The Payback Man

by Carolyn McSparren

  One man stood out in the crowd…

  He was tall and well built, but didn’t walk with that muscle-bound swing several of the others had. He didn’t have any visible tattoos and he carried himself easily. His gaze moved from side to side as if he was drawing his new surroundings in his head for future reference.

  He looked straight at Eleanor. She caught her breath. So much anger, so much bitterness, so much grief. It was as though in that one glance she’d been able to see inside him.

  “Move.” The CO dug the man in the kidneys with his baton.

  A second later he dropped his eyes and became simply another con, shuffling along with the others.

  Eleanor didn’t like that moment of recognition. She hoped he wouldn’t wind up on her team.

  In fact, she hoped she’d never see him again!

  Dear Reader,

  Most of us believe that if we are honest, hardworking and treat others with compassion and dignity, we’ll get the same treatment in return.

  This is the story of two people who found out the hard way that’s not always true. Dr. Eleanor Grayson, large-animal veterinarian and part-time employee of Creature Comfort Veterinary Clinic, lost her husband, her practice and her self-confidence. After two years she’s finally back up to speed, professionally and emotionally. Steve Chadwick lost his wife, his business, his freedom and his good name. For the past three years he’s known only bitterness and grief.

  Now Eleanor has taken a job building a prize cattle herd for the newly reopened prison farm. She wants to save the money to buy a partnership at Creature Comfort, but she also wants to teach her “team” a skill they can use on the outside. She’s been warned against prisoners who prey on gullible women. She knows that almost all convicted criminals swear they’re innocent. But Steve seems different. When he says he’s innocent, she wants to believe him.

  Until now, Steve hasn’t cared whether anyone believed him or not. He’s spent his time planning the perfect murder, and refuses to allow his growing attraction to Eleanor to deter him from his goal. He can’t become a part of her life. She must not become a part of his. Yet neither feels alive except when they’re together.

  I hope you enjoy reading Steve and Eleanor’s story.

  Carolyn McSparren

  Previous book by Carolyn McSparren in the Creature Comfort series

  HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE

  996—THE MONEY MAN

  The Payback Man

  Carolyn McSparren

  To all the veterinarians, their families and their staffs who lent me books, let me watch procedures and answered a million questions. And to all the cowmen who regaled me with tales of cows, bulls, buffalo and their idiosyncrasies.

  Especially for everyone at the Bowling Animal Clinic, for Bobby Billingsley who warned me I wouldn’t be able to stay on a cutting horse thirty seconds (he was right) and for Sam Garner, who gave me chapter and verse on buffalo and beefalos alike.

  If I’ve gotten anything wrong, it’s my fault. Whatever is right is because of the good people who helped me.

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  “GUILTY.”

  Stephen Chadwick stood at attention behind the defense table. He was too stunned to react. Behind him, the spectators erupted into noise. He heard doors open and close as reporters ran to report to their editors. He thought he heard his sister wail.

  This couldn’t be happening. His lawyer, Leslie Vickers, leaned over to whisper to him, “Don’t worry, boy, we’ll get you out on appeal.”

  Appeal? How long would that take? Months? Years? Meanwhile, what would happen to him?

  The hollow thud of the judge’s gavel struck through his consciousness. He gripped the edge of the table and willed himself to keep standing straight. Until this moment, he’d believed Vickers. An innocent man is never convicted. There was no real evidence against him. “Piece of cake,” Vickers had told him.

  Most of all he’d believed in the system.

  “Stephen Chadwick.” How could the judge’s baritone sound so casual? This was Stephen’s life he was talking about! “You have been found guilty of manslaughter by a jury of your peers. The penalty phase of this trial will commence after lunch.”

  Now Stephen knew why all those prisoners he’d watched being sentenced on television never showed emotion. None of this felt real, but it was nothing like a nightmare. He knew he was awake. He knew this was the end of his life as he’d known it. He simply couldn’t take it in. He wanted to scream, but that would do no good. At this point, why should his precious dignity mean anything?

  It was all he had.

  How could the jury believe he’d killed his beautiful, clever, funny wife? His Chelsea, his friend, companion and support in all his crazy schemes?

  As he was led away to the holding area and the bologna sandwich, already curling at the corners, that awaited him as it had every day from the start of the trial a week earlier, he kept his eyes straight ahead.

  ALL AFTERNOON character witness after character witness testified to his value to the community, his kindness, his honorable business dealings. Even his sister spoke for him through her tears. Their father the Colonel would make her pay for that.

  Stephen glanced around the courtroom, not really expecting to see his father. Yet he hoped that somehow the Colonel would support him in this way if in no other.

  It was as though the witnesses were speaking of some other man. How do you prove you’re a good man when you’ve just been convicted of killing your wife?

  Most who spoke up for him were business acquaintances or men he played polo with, women he knew casually from the committees his wife had sat on.

  How trivial his life sounded. He hadn’t been a great philanthropist, hadn’t adopted orphans or even coached Little League. He’d worked eighty hours a week building his company, and when he played, which was seldom, he played polo.

