Return to Paradise

by Carol Grace

  Return to Paradise

  By Carol Grace

  Published by

  Carol Grace at Smashwords

  Copyright 2011 Carol Grace

  Smashwords Edition

  Chapter One

  The sun sank behind the seven-thousand-foot-high Spanish Peaks as the woman pounded the last stake into the ground to anchor her small tent to the dry earth. She was all alone in the vast valley, bordered by the Sangre de Cristos on one side and the Peaks on the other. There were no other campers and that was fine with her. Loneliness was something she'd have to get used to. She might as well start now.

  In fact, she'd come to this remote camping area to get away from people, from prying eyes, from pitying glances, to find peace. To find herself. To find out who she was and what would become of her now that the future she had planned was not to be. Somber gray clouds skittered across the darkening sky. The threat of a storm didn't frighten her. Nothing frightened her anymore. The worst had already happened. A cold wind blew through the valley and the woman thrust her arms into the sleeves of a hooded sweatshirt, and built a small campfire.

  Her solitary meal was soup made from a freeze-dried mix augmented with a handful of fresh mushrooms and a dash of herbs. She sipped her soup thinking that everything tasted better when eaten outside. Maybe her appetite was returning to her at last. If so, maybe her interest in the future would soon follow. Right now all she could think of was what had happened. After dinner she fished a bottle of dry white wine from the bottom of her backpack and poured some into a tin cup. Cross-legged, she sat on the ground drinking her wine and gazing into the flames as she fought a losing battle with her memories. She'd come all this way and yet they followed her still. The stillness of an empty church. Unopened presents. A wedding that never took place, a dream that never came true and never would come true. Not now. Not ever.

  She glanced at the blue-black clouds above and extinguished the fire with water from a nearby stream, then quickly retired to the shelter of her snug little tent and the warmth of her down sleeping bag. But the ground was hard, even with the foam sleeping pad under her.

  Restless, she reached into her pocket, took out a necklace and ran her fingers over the gold and diamonds on one side and the engraved message on the other. She should never have brought it with her, an expensive pendant like that. Why did she want it anyway, as a tangible reminder of her loss? Maybe she needed to be reminded that while diamonds are forever, love isn't.

  Thunder rumbled loudly in the distance and she shivered with apprehension. She finally drifted off into an uneasy sleep, still clutching the necklace in her hand. Sometime around midnight she was jarred awake by rain drumming on the blue nylon above her and the wind howling around her tent, threatening to blow it over. Lightning forked across the sky and thunder rolled again, closer and louder.

  A tremor of fear shook her. She sat up and gripped the aluminum pole that supported the tent. Suddenly a brilliant light went off in her face like a blinding flashbulb. A shaft of pain knifed through her body. An unearthly force catapulted her into the air and dropped her on the ground like a shapeless rag doll.

  "Oh, my God!" she screamed, and then everything went black.

  Parker Robinson stood on his front porch and inhaled the fragrant air that always followed a storm. Despite the hectic nature of lambing season, the ongoing dispute with his father over which breed of sheep to raise and his twelve-year-old daughter's dislike of her boarding school, life was pretty good. Taking a minute to survey the vast expanse of the Robinson Ranch, he liked what he saw. And most of what he saw was all his. His and his father's. A fertile green valley ringed with purple mountains and no people to clutter the landscape or mar the silence, except the ones who either worked for him or were related to him.

  Just as he was enjoying that same silence, his sheepdogs, the ones who could herd all day without making a sound, came racing toward him barking their heads off. He held out his hands palms forward, signaling them to calm down. But they raced back and forth in the driveway until he finally decided they must be trying to tell him something. He turned and almost ran into his father at the front door.

  "What's going on?" the old man asked, pushing his shaggy gray hair from his forehead with a gnarled hand.

  "Don't know," Parker said. "Maybe a ewe in trouble, maybe a lamb caught in a fence. I'll go see." He brushed past his father to get his black bag that had the shears, the towels, a blanket, a lubricant and disinfectant.

  "Want some help?" his father asked as Parker came back through the living room.

  Parker shook his head. "I'll take the truck and see what's happening. Chances are it's nothing more than a gopher they're after, but it could be a coyote worrying the sheep. If you have time could you check the lambing pens for me? I've got yearlings in labor who don't know what they're doing."

  His father nodded. Parker got into the truck and followed the dogs as they ran ahead of him. Crisscrossing the lush green fields of clover and alfalfa, they continued to bark and look over their shoulders to make sure he was still there. "This better not be a wild-goose chase," he muttered. "I haven't got time for a joyride today."

  When the dogs finally stopped and circled an object on the ground the approximate size of a three-year-old sheep, Parker stopped his truck, grabbed his black bag and jumped out. This time the dogs were making soft growling sounds deep in their throats as they did when they found a lost or a lame sheep.

