Randall Riches

She chuckled. “Right.”

SAM HAD PLENTY of time to think about her future. When she returned from parking the truck, she’d discovered the nurses had taken the cowboy, her cowboy, to X ray. Forced laughter came out. She didn’t even know the name of the man who’d cost her her job.

No, that wasn’t true. Well, it was true she didn’t know his name. But she wasn’t going to remain in that job much longer anyway. Brad, her boss, had been married four times, his most recent wife had died only a month ago. Suspiciously.

The sheriff had been hanging around. He’d warned her to stay away from Brad. She’d already figured that out. Brad, however, had been making noises about her stepping into the role of wife number five.

So now she had to decide where to go next. Flagstaff was a nice place, but she didn’t want to be that close to Brad. It would be her luck that he’d turn out to be a stalker.

Motion nearby caught her attention. Two nurses were wheeling her cowboy down the hall.

“Hey! Is that you, cowboy?” she called.

He didn’t answer, but one of the nurses did. “This is the man brought in a few minutes ago with a broken ankle.”

Sam jumped up and stepped to the side of the wheel-chair, walking with it. “Broken?”

“Yes. His walking on it didn’t help the situation.”

Slowly those brown eyes she’d seen earlier opened. “Too much noise,” he muttered, obviously on pain medication.

Sam smiled faintly. He was most autocratic. She looked at the nurse. “What happens now?”

“That’s for the doctor to say,” the nurse said, suddenly prim and proper.

“Yes, it is,” a man behind Sam said mildly as they pushed the wheelchair into a curtained-off area and moved the heavily sedated cowboy into a bed.

“Are you the doctor?” Sam asked the handsome man who looked about forty.

“Yes, ma’am. And you are…?”

“Samantha Jeffers.”

He smiled. “Welcome to our hospital, Miss Jeffers. You did say Jeffers, not Randall?”

Sam shot a quick look at the cowboy. “Um, no, not Randall.” Okay, at least she knew his last name. “Um, I’m his fiancée,” she hurriedly added, afraid she would be thrown out if she wasn’t related to him.

“I see. Does he have any family here?”

Sam hoped she was doing the right thing. “No, none. We were here with the rodeo. He’s a bull rider.”

“Not a great career choice,” the doctor said, sounding like he thought the man was an idiot.

She hadn’t thought the cowboy was brilliant, either, but for some reason, she felt compelled to defend him. “He’s very good!”

“Well, it will be a while before he gets up on another bull.”

“How long?” She knew Mr. Randall would want that question answered.

“Just a minute and I can tell you.” The doctor turned his back on her and took a large envelope from the foot of the bed. He removed the negatives and put them on a lighted background. “Hmm, he got lucky. It’s a clean break.”

“So he can leave right away?”

“No. Because he walked on the ankle, the swelling is particularly bad. We’re not going to put a cast on until the swelling goes down.”

“How long?” Sam asked, feeling more concerned than she should have.

“A day or two. He’ll need to keep the cast on for six weeks, probably. Then he’ll be good as new. You worried?” the doctor asked.

“A little.”

The patient groaned. Sam bent over him, brushing back the dark hair that had fallen across his forehead. “You okay, cowboy?”

“It hurts,” he whispered.

Sam looked up at the doctor. “Can’t you give him something more for the pain?”

The doctor gave an order to the nurse and she hurried out of the room. “She’ll be back in a minute with something to put him to sleep. He should stay asleep until morning.”

“Thank you,” she said, turning back to the patient. This was an unusual situation for Samantha. She had no family, no close friends. She’d never accompanied anyone to the hospital before. She hoped she never had to do so again.

“Do you need a ride home? Or a place to stay?” the doctor asked.

“No, but thank you for asking.”

When the nurse returned, the cowboy barely opened his eyes to take the medication. Sam patted his arm and said, “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Then she slipped out of his room.

IT WAS ALMOST ten when Sam left the hospital. She drove by a fast-food place and got a hamburger to take home for dinner. “Home” was a room she rented from an elderly lady one block from the diner. However, before pulling up to her building, she drove past slowly, looking at the vehicles parked on the street.

As she’d feared, Brad’s truck was parked right in front of Mrs. Walley’s old house. Damn! He was waiting for her.

At least he didn’t know she was driving the cowboy’s truck. Tomorrow he’d go to the diner and she’d be able to slip into her room and gather her belongings. Thankfully, she traveled light.

She didn’t have enough money with her to get a hotel room. Her savings were hidden in her room.

For tonight, she’d have to make do in the cab of the truck. She’d slept in worse places.

She drove to a nearby shopping center and stopped in the back of the parking lot. She made sure the doors were locked, put on her sweater and curled up on the truck bench seat. Thank goodness the cowboy didn’t have bucket seats.

She awoke when the sun came up the next morning, a little sore from her constricted bed. There was a doughnut shop in the strip mall and she bought herself some breakfast.

She returned to the truck and started it up, praying Brad had left. But his car, a beat-up Chevrolet, was still guarding her room. She knew he was thinking she spent the night with the cowboy, which meant his anger was growing. She shielded her face with her hand and drove on by, then returned to her earlier parking space at the shopping center.

Knowing she was in for a long day, Sam went into the large economy store, bought herself a snack and a paperback book. She couldn’t risk driving by her building too many times fearing Brad might notice the truck.

If Larry, his only cook, was handling breakfast, Brad would have to go in for the lunch crowd. So she’d have to stay hidden until eleven this morning. Then she could get to her stuff.