The Virgin Beauty

by Claire King

  Now it was time to get back to work, thank God. Back to the life she’d come to Nobel, Idaho, to make for herself. She was fully resolved to forget Daniel Cash and his mobile, expert mouth and his rough, sensitive hands and his big— Wait, she was forgetting all that, she told herself sternly.

  She’d be a grown-up about the whole thing; grateful to him for introducing her so skillfully to lovemaking, appreciative of his clever mind, mildly fond of his vaguely appealing masculine personality. And that was it. There was no way in hell she was going to have a broken heart. No way in hell.

  She smeared a slide with a culture, felt an almost palpable comfort in being back where she belonged. Being a veterinarian was something she knew she was good at, something she was proud of. Being a woman had turned out to be exactly as she’d feared since she hit puberty; embarrassing and ultimately unfulfilling. No more forays into sultry bedrooms with sexy men, she determined, her forehead creasing in concentration. She’d stay in her lab, or with her animals, in her coveralls and clunky boots, and she’d never again try to be a woman she wasn’t.

  She fit a glass slide into her microscope and checked the Cash heifer’s blood serum results. Frowning, she sat up in her chair. That couldn’t be right. She rubbed her eyes, leaned over and looked through her microscope again. No. Not possible.

  She made another slide, and another and another. She checked them all, then made a half dozen slides more and checked them, too. Disbelieving, stunned, she went through them all again, dread and dismay deepening at each damning result. It took her more than an hour, closed up in her lab, to be sure. She didn’t notice the time, or the tension building at the back of her neck with every passing minute; she wanted to be sure. Had to be.

  At ten, she cleaned up, left the lab, walked through the office to say good morning to Lisa and Mrs. Handleman, and then went back and checked the slides again.

  They were unchanged. The relief she’d felt at coming back into her office dissolved, and she was left with a sick, hollow ache in the pit of her stomach that had nothing at all to do with heartbreak. The distinctive brucella bacterium was present in the blood of almost every bred heifer belonging to Cash Cattle, Incorporated.

  Brucellosis. Grace could hardly believe it. The disease had been completely eradicated in Idaho years earlier, making it a brucellosis-free state. Now she had an armful of blood samples sitting in her lab that could damage the reputation of an entire state of cattle producers, and destroy one of them altogether.

  She went into her office, rubbed her eyes until she thought she might push her eyeballs back into her skull, and forced herself to pick up the phone.

  She spoke briefly, with professional detachment, to the man on the other end of the line, while her fingers drummed impatiently on her desk and her knees jumped nervously. She had to get to Daniel. As soon as she’d covered the legal bases, she went through her files until she found what she was looking for, and made another call. Her voice was even, but in her head was a litany. She had to get to Daniel. Had to get to him.

  She hung up the phone again after several minutes, picked up her briefcase, and without a word, left the office.

  Grace drove recklessly out to Daniel’s ranch, covering the eleven country miles in far less time than was normally required, and was relieved to see Daniel’s broad-shouldered outline near the barn. She wouldn’t have to hunt him down, could ruin his life in time for lunch, she thought, furious with the whole insane, improbable situation.

  Daniel saw her vet truck come barreling down the road, kicking up gravel on its way. He squinted into the late-morning sunlight, annoyed that the sight of her came as such a profound pleasure.

  He knew why she was here. He’d been thinking about her—with regret and lust and fondness all jumbled together until they were a vague sting just under his breastbone—and he wasn’t surprised she’d been thinking about him. He’d left too abruptly Saturday morning, had been stunned into a rash departure by the revelation that he was on the verge of making a big mistake with Grace McKenna.

