A Baby Changes Everything (9 page)

Cruz heard Savannah stifle a cry behind him. “How bad is it?” he asked.

“We think he broke his arm. Billy's with him now. We need the truck to take him to the hospital in town in case something else is broken we don't know about.”

Cruz nodded grimly. “I'll be right there.” But as he began to head toward the door, he realized that Savannah was right behind him. He stopped and turned around. “What are you doing?”

She looked at him, surprised that he would even ask. Hank wasn't just someone who worked for them, he was a friend. “I'm coming with you.”

He frowned. The ranch was clearly his domain, and the hired hands were his to take care of. “There's no need, Savannah.”

Was he trying to keep her out of this? How could he? What happened on the ranch was both their responsibility, not just his. “If Hank's arm really is broken, I can immobilize it well enough to get him to the hospital.” She saw the skepticism in Cruz's eyes. Her stubborn streak rose to the foreground. “I had the first-aid course. You didn't.”

He lowered his voice, although it could still be overheard by Vanessa. “You're pregnant, Savannah,” he pointed out.

“What is
that
supposed to mean?” Of all the stupid, tunnel-vision thing to say… Savannah struggled to curb her annoyance at the comment as best she could. “I won't be bandaging him with my uterus, Cruz.” She pushed past him to the front door. “The kit's in the truck. I packed it last night,” she explained.

Cruz relented, knowing he was just being overprotective. But he didn't like her being exposed to things like that.

“Think of everything, don't you?”

The hint of admiration in his voice went a long way to placating her indignation.

“No,” she told him, “I don't.” She certainly hadn't thought that, halfway out the door, this would happen to impede their getaway plans. She glanced over her shoulder toward Vanessa. “Um—”

Vanessa put her hands on Luke's shoulders, drawing him to her. “Don't say another word. Just go. Luke and I will be waiting for you when you get back.”

Luke looked up at her. “We can't go to your house?”

She exchanged knowing looks with Savannah. “Not yet, honey. Let's see how Hank is first.”

Savannah hurried out the door, praying that Jaime was an alarmist and that things were really better than he thought they were.

 

They weren't.

Hank's arm turned out to be broken, just as Jaime had told them. Savannah used two rods she found in the back of the truck to help immobilize the tall ranch hand's arm.
She'd picked up the rods the other day, intending to use them to stabilize saplings she wanted to plant in the front yard. She hadn't had time to get around to the planting; now she was glad she hadn't.

“Ever think of being a nurse?” Hank asked her as he watched her encase his arm and the rods with the wide bandage.

“I'm a mother, which means I'm already part nurse,” she told him. Luke and his mishaps had been the reason behind her taking the first-aid course.

Finished, Savannah cut off the last of the bandage and knotted it before looking at Cruz. “We're ready to roll.”

“I can still drop you off at the house,” Cruz offered as he climbed back behind the wheel to take Hank to the hospital. He was leaving Jaime and Billy behind to round up the horses and bring them back to the corral.

She remained in the back with Hank, who was lying down on the blanket she'd spread out for him. Miraculously, other than scrapes and bruises, the cowboy appeared to have sustained no other damage to his six-foot-four lanky frame.

“That would take you out of your way.” The house was back in the other direction, away from Red Rock. “Just head for the hospital,” she told him.

 

Parking in the emergency room lot, Cruz jumped out of the truck. “Stay here,” he ordered Savannah as he went through the doors.

He was back in a couple of minutes with an orderly and a wheelchair.

Savannah smiled at Hank as she got out of their way. “Looks like you're going to ride in in style.”

Hank grimaced getting off the truck. “I'd rather be on the back of a horse.”

Savannah laughed. “Seems to me that's what got you into this in the first place.”

Hank gave her a sheepish grin as Cruz and the orderly helped him into the chair.

 

The waiting was the worst of it. Cruz spent the better part of the hour and a half they were forced to wait pacing.

“It's not going to be any faster if you wear a hole in the floor,” Savannah told him.

“I can't sit still.”

“I noticed.”

Finally, the doctor came out to find them. The expression on the young resident's face was optimistic as he approached them.

“It's a clean break,” he told them. “There's every indication that it should heal in a couple of months.”

“A couple of months,” Cruz echoed. That meant that Hank would be of little use to him on the range and only of minimal use in the stables. All this while collecting pay.

It felt as if he just couldn't catch a break, Cruz thought ruefully, then realized the irony of the thought.

