CHAPTER 20
Cal
Really? I’m gone just half a day and this is the kind of stupid shit that goes down?
Finn has grabbed the reins and is calming the terrified horse that just threw Evander. He’s leading it to the opposite side of the ring.
“Which one of you idiots thought this was a good idea?” I ask.
Everyone—Declan, Finn, Special K, and our only female ranch hand, Summer—all point to Evander, who’s writhing on the ground in one of his custom Savile Row suits.
Dumbass.
“I’m fine!” he hisses between gritted teeth.
“Fine?” I yell, furious. “Your femur is sticking out of the leg of your British tweed trousers, you dumbass.”
“Total dumbass,” Special K adds, helpfully.
“I’m gonna puke.” Victoria spins, runs away from the training ring, and balances her hands on her knees. I watch as she tries to catch her breath.
I can’t blame her. This is a gnarly injury, even for a MacLaine.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” I support Evander at his upper back, take off his suit jacket, and loosen his tie. “You’re an attorney, not a bronco buster, for fuck’s sake.”
Summer takes the nervous animal to a nearby enclosed pasture. Declan backs his Dodge Ram into the ring. He gets out, opens the tailgate, and tosses a few bags of chicken feed into the dirt to make room for Evander’s giant ass. “Load him up!”
“I said I’m fine! What the hell are you doing? I don’t need an evac!”
I lift Evander from his left side while Finn gets him from the right. Special K supports his broken leg.
“I can handle this!” Evander yells. “I’m the one who rescued all your asses on that raid in Syria! This is nothing!”
“You’re confused from the blood loss,” I tell him. “I’m the one who saved your ass.”
“If you recall, I saved all y’all’s slowpoke asses on that one,” Finn says.
“I’m not going to the hospital!”
“Sure you are,” I say, getting ready to toss him in the back of the truck.
“Hey! Put me in the back seat, assholes! It’s too bumpy back there!”
Special K shrugs and we all change direction. Declan opens the back door, and we slide him in. I ball up his suitcoat and shove it under his melon of a head. Special K slides in to make sure Evander’s leg and foot are supported.
“Careful with that shoe. It’s a Berluti.”
I lean down and hiss into his ear. “Are you fucking kidding me, Ev? Who tries to break a horse in Italian leather loafers? Just stick to contract clauses and leave the horses to Finn, all right?”
Declan gets behind the wheel. Summer joins him up front while Special K decides to ride in the back with Evander.
“We’ll meet you there,” I tell Declan, smacking my hand against the side of the truck a couple of times as a send-off.
We watch the pickup head down the ranch lane. The sound of Evander complaining about the emergency room fades only when they turn onto the state highway.
“I’ll get Jasmine—she’s inside,” Finn says. “We’ll take my SUV.”
Victoria turns to me, blinking. “Is it always this crazy here?”
“Nah,” I tell her. “It can get a lot worse.”
On the twenty-minute drive to the hospital, I keep an eye on the rearview mirror, where I watch Victoria and Jasmine in the back seat together. It cracks me up to see how Jasmine is in awe of our beautiful visitor. I understand where my niece is coming from.
“Do you like the color pink?”
Victoria nods. “I do. But I can tell by your outfit that you love it.”
Pinkie nods. “Yep!”
I feel Finn’s stare boring into the side of my face. I shake my head as a warning not to even start with me.
The instant we walk through the automatic doors of Sweetbriar Regional Medical Center, we know how to find Evander. All we have to do is follow the sound of his big mouth.
“How about we sit over here with Summer?” Victoria takes Jasmine by the hand and leads her to the waiting area. “I want to hear more about the butterflies who visit you, Okay?”
“Okay!”
I nod to Victoria in thanks as she shepherds Jasmine to the row of chairs. I appreciate her pitching in the way she’s doing. It surprises the hell out of me, to be honest, considering she came here to take us down.
“What the fuck’s going on with you and that woman, Cal?”
“Nothing.”
“I know what nothing looks like, and that ain’t it, brother.”
I ignore him. We open the curtain of an ER cubicle to see Evander trying to get up from a gurney.
Declan and Special K are holding him down and attempting to keep him quiet.
Apparently, Declan texted Dad on the drive here, and now Dad’s on his way back from Carson City. And Evander is pissed as hell about it.
“Pussy!” he shouts at Declan.
“Listen up, bro.” Special K presses his elbow into the patient’s chest and leans in.
He gets close and keeps his voice soft, but he’s all business.
“Your niece is out there, and she doesn’t need to hear your filthy mouth, all right?
Not to mention the poor little old lady in the bed on the other side of this thin fabric divider. So shut the fuck up.”
Evander ignores him and continues to struggle.
The curtain flies open. It’s Phoebe Travis, a nurse here. Her family owns the closest ranch to ours. We’ve known her all our lives.
Phoebe evaluates the situation in less than a second. Immediately, she starts barking orders. “Back off, MacLaines. Everybody step away.” Phoebe goes to Evander’s side and rips his pant leg up to his groin. “Shit,” she hisses. “All of you need to get out of this room right now!”
Her face has gone pale. We clump together in the narrow aisleway as a nursing assistant runs past us to Phoebe’s side.
“We need to get an IV started, stat,” Phoebe tells the young man.
She then runs down the hallway, yelling for the doctor.
She tells someone else to prep an operating room, and then she runs back to us.
“I don’t like this,” Declan mumbles.
“I’ve never seen Phoebe like this,” Finn says. “She’s usually super sweet.”
“She’s doing her job,” I snap.
We watch her return to Evander’s side. “You need to chill out. Are you hearing me, Evander?”
“Yeah,” he grunts.
“You’ve done an outstanding job of hurting yourself today, but things are going to get a lot worse if you don’t stop flopping around. We’ll get you something for the pain—”
“I’m not taking anything.”
She shakes her head. “Listen up, MacLaine. Being a hard-ass isn’t going to help you in this situation. You know how you always did what your commanding officer told you to do when you were a SEAL because your life depended on it?”
He nods.
“I’m your commanding officer today. Got that?”
He nods again.
“Sheee-it,” Special K whispers.
We all watch Phoebe bend down close and stroke Evander’s hair. “You’re going to be okay,” she says. “I’ll make sure of it.”