The Cowboy's Redemption: BWWM Billionaire Western Romance (4 page)

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Warren’s neck was as sore as his heart. Aching and throbbing in tandem to the rhythm in his chest, Warren waited as quietly as he could until his next dosage of pain killers. At this point, they were the only relief he could get from all kinds of pain, since they were strong enough to pull him under a drift of dreamless sleep. He could forget about Alana, about the pain of having such disinterested parents, about being stuck and alone in this godforsaken little hospital… he could forget about a lot of things, and when he woke, it’d be to a pleasant numbness in his system and the lovely face of Doctor Reese.

“Sorry,” the woman said, all tired lines and simple colors. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” Warren admitted. “I’ve been awake for a little while.”

She gave him a soft smile, and for the first time in two weeks, she took a seat by his bed with a sigh. “We’ve been having problems trying to contact your personal doctor,” Doctor Reese explained, settling on the chair with crossed arms and slightly haunched shoulders. Warren recognized the stance almost as easily as recognizing his own reflection. “Is there a reason for that?”

“Yeah,” Warren replied, his fingers fiddling with a wrinkle in his sheets. “He’s an asshole.” She blinked, thinly veiled surprise flashing through her dark irises.

“Is that a personal or a professional opinion?”

He let out a short huff of black amusement, “Little bit of both. You’ll have better luck reaching President Obama than you would that guy. He only answers to my family.”

“And you’re family is…what,” she said, thin eyebrows arching, “incommunicado as well?”

“You’d find them easily,” Warren replied. “Although, I doubt getting any information out of them will get you anywhere.”

At this point, his doctor sighed, reaching up to tug that same piece of stubborn hair out of her face and behind her ear. “Warren, we can’t exactly treat you if we don’t have your medical information. We’ve gotten your history just fine, and some other important things as well, but I need to know more about your arrhythmia, if you’ve had a history of heart problems, if it’s a genetic issue…etc. I’ll be frank, I’m concerned.”

“About me, or the fact I’m not providing any answers?”

She gave him an earnest look, “Both. Why is it that a thirty year old man, wealthy beyond belief and with such a presence in the media not have a single pot of flowers sent in?”

Warren shrugged, and he was pleased to feel the sensation didn’t hurt as much as it did two weeks ago. “I don’t like flowers.”

“Or a single visit?”

“I don’t have many friends.”

“Not even from his own family?”

Warren let out a short sigh, feeling agitated. Doctor Reese leaned in, reaching a slim hand to press against the edge of his bed and he noticed her fingers were just inches from his own. He couldn’t help but notice that.

“You know what that tells me about your story, Warren?” She asked softly. He didn’t like the rawness hiding behind her eyes, and it was as if she had managed to peel back his own walls by doing so to hers. “That you’re alone, and that you have no one.”

“Yeah, well it takes one to know one,” he replied scathingly. Doctor Reese’s lips tightened just a fraction, even if her eyes remained on him, he could see her throw up the same walls he had. She pulled away, retracting her hand and placing it neatly on her lap.

“How long have you used Ritalin?”

Warren looked away, feeling muscles in his jaw work and trying not to feel whiplashed by her abrupt turn of conversation. “Since I was seventeen.”

“How often?”

“Every day for six years,” he ground out. Her eyebrows arched again.

“Your prescription says otherwise,” she mentioned.

“A lot of things about me say otherwise,” Warren retorted, feeling like his insides had been scraped raw, and they were threatening to explode outward. “You wanna know what else? I had a drinking problem back when I was 22. Nearly shot my liver all for a stupid drinking contest that gave me alcohol poisoning and disappointed everyone in my family… I hurt my baby sister with that stupid choice. My father’s got this idiot obsession with horse races, don’t blame him, I like them too. He knew that I’ve got issues keeping still, but he insisted I get on a bucking horse anyway. He blamed me for getting unhorsed and nearly shattering my pelvis, but he had no problem stuffing vicodin down my throat. So long as I was up on my feet and not being an embarrassment to my family. So yeah, if you want to guess which of those things caused my arrhythmia—among other things, I’m sure—you can start there. Are we done?”

There was a tense silence that passed between them, framed by the quickened beeps of the heart monitor. His doctor said nothing for a moment, but he could see how her fingers fidgeted against her scrubs, and he could sense the uneasiness coiling in her figure just as easily.