  But this was not a sheep. This curled-up creature with the matted brown hair, tattered clothes and mud-splattered skin was human. Parker knelt on the ground beside the prostrate figure and felt for a pulse. Faint but erratic. He loosened the tattered shirt and drew a sudden sharp breath at the sight of her pale breasts, half-hidden by scraps of a silk bra. Not only human, but a woman. A woman who was trembling with cold and shock. What the hell was she doing here, only half-alive in the middle of his pasture?

  But this was no time for questions. If this were a newborn lamb he'd rub it dry, wrap it in a bedding and put it under a heat lamp. But a woman? He didn't know what to do with a woman. He never had. He yanked the blanket out of his bag and as carefully as if she were a lamb, wrapped her in it. With two strong arms, Parker lifted the woman, cradled her with her face against his chest, and carried her to the truck.

  Half seated, half lying on the front seat next to him with the blanket around her, her eyelids fluttered wildly and her lips were dry and parched. But it was her hair that startled him, lying in stiff clumps of brown and singed at the ends. As he drove fast and frantically back to the house, the dogs following in his wake, he wondered if she'd been thrown from a horse or had a heart attack. Then he thought of the storm, of the thunder and lightning, and he wondered if she'd been struck.

  Brakes squealing, he pulled the truck up to the front steps of the ranch house, lifted the woman still wrapped in the blanket and carried her up the front steps. She weighed more than a newborn lamb, but something less than a shearling. Without the bulk. This woman was slender and fine-boned. And sick, very sick.

  "What is it?" his father called as he came limping around the corner of the bam.

  "Not sure. Some kind of injury. Call Doc Haller, would you?" Parker tossed the words over his shoulder. "Ask him to come out right away?"

  "You mean Doc Stevens, don't ya? What's wrong with it?" Emilio Robinson asked with a frown.

  "It's not an it, it's a woman." Parker was breathing hard. Either he was badly out of shape or badly worried. He should be worried. He had a sick woman on his hands, or in his arms, to be precise. A woman who'd been hurt or injured on his property.

  Parker shifted the woman in his arms, holding her tightly, feeling her body tremble. His father, as if propelled by the ur
gency in Parker's voice, caught up with his son at the front door and held it open. "What did you say?"

  "A woman," Parker said tersely. "Call the doc. Tell him it's urgent."

  His father nodded and went to the telephone in the kitchen as fast as his uneven gait would let him.

  Parker's brain raced. What to do? Where to put her? If this was a newborn lamb he'd found, stiff and cold and unconscious, he'd dip the lamb into water as hot as his elbow could stand, to warm it up. Then he'd rub it dry with coarse cloth and get it some warm milk. Put it under a heat lamp and keep it under observation.

  He carried her into the bathroom next to the den and awkwardly bent over the tub and turned on both faucets for the right mixture. Then he sat on the commode with her still in his arms and let the steam surround them. It seemed to him that she wasn't shaking quite so much. His father knocked on the door and stuck his head in.

  "He's comin' as quick as he can. But he's got some other emergency he's gotta see to first. Said to tell you he doesn't normally make house calls, but seein' it's you, he knows you don't bother him 'less it's really something. . . And keep her warm, case she's in shock, he says."

  "Right," Parker agreed, frowning at the woman lying stiffly in his arms, noticing her high cheekbones, a straight, aristocratic nose, a firm chin. Smudged and dirty and cold.

  "Looks bad, don't she?" his father noted in his raspy voice. "What happened?"

  Parker shook his head. "No idea. Reminds me of a newborn. Only thing I know to do is treat her like one." He looked up at his father's lined face. "You have any ideas?"

  "Only what you're doin'. Nobody as good as you when it comes to a sick sheep."

  "Never have been any good with women, though," Parker muttered, and he reached over to turn the water off.

  "I'll get the blankets," his father offered. "Put her in the den?" He closed the door behind him without waiting for an answer.

  Parker opened his mouth to tell him not to leave him alone with this woman, but it was too late. He didn't want to take what remained of her clothes off and put her in the large, old-fashioned tub. But he couldn't wait for the doctor. He had to do something. His father was right. He'd nursed many a lamb through critical times, ones others had given up on. Brought them back to life. But that didn't mean he knew what to do now. When his daughter was small they'd had a housekeeper. She'd taken care of Sarah sick or well. Then she left and Sarah had gone away to school.

  He was stalling. And he had an emergency on his hands. Thinking of the past only put off what had to be done. Now. He peeled her shirt off her body. It was ripped, torn and frayed at the edges. Her jeans were damp. He tugged, inching them off her legs, and left them in a heap on the floor. Next, panties and bra. He could leave them on her. But they were damp, too, molded to her body. He took a deep breath and took them off, his calloused fingers brushing against her cool, soft skin. There was an ugly purple bruise on one hip. A cut on her shin. Aside from that, she had a lovely body, long legs, slim hips and beautiful full breasts.

