Something seemed to shift inside him, making him feel off balance as he walked out of his office. He put his hand against the wall, resting a moment as he took a deep breath, then kept walking toward his next appointment.
Claire was wishing she had brought a book when the stall door opened and Sharon walked in. “I hear Willow’s doing okay and you refuse to leave her alone.”
Claire laughed as she stood up. “I guess that sums it up nicely. I’m glad you came. I’ve read every magazine from the waiting room, including Ranger Rick. I could use some conversation.”
Sharon ran her hands over the mare, looking in the horse’s eyes and putting her ear against her belly. “Why don’t you take a break, and I’ll sit with her for half an hour?”
“That’s a really nice offer, but you have a stable to run. I was supposed to be in New York anyway, so I have no commitments here for the next twenty-four hours.”
“Yeah, but it’s making Dr. Tim crazy having you here.”
“It is?” Claire was stunned. Tim didn’t seem worried by her presence when he came to the stall. “I didn’t mean to be a problem. It’s just that Willow has been through so much, I didn’t want to leave her all alone.”
“Hon, she’s not alone. Dr. Tim employs half the vet techs in the county. This place is crawling with staff.”
“I know but...Well, I guess I should leave if it bothers him to have me here.” Claire felt stricken. Tim found her company so distressing he didn’t want to even have her in the same building.
“I didn’t mean it that way. He’s worried about you, thinks you need to get outside and breathe some fresh air. That sort of thing. So git!” Sharon made shooing motions, causing Willow to throw her head up before she dropped it back down. “See, Willow agrees.”
“Oh, fine,” Claire said. “I’ll run down to the bookstore and get something to read. Do you want anything while I’m out?”
Sharon shook her head as she lowered herself gingerly onto the dog bed.
Ten minutes later, Tim rolled open the stall door, surprise and disappointment hitting him at the same time when he spotted Sharon. “Where’s Claire?”
“I talked her into taking a short break.”
His surprise mixed with a pang of injured pride. Claire hadn’t listened to him when he suggested the same thing. “You’re the only person who’s been able to. How did you do it?”
“Used you for leverage.” Sharon hauled herself up off the floor and dusted off her seat. “Couldn’t you spare a chair for in here?”
“Claire didn’t want anything Willow could hurt herself on, in case she started rolling. What do you mean, you used me for leverage?”
“I told her you were worried about her, so she felt guilty and agreed to leave for half an hour.”
“I guess that’s okay.” He didn’t like being the cause of any more distress to Claire, even if it was for her own good. He automatically went to the horse and checked her vital signs and bowel sounds. “It’s extraordinary how well Willow is doing. I thought she would die on the operating table.”
“You underestimated the power of love.”
Something about Sharon’s tone made him look up at her. She wasn’t talking only about the horse.
“I’m going to stick my nose in where it doesn’t belong,” she continued, “but I can’t help myself. I hear Claire offered to stay here to see how things worked out between you two.”
He straightened and tried to stare Sharon down because he knew he wouldn’t enjoy whatever she was going to say. She kept talking.
“All I’m going to say is this. When a woman like Claire is willing to give up the life she worked her butt off to build, you better think long and hard before you turn her down. Someone that special isn’t going to come around again anytime soon.”
He felt that weird off-balance sensation again, and suddenly, he was angry. “Why the hell do you think I told her to go? Because I know she deserves to have that life.”
“Really? Is that why?” Sharon held his gaze with hers. “I’m thinking it might be something else.”
He reined in his temper, even trying to put a little humor in his voice as he said, “You’re right. You’re sticking your nose in where it’s not wanted.”
“Fair enough,” she said with a nod. “You’re a smart man, so I trust you to consider what I said. Now I’m done lecturing.”
“I wish I believed that,” he said.
She laughed and started back toward the dog bed.
“Don’t sit down,” Tim said. “I’ll watch Willow until Claire gets back.”
