Sun Kissed (5 page)

Samantha emptied her things from one of the bags and quickly curled her fingers over the rosary beads, which she carried in her jeans pocket everywhere. “Any news about the horse at the fairgrounds yet?”

The deputy gave her a thumbs-up. “They found him. He’s cut up pretty bad and has clearly been beaten. As sad as that is, it may be the horse’s lucky day. He’ll get a new home now and won’t be mistreated again. The rescue folks screen applicants very carefully.”

Samantha was glad to hear that. The gelding’s passive acceptance of such cruel mistreatment had touched her heart. An animal like that deserved to be loved and pampered just a little.

A quarter of an hour later, after they’d both tried to contact family members on the public phone without success, Tucker and Samantha stood in the parking lot, at a loss. Both their vehicles were at the fairgrounds.

“I can’t believe my dad isn’t answering his cell phone,” she complained.

“My sister and brothers are all at the rodeo. Could be they’ve turned off their cells or just can’t hear them over the crowd. Not my folks, though. I thought sure they’d be home. They never go to the rodeo anymore.”

“Why is that? Is their health deteriorating?”

His mouth tightened. “No. My sister was badly injured in a barrel racing accident several years ago.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“No need to be. She’s happily married and has two kids. It was a sad time in our lives, but it’s over now. For most of us, anyway. My mother and father still hate watching any kind of rodeo competition.” Tucker gazed thoughtfully at the cell phone in his hand. “You want me to call you a cab?”

She shook her head. “I left messages on all their voice mails. One of them is bound to check his missed calls soon and come pick me up.”

Tucker hated to leave her. He reached to rub his nose, but stopped just in time. “I need to visit the ER. If this schnozzle of mine swells any more, they won’t be able to fix it tonight.”

She tipped her head to study his face. “It’s probably only the swelling, but it seems to be leaning sideways more than it was earlier.”

Tucker had visited the men’s room before leaving the building, and he’d gotten a shock when he looked in the mirror. His nose looked bad, no question about it. In the course of his work, he often got the cartilage broken. Most times he straightened it as best he could, shoved cotton balls up each nostril to hold it in place, and called it good. Treating the injury himself didn’t strike him as being a wise idea this time.

“Do you have any money on you?” he asked. “I don’t want to leave you stranded.”

“Not enough for cab fare clear back to the fairgrounds.”
She held up a staying hand. “No, please. You’ve done enough.”

He already had his wallet halfway out of his hip pocket. “Come on. A cab only costs a few bucks. I’ll give you my address. You can send me a check to cover it.”

“My dad or one of my brothers will show up any minute,” she insisted. “I’ll be fine. Really. Good luck at the hospital.”

Tucker wanted very badly to ask her out. Considering the mess his face was in, the timing sucked, though. Instead, he dialed Information, got connected with Yellow Cab, and arranged for transportation to Saint Matthew’s.

While waiting for his ride he stood beside Samantha, wishing he could think of something memorable to say. Nothing came to mind.

When the cab rolled into the parking lot, he turned and thrust out his hand. “It’s been an experience.”

She treated him to one of those slow, hesitant smiles that eventually made her face glow and her eyes sparkle. When she placed her slender fingers across Tucker’s palm, he felt a zing he’d never experienced with any other woman, a promise of the magic that had been eluding him all his adult life. As he tightened his grip on her hand, he searched her beautiful brown eyes, wondering if she felt it, too.

“Can I call you?” he blurted, then immediately wanted to kick himself. Over the last twenty years he’d asked a fair thousand females out on dates and knew his lines by heart. “I’d like to see you again, get to know you better.”

She nibbled her bottom lip, then shook her head. “I’m
sorry. I really appreciate what you did for me today, but I’m very busy.”

Normally Tucker countered that excuse with, “You have to eat, don’t you? We’ll go to dinner, talk, call it an early night. Nothing serious intended or expected.” But somehow he couldn’t say those words to her.

