Cowboy On Call. Leigh Riker

horse. Olivia felt certain he’d carried that into his career as a physician, one who must deal often with trauma worse than Nick’s fall yesterday. His history of making quick decisions, taking risks, would be an asset.

      Yet she saw a new difference in him. Olivia couldn’t put her finger on what that was, but she saw it in his eyes. He seemed to be hiding something deep inside.

      She stared into her half-empty cup. The riskiest thing she planned to do was to possibly move away from Barren.

      “Did I hear my name?” When Sam wandered into the kitchen in search of coffee, too, she almost groaned. He and Nick liked to hang out together and she expected Sam to weigh in about Nick, but he surprised her. “Sorry, won’t be here today. With Logan gone, I have work to do.” He didn’t mention Sawyer.

      She felt almost sorry for him. He still had his troubles with Sam and Logan.

      Olivia gathered her bag and the sweater she’d brought yesterday in case the air grew cool during the reception. “My sitter can watch Nick. I’ll fill Susie in on his fall so she’ll make sure he takes it easy. Let’s go, punkin.”

      She wondered if she imagined the relief on Sawyer’s face.

      * * *

      AFTER OLIVIA LEFT with Nick, Sawyer wandered down to the barn. Aside from last night, he hadn’t been there in nine years. The familiar smells of hay and leather and manure assailed his senses, taking him back to another time when life had seemed simpler—when as a boy, then during college, Sawyer had lived for this barn, these horses. Back when he’d expected to take over the Circle H one day.

      Then, after Sawyer’s first year of med school, Olivia had married his brother, and Sawyer had stopped coming home. Sometimes he thought part of his reason for opening the clinic in Kedar three years ago had been to get so far away from Barren that he’d never feel tempted to contact Olivia again.

      This morning he couldn’t get past his new feelings of guilt, and to make matters worse, he was still worried about Nick.

      My head hardly hurts at all. Sometimes, as Sawyer knew only too well, kids tried to cover up or downplay their symptoms, or they couldn’t articulate what was wrong until it was too late. Yet, even the Hippocratic oath couldn’t convince Sawyer it was his place to make Nick stay at the ranch or to watch over him. Olivia had decided to leave, and she was Nick’s mother.

      In the quiet sunlit aisle of the barn, he talked for a few minutes with a couple of ranch hands. The pair was saddling a bay mare and an Appaloosa gelding. Willy and Tobias were getting ready to ride fence, he supposed. Once he went back up the hill, he’d be alone in the house. He had nothing to do. “I could ride with you,” he offered, although he hadn’t been on a horse much in recent years.

      Willy, a tall man with dirty blond hair and a sly manner Sawyer didn’t like, eyed him up and down, obviously noting his new jeans and boots. “Rough work,” he said. “Wouldn’t want to mess you up.”

      Tobias, who was older and had a wiry build, snorted. “Fancy duds.”

      Sawyer flinched. They didn’t want him to go with them. Okay, he got that. Once he’d been a pretty fair hand. Now, with rusty skills, he’d only get in their way. He’d likely cut himself on some barbed wire and remember he was overdue for a tetanus shot.

      Tobias and Willy mounted up. With a tip of their hats, they ducked low to ride out of the barn, looking more comfortable in their well-worn saddles than they did on two legs. As their horses trotted toward the pasture gate, he heard the two men laughing.

      Leaning to open the gate, Willy called back. “Come over to the Wilsons’ later if you want to help. We’re rounding up some missing cattle.” A wedding guest last night had mentioned a trio of rustlers who’d tried to clean Grey Wilson out, but they’d been caught and the local ranchers had offered to help bring the cows home. “Logan’s prob’ly got some old clothes you can borrow. Pickup keys are in the black truck.”

      Sawyer watched them go. He was only here to help Sam and get his own head together. After Logan returned from his honeymoon, Sawyer would leave. Yet Grey was an old friend. How could he not drive over to Wilson Cattle, at least offer to pitch in?

      But Grey was also Olivia’s brother. What if she was there later, too? He didn’t relish another awkward conversation with her.

      He half wished Nick had stayed, a ready excuse for Sawyer to remain at the Circle H all day, not that the kid had exactly taken to him. He’d examined Sawyer with curiosity, confused him at first with Logan, then seemed to dismiss him.

      Besides, Nick reminded him of that other child he hadn’t been able to save. The memory of that boy, who like many others had been pulled from the landslide rubble, made him feel guilty all over again. His dreadful mistake had cost a young life, and he couldn’t seem to forgive himself for that, either.

      How possibly to atone?

      There was no way to bring back that dark-haired, dark-eyed child or to relieve the sorrow Sawyer had seen in his parents’ eyes. He could only guess how that must hurt.

      At the age of eight, Sawyer had lost his mother and father in a road accident. They’d been on their way home the day before his and Logan’s birthday. It was Sam who’d raised them, adopted him and Logan, who’d been here all these years like a father to them.

      The memory of his parents had saddened him. It seemed that everyone he loved, he lost.

      Sawyer drifted down the barn aisle, stopping here and there to say hello to each horse that sidled up to the stall bars and poked out a soft nose. He didn’t realize Sam was in the next stall until Sawyer walked up to peer at the black colt inside.

      The horse’s ears flattened against his skull. His eyes rolled, showing the whites. Not a good demonstration of his nature.

      Sam lifted his head. “Better keep back.” At the horse’s side, he’d been bent over, picking the colt’s hooves. “He doesn’t like strangers.”

      Sawyer obeyed. He didn’t fear the horse, but he wouldn’t agitate him and get Sam into trouble. Moving around in an occupied stall could be dangerous.

      He assessed the animal with a cool eye. He had good conformation—beautiful, in fact. His glossy black hide shone in the soft light coming through the stall window that opened onto the barnyard. The colt danced around, reminding Sawyer of another horse years ago, shifting his hindquarters one way, then the other as if he were doing a samba. “He looks like a real handful.”

      “Oh, he is,” Sam said but with apparent pride. “Picked him up at a sale. Guy there told me this one’s daddy was a prizewinner—champion barrel racer—but his baby showed no signs of following in his hoofprints. I got him for a song.” Still hunched over, Sam glanced up again. “Cyclone has no manners. And he bites.”

      “You love him,” Sawyer murmured. He could see that in Sam’s eyes.

      “I will.” He straightened, then lightly swatted Cyclone on his near flank to shift him over. “Once he learns how to behave.”

      “Has he had any groundwork?” The horse, which appeared to be a yearling, wouldn’t be ready to ride until he was three, but he needed to learn some of those manners long before that. Sawyer’s hand all but twitched to feel a lunge line in his grasp, with one flick of his wrist to get the colt moving with a fluid, forward gait in the corral.

      “Logan offered to work with him,” Sam said, “and so has Grey Wilson, but neither one has gotten around to that, much less breaking him first.”

      Sawyer didn’t like the term break. It implied ruining an animal’s spirit. He preferred a gentler touch.

      Years ago, he’d not only been a better ranch hand in the making than his twin brother, he’d also trained a few horses. One of them, at an advanced age and probably now in retirement, still lived in the end stall by the barn doors. On his way through, Sawyer had slipped him an apple. Another, Sundance, was Sam’s horse and now Logan’s