The Cowboy's Claim (13 page)

“Hello?” he answered.

“Nick, this is Sophie.”

Instantly Nick’s stomach churned as he thought of Garrett in trouble. “Sophie, what’s up?”

“I’m not sure what to do. Courtney called earlier and told me she’d be a little late to pick up Garrett, but she still isn’t here. I called the café and Mary told me she left well over an hour ago.”

The churn of his stomach exploded into full-blown anxiety. “Is Garrett okay?”

“He’s sleeping now, but I’m worried about Courtney,” Sophie said. “She’s never done anything like this before. She always comes here to get Garrett directly after work.”

“I’ll check things out and call you right back,” he said, fighting against a panic that pressed tight against his chest. He hung up and immediately punched in Courtney’s cell phone number. It rang four times and then went to voice mail.

Where would she be at this time of night where she couldn’t or wouldn’t answer her telephone? What would keep her from picking up Garrett as she usually did immediately after work?

Nick hung up the phone and grabbed his car keys from the kitchen table. He hesitated at the front door as he watched the rain come down. Where could she be? Ducking his head, he raced from his front door to his truck, deciding that the best place to start looking for her was the café.

It took two tries to get his keys in to start the ignition to the engine. His hands shook and his thoughts scattered in a million different directions.

All kinds of scenarios flew through his head. Two women working as waitresses had been murdered. Maybe her car had skidded off the road. Why didn’t she answer her phone? Maybe she and Grant had met up somewhere for a reconciliation.

He told himself he didn’t care if that was the case, that all he really cared about was that she was okay. When he reached the café through the sheet of rain that fell, he didn’t see her car in the parking lot.

He braked and tried her phone again, and once again it rang and then went to voice mail. “Courtney, where are you? Sophie called me and is worried about you. Call me when you get this message.”

There was only one road that would lead her toward Sophie’s ranch house and he exited the café parking lot to head in that direction.

He drove slowly, the rain a definite impediment to visibility. The road was dark and rain-slicked, and he tried not to think about the night that his sister, Cherry, had taken off, driving too fast for the weather conditions, driving to her death with her best friend in the car.

This night has nothing to do with that night, he told himself. That night it had been an early sleet mixed with snow that had slickened the road, not a hot July rain. Cherry was known for driving far too fast, and Courtney was a cautious woman who shared little in common with his wild, reckless sister.

He drove slowly, searching the sides of the roads, wishing his cell phone would ring and she’d tell him that bucket of junk she drove had broken down and she was at Buck’s Auto or she’d gotten a wild hair and was at The Corral having a couple of drinks with some of the other waitresses.

Even as he thought of these things, he dismissed them. If she’d had car trouble she would have called Sophie, and Courtney definitely wasn’t the kind of woman to put having drinks with friends over her son.

She was in trouble. He felt it in his heart. He felt it in his very soul, and he needed to find her as quickly as possible.

As he approached the curve ahead, he twisted his head from side to side, checking the road for her car. He stomped on the brakes and squealed to a stop. Through the curtain of rain down the dark embankment on his left, he thought he saw a faint light glowing.

There were no houses there, no reason for a light of any kind to be shining unless it was a taillight of a car. Thankfully the rain had ebbed somewhat as he got out of the vehicle and focused his gaze on the light, trying to discern exactly what it was in the darkness of the night.

He reached back into his pickup and grabbed the flashlight he kept in the glove box and then, with his heart pounding like the hooves of a running stallion, he slid down the slick embankment toward the small glow.

It was a car.

It was her car.

As he drew closer he saw both back lights, one of them half-hidden by a thick bush.

“Courtney!” he cried as he slipped down the wet grass toward the driver’s door. He wrenched it open and gasped as he saw her as still as death, slumped over the steering wheel.

With a cold, trembling hand, he gently touched the side of her neck, praying for a pulse at the same time he fumbled with his other hand to get his cell phone out of his pocket.

He gasped in relief as he felt the faint beat of her pulse against his fingers, then punched in 9-1-1. It took him only a minute to call for an ambulance and the sheriff and give his approximate location.

