A Cattleman's Honor

by Diana Palmer

  He sank down into his chair without a word.

  “I tried to explain,” she continued. “To apologize.” She swallowed hard. “She wouldn’t even look at me. I don’t blame her. I’ve ruined her life because I was selfish and conceited and obsessed with jealousy. Now that I look back, I realize that it wasn’t the first time I saw Nat as a rival and treated her accordingly. I’ve been an idiot. And I’m sorry, Mack. I really am.”

  His chest rose and fell. He toyed with the pencil on the desk, trying to adjust to a world without at least the occasional glimpse of Natalie. Now that he’d lost her for good, he knew how desperately he loved her. It was a hell of an irony.

  “I could go to Dallas and try to make her listen,” Vivian persisted, because he looked so defeated. Her brother, the steel man, was melting in front of her.

  His shoulders seemed to slump a little. He shook his head. “Let her go,” he said heavily. “We’ve done enough harm.”

  “But you love her!”

  His eyes closed briefly and then opened. He turned to the computer and moved the mouse to reopen his file, his face drawn and remote. He didn’t say another word.

  After a minute of painful silence, Vivian got up and left him there. She loved her brother. It devastated her to realize how much she’d hurt him lately. And that was nothing to what she’d done to Natalie. She could never make up for what she’d cost Natalie and her brother. But she wished she had the chance to try.

  * * *

  Natalie, meanwhile, had settled into a small apartment near the school. She’d interviewed for the position and after a few days, she was notified that she had the job. The teaching roster had been filled for the year, but one of the teachers had come down with hepatitis and couldn’t continue, so there was a vacancy. Natalie was just what they wanted for the third graders, a bilingual teacher who could understand and communicate with the Hispanic students. She was glad she’d opted for Spanish for her language sequence instead of German, which had been her first choice. It had been one of only a few good moves she’d made in her life.

  She thought about Vivian’s painful visit and the admission that she’d lied to Mack about Natalie and Whit. So Mack knew, but he hadn’t tried to stop her. He hadn’t phoned or written. Apparently she didn’t even mean that much to him. He must have meant all the terrible things he’d said to her on the street, where everyone could hear him.

  Part of her realized that it was for the best. He’d said that he didn’t want marriage or an affair, which could only have led to more misery for both of them. It was just as well that the bond was broken abruptly. But their history went back so far that she couldn’t even conceive of life without Mack. And when Vivian was herself, they’d had such wonderful times together, along with Bob and Charles. Natalie had felt as if she belonged to the Killains, and they to her. Now she was cut adrift again, without roots or ties. She had to adjust to being alone.

  At least she had a job and a place to live. She’d found work with a temporary agency for the summer so that she could save up for a few additions to her meager wardrobe for the beginning of school in August. She would survive, she promised herself. In fact, she would thrive!

  * * *

  But she didn’t. The days turned to weeks, and although she adjusted to her new surroundings, she still felt like an outsider. When she began teaching, she was nervous and uncertain of herself, and the children knew it and took advantage of her tentative style. Her classroom was a madhouse. It wasn’t until one of the other teachers, a veteran of first days on the job, came to restore order that she could manage to teach.

  She was taken gently aside and taught how to handle her exuberant students. The next day was a different story. She kept order and began to learn the children’s names. She learned to recognize other members of the staff, and she enjoyed her work. But at night, she lay awake remembering the feel of Mack Killain’s strong arms around her, and she ached for him.

  By the second week of school, she was beginning to fit in. But on the way home she passed a small basketball court and noticed two boys who looked barely high-school age pushing and shoving each other and raging at each other in language that was appalling even in a modern culture. On a whim, she went toward them.

  “Okay, guys, knock it off,” she said, pushing her way between them. Unfortunately she did it just as the hand of one boy went inside his denim shirt and came out with a knife. She saw a flash of metal and felt a pain in her chest so intense that it made her fall to the ground.

  “You’ve killed her, you fool!” one of them cried.

  “It was your fault! She just got in the way!”

  They ran away, still arguing. She lay there, feeling a wetness on the concrete around her chest. She couldn’t get air into her lungs. She heard voices. She heard traffic. She saw the blue sky turn a blinding, painful white....

  * * *

  Mack Killain was downloading a new package of software into his computer when the phone rang. It had been a busy summer, and the unwelcome bull roundup was under way, along with getting fattened calves ready for market and pulling out herd members that were unproductive. He’d worked himself half to death trying not to think about Natalie. He still did. She haunted him, waking and sleeping.

  He picked up the receiver absently on impulse, instead of letting the answering machine take over, still loading his program while he said, “Hello?”

  “Mack Killain?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Dr. Hayes at the Dallas Medical Center,” came a voice from the other end of the line.

  Mack’s heart stopped. “Natalie!” he exploded with a sense of premonition.

  There was a pause. “Well, yes, I am calling about a Miss Natalie Brock. Your name and number were on an accident card in her purse. I’m trying to locate a member of her family.”

  “What happened? Is she hurt?” Mack demanded.