Dr. Neubert caught the inflection in Cruz's voice and interpreted it correctly.

“Could have been a lot worse,” he said, looking from the ranch owner to his wife. “I would like to keep Hank here overnight, just to watch him and make sure there's no concussion. He did take a nasty fall and bring dragged didn't help. But he's young, resilient. That all acts in his favor. He should be good as new once he heals.”

“Yeah.” Cruz pressed his lips together, feeling overwhelmed. “Once he heals.”

Because he seemed to have slipped into his own world, Savannah took the lead. “Thank you, Doctor,” she said, shaking the young physician's hand.

“That's what I'm here for,” Dr. Neubert responded.

The next moment he was being summoned to another room, and he hurried down the hall, leaving Cruz and Savannah alone.

Cruz leaned against the wall, staring off into space, making calculations. He carried a small health policy for both himself and his men with a major insurance company. To be affordable and keep costs down, the policies all came with sizable deductibles. One he felt it was his duty to cover, since the accident had happened on his land, during the execution of Hank's normal duties.

More payments he hadn't counted on, Cruz thought darkly.

Not only that, but now, for all intents and purposes, he was another man short, at least until Hank learned how to manage to get work done using only one arm.

But that wasn't the least of his problems. Looking toward Savannah, Cruz braced himself.

She wasn't going to like what he had to say.

T
he tension inside the truck was thick enough to touch. Cruz said nothing, not wanting to spend the trip home arguing with his wife.

Savannah read the signs correctly and tried to fill the time with small talk. She hoped that if she could remain upbeat, she wouldn't hear what she was afraid of hearing. That their trip was being postponed. Indefinitely.

“He looked pretty good.” They'd both gone to see Hank after his surgery. The ranch hand had been cleaned up, but seemed very uncomfortable, though that had more to do with the hospital gown he was forced to wear than the battering he'd sustained.

“For a man who'd been dragged by his horse, yeah, he looked pretty good,” Cruz allowed.

“It could have been a lot worse, just like the doctor said,” she pointed out.

There were times when her cheerfulness was like a haven for him, but this was not one of them. Sometimes it could be damn annoying, like a pebble inside his boot.

“Yeah.” But he didn't see how it could have been. Not when he was forced to take up the slack, and he had next to no time in which to do it.

They were pulling up in front of the house. Savannah saw that Vanessa's car was still parked beside the garage. Her friend hadn't changed her mind and taken Luke home with her.

It didn't feel like a good sign, Savannah thought.

She slanted a glance toward Cruz. It was time to broach the subject. She began slowly. “I guess you could ask Billy or Jaime to go pick up Hank from the hospital tomorrow.”

Single, with no family in the immediate area, Hank Jeffers lived in the mobile home they kept on the property along with Jaime. Only Billy went home at night to his wife and daughter. He lived close enough to La Esperanza that it didn't present a hardship to him or interfere with his work.

“I could,” Cruz said as he turned off the ignition and pulled up the brake.

She'd been with him long enough to finish at least some of his sentences. Mostly the ones, it seemed, that she didn't like.

Savannah turned toward him in the cab. “But you won't.”

Cruz stared straight ahead through the windshield, not really seeing the house. “No, I won't.”

Damn it.
Savannah clenched her hands in her lap. She'd known this was coming. “The only way you can pick him up is if we don't go on the camping trip.”

He shrugged carelessly, his expression unreadable. “Half the day is gone already.”

“Which means that half the day is still ahead of us,” she pointed out stubbornly. Why did he always have to be so damn negative?

He spared her a glance, annoyed. Why was she making this so hard for him? “Savannah, weren't you listening in the hospital? We're a man short—when we can't afford to be.”

Yes, she thought, she'd been listening. And what she'd heard—and hoped she hadn't—was the somber sounds of a death knell. The death of something she'd held dear to her heart and had been trying desperately to breathe new life into.

But you can't breathe life into something that was dead, she reminded herself.

“And it's going to make that huge a difference if you're gone from the ranch for—” she glanced at her watch “—thirty-six hours? That's all I'm asking for, Cruz. Just thirty-six hours.” Wasn't she worth that amount of time? That amount of effort? Why was she always last on his to-do list?

Cruz got out of the truck, slamming the door a little harder than he'd intended. He was struggling to hold on to his temper. He felt like a man dangerously on the edge of falling over. Under ideal conditions, he wouldn't even be having this discussion. There would be men enough to cover for Hank until he was better.