  Mistakes were something Daniel avoided. He didn’t want another blemish on the record of his life; didn’t want another rumor circulated through the Nobel gossip hotline, another pitying look or curious glance shot his way. Professionally, he was a cautious man. He took risks just by being in the cattle business, of course, but manageable risks, ones he could calculate. Compared to his personal life, though, his professional life made him look like a riverboat gambler. Personally, he was as wary as a nun in a honky-tonk. After Julie had left him at the scene of his professional disgrace, he’d had the occasional affair. But he’d never let down his guard, and he wasn’t about to with the lady vet. If she’d come to the ranch to have it out with him over that decision, so be it. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—give her what she wanted.

  The passion that had driven him all his life, the emotion and intensity that had swept him along, were stone-cold inside him. They’d started a slow, lingering dissolution years before, in that dean’s office, and had dissolved completely when his wife of seven months had told him she wanted no part of his disgrace and left him reeling and lost in some small, pitiless airport in eastern Washington. It had been fatal, he thought. Failure upon failure—unjust, humiliating and public failure—had dealt a fatal blow to passion and emotion and intensity.

  Grace still believed in love, he’d seen it in her eyes that morning. She still believed in everything. If he wasn’t careful, she’d start believing in him, and his track record had proven beyond a doubt that he was not a man whose future could be trusted.

  Grace pulled her pickup up next to him, automatically calculating how long it would take the vets from the Idaho Department of Agriculture Animal Industries Division to get from the local office in Payton out to Daniel’s ranch. She had a few minutes yet, to tell him his life was about to be destroyed.

  Daniel leaned in her open window, his sleeves rolled up in deference to the uncharacteristically warm, windless spring day. She gave herself a moment before she blurted it out, and stared at those wonderfully muscled forearms.

  “Hey,” he said. “You’re out of the clinic early.”

  “Daniel, I have to talk to you.”

  “Sure.” He caught the nervous tremor in her voice and steeled himself. He’d made his decision, years before he’d even met Grace McKenna. He’d stick to it, whether her voice trembled or not. “Come on in. I should clean up.”

  She put her hand on his arm to keep him there. “Daniel, where are you keeping those heifers?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Sorry?”

  “The bred heifers you’re selling. The ones I bled Friday.”

  “I know what heifers you’re talking about.” He felt a greasy chill slide down his spine. He understood foreboding, had understood it for years. “What the hell is going on, Grace?”

  They saw the dust boil up at the same time, Grace through her side mirror and Daniel from the corner of his eye. Two more trucks, and a car behind.

  “Well, hell.” Daniel watched the oncoming vehicles. The hole opening in his stomach was cold, jagged, a damp, rocky little ulcer, and it made him want to double over. He returned his gaze to Grace. “What’s happened?”

  She grasped his arm, but he pulled it away. She took that as only natural and tried not to be hurt. “I found brucella bacterium in the blood serum tests from your heifers.”

  He stared at her, unwilling to break eye contact even though the state vehicles were already parking behind hers, emptying of the men who would ruin his life. Again.

  “You made a mistake,” he said coldly.

  “I checked it four times, Daniel.”

  “Howard Cash?”

  Daniel did not look away from Grace. “I’m Daniel Cash. I’m cattle foreman and co-owner of Cash Cattle.”

  “Well, Mr. Cash, I’m Phil Brown, from the Idaho Department of Agriculture Animal Industries Division. We have a report from Dr. Grace McKenna, the veterinarian of record for the County of Nobel,
Idaho, of an outbreak of brucellosis in your herd.”

  Daniel’s green eyes went icy. He did not so much as look at the officious man next to him. “She’s wrong. I do not have Bangs in my herd.” He couldn’t. It was impossible. He could not fail again.

  “Daniel.” Grace reached for the door handle, would have gotten out to stand beside him, but he pushed against the door, straight-armed. “Daniel, let me out.”

  “I don’t want you on my ranch.”

  “I’m afraid Dr. McKenna is the vet of record, Mr. Cash,” the state Ag man repeated reasonably.

  “I don’t care. She’s mistaken in her diagnosis.” Grace shook her head slowly, but Daniel was unmoved. “My heifers were vaccinated at eight months, right after they were weaned. She had the records in her office.”

