Cowboy Take Me Away.
Lorelei James.
Settle in for the hot McKay romance that started it all...
Rough Riders, Book 16.
The moment Carson McKay saw the s.e.xy blonde at the dance hall, he wanted to throw her over his saddle and gallop h.e.l.l-bent toward the closest church. Given his reputation as a lover and a fighter-not necessarily in that order-it wasn"t surprising she gave him the cold shoulder. But he hadn"t expected the mean right hook when he tried to steal a kiss.
Carolyn West might look sweet and innocent, but she"s no fool. The good-looking cowboy with the heart-stopping smile didn"t really want to marry her; he just wanted to take her for a test ride. But when he kisses her a second time, she doesn"t fight her burning attraction to him...until she learns he"s one of the McKay cowboys she"s been warned about.
Carson doesn"t care about the long-standing feud between their families; he knows that Carolyn was meant to be his. And the more intimate they become, the more Carolyn sees the real man behind the wild cowboy reputation-a man who wants the same forever kind of love she does...and who will lead her into a love story that spans fifty years.
Warning: Crazy, hot, s.e.xy and sweet-good girl meets bad-boy cowboy and they prove l.u.s.t can last a lifetime.
Dedication.
Thank you to my readers who"ve stuck with the Rough Riders series for the past seven years...it"s been a journey I"ll never forget and I"m so glad I got to share the McKay family with all of you.
Now sit back and enjoy this story of young love that grew and matured during life"s joys, triumphs and sorrows, a love that stayed the course and is still going strong after fifty years...
Chapter One.
Carson McKay ambled across the yard, his pace measured as he surveyed his western kingdom on the high plains of Wyoming. Everywhere he looked he saw proof that he"d poured a lifetime of blood and sweat into this ranching operation. His slow gait wasn"t due to taking time to smell the freshly mown hay, but mostly from his hip replacement surgery two months ago.
According to his doctor, the years he"d spent in the saddle contributed to the problem.
But the hours he"d spent on horseback defined him. To him the only thing better than a good horse was a good woman-although his wife would argue that point.
Speak of the devil.
Carson squinted at the image on the horizon moving closer. Since his doctor had ordered him not to ride for six months, his wife had taken over exercising his mare, Sheridan. Although Sheridan was getting up there in years, the old gal still had a spark of feistiness. But her attempts to show Carolyn who was boss had ended when Caro started carrying a riding crop. Just the threat of it kept Sheridan in line.
He kept his gaze on the horse and rider burning up the pasture. As always, Carolyn was a sight to behold astride a horse. Despite the woman not being born to the saddle, she"d learned to ride after they"d married. She defined beauty and grace no matter what she did.
And he was a lucky, lucky man.
He raised his arm to greet her but she didn"t acknowledge him. That"s when he noticed Sheridan was tearing across the field at a full gallop like the hounds of h.e.l.l nipped at her hooves.
Why the h.e.l.l wasn"t Caro reining her in? Carson shouted, "Pull back!" but they kept coming in hard and fast.
Carolyn angled forward, desperately reaching for...?
s.h.i.t. Looked like the bridle had broken and Carolyn had lost the reins. Sheridan"s Achilles heel was if she got spooked, she wouldn"t stop until she"d reached the safety of the barn.
Just then Sheridan"s a.s.s end skidded out and she came to an abrupt stop.
Everything happened in slow motion.
Somehow Carolyn managed to hang on...until Sheridan reared up, throwing Carolyn off with the force of a bucking horse. In a blink of an eye, Carolyn hit the ground.
Despite the shooting pain in his hip, Carson started to run.
The panicked voice in his head screamed, why the f.u.c.k wasn"t she moving? Even as logic dictated she"d probably gotten the wind knocked out of her.
Carolyn hadn"t stirred by the time he"d reached the gate. Or by the time he"d closed it behind him.
His silent plea, please let her be okay, please let her be okay, repeated on a continual loop until he got close enough to see that she wasn"t okay. Not at f.u.c.king all.
Carson fell to his knees in the dirt beside her. In shock, he couldn"t do anything but stare.
Her eyes were closed, her face was slack, her arms and legs were akimbo. At least her neck didn"t look broken.
It wasn"t, was it? She was breathing, wasn"t she?
Carolyn"s phantom voice, urging him to stop gawking and do something, prompted him to press his fingers into the side of her throat, checking for a pulse.
Faint, but there.
Thank G.o.d.
He placed his hand on her chest. Shallow breaths, but he could feel her lungs laboring.
"Caro? Sugar, can you hear me?"
No response.
He pulled his phone out of the leather case hooked to his belt and dialed 911.
"Crook County dispatch. What"s your emergency?"
"This is Carson McKay. My wife got thrown from her horse and she"s not movin"." Dispatch asked a few more questions, which annoyed him and he cut the dispatcher off with, "Just send the G.o.dd.a.m.ned ambulance." He rattled off his address by rote as he stroked Carolyn"s cheek. Somehow he kept it together when he saw the blood seeping out from underneath her head. "And hurry." He ended the call.
Then he picked up her hand, pressing her palm to his face. When he heard Sheridan"s distressed whinny, he forced himself to leave Carolyn"s side.
Sheridan came right over when he whistled. He unsaddled her first and then removed the bridle. He didn"t bother to check the bridle"s malfunction; he just threw it beside the saddle and returned to his wife. She still hadn"t moved.
"Stay with me, sugar." Needing to a.s.sure himself she was still alive, he rested his lips against the pulse point in her wrist, praying help arrived soon.
