Sweet Talking Cowboy Read online

  “Bri,” Slade said from across the room, the soft, caressing voice bringing memories to life that she preferred not to remember. “You always were a beautiful girl, but Gerald was right. You’ve become a breath takin’ woman.” He knew he shouldn’t say the words, but he couldn’t stop them.

  Briann stood up and without another word left the room, her steps controlled and steady, contradicting the panic growing inside. Slade didn’t follow her. He needed time to think. He’d known she’d be at the hospital sooner or later, but hadn’t been prepared for the way her presence affected him. She’d moved on with her life and started a family, so what had been between them was past. His nose detected the clean, slightly sweet, flowery smell of her cologne and he smiled in spite of himself. At least for her it appeared to be a thing of the past. Just these few minutes had him longing to touch her, to find out if she would react with the fire and passion he remembered so well. The same fire and passion that still burned in him.

  Briann hurried down the hall to Uncle Mike’s room, planning to stand outside the door and wait, but as she approached, Dr. Franks stepped into the hall. “Come to my office so we can talk,” placing a strong hand between her shoulders he guided her through the corridor.

  When she was seating in a comfortable chair across the big desk from him, he sighed wearily. “I’ve known your family for years, so I know how hard this is for y’all. Mike and I have caught more fish together than I could ever count.” Gerald Franks paused and she saw him swallow. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse. “He’s decided he’s through fighting.”

  Tears filled Briann’s eyes and trailed down her cheeks.

  “He told me you’re home to stay?”

  She nodded.

  “It comforts him to know you’ll be there with Poog when he’s gone.” Dr. Franks pushed a box of tissues across the desk so she could more easily reach them.

  Briann pulled several from the box and wiped her eyes.

  “He’s…giving up?” She asked, her voice tight, a sob breaking her words.

  Dr. Franks nodded. “He said he’s tired of fighting a disease he can’t beat. He’s ready to go.”

  Her shoulders shook as her tears flowed. “How much time will we have? Aunt Poog will want to be with him.”

  “Let Poog rest for a couple more hours. If Mike starts becoming unresponsive before she gets back, we’ll call her. I expect she’ll be back up here as soon as that sedative that I gave her wears off anyway.”

  Briann nodded.

  Gerald Franks got out of his chair and walked around the desk before he dropped to kneel beside the chair she was occupying. “I told Mike we’d keep him comfortable, but the medicine will make him groggy and he won’t ask for it, but if you think he’s in pain, step to the Nurses’ Station and tell them. They’ll take care of it.” He patted her shoulder, offering what comfort he could under the circumstances. “Take as long as you need in here, and then go back to Mike.”

  Briann didn’t take long. She dabbed her eyes dry and blew her nose before washing her face and hands at the sink in the adjoining bathroom. It wouldn’t be good for Uncle Mike to be alone for long.

  When Briann got back to the room, Slade appeared comfortably seated in a chair he’d pulled up next to the bed. Uncle Mike appeared to be sleeping, but it was hard to tell. She walked to the other side of the bed, reached out one hand and pushed the thin graying hair back from his forehead.

  “Where did you go?” Slade asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

  She frowned at him. “I don’t answer to you.” Her whispered retort was short and her eyes flashed with yellow fire.

  “I don’t remember….y’all fighting much. Hope it doesn’t…upset Poog.” Mike’s voice sounded like a whisper too, but it wasn’t intentional.

  Slade’s blue eyes snapped with a spark of humor. “I think we can control it, but there are things that Briann and I need to talk about.”

  Briann chose to ignore both their remarks.

  She looked at Uncle Mike. “Is there anything you want done a special way, or something I can do for you…later?”

  He smiled up at her, knowing she was asking if he had any posthumous requests. “Just keep….Poog busy. She’ll be lost…for a while. Don’t let her…get depressed.”

  Briann nodded. “If you think of any other things, just let me know.”