  As bravely as she could, she kept her eyes on his. “You’re right. I checked them. I even called Dr. Niebaur to confirm. He remembers doing it. He suggested there must have been something wrong with the vaccine. It may have been heated in transport, or mismarked at the animal supply lab. I’d have to do tests on the vaccine to prove that, of course, and that’s impossible, but I would have to agree with him.”

  “I don’t care if there was nothing but horse urine in those vaccine bottles,” Daniel stated.

  Her lips thinned. “I have one hundred and twenty blood serum tests back in my lab that show brucella bacterium.”

  Daniel stared at Grace for a full minute, the air in his lungs like mud, making it hard to breathe. No. It couldn’t be true. This was impossible. Daniel saw all the work of the last three years, all the rebuilding of his shattered life, crumbling. Irrationally, he blamed her. He’d trusted this woman, and she was destroying him.

  Well, he wouldn’t let her. He was stronger than this. He was certainly stronger than she was. He was Daniel Cash. He turned to the man next to him, ruthlessly turning the frost in his gut from fear to cold determination.

  “Have you checked the agglutination tests?” This time, he would not go down. He’d sacrifice everything for it not to be true, including her. “This is Dr. McKenna’s first couple weeks in her own practice. There is likelihood her lab procedures are faulty.”

  Oh, a killing blow. Grace felt it go all the way to the marrow of her bones. She understood why he’d said it. It made no difference. She shoved at the door with all her strength.

  “Let me out, you bastard,” she hissed between her teeth.

  He released his hold against the door. She got out of the truck and stood, not beside him as she’d wanted to, but against him. She knew her job, and her wounded heart meant nothing at the moment.

  “They’re checking my results in their own lab,” she said tightly. “In the meantime, we have to quarantine your herd. And my being in practice two weeks has nothing to do with it.”

  “I know the drill, Doc,” he said through his teeth. “You’ve made a mistake.” He would allow nothing else to be true; would, through sheer conviction, head this all off before it took him down. “Those heifers are in their second trimester, and not one has aborted.”

  “I can’t explain that,” she admitted. “But if they test positive, they have to be destroyed. It’s the law.”

  “I know the law,” he said flatly, sickened. If his heifers were positive, then likely the entire herd was infected. His whole herd, slaughtered. Gone. His job, his future, the security of his parents’ retirement, everything he’d been working for—including his reputation, already savaged once—wiped out. He turned to the men who stood with Grace against him. “Test them again.”

  “We plan to do that, Mr. Cash,” said the man closest to him. “Until that time, however, your cattle are quarantined. They may not be sold, grazed or otherwise removed from this property. We’ve contacted the Bureau of Land Management office in Boise. You are to remove all cattle grazing on spring range and return them within the next twenty-four hours to your ranch, where they, too, will be tested.” He took a deep breath, plunged onward through his official speech. “There will be three blood serum tests on each animal. If all three consecutive tests are negative, your herd will be declared Bangs-free.”

  He didn’t say what Daniel already knew; three positive tests and the financial and professional prospects of his entire family would be destroyed, right along with the cattle.

  “Anyone sharing your B.L.M. allotment is also entitled to testing at your expense.”

  “No one shares my land management allotment,” Daniel said curtly. At least he wouldn’t have that on his conscience. He forced himself to not look at Grace. He’d trusted her to test his heifers, and she’d screwed it up. Thank God, none of his neighbors would have to pay the price for that. He swung around on his heel and strode off toward the heifer pen. Over his shoulder he shouted, “I’ll have the heifers in the chute in fifteen minutes. Be ready.”

  He moved with chilling competency, and had the heifers in the pen leading to the squeeze chute in ten minutes. He used the extra five to hunt down his father and his brother. He found them together.

  “Dad. Frank,” he barked. They were in the kitchen of his parents’ house, leaned against opposite countertops, arms folded in front of them. An argument, Daniel surmised in the moment he gave himself to observe. “Get out to the chute and help me run the heifers through again.”

