Stay...

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  “They’ll let me,” Jefferson assured grimly. “They don’t have any use for half cripples. And infiltration works better when your nerves don’t splinter at the sound of a phone ringing or a dog barking. How’d you get the info? You been doing some hacking of your own?”

  Tristan shook his head. “No hacking,” he said slowly. “I’ve got clearance.”

  Jefferson could have laughed at the absurdity of it all. If just the notion of laughing hadn’t caused a zillion darts of pain, he’d have done just that. One of these days, he’d have to have a serious talk with Tristan about the path he was apparently treading.

  “The point is,” Tristan went on, “that you’ve been systematically tying up all your loose ends. Like you’re preparing for something. The question is, what?”

  “Isn’t that in your computer files somewhere?” Jefferson asked caustically.

  Tristan took no offense. “Oh, I’ve got it figured out,” he said. “It just took me until now to do it. People getting ready to die often put their affairs in order.” He uncrossed his arms, hating that Jefferson hadn’t corrected him. “I expect Sawyer knows there’s a surgical team in Connecticut just waiting for you to say the word. That’s who he wants to call, isn’t it?”

  Jefferson’s jaw locked. “I’m not having the surgery.”

  “You’re a damn, stubborn fool,” Tristan said, shaking his head. He recognized Emily’s light tread as she came upstairs. “A damn, stubborn fool.”

  “Hand me my bag there.”

  Tristan looked at the duffel. “Whatcha need?”

  “Prescription,” Jefferson said, barely managing to keep his eyes open. God he was tired. So tired.

  Tristan unzipped the bag and ran his hand inside until he found the little brown bottle. He looked at the label, then twisted off the lid and dropped a tiny pill into Jefferson’s hand.

  Without water, Jefferson stuck the pill in his mouth and swallowed it just as Emily entered the room. She carried a covered container of water with a bendable straw sticking out of it. She held it to his lips while he drank. He tried to stay awake. He didn’t want to frighten her any more than she already was. But the medication worked quicker than his stubborn will. In minutes, his head was swimming and the grinding, awful ache in his back began to dull.

  Emily’s fingers were laced with his when he closed his eyes, sinking into a painless gray oblivion.

  In some corner of his mind, Jefferson knew that he was slipping in and out of consciousness, yet he was unable to do anything about it. Odd, fractured thoughts flitted through his mind.

  He remembered his mother. The way she had smelled. The way she’d smiled at her young sons when they’d come tumbling into the house, muddy and disheveled after playing outside. The way her eyes would gleam whenever Squire entered the room.

  A vision of Kim swam into his cloudy thoughts. He saw the pride in his partner’s eyes when he’d spoken of his young wife. Of their child.

  Squire entered the parade through Jefferson’s thoughts. Squire, frighteningly silent and stark, watching his wife’s casket being lowered into the ground, while in his arms he held a tiny baby tightly wrapped against the blowing snow. Squire, tugging a dark-haired, dark-eyed little waif into the kitchen one night and thrusting her into the midst of them.

  Emily, sweetly lovely at sixteen. Innocently alluring at nineteen. He’d felt like a lech, watching her. Wanting her. It didn’t matter that he’d always loved her. For the child she’d been. For the friend she’d become. For the mate he’d yearned for. He’d loved her. He’d known he would never hurt her. Could never hurt her.

  So he’d stayed away. Until the call of Emily had been too strong and he’d been too weak to deny it, and he’d come back. Just to be near her. Just to look at her beautiful face. And pretend, in the tiny reaches of his mind, that that would be enough.

  He knew better now. He knew that his only chance for peace was to keep her in his life. Keep her in his arms and in his heart.

  Had he learned the lesson too late?

  Chapter Fourteen

  “You’re a damn, stubborn fool,” Sawyer said the next morning when he stopped in the room to check on Jefferson.

  Jefferson grimaced at the effort it cost him, but he finished pulling on a clean shirt and turned to face his brother. “So everyone keeps telling me,” he muttered. He was standing. Just. But at least he wasn’t numb from the waist down. “I’m doing better.”