  He winked at her. “There is something…that needs doing, but I don’t…have to tell you…what it is.”

  She didn’t allow any reaction to show on her face, but her heart lurched wildly. “Some things are better left alone.” There was no need to look up but Briann knew Slade was paying close attention to the soft exchange.

  Mike lifted one hand to caress her cheek gently and she closed her hands around it, keeping it close to her face. “I got a…pup last year,” he managed. “A blue-heeler. Smart as most…people. I want your…..little girl to…have him. Name’s Speck.”

  Briann nodded. “She’ll love it. She’s been begging for a dog.”

  The swishing of the door opening drew their attention and Aunt Poog bustled into the room. Slade stood and returned the warm hug she gave him. “Glad you made it home,” she said patting his lower chest, after she hugged him.

  He kissed her cheek briefly. “I’ll be here,” and then he stepped back so she could get closer to Mike.

  Briann stayed beside the bed on the other side so he moved across the room to stand before the window. Although it was pouring rain, Poog didn’t seem to have a single drop of moisture on her. Slade had always marveled at the older woman’s neat appearance. She never showed any effort to do so, but she never had a hair out of place, or a smudge of dust in her house. He turned and watched as Mike perked up once he realized the love of his life was there. Slade swallowed a lump that tightened in his throat and turned back to the window. The next days would be hard ones. He was as close to Mike and Poog as he was his own father. He’d been so young when his mother died and now he had to dig out her pictures to even remember what she looked like. When he met Poog, she had sensed his need for family ties. She and Mike had filled that void for him and in return he’d given them the gift of unconditional love. Then when Briann’s parents got killed, they moved in to take care of her.

  Mike and his brother, Brian, married sisters and always lived in separate homes on the farm that belonged to their father. Briann was the only child Brian and Sarah had while Mike and Poog never had any. Even after they moved into the house to take care of Briann, Slade spent at least as much time with them as he did at the big farm his father’s family lived on. Slade and Briann become almost like brother and sister.

  Chapter 2

  As a small boy Slade and his mother lived on the Arapaho Reservation in Texas, near his grandparents until they died.

  Slade was thirteen when his mother found out she had cancer. She’d contacted his father whom she’d thought had deserted her instead of marrying her. In spite of her own hurt at having to bare her pregnancy without a husband, Mela never stopped loving Slade’s father and she couldn’t allow the man she’d later married to raise Hank’s son. Charlie Two Trees wasn’t a bad man, but he became an alcoholic and she couldn’t trust him with the responsibility of a growing teenager.

  Once she located Hank and explained her situation to him, he flew to Texas and brought both his son and Mela back to Florida with him. One of the first things Hank had done when they arrived in Florida was to have Slade’s name changed to Slade Butler. Slade hadn’t understood it at the time, but over the years, he learned of the bitterness that had caused between Hank and his Caucasian family.

  Over the next two years, Slade heard that Hank and his mother had met when Hank was stationed in Texas while he served his time in the military. They’d been crazy about each other, but Hank had been deployed unexpectedly, when the war in the Middle East heated up and Mela was home to see her parents for the weekend. When she returned to her room, she found a note from Hank telling her he’d be
en deployed and would get in touch with her as soon as he could. She didn’t hear anything from him and within three months she knew she was pregnant. Mela moved back home to the reservation.

  She’d had no way of knowing Hank had been injured right after he’d landed and before he even had a chance to write her. Then he was sent to a hospital in Germany to recuperate. His injury had been serious enough he was eventually discharged and sent home. It was almost six months since he’d left Texas.

  Hank went straight back there, planning on marrying the Indian girl who’d stolen his heart, but couldn’t find her. Mela had given up the apartment and left no forwarding address. When he’d finally located her parents, their distrust of white people became obvious and they refused to tell him where she lived, only that she didn’t want to marry a white man and would be happy with her own people.

