by Alison Kent
Whether their disaster was truly natural, or man-made as Sam had suggested, she felt stronger for the experience. She’d come face to face with the wolf and held fast to her convictions, suffering only a minor lapse of weakness—one tiny wish that her life had been different, so she could be different.
But she was who she was and the moment had passed.
At least she thought it had passed until Tyler started dropping by the cabin bearing gifts, leaving them on the porch for her to find in the evening after work.
The first was a box of empty shotgun shells and a carton of rock salt. The note attached said, “Better safe than sorry.” The second was a basket of ruby red grapefruit and oranges from the Rio Grande Valley. That note said, “Cholesterol is a bad thing.” The third time he left a deck of cards. He also left a note that said, “To help you kill the long lonely nights.”
She could’ve killed him for that one.
She had a lot to keep her busy at night. Just because she spent four evenings marking the cards and learning to cheat at solitaire didn’t mean she had no better way to spend her time.
By the time the building was finished, she’d reached the point of fidgeting on Rico’s truck seat during the ride home. Of burning with impatience to see if Tyler had been by. Of being disappointed if he hadn’t.
On evenings when her porch was bare and the moon full, she walked Cowboy down the creek bank, listening into the night for that flashy red truck to rattle the timbers of the new bridge.
In fact, she started looking forward to his visits to the job site, started straining for quick glimpses, plotting impromptu trysts in dark corners.
So it was a good thing it was time for her to go.
Sophie was leaving and Tyler was miserable. He hated the feeling. Hated, even more, admitting it was there. What he should’ve been feeling was relief that her distracting presence would no longer be interfering with his plans. But his plans had changed.
And he was about to lose the best thing he’d ever known.
He owed her an apology for his behavior that last night at the cabin and had wondered if he should blurt one out, get it out of the way and all that. But he figured his tongue would get tangled and instead of telling her he’d been exhausted and hadn’t known what he’d been saying, he’d tell her he’d been frustrated, wanting her in his bed and in his life, and then they’d be back to arguing about sex and family and his marriage and her father.
So he decided to show her what he couldn’t find the words to say. He started with small gifts. Tiny inside jokes with deeper meaning. He’d offered protection. She’d thanked him for the shotgun shells. He’d told her figuratively how glad he was that she wouldn’t be keeling over from cholesterol. She’d told him literally that she was a goner for fresh fruit.
And when he’d tried to explain that an evening spent in his company would be better than one spent alone, she’d asked if he knew how hard it was to cheat at solitaire. He didn’t know which one of them was better at playing games.
What he needed to do was sit her down and tell her face-to-face that the “willing part” of a relationship was nowhere near as important as sharing dreams. That he’d found what he’d been looking for without looking. That he wanted to be her family, wanted her to be his wife.
And he needed to tell her today because his time was running out. This was his last chance to convince her that he was worth the risk.
He pulled his truck to a stop in front of the old clinic and parked. DayLine had completed the initial buildout of the new hospital. Only the finishing work remained. The floor tiles, the painting, and the last minute details would be handled by students in the high school co-op program. The installation of equipment Tyler would take care of himself.
Waving at Doc Harmon’s receptionist, Annette, as she pulled her pickup out of the lot, Tyler walked around to the back of the building where the DayLine crew busily secured equipment. Rico and Dan fought spools of electrical cable into the bed of one truck. J.D. wrestled to secure a trailer to the uncooperative hitch of another.
Cowboy snoozed on a worn patch of packed dirt near the hospital’s front door. As Tyler approached, the dog opened one eye, closed it, never moving from the sun-warmed spot. Tyler let the sleeping dog lie, knowing Sophie couldn’t be far away.
He found her on a ladder in the surgery, her feet spaced one rung apart for balance as she coiled an extension cord from elbow to palm. She was dressed in her usual uniform of white T-shirt and jeans, a uniform whose simple lines flattered her body.
