Wayne put the pickup in gear and headed back to ranch headquarters, but his mind strayed to the old Baxter cabin and the two females who’d spent a long weekend there. Today was Monday and not a holiday, so the doc had taken a day off to be with her daughter. In spite of the mother’s guilt, the daughter seemed a well-balanced kid.
Carey was a warm, loving armful of woman. Any child would be lucky to have her for a parent. A man would be lucky to have her for a wife. The husband who’d let her go had been a fool.
The memory of her passionate response to him nearly had him running off the road. He sternly brought his attention back to the real world. A quarter mile down the dirt track, he noticed a mineral block in the pasture.
“What the hell?” he muttered.
They hadn’t put out any new blocks, not in winter, and none out this way since last spring. By now, deer and other forest creatures should have finished it off.
He stopped the truck, the hairs on the back of his neck standing at attention. There were no tracks in the road in front of him. He got out and checked behind the pickup, walking on the dried grass and weeds along the verge.
His tires had obliterated the other vehicle’s tracks, but he did find the imprint of a tire edge, then a few yards back, the place where a truck, its tires worn almost bald, had turned around.
Returning to the pickup, he grabbed a burlap bag and slipped through the barbed-wire strands. After retrieving the mineral block, he tossed it in the back and drove on to the ranch.
Rand Harding, the foreman, was in the ranch office when Wayne arrived. “Bad news,” the foreman said as soon as he stepped inside the door.
“Yeah? Tell me about it,” Wayne invited with a cynical smile.
“I just talked to Hargrove—”
“Was he out here?” Wayne interrupted.
Rand gave him a quizzical glance. “On the telephone. They’ve decided to shut down the ranch completely. As soon as it warms up and the cows have dropped their calves, the livestock will be sold at auction. Same goes for the equipment. I guess the ranch will go next.”
“Did he say that?”
“No, but you don’t even need to read between the lines to see it coming. I mean, what else are they going to do? The ranch needs an income to pay the taxes. Nobody wants to work here because of the so-called Kincaid curse.” He sighed despondently. “Hargrove says they’ve had an offer.”
For a second, Wayne felt something hot and heavy clench at his insides. He forced himself to relax. Hell, this was what he wanted. Let the ranch go. In a few years it would be known as the old Kincaid place the same as the Baxter ranch.
End of an era.
“Who from?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”
Rand tapped the end of a pencil on the scarred ranch desk. The younger man’s eyes were dark. His shoulders slumped. Wayne realized the foreman would be out of a job with the shutdown of the ranch. So would he.
Maybe he’d head for Denver. A friend from the military had urged him to join his private-detective agency for years. The two had been paired up in the hospital for a brief spell while recovering from their wounds. They’d remained in contact over the years. Yeah, maybe it was time to be moving on.
As soon as he knew Jennifer was going to be okay. Things weren’t looking good on that front.
He swallowed hard to clear his throat before he spoke again. “Did you take a block of mineral salt out to section eight over near the Baxter ridge?”
“No. It’s too early. Besides, we probably won’t be moving any cattle out this year if what Hargrove says is true about closing down completely, so we won’t be doing anything in the back pastures.”
“That’s what I thought. Odd, though. I found a brand-new block out there. I brought it in with me. Thought I might have the sheriff check it out.”
Rand stared at him, then set his jaw angrily. “I’d like to find the bastard who’s doing this.”
“So would I. If I could find Dale and have five minutes alone with him, I think we’d have the answer.”
“Yeah. You think it would do any good to talk to McCallum and see if we can’t make it another year before we throw in the towel? The deputy has the final say.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to ask.”
“That’s what I thought. I, mmm, wondered if you’d do it.” At Wayne’s sharp glance, he hurried on. “You seem to be on pretty easy terms with him. And you’re closer in age.”
The foreman grinned as he added the last. The other ranch hands, what few there were, called Wayne “Gramps.” He was ten to twenty years older than the rest of them.
And felt every damn one of those years. He pushed a grin on his face and nodded. “Reckon I can do that.”
He needed to see Sterling and his wife anyway. Confession time was drawing closer unless Carey had found a donor for Jennifer.
He wondered what the doc’s reaction would be. Shock. Disbelief. Anger. About half the county would probably feel the same. Including Ethan, assuming Kate hadn’t already said something to him. Then there was Carey and McCallum and his wife. They would have to be told, too.
Then, when he’d done all he could for the kid, he’d be out of Whitehorn. For good.
Carey waved a piece of newspaper toward the door. She muttered several nasty phrases. “Go outside, Sophie, until I get the smoke cleared out.”