But the conditions weren't ideal. Maybe someday, but not yet. Why was that so damn hard for Savannah to comprehend?

Rounding the hood, he went to open the door for her, but she'd already gotten out.

“You're asking for a hell of a lot more than that,” he told her.

She didn't like his tone. “What?” she heard herself demanding, her patience stretched to the limit. “What am I asking for, Cruz? Your manhood? Your pride?”

“Stop talking like a teacher for once,” he snapped. “This isn't about philosophy, this is the real world. And in the real world, I have a ranch to run and I'm already one man short,” he reminded her. “Losing Hank temporarily makes things that much worse. I can't just waltz off now because I feel like it. There's too much to take care of.”

He caught hold of his temper, knowing that none of this was Savannah's fault. He was frustrated about the turn of events and he was taking it out on her.

“Look,” he began again, “I don't want to yell at you, but you're not helping the matter any by pushing my buttons.”

“Buttons?” Savannah stared at him incredulously. He made her sound as if she was trying to pick a fight over some trivial thing instead of trying to make him understand what was happening to them. “Now who's talking philosophy? I'm not pushing buttons, Cruz, I'm trying to save our marriage.”

At her words, he waved an impatient hand. “Stop exaggerating.”

She wanted to shout at him that she wasn't exaggerating, that they were in a crisis situation and he was just too blind to see or acknowledge it. But she knew that shouting, that making him feel as if he was at fault, wasn't going to solve anything. It would only escalate matters.

Desperate, she tried to take another approach in order to resolve the problem. “Look, you were going to hire another hand anyway—”

“Exactly my point,” Cruz interjected. “We're already shorthanded.”

And whose fault was that? she wanted to demand. Money was tight, but if the hired hand lived on the property, then that was part of his pay and they could manage to take on one more. Besides, more work would be done and they could handle more horses. But Cruz had dragged his feet. Because he'd been a hired hand himself and seen the world from that end, the standards he had for one were higher than most. It made hiring difficult.

“So hire one already,” she pressed. “Stop being so damn fussy and just take someone.” From where she stood, she could make out the corral. Billy and Jaime were busy grooming the horses that Cruz was preparing to sell by the end of the month. In her opinion, the two had turned out to be better than average, but it was hard getting that admission from Cruz. Had he always been this hard-nosed? Had love made her miss that in the beginning? “If they don't work out, then you let them go. You've done it before.”

She was missing the obvious, Cruz thought. “That doesn't help the weekend.”

She waved a hand at the men in the corral. “Billy and Jaime will manage. It's not like they're a pair of city slickers who just stumbled onto our property without a clue.”

Cruz stuck to his guns. “The only way they managed before was because Hank was there to watch them.”

She had him, she thought. Her mouth curved in triumph. “I thought Hank wasn't good enough to be a foreman.”

“Stop twisting things.”

“I'm not the one twisting things,” she argued. “You keep changing your story to suit the occasion.” Because he looked as if he didn't know what she was talking about,
Savannah reviewed the recent events for him. “When I told you that you should consider making Hank your foreman, you said he didn't have what it took yet. But now you're saying he was what kept Billy and Jaime working right.” Her eyes narrowed in a silent challenge, daring Cruz to get out of this. “You can't have it both ways. Which is it?”

He threw up his hands. “I don't have time to argue.”

As he began to leave, she shifted so that she was in front of him again, impeding his escape. “Apparently you do, because that's what you're doing.”

Cruz's dark eyes widened as he looked over her shoulder. Savannah turned around to see that Vanessa and Luke had come out of the house.

“Hi, you two. How's Hank?” Vanessa called from the front porch. Luke came out behind her and ran toward his parents.

Savannah recovered first, pulling herself together and masking the inner turmoil she was feeling. Shielding her eyes from the sun so she could see Vanessa and Luke better, she answered, “He's got a broken arm.”

Luke's mouth dropped open. “But he'll be all right?”

Savannah smiled. However many wrong turns her life had taken, at least she had Luke. The best thing that had ever happened to her.

A bittersweet pang wove through her as she looked at him. “Yes, honey, Hank's going to be all right. He just needs a little time to mend.”

