Sun Kissed

by Catherine Anderson

  Tucker suspected she’d kept that night a secret for fear of what her protective male relatives might do if they learned of Steve’s attack on her. In a strange way, it helped him to understand his sister, Bethany, a little better. There’d been a time when she had struggled with the problems that came with protective older brothers, and Tucker had committed as many offenses in his efforts to shelter her as anyone had. “I’m honored you chose me.”

  She searched his gaze. “I can’t believe you’re not shocked about me beating him up.”

  Despite the seriousness of the topic, Tucker chuckled. “Why would I be shocked? I think you should have strung him up over a high beam and castrated him.” At her incredulous look, he added, “Hey, I’m sorry, but that’s how I feel. In my family men don’t knock women around. It’s a capital offense.”

  She smiled slightly, albeit tremulously. “If it helps any, I did drag him facedown out of the house.”

  “Kudos! Details, lady. I’d really like to pound his face in right now.”

  She grinned and the tension eased from her slender body. “No need. I made him pay. Facedown across the rough slate, over the threshold, clear across the plank porch, and then down the steps. He used to fret every time he got a pimple, afraid it would leave a scar.” She raised both eyebrows. “When last I saw him on the courthouse steps, he wasn’t quite such a pretty boy anymore, and that was before Clint bashed him in the face.”

  Tucker chuckled again. “Thank you. That relieves my feelings of frustrated anger immensely. It’s not quite as satisfying as messing him up myself, but almost.”

  Jerome returned just then. “What’s there to be smiling about, I’d like to know?”

  Samantha looked up at the foreman. “I was just telling Tucker about the night I whaled the tar out of Steve Fisher and left him for dead in the front yard.”

  Jerome sent his boss an accusing glare as he handed her the manual. “You never told me that story. Right now, I could do with hearing it. I want to take him apart with my bare hands.”

  So Samantha repeated the tale, this time sharing even more of the details. When she had finished, Jerome’s jaw muscle was ticking and his eyes glittered with hatred. “I didn’t know,” he said shakily. “Why didn’t you tell me, Samantha Jane? I would have had a talk with him.”

  “A talk?” She shook her head. “You would have killed him, Jerome. Or you would have called my father, and he would have. It was better the way it happened. It didn’t go on for very long, and in the end I handled it myself, said good riddance, and no one ended up in prison.”

  Tucker wasn’t entirely sure that was an accurate statement. Samantha had erected walls around her heart. If that wasn’t a form of imprisonment, he didn’t know what was.

  Frank and Samantha’s brothers showed up just as Tucker was reprogramming the security system. Blue Blazes’s birth date had been chosen as the new code, six/ five/two thousand.

  “Chances are, he won’t think of that,” Clint approved. “He’ll try Sammy’s personal numbers first, birth date, Social Security number, stuff like that.”

  Frank looped an arm around his daughter’s shoulders. Expression grim, he studied the security panel. “I don’t like the idea that there’s any chance under the sun he can come up with the code. He knows Blue is Sammy’s favorite. How can we be sure he won’t try his birth date?”

  Tucker stopped programming. “Maybe we shouldn’t use a date then.”

  “How about a number he’ll never think of?” Quincy suggested. “Blue’s weight, maybe. What do you guess him to weigh, Tucker?”

  Tucker cleared the panel screen. “I estimate his weight at the top for his breed, thirteen hundred pounds, plus.” He perused the keyboard. “I can enter a plus sign. Should I go for it?”

  “What do you think, honey?” Frank asked his daughter. “Can you remember Blue’s weight?”

  “It works for me,” Samantha agreed.

  As Tucker set himself to the task of reprogramming the security code, Samantha led the way to Cilantro’s stall. Tucker didn’t go with them. She had her father and brothers to comfort her now. He was only the vet and, whether he wanted to accept it or not, an outsider.

  Chapter Thirteen

  After only two hours’ sleep, Tucker was back at the clinic, treating his patients. Though he’d cut back on small-animal appointments, he still had a few, and today was no exception. After removing the claws of a feline, he carried his unconscious patient to a recovery cage, covered her with warm towels, and stepped to the sink for a tall glass of water.

