A Hero's Homecoming

by Laurie Paige

  “Yeah. Have you any news on Jennifer McCallum?”

  Carey didn’t answer for a couple of seconds. “I have an appointment with Sterling and Jessica this morning.”

  Annie pressed her lips together. “Not good, huh?”

  “No, it isn’t good.” Carey shoved the charts into their racks. “I’m off now. I won’t be back in tonight or tomorrow unless you need me.”

  “Okay. Have a nice weekend.”

  “You, too.”

  Carey stripped out of the green shirt and left it in the laundry bin, then retrieved her purse and sweater before heading for the door.

  Brr, it was really cold outside, but no sign of snow yet. She unlocked the truck and hopped in. After glancing at her watch, she decided against stopping for coffee. She’d go on over to the McCallum place now.

  The house was set back from the road on a quiet street. The broad front porch lent it a friendly appearance. The couple had added onto the place after adopting Jenny.

  Carey parked behind the unmarked patrol car that Sterling used. She sat there for a second before climbing down. They were waiting for her. The door opened as soon as she walked up on the porch.

  “Hello. Come in,” Jessica invited. “Let me take your…oh, you don’t have a coat. It’s freezing out today.” She looked rather at a loss.

  “Hi, Jessica.” Carey pulled the cardigan off and let Jessica hang it in the coat closet. “I keep a parka in the truck in case I need it. Lost my gloves, though.”

  “Sit by the fire and warm up. I have spiced cider. Would you like some?”

  “Yes, please. Ah, this feels good. Sterling, how are you?” She shook hands with the special investigator.

  “Fine. You’d better find your gloves. It’s supposed to stay around freezing the entire weekend.”

  “I’ll pick up some at the Army-Navy Store.”

  Carey accepted the mug of hot cider from Jessica and took a sip before setting it aside. Jessica and Sterling looked at her. She saw fear in Jessica’s eyes. Sterling, good cop that he was, showed nothing, but there had been a frown on his face since they’d brought Jenny in for a checkup because the child had grown listless and had little appetite. That’s when the illness had been discovered.

  “The news isn’t good,” she began.

  Sterling slipped his right arm around Jessica’s shoulders and took her left hand in his. A loving, united force, Carey observed, and was amazed at the envy she experienced. Jack hadn’t been there for her, not even when their daughter was born and Carey had hemorrhaged. She shoved the memory aside.

  “The chemotherapy didn’t quite work as we had hoped. However, there’re other treatments,” she quickly added as the blood drained out of Jessica’s face and Sterling’s frown became fierce.

  “What do we need to do?” he asked.

  “I talked to Kane Hunter and we’ve decided upon another therapy. It’s hard on a child. And parents.”

  Kane, a senior staff physician and member of the medical board at the hospital, was also a friend of the McCallums. Carey thought it would make them feel better to know he was the hospital adviser on the case.

  “What is it?” Sterling asked impatiently.

  “We would have to destroy her bone marrow. A three-year-old is particularly vulnerable to the side effects of chemotherapy, so she’s close to that point now. We consulted with one of the country’s foremost oncologists at the cancer center in Seattle. He agrees that a bone marrow transplant should be done right away if we can get a good match. We’ll need a relative, if possible.”

  Jessica drew a shaky breath. “Clint Calloway is a half brother. That’s the only relative Jenny has.”

  “Thanks to Lexine Baxter,” Sterling muttered.

  His tone sent a chill down Carey’s spine. Cold fury gleamed in his dark eyes. Lexine was lucky to be safely in prison. Carey knew the full story of Lexine Baxter and her plans to get total control of the Kincaid holdings by posing as Mary Jo Plummer, a sweet, unassuming children’s librarian, and by marrying Dugin Kincaid. The woman had fooled the whole town…until it came out she’d murdered Jeremiah Kincaid, her father-in-law and Baby Jennifer’s natural father, as well as her husband, poor, spineless Dugin Kincaid. Clint, like Jenny, was another of Jeremiah’s illegitimate offspring.