“You know,” Vanessa said, taking the three steps down from the porch, her eyes on Cruz, “if you need any temporary help, I'm sure my father could send over a couple of men from the Double Crown to tide you over—”

Because it was Vanessa and he knew she meant well, Cruz wasn't curt with her. But he didn't appreciate the thought that he needed any kind of charity. Even, indirectly, hers.

“Thanks for the offer, but I don't need any help.” His tone was crisp, dismissive.

Savannah's eyes widened. How could he ignore an offer like that? “But you just said—”

His eyes were steely as he turned them on her. “I can take care of it.”

He absolutely refused to be viewed as the poor Mexican the rich Fortunes had to bail out. His pride wouldn't allow him to accept charity, no matter what form it came in, or how well-intended the person offering it was. Accepting charity put you in someone's debt, and he was determined to be in debt to no one.

Vanessa crossed to Cruz. “Wouldn't be a problem,” she insisted. “I know for a fact that things are a little slow on the ranch right now. Spring branding's over and I'm sure—”

Cruz's lips moved into an obligatory smile that lasted all of ten seconds. “I said thanks, but no thanks,” he repeated. “We can manage.”

Savannah drew in a ragged breath. She was tired of being the dutiful wife, tired of waiting for Cruz to come to his senses. She'd spelled it all out for him and still he refused to understand, refused to meet her even a quarter of the way.

She was his helper, his bookkeeper, the mother of his children, and she got less consideration than the newborn colt he'd mothered last month.

It had to change.

“No,” she said firmly, her voice low and threatening to break as she looked at him. “We can't manage.”

Cruz firmly believed that husbands and wives did not contradict each other in front of people, even old friends. He looked at her sharply, his eyes narrowing. “Savannah…”

It was a warning.

Vanessa offered Savannah a quick, apologetic smile. “Maybe I'd better go,” she said quietly. But as she started to move, Luke placed himself in front of her, preventing her from going to her car.

“I'm not going with you?” Disappointment echoed in his voice.

Vanessa stroked his cheek. “No, honey. I don't think your parents will be going away. Maybe some other time,” she promised.

“No,” Savannah said suddenly, surprising both Vanessa and Cruz with the intensity of her voice, “his parents are going away. At least one of them is.”

About to walk off to the corral, Cruz stopped and spun on his heel. He was so stunned by her words that he forgot there was anyone else within hearing. “What are you saying?” he asked evenly.

She pulled her courage to her. Giving in and waiting for him to come to his senses wasn't the way to go. It clearly wasn't working.

“I'm saying that maybe Luke isn't the only one who's going to Vanessa's.” She looked at her friend. “Got room for one more?”

Vanessa slanted a glance toward Cruz's angry face before asking Savannah, “You?”

It was too late to back down, and maybe that was a good thing. “Me.”

“Yes, Savannah,” Vanessa finally replied, “but maybe you should think this over.”

Savannah knew that if she hesitated, she was done for. Her knees already felt weak. But her spine was firm, and she was resolved. No guts, no glory.

And maybe,
a small voice inside her whispered,
no husband
.

She raised her chin, determined. “I have thought this over.” Her words were in reply to Vanessa, but it was Cruz she looked at as she said, “Maybe we need some time apart.” And then she did turn to Vanessa, a silent entreaty in her eyes. “Could you go upstairs with Luke and pack a few more things for him?”

Savannah was aware that her friend would recognize the excuse to get the boy away. Knew, too, that Vanessa cared enough about Luke to protect him from seeing his parents fight, which no doubt was coming.

Without a protest, Vanessa took Luke's hand in hers and squeezed it. “C'mon, handsome, let's see what else we can find to take with us.”

Maybe it was Savannah's imagination, but her son seemed reluctant as he followed Vanessa back up the porch steps to the front door. Just before he crossed the threshold, he looked over his shoulder at both of them, his small face worried.

It was as if he knew that something awful could be happening here.

“Okay,” he agreed. His eyes went from his mother to his father. “But don't yell, okay?”

It almost broke her heart. This more than anything convinced her that she and Cruz needed to clear the air between them, before it started to take its toll on their son.

“We won't yell,” Savannah promised, forcing a smile to her lips for Luke's benefit. It was gone the second that he was.

Cruz waited for the front door to close before he turned on Savannah. “You're not being reasonable.”

She should have known he was going to say something like that.

“I'm being more than reasonable,” she countered. “I've been reasonable for five years now. Reasonable as I've watched you work more and more, not less. Reasonable as I've waited for you to put us first, not last.”