to quiver under Kyla, then took a couple of dancing steps to the left as she snorted loudly. Kyla grabbed tighter to the reins, not sure what she was doing. “What’s the matter, girl? Where are you going?” She leaned down to pat Kismet’s neck, and at the same moment, the mare let out a mighty whinny and lifted her front legs to the sky.

* * *

“Snake!” Cole yelled, and motioned the other riders away from the rocks. Jimmy and Pete led everyone away at a quick trot, then dismounted and ran back to where Kyla was lying on the rocks. Jimmy grabbed a quivering Kismet and led her off while Pete took hold of Decker’s and Cole’s horses.

Cole flung a rattlesnake carcass off the rocks as he knelt with Decker beside Kyla’s inert form. “Jesus, Decker. Jesus.” He lifted her right wrist and felt for a pulse.

“She’s breathing. She’s got a pulse.” Decker was running his hands down Kyla’s legs, feeling for breaks. “Left ankle.” He ran his hands back up her right leg, then up her rib cage. He opened her eyes and checked her pupils, then shook his head. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Jimmy, get the radio. We need medevac.”

“Medevac?” Hayley shouted. “Oh, my God! Decker!”

Decker looked up. He knew, above all else, that he needed to keep his voice calm, even though his thoughts were anything but. “It’s just a precaution, Hayley. I’m sure she’s going to be
fine. But she’s not talking to us, so this is standard procedure.”

Standard procedure, his ass. Kyla was completely unresponsive. Cole had already run for the medical pack and Decker moved to sit at Kyla’s head, bracing his hands on either side of her ears to provide traction in case she’d broken her neck. “Jimmy! They on their way?”

“Fifteen minutes, boss.”

“Shit.”

Cole crouched at Kyla’s feet, pulling splint materials from the med kit. He felt Kyla’s ankles for a pulse. “Pulse is steady and even down here, Decker.”

Decker nodded. “Okay. Let’s just keep her still.” Which shouldn’t be a problem, since she wasn’t showing the remotest sign of waking up and moving. Good God, he couldn’t believe this had happened. Kismet had never thrown a rider in her life. Course, she’d never met a rattlesnake, either.

She hadn’t run, though. She’d stomped that damn snake to smithereens, then stood beside Kyla, still on guard. Decker had had to shove her out of the way to get to Kyla on the ground. When had Kismet fallen in love with her?

Shit, he shook his head. Probably right around the same time
he
had. He looked down at her thick lashes lying still on her cheeks. “C’mon, baby. Don’t pick
now
to sleep, for God’s sake.”

He looked up at Jimmy, standing just far enough away to be able to help without being in the way. “I’m going in the chopper. Cole, you lead the guests back to the ranch for the night. Jimmy, you and Pete take charge of Kismet and Chance and get them back. Take the Ridge Trail shortcut and help Ma get things settled before everyone else gets back. Cole, you call Ma as soon as we’re on the chopper.”

“She’s gonna hear it come through the valley, Deck.”

“Shit. Right. Better call her now.”

Jimmy shifted uncomfortably. “Boss, what about Jess and Hayley? They’re gonna wanna be in that chopper …”

“Ranch policy, Jimmy. Can’t put guests in a chopper unless they’re on a stretcher.” Jimmy nodded and headed back to the group to relay the plans.

“Decker?” Cole looked up from where he crouched with his hands on Kyla’s ankles. “We don’t have a ranch policy about choppers.”

“Jimmy doesn’t know that. And neither do Hayley or Jess. Last thing we need is two hysterical women along.” Decker looked up at the sky as he heard the distant sound of Pine Valley Medevac. “Thank God.”

Cole looked up as well. “They’re still a good ten minutes out. Don’t let go of the traction, Deck.”

“I’ve got her. Go put out the flares so they can find us.”

“Already sent Pete to do it. They’ll land just above us there.” Cole pointed to the rise they’d just come over.

“Shit, Cole.” Decker shook his head as he looked down at Kyla’s face braced between his hands. She still hadn’t even twitched. “She fell hard.”

Cole was checking pulses on Kyla’s ankles and nodding slowly. “I know. Good thing the hospital’s only a twenty-minute chopper ride.”

“I can’t believe this.”

“What the hell happened between you two last night? You’ve barely even
looked
at her today.”

“None of your business.”

Cole leveled him with a look. “This why Ma has a don’t-get-personal policy?”

“It’s a good policy, Cole. A really good policy. But don’t worry. There’s nothing personal going on here.”

He looked down at Kyla’s ashen face. Oh, who was he kidding? This was all
about
personal. He wasn’t a casual hook-up kind of guy anymore. Never had been, even when he’d tried to use the L.A. lifestyle to prove otherwise. When he’d danced with Kyla, when he’d kissed her, when—good God—he’d spent the night with her … that had made it way more
personal
than he wanted to admit.

He shook his head, feeling Cole’s eyes on him. Damn. He’d fallen like a ton of bricks for this little city girl he hardly knew, and it had scared him enough to fling evil words her way in a misguided attempt to scare her off.

He didn’t deserve her, dammit. She’d had a plan to save the ranch, all right. And front and center in that plan was Decker Driscoll Junior living here, soaking up the profits with Ma and Cole.