  “She needs immediate surgery or she’s going to die,” the doctor said frankly, “but I have to have written authorization for it, and she can’t sign anything. She’s unconscious. I have to have a member of her family.”

  Mack felt his heart stop. He gripped the receiver tightly. “I’m her cousin,” Mack lied glibly. “I’m the only relative she has. I’ll sign for her. I can be there in two hours.”

  “She’ll be dead in two hours,” came the sharp reply.

  Mack closed his eyes, praying silently. “I’ve got a fax machine,” he said. “I can write out a permission slip on my letterhead and sign it and fax it to you. Will that do?”

  “Yes. But quickly, please. Here’s our fax number.”

  Mack jotted it down. “I’ll have it there in two minutes,” he promised. “Don’t let her die,” he added in a tone as cold as ice before he hung up.

  His hands shook as he stopped the loading process and pulled up his word processor instead. He typed a quick permission note, printed it out on ranch letterhead, whipped out two pens before he found one with ink, signed it, and rushed it into the fax machine. In the time he’d promised, he had it on the way.

  He cut off the computer and picked up the phone, calling a charter service in a nearby city. “I want a Learjet over here in ten minutes to take me to Dallas. Don’t tell me you can’t do it,” he added shortly. “I’ll be waiting at the local airport.” He gave the location and hung up.

  There was no time to pack. He went barreling out of the office just as Bob and Charles came in behind a stunned Vivian.

  “What’s going on?” Vivian asked in concern, because Mack’s face was white.

  “I have no idea. But Natalie’s in a Dallas hospital about to undergo emergency surgery. I had to sign for her, so if anybody calls here and asks, we’re her cousins.”

  “Where are you going?” Bob asked.

  “To Dallas, of course,” Mack said impatiently, pushing past them.

  “Not wit
hout us, you aren’t,” Charles told him bluntly. “Natalie belongs to all of us. I’m not staying here.”

  “Neither am I,” Bob seconded.

  “Where one goes, we all go,” Vivian added. “I’m the one who caused all this in the first place. Natalie needs me, and I’m going. I’ll make her listen to my apology when she’s well.”

  “I don’t have time to argue with you. Get in the car. I’ll lock the door.”

  “How are we going to get there?” Vivian asked as she herded her tall brothers outside.

  “I’ve got a charter jet on the way.”

  “Flying,” Bob told his sibling. “That’s cool.”

  “Yeah, I like flying,” Charles agreed.

  “Well, I don’t,” Vivian muttered. “But it’s quicker than driving.”

  She piled into the front seat with Mack while the two boys got in back. All the way to the airport, Mack drove like a maniac. By the time they arrived, the three passengers had held their collective breaths long enough to qualify as deep-sea divers.

  They spilled out in the parking lot at the small airport. The jet was already there, as the charter service had promised, gassed up and ready, with its door open and the ladder down.

  Mack didn’t say a word until he shook hands with the pilot and copilot and got into the back with his sister and brothers. Until now, he’d had the organization of the trip to keep his mind off the danger of the situation.

  Now, with hours with nothing to do but think during the flight, he recalled what the surgeon had said to him—that Natalie could die. He had no idea what had happened. He had to know. He pulled the cell phone he always carried from his pocket and, after checking with the pilot that it was safe to use once they were in the air, he got the number of the Dallas hospital and bullied his way verbally to a resident in the emergency room. He explained who he was, asked if the fax had been received and was told that Miss Brock was in surgery. They had no report on her condition, except that there was at least one stab wound and one of her lungs had collapsed. The resident was sorry, but he had no further information. Mack told him an approximate arrival time and hung up.

  “A knife wound?” Bob exclaimed. “Our Nat?”

  “She’s a teacher,” Vivian said miserably. “Some students are very dangerous these days.”

  “She teaches grammar school,” Mack said disgustedly. “How could a little kid stab her?”

  “It might have been someone related to one of the little kids,” Charles offered.

  Vivian brushed back her blond hair. “It’s my fault if she dies,” she said quietly.

  “She’s not going to die,” Mack said firmly. “Don’t talk like that!”

  She glanced at him, saw his expression and put her hand over his. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

  He averted his face, but he didn’t shake off her hand. He was terrified. He’d never been so frightened in all his life. If he lost Natalie, there was nothing in the world to live for. It would be the end, the absolute end of everything.

  Chapter Nine

  When Natalie regained consciousness, there was a smell of antiseptic. Her side ached. Her lung hurt. She had a tube up her nose, and it was irritating her nasal passages. She felt bruised and broken and sick. Her eyes opened slowly to a white room with people in green gowns, moving around a room that only she seemed to occupy.

  She blinked hard, trying to get her eyes to focus. Obviously, she was in a recovery room. She couldn’t remember how she got there.

  A deep voice, raised and urgent, was demanding access to her, and a nurse was threatening to call security. It didn’t do any good. He was finally gowned and masked and let in, because a riot was about to ensue in the corridor.

  There was a breeze and then a familiar face with a black eye patch hovered just above her. She couldn’t quite focus. Her mind was foggy.