  By the time Mela contacted him and told him he had a son, Hank had already made a fortune in real estate and married a local socialite and together they had a small son.

  But he’d never stopped loving Mela. During the two years after he brought her and Slade to Florida, they’d lived in an apartment near his office. She was determined and spent months fighting for her life against a sickness that seemed to consume her from the inside. Slade saw the love his parents shared and when his mother was finally confined to the hospital, his father remained there with her, right to the end.

  After that, Hank moved the boy out to the farm. Tanya ranted and raved as riotously as she had over Hank giving the boy his name and the humiliation of Hank’s obvious devotion to Mela, but her dependence on Hank’s money won out. Even though he never moved into the big house with them, Slade took some of his meals there and existed as Hank’s oldest son. Slade found he was much happier sleeping in a small room in the barn and eating with the ranch hands. Hank had his room fixed up nice, put in a bathroom and air conditioning so his son didn’t have to share the communal bathroom the seasonal workers used or swelter in the summer’s heat.

  Slade was content. He’d rather be around the horses and cowboys than Tanya and her son Jeffery. In his mind, he realized his mother and Hank never married and on the reservation he’d been told he was born on the wrong side of the blanket. But now he lived as Slade Butler, Hank Butler’s oldest son and that’s who he became.

  Hank never objected to Slade’s friendship with Mike and Poog, knowing they filled a space in the boy’s life that he never could, because, like it or not, he had a life time commitment with Tanya and Jeffery.

  A sound caused Slade to turn around and look at the two women beside the bed. They both stood quickly, leaning over Mike. In two strides he stood beside Briann. He could see Mike’s mouth was pinched and pale. Poog asked if he was in pain, and then from deep inside him, Mike managed a weak cough, and his breathing eased and he relaxed again.

  Relief washed over Briann and she slumped visibly and might have gone to the floor but for a strong masculine arm that caught her and held her up. Resisting her own weakness, as well as his help, she pulled away and stepped back from the bed. Slade’s arm had felt so good holding her up that she’d been tempted to turn toward him and lean against his sturdy chest.

  Slade’s eyes followed her for a minute to make sure she remained steady on her feet, and then he walked around to slip a supporting arm around Poog’s thin shoulders. She leaned against him and rested her head back against his shoulder. “You know he loves you as much as he would have loved a son of his own.”

  Slade nodded. “Mike was as much a father to me as Hank has been, in some ways, more.”

  “I don’t think I can do this.” Poog whispered her voice breaking as she turned her face into his chest, silent tears soaking into the fabric of his western shirt.

  Slade held her silently and stroked the back of her head, the knot in his throat discouraging any words of comfort he might have offered.

  From across the room, Briann watched their reflection in the window. Then a flash of lightening illuminated the outside world and thunder rattled the shades above the window. She backed up a step and moved back to her place across the bed from Aunt Poog and now Slade.

  It was a long day. At one point, when he knew Mike was resting and breathing easily, Slade left the room and returned a few minutes later with icy soft drinks for both women.

  As night fell, the storm passed and the noise of changing shifts filled the hospital. Dr. Franks had ordered meals be sent to the room and then he appeared in person to encourage those waiting with Mike to eat, knowing nourishment wouldn’t be a priority with any of them. He closed the door and told the nurses not to allow any visitors in.

  In his heart, he understood his old friend was resting for a journey he’d soon take alone.

  Daylight was breaking when Poog sensed a change in Mike’s breathing. She leaned over him and took his hand. Mike’s eyes found hers and she smiled at him. “I love you, but if you’re ready, go ahead and go home to the Lord. I’ve got Briann and Slade here with me. You know I’ll miss you like crazy, but I’ll be alright.”

  He winked one eye and lightly squeezed her hand before he closed his eyes. Slade moved to stand beside Poog, one of his hands holding her shoulder firmly, Briann on the other side of the bed. Mike breathed a few more times, before he stopped, no struggle, just a quiet, peaceful departure.