  Vickers had told him after lunch that it was the polo that had convicted him. In the eyes of the jury, a man who plays polo is perfectly capable of killing his wife. But even they weren’t certain enough of his guilt to convict him of murder. How could they be? Dammit, he was innocent!

  He sat up when Neil Waters took the stand on his behalf. Neil was his only true friend, and as his brother-in-law, he must have endured hell from his wife, Chelsea’s sister, to come forward like this. He said he still believed in Stephen’s innocence, just as he had as a hostile witness for the prosecution during the trial.

  Then it was over. He stood to hear his sentence.

  “Stephen Chadwick, I have heard a great deal about what a fine man you are, but a fine man does not kill his wife. Granted, the jury only found you guilty of manslaughter, but I can hardly sentence you to community service. I therefore sentence you to not less than six years nor more than twelve years in prison.” Again the gavel sounded.

  Stephen couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. From behind his shoulder, Neil said, “Don’t worry, old buddy, you can handle it.”

  The judge gaveled the room to silence, and Leslie Vickers went up to the bench. “Your Honor, we request continuance of bail until such time as an appeal can be heard.”

  The prosecution broke in hurr
iedly. “Your Honor, the defendant is a wealthy man with many ties worldwide. He is a substantial flight risk. We request that bail be denied.”

  The judge looked at Stephen with something like compassion. Then he said, “Bail is denied. The defendant will begin serving his sentence immediately pending appeal.”

  Again the sound of wood on wood. He’d never forget that sound. It would doom him again and again in his dreams.

  He felt the heavy hand of his jailer on his shoulder and barely heard Leslie Vickers’s words of encouragement. As he was led away, the voice of the prosecutor cut through his consciousness. “Leslie, old son, you give me a hostile witness like that Waters guy and I’ll whip your ass every time.”

  Stephen stopped and turned to look at the prosecutor. Despite his appearance—big, heavy, florid, in a suit too tight across the shoulders—he was a formidable lawyer. His laugh was as big as he was, and it boomed out as he clapped Vickers on the shoulder. “Talk about your damning with faint praise.”

  Stunned, Stephen turned to look into the courtroom. Neil Waters was just walking out. No, not walking. Swaggering. The way he swaggered in the plant when he’d just pulled off a really great marketing ploy.

  Neil Waters was happy.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “IS RICK CRAZY to recommend you to that place? Are you crazy for even considering the job?” Dr. John McIntyre Thorn looked up momentarily from resectioning the flipped intestine of the young Great Dane who lay on the surgical table in front of him.

  “Probably.” Dr. Eleanor Grayson watched carefully. Her specialty was large animals, but she never missed an opportunity to observe Mac Thorn’s surgical expertise with small animals. Not that the Great Dane was small—except in relation to a thousand-pound horse. Amazing that such a large man as Mac Thorn could work so delicately. She’d once watched him successfully pin the tiny broken bones of a sugar glider’s leg.

  “So why are you applying for the blasted job?” Mac continued speaking but went back to his careful cutting. “Those men are dangerous. Oh, damn and bloody hell!” He picked up a section of intestine that had been hidden behind the original necrosis. As he worked to remove the necrotic tissue, he kept up a string of epithets aimed not at the dog but at the owners who had allowed the dog to suffer for twenty-four hours before bringing him into Creature Comfort Veterinary Clinic for treatment.

  His longtime surgical assistant, Nancy Mayfield, raised her eyebrows at Eleanor. There was probably a smile to go with the eyebrows, but it was hidden behind her surgical mask.

  Eleanor kept silent until Mac finally relaxed, allowed Nancy to irrigate and tossed the dead tissue into the waste barrel beside him.

  “Well,” he asked, “why are you applying for the job?”

  Eleanor sighed. “First, if I get the job, I can keep working part-time here at Creature Comfort. With Sarah Scott three months’ pregnant, you’re going to need another large-animal vet for as many hours as I can manage. Second, it’s a minimum-security prison, so probably most of the inmates are in for nonviolent crimes. Third, they’re starting their beef herd from scratch as a show herd for the prison farm. I’ve never done that before, and it ought to be a real challenge. Fourth, the stipend includes a three-bedroom staff cottage on the grounds, so I’ll have no rent to pay, and fifth, the pay is fantastic for part-time work. I can probably save enough in a couple of years to buy into a decent vet practice somewhere in East Tennessee.”

  “Or here?” Mac glanced up over his magnifying glasses. “If Sarah wants to cut down on her hours after the baby is born, we’ll have room for another full-time partner. Sponge, Nancy, dammit!”

  Nancy, whose hand had already been poised over the intestine with the sponge, didn’t bother to nod. At least Mac was an equal-opportunity offender. He cussed everybody—everybody human, that was. Never an animal.

  “Okay. Let’s close this sucker.”

  “Will he live?” Nancy asked.

  Mac shrugged. “Lot of dead tissue, but with luck, he’s got enough gut left.”

  The intercom beside the door crackled. “Eleanor?” The strangled voice of the head of the large-animal section of Creature Comfort, Eleanor’s immediate boss, Dr. Sarah Scott, came over the intercom.

  “Yes, Sarah?”

