Page 6 of Heart Like a Cowboy

That was highly possible, but Alana was afraid that might always be the truth. That she might never be ready, that moving on could never happen. And that she’d live the next fifty years as Jack’s widow. Not exactly comforting thoughts. Especially since the first three years as his widow had taken her to hell and back.

Repeatedly.

“Possibly,” Alana answered, and she was thankful when she took the turn into the hospital parking lot. “I’m back in Emerald Creek now and need to get some work done, but please let me know how your conversation goes with Egan.”

Tilly assured her that she would, and they ended the call. Alana pushed aside the dread of another chat with Jack’s mom, and she parked so she could head into her office that was located inside the hospital where there was a small wing of clinics.

Of course,smallwas the operative word to pretty much everything in Emerald Creek. Unless it applied to ranches and acres of pastures, that is. But no one would argue that the hospital itself, and therefore her office, was anything but small.

Gathering up her purse and phone, Alana went through the ER entrance since it was the shorter route to her office. She didn’t have any clients coming in for another two hours, and that would give her time to finish up her file on the chief master sergeant so she could then set up their first appointment. However, that plan immediately went south when she spotted the elderly woman sitting in one of the chairs in the waiting area of the emergency room.

Effie McKinsey, Egan’s grandmother.

Alana got an immediate punch of dread and gave the woman the once-over to see if she was hurt and waiting for medical attention. No visible injuries, but based on her hunched shoulders and drawn expression, something was clearly wrong.

Alana shifted her purse to her shoulder and walked toward her. That’s when she spotted Egan, too, on the other side of the room by the nurses’ station. He was still in his flight suit that he’d been wearing nearly two hours earlier, and he had his phone pressed to his ear while he talked. And paced. Alana couldn’t hear what he was saying, but like his Grammy Effie, everything about his body language confirmed her “something was wrong” theory.

“What happened?” Alana asked the woman, and her first thoughts flew in a bad direction. That maybe one of Egan’s siblings had been hurt. Or worse.

Mercy, please don’t let it be that.

One by one, the images of his brothers and sister spun through Alana’s head. All of them in uniform. All of them in high-risk, often dangerous positions what with Cal and Blue being fighter pilots and Remi being in special ops. Losing one of them would crush Egan to the bone. Again. Alana wasn’t sure his bones could stand any more crushing.

Effie managed to steel up her expression a little, and she patted the chair next to her, indicating for Alana to sit. She did.

“It’s Derek, Egan’s dad,” Effie said. “I found him on the floor in his office at the ranch. He’d fallen or something and wasn’t conscious.” Her voice trembled, and Alana automatically put an arm around her. That’s when she saw something else.

Blood smears on the front of the woman’s shirt.

Alana nearly fired off a bunch of questions to ask what’d happened and what Derek’s condition was, but she held back, giving Effie the time the woman clearly needed to do more of that steeling up.

“Derek’s head was bleeding. I guess he hit it when he fell. Anyway, his cell phone was on the floor next to him,” Effie went on, “so I called 911 right away. Then, I sent a text to Egan to tell him to get here.”

That must have happened shortly after Alana had left his house. Too bad she hadn’t stayed a little longer, and then she could have taken him to Emerald Creek. She couldn’t imagine that he’d been in the right frame of mind to get behind the wheel, especially since she’d already hit him with the bad news about the life celebration and Colleen’s letter.

Effie drew in a long breath. “Egan’s calling his brothers and sister while we’re waiting for the doctor to tell us what happened.” Her voice cracked, and she pressed her trembling fingers to her mouth for a moment before her weary eyes met Alana’s. “You work here. Maybe if you ask, they’ll tell you what happened to Derek.”

Alana nodded, stood, though she wasn’t holding out any hope of getting that kind of intel. Yes, she worked there, but normally emergency medical personnel kept info close to the vest until they had confirmation of the problem. Even then, they’d want the attending doctor to tell the family first.

Alana glanced at Egan who was still on the phone, still pacing, so she gave him a wide berth and made her way to the nurses’ station. Of course, she knew the nurse on duty, Dalton Reeves. It was that small-town thing again where there wasn’t anything close to six degrees of separation or even three. It was usually just one, and in this case, Dalton and she had been in the same classes from pre-K all the way through to their senior year.

“I don’t know anything about Mr. Donnelly,” Dalton said right off the bat, obviously well aware of what she’d been about to ask.

Alana recalled that one degree of separation hadn’t exactly created a friendship between Dalton and her, but he hadn’t snapped out his response. It’s semi-sharp tone seemed to be generated by frustration. Yet another effect of a small town since after all, Dalton knew Egan and his father as well. Added to that, she’d heard Dalton was a darn good nurse so he’d probably want to be able to dole out something to help the family. Or in her case, the former wife of a former friend of the family.

Dalton sighed, leaned in and lowered his voice. “Mr. Donnelly was unconscious when they brought him in. Dr. Abrams is with him in ICU.”

Despite the skimpy account, that was somewhat of a relief. Dr. Abe Abrams—yes, his parents had actually given him that name—was one of the most experienced doctors on staff. Derek was in good hands. Hopefully, hands that would fix whatever the heck was wrong with him.

Alana didn’t press Dalton to speculate as to what was wrong or a prognosis, but she’d worked around medical staff long enough to know that many things could cause a sixty-something-year-old man to fall and lose consciousness. Of course, none of those causes was especially good, but maybe it would turn out to be an easy fix, like medication to relieve a quick drop in blood pressure or glucose to increase too low blood sugar.

She turned to step away from the nurses’ station to go back to Effie, and Alana practically ran smack dab into Egan.

“Anything?” Egan demanded, managing to sound both like a commander in charge and a worried son at the same time when he aimed that question at Dalton.

Dalton shook his head. “Dr. Abrams will be out to talk to you as soon as humanly possible.”

Judging from the combo huff-sigh that Egan made, it wasn’t the first time he’d gotten that response from Dalton. Still, Dalton didn’t balk. “I’ll see if I can find out anything,” the nurse finally muttered. “Take a seat, and if I get anything, I’ll let you know.”

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