“Promise? She’ll never forgive me if she finds this horse alone.”
Tim’s gaze met Sharon’s, and she saw something that made her nod and head for the door. As she slid the door open, she turned and looked over her shoulder. “More than one person can talk to the same whisper horse, you know.” The door closed.
Tim snorted, and Willow raised her head to look him in the eye. “What? You expect me to bare my soul to you? I’m taking care of you, not the other way around.”
The horse shook her head, staggering a little at her own sudden movement.
“Careful there, girl,” he said, moving to brace her shoulder with his. She brought her head around to look at him again. “It’s just because I’m holding you up. You’re not really waiting for me to say something.”
She blew out a breath and let her head drop forward again. He gently eased away from her, making sure her balance was steady.
He waited a few minutes before he lowered himself onto the dog bed. It offered little cushioning for his big frame, but he wedged his shoulders against the wall and tried to get comfortable.
Willow snuffled at his boots.
“Sorry, I know you’re hungry, but they’re not edible.”
She took a little nip at one scuffed leather toe.
“Hey! That’s not on your convalescent diet.”
He tilted his head back against the wall, thinking about Sharon’s words and then about his own. Maybe he was wrong about who took care of whom. “Maybe it goes both ways.” He chuckled as he realized he’d spoken out loud. “So I’m talking to you, after all.”
He reached out and touched one of the horse’s sensitive ears. “What secrets has Claire poured in there? I wish you could tell me whether she’ll think I’m worth the mess of trouble I carry around with me.”
Willow flicked both ears forward. “She was going to New York today when you got sick, and I was going to let her do it.”
A giant fist seemed to grip his chest and squeeze. He had to make an effort to breathe. He sat frozen for a long moment before he jumped to his feet. “But now I won’t.”
Willow threw up her head in surprise. “Sorry,” he said, calming her with a touch. “I’m going to tell her all of it, ugly as it is, as soon as you’re out of the woods, girl. She deserves the truth, and after that, well, we’ll see what happens.”
The horse whinnied softly.
Tim grinned as he slid back down the wall. “I’ll bet that’s horse talk for ‘I told you so.’ ”
WHEN CLAIRE WALKED back into the building with a steaming cup of herbal tea in one hand and a bag of books in the other, an after-hours quiet had settled over the place. Estelle was gone, her desk as neat as pin. She nodded to a young woman who was stowing medicine in a refrigerator, but saw no one else on her journey to Willow’s stall.
She juggled her tea and shopping bag as she shoved the stall door open with her hip. “Hey, Sharon, sorry I took longer than...” She realized it wasn’t Sharon sitting on the dog bed. It was Tim, dressed in jeans and a green-and-gold plaid flannel shirt, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. He had a feverish gleam in his eyes. “Oh, sorry. I thought...”
He levered his big frame up off the floor. “I told her I’d wait until you got back.”
“Oh, darn, I bought her a book.” Claire winced as she heard how ungracious that sounded, but seeing Tim unexpectedly had thrown her. �
��Thank you for staying. I know you must be exhausted.”
“Which made it pleasant to just sit still and do nothing.” He shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Willow’s okay, isn’t she?”
“She’s doing miraculously well. Sharon says it’s the power of love.” He looked away and then back. “Claire, I hope you understand that when I said you should go to New York, it wasn’t because I didn’t want you to stay here. It’s because you’ve worked so hard to get there, and I didn’t want to stand in the way of the dream you’ve built.”
“Thanks for saying that,” Claire said. So he was being noble and doing what was best for her. It lessened the pain of his rejection, but she didn’t want self-sacrifice. She wanted him to yank her into his arms and kiss her until the hurt melted away.
He was still talking, as though he needed to get it all out at once. “When Willow is out of the woods, there’s something else I need to tell you. But right now, let me get your dinner order.”
She didn’t want dinner, and she didn’t want to wait to hear what he had to say, but she could tell by the set of his mouth he wouldn’t budge on either topic. She sighed and gave him a wry smile. “Willow needs food worse than I do. She keeps trying to eat the magazines.”