Her daughter skipped out of the cabin and settled on the steps. Carey wondered where the wind was when she needed it. She heard a truck stop outside and went to join her daughter on the porch. She glanced at her watch.
“You’re early,” she called to J.D. “It’s only six.”
“Freeway here couldn’t wait,” he explained.
The dog jumped out of the truck and made a beeline for Sophie, who was already giggling and holding her arms open. They rushed at each other like long-lost lovers. The dog licked the girl all over her face.
Carey felt a hitch in the vicinity of her heart. Ah, to be that young and find happiness so easily. She looked at J.D., standing at the bottom of the steps, a strangely gentle smile on his lips as he watched the child and his dog.
“Looks like we need the fire department,” he remarked.
He was dressed in jeans and boots as usual, but he’d put on a white shirt, sleeves rolled back on his forearms, in place of the work shirt he’d worn earlier. His hair appeared damp.
“That blasted stove delights in driving me crazy. It won’t light. And yes, I have the flue open,” she said before he could make one of those superior-male remarks.
He grinned and ambled inside with her. He put a hand on the old-fashioned potbellied stove as if taking its temperature. “Cold,” he said.
“I noticed,” she informed him sarcastically. “That’s why I was trying to light the blasted thing. We need some heat. I don’t know why I let Sophie talk me into spending the night out here. It’s much too early for camping in this drafty place.”
“It’s peaceful,” he said, as if that explained it all.
He picked up the newspaper she’d used as a fan to dispel the smoke and tore off a section, then made a twist out of it. He lit the twist and stuck it inside the stove and toward the opening to the stovepipe.
The wisp of smoke from the burning paper swirled for a couple of seconds while the flame fluttered, then both flame and smoke straightened and went up the pipe. He then laid the twist on her little pile of smoldering paper and kindling. The fire caught and the smoke in the room whisked into the stove on the draft.
She glared at him.
He chuckled while he wiped smudges of soot off his hand with a handkerchief. “The air in the stovepipe was cold. That’s why it couldn’t draw. It needed a little direct flame to heat things up and get the air to moving.”
“Oh.”
“There are some things you don’t know, Doc.”
He gave her a sexy, oblique glance that had her heart diving to her toes and making her want to tap-dance. She frowned, irritated at herself and her reaction to this audacious cowboy. “I’m sure you’ve picked up lots of tidbits while drifting around the world.”
“Yeah,” he agreed in a harder tone. “It teaches a man a thing or two—like to watch out for smart-mouthed women.”
A giggle interrupted them before the quarrel, if that’s what it was, picked up steam. Sophie came in with Freeway and closed the door, shutting out the cold night air.
“Mom doesn’t like it when you talk back,” she advised J.D. “When are we going to eat?”
“Soon. Now that I can see through the smoke.” Her smile was a peace offering. “Thanks for clearing the air.”
Sophie started a game of tug-of-war with Freeway, using one of Carey’s socks. The dog growled playfully, while the girl laughed in delight as they romped around the table.
J.D. waved her thanks aside. “You know, this cabin could be fixed up pretty quick if you wanted to use it for weekend getaways on a regular basis. An extra room could be added on the back side. The door could be cut where this window is. A porch around three sides would give you a shady place to sit no matter where the sun is.”
“That sounds nice. I’ll have to find a handyman. When I have time,” she added.
“I could do it.”
She glanced at him in surprise. His expression was chagrined, as if he were angry with himself for volunteering, then it was gone, his face once more cast in granite.
“I’m sure you’ll be much too busy at the ranch to come over here and work,” she murmured, excusing him.
He hesitated before answering. “Right. I could draw you a plan, though.”
“Do you know how?”
He gave a mock frown at her doubting tone. “I worked in construction for a while, putting up expensive cabins in the mountains for the yuppies. I learned a thing or two.”
“I’ll bet you did.”
His slow grin picked up the corners of his sensual mouth. “You do have a wicked tongue. Do you use it for anything but lashing a man’s hide off?”
“Sometimes.” Meeting his gaze, she realized she was flirting with him. The idea amazed her. She, Carey Hall, voted the most dedicated to her goals by her high-school class, flirting?
Sophie and Freeway flopped on the rug in front of the stove, which was now putting out a generous amount of heat. He tended the fire, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a short reed.
“I found this whistle today.” He handed it to Sophie.
She blew through it. “This isn’t a whistle,” she said, disappointed in her new friend.
“It isn’t? Let me look at it.” He peered at the reed. “Well, shucks, it doesn’t have enough holes.”