  Sawyer grunted. “For now maybe.”

  Jefferson gave up after fastening just two buttons on the shirt, and leaned his weight against the dresser. “Where’s Emily?”

  “Still sleeping.”

  “Good. She needs it.”

  “She sat up with you most of the night.”

  “All night,” Jefferson corrected. While he’d been fitfully dozing, she’d kept him warm. She’d held water to his lips, and hours later, in the middle of the night, she’d gotten a second dose of medication down him.

  The drug had done its job, and he was up on his feet again.

  More or less.

  “Obviously no one can make you change your mind about the surgery. If you’re going to throw away the rest of your life, that’s your business.”

  “Give it a rest, would you?” Jefferson raked his fingers through his hair, hating the cloudiness that clung to him because of the medicine. “You think this is easy for me? Christ! I’m sick to death of everybody telling me what a fool I am. How selfish I am. How stubborn. Hell, if it’s not Squire riding me not to touch Emily, then it’s Tristan digging around in my life or it’s you bugging me about that damned surgery! Can’t you just leave me be?”

  Sawyer’s lips thinned. “I’m not going to speak for Squire. Or for Tristan. Or any of the rest of them. But, for myself, I’d like to see you among the living for a good many years to come. And unless you change your mind about the surgery, that likelihood seems pretty slim.”

  “Come off it, Sawyer. My chances with the surgery are pretty damn slim.” Moving at a snail’s pace, he crossed over to the wing chair. His arms held his weight as he gingerly sank into the chair. “Why don’t you go work on Tristan. I guess he’s starting to paddle in some pretty deep waters.”

  “I’d hardly call it starting. He’s been on the inside for more than a few years. His, ah, talents with the computer keyboard have been useful. And he’s not an emotional mess right now.”

  Jefferson grimaced. Shows how much he knew about what went on in his family.

  “What about Emily? Have you thought about her in all of this? What the surgery could mean for her?”

  “I’ve thought about nothing but Emily.”

  “Have you told her? You know she expects a future with you. A long future.”

  “Back off.” Jefferson had already made a decision about the surgery. During the long night hours with Emily in his arms, he’d made a few more decisions. But he was sick to death of having his brothers shoving their opinions down his throat.

  Sawyer sighed. He raked his fingers through his hair, a man out of patience and out of time. “I wish I could stay here and get you to change your mind. But the fact is, I’ve gotta get back to D.C. There’s a charter picking me up in Gillette in about ninety minutes.”

  “Guess you’d better get moving then.”

  “Dammit, woman, I don’t care what you say. I’m climbing those stairs and that’s final.” Squire’s roar could have been heard clear to the next county.

  “Crazy old man,” Sawyer muttered. He moved over to Jefferson and stuck out his hand.

  Jefferson reached out and briefly shook his brother’s square hand. “Watch your back.”

  Sawyer’s lip twitched. “Always do. Give Emily a kiss for me,” he said, heading for the door. “At least it’s something I can be sure you’ll do.”

  Squire appeared in the doorway, faintly out of breath from climbing the stairs that Mrs. Day had been determined he was not to climb. “You leaving now?”

  Sawyer nodde
d.

  Squire’s lips pursed. “Don’t wait for me to have another danged heart attack before coming home.”

  Jefferson saw the absolute and utter surprise in his brother’s eyes when Squire reached out and hugged him. Clearly disconcerted, Sawyer stepped back. But he knew he had no time to spare. Lifting his hand in a brief goodbye, he left.

  Jefferson and Squire just looked at each other. Finally Squire moved over to the bed. He shoved aside one of the rolled-up towels and sat down, sighing slightly as he did so. “Your brother’s done well for himself.”

  Jefferson nodded slowly.

  “Fact is, you’ve all done well for yourselves,” Squire continued, ruminating. “Even little Emily, though I sure wish she’d give up on that danged job and come home where she belongs.”

  “She likes her work.”