  A big, warm hand spread against her cheek, and the one eye above her was much brighter than she remembered it. It seemed to be wet. Impossible, of course. She was simply dreaming.

  “Don’t you die, damn it!” he choked huskily. “Do you hear me, Natalie? Don’t you dare!”

  “Mr. Killain,” one of the nurses was trying to intervene.

  He ignored her. “Natalie, can you hear me?” he demanded. “Wake up!”

  She blinked again. Her eyes barely focused. She was drifting in and out. “Mack,” she whispered, and her eyes closed again.

  He was raving mad. She heard him tossing orders around as if he were in charge, and she heard running feet in response. She would have smiled if she’d been able. Every woman’s dream until he opened his mouth...

  She didn’t know that she’d spoken aloud, or that the smile had been visible.

  Mack had one of her small hands in his with a death grip. Now that he could see her, touch her, he was breathing normally again. But she looked white, and her chest was barely moving. He was scared to death, and it displayed itself in venomous bad temper. Somebody would probably run him out any minute, maybe arrest him for causing a disturbance. But he’d have gone through an armed camp to get to her, just to see her, to make sure that she was alive. He couldn’t have imagined himself like this not so long ago.

  Neither could his siblings, who stood in awe of him as he broke hospital rules right and left and sent veteran health-care workers running. This was a Mack they’d never seen before. It was obvious that he was in love with the woman lying so still and quiet in the recovery room. All of them looked at each other, wondering why they hadn’t realized it a long time ago.

  The surgeon—presumably the one who’d spoken to him on the telephone—came into the recovery room still wearing his operating clothes. He looked like a fire-eater himself, tall and dark-eyed and taciturn.

  “Killain?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Killain let go of Natalie’s limp hand long enough to shake the surgeon’s. “How is she?”

  “Lost a lower lobe of her lung,” he said. “There was some internal bleeding and we’ll have to keep her here for a while. The danger now is complications. But she’ll make it,” he added confidently.

  Mack felt himself relax for the first time in hours. “I want to stay with her,” he said bluntly.

  The doctor raised an eyebrow and chuckled. “I think that’s fairly obvious to the staff,” he mused. “Since you’re a relative, I don’t have an objection. But we would prefer to have you wait until we can get her out of recovery and into a room. Meanwhile, it would help if you’d go to the business office and fill out some papers for her. She was brought in unconscious.”

  Mack hesitated, but Natalie was asleep. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to leave her, just briefly. “All right,” he said finally.

  The surgeon didn’t dare look as relieved as he felt. He pointed Mack toward the business office, noticing that three younger people fell in step behind him. The victim apparently had plenty of family to look after her. That lightened his step as he went toward the operating theater to start the next case.

  * * *

  Several hours later, Natalie opened her eyes again, groggy from the anesthetic and hurting. She groaned and touched her side, which was heavily bandaged.

  A big, warm hand caught hers and lifted it away. “Be careful. You’ll pull out the IV,” a familiar voice said tenderly. It sounded like Mack. It couldn’t be, of course.

  She turned her head and there he was. She managed a smile. “I thought I was dreaming,” she murmured drowsily.

  “The nurses don’t. They think they’re having a nightmare,” Bob said with a wicked glance at his brother.

  “I saw an orderly run right out the front door,” Charles added dryly.

  “Shut up,” Mack said impatiently.

  “He just wants to make sure you’re properly looked after, Nat,” Vivian said, coming close enough to brush back Natalie’s hair. “You poor baby,” she added softly. �
��We’re all going to take care of you.”

  “That’s right,” Bob agreed.

  “You belong to us,” Charles added firmly.

  Mack didn’t say anything.

  Too groggy to understand much of what was going on, Natalie managed another weak smile and then grimaced. But after a minute she relaxed and went back to sleep.

  Vivian studied the apparatus she was hooked to. “I think this has a painkiller unit that automatically injects her every few minutes. I’m going to ask someone.”

  Without another word, she went into the hall.

  Bob and Charles shared a speaking glance and announced that they were going after coffee, offering to bring back a cup for their big brother.

  Mack just nodded. He only had eyes for Natalie. It was like coming home after a long journey. He didn’t want to do anything except sit there and look at her. Even in her weak, wan condition, she was beautiful to him. His hand curled closer around hers and gripped it securely.

  All the things he’d said came back to haunt him. How could he ever have doubted her? She wouldn’t lie to him. Somewhere deep inside he knew that. So only one reason for his immediate assumption of her guilt was left. He’d been fighting a rearguard action against her gentle presence with the last bit of willpower he possessed. He was blind in one eye. Someday, he might lose his sight in the other, as well. He had the responsibility for his two brothers and his sister until they could stand on their own. He hadn’t felt that it was fair to inflict all that on a young woman like Natalie.

  But ever since the crisis had developed, his family had been united behind him and shared his concern for Natalie. They loved her, too. He knew that there would inevitably be conflicts, hopefully small ones, but he’d seen what life without her would be like, and anything was preferable. He’d do whatever he could to make her happy, to keep her safe. Of course, when she was her old self again, she was going to want to knock him over the head with a baseball bat. He was resigned to even that.