A tool belt hung low on her hips, tugging the waistband of her jeans over the swell of one female hip. Though her hard hat covered all but the longest strands of her hair, he didn’t have a bit of trouble distinguishing her from the rest of the crew.
How could she have ever imagined otherwise?
He leaned a shoulder against the door frame and watched her work, enjoyed the way she clamped her lips in concentration, remembered the feel of those lips on his own.
He shifted then and she heard him, slowed her motions and smiled. It was that smile that kicked him in the gut every time. That and the breathy little, “Hey,” she drew out in greeting.
She turned her attention to the cord and backed down the ladder, tossing the coil into the bottom of a wheeled toolbox that sat in the far corner of the room, and adding wire strippers and cutting pliers and insulating tape until she didn’t have anything left to add—and no reason not to turn and face him.
“We’re, uh, getting ready to go,” she said, pulling off her hard hat and fluffing up her flattened hair.
“I know.” He shouldered off the door frame, jammed his fists into his pockets. “I came to say goodbye.”
“I’m glad. I wanted to thank you.” When he frowned, she added, “You know. For the presents.”
“You’ve already thanked me.”
“Maybe for the gifts but not for the gesture.” She worried her hard hat, shifted it from hand to hand, her knuckles as white as the fiberglass. “I knew what you were doing. And I figured out why—”
“But you didn’t say anything because you didn’t want to deal with it,” he said and moved into the room. One step, then another. Closer, closer. Close enough to sense her trembling, to see the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the wild pulse in her throat. He pried the hat from her hands, placed it on the toolbox, then pulled in a deep breath full of her scent.
“It’s just not the right time. I mean—” She shrugged, averted her gaze, then began fumbling with her tool belt. “You’re just starting your practice. Your hospital’s nearly operational. You have a new house. A new career.” Her lip lifted in a wry smile. “Your choice of the daughters of Brodie, Texas. You don’t need—”
He moved his hands to her waist and unhooked the tool belt that was giving her so much trouble. He had a little trouble of his own, what with her breath stirring his hair and her hands hovering over his and her body so near.
Inhaling a second deeper time, he slid her tool belt from around her waist and dropped it beside the hard hat. Then he took a safe step in reverse. “I don’t need what?”
“You don’t need anything standing in your way.” Pursing her lips, she pulled herself up to her full height and crossed her arms over her chest.
He had her on the defensive. Defensive was good. It meant this moment of truth wasn’t any easier for her than it was for him. At least he hoped that’s what it meant, that he wasn’t the only teenager here tripping over his tongue and fast-growing body parts.
“Anything? You mean, like you?”
She lifted one shoulder, lifted her chin. “Yeah. Like me.”
“What makes you think you’d be in my way?”
The sound she made was one part laugh, one part huff and all parts sarcastic. “Do you want the reasons in alphabetical order? Or just a random list off the top of my head?”
“You have that many?”
“I have that many.” She enunciated each word clearly, distinctl
y, exactly.
He wondered which of them she was trying hardest to convince. “All right, then. Let’s hear ’em.”
“Okay. How’s this for starters? I don’t deal well with permanence. Everything I own is either in my duffel bag out there in the truck, or stored in an eight-by-eight warehouse in Houston. My only address is the company address. What little bit of mail I get is held for me there.”
If all her reasons were so flimsy, this would be a piece of cake. “This isn’t a loan application, Sophie. I’m not asking for a list of your assets, a permanent address, or references.”
“Why not? We’re talking about your future here. Six weeks ago we hadn’t even met. Now you want to explore this… this…”—she gestured wildly—“this thing we have between us and you don’t even know me.”
“I know enough to want to know more.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s not that hard, Sophie. So, I don’t know your favorite color, your astrological sign, if you love classical music and hate rock ‘n’ roll. But I do know that you’re independent and strong-willed and protective of your guard dog.” She smiled at that, so he pressed. “Tell me more. Tell me what I don’t know. What you think I should know. Tell me why this thing between us won’t work.” Tell me the truth, dammit. The truth.