  Poog continued to hold his hand, restraining the tears she knew would come later. Right now, she was happy for him that it was finally over. After several minutes she leaned down to kiss his lips gently, before she stood up and looked at Briann, then at Slade. “He’s finally at peace.”

  Briann nodded, tears slipping over her cheeks in spite of her knowing that he wouldn’t want her to cry.

  From his pocket, Slade took a white handkerchief and handed it across the bed to her. Briann took it and wiped away the wet trails the tears left on her cheeks.

  A nurse opened the door and came quietly to the bed. She felt for a pulse she knew she wouldn’t find, looked at the clock and noted the time of death for the paperwork that lay ahead.

  “Mr. Mike told Dr. Franks who to call and said the arrangements were already made. Y’all stay as long as you want. I won’t call them until you leave.” She spoke softly.

  “No, sugar,” Poog said. “Go ahead and make that call. We’ll leave when they get here. He’d want us to go on home.”

  The nurse nodded as she slipped quietly from the room.

  The next few days were a long blur. As much as she wanted to avoid Slade, Briann was thankful he was there for Aunt Poog. If she even looked like she needed anything, he took care of it and when the funeral was over and Mike’s friends and neighbors filled the house, Slade stayed right with Poog, usually with one strong arm around her, helping her stand. The rest of the time he could be found sitting right beside her trying to foresee any need she might have. He was the first person at her house every morning and the last one to leave every night.

  Mike’s funeral was attended by many people and Slade was glad to see his father there and just as relieved that neither Tanya nor Jeffery put in an appearance. It would have been uncomfortable for him, but more so for Briann considering the failed connection she and Jeffery had in their past.

  Slade had arranged for two of the men who worked at the Butler farm to take over the chores that needed doing around the Hudson place. They mowed the yard and trimmed the hedges so the yard would look nice for people coming and going during the visitation and the funeral. The blue speckled dog followed the two men around, as if hoping one of them would find Mike, or take him to where Mike was. Both men seemed to sense the animal’s confusion and made every effort to comfort the bewildered creature, in the way only another cowboy could understand.

  Finally the last of the neighbors were gone, the women having put the house in order before they left and Poog dozed in her chair, Slade touched her shoulder gently. “Why don’t you go on to bed? I know you’re exhausted.”

  She nodded. “You’re right.” As she rose
and started to the stairs she looked back. “Where’s Briann?”

  Slade shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll check around outside and see if she’s there before I leave. If she’s not there, I’ll assume she’s gone to bed and lock the door before I go.”

  Poog smiled at him. “I can’t thank you for all you’ve done.”

  “Don’t try. I’ll see you in the mornin’.” He watched her climb the stairs, each step dragging wearily.

  Stepping out the front door, he welcomed the fresh air and breathed in deeply. The Jasmine bush at the end of the porch had bloomed and its sweet fragrance filled the night. Glancing around, his sharp eyes caught movement down at the barn. Probably Briann, but he would make sure before he left.

  He walked on the soft grass and across the gravel spread on the driveway as he approached the barn. Slade could see her clearly, leaning against the fence, petting one of the horses, the speckled dog at Briann’s feet.

  The horse and the dog observing his approach had alerted Briann to his presence.

  “I just wanted to make sure it was you, so I didn’t lock the front door and leave you locked out.” Slade said as she swung her head around to look at him.

  “There’s always the key under the flower pot behind the swing.” She said.

  He shrugged, stepping up to stroke the big bay’s blazed face. “Poog went on up to bed. She was out on her feet.”

  “Thank you for being here for her. She’s needed you.” Briann pushed a wayward strand of hair back over her ear. There was always one unruly strand that managed to escape whatever means she used to confine it. At least it had remained in the twist she’d so carefully arranged it in, until she returned home from the funeral.

  Slade watched her hand push at the hair, for a moment, before he took her wrist and gently pulled it away.