They would have been a lie.

He decided to leave it for another day. He knew her name. He could look her number up in the book. As he climbed into the cab, he sent her one of his failproof grins. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

She laughed. “Can’t blame a gal for saying no, either.”

Normally Tucker would have agreed, but something in her eyes told him that this time,
no
just might mean
maybe
. She wasn’t as immune to him as she tried to pretend.

“Whoa! What the hell are you planning to do with that?” Eyes rolled back to see the doctor standing at the head of the gurney, Tucker glared at the rubber mallet the man held in his hand. “You hit my nose with that, partner, and we’re going to tangle.”

The lanky young physician with blond hair and a bobbing Adam’s apple gave Tucker a reassuring smile. “I have to straighten the bridge, Dr. Coulter. Ever heard the expression ‘Follow your nose’? You’ll be walking in a circle the rest of your natural life if I leave it like this.”

Tucker pushed at the sheet and tried to sit up. The ER physician placed a staying hand on his shoulder. “The injections for pain were the worst part of the treatment. Now that your nose is numb, you’ll barely feel a thing.”

Tucker didn’t care if he felt it or not. “I’m out of here. Nobody is taking a hammer to my nose.”

“It’s a mallet, not a hammer.”

“Mallet, then. It’s still not coming anywhere near my nose.”

“And what is all this fuss about?” a feminine voice asked.

Still propped partway up on one elbow, Tucker twisted to see his short, plump mother pushing through the striped privacy curtain. His father and his brother Jake trailed behind her, looking like sun-burnished, rough-and-tumble actors who’d just stepped off the set of an Old West movie. Their Stetsons, Wranglers, and riding boots, standard-issue in the Coulter family, looked incongruous in the sterile surroundings.

“This poor excuse for a doctor was about to pound on my nose with a hammer,” Tucker grouched. “Nohow, no way. I’ll fix it myself. That’s what I’ve always done before.”

“No wonder the bridge is so crooked,” the doctor observed under his breath.

Mary Coulter, a matronly woman with curly brown hair and kindly blue eyes, clucked her tongue and came around the gurney to gently push Tucker onto his back again. After giving the mallet a worried study, she grasped Tucker’s hand and smiled at the attending physician.

“A misunderstanding, I’m sure. Your poor nose has suffered enough abuse for one day. Right, Doctor?”

The young man blushed. “I only need to tap on it a few times. See that one big knot along the bridge? If I don’t
straighten it now, it’ll be there forever.” He gave Tucker a pointed look. “Is that what you want, to have a crooked nose the rest of your life?”

“I’m used to a crooked nose.”

“Please, Tucker, don’t try to sit up,” Mary urged with another push on her son’s shoulder. “That knot has been there a good long while,” she informed the doctor. “He wouldn’t look the same without it.”

Jake came to stand at the opposite side of the table. Dark countenance creased in a frown, blue eyes glinting with mischief, he bent low to peer at his brother’s face. “I have to side with the doctor. He’ll be prettier without the knot, Mom. Let the doctor whomp it a time or two to straighten it out. Tucker’s a big boy. He can handle it.”

“Jackass,” Tucker retorted. “Your nose isn’t exactly straight enough to rule paper, either. Let him pound on yours for a while.”

Jake grinned. “The reason my nose isn’t straight is because you broke it with a bat once. Now it’s my turn to get even.”

“Nobody is going to hammer on my nose.” Tucker sent the physician a warning look. “Just straighten it out as best you can and pack it. I don’t plan on entering any beauty contests.”

“Thank God for that,” Tucker’s father chimed in. He came to stand behind his wife, whose head barely cleared his shoulder. “They’d boo you off the stage with rotten eggs.”

The young doctor sighed. “All right, then,” he said to Tucker. “But don’t come crying to me later when it heals crooked.”

“I won’t,” Tucker assured him.