  “Daniel,” Howard said, pushing himself from the counter, “what’s wrong, son?”

  “The state Ag boys are here. They’re quarantining our herd. Frank, before you come out, call Doug and Ennis, tell them we need a couple riders to go out with us—” he looked at his watch; by the time he got the heifers run through and tested again, it would be too late to ride the desert tonight “—first thing in the morning. Call Dale, too. And Cal. Have them bring out whoever they can find. Full wages. I want everybody saddled and ready to go before dawn. We have to get the whole herd off the desert before three o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”

  As an afterthought, a painful one, he said, “And call Barness in Missoula. We won’t be delivering those heifers this week. If he doesn’t want to wait on us, he’ll have to buy someplace else. Tell him—tell him we’re sorry.”

  Frank lunged for the phone without a word or question, and Daniel was grateful. Barness was one of his best customers. Three negative tests or not, he’d probably never buy from Cash Cattle again. Neither would anyone else who heard of this scare. Even a rumor of Bangs in a herd was enough to ruin a cattle operation. He blew out a long breath.

  “Dad, you coming?”

  “Why the hell are they quarantining the herd, Daniel?”

  “Brucellosis.”

  “My God, no.”

  “It’s a mistake, Dad. I’d bet my life on it.” Daniel hit the door running. It occurred to him, as he saw his vet conferring with the other veterinarians from Animal Industries, that he had already made a bet almost as important as that.

  Chapter 9

  The lab at the Animal Industries Department confirmed her diagnosis of brucellosis in the blood samples she’d taken from Daniel’s heifers. Phil Brown called Grace at home to tell her.

  They’d check their own samples after the two-day incubation period, and let her know the results, he said. Would she, as the county vet, please inform Mr. Cash, and check to make certain he was following the quarantine instructions?

  Wonderful. The headache that had dogged her since her short but rather intense crying jag on the way into town from his ranch earlier in the evening jumped up a couple notches in severity. One more horrible task today and she’d be blinded by it, Grace thought.

  She picked up the phone and dialed Daniel’s number. It rang ten times before she hung up and called his parents’ house. It rang once, was snatched up.

  “Hello?”

  “Oh. Liz.” The sweet and friendly voice of Daniel’s mother took her back. She’d been expecting the growl of one of her sons.

  “Yes?”

  “This is Grace. Dr. McKenna. I’m sorry to be calling so late.”

/>   “Grace. How are you, dear?”

  “I’m okay, Liz. I’m sorry about today.”

  “I’m sorry I raised such a hothead.”

  “Oh. It’s—” Grace had nothing to say to that, nothing that wouldn’t open a wound she was desperately trying to sew shut “—it’s to be expected, I suppose.”

  “I don’t think so. I’d hoped I raised him better than that.”

  Grace felt the tears burning her throat again, felt the headache escalate. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh, Grace, honey,” Liz said softly.

  The sympathy in Daniel’s mother’s voice nearly undid Grace. She worked her throat for a minute, digging for the professionalism that had got her through this afternoon. It was almost gone, she knew, but there had to be enough left to see her through one more phone call. “I need to speak with Daniel, please, Liz. Is he there?”

  “Yes. And, Grace, what Daniel said today? About not being on the ranch? Well, sugar, I own a quarter of Cash Cattle and you’re welcome here anytime. And I know Howard feels the same way.”

  “Oh. Well.”

  “I’ll let you talk to Danny now.”

  “Thank you.”

  Daniel met his mother scowl for scowl as he reached for the phone she held out to him. He covered the receiver with his palm.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  His mother didn’t flinch. “Serves you right,” she whispered fiercely.

  Daniel put the phone to his ear. “Yeah?” he said, his word a short, clipped chunk of ice working its way from between his teeth.

  That chill was all it took to snap Grace’s spine straight. “The Animal Industries lab tested the serum samples I took Friday. They check out.”