The Triplets' Rodeo Man. Tina Leonard

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      It had been a terrible night, and the details of it were still etched in his mind. And then there was the letter he’d received through Pete from his father just last month.

      Jack, I tried to be a good father. I tried to save you from yourself. In the end, I realized you are too different from me. But I’ve always been proud of my firstborn son.

      Pop

      As patriarchal letters went, it stank. Jack figured Pop wouldn’t have sent a letter at all if he wasn’t sick, so he’d decided to come see for himself. He hadn’t expected to care what happened to the miserly old man; Josiah was miserly with his affection, miserly with his money, time, everything. At least that was the father Jack remembered. Still, Jack preferred his father fighting.

      “All right, Pop, you old jackass,” Jack said, “you can lie in that bed or you can fight.”

      One eye in the craggy, lined face opened to stare at him as he spoke, then the other opened in disbelief. “Jack,” Josiah murmured.

      A thousand emotions tore through Jack. “Get up out of that bed, old man.”

      “I can’t. Not today. Maybe tomorrow,” Josiah said gamely.

      “Damn right,” Jack said. “Because if I’m giving you one of my kidneys, I expect you to be jumping around like a lively young pup.”

      Josiah squinted at him. “Kidney?”

      “Hell, yeah,” Jack said. “You and I might as well be tied together for a few more years of agony—don’t you think? It could be the one thing we have in common. We’re apparently the perfect match for a kidney swap, which I find amusing in a strange sort of way. Not any of my brothers—me, the perfect donor match for you. It’s almost Shakespearean.”

      His father shook his head and closed his eyes. “I don’t want any favors, thanks.”

      Jack pulled a chair close to the bed and sat. “No one’s trying to do you a favor, you old jackass, least of all me. Quit feeling sorry for yourself, because I sure as hell don’t.”

      Josiah’s eyes snapped open, sparks of fire shooting at his son. “No one has ever felt sorry for Josiah Morgan.”

      Jack nodded. “Glad we got that settled. You’ll need to be in the right frame of mind to get healthy for all those brats you thought you needed.”

      “Brats?”

      “You’ve been bringing children into the family faster than popcorn popping. Pretty selfish of you to drag all those kids in here and then send up the white flag of surrender, don’t you think, Pop?”

      “I didn’t ask to have rank kidneys!” Josiah barked.

      Jack stretched his legs out in front of him, legs that had seen a few sprains and breaks from bulls that had taken their own rage out on him. “We all make our choices.”

      “I did not choose this.”

      “You’ve been ‘self-medicating’ for years. It’s one of the reasons I don’t touch a drop of liquor. I decided long ago not to live by your example.”

      “Alcohol didn’t give me kidney disease.” Josiah pulled a whiskey bottle from under the sheet and took a swallow he would have deemed “just a drop.”

      “Sure didn’t help it, either.” Jack stared at his father. “Pitiful, if you ask me.”

      “Well, I didn’t ask,” Josiah snapped, secreting the bottle again.

      “It’s nice to be able to tell you exactly what I think while you lie there captive. I’ve waited years for this moment.”

      Josiah looked at his son. “I guess you think paybacks are hell.”

      “I guess so, Pop.” Jack wasn’t about to give his father an inch of sympathy. The old man was mean as a snake. All the charity and benevolence he’d been throwing around in the past few years didn’t fool Jack. Josiah Morgan didn’t do anything without a motive.

      Josiah shook his head. “So many years passed, and you didn’t even let me know you were all right. You chased the one thing you cared about all your life—rodeo—and at thirty-two, you decide you’re going to give up the one thing that matters to you? You can’t ride with one kidney. It’d be foolish.”

      “I’ll take the risks I want, Pop.” Jack stood, staring down at his father. He didn’t like the old man, would never forgive him for the harsh words over the years. Wouldn’t forgive him for never being proud of him. Wouldn’t forgive him for blaming him for the car accident his brothers had been in the night Jack had been carted off to the hospital. “It’s just a kidney, Pop, and I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for my brothers, who are bringing up the families you’ve saddled them with. You ought to live to reap what you’ve sown.”

      “I’m proud of what I’ve sown!” Josiah shouted after him as he departed. Jack kept walking. It was a kidney he was giving up, not rodeo. Pop had that all wrong.

      C RICKET J ASPER SPOTTED the lean cowboy loping through the hospital exit and knew immediately who it was. There was no one like Jack Morgan, not in looks nor in sheer magnetism as far as Cricket was concerned. Why he was at the Union Junction Hospital she couldn’t guess—he’d had very little contact with his family for years. She’d only met him a time or two in the past couple of months, and that had been purely by chance.

      The brief meetings were enough to make her pray to see him again. Oh, yes, as a deacon, Cricket was fond of prayer, and she also knew that the Lord didn’t always grant a person what they wanted, particularly if it wasn’t in the mortal’s best interests. However, she was drawn to Jack from some deep, emotional part of her soul, and she knew this could be her only opportunity for months—if ever again—to catch him. “Jack!” she called, waving.

      He hesitated, glanced her way, considered, she knew, retreating in a different direction. She didn’t take this personally—Cricket knew retreat was the cowboy’s standard reaction when confronted with anyone connected to his family. She caught up to him. “Jack Morgan, it’s good to see you.”

      He looked at her, his gaze skimming over her white dress. “You, too.”

      She smiled. “You weren’t visiting Josiah, were you?” She wanted so badly to allow her eyes to do their own one-stop shopping up and down Jack’s loose-hipped body, but she resisted the urge, telling herself to be patient. The hunted never wanted to feel caught, after all, and she was determined to catch Jack Morgan, even if all she got from him was a kiss.

      Jack shrugged. “I wouldn’t call it a visit.”

      “Oh, I’m sure that meant the world to him.” Cricket gave him her most friendly, innocent smile. “Now all you need to truly make his day is to find a wife and kids.”

      He shook his head, not appreciating the joke. Josiah had managed to wrangle three of his four sons to the altar with the promise of a million dollars each, delivering Josiah the grandchildren he wanted in his golden years.

      “It won’t happen to me,” Jack stated. “I’m giving him a kidney, not another branch for the family tree.”

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