Desperate Read Free

horizon.
    Meg strained her eyes against the setting sun. “Is that…? That’s Papa.”
    “Papa,” Ruby cried, running across the field toward their father.
    “Something’s not right,” Meg said, gazing toward the two men on horseback. “He’s slumped in the saddle. He’s not sitting up straight and tall.”
    “Oh, my God,” Annabelle said as she started to run. “He’s hurt.”
    Meg’s chest grew tight, squeezing the air from her lungs at the thought of something being wrong with their father.
    *
    Meg stopped and stared up at the man barely sitting in the saddle. “Papa, are you all right?”
    His color was pale; his blue eyes were sunk back into his head and seemed dull. A scratch ran across his face.
    “How’re my girls?” he croaked through dry, parched lips.
    “He’s in a lot of pain. I got him home as soon as I could,” the man on horseback said. “I’m Deke Culver. I was with him when he got hurt.”
    Emerald eyes gazed at Meg, his face covered with a scruffy unshaven beard. Midnight black hair peeked from beneath his hat and matched his heavy brows. The man’s lips turned up in a quirk of a smile.
    “Good to meet you, Mr. Culver.”
    The girls walked silently beside their father until they reached the house.
    “Let me help him down off his horse,” Deke said, swinging his leg over his saddle and dropping to the ground.
    The man was one tall, muscular jackeroo who wore his guns low across hips and moved with grace and speed as he hurried to her father’s side.
    He lifted their father off his horse and half carried him into the house. Annabelle went ahead of them, showing Deke where to take their father.
    Meg turned to Ruby. “Go fetch Doc Henderson right now. Don’t stop anywhere, just get him back here as soon as possible.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” she said, her voice trembling. “Is he going to be okay?”
    “I don’t know,” Meg said, fear rising like a wave of nausea, gripping her stomach in a vise. She hurried after Deke, who was helping their father climb into bed.
    She didn’t know where her Papa had found this cowboy, but thank God the man had been with him when Papa was injured. There was no way he could have made it home alone. It said a lot about Deke that he’d bring an injured man back to his family.
    “Hi, my sweet Irish rose,” her father said, as his hand reached for Meg’s cheek.
    Her lungs seized, restraining the sob that filled her throat. It was the name he’d called their mother. He thought she was their mom.
    Deke glanced over at her. “What did he call you?”
    She shook her head, unable to respond. “Papa, it’s me, Meg. Where do you hurt?”
    He closed his eyes. “So much I need to tell you.”
    “Ruby has gone for the doctor.”
    “Just let me rest for a bit, and then we’ll talk,” her father said his voice barely legible.
    “I think he cracked his ribs. He’s had trouble breathing,” Deke said, stepping back to the door of the bedroom.
    Annabelle pulled Papa’s boots off and his dirty socks. With a warm washcloth, she gently bathed his face, wiping the dust from his fevered brow. “Would you mind taking his pants off for us?”
    Deke glanced over at Annabelle, who turned beseeching hazel eyes on him. He sighed. “Sure.”
    They turned their backs while the cowboy removed Papa’s pants and covered their father with a blanket on the bed.
    “Thank you,” Annabelle said with a smile as she began to unbutton his shirt.
    Deke helped her pull the arms of the shirt off her father by raising him up in the bed. Papa groaned, the sound low and deep as they moved him.
    Annabelle lifted the covers and looked at his chest. “Oh, my God, he’s so bruised. What happened?”
    Meg grabbed the coverlet and gazed at their father’s black and blue torso. Her heart pounded, her vision blurring with unshed tears, as she stared at the damage to his chest and ribs.
    The handsome, rugged man who’d brought him home shook his head and sighed. “We’d been