A Hero's Homecoming

by Laurie Paige

  She forced herself to stillness when he let his fingers drift across her cheek. “You’re one hell of a woman, Carey Hall.”

  “If you say I’ll make some man a wonderful wife, I’ll stick you with the biggest hypodermic I can find,” she warned. She opened the door.

  The frigid March air blasted inside, producing shivers as she waited for him to leave.

  He bent and pressed a light kiss on her mouth, then he jammed his hat on and walked out into the night.

  Carey dashed toward the Hip Hop Café, her steps uneven as she dodged puddles on the sidewalk. She was starved. She hadn’t had time for lunch as the morning patients spilled over into the afternoon. It was almost nine now.

  Lorrie had called and let her say good-night to Sophie before putting the child to bed. Carey had finished at the office, then headed for the hospital for evening rounds.

  Somehow her plan of keeping shorter hours didn’t seem to be working. She’d had an influx of cases lately. Three car wrecks that week.

  She’d assisted Kane in surgery on two children who had been seriously injured in one of the accidents. One child hadn’t been wearing a seat belt. That made her want to commit havoc on the parent.

  “Carey, honey, come join us,” a female voice called out when she entered the café.

  She wiped the cold drizzle from her face and glanced around. Lily Mae Wheeler waved her toward a chair. Winona Cobb, the local psychic, was with Lily Mae. Now there was a study in contrasts.

  Lily Mae wore a knitted outfit of dark green with big squares of fake jewels sewn on the material. Her earrings brushed her shoulders. Her hair was a strawberry blond at present, but that could change at any time. Her makeup was extravagant, to say the least.

  Winona was a short, plump woman in a long brown-and-gray dress of sixties vintage. Her gray hair was pulled into a crown of braids on her head. She wore small turquoise earrings and no makeup at all on her weathered face. A collection of amulets and crystals on thin silken cords hung from around her neck.

  Carey joined them. “Hello. I’ve been praying for spring, but I don’t remember asking that it rain every day of the season. Winona, are you getting any vibes?”

  “Only in my arthritis,” the older woman said with a twinkle in her eyes.

  Carey ordered the special when the waitress came.

  Janie lingered after taking the order. “It was sure a surprise about Wayne Kincaid, wasn’t it?”

  “Umm, yes, it was,” Carey replied in a professional tone, her smile cool. She ignored the squeezing sensation in her chest at the mention of his name. She hadn’t seen Wayne in two weeks, but she knew he was still at the ranch.

  Jessica had reported the three men—Sterling, Wayne and Clint—were very involved with plans for the ranch. She had noticed that she wasn’t included, so the skiing idea must have been dropped.

  “You didn’t know that J. D. Cade was really the long-lost heir?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Carey said with complete honesty. “It was as much of a surprise to me as everyone.”

  When she didn’t say anything else, Janie ambled off toward the kitchen to turn in her order. However, her appetite had fled. She wished she’d gone home and heated leftovers instead of stopping here.

  “I’m hearing good reports on little Jennifer McCallum,” Lily Mae said, her expression openly disappointed when Carey didn’t add anything about the elusive Wayne Kincaid.

  “She’s doing fine.” This time Carey’s smile was genuine. “Would you believe she’s gained five pounds since the transplant? Dr. Hunter and I are delighted, of course. This was a first for Whitehorn and proves such treatment can be performed at small, regional hospitals as well as the large teaching ones.”

  Lily Mae’s eyes glazed over long before Carey finished expounding on the benefits of hometown medicine as opposed to big-city treatments. Winona’s smile widened fractionally.

  It didn’t take long for Lily Mae to find another topic for her inveterate curiosity about people. “My, there’s Sam Brightwater and that girl who came here looking for her father. I was sure surprised when he up and married an outsider like that.”

  “Julia Stedman,” Winona said. “The marriage will be good for both of them.”