“How the hell did you manage to get in a fight at the fairgrounds?” Jake asked. “Just when I think you’ve sown all your wild oats, you go and do something totally crazy again.”

As briefly as possible, Tucker recounted the afternoon’s events.

“Samantha
Harrigan
?” Jake repeated incredulously. “
The
Samantha Harrigan?”

Tucker kept his gaze fixed on the doctor. “Why, she famous or something?”

“Her father, Frank Harrigan, is. Haven’t you ever heard of him? The man is renowned.”

“For what?”

“He raises the finest line of quarter horses I’ve ever seen,” Jake replied. “I can’t believe you haven’t heard of him.”

“I’m relatively new to the horse business,” Tucker reminded him.

“Still.” Jake sounded amazed. “His name and quarter horses are almost synonymous. People come from all over the country to an auction when one of his animals is for sale, and they pay him an arm and a leg for stud fees.”

“His horses’ stud fees, you mean,” Tucker corrected.

Jake snorted. “Don’t nitpick. I’d part with my favorite boots for a chance to talk to the man.”

The doctor was laying out some wicked-looking steel instruments on a white towel. Tucker yearned for a belt of good whiskey, which, in his opinion, had Novocain beat, hands down. “I’ll ask Samantha about getting you an introduction,” he promised his brother.

“You got to know her that well?” Jake countered.

“No,” Tucker admitted, “but I damned sure intend to.” To the doctor, he said, “What’re you going to do with that?”

The physician smiled. “You’d rather not know.”

Harv placed a burly brown hand on his wife’s arm. “What say we go up to the cafeteria and grab a cup of coffee while the doctor finishes up, sweetheart?”

Mary shook her head. “You and Jake go on, dear. I’ll stay with Tucker.”

Harv exchanged a long look with Jake. Then he glanced at the doctor, who gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

“It’s crowded in here,” Harv countered. “You’ll be in the way. Better to step out for a few minutes and come back when Tucker’s ready to leave.”

Tucker realized his dad didn’t want his mother to wit ness the procedure. “Pop is right, Mom. It’s pretty tight quarters in here. Go have some coffee. By the time you’re finished, I’ll be all patched up and ready to go.”

Mary tightened her hold on Tucker’s hand. “I’d really rather not, in case you need me.”

“I’ll be fine.” Tucker gave her a little push. “Go with Dad and Jake. I’ll be in the waiting area when you come back downstairs.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.” Tucker settled back on the gurney. “It’s the doc who needs to worry. I may have a nose-jerk reaction if he whomps me with that hammer.”

“Mallet,”
the physician corrected.

After his family left, Tucker closed his eyes and said, “Okay, Doc, get it finished.”

“You want a bullet to bite?”

“I thought you said it wouldn’t hurt.”

“It won’t. At least, not much. You just strike me as the bullet-biting type. Is your father a rancher?”

“Used to be. He’s retired now. Two of my brothers are carrying on the tradition. They own the Lazy J.”

“Do they raise cattle?” the doctor asked as he started to work.

Tucker winced. “Not anymore. They raise and train horses.”

“Ah.”

Two minutes later, Tucker hissed air through his clenched front teeth. “Jesus,
God
. You said it wouldn’t hurt.”

“I said it wouldn’t hurt
much.
”

It felt as if the rolls of cotton were being shoved into Tucker’s brain. “Numb, you said.” His voice was so nasal that the words weren’t clear.

“You’re as numb as I can get you without deadening your whole head.” The doctor gave a final push at the cotton in Tucker’s left nostril, then stood back and peeled off the surgical gloves. “All finished. I’ve always been told that doctors make the worst patients, but I didn’t know the rule applied to vets.”

Tucker got his discharge papers and spent the next ten minutes in the ER waiting room, leafing through magazines. When a pair of dusty riding boots appeared in his peripheral vision, he glanced up, expecting to see Jake or
his father standing over him. Instead it was a stranger in ranch-issue Wranglers and a work shirt.