“Why are you alone, Warren?” she asked softly. The tone in her voice startled him. And then when she looked up at him, he couldn’t help shivering.

“Because I chose to be,” he said.

She left moments later, and he tried to ignore the ramming sensation in his heart beep in sync with the monitor blaring next to his bed.

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--

She couldn’t avoid him after that. Not after she had unintentionally exposed him like that.

Melinda had been unable to shake away Warren’s final words to her. In her mind, they turned and turned, appearing and reappearing while she worked and when she took her coffee breaks. Driving home after that conversation had left her unable to turn on her radio and listen to songs until she faded away. She couldn’t seem to puzzle over the conundrum of it all.

A man who had everything, had chosen to have nothing.

In the end, isn’t that a certain contradiction of everything she had believed people to want? People lied to have their hands on everything, yet this man exposed himself to the truth for the sake of being left in his own grief. He didn’t even bother keeping his own secrets to himself, secrets that spoke of a lifestyle that while grand on the outside was as empty as hers.

They walked different walks of life. Their feet should be carrying them in other places…yet they met somewhere in the center… where they couldn’t not deny similarities.

Melinda paused in the middle of that thought.

Warren had been the one to speak his mind, not her. He had answered her questions, and given her half-glares that reminded her of a wounded animal that bared its teeth at its most vulnerable. He didn’t bothering hiding that much either—or if he did she saw straight through it.

Why are you alone?

Because I chose to be.

“Doctor?”

Melinda blinked, and she felt her stomach jump to her chest. She stopped, glancing down and taking in her surroundings once more, unable to remember when she had drifted from her destination to her office, only to end up on the very threshold that opened into the room of the man whom had occupied her mind for the past few hours.

Warren was looking at her quizzically, sitting up on his bed with a fork in hand and a plate of cafeteria food in the other. For the first time since he had arrived, Melinda took in his appearance with unexpected interest. Beneath the fall of the hospital gown she could she the sturdy build of his shoulders and pectorals, the sleeves stopped just above his biceps, exposing curling muscle beneath the spread of sun-tanned skin. His eyes, blue and curious, beheld her from above sharp cheekbones and a strong jaw with a five o’clock shadow, a sharp nose sloping to stop over a pair of parted lips. His hair, a dark shade of chestnut, stuck up on odd angles but did not necessarily look bad. He looked rugged, tired…

He looked like how she felt.

Clearing her throat, Melinda forced down a blush of mild embarrassment. “I came to do a quick check-up.”

Warren’s eyebrows curled, “…like the on you did twenty minutes ago?”

She did? Melinda floundered—a feat that surprised her as much as it did him—before she took another step inside and closed the door behind her.

“You sure you’re doing alright, doc?” Warren asked, lowering his fork to better appraise her.

“I’m fine,” she replied automatically, edging toward the side of the bed where her patient’s vitals beeped and blinked regularly. “I wanted to tell you that you can check out of the hospital whenever you’d like now.”

Warren blinked. “Oh…?”

Melinda nodded, “Yes. Our concerns had been with some other information, but seeing as you’ve been stabalized fairly well without issues we’ll just rule it out as non-threatening.”

Her patient nodded, taking in the information slowly before he sat back on his pillows. “So, what, nearly five days of getting to know me better and that’s it?”

The comment took her by surprise, “Pardon?”

Warren shrugged, “Has anything I told you given you any answers?”

Oh.
Melinda felt her fingers smooth the sides of her coat down quickly, “We’ve gathered what information we could. I’m sure if anything comes up, we’ll make sure to contact you.”

She turned to leave, her work shoes clacking softly against the tiled floor before he called her out. “Hold on.” Melinda slowed to a stop, uncertain as to why her heart was thundering in her chest all of a sudden. “Before I check out, do you think we can just…talk?”

The request was somewhat unusual, of this Melinda had no experience with. The idea in it of itself was somewhat amusing, considering the fact that she had been so busy speaking to him to get information out of him that in the process, she had almost forgotten he was human just like her.

“Talk?”

Warren nodded, “Yeah. Talk. Like human beings?” When she said nothing in response he gave a long sigh. “Look, I’ve been thinking about our last conversation—the one where I snapped at you. I’m sorry for that, treating you that way when you’ve been busy helping me out. But, it made me think… the only other person I’ve really ever spoken to is gone now, and that leaves me with a whole lot of nothing. Honestly, I’m tired of it.”