  “Tucker,” Isaiah said from behind him, “we need to talk.”

  Tucker downed the last bit of water, set aside the tumbler, and turned to his brother. They’d spoken briefly upon arrival at the clinic earlier, and Tucker had related the events that had taken place at the Sage Creek Ranch during the night.

  “I’m listening.” Tucker grabbed a container of yogurt from the fridge, which Isaiah’s wife, Laura, kept well stocked. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Can you come to my office?”

  Tucker set down the yogurt and followed his brother through an examining room to the north wing. When they were behind the closed door, Isaiah sank onto his desk chair, propped his arms on the blotter, and gave Tucker a penetrating look.

  “I’m worried.”

  “What about?”

  Isaiah rubbed a hand over his face. “I’m afraid you’re in trouble up to your eyebrows and don’t realize it.”

  Tucker took a seat in the opposite chair. “Can you just spit it out, Isaiah? I’ve got two spays and a neuter yet this morning. Then I need to check on a colicky mare.”

  Isaiah released a taut breath. “Okay, no beating around the bush. Did you fill out an official report on the first two equine poisonings at Samantha’s ranch?”

  “Of course. I’m obligated to do that.”

  “In that report, what did you divulge?”

  Tucker sensed where this was going. His brother knew him too well. A knot formed in the pit of his stomach. “The horses lived. The cops determined it was a teenage prank. No big deal.”

  “The horses last night weren’t so lucky, and they were very expensive animals,” Isaiah retorted. “Have you stopped to consider the possibilities? More important, have you made the cops aware of them?”

  “What possibilities?” Tucker asked evenly.

  Isaiah steepled his fingers. “Is Samantha in any kind of financial trouble?”

  “Damn it, Isaiah. What are you implying?”

  “That she must have large insurance policies on most of those horses. Who stands to gain if any of them die? The owner. You should have made that clear to the police the first time around, and definitely have to now. Kids didn’t give that blue roan stallion morphine. You know it and I know it. A teenager would have no idea of the effect of opiates on equines. I think it’s fair to say most adults wouldn’t either.”

  Tucker slumped in the chair.

  “You know I’m talking good sense,” Isaiah went on. “Anyone who understands the effect of opiates on a horse would have to be someone who’s been around horses for years, either a vet or a lifelong equine enthusiast. They haven’t doped racehorses at the tracks for a long time, so it’s not as if the general public has read about it in the news recently. So how would a dumb kid or an adult unfamiliar with horses come by the knowledge?”

  “Samantha didn’t dope Blue Blazes. She adores that stallion.” Tucker suddenly felt so angry that he wanted to grab the front of Isaiah’s shirt and give him a hard shake. He surged forward on the chair and glared the threat. “And she didn’t poison the other horses, either.”

  “You don’t know that.” Isaiah held up his hands. “And stop with the threatening posture. We haven’t tied it up in years, and we aren’t going to start now. Especially not over a woman you barely know.”

  Tucker realized the inappropriateness of his behavior and sat back. “I’m sorry. It just gets my temper up, that’s all. I
f you knew Samantha better, you’d never suggest such a thing.” Tucker recalled the first time he’d ever seen Samantha, and recounted the incident to his brother. “She put her own safety at risk to defend that poor horse. She’d never do something like this.”

  Isaiah lifted his hands. “Hey, I like the lady, too. Don’t get me wrong. But you aren’t that well acquainted with her, and people can do some surprising things when they get in a financial jam. You can bet she’s going to receive a very tidy sum of money for the deaths of that mare and colt.”

  “If you want to discuss this, Isaiah, don’t cast the blame in her direction. Samantha is a sweet, wonderful, caring person. She didn’t kill those horses.”

  Isaiah rocked back on his chair, making the reclining mechanism creak under his weight. “I haven’t said one damn thing you haven’t thought of yourself.”