  “There’re probably a dozen Kincaid bastards in this state alone,” Sterling said. “If we could only find them.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” Carey met the lawman’s hard gaze and knew they were in agreement about their opinion of the Kincaid family, including Lexine, who’d married into it. “Is Jenny asleep?”

  Jessica spoke up. “Yes. Do you want to see her?”

  Carey shook her head. She did, but only to reassure herself. “Bring her in Monday.” She dug her day planner out of her heavy purse. “We’ll need to get some blood samples and start the final tests. Can you come in then?”

  “So soon?” Jessica looked stricken.

  “I want to start as soon as possible. Delay won’t do Jenny any good.”

  “I know. It just makes it so real and terrible. She’s only three. Hardly more than a baby.”

  Sterling’s arm tightened around his wife. He kissed her temple and made a soothing sound. Carey swallowed the lump in her throat at the gentle signs of his love. Her eyes stung. She wrote the appointment in her book and stood. “I have to go. I’ll see you Monday at noon.”

  “Won’t you have lunch with us?” Jessica invited.

  “No, thanks.” She squeezed Jessica’s arm reassuringly, retrieved her cardigan and left the warm atmosphere of the McCallum house.

  She drove down Center Street and decided to have lunch at the café before going home. She resisted the urge to drop in at the Roxy and attend the movie with Sophie. Being a good parent also meant knowing when to let go. Sophie was developing her own circle of friends.

  It was early, so she had no problem finding a seat at the Hip Hop. Filled with thoughts of Jenny and the upcoming treatment, she didn’t notice the other occupants until she heard laughter that strummed over her nerves like velvet on glass, setting up an electric current.

  J.D. sat at the counter, the same place he’d chosen last night. He and the waitress were chatting and laughing. The waitress was openly flirting with him, giving him come-on glances from beneath lashes that were as fake as those worn by Lily Mae Wheeler, the town gossip, who sat at a nearby table with two other women. Three other tables were also occupied by talkative groups, all having fun.

  Carey frowned at the menu detailing the day’s specials. She resented the other diners’ merriment. Life was serious. It was hard and unfair and uncaring— To her dismay, tears stung her eyes again. She sniffed discreetly and tried to think of things other than the dire future of her three-year-old patient.

  When the young waitress finally came to the table, Carey ordered the vegetable platter and a glass of milk. Then she gazed out the window and watched the freezing wind blow the treetops in the town park.

  A figure loomed beside her.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  J.D. took a seat and plunked a coffee mug on the table.

  “It looks as if you already have,” she said irritably.

  “Who pulled your tail this morning?”

  Amusement flashed in the sky-blue eyes as he asked the question and make no move to leave, although it should have been obvious she didn’t want company.

  A stray beam of sunlight snuck out from behind the gathering clouds, lighting the world to momentary brilliance and centering in his eyes before disappearing.

  Jennifer McCallum was the only other person she’d ever seen who had eyes as impossibly blue as J.D.’s. And Jenny’s natural father, Jeremiah Kincaid. Dugin Kincaid had also had blue eyes, but his had always seemed a washed-out shade of blue. A cynical thought came to her—maybe J.D. was another illegitimate son.

  She sighed and thought of Clint Calloway. She’d call him that afternoon and see if he’d be willing to come in for blood tests
to see if he matched with Jennifer. Six blood factors had to be checked.

  “There’s that heavy sigh again,” J.D. remarked. “I like to hear that from a woman after we’ve had fantastic sex. Other times, it’s just plain worrisome. Trouble with a patient?” he asked.

  She flicked her attention to him, amazed at his insight. He even had the grace to look concerned.

  An act?

  He always seemed such a lone wolf she didn’t expect him to have much feeling for other people and their distress, or to bother getting involved.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll listen.” He sipped his coffee.

  “Don’t you have work to do? Does your foreman know you’re hanging out here all the time?”

  He grinned in that lazy way he had that made her think of other things…like kissing and laughing and making love. Oh, God, she really was going around the bend.

  “I’m in town on ranch business. The flatbed we use to haul hay is being repaired. If this winter ends as bad as it started, we’ll need every bale to feed the cattle. I’m waiting for the mechanic to call me when the work is finished. Does that meet with your approval, Miss Kitty, ma’am?”