  Squire grunted. “So, she could work around here. Matt does a fine job on the books, ’course. But truth be told, he hates that sort of thing. Rather be out in the sunshine, he would, but he’s too damn stubborn to admit it.”

  “Seems to be a problem with this family,” Jefferson muttered.

  “Never did understand why she was so all-fired determined to leave here.” Squire shot a look Jefferson’s way. “Well—”

  Jefferson wished his legs were a little more steady. He’d have walked out of the room right then. “What do you want?”

  Squire squinted and tugged at his ear. “Comin’ close to death changes a man,” he said finally.

  “I know.”

  “S’pose you do, at that.” Squire lifted his chin in a typical nonverbal fashion. “Heard you got a problem with that back o’yours.” Squire scratched his jaw, rubbing at the stubble he’d yet to shave. “Kinda hard for a man to make a baby when he’s dead from the waist down.”

  Jefferson’s eyes narrowed to slits. His hands tightened over the arms of the chair. “What game are you playing, old man?”

  Squire shrugged. “Seems a shame to me, that’s all.”

  “What is a shame?”

  “Em’s talked about babies since she was nineteen years old. Didn’t want anything more, I’d guess. ’Cept maybe to have her own horse farm. Instead she ended up a bean counter, living way out in Califor-ni-ay.” He shrugged. “Women. Go figure.”

  Jefferson blinked. “Let me get this straight. You’re telling me that I’m the one who should give Emily a child?” It didn’t matter that that was exactly what he’d already decided to do. “You told me not to set foot on this ranch unless I was sure I could keep my pants zipped around her. And now you’re telling me you want me to get her pregnant?”

  “I ain’t saying nothing,” Squire snapped. Hell, he’d decided he needed to right a terrible wrong, but that didn’t mean it was all that easy for him.

  “Bull,” Jefferson snorted.

  “Don’t give me no lip, boy. I don’t like it, and I won’t take it. Not under my own roof. No sir.”

  “God, you’re impossible,” Jefferson growled. “It’s a wonder any of us stay sane with your blood running through our veins.”

  “Don’t go insulting your heritage, boy. Good stubborn Clay blood. That’s what we got. Kept us going all these years, after your mama passed on, and it’s gonna keep us going a whole lotta more years.” He pushed himself to his feet. “Well, that’s it. I got no more to say. Habits die hard, son. But they do die.”

  He walked to the doorway, then stopped and turned back, looking over the bedroom. “Good to see you under this roof, boy. It’s been too long.”

  With that, Squire left him. Jefferson realized it was as close to an apology as he would ever get.

  Emily wandered into the room, an oversize shirt covering her to her knees. In one hand she was carrying a bunch of paper. “Was that Squire I just heard? I thought Mrs. Day said he wasn’t supposed to be climbing any stairs just yet.”

  “She said that all right,” Jefferson murmured. “Come here.”

  She pushed her tumbled hair out of her still-sleepy eyes. “You’re up.”

  “Yeah.” Her tongue dipped over her lip in that movement that never failed to drive him mad. “Come here,” he said again. As soon as she was close enough, he pulled her down onto his knees and carefully absorbed the feel of her warm bottom settling on his lap. He never wanted to forget that sensation. “There’s something we need to talk about.”

  She looped her arms around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder. “I’m not sure I like the way this is starting out,” she said softly. “There’s something I need to tell you first.” She plopped the papers she held onto her thighs. “About this.”

  He glanced at it, then looked a little more closely. “Where did this come from? Ah, hell, Tristan. Am I right? That little punk.”

  Punk was the most unlikely description she’d ever heard applied to Tristan Clay. But that wasn’t the issue. “He gave this to me a few days ago,” she said. “The morning after you and I…slept by the swimming hole.” She fingered the dogeared corner of the top page. “I didn’t read it.”

  Had he been presented with an answer sheet to someone’s behavior, he wasn’t sure he’d have passed it up. “Why not?”

  “I didn’t think it would be right. I imagine Tristan read it, though. He’s nosier than you, even.” She shrugged, diffident. “I just thought you should know.”