As he waited he leaned into the car, afraid to touch Courtney, afraid to try to move her but needing her to wake up, to tell him she was okay.

“Courtney, everything is going to be all right. I’ve got help coming. Hang on.” He had no idea if someplace in her mind she could hear him or not.

Damn. Her car was so old there were no air bags, nothing but a worn seat belt that had obviously not worked well enough to keep her from banging her head.

“Courtney, can you hear me?” How long had she been out here unconscious? Fear slithered through him as he thought about what little he knew about head injuries.

All he really knew was that he wanted her to wake up right now and talk to him, let him know that she’d bumped her head but she was going to be just fine.

He breathed a sigh of relief as he heard sirens coming closer with each jagged breath he took. He nearly collapsed in the grass as the ambulance arrived, followed by Sheriff Evans’s patrol car.

“Down here!” he yelled as the paramedics jumped out of the ambulance and Cameron approached Nick, his hand holding a big-beamed flashlight. “She’s unconscious,” Nick said to the sheriff. “She must have hit her head, and I can’t get her to wake up.”

Cameron grabbed Nick by the arm and moved him back from the car so the paramedics could get close enough to attend to her. “She must have slid off the road in the rain,” Nick babbled. “Sophie called me to tell me Courtney hadn’t picked up Garrett and she was worried about her. I came looking and happened to see her taillight shining down here in the dark.”

Cameron nodded. “Maybe she hydroplaned and lost control going around the curve.”

Nick glanced over to where the paramedics were loading Courtney onto a stretcher to carry her up the embankment and to the awaiting ambulance. “God, Cameron. She’s got to be all right.”

“Go on,” Cameron said and pointed to where they were loading Courtney into the ambulance. “You go with her and I’ll take care of things here.”

Nick didn’t need to be told twice. He raced up the embankment and back to his truck and within minutes was following the emergency vehicle carrying Courtney to the hospital.

“She has to be okay,” he said aloud to himself as he gripped the steering wheel tightly. She’d looked so still. What if she’d hit her head too hard? What if she never woke up?

Don’t jump to conclusions, he told himself as he parked in the hospital parking lot and raced for the emergency door. Right now the most important thing was Courtney getting the medical help she needed.

As he waited in the lobby for word on her condition, he called Sophie to update her on the situation. “As soon as I find out how she’s doing, I’ll call and come and get Garrett,” he said.

It was nearly an hour later that Dr. Andrew Spiro entered the lobby. Nick jumped up out of his chair to greet the doctor. “She’s still unconscious. She’s definitely suffering a concussion, among other bumps and bruises. We’ve x-rayed her head, and I see nothing to indicate that she’s in any real danger. I’m keeping her overnight for observation.”

“Can I see her?” Nick asked.

Dr. Spiro nodded. “She’s in room 110. Please limit your visit to a couple of minutes.”

Nick was already halfway down the hallway before the doctor had finished his last sentence. The room was in semidarkness and Courtney was a tiny, fragile figure amid the large hospital bed with the pristine white sheets.

He sank into the chair close to the bed, his heart thudding wildly as he gazed at her. “Courtney, I just want you to know that you don’t have to worry about Garrett. I’ll take good care of him until you’re better. I’ve already arranged with Sophie to pick him up, and I’ll take him home with me tonight. I can keep him as long as necessary. You just need to wake up and let me see those beautiful eyes of yours.” She didn’t move and he had no idea if his words had penetrated through or not.

A nurse arrived at that moment to take Courtney’s vitals, followed by Dr. Spiro, who shooed him out of the room with the comforting words that she would be fine.

By the time Nick arrived back at the scene of the accident on his way to Sophie’s, Courtney’s car was being pulled from the embankment by one of Buck’s tow trucks. Thankfully the rain had stopped, and Nick got out of his truck and approached where Cameron and Deputy Ben Temple stood watching the action.

“Can I get the baby seat out of the car when it’s on firm ground?” Nick asked, thinking that he needed to buy one so he wouldn’t have to depend on transferring Courtney’s back and forth.

Cameron nodded. “Should be just a minute or two now. How’s she doing?”

