Page 14 of Heart Like a Cowboy

But that powerful facade was gone.

He was pale, so pale, and he looked as if one touch would shatter him into a million tiny pieces. The heart attack had clearly taken its toll on him, and judging from his appearance, he was far from a full recovery.

For a horrible moment, she thought maybe Dr. Abrams had brought her here so that Derek could say goodbye to her. But that didn’t make sense. Derek had been fairly close to Jack but not her.

“Did Alana agree to do it?” Derek asked the doctor.

“Not yet,” Abrams said. “But I thought it’d be best if I brought her here to discuss it.”

“Agree to what?” Alana wanted to know. “Discuss what?”

After glancing at Egan’s face, she realized this was going to be something she wouldn’t like. Or more accurately, somethingEganwouldn’t like. She got confirmation of that when Egan spoke.

“You can say no if you’re too busy,” he insisted.

She glanced at the doctor and Egan’s dad to see which one would go ahead and finish filling her in. Abrams took the lead.

“It’s possible,possible,” Dr. Abrams emphasized, “that Derek will be able to go home in a week or so. When he does, he’s going to need help making some changes to his diet and lifestyle.”

The relief came, washing over Alana. This wasn’t a deathbed farewell. It was part of her job, what she’d done for other patients like Mr. Donnelly.

But the relief vanished just as quickly as it’d come.

Because whatever this was, all she had to do was look at Egan’s face again and realize it was a lot more than merely a job.

“Dr. Abrams wants you to go to the ranch to work with Dad,” Egan finally spelled out.

“I know you usually take appointments in your office,” the doctor added while Derek kept his weary eyes fixed on Alana, “but I was wondering if you’d be able to go to the ranch every day for the next month or so. That way, Egan and you can maybe help Derek get back on his feet. I’m really hoping you don’t say no,” he tacked on to that.

Alana couldn’t say anything, but she darn sure couldn’t refuse. So she nodded, knowing this was going to put her on a collision course with Egan. Judging from his expression, he was well aware of all the colliding that would be going on.

CHAPTER FIVE

INTHEDREAM, Egan didn’t save Jack. Everything moved like sludge, a slow crawling pace. Frame by frame. So that he couldn’t miss a single second of the nightmare.

He saw Jack’s smile, that cocky grin that was often on his face. Then, there was the blast. Also slow as Jack’s grin vanished. As the sound roared through the transport vehicle.

Egan had the sensation of being weightless. Of being propelled through the air. It hadn’t lasted, though. He’d landed hard in the sand, which had managed to be both hard and soft. It sucked him down into a dry, gritty bog while he fought for breath and reason. While he fought to understand what the hell was happening.

And then he saw it.

The mangled heap of what had been the vehicle. Even over the roaring in his ears, he’d heard the fire eating its way through it. What he hadn’t heard, though, were any sounds of life. He hadn’t heard Jack because while the sand had cushioned Egan, Jack had been trapped inside the vehicle and hadn’t survived the impact. Jack was dead.

Egan woke, snapping to a sitting position, and for a second or two he’d expected to be in that hot drowning sand or in pain from the broken bones and injuries. He wasn’t. But the adrenaline was slamming through him as if this were the real deal and not the recurring nightmare.

His breath came out too fast, in short gasps, and the muscles vised in his chest, making it almost impossible to drag in any air. He was well on his way to either hyperventilating or a full-blown panic attack. Those weren’t as frequent as the nightmares that sometimes triggered them, but Egan was no stranger to either of them.

As the counselor he’d seen had told him to do, he tried to anchor himself, to name the things he could see in his bedroom at the ranch. The king-sized bed. The sitting area with a comfortable reading chair and a desk. The Turkish rug with its muted shades of calm blue on the hardwood floor.

This hadn’t been his childhood room. That one was just up the hall where he’d lived out all but the first two years of his life. And the last three. Apparently, he’d spent the first two in the nursery next to his parents’ bedroom before being moved into a “big boy room” once Cal had been born.

After Colleen and he had divorced, Egan had moved rooms again, taking over one of the guest suites in the sprawling house. It wasn’t that he had a lot of memories of her there since they hadn’t married until long after he’d moved out and started his military career. But they had had sex in that room, shared the bed from time to time, and he hadn’t wanted to risk anything interfering with the possibility of his getting a good night’s sleep.

He had enough to mess with his head without adding Colleen to the mix.

His grandmother, though, had taken it upon herself to bring in some of the things from his childhood. Not all at once, but pieces that she’d added over the years. The quilt she’d made for him was on the bed and had been since he’d turned twenty. Framed family photos were on the desk. None were of Jack and especially none of Jack and him together with Alana. That would have brought on the memories, which would have created a perfect storm for the nightmare.

Still doing some anchoring attempts, he glanced around at the reminders in here of his teenage years. Trophies he’d won in local competitions for bronc riding. They were on the shelf above the desk, mixed with ones he’d won for football. Mixed, too, with some early military photos and awards that he’d gotten while in ROTC.

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