  Carey didn’t report that Julia had nearly lost the child she carried. Sam’s child. He’d hovered over her at the hospital, his eyes filled with loving concern—

  Tears burned her eyes, shocking her at how close her emotions were to the surface. She took a calming breath and let it out slowly and steadily.

  Life went on. That was another thing she’d learned in medical practice. Death strolled by and selected its targets at will, it sometimes seemed, but life continued for those who were left behind.

  And sometimes a life was wrestled out of the grip of Death and he was sent away empty-handed. Like Jenny. Like Sam and Julia’s coming baby.

  The door opened and a momentary lull engulfed the small crowd of late diners at the restaurant. She glanced over her shoulder. Wayne Kincaid was at the door, shaking water off his jacket and hanging it up.

  He didn’t look around, but headed straight for the counter, where he dropped his lanky frame onto a stool and ordered the special when Janie came over. He looked tired.

  A professional assessment, Carey assured herself.

  Winona reached over and took her hand. Carey looked a question at the older woman. Winona shook her head, then closed her eyes.

  “Oh,” Lily Mae said.

  Carey put a finger to her lips.

  “It won’t always be like this,” Winona said in a quiet tone. “I see…I see…something in your future, your heart’s desire… a Christmas gift….”

  Carey’s smile turned cynical. She tried to think of a present she might want. She couldn’t, certainly not anything she would consider her heart’s desire. Besides, Christmas was nine months away.

  Nine months.

  She swallowed and held very still, while Winona frowned and shook her head as if unable to see more. Carey, although a scientist from a medical point of view, didn’t discount other, more spiritual, qualities in healing. She’d seen cases turn around for no reason that science could detect.

  Besides, Winona had been a staple of Whitehorn society too long for Carey to ignore her predictions.

  Winona sighed and opened her eyes.

  The two women gazed at each other as knowledge of love and hope and dreams long discarded flashed between them. The sensation was as elemental as fire and water, earth and air.

  The strange moment passed. Winona removed her hand. Janie served the dinner special. Carey picked up her fork.

  Across the way, she found Wayne looking at her through an old-fashioned wall mirror with antlers attached to it for a hat rack. Her gaze locked with his, but it was like looking at opaque blue granite. There was no sense of depth or shared feelings between them.

  She looked back at her plate and began eating. Lily Mae and Winona waited until she finished, then they all left together, walking out into the night and the storm.

  When Carey was safely buckled into her sports utility vehicle, she sat there for a minute, but no rangy figure emerged from the café to seek her out.

  Realizing she was waiting for him, she turned the key and headed for home. She had her child and her career. Once they had been enough. They would be again.

  Sterling made a face at the bitter coffee in his cup. “I can’t figure out why Jessica’s coffee always turns out good, while mine turns out awful, even using the same pot.”

  Wayne smiled briefly at the gripe. He held the quit-claim agreement in his hand. Sterling had refused to accept it, had even made threatening remarks such as going to Kate and getting Jeremiah’s will reopened.

  “You look as if you’ve been marooned on a desert island with nothing but my coffee to drink for a month.”

  “Yeah, well, spring on a ranch keeps a man hopping. Harding hasn’t been able to get us more help. Cowboys don’t want to hire on because o
f the Kincaid curse.”

  “Yeah, they’re a bunch of cowards,” Sterling said cheerfully. With his daughter rapidly improving, the lawman was feeling good these days.

  Wayne snorted in disgust. He would be lucky to leave by fall at the rate things were going toward solving the mystery at the ranch. “Haven’t you found out anything at all?” he demanded.

  “We’ve been checking—”

  A knock sounded on the door.

  “Ah, this may be what we’ve been looking for. Come in,” he called.

  Clint Calloway and Reed Austin entered. They were both smiling. Reed plunked a couple of papers down on the desk.

  “It’s there. We got the connection,” Reed told them with the cheeky triumph of a policeman who finally has a case going his way.

  “And the man,” Clint added, his eyes narrowing to dangerous slits. “We arrested Widdermann on the old Baxter property this morning. He was spreading those poisoned mineral blocks again.”