He pulled out a knife and, with the tip of a blade, drilled three small holes along the reed. He stuck his finger over the bottom hole, then blew into the other end.
A light note filled the room. Using his fingers to cover one, then another of the holes, he made different sounds so that the effect was like that of wind chimes, an oddly pleasing blend of airy tones that almost sounded like a melody. Sophie’s eyes rounded with pleasure.
“Oh, let me try,” she cried. J.D. handed over the whistle.
Carey was delighted when Sophie also made the reed flute sing. She realized J.D. had shown her daughter how a flute was made and how something as simple as a reed could make beautiful music, all without a word of instruction.
She turned on the two-burner hot plate that had come with the old cabin and whipped up the batter for hoecakes with cornmeal, milk and an egg. Using a flat iron skillet, she ladled the batter out pancake-fashion to cook. She dumped barbecued beans and beef, which she’d made and brought with them, into a pan and set it to heating on the other burner.
“That was kind of you,” she murmured when J.D. came over and watched.
“I can be kind.”
His gravelly voice stroked her like rough velvet, and she knew she was in danger of being enchanted by this mysterious drifter. She let herself inhale the masculine aroma of soap and shampoo and aftershave lotion and thought of losing herself in his arms…
And when he was gone? What of enchantment then?
The stern voice of practicality burst her pretty daydream. She had Sophie to think of. A drifter would do her child no good. Children trusted so readily. He would win the child’s love, then break her heart when he left.
He traced the frown line between her eyes with a finger. “Lighten up, Carey. The world won’t come to an end, no matter what happens or doesn’t happen between us.”
“No, it won’t,” she agreed briskly, letting her irritation show. She flipped the hoecakes on the flat skillet, let them brown and took them up. Then she ladled on the next batch and stirred the pot. “Sophie, time to set the table. Wash up first.”
The girl gave one last pat to Freeway, then washed her hands in a basin before standing on tiptoe to retrieve plates from shelves on the wall. She put out forks and napkins for the three of them.
Carey was aware of J.D. watching the activity. She gave him a questioning glance as she set the platter of hoecakes on the table, then poured up the beans and beef in a bowl.
“Springwater okay?” she asked, holding up a glass.
“Fine.”
He played the gallant, refusing to sit until they did, then holding their chairs for them. Actually, there were only two chairs. Sophie sat on a stool made from a section of log. He watched as Carey put a hoecake on Sophie’s plate, then spooned the beans-and-beef mixture over it.
“I was wondering how you ate those.” He helped himself to a double stack of bread and barbecue.
“Do you know why they’re called ‘hoecakes’?” Sophie demanded.
“No, why?”
“Farmers used to cook them on a hoe over the fire.” She laughed in delight when he clasped a hand to his chest and looked as if he might fall off the chair in amazement. “My granddad and I tried it once when he lived in town, but the hoecake caught on fire.”
“Sounds as if your granddad was a fun guy.”
“Yes,” she said in the manner of kids who take it for granted that everyone has wonderful grandparents.
Later, the three of them had canned peaches with the rest of the cake and played Go Fish. After the game, Sophie changed into flannel pajamas with feet and fell asleep on the floor in front of the stove, her arm around Freeway’s neck, his chin resting on her shoulder.
“Norman Rockwell could do justice to that scene,” Carey said, pointing to the two.
“Yes.”
She was aware that his eyes didn’t leave her. She put on a pot of coffee, then started on the dishes. He dried and put the dishes on the shelf.
“You’re handy to have around,” she teased.
“In more ways than one.”
The smoldering laugher in his eyes invited her to relax and enjoy all he was offering. She wiped the wooden counter next to the hot plate and hung up the dishcloth.
“Should she be in bed?” he asked, nodding to Sophie.
“Yes.”
He lifted the girl into his arms and took her to the bunk on the far side of the cabin. She settled into her sleeping bag without a sound. After adding another log to the stove, he resumed his seat.
Carey poured the coffee and brought the mugs to the table. “It’s decaffeinated,” she said for no reason except to fill the silence. His gentleness with Sophie only added to her confusion about him.
He caught her hand when she would have moved away. With a little tug, he pulled her into his lap.
She glanced over her shoulder to where her daughter slept peacefully. “Don’t.”
“We’re not going to do anything in a one-room cabin with a dog and a kid present,” he murmured, pressing his face against her neck and inhaling deeply. “Well, maybe a little quiet necking. Ah, the scent of a woman.”
Chills ran helter-skelter over her while his breath caressed her throat. His hands—mmm, those long, graceful fingers—rubbed her back and along the muscles of her shoulders, massaging and soothing away the tightness she’d lived with all week.