  He took the papers, looking at them for a long moment. He sighed faintly and dropped them onto the floor beside the chair. “There was a time,” he murmured, sliding her hair behind her shoulder, “when I would have completely blown up over this.”

  “Yes.”

  “Coming close to death changes a man,” he said softly.

  “What?”

  But Jefferson just shook his head and lifted her lips to his. When they parted, he could have sworn there were stars shining in her eyes. “I love you, you know,” he said.

  Definitely stars. “I know.”

  Yeah, she had. All along. She’d pushed and prodded and slid beneath his skin, even when he’d been too stupid and too pigheaded to know it was exactly what he’d needed. “I’m sorry it took me so long to say it,” he admitted.

  “It frightened me,” she whispered after a moment. “You said it, lying there in the field, yesterday. It was like you were saying goodbye to me or something.”

  “I don’t ever want to leave you,” he said roughly.

  “Then don’t.”

  He didn’t even have to close his eyes to envision the life they could have together. “I want to marry you,” he said at last.

  Her eyes grew moist. “You don’t have to say that, just to please me.”

  He knew that. Just as he knew he’d planned to marry her, even before Squire had come in here, babbling about habits dying hard. “I’m saying it to please me. Emily Nichols, I want you to be my wife.” He swallowed. “I want you to be the mother of my children. I want to sit across the breakfast table from you, with our son doing his homework at the last minute and our daughter stuffing cereal in her little face, but managing to spread more of it on the floor.”

  She smiled through her tears, recognizing her own words coming from his lips. “I want that, too,” she breathed. “More than anything in this world.”

  “You’re gonna call that Stuart guy this morning and tell him you quit that job?”

  A hundred details spun through her mind. Bird. Her clothes. The few pieces of furniture she’d collected. She dashed away a tear and nodded without a qualm.

  “I don’t know where we’ll live,” he added. “I think there are too many Clays under this roof right now.” Even after Squire’s abrupt change. He saw her bite her lip. “I, uh, heard that George Dawson was thinking about selling his spread, now that his wife is gone. He doesn’t have any kids to pass it on to. Dan was talking about it the other day. Dawson’s got a fair quarter horse program going.”

  “That would take a lot of money,” she murmured, visualizing the bordering ranch. It rivaled the Double-C in prosperity.

&nb
sp; He could smile at that. “Angelface, I’ve got a lot of money.” He couldn’t resist kissing the O of surprise her lips had formed. “There’s just one thing,” he said after a long moment had passed. He tucked her head under his chin and held her close.

  “What?” Her breath stirred the hair brushing his shoulders.

  “I want to make love to you.”

  He felt her smile. “Sounds good to me.”

  “Every night.”

  “Even better.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed, feeling his body stir just to speak of it. “But first, I gotta have a little surgery.”

  Epilogue

  “He said a little surgery.” Tearfully, Emily glanced once again at the big round clock hanging on the wall of the waiting room of the hospital in Casper. Between the row of hard, plastic chairs, she paced across the dull gray carpet. “What had he been thinking?”

  Tristan reached for her hand when she paced by him for the fourth time. “Sit.” He pulled her onto the chair beside him.

  “He was thinking of you,” Squire said, testy as he usually was around hospitals.

  “But this is so dangerous,” Emily muttered, rubbing her cold arms through her sweater. To think that she’d gone all that time thinking that he’d just been plagued with knee problems. And he’d let her think it, too, damn the man. She wasn’t going to let him forget that in a hurry, she promised herself, stealing another look at the clock. Jefferson had been taken to surgery more than four hours earlier.

  “What’s taking so long?” She restlessly got to her feet again, and Tristan threw his head back against his seat, giving up on trying to keep her somewhat relaxed.

  Gloria Day entered the waiting room, foam coffee cups in her hand. She moved beside Squire and handed him one.

  “This ain’t that decaffeinated stuff, is it?” He suspiciously lifted the lid. He supposed he could drink the piping hot stuff out of the cup.