  “We’ve got a bloated cow over at the Circle B ranch. You mind taking it? I’m tossing my cookies every five minutes. Oh, blast!” The intercom switched off.

  Eleanor began stripping off her gloves and scrubs. “Poor Sarah. I don’t think she planned on having morning sickness quite so badly.”

  She went directly to her truck in the staff parking area at the back of the Creature Comfort main building. Sarah was probably in the bathroom. She’d confessed to Eleanor that she and her new husband, Mark Scott, vice president of operations for Buchanan Enterprises, Ltd., and financial manager of Creature Comfort, hadn’t planned to get pregnant quite so soon after their marriage six months earlier. Now the pair couldn’t be happier. Except for Sarah’s morning sickness. Everyone kept saying it would pass after three months, but so far she still spent at least an hour a day in the bathroom.

  That put a strain on the large-animal staff of Creature Comfort, which consisted of Jack Renfro, a Cockney ex-jockey who knew everything that could be known about horses, their part-time assistant, Kenny, a senior in high school, and part-timers hired on an as-needed basis. Eleanor worked three nights a week and most weekends, and was on call when someone was needed to fill in.

  Eleanor sped out the gates to the clinic, past the brass sign that read Creature Comfort Veterinary Clinic—Aardvarks to Zebras, and turned right toward the Circle B.

  She drove as fast as possible along the back roads under big old oaks still not bare of leaves, although it was October. In West Tennessee, this close to the Mississippi River and the Mississippi border, the area usually stayed warm through Thanksgiving.

  Indian summer would be a blessing if she did get the job at the prison farm. There’d be a great deal of work to clean up the old cattle barn and make it usable, as well as fences to be mended, pastures to be trimmed—a dozen major tasks that were easier in good weather. Once the cold rains came in November, working outside could be miserable.

  Eleanor had one final interview at two o’clock for the position of veterinarian-in-residence at the new prison. Well, not new. That was part of the problem.

  The prison had been run as a penal farm in the forties and fifties, then allowed to deteriorate while the prisoners were hired out as road crews.

  Now that the farm was being reopened and recommissioned, the county was putting a significant amount of money into making it a model operation.

  A real opportunity for a veterinarian. But so far, getting the job had been an uphill fight. Eleanor could not afford to be late for her interview. She knew that she was not the unanimous choice of the board, but despite the problems, she wanted the job badly.

  She turned into the gates of the Circle B Limousin farm and prayed that the bloated cow would deflate fast and without complications so she’d have time to change from her coveralls and rubber boots before her interview.

  “YOU DO SEE OUR PROBLEM, Dr. Grayson,” Warden Ernest Portree said.

  “Absolutely. I don’t agree it’s a problem.” Eleanor sat across the conference table from the five male members of the prison governing board that had the power to hire her or not. She adjusted her body language, hoping she looked comfortable, open, at ease.

  She felt miserable, hot, tired and exasperated. The bloat had taken longer than she’d hoped, and she felt thrown together and unkempt.

  The small dapper man at the far end of the table chimed in. “When Dr. Hazard, who is, I believe, the managing partner in Creature Comfort, recommended you for this post, he said that you were an excellent veterinarian. He did not, however, mention your other attributes.”

  Eleanor gave him a smile and tried to remember his name. “What other attributes?”

  “You are a young and, may I say,
attractive woman.”

  She didn’t acknowledge the compliment. Actually it sounded more like an indictment.

  The warden frowned down the table at his colleague. “Gender wasn’t in the job description, Leo. You wouldn’t want to get us in trouble with the EEOC, now would you?” His voice was tight.

  “She will be working closely with a crew of convicts, some of whom have histories of violence.”

  “But you have female guards,” Sarah answered. Violence? She’d been assuming these guys were behind on their child-support payments or heisted cars.

  Leo What’s-His-Name said, “We call them correctional officers, Dr. Grayson.”

  “COs for short,” Warden Portree added.

  “I stand corrected. But you do have women. Young women. Several I saw on my way over here could be considered attractive.”

  “They are trained for their positions, Doctor. You are not.”

  “I am trained for the position of veterinarian. The job description said nothing about having experience as a correctional officer. Frankly, it didn’t say I had to look like a boot, either. It did say that I would be protected by your COs whenever I was working with the inmates. Was I mistaken about that?”

  “No, no, that’s correct.”

  “Also, I thought this was a minimum-security facility. Doesn’t that mean that the level of violent offenders is pretty low?”

  “Not necessarily,” Warden Portree said. “When we’re completely full, we’ll have a good many low-level dope dealers and white-collar criminals, but even a murderer with a good attitude and a clean record in prison can be accepted if he is not considered a flight risk.”

  “Oh.” Eleanor took a deep breath and sat up straighter. The seat of the wooden chair hit the backs of her legs midthigh. She tried to wiggle her ankles so that her legs would hold her when she stood up. “I still don’t think my age or gender is a problem.” She leaned forward. “Gentlemen, you are looking for a veterinarian who can set up and oversee this new beef cattle operation. You are also considering bringing in other kinds of feed animals in the future, and a rescue-dog program. Correct?”