Free Wild One: 3 (Caden Kink) by Ann Jacobs

his pocket and handed them to her before giving the threatening sky a long look and turning to Dave. “It sounds as though Jorge may need to get to a hospital fast.”
    He thought about the meager emergency supplies he had with him. “Can you fly him to Lubbock or is the weather too bad?”
    “You ought to know. You just landed, and the storm is getting worse by the minute. It would be insane to take him up in this storm until the weather clears some, even in the Learjet. We’re having wind gusts at more than forty miles an hour and it’s likely to get worse before it gets better. Besides, there’s a good chance that the Lubbock airports are already closed. They don’t have a lot in the way of snow-clearing equipment.”
    Dave’s assessment was the same as Les’ had been. He climbed into the Jeep, took his medical bag from Deidre and held out a hand to help her climb in before Dave took off.
    She looked terribly worried. “Exactly what happened, Mike?”
    “Apparently the wranglers who usually help Jorge with the bulls both have the flu. They stayed in bed this morning, and when the weather turned bad Jorge decided to go by himself to get the bulls into the barn. The last bull charged Jorge when he went over the fence and into the pasture.”
    Les tried not to sound as concerned as he felt. “How long ago was that?”
    “Less than an hour ago.”
    Deidre clasped Les’ arm with surprising strength. “Omigod, poor Jorge. And poor Maria.”
    “Maria?”
    Deidre turned to Les, practically in tears. “Maria is Jorge’s wife. She’s our housekeeper. She’s been on the Bar C since before I was born, so long that she seems like part of the family. I bet Four is frantic.” Deidre held on tight as Dave pulled off the road and crossed a field in what Les assumed must be a shortcut to the ranch house he’d seen briefly yesterday while picking Deidre up for the ride to the hangar.
    “Yeah. Bye’s none too calm either. He called me just before you two landed to see if we dared to take the plane up.”
    “In some ways my brother is as volatile as our dad. Especially in a medical emergency, when he’s the only one on the ranch who has any more than the most basic knowledge about first aid now that Mom’s not here. Where is Jorge now?” Deidre bit her lower lip, a gesture that Les had noticed her make whenever she was upset.
    Dave steered around another bale of hay and detoured to avoid a pumpjack that was moving up and down, the drone of its motor making it momentarily impossible to hear.
    “Bye had them take him to the big house.”
    A few minutes later Dave pulled up in front of the sprawling two-story house constructed of white brick and native sandstone, with square pillars holding up wide balconies that circled the front and sides. “Go on, Deidre, take Doc inside so he can see what can be done for Jorge. I’m gonna head back to the hangar and get the Bombardier fueled up and ready to go in case the weather should decide to cut us a break.”
    Les didn’t need to ask where his patient was. All he had to do was follow the sound of high, keening wails and listen to Four reassuring somebody that Jorge would be okay. He detected more than a little fear in the deep rumbling voice that was mumbling hopeful platitudes.
    “This way,” Deidre said, taking Les’ free hand and tugging him past a curving stairway toward the back of the house. “It sounds bad.”
    The moment Les stepped into the room he focused on the middle-aged man laid out on a bed near the window. He looked unnaturally pale, his eyelids scrunched up and his mouth tight with apparent pain, though he seemed to be unconscious—no surprise. It registered with Les that Jorge was in a hospital bed, not the regular sort of bed people usually had in their homes but a model he’d seen in the VIP suites at the Houston hospital where he’d done his residency.
    Four stepped back from the right side of the bed and turned back the covers. Les knew right