  “Good,” Sterling said approvingly, his eyes on the list of calls. “Damn,” he said.

  Wayne tensed, waiting for the news.

  “It’s Hargrove. He’s the one working with PureGrow.” Sterling glanced up at Wayne. “I had a trace put on his calls, too. He’s the middleman, not Lester Buell. Lester knows he’s a front for PureGrow, but I’ll bet he doesn’t know about Wendell. There doesn’t seem to be a connection between them. Wendell has covered his tracks well.”

  “Do we need a tap on his phone?” Clint asked.

  “Yes. Call Judge Walker. She knows the case. This private line into his home office is the one he used with PureGrow. That’s the one we want to watch.”

  After the two younger officers left, Sterling rubbed his chin thoughtfully and stared at Wayne.

  “Yeah?” Wayne felt compelled to ask. Whatever was on the deputy’s mind, he’d listen, but he wasn’t going to be talked into anything.

  “Are you still set on leaving?” Sterling asked.

  He nodded.

  “Isn’t this carrying defiance of your dad to extremes?”

  Wayne reared back from the unexpected attack. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I have no idea what you’re getting at. Why don’t you put it in plain English?”

  Sterling nodded. He leaned forward and crossed his arms on the battered desk. “You could have a lot going for you here.”

  “Such as?”

  “A heritage that has a long history in this county.” Sterling’s voice dropped to a lower tone. “A fine woman and a great kid who love you. You could have a home with them—”

  “I don’t need a home. Freeway and I have gotten along just fine on our own for years. I mean to keep it that way.”

  “No emotional bonds, huh?” Sterling nodded wisely. “Yeah, it’s better that way. Takes guts to risk having your heart yanked out by the roots by the person you love.”

  Wayne clenched his hands and tried to block out images of Carey. It was no use. He saw her in all the settings she moved between, sparkling like a fine jewel whether at the hospital or office, her home, the cabin or the funny little café with its offbeat decor.

  Sterling plied him with a piercing gaze. “I think we have this case all but wrapped up. Can you stay on at the ranch another month?”

  “I suppose.”

  “When word gets out about PureGrow being behind the Kincaid troubles, we should be able to hire back our old hands with no trouble. You’d be free to leave then.”

  “Fine.”

  Sterling heaved a deep breath, as if preparing to take the bull by the horns. “Jessica and I have some money saved up. We’d like to invest it in the resort. I’m thinking of maybe me, you, Clint and the doc going in together as partners in a corporation, the Beartooth Resort.”

  “The doc? Carey?”

  “Yeah. As you pointed out, she’s got the land with the natural ski slopes on it, plus the old mining town. We could lease the land from the two ranches. Clint and I are pretty well committed to it. So is his wife. I believe she’ll bring some of the Winston money in. Your part of the deal is managing the operation.”

  Wayne stood as a wave of restlessness rushed through him. “Sounds as if you have it all figured out.”

  “Are you in?” the lawman asked, putting the future on the line. “If you walk, the offer won’t be repeated.”

  The shrewd grin of the other man put Wayne on the spot. He was being told to make a decision. And when he did, one way or the other, his fate would be sealed.

  “I’ll get back to you.”

  Sterling nodded, his manner noncommittal, but his gaze assessing. Wayne figured he came up short in the lawman’s eyes. But what he was asking—for him to come back and take on the Kincaid persona again—that wasn’t an easy thing.

  Twenty-five years of freedom down the tubes. Twenty-five years of being free of Jeremiah Kincaid.

  Of course, the old man was dead, so that wasn’t the problem anymore, but still, he’d grown used to being on his own, doing his own thing….

  Until he knew whether he could give up his roaming life and settle down, he wasn’t going to commit himself to anyone or anything. It wouldn’t be right.

  He walked out of the courthouse feeling more than a little hounded. Like a cornered elk, he had a feeling he should have started running months ago.