  That was true, but there was a whole lot more to take into account. Financial gain wasn’t the only possible motive for someone to have poisoned those horses. A sick need for revenge could be just as compelling, and who besides Steve Fisher had a score to settle with Samantha? Tucker had felt her pain last night in every convulsive shudder of her body as she lay sobbing in his arms, and he knew she’d had nothing to do with it.

  “You heard Clint Harrigan’s take, that her ex is the culprit. Why are you suddenly so suspicious of Samantha?”

  Isaiah considered the question for a moment. Finally he replied, “The honest truth is, I’m not. In my opinion it probably was her ex, trying to get even. Crazier things have happened, certainly. I just don’t see the cops buying into that theory, not without rock-hard evidence to implicate the guy. They’re going to follow the money trail, and the money trail will lead directly to Samantha.” He gave Tucker an intent study. “You’re really getting hung up on her, aren’t you?”

  Pushing to his feet, Tucker took a turn around the office. “Yeah,” was all he could get out. Then anger helped him to go on. “And you’re asking me to sic the dogs on her.”

  Isaiah shook his head. “No, I’m reminding you of the law and your duty as a vet. Now that two horses have died, insurance companies are involved, and the situation could turn nasty, fast. When the cops realize they may be dealing with equine mortality insurance fraud, it won’t be long before they note the fact that the veterinarian on call during the first incident failed to divulge all the pertinent facts, namely that the perpetrator couldn’t possibly have been a kid. If you fart around this time and don’t file an unbiased report immediately, you could lose your license. All those years of school and everything you’ve invested in this practice will go down the drain. There’s no woman on earth worth that.”

  “Not even Laura?” Tucker flung back.

  A red flush crept up Isaiah’s neck. “That isn’t a fair question. Are you actually putting a woman you barely know on the same plane as my wife?”

  Tucker thought about it. “I guess maybe I am. I’m in love with her, Isaiah. You can say what you want about me not knowing her well enough. It’ll fall on deaf ears. I know everything I need to know.”

  Isaiah rocked back in his chair again, this time almost tipping it over. “Well, hell.”

  Tucker braced his hands on the edge of the desk to look his brother in the eye. “I’m convinced her ex-husband poisoned all four horses.” He related his reasons for believing that. “It all stacks up. You saw how Clint hates the bastard. Well, let me tell you, he’s got reason. It was worse than he related to us, possibly because Samantha, bless her heart, never told him the half of it. The bastard knocked her around more than once. At the last, he nearly choked her to death. What kind of man does that?”

  Isaiah said nothing for several seconds. “You don’t have to convince me that she’s innocent. I’ve just been playing devil’s advocate, trying to make you see how it’s bound to go with the cops. You have to file a completely unbiased report. The cops are going to suspect Samantha anyway. In a situation like this, with big money involved, that’s inevitable. It’s not a betrayal to do your job. If she can’t understand that, then she’s not the right woman for you.”

  “Oh, she’s the right woman. Trust me on that.”

  “Then have a little faith in her. If she’s half as wonderful as you say she is, she won’t want you to lie by omission to protect her, and she sure as hell won’t want you to jeopardize your career. You have to draw a line between your job and your personal life.” Isaiah slapped a hand on the desk. “I don’t want you to be caught in the cross fire. It’s not only you who will pay the price. As your partner, it will affect me as well.”

  Late afternoon sunlight slanted over the roof of the outdoor holding pens, warming Samantha’s shoulder and the right side of her face as she stood beside her father and watched Jerome finish digging a massive grave for Cilantro and her foal with the ranch backhoe. When the last shovel of dirt had been removed, the foreman backed up the piece of heavy equipment and turned it toward the stables. Samantha kept her gaze fixed on the fresh excavation, not wishing to see the mare or colt lifted onto the rear tines of the machine and carried back to the burial site.

  “You picked a nice spot,” her dad said thickly.

  “I think they’ll like being next to the pasture.” As she spoke, she remembered how Hickory had run about inside the enclosure only weeks ago, frolicking and kicking up his back hooves. “Cilantro loved it here.”

  “She had a wonderful life,” Frank reminded her. “Lots of love and attention every day, the very best of care. Few horses are so lucky.”