His chuckle was forced. “You can share your french fries with her.”
As he waited for the food delivery, he felt like some sort of online stalker, but he kept glancing at the video stream on his computer. He would finish up a patient chart, then check on Claire and Willow. He had to push himself to go on to the next patient chart. Finally, he ceased pretending to work and pulled the computer screen directly in front of his chair.
Claire sat on the dog bed reading, and Willow dozed with her head drooping so her nose nearly touched Claire’s book. Every couple of minutes, Claire would trail her fingers over the horse’s blaze and the mare would swivel her ears in acknowledgment.
The peaceful scene remained the same for several minutes. He wanted to go sit beside Claire, to brush against her shoulder with his, to ask her about her book, and then to haul her onto his lap and kiss her until he forgot everything but the feel of her against him.
Sharon was right. He couldn’t give Claire up. It was time to let go of Anais’s secrets. Then he would be the kind of man who could ask this extraordinary woman to leave her hard-won life in the city, the kind of man who could offer her something worthwhile in return.
He was so engrossed in his thoughts he jumped when the stall door rolled open, and one of his vet techs walked in carrying an armful of dog beds and blankets. The vet tech and Claire proceeded to arrange them into a makeshift bed on the floor of the stall.
“Jesus Christ, she’s planning to spend the night in the stall,” Tim muttered, shoving back from his desk. His long stride ate up the corridors between his office and the stall, so Ed was just exiting as Tim walked up.
“I never seen anybody so attached to a horse,” the vet tech said, shaking his head. “She’s going to pull that mare through on sheer willpower.”
“Until she collapses in a heap of exhaustion,” Tim snapped as he went through the door.
Ed swiveled around to stare at his usually even-tempered boss and found the stall door closed in his face.
Tim stood just inside the stall and took a deep breath, trying to make his voice calm and steady. “Claire, you can’t sleep here.”
“Why not?” she said, straightening from where she was smoothing a blanket over her temporary bed. “You’d be amazed at how comfortable dog beds are.”
“It’s not safe.”
She put her hands to the small of her back and did a little arch to stretch it. That brought his attention to her breasts, so his groin tightened.
“You keep saying that,” she said, “but Willow is not exactly going crazy.” She looked pointedly at the horse, who had lifted her head when Tim came in and then gone back to her drowsing, with one hoof cocked on its toe and her head hanging.
Now the desire to yank her T-shirt off so he could touch and taste her breasts ripped through his body. Frustration fueled the guilt-induced anger he was already feeling. “I’m sorry, but I can’t allow it. I’m responsible for your safety.”
She stalked up to him, the set of her shoulders telegraphing her own anger. “Do you think I’m going to sue you if Willow kicks me?”
“Of course not.” At this point, he couldn’t even remember why he was so determined that she leave. He just knew he needed to make it happen.
“Then stop being such an overprotective caveman.” She gave him a little shove on the chest and turned away.
Her touch sent heat searing through his veins. “Claire, this is my veterinary hospital, and I insist you go home and get a good night’s rest.”
“No,” she said, settling down on her nest of cushions and picking up her book. “I’m staying until Willow can go home to Sharon’s where the people and surroundings are familiar to her.” She opened her book and stuck her nose in it.
“You know I can make you leave, if necessary.”
She lowered the paperback and tilted her head back to skewer him with her gaze. “Try it.”
Suddenly, all the anger and lust and frustration were swamped by a flood of realization. He was afraid. It wasn’t just loyalty to his dead wife’s memory or concern about hurting Claire that held him back. He was terrified of loving someone who would choose to leave him when things got tough. He was trying to protect himself from ever feeling that agony again.
He looked into Claire’s defiant glare and felt the fear dissolve like an April snow. He could toss her over his shoulder and carry her out of this stall without breaking a sweat, but she would not go quietly. She had made a promise to a horse, a creature who couldn’t even understand what she was saying, and she was going to do whatever she needed to honor it.