Ha. Like he had any right to be here, to live on this beautiful land and make a profitable
enterprise out of it. He moved his thumbs almost imperceptibly along her jawbone, being careful not to break traction. Her skin was soft and natural, devoid of makeup, nothing like the L.A. gals who usually surrounded him. He couldn’t believe he’d thought she was anything like them when he’d found her beside the road. He stroked her cheek softly. Damn. He pictured her face last night when the ugly words
I don’t need
you,
Kyla
had spewed out of his mouth.

It killed him to admit that at the time, he’d wanted to say something hurtful enough to send her packing and spare them both from getting in any deeper. It wasn’t her fault that he couldn’t get her out of his head, but it scared him silly, so he’d reacted the only way he knew how. She was a picket-fence-and-puppy sort of girl, and she deserved someone who could give her that life.

What killed him most was that she’d done nothing but fall in love with the land he already loved with his entire soul, and in the span of two weeks, she’d figured out how to save it. She’d succeeded where he hadn’t. And now she was unconscious.

The chopper blades grew louder, and Decker could see the growing speck moving up the valley sky toward them. Cole looked up as well, then back at Decker. “Y’know, you can try to lie to yourself, but you’ve been my big brother for longer than you probably want to admit.” He looked back down at Kyla, then directly into Decker’s eyes. “It’s okay to let your guard down, Decker. It’s okay to fall in love.

“It’s okay to be happy. You don’t need to keep punishing yourself for Emily.”

“Hey, Snow White. It’s time to wake up. Enough sleep.” Decker sat in the hard plastic chair next to Kyla’s ER gurney, rubbing her hand but being careful not to disturb the oxygen sensor on her finger. He glanced at the beeping monitors. No change. She’d had a CAT scan and MRI, and save for a nasty contusion on the back of her head, everything had come back normal. The doctors were calling it a concussion for lack of proof otherwise right now, but Decker couldn’t help worrying until she woke up.

He glanced down at her left ankle, splinted and wrapped until the swelling had a chance to go down enough to put on a cast. He’d been right on that one. Great. Her trip souvenirs were going to include a gash on the head and a cast on her ankle.

“How’s she doing?” Cole poked his head through the door.

“Same.” Decker didn’t let go of her hand, and he noticed Cole noticing.

“The doc was just updating Jess and Hayley. Tests look good, right?”

“Yup. Just waiting for her to wake up now.”

Cole sat down in the other plastic chair. “We should probably keep this part out of the brochure, eh?”

“You don’t think restful unconsciousness would be a big seller?”

“Not so much.” Cole sighed and leaned his elbows up on the bed, watching Decker’s hand stroke Kyla’s. He lifted his chin to indicate their entwined hands. “This where you keep telling me she’s nothing but a guest?”

Decker shook his head and closed his eyes. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Never is.”

“No, this
really
wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Why not, Decker?”

Decker sighed. Where could he even start? There were so many reasons he didn’t deserve this girl, the ranch, these open arms Ma and Cole had greeted him with. “I don’t deserve any of this, Cole.”

“Any of what?”

“This … this life. God, this woman. I don’t know. Any of it.”

“Why not?” Cole’s voice was low as he raised his eyebrows.

“I think that part’s pretty obvious.”

“Emily.”

“Yeah, Emily.”

“It’s not your fault she died, Decker.”

“Bullshit.”

“Did you push her under that water, Deck?”

Decker shook his head miserably. “That’s a stupid question.”

“No, it’s not. You didn’t throw her in that pond. You didn’t kill her. That’s like you saying
I
killed her because she took off on
my
stupid horse.”

“That’s just ridiculous.”

“Exactly. Decker, we didn’t kill Emily. We loved that little shit so much that we thought none of us would be able to go on after she died. She was sweet, she was adorable, and damn, she gave the best little-kid hugs in the world, but Decker, she had a mind of her own. And she knew better than to mess around with that horse. It was
her
fault.
Hers
.”

“She was only ten, Cole. What the hell could she possibly know? I was supposed to be watching her. I wasn’t supposed to piss her off enough that she took off on an unbroken horse. What kind of a brother does that?”

“
Every
kind of brother does that.”

“Well,
every
kind of brother doesn’t end up with a dead sister.”

Cole sighed and plowed his fingers through his hair. He still hadn’t gotten a damn haircut. “No, Decker. Not every brother ends up with a dead sister. But we did. And that leaves us with two choices. We can either give up the rest of our lives to the guilt, or we can admit that we can’t control the universe, and we try to move on.”

“How can you just move on? Christ, you’re surrounded by her every day. Ma still has her pictures up in the kitchen. Her saddle’s still in the tack room. Her gravestone’s visible from the upstairs windows. How do you not let it kill you, Cole? How have you survived here for ten years and not died of this grief?”

Cole stared at him for a long moment. “Well, Decker, I didn’t have the option of choosing to leave.”

Decker’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Choosing to leave?”

“Yeah, choosing to leave.” He sighed, running his hands over the stubble on his cheeks, looking like he was buying time. “You left, buddy. I hated you for it for a long damn time. Wished I was old enough to buy a crappy old car and head west, get away from Ma crying every night while Dad was piling up Jim Beam bottles in the shed. You might blame yourself for Emily dying, Decker, which is completely insane, but damn, you were the lucky one. You got to leave.”

Decker’s heart pounded in his chest, so loud he feared Kyla’s monitors might pick up the sound. So Cole really did believe he’d left by choice? Is this what he’d started to talk about the other day? Did he really think his big brother would have packed up and ditched the family at a time like that? For ten goddamn
years
?

“Cole, if you felt that way, why did you welcome me back this summer?”