Western Man by Janet Dailey Read Free Book Online Page B

carefully to the lowered tailgate of the pickup truck. More blankets were spread across some loose hay scattered over the truck bed to make a rough mattress.
    “I’ll ride in back with Ridge,” Sharon told her mother and crawled hurriedly into the back of the truck.
    His least painful position seemed to be partly hunched over, so Sharon propped herself against the back of the cab and told Scott to lay Ridge crosswise to her. She gathered him into her arms and rested his head against her shoulder.
    “It’s a long ride into town,” Scott warned her. “Your arms are going to get tired holding him.”
    “We need some blankets to wrap around him,” she said, ignoring his comment, perfectly aware it was true. But her body would be a better cushion to absorb the bumpy ride than the straw bed.
    “Are you all settled in back there?” Her mother had the door on the driver’s side opened.
    “Yes.” Sharon nodded and smoothed the thick mahogany-colored hair off Ridge’s forehead.
    “Do you want me to come with you?” Scott vaulted over the side of the truck bed to the ground.
    “Sharon and I can manage,” her mother replied.

Chapter Four
    Only once did Ridge stir during the interminable ride to the hospital. Between the engine noise and the rushing wind, Sharon couldn’t understand Ridge’s unintelligible mutter, so she simply hugged him closer and tucked the blankets more tightly around him.
    When the attendants at the emergency entrance whisked him away on a stretcher, it felt as if some part of her had been taken. Her aching arms were suddenly very empty, and her body missed the hard, punishing weight of his.
    Both she and her mother were sidetracked from following the stretcher into the emergency room by a nurse. Between them, they were able to supply most of the information the admitting nurse needed for the multitude of hospital forms. Sharon found herself signing the list of valuables—jewelry, wallet, and the like—that had been removed from his person while Ridge was being wheeled to some other part of the hospital.
    “X-ray,” the nurse informed her with a benign smile. “Are you his fiancèe?”
    “No . . . just a friend,” Sharon replied.
    In the waiting room, Sharon and her mother each drank a cup of bitter black coffee from a dispensing machine and leafed endlessly through tattered magazines. Each time any uniformed person went by, Sharon tensed, expecting the doctor to arrive and advise them of Ridge’s condition. It was the not knowing that was so terrible and wearing on the nerves—the uncertainty about the extent of his injuries.
    “I didn’t know it was like this,” she murmured to her mother. “No one has ever been sick or hurt before—no one I knew well.”
    “He’s going to be all right,” her mother smiled in understanding.
    “I keep telling myself that,” Sharon managed a rueful copy of that smile.
    “Can you imagine what we must look like?” Amusement suddenly gleamed in the green eyes.
    Suddenly Sharon noticed her mother’s floppy-brimmed cowboy hat, with wisps of hair sticking out from it like a witch’s coiffure, the baggy shirt, and the scruffy, manure-stained cowboy boots. Sharon covered her mouth to smother the laugh that bubbled from her throat, aware she probably didn’t look any better.
    It was such a welcome release of tension that both of them started to titter, which succeeded in drawing curious looks at the pair of laughing loonys.
    “Maybe we’d better find the ladies’ room and make ourselves presentable,” her mother suggested between laughing gasps for breath.
    After Sharon had brushed the wisps of hay and dust from her jeans, tucked her shirt neatly inside the waistband, and removed her hat to comb her honey-brown hair, there was infinite improvement. Magically, her mother produced a tube of lipstick from her pocket to add the finishing touch to both their transformations.
    They returned to the waiting room just as the doctor walked in. “Mrs.