“All right.” She seemed to need a minute to think and used that minute to sidle up beside the ladder. As if six feet of wooden slats would keep him from doing what he could to stop her from leaving. “Okay. Here’s another reason.”
“Finally.” He forced a look of exasperation. “I was growing old here.”
She scowled right back. “My job requires constant travel. And it’s a job I like. One that meets my needs. And I can’t give it up because it’s provided the best leads yet on my father. I can’t make any major changes in my life until I find him. You know how important this is to me.”
He moved in, bracing one boot on the ladder’s lowest rung, leaning an elbow on another, trapping her between the ladder, the wall, and his logic. “You’re giving me surface reasons, Sophie. Things that are easy enough to work around.”
“They’re not that easy, Tyler. Not all of them, anyway. And not any of them without more work than you have time for.”
“Why don’t you let me decide what I have time for?”
“Tyler, you need a wif… a relationship with a woman who can make you a home.” She reached out with both hands, then pulled in on herself and pressed her fists to her chest. Her shoulders drooped as she leaned back against the wall.
“I can’t do that.” Her voice barely reached to a whisper. “Don’t you see? I just… can’t.”
She was so tiny. And she was hurting. Her eyes glistened but she didn’t have it in her to cry. Wouldn’t even think to cry, dammit, because instead of even entertaining the possibility that he might be what she needed, she was thinking of how many ways she could ruin his life.
Her selfless spirit had him itching for a fight. “What about you? What about what you need? Do you ever think about that?”
She nodded but it looked like a no.
“What if you’re wrong?”
Her chin came up. “About what?”
“About everything. What if this is the right time? The only time? What if you’ll never have another time?”
She pushed away from the wall, pushed past the ladder, and waited until she stood safely in the center of the room to turn. “I wish I could give you what you need, Tyler. But I can’t. I’ll live with this moment for the rest of my life. I’ll always wonder. Not about being wrong but whether I was right. You’ve got to understand. Sex is so tied up with the bad stuff in my life that I don’t know if I can ever trust the heat we create. You deserve more. You deserve a sure thing.”
“And you don’t deserve anything? You don’t deserve love?” He was desperate now. This was his last chance and, dammit, he wasn’t going to lose. “Tell me you want to go. Tell me you don’t want to take this heat all the way. Tell me you won’t regret leaving here knowing you left this unfinished.”
She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. Her sad eyes said plenty. He turned away with a curse, knowing he’d been handed a battle he couldn’t fight in the minutes he had left. He doubted he had time to regain the ground he’d just lost.
“Aw, Sophie,” he began, rubbing away the pounding at the base of his neck. “I don’t want to fight. I want—”
A heavy crash interrupted. Metal scraped against metal. An eerie unending screech sliced the air. He started forward. Stopped at the sound of shouts and pounding feet. Looked up over Sophie’s head.
“I saw him come in here,” one man yelled.
Then Rico’s voice, “He’s in the surgery. With Sophie.”
Seconds later, Rico slammed to a halt in the doorway. Tyler was already halfway across the room. He didn’t like the look in the foreman’s eyes. Didn’t like it at all. “What happened?”
“Dr. Barnes. Out front.” Rico lowered his voice. “Now.”
The Latino’s expressive dark eyes avoided Sophie’s and his quiet calm set Tyler’s pulse racing. That, and the way Rico had called him Dr. Barnes which he hadn’t done since that day they’d worked together on Sam’s bridge.
Aw, hell, he thought, his mind denying what his gut somehow knew.
“What’s wrong, Rico?” Sophie asked, her voice flat, her tread silent as she moved to Tyler’s side.
Rico stepped into the room and stopped her forward motion with a gentle grip on her shoulder. “You might want to sit this one out, güerita.”
At that, Tyler headed through the door. He glanced back once and saw Sophie try to jerk free but her foreman shook his head and held fast. Dread seeped into Tyler’s blood and he prayed as he’d never prayed before.