  Carey looked out the windows. The rain had stopped and the sun had dried up the puddles. It looked as if spring might be truly there. The air still had a nip, but buttercups were pushing up blooms beside her drive. The neighbor’s tulips were starting to open.

  She and Sophie had visited her folks over Easter; now Sophie was spending spring break with her father and his new live-in girlfriend. It looked serious between the couple. Carey wished them well.

  The total lack of rancor in her heart toward her ex-husband had both surprised and pleased her. Odd, but now he seemed to be someone she had once known, a classmate maybe, not someone she had loved.

  Life goes on.

  She smiled at the homily, then sighed. She’d had a light day at the office. With no patients in the hospital at present, she was free in the evenings, too. Time clicked by at a slow pace.

  On an impulse, she changed to jeans, packed a sandwich for dinner and headed out to the cabin. She would measure the place where she wanted to add some shelves. Maybe she should think of adding a bedroom to make it more comfortable for weekend visiting.

  She arrived at the cabin at five. In thirty minutes, she was finished with her measurements and sketches of the interior. She’d decided to see about putting in a well and a pump so she’d have running water inside. Maybe she should build a whole new house.

  Shaking her head ruefully at how quickly she’d gone from simple shelves to a major construction project, she drifted outside. She walked across the small clearing and strolled toward the trail through the woods.

  One of her favorite spots was the ridge of cap rock that separated this part of the old Baxter holdings from the Kincaid ranch. From the ridge, she would be able to see most of the Kincaid spread on one side and all the way to the Crazy Mountains on another. She studied the clouds that had gathered over the tallest peaks. It might rain.

  Then again, it might not. She’d hike to the ridge and eat her supper, then head back before it got dark.

  She stopped by the ute and strapped her fanny pack in place, checked the flashlight she carried, grabbed a jacket, then started off. Thirty minutes later, she arrived at the rugged limestone outcropping that sliced the two ranches with an almost straight line of rock that ended in a fairly impressive cliff.

  At the bluff, sitting on one of the weathered stones, she let her legs dangle over the side while she observed the cattle in the fields and on the slopes of the gentler hills surrounding the pasture.

  Sterling had called to offer her the going market value for grazing rights and had insisted she take the money. He was a fair-minded person, a little stiff and st
ern, but very likable. She thought Jessica had made a big difference in his life.

  As she sat there musing and gazing into space, she nearly missed the truck coming along the dirt road from the Kincaid place. When she did notice it, her heart gave a giant leap, then beat very hard. It was Wayne’s pickup.

  Acting on the theory that it was hard to spot someone who didn’t move, she sat still while he drove up to the corner of the fence line. He stopped and climbed down from the truck without glancing up at the ridge. She hardly let herself breathe.

  He checked the tightness of the wire, then tossed a big mineral block into each of the fields on either side of the rutted road. She watched him do a fast head count on the cattle. She recalled her dad telling how Jeremiah Kincaid could come within ten cows of the correct number of mother-and-baby pairs in a field with just a glance.

  Wayne counted the same way she did—by estimating blocks of ten. He checked the numbers on both sides of the road, then leaned against the truck fender and watched the animals mill around the mineral lick.

  She huffed impatiently when he crossed his arms over his chest and looked as if he might take root on the spot.

  Until he left, she was trapped up there. Unless she decided she didn’t care if he saw her. And really, why should she mind? She was on her own land.

  Her breath hung in her throat when he pushed away from the pickup and started up the trail that wound to the top of the cap rock. She muttered a word that would have earned her a mouth washing in her younger days.

  As soon as he was out of sight where the trail ambled behind that copse of trees, she would take off and be out of there before he reached the point where the trails merged.

  She tensed, then sprang into action as soon as he was no longer in view. She ran for the upper trail, her heart going lickety-split. She had to get past that first section of trees. Almost there. Almost…

  He stepped onto the trail.

  Carey almost ran him over.

  A strong arm caught her as she skidded to a halt. “Going somewhere?” he asked.

  “To the cabin,” she said, panting.