  She looked down at her plain duds and compared them to the fancy clothes of the saloon owner in the old Gunsmoke series on TV. Miss Kitty had also worn false eyelashes.

  “You got the wrong woman, cowboy,” she drawled. “The saloon is over on the main highway.”

  He chuckled, then his eyes narrowed as he studied her. “You’d dress up real nice, though. Your eyes are pretty, and your skin is softer than a cat’s belly.”

  The waitress brought the milk and set it down none too gently. “Easy, there, Janie,” J.D. cautioned, flicking the girl a glance that held annoyance as well as amusement.

  A flush highlighted the girl’s cheeks as she flounced off. Carey recalled an article in the paper a couple of weeks ago. Janie’s brother, Dale Carson, was wanted for questioning in connection with some skulduggery at the Kincaid ranch.

  “Anyone heard from her brother?” Carey asked now, her sympathy going to the girl.

  “No, he’s disappeared. I’d sure like to know who he was working for.”

  Carey raised her eyebrows. “What makes you think he was working for someone?”

  “Dale’s bright, but nowhere smart enough to have pulled this off alone. There’s been systematic destruction going on at the ranch for the past two years. When the trustees sold you part of the old Baxter holdings, it was because of a cash-flow problem. The operation has had a steady cash draw down for nearly three years. With the price of beef where it is, the ranch won’t make it through another disastrous year.”

  “It would be so odd,” she murmured.

  “What?”

  “Not to have the Kincaid ranch. It’s been here over a hundred years—one of those things you take for granted, like those three peaks in the Crazy Mountains.”

  He stared into the steam rising from his cup. “The Baxters were one of the first families in the area, too. They’re also gone. Maybe it’s for the best. Let the old blood die out and the new take over.”

  “The end of a dynasty. It seems so sad.”

  “From what I hear, neither Jeremiah nor Dugin were very much missed by anyone.”

  She sipped her milk thoughtfully, puzzled by the bitterness in J.D.’s tone. “Wayne was the golden boy,” she said on a soft note. “I had a crush on him when I was about eight.”

  “Good God,” he muttered in disgust.

  “He ran into me as I was coming out of the store. I dropped my ice-cream cone. He bought me another. That was, umm, a week before he ran off and joined the service. He never came back from ‘Nam. It nearly killed Jeremiah.”

  “Huh,” J.D. scoffed.

  “I think Wayne was the one person he truly loved.” The silence stretched between them as she thought of love and all its manifestations, good and bad.

  “There’re different kinds of love. Kincaid sounds like a selfish bastard to me. He only wanted his son to reflect glory on him,” J.D. told her, his tone dropping so low she had to strain to hear. “A boy will do anything to please his father. Until he finds out what a fool he is for thinking the old man is perfect when everyone else knows what the kid doesn’t—that his dad is a first-class bastard.”

  “Was your father like that?”

  “He lied and cheated on my mother and laughed when she found out. Her tears didn’t mean a thing to him—”

  Carey looked at J.D. in sympathy when he stopped abruptly. He appeared angry, as if he’d given too much of himself away.

  “It hurts to find your idol has clay feet,” she said understandingly. “Perhaps you were too hard on him.”

  “You don’t know a damn thing about it,” he said so fiercely she drew back, startled.

  “You’re right.” She glanced at her watch. “I wonder what’s holding up the kitchen. I want to go home and take a nap while I have the house to myself.”

  His anger cooled, then faded. “I could use a nap myself,” he suggested, his insolent grin kicking up the corners of his mouth.

  His gaze settled on her T-shirt, and she felt her breasts growing hard, the way they had last night when he’d nibbled and sucked at them.

  “You could invite me over,” he added.

  “I doubt if I’d get any sleep.”

  His grin widened, and she realized she’d stepped right into that one. She brushed a strand of hair off her face impatiently. “I prefer to sleep alone.”

  “You didn’t at one time—else you wouldn’t have a kid.”

  “I don’t discuss my marriage.”