Tired of being alone. Tired of waking up to empty beds and cold showers. Tired of nursing black drags of coffee and tired of pushing away nightmares of losing people I care about.

“Tired of choosing to be alone?” Melinda asked softly.

Warren looked up at her, blue eyes meeting brown through one yard of space. He nodded, teeth working at the inside of his cheek before he glanced at the chair.

Everybody lies.

He hasn’t.

Yet.

Inhaling, Melinda broke through hesitance and uncertain moment where she could have turned and left instead. Sitting down, she met Warren’s gaze with a slight smile, “You mentioned you had a sister…”

“Alana.” He spoke the name reverently, with profound and deeply dug in love. “Yeah…
had.
”

After some time, Melinda allowed herself to inch closer. “I’m sorry.”

“Everyone is sorry,” Warren replied, and when he blinked up at her, it was with newer scrutiny. “Not you. You know.”

Melinda frowned, “Know what?”

“What it’s like. To lose someone when you could have done something about it.”

A feeling like ice and fire fell through Melinda’s skin, dousing her in the abrupt encounter with something she didn’t think she could ever face. She couldn’t move aside from dropping her chin, trying to remember what it was like to breathe. But she was far too tired to find a place to strengthen her walls, and she could feel them threaten to unravel beneath this man’s words.

“That kind of thing never leaves a person… like a mark. Only you can see it if you’ve felt it yourself,” Warren was saying. “So you understand… how little there is a point to do anything else.”

Melinda looked back up, fingers clenching against her coat tightly. “How little there’s a point?”

Warren shrugged. Melinda scowled, and just as easy as it was to succumb to sadness, it was much easier to succumb to anger. “You’re sad.”

When he looked at her, it was with shock. “You honestly think that all there’s left is nothing? You may understand because you’ve lost someone, but you’ve only lost that person for a few weeks. I’ve been struggling for years with the loss. People say it gets better with time but sometimes all you have left is the memory.” Melinda stood abruptly, uncertain whether she wanted to run away or slap him, but apparently there was a third option. She took a step forward and reached for his hand, her fingers clenched tight around his palm, made him jolt as he met her stare with wide blue eyes.

“You think giving in to nothing is what you deserve? You think that’s what she would want—your sister? For you to fall into yourself and become nothing? No. That’s not what she would want, because that’s not what he would want. I come here, I change lives, and I save them. My job is what allows me to keep going, my job has let me make a difference. That is how I redeem myself. That is how I make it up to Eddie, by saving lives no one else could save because I failed to save his. You want to squander what’s left of your life, then fine, do it. But don’t you dare say words like that as if I would understand what it’s like to make that choice because that is
not
what I’m doing, and that’s
not
an option.”

Warren stared into her eyes, dumbfounded, and deep within his gaze, Melinda felt a tug she had not felt in years. Tearing her hand away, Melinda let out a shuddering breath and with that she turned on her heels and marched out of his room.

She stayed far away from him then, stayed far away until Flint told her Warren had been checked out and his room was given to another patient with another background. Those next few nights, Melinda had hid within her apartment and cried within the safety of her own shower. She cried because she had no idea how far she had made a mistake—she had made a stupid mistake in becoming attracted to yet another person, and she felt stupid for feeling so vulnerable.

In that stupid moment of vulnerability, Melinda had broken down his wall by slamming a fist through her own. The crumbs sat between her and the tears lingering in the shower water, and all Melinda could do was cry as the poured away into the drain.

She had been foolish to believe that she had been impenetrable, pushing herself past certain personal limits that would’ve broken anyone else—shattered them completely.

Melinda was amazed she had even made it this long without completely cracking open.

Days passed… then weeks… and one day after Melinda pulled a double shift she felt a spur of the moment urge that demanded her to take a step toward the Head of the hospital and ask for a sick day.

“You’ve been pulling doubles nonstop,” Doctor Solaris replied, smiling ruefully. “I think you deserve more than a sick day, Melinda.”

That day, when Melinda walked out of the hospital, she nearly bumped into Richards himself and when he snarked with his usual, “Quitting already?”

She smiled at him and kindly told him to go fuck himself.