  Samantha knew her father was only trying to make her feel better, so she refrained from pointing out that Hickory had barely lived at all. “How could anyone do this, Daddy?”

  Frank looped a muscular arm around her shoulders and hugged her close. “That’s a question I can’t rightly answer, honey. Some people are just born with a part missin’, that’s all, and they don’t have feelings like the rest of us. Psychiatrists have a bunch of fancy names for it, but the bottom line is, some folks just don’t have a heart.”

  A scalding sensation washed over Samantha’s eyes. “What’s missing in me that I failed to see what kind of person Steve is?” She sent her father a helpless look. “You saw it; Clint saw it. Both of you tried to warn me. How could I have loved someone who has it in him to be this cruel?”

  Frank dipped his head to kiss her brow, the brim of his Stetson nudging her hair. “You gotta mix with polecats occasionally to recognize one. You were so young when you met him, and I’d kept you wrapped in cotton most all your life. I should have been less strict with you, should have made your brothers back off and let you learn your own lessons the hard way. You weren’t prepared for the likes of Steve. I doubt you even knew his kind of people existed.”

  Samantha had thought all the same things, laying much of the blame for her naive stupidity on the man who even now hugged her so protectively. “You were a wonderful father,” she murmured. “If you were guilty of anything, Daddy, it was loving me too much. I know it can’t have been easy, raising a girl all alone.”

  His dark gaze trailed slowly over her upturned face. “Raisin’ you was the greatest joy of my life. I love my boys, don’t get me wrong, but they’re a reflection of me. You, on the other hand, remind me so much of your mama. Every time I looked at you, I saw her sweet face. Every time I heard your laughter, I heard hers. Maybe that’s why I was always so driven to keep you safe. I failed to protect her, and she died far too young. In you, I got a second chance.”

  Her father had never before attempted to explain why he’d always been so protective of her. That he’d done so now, and with such eloquence, brought a lump to Samantha’s throat. “Oh, Daddy. It wasn’t your fault Mama died in childbirth.”

  “Sure it was. We were tickled pink when she got in the family way with you. But the truth was, we needed another child like we needed a hole in the head. We already had four boys. Bein’ Catholic and forbidden to use birth control doesn’t mean a woman has to have babie
s every year. We were usin’ the rhythm method at the time.” His firm mouth twisted. “For all the attention I paid to her charts and safe times, I reckon I thought that meant doin’ it to music.”

  Samantha gave a startled laugh. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

  Frank chuckled and gave her a jostle. “Neither can I. And there’s another count against me, I reckon, never talkin’ to you enough about the birds and the bees. Never bothered me with your brothers, but every danged time I tried with you, I broke out in a sweat and felt like a boot sock had been shoved down my throat.”

  Samantha heard the backhoe returning. In a way, she almost resented the intrusion. This was the first time her dad had ever spoken so openly with her, and she didn’t want the moment to end.

  “Anyhow,” he said with brisk finality, “your mistake in marryin’ Steve wasn’t all your doin’, honey.” He raised his voice to be heard over the increasing noise of the heavy equipment that approached them from behind. “It was mostly my fault. I don’t think I’ve changed much. I still try to shelter you.”

  “You don’t need to change, Dad.”

  “Sure I do. I fuss over you way too much, and I know there are times you wish you lived a hundred miles away and had your own life. I promise myself I won’t call you a half dozen times that day or drop by to check on you, but the first thing I know, I’m pickin’ up the phone or buzzin’ over here on the four-wheeler.”

  He gazed off across the pasture. “Bottom line is, you’ll always be my baby girl, the only part of your mama that I have left, and the thought of any harm comin’ to you makes me a little crazy.”

  Tears filled Samantha’s eyes. As she watched Jerome put the backhoe into reverse and approach the grave with her beautiful Cilantro’s dead body draped over the steel tines, she found herself wondering how she could feel such grief and bittersweet joy both at once. “Thank you for explaining, Dad.” She brushed at her cheeks. “It helps me understand. From now on, I won’t mind your checking up on me so much. I’ve always thought you did it because you felt I was incapable of taking care of myself.”