  “And that’s that,” he said, mocking her statement.

  She gave him a level stare.

  His tone became intimate. “Did you make the same sounds for your husband that you made for me last night?”

  “Passion is much the same with one man as another,” she announced. As if she were an expert in the field. Like Rachel, she’d been an easy mark for a charming man.

  Jack had evidently seen her as a meal ticket for life when she’d filed for a divorce. Luckily, with a marriage that had lasted slightly less than three years, the judge hadn’t thought that entitled her ex-husband to alimony and half of her assets, especially when he was the one to leave.

  She sighed, thinking of Sterling McCallum and his concern for Jessica and their daughter. Lucky woman. For some couples, such as her parents, their love grew and deepened over the years. It must be nice—

  “Heavy sigh, third one.” J.D. quirked one dark brown eyebrow at her. “What’s wrong?”

  “PMS,” she stated, deadpan.

  He blinked, then erupted into laughter. “No, it isn’t. If it were, you would die before you admitted it to me.”

  She grudgingly smiled. He was right about that.

  “We strike sparks—” He was interrupted by the arrival of her food.

  “More coffee?” Janie asked. She set the plate in front of Carey and glared at J.D. as if she would just as soon pour it over his head.

  “Yeah. Thanks.” He edged back from the table.

  When the girl left, Carey lofted an eyebrow in his direction. “Am I encroaching on another woman’s territory?”

  “Hardly. I’m a little old for teenagers.” He shot an irritated glance after the girl. “And I haven’t led her on, either, so don’t hit me with that one.”

  “Poor man, so put upon.” She picked up her fork, delighted at seeing him discomposed for once.

  “Damn right. You women know how to make life rough for a man. The kid falls all over me, but the woman I want…” He paused for emphasis. “Who also wants me, holds back for reasons she won’t discuss.”

  Aghast, she looked around to make sure no one had overheard his accusation. “You have an incredible ego.”

  “Yeah? Tell me this. What happened between us last night? Was that a figment of my imagination?”

  “No, it was a mistake. One that I don’t intend to let hap
pen again.”

  “How are you going to stop it,” he demanded, his voice dropping to a verbal caress, his eyes gleaming wickedly, “when you want it as much as I do?”

  “I don’t—” She couldn’t bring herself to lie. Instead, she laughed lightly. “You’re everything I don’t want in a man—you’re a drifter, basically a loner, as dependable as a night fog. And like the fog, when morning comes you’ll be gone. Why would I involve myself with a man like that?”

  She saw that she’d gotten to him. A dull flush crept up his neck. His lips, sensuous and mobile, thinned to a taut line.

  “Because you’ll have missed something special, the way it was last night when it was just you and me and nothing else.” He settled back in the chair and looked her over slowly and deliberately. “You know the trouble with you?”

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” she said wryly, and waited for him to do so.

  “You think too much. You should try going with your instincts sometimes. I find mine seldom tell me wrong.”

  “Like when it’s time to move on?” She gave him a big-eyed, mockingly innocent stare before she finished the last of her vegetables.

  “Yeah. Like then.”

  “Carey.” Susan came in the door, saw her and rushed over. “I heard about Jennifer, that the chemotherapy didn’t work. Is it true?”

  Carey was knocked back into the real world with a thud. She’d momentarily forgotten her worries in the male-female verbal sparring with him. “I’m afraid so.”

  “Are you talking about the McCallum kid?” J.D. broke in, a curious expression in his eyes.

  Carey nodded. “She’ll be stopping by the hospital on Monday around noon,” she said to the pediatric nurse. “We’ll finish the chemotherapy, then…”

  “Then?” J.D. snapped.

  “Then we see if Clint Calloway is a possible blood marrow donor.”

  “What happens if he isn’t?”

  Carey gazed into eyes as blue as the Arctic sea. He seemed intent upon her answer. “We’ll have to go outside the family to see if we can get a matchup.”

  Susan clucked sympathetically. “I’ll be watching for Jenny on Monday. I’ll tell Annie to stay close. Jenny knows her. That’ll make the child feel better if she sees someone she knows.”