She felt air in the vee between her breasts. Looking down, she saw him unfasten the next button of her plaid woodcutter’s shirt. He kissed the dip between her breasts, then flicked his tongue there, leaving a cool spot on her skin, while heat erupted deep within and quickly spread to every part of her.
“Pretty,” he said, gazing at the light-green bra with its floral motif of spring flowers. “So the doc has a soft side.”
“It was part of a Christmas set from my mom,” Carey said defensively.
His hand went to the snap on her jeans. “You mean, there’s more?” Devilish laughter leaped into his eyes, but he made no move to check further.
She wondered if she would have the energy to stop him if he tried. The lazy amusement in his voice almost did her in. His hands slipped under her loose shirt and continued their relaxing massage. Her thoughts blurred as he tilted his head to one side and covered her mouth with his.
They kissed for a long time, his hands inside her shirt, hers finding his buttons and doing the same to him. Once he caught her hands and held them away from his body, although his lips didn’t leave hers. She moaned in protest.
At last, he pressed her face to his chest and held her there, his fingers stroking through her hair while their blood cooled from sizzle to normal.
“Ah, gal,” he whispered, “but you’d make a saint forget his promises.”
“What promises?” she murmured, sleepy now that the passion had dissipated.
“To never settle in one place too long.”
He stood and set her on her feet, his eyes shaded by thoughts she couldn’t read.
“You’re going to have to put the past behind you someday,” she told him.
His expression hardened. “I have.”
“Not yet you haven’t.”
“Is this a free consultation, Doc?” he drawled, his way of telling her she was stepping across his bounds.
“Yes.” She pulled the open sides of her shirt across her breasts and held the ends in place with her arms folded over her chest.
He buttoned his shirt, then snapped his fingers. Freeway thumped his tail, but didn’t raise his head.
“Come on, you mangy mutt, it’s time to leave.”
Freeway sighed and closed his eyes. J.D. looked resigned. “He can stay the night. Throw him out tomorrow when you leave. He’ll head back for the ranch.”
She hesitated, not sure she even wanted his dog in the cabin. “Okay.”
He stopped at the door, then slipped an arm around her and pulled her against him, giving her a hard, soul-stirring kiss. “There, that’s one for the road.”
And one to dream on, she thought later, nestled into her sleeping bag on the other hard bunk. For a few heartbeats, she let herself think about snuggling up to a tough male body, then she put the thought aside.
Marriage and medicine didn’t mix. She’d learned that the hard way. No more dreams of tomorrow. If she and J.D. shared anything, it would be for the moment.
When he was gone, she’d be alone again.
The wind picked up and whistled around the cabin, reminding her of the notes from a reed flute. It was the loneliest sound.
She finally went to sleep, and didn’t wake until a cold nose touched her cheek at dawn the next morning. She pushed it away. Freeway huffed in her ear. Sitting upright, Carey realized where she was. She patted the dog’s head and got up to let him out. He bounded across the lawn and loped down the dirt road. She realized he was going home.
When Sophie awoke, the first thing she wanted was the dog. “Where’s Freeway?” she demanded, sitting up, instantly wide-awake and ready for play.
“I think he headed for the ranch. He probably wanted his breakfast and knew we didn’t have anything for him. He gave you a goodbye kiss.”
“He did?”
“Uh-huh. Right on your nose.”
It was the kind of fib she’d told her daughter for years about her father when he didn’t show up. She’d say he had called and would catch her next weekend. Once she’d even sent the child a card and pretended it was from him, but she’d felt so guilty for the lie that she hadn’t done it again. She’d suggested to Jack that he might write to make sure Sophie didn’t forget him. That had struck his vanity, and he actually remembered to do it a couple of times a year.
Sophie laughed, rubbed her nose and was happy.
“Time to get dressed. You have school and I have to get to the office at nine this morning.”
“That’s late,” Sophie said with a child’s knowledge of adult ways.
“Yes. I’ve decided to start my workday a little later so I can get you off to school before I leave. Next year when you go to first grade, you can ride the bus to Lorrie’s house so she won’t have to come get you.”
“Okay.” Sophie pulled off her pajamas and dressed.
The all-too-ready tears rushed to Carey’s eyes. She was so lucky to have this easygoing child.
She glanced out the window to where J.D.’s pickup had been parked. She had her work, her daughter, her house in town and now a ranch—well, sort of. She didn’t need anything else, no matter how nice it had felt to cuddle in J.D.’s arms and be kissed right to heaven.