“Still unconscious. Dr. Spiro told me she has a concussion but they took some X-rays and he’s assured me she’s going to be all right. I just wish she would have regained consciousness while I’d been there.”

“She must have hit her head pretty hard. That seat belt didn’t do anything to halt her forward progress when she slammed into that tree.” Cameron frowned. “Old clunkers like these without air bags should be banned from the streets.” He drew a deep sigh. “I’ll probably write this one up as a weather-related incident unless something comes up to warrant a full investigation.”

“As if you don’t have enough on your plate already,” Nick said drily.

“My murder investigations are getting colder by the day.” Disgust laced Cameron’s voice.

Minutes later as Nick left the scene with Garrett’s car seat in the back of the king cab of his pickup, his thoughts returned to Courtney. Hopefully by now she was awake. She was going to feel like hell for the next couple of days, but at least she’d been lucky. This kind of head-on crash could have killed her. His stomach clenched tight at this thought.

Sophie met him at the door with the sleeping Garrett in her arms. “Courtney will be okay?” she asked worriedly.

“Dr. Spiro assured me she’s going to be just fine, but I’m sure she won’t be at work for the next couple of days. I’ll keep in touch with you and let you know how things are going.”

As she transferred the sleeping child to Nick’s arms, his heart filled with love as Garrett snuggled against him as if he knew he was where he belonged.

Sophie also handed him a large diaper bag that she said should see him through the night as far as diapers and necessities were concerned.

Nick gently carried his son to the truck and buckled him into the car seat, grateful that he had supplies that would at least get them through the night. He had no crib, so Garrett would sleep with Nick in his bed. Nick would probably not get a wink of sleep for fear the little boy would wake up and wander around.

A million thoughts whirled around in his head as he arrived at the ranch and carried Garrett and the diaper bag into his bedroom. He tenderly placed Garrett into the center of the king-size bed and then closed his bedroom door so that at least if he woke up at some point and Nick was asleep, Garrett couldn’t escape the bedroom.

He moved the chair in the corner of the room so its back was against the far side of the bed, hoping it would provide an adequate barrier so Garrett wouldn’t roll over in his sleep and fall out of the bed.

Nick shucked his clothes at the side of the bed and laid his hat on the nightstand. Clad in his boxers, he got into the bed next to the sleeping child.

For several long moments he kept the bedside lamp on and just looked at Garrett, taking in the puckered little lips, the long, dark lashes that dusted his chubby cheeks, the cleft in his chin that marked him forever as Nick’s.

He drew in a deep breath, smelling the scent of his son, a powdered-little-boy scent that halfway stole his breath away.

Love welled up inside Nick, a kind of love he’d never felt before. He would fight to the death for this child. He would work his fingers to the bone, do whatever it took to keep his son happy and healthy.

He would be the father to Garrett that his own hadn’t been to him. He’d demonstrate his love to Garrett by touch, by kiss, by word and by deed. Garrett would never doubt how deeply he was loved by his daddy.

He rolled over on his back and stared up at the ceiling, thinking of the accident and Courtney.

His emotions toward her were so ambivalent. He’d always care about her as the mother of his child, but despite his desire to the contrary, his feelings for her went deeper than that.

When he thought of the past, a seed of bitterness still lingered deep inside him, but when he thought of the past week they had spent together, that seed could find no sustenance, no way to flourish.

The idea that she was hurt ached inside him. She’d looked so small, so still, when he’d seen her in the hospital. A fierce protectiveness had surged up inside him. He never wanted to see her hurt like that again.

A deep exhaustion swept over him, not only the mental exhaustion of the worry and fear he’d suffered earlier, but the tiredness of a full day of cleaning inside the house.

At least Courtney was okay, although by tomorrow she’d probably have aches in places she didn’t know she possessed. It was the last thing he thought before sleep claimed him.

He awoke suddenly, blinking at the light that he’d forgotten to turn off before he’d fallen asleep. He turned his head to see Garrett, sitting up and grinning at him, Nick’s hat hanging crookedly on his head.

“Hat!” Garrett said proudly.