Then Rico’s voice reached his ears. He heard one word. “Cowboy.” And Sophie’s wail echoed off the walls.
By then he was running, shouts and curses and the sound of Sophie spurring him on. Once outside, he struggled to take in the chaos. The trailer J.D. had been wrestling to hitch to the truck was now butted up against the hospital. The weight of the Ditch Witch loaded on top had taken the trailer up on two wheels. The equipment itself lay on the ground where Cowboy had been.
Where Cowboy still was. Shit.
The trailer sat at an evil angle, the weight of the toppled equipment canting it dangerously to one side. Wheels that should’ve been on the ground were spinning in the air. And somewhere underneath all that wrecked equipment was Sophie’s dog.
He scrubbed back his hair, rushed around to the exposed underside of the trailer. He pushed, testing the stability. The trailer shook, groaned, the Ditch Witch slid another six inches.
Damn. If it moved any farther, all the veterinary education available wasn’t going to do Sophie’s dog a bit of good. “Can we see about bracing this thing somehow?”
“Dan. J.D. Get over here. Help me with the trailer,” Rico ordered. “We’ll use it as a lever. The rest of you get ready to lift that hunk of metal out of the way.”
Tyler looked up. The DayLine foreman stood on the concrete walkway, blocking the hospital’s front door. Behind him, Sophie still struggled to escape his hold and the building.
“But, Rico,” J.D. replied, drawing Tyler’s attention. “We lift the Ditch Witch from where it’s laying, it’s gonna ruin—”
“Dios mio! I don’t give a damn what gets ruined, J.D. Just get your ass over here. We’ve got to get the Witch out of the way and we don’t have time to be pretty about it.”
The men moved into action. Tyler dropped to his knees at the high end of the trailer and swore at the mess beneath.
“If you give me three inches, I think I can pull him free,” he called up to Rico, hoping he didn’t do the dog more damage by moving him. Not that he could considering the way the equipment looked to have slammed him into the wall before burying him under more weight than a dog was built to bear.
Rico
, Dan, and J.D. moved in and pulled down on the trailer’s side. The leverage lifted the Ditch Witch. One inch. Two. Tyler crawled farther under the trailer. The metal screamed, scraped. The men groaned. His own breathing echoed in his ears. But as hard as he listened, he couldn’t hear the dog.
He couldn’t hear the dog.
He wrapped his hand around Cowboy’s collar, buried his fingers in the ruff of the labrador’s neck. The minute he felt clearance, he pulled, praying that what he’d just felt on his wrist was warm breath and not just a blast of hot air.
“Easy, boy, easy,” he crooned, sliding the eighty lifeless pounds slowly and only as far as he needed to have clear working room.
He squatted, slipped a hand up inside Cowboy’s thigh to check his pulse. Found it weak, thready. Not good. Not good at all. The dog’s breathing was shallow and rapid. His gums way too pale.
Tyler took a deep breath, glanced up, found Sophie hovering, her lips white, her eyes wide. Aw, hell.
“Sophie. My keys are in the truck. Find the one that opens the clinic. Rico, go with her.” Keep her busy, his eyes added.
Rico nodded and took Sophie’s arm again.
“Tyler, what—”
“He’s shocky. I need to get him stabilized. Then we’ll take it from there. Now go,” he ordered and Sophie ran.
By the time he hefted the eighty-pound dog across the construction site and into the clinic, Tyler had mentally outlined the next few steps he needed to take—and where to go from each should one effort fail.
“Sophie, hit the lights,” he said and she did, trailing one step behind as he carried Cowboy to the treatment room and placed him on the stainless steel table.
Damn, he wished the new hospital was operational. Not that Doc Harmon’s facilities weren’t adequate. They were. Hell, his own dogs had been treated here. But this was Cowboy and Sophie deserved the best.
He pulled open the first cabinet, found blades and syringes, moved to the second and found the tubing he needed. He started an IV drip and administered steroids, then covered the dog with a thermal blanket that had seen better days.
