Face set in a stiff, professional mask, she pushed the pneumatic door open. A swoosh of cool, antiseptic air wafted out.
“Would you please stop that caterwauling before you send someone into cardiac arrest?”
A vaguely familiar cowboy was propped on the exam table. His hat was askew. His black western shirt was filthy, and a wide abrasion marred his high, handsome cheekbone.
Becka clenched her teeth. So he was not only drunk and disorderly, he’d been fighting, too.
Hushed by her sharp command, the cowboy looking momentarily abashed. Then his glazed gaze roamed over her and a wicked little grin split his face.
“Well, lookie here, Jackson,” he said to the tall, silent cowboy standing beside him. “It’s the queen of the rodeo.”
The man called Jackson removed his white Resistol and grinned, too. “I don’t think so, Jett. Looks more like a little, mad redheaded nurse to me.”
“A nurse? What’s a nurse doing out here at the rodeo?” Mr. drunk-and-disorderly wobbled up from the gurney, his muscles rippling, his crystal-blue eyes showing alarm. The process knocked his black hat to the floor. “Did somebody get hurt?”
Becka captured his flailing arm and reseated him. Rock-hard muscle swelled beneath her fingers before the singing cowpoke collapsed wearily onto the pillow. With a moan he grabbed his head with both hands.
“I can’t make my head be still,” he mumbled.
“This is not a rodeo arena, cowboy, and it’s no wonder your head is spinning. How much have you had to drink today?”
Both men turned curious faces toward her. Her patient looked more stupefied than curious.
“Have we been drinking, Jackson?” he asked, frowning.
“Nope.”
“Didn’t think so.” His head wobbled crazily from side to side. “We haven’t done that in a while, have we?”
“Nope.”
“Then what’s she so mad about?”
“I don’t think she likes your singing.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” Becka huffed in exasperation. No doubt this wasn’t his first visit to a hospital, and common sense said the E.R. was serious business. But when had any drunk shown common sense?
“If he hasn’t been fighting, why is he here?”
“A bull didn’t take too kindly to his showboating.”
“A bull?” Becka came to full alert, her irritation washed away in a sea of guilty concern. “He’s been in a rodeo accident?”
“Why else would we be in an emergency room on Sunday evening?”
“Good heavens.”
Guilt sliced through her with the strength of a bone saw. She was a good nurse. A compassionate, go-the-extra-mile nurse, but this time she’d allowed painful personal memories to interfere with her job. Instead of recognizing an obvious concussion, she had jumped to the conclusion that he’d been drinking.
Would that awful day from her past ever stop haunting her?
Hustling to the blood-pressure monitor hanging on the wall, Becka pulled it down and wrapped the length of cloth around the man’s well-developed biceps. Her patient had the typical body of a professional rider, athletic and strong enough to stay on a writhing bull, but not overly large. He had what she would term the perfect body—if she were interested in such things, that is.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” she said to the tall cowboy called Jackson.
The injured man lay back, quiet for the moment, his eyes closed. A crooked little bump atop his nose suggested this wasn’t his first rodeo injury, though his was still an incredibly attractive face, the kind of good-looking hunk of cowboy that had women lining up. She’d seen him somewhere before, she was certain. A woman didn’t forget a face like that.
“He took a head butt from the back. Got his bell rung.”
Becka filed that away. A two-thousand-pound bull could pack a real wallop. “And?”
The big guy shrugged. “And he toppled over like a hundred-pound feed sack.”
Wincing at the unpleasant image, Becka pumped the sphygmomanometer bulb, listened for the familiar thump-thump while watching the needle dance rhythmically down to zero. His pressure was okay.
She reached for his pulse. Deeply ingrained calluses and the more recent red stripes of rope burn crossed the palm of his leatherlike hands.
She pursed her lips in disapproval. Like every rodeo cowboy she’d ever met he had no sense at all. Living on the edge, throwing caution to the wind, endangering himself and those around him.
“How long was he unconscious?”
“Unconscious? Me?” The cowboy on the table opened bleary eyes and struggled up on his elbows. “Never fainted in my—” He melted onto the pillow like hot wax.
The man called Jackson grimaced and shook his head. “Out like a light.”
Someone pecked at the door. Then without waiting, an admissions clerk entered. She thrust some papers toward the tall cowboy hovering over the gurney. “Are you the patient’s next of kin?”
“No ma’am. Jett is my traveling partner. We look after each other. But his brother lives around here if we need him.”
“Becka,” the woman asked. “Can he still sign the E.R. papers? Or do we need to wait on Mr. Garrett to wake up?”
“Garrett? Jett Garrett?” Memory flooding back, Becka turned toward the unconscious patient. “I remember him.”
No wonder he’d looked familiar. He and her husband had played some rodeos together when she and Chris first started dating five years ago. Even Chris, as fearless as he was, marveled at Jett’s reckless daredevil attitude.
“He’s Colt Garrett’s little brother. The wild and crazy one.” The man was renowned for his careless, throw-caution-to-the-wind antics.
Jackson grinned. “One and the same. He and Colt own the Garrett Ranch outside of town. You know them?”
Reluctant to reveal just how she remembered Jett, Becka settled for the easy answer. “In a town of 6500 people, everyone knows everyone else, at least by name. Colt’s wife, Kati, takes care of my son in her day care.”
“‘Do, Lord, oh, do, Lord…’” Jett’s head wobbled back and forth on the pillow as he started singing in that deep baritone again. “‘Where the buffalo roam and the bulls and blood and dust and mud…’”
His partner laughed out loud.
“You gotta admit, ma’am, he’s pretty funny.”
Becka suppressed a smile. “Does he always sing—and I use the word loosely—when he’s injured?”
“Sings in his sleep, too. But never like this.”
Becka ran experienced fingers through the dark wavy hair covering Jett’s skull, searching for bumps or wounds. Finding none, she made the notation on the chart and reached for the telephone hanging on the wall next to the door. After a moment she hung up and turned toward the two men.
“Dr. Clayton will be here in a few minutes, but he said to go ahead and admit Jett for observation. Can’t be too careful with a concussion—which he clearly has.”
“Nope.” Jett sat up as quickly as a jack-in-the-box, steadied himself with a hand on either side of the table, and shook his head. After two shakes his eyes crossed. “I appreciate the invite, but I can’t stay.”
Becka saw what he was about to do, but couldn’t move fast enough