The ambulance took them straight to the Spearfish hospital.
Carson filled out the pages of paperwork-without complaint. But he did it by her bedside while the doctors a.s.sessed her. He observed from across the room when they shaved the back and top portion of her head. He kept one hand wrapped around the metal rail of her hospital bed when they wheeled her to X-ray. He reclaimed his chair when they returned to her room. He never said a word. He listened. He observed. He prayed.
A lot.
Then the medical personnel gently but firmly removed him from her room. He paced in the waiting room for family members of trauma patients.
Trauma.
One hour stretched into two, into three, into four. When the nurses asked if he wanted to speak with his family members gathered in the main waiting area, he said no.
At hour six, two young doctors, Dr. Vincent and Dr. McMillan, the neurologist from Rapid City, scooted two chairs in the waiting room across from him.
"Mr. McKay. As you"re aware, your wife hadn"t regained consciousness since the injury. We know from the X-rays that the blunt force trauma of impact with the ground has caused her brain to swell. We"ve taken no course of action yet simply because we needed to observe her these past few hours. Sometimes patients come out of these incidents on their own. That is not the case with Mrs. McKay. During our observation the swelling in her brain has increased considerably."
Considerably. Jesus. "Does she have brain damage?"
"Too soon to tell."
"So, what now? I just sit here and hope she opens her d.a.m.n eyes?"
"No. With what we"ve observed we can detail our proposed treatment."
"Which is what?"
The doctors exchanged a look. Neither man seemed old enough to practice medicine and that didn"t set Carson"s mind at ease.
The dark-haired doctor spoke first. "We"d like to place your wife in a medically induced coma."
Carson opened his mouth to say the f.u.c.k that is happening.
"Hear us out. We"ve already given your wife an IV of Mannitol that reduces cranial pressure from swelling via drainage. But it hasn"t worked as well as we expected. So Dr. Vincent-" he gestured to his red-haired colleague, "-your wife"s anesthesiologist, has proposed using a sedative called Propofol, normally used during surgical procedures, to put Mrs. McKay into a temporary coma."
"Ain"t she already in a coma?"
"Technically, yes. But putting her in a medically induced coma gives us control-not her body-and with the drugs we can bring her out of it at our discretion. It also allows time for the brain swelling to decrease, which hopefully will limit the amount of permanent damage to the brain tissue."
"This isn"t an experimental procedure? You do this all the time?"
Dr. Vincent nodded. "It"s the best possible way to deal with the altered metabolism in the brain that"s caused by injury. With pharmaceuticals we can keep the brain from shutting down and maintain other important body functions. But that also means your wife will be on medication to keep her heart pumping and medication to keep her blood pressure steady. Plus we"ll put her on a respirator to mechanically control her respiration rate."
Dr. McMillan rested his elbows on his knees and leaned closer. "We"ll keep her chemically sedated only as long as we have to. There are other risk factors with this treatment. Pneumonia and blood clots being at the top of the list-muscle paralysis is a possibility too."
Carson"s head spun. He had to remind himself they were talking about Carolyn, the woman he loved, being hooked up to all sorts of nasty machines with chemicals being pumped into her body.
"We"ve conferred with our colleagues at the neurosciences department at Denver General Hospital-getting a second and third opinion-and they"ve agreed our proposed treatment has the best chance of success. If you agree we"ll need to get this underway immediately."
"Is there another option?"
"If we do nothing there"s a chance-albeit an infinitesimal one-that her body will spontaneously heal."
"Or she might never..." Recover. Carson closed his eyes. No f.u.c.king way. He couldn"t-he wouldn"t-accept that.
"Is there someone else you need to discuss this with before making a decision?"
He thought of his kids. Carolyn was their mother, but she was his wife-his entire d.a.m.n life-so this decision rested solely on his shoulders. "No. Go ahead and treat her." He swallowed hard, trying to dislodge the lump in his throat. "How long will she be...?"
"A minimum of five days. Most likely a week to ten days. Since she has an open wound on the back of her head and the brain used it as a conduit to try and dump excess fluid, the risk of infection is extremely high-much higher than normal. As soon as we have your consent, we"ll dress the wound and put her in a sterile environment."
The docs exchanged another look.
"What aren"t you tellin" me?"
"After she"s hooked up to the respirator and EEG, we"ll move her to ICU. Visitation will be limited."
His eyes narrowed. "How limited?"
"We"ll allow...five minutes an hour."
"That time is allotted for other family members. Not for me, right?"
Dr. McMillan shook his head. "That includes you. To be completely honest, we"re mandating no visitors for the first twenty-four hours as we"re adjusting her medication levels and when the risk of infection is highest. I cannot emphasize this enough. Your wife is highly susceptible to infection."
"Make no mistake; I ain"t leavin" her side even in the twenty-four hours she don"t know I"m here. I may only get five minutes an hour with her, but the other fifty-five minutes of the day I will be right outside her door."
"Mr. McKay, I"m not sure-"
"I am one hundred percent sure that I will not leave my wife alone in this state. If that"s gonna be a problem for you, say so now."
"As long as you know the only reason we"re putting these restrictions on visitation is to protect her."
Carson nodded. Then he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.
"Other questions?"
"Not right now, I"m still tryin" to get a handle on all this."
"Understood. It"s a lot to process. We have work to do, to get the treatment started."
And he had nothing to do but sit around and wait.
"Mr. McKay?"
Carson glanced up at the nurse. "Yes?"