If Claire ever left him, it would be his fault, not hers. He could work with that.
“Tim? Are you okay?” Claire dropped her book and pushed herself stiffly off the floor. He had a disoriented look on his face, like Willow’s when she came out of the anesthesia. She wondered if she’d made him so mad he was having some sort of heart attack.
Suddenly, he dropped his head in his hands. “I’m such an idiot.”
“What?” She glanced back at Willow, wondering if he’d just discovered some problem with the horse’s condition. The mare stood placidly, her eyes half-closed. “Is it about Willow?”
He just stood there, shaking his head.
“Should I call someone?” she asked, coming close enough to tentatively touch his arm.
He lifted his head so suddenly that she took a step backward. “No, for God’s sake, don’t call anyone. In fact”—he scooped up a blanket from her nest and tossed it over the video camera that was bolted to the wall, then turned back to her—“Claire, I’ve been a coward.”
“In what way?” she asked.
“In every way that counts.”
She was beginning to worry about his mental state. “Um, I think you’re pretty brave. You faced down Frank, and you saved Willow.”
He shook his head again. “Those things didn’t require courage.”
“Hey, Claire, you in there? The video’s on the fritz,” Ed’s voice came from outside the stall.
“Don’t worry. I’m working on it,” Tim called out.
Ed’s steps retreated, and Tim locked his gaze on Claire. “What you did was brave.”
“It was?” She understood now that he was talking about their relationship, but she had no idea where he was going with the conversation. She wasn’t going to help him with this, because it was bad enough to be rejected once.
He came over and took both her hands in his. “You know what I thought when you offered to give up your job and stay here for me? I thought you were reckless, a lunatic, but I was wrong. You were courageous. You were willing to accept the risk of loving me, even with what you knew about my past.”
“I thought you were a good
bet,” Claire said, remembering her conversation with Sharon. She was beginning to feel a tiny glimmer of hope, not so much from his words, but from the glow in his eyes when he looked at her.
“I was a losing bet, but I’m working on improving my odds,” he said with a slight smile before his expression turned serious again. “I kept telling myself I couldn’t love anyone again because of the memory of Anais and guilt about her death. But I was using that to hide the truth from myself.”
His grip became almost uncomfortable as darker emotions crossed his face. Claire wanted to kiss away the pain she saw there, but she could tell he needed to keep talking.
“When you sat on that ridiculous pile of dog beds, daring me to physically remove you from this stall, all this fear I wouldn’t even acknowledge just drained away. I didn’t know it was there, and suddenly, it was gone. Because I knew you would never do what Anais had done.”
He looked down at their joined hands. “I finally understood what the real problem was. I was terrified of being left again.”
“Oh, Tim, I’m so sorry.” Claire’s heart was leaping and breaking at the same time. “I can’t even imagine what you went through.”
“You don’t have to. I’m going to tell you the truth. Now.” His voice was ragged but held an undercurrent of resolution.
“Please. You don’t have to do this,” she said, pulling one hand free to try to smooth away the harsh lines etched around his mouth and eyes.
He caught her hand again and kissed it before he tugged her down onto the cushions. He sandwiched her hand between his and leaned back against the wall, staring straight ahead. “Anais shouldn’t have asked me to keep a secret that could do so much damage. I see that now.”
“So that’s why no one ever knew why? Because she asked you to keep it a secret?” Claire tried to understand all the implications.
He nodded, but she could tell he had returned to his past and was only partly aware of her presence. “She was diagnosed with cancer, an aggressive but not incurable type. I took her to the best specialists in the country.” His mouth twisted. “I knew them all since cancer was my research field. She swore all the doctors to secrecy. She said she was worried about what the information would do to her career, but really she couldn’t bear the idea of anyone thinking of her as less than perfect.”
Take Me Home Page 28
