Chapter 11
11
Brax
L ying in the hospital bed, Zack was damn near unrecognizable. A deep purple bruise bloomed along his cheekbone. His mouth was pale except for an ugly red split down the middle. One shoulder was in a sling, dislocated from when he hit the ground. His right leg was in a cast.
I had seen him banged up before, but never like this. Zack had always been the one with a glint of mischief in his eyes and a teasing smirk on his lips. He was the first one to tell a joke and the last one to leave a party. But now? He looked gray. Lifeless.
My baby brother.
“You look like shit,” he said.
I damn near jumped out of my skin. “Your eyes aren’t even open. How the hell would you know how I looked?”
“Took a wild guess.” He cracked open one lid and eyed me up and down. “Whaddya know. I was right.”
Ah. There he was.
“I look better than you,” I said, my relief outweighing my annoyance.
“Debatable. Women love a roughed-up cowboy. They’ll be beating down the hospital door for the chance to take care of me. I’m thinking about holding interviews. Make them work for it.”
“Funny,” I said. “I don’t see any women.”
“You just missed Essie, actually. She went to get coffee.” Zack smirked and then winced, lifting his good arm to his mouth.
It shouldn’t bother me that Essie had made a bee line for the hospital the moment Zack was allowed visitors. They were friends. Only an asshole would be jealous when his brother was stuck in a hospital bed with a broken leg, for fuck’s sake.
But as Essie had told me time and again, I was an asshole.
“If you think Essie’s going to give you a sponge bath or rub salve on your wounds, you’ve got another thing coming,” I said, claiming the absurdly small plastic chair under the TV. “She’s not exactly the sweet nurse type. She’s the smack you on the ass and tell you to stop whining type.”
“Shows how much you know,” Zack said. “She happened to be very tender when she called me a jackass.”
“Why’d she call you a jackass?”
Zack sighed, his eyes drifting shut again. “Something about scaring the living beejezus out of her by getting bucked off like that, why the hell didn’t I roll the other way instead of getting tangled under the horse’s legs, she thought I was dead, blah blah blah.”
“She has a point,” I said gruffly. “You scared the hell out of all of us.”
“Everyone gets bucked off,” Zack reminded me. “That’s the whole point of bronc riding. It’s only fun if it’s impossible.”
I shook my head. “You’re getting too old for this shit.”
“Yeah, maybe.” He sighed again. “Fuck, I’m sorry, man. I should never have been on that bronc to begin with.”
“You’re a rodeo rider. That’s what you do.”
“I knew it was too risky, with the futurity championships coming up. But I was so fucking close to taking the lead. I really thought I could have it all. A National Champion rodeo buckle and the futurity championship for reining. I fucked it all up.”
“You were doing us a favor. We never expected you to put your own goals on hold to help us with ours. So we’ll have to rethink our strategy with Pirate. It’s not like he’s the one with a broken leg. He can still compete. ”
“You gonna move him to the open division? Pirate and James would make one hell of a team to beat.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But not with James riding. She’s already riding in the pro division for another client. Besides, competition is a lot stiffer in the open division. Either way, Pirate will be up against horses who have been training for this all year, instead of hanging out underfed, unworked, and unshod in some asshole’s backyard. James thinks he can take a ribbon in the open division, but we both know his odds of taking the top spot are better in the non-pro division.”
“And that top spot means a world of difference in breeding value,” Zack conceded.
“Yes, it does. Not to mention the hundred grand in prize money.”
“You could ride yourself.”
I snorted. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“You’re a damn good rider, Brax. For a lawyer, anyway. I could see you and Pirate taking a Level Two ribbon. Might get beat out by a nineteen-year-old, but you’d make him work for it.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Money isn’t as good for Level Two, though,” Zack pointed out.
“That’s true. It’s not.”
We both fell silent, the only sound the steady beep, beep, beep of the machines, monitoring Zack’s vital signs while the IV dripped pain medication into his veins. I started to stand, figuring he was drifting back to a much-needed sleep, when suddenly his eyes popped back open.
“You need a wife,” he said.
I nearly fell out of my chair. “Come again?”
“A wife who rides horses but isn’t a professional reiner. The NRHA rulebook defines non-pro as the owner or owner’s immediate family. A wife is immediate family.” He locked his bloodshot blue eyes on mine. “You should marry Essie.”
My heart did something stupid in my chest and I pressed my palm to it. She’s not for you, dumbass .
I hooted like it was the funniest thing I’d ever heard. “Damn, kid. What the hell kind of drugs are they giving you? I’m not going to marry Essie just for the chance to win a hundred thousand dollars and earn my horse a shiny blue ribbon. Have you lost your damn mind?”
He raised an eyebrow, his gaze never wavering. “I didn’t say you’d marry her for a hundred grand. But I do think a hundred grand might convince her to marry you .”
“Convince who to marry who?” Essie asked, stepping through the door with a paper cup of steaming coffee. She paused when she saw me. “Oh, Brax. I didn’t know you were here. You’ll have to get your own coffee.”
And my heart did that thing again, that stupid, stupid thing.
My wife , it whispered.