Page 22 of Heart Like a Cowboy

CHAPTER SEVEN

EGANGLANCEDOVERthe notes he’d just made at his father’s desk and then handed them to the ranch foreman, Jesse Whitlock. It was a schedule of sorts, starting with today’s date. When his dad would be coming home from the hospital.

Phase one of their new normal.

In a couple of hours, his dad would finally be released, with a whole bunch of medical orders and instructions, that is. Egan would drive him home and make sure that his dad understood the orders and instructions weren’t suggestions but rather hard-and-fast rules he’d have to obey.

Unless his dad had gone through some kind of serious mood change in the past twenty-four hours, though, he wouldn’t balk about those rules. Wouldn’t balk about much of anything other than maybe how tired he was. It was one of the reasons Egan wanted to push a little.

All right, maybe push a lot.

If Egan laid down a bunch of rules, the old Derek might resurface. The Derek who had a mile-wide stubborn streak and the fierce independence that’d been the legacy of his ancestors who’d built Saddlebrook from the ground up. The Derek who hadn’t made a habit of threats, but when he had used that particular tool in his arsenal, it could have caused the one on the receiving end to piss his or her pants. That wasn’t the literal image Egan was going for, but he wanted to see some fire in his dad’s eyes again.

Below the note of his father’s return, Egan had put the dates of his leave. He had three more weeks because he’d already used nine days of the thirty since the heart attack. Egan had added a question mark after his leave dates, and then listed out more dates and question marks for Cal’s and Blue’s visits. There were gaps, serious ones, where neither Egan nor one of his brothers would be at the ranch, and that’s why he’d asked Jesse to come into the office.

Jesse looked over the notes, his forehead bunching up some, maybe because of the uncertainty of what he was reading. After all, this was phase one of his new normal, too. From what Egan had seen, Jesse and his dad had worked out the ranching duties with Derek handling most of the paperwork and the livestock purchases and sales, which included livestock shows and lots of meetings. Jesse, along with training some of the horses, handled the work schedule for the hands and did the hiring and firing.

“Any chance you’ll be able to extend your leave?” Jesse asked.

Egan lifted one shoulder. “It’s possible, but that would only buy us another two weeks at most. I need you to look at that schedule and tell me if we should temporarily hire someone else. Maybe someone who can hit the stock shows and deal with some of the meetings.”

Jesse shrugged, too. “You think Derek will be okay with hiring someone?”

“No,” Egan said without hesitation.

But that was wishful thinking. He didn’t want his father to be okay with him hiring anyone to semi take his place, but it was possible his dad had the same disinterest in that as he had everything else. Except those photo albums, of course.

“I’ve had conversations with his doctor and heart surgeon,” Egan explained, “and they want him to take off at least a couple of months and then slowly ease back into work.”

Jesse stayed quiet a moment, obviously mulling that over. “Then, rather than piss off Derek by bringing in someone new, even temporarily, how about I cover some of the meetings and livestock shows? Maybe you can deal with the rest by working remotely from the base?”

Egan nodded, figuring that was the way this would play out. That also wouldn’t give his dad the option of permanent retirement because someone had been hired to fill his boots. Or rather the toe of one of his boots, anyway.

Of course, working remotely from the base meant that Egan would have to squeeze in the ranch stuff along with the other things he had on his commander’s plate. It wouldn’t be easy. In fact, it’d be damn hard, but he was already carrying too much guilt over Jack’s death, and he didn’t want any additional guilt that he hadn’t done everything possible for his dad.

“Remi’s not on the schedule,” Jesse muttered.

Egan glanced up to take note of Jesse’s expression, but he couldn’t read the man’s usual poker face. Still, he figured there were some emotions stirring beneath the surface since Remi and Jesse had hooked up a time or two when they’d been teenagers and Jesse had just been starting out as ranch hand. Egan didn’t know how his sister and Jesse had left things since Remi wasn’t much of a blabbermouth about her personal life, either.

“No, Remi’s not on the schedule,” Egan answered. “She’s not due for leave for months and is on deployment somewhere.” Even with his high security clearance, Egan didn’t know where exactly. He rarely did know where she was. “She’s going to try to get here soon, but there are no guarantees.”

Jesse’s poker face stayed in place, but Egan did see his attention shift to the window. “Alana just drove up.”

Egan got up and went to the window, immediately realizing that the gesture was nowhere near close to a “poker face” reaction. After all, he’d known Alana would be coming since she’d texted him that she was meeting Maybell in the kitchen at eight this morning. And here she was. Stepping out of her car and looking, well, like someone who was snagging way too much of Egan’s attention.

Hell.

He’d dreamed about her. Not a good dream, either, since it had involved kissing her. It was hard enough to keep his mind off her during the day without doing some dream making out.

Jesse made a low sound, which barely qualified as a sound, but with it and a quick glance at Egan and Alana, the man seemed to take in the big picture. Thankfully, Jesse didn’t remark on it.

“Anything other than this?” Jesse asked, holding up the paper with the schedule riddled with question marks.

When Egan shook his head and added a muttered thanks, the man headed out. Egan did some mental heading out, too, by forcing himself away from the window. That became easier to do once Alana had gone inside and was no longer in sight.

Cursing himself and that brainless part of him behind the zipper of his jeans, Egan sat back down at the desk to go through the stack of mail. There was plenty of it to occupy his attention and get his mind off Alana. Or so he thought. But the first thing he opened was a flyer that Tilly had sent to his dad, and there was a note enclosed.

I really hope you can be there, Tilly had written.

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