  Her eyelids fluttered open and just before he put her into the water she gave him a long reproachful look with huge gray-blue eyes and he almost dropped her.

  "Sorry," he muttered. "I'm doing this for your own good."

  She buried her face in his shirt as if she couldn't stand to look at him. He didn't blame her. What would it be like to wake up in a strange place, staring up into a stranger's face knowing he'd just undressed you? But she didn't know, did she? And he'd never tell. He lowered her into the bath, trying not to look at her long legs, her rounded breasts, pale stomach, except in a clinical way, the way he might examine an injured lamb. But this was no lamb. This was a woman. Oh, God, what had he gotten himself into?

  She sank so low into the water he was afraid she'd drown. He knelt on the bathmat next to the tub to catch her, but she floated to the surface, her hair spread out in clumps around her face, the rosy tips of her breasts breaking the surface. He wrenched his gaze away to look into her eyes, little slits of slate gray that watched him warily.

  "Can you talk?" he asked, rocking back on his haunches.

  After a long silence, she shook her head very slightly. Then she squeezed her eyes shut in pain and slid farther into the water. What if she drowned? Where was the doctor?

  "Where does it hurt?" he asked, leaning forward.

  No answer.

  He clamped his mouth shut. He didn't know what he was doing, playing sheep doctor with a woman. What if she passed out again? Or had a heart attack? Desperate, he took a washcloth from the shelf, soaked it in warm water, and ran it over her forehead, wiping the dirt away and uncovering a long, shallow laceration. She winced and opened her eyes to give him an accusing look.

  "I'm sorry," he said again. He was tired of being sorry. He kept his eyes on her face. "The doctor's on his way." He'd better be on his way. "In the meantime I'm trying to help." She may not believe that, he thought, but he didn't know what else to do. What he'd like to do was get rid of her, get out of here and get back to grafting orphan lambs, mending fences, feeding sheep, checking on the ranch hands, hiring a new cook, in short, running a six-hundred-acre sheep ranch.

  As if she'd read his thoughts, her lips moved. "Sorry," she said. Or did he just imagine it?

  He shrugged. "Don't worry about it," he said. That's right. That's reassuring. She's lying naked in some strange tub with some strange guy looking down at her and he tells her not to worry. Well, anyway, she ought to be warm by now. "Let's get you out of there," he said gruffly.

  She raised her arms. So she heard. She understood. But did she trust him? She must, because she wrapped her arms around him and he lifted her out of the tub, wrapped a huge bath towel around her and carried her into the den where his father had opened the daybed and put fresh sheets on it. He'd even laid out a pair of men's flannel pajamas, still in their Christmas box, a gift from some distant relative. Did his father expect him to dress her, too?

  Parker gritted his teeth, put the woman on the bed, patted her dry with the towel, and quickly, awkwardly, pulled the pants up over her hips and as gently as possible stuffed her arms into the sleeves and conveniently forgot about the buttons. His fingers were shaking too much to try any buttons. It had been a long time since he'd dressed or undressed a woman, and they'd been more cooperative as he remembered, but never more beautiful, even with the abrasions and bruises. He covered her with a striped sheet and two wool blankets and stood at the side of the bed breathing heavily, his arms crossed over his chest. The sight of her bruises and cuts worried him. Should he use some disinfectant on them? The thought of possible internal injuries kept his stomach in knots. Should he have moved her at all or left her in the field? Was she asleep now or awake, conscious or unconscious? Where the hell was that medic?

  She was conscious. Barely. Enough to know she had a headache. And that every muscle in her body screamed out in pain. Muscles she didn't know about. What else didn't she know about? She didn't know where she was or who he was, this tall man who towered over her, staring down at her with deep blue penetrating eyes. And what was worse, she didn't have any idea who she was or what she was doing there. A moan escaped her lips and the room spun around. But the man didn't move. He was the only constant in her small universe. What had he said? Something about a doctor. Maybe she had the flu. That's what it felt like. Like the worst Type B flu she could imagine. She wanted to ask if that's what it was.

  But she couldn't speak. Her throat was too tight, her lips dry. The lines in the man's rugged face told her he was worried. About her? She closed her eyes and drifted into semi-consciousness, thinking about the man, wishing she could say something to erase those worry lines. To tell him everything was going to be okay.

  When the doctor finally came he held an instrument to her chest and she gasped at the shock of cold metal against her skin that jerked her back to consciousness.

  "Aha, little lady," he said. "So you've decided to join us.”

  He smelled like antis
eptic and soap and felt starchy, not like the man with the blue eyes whose flannel shirt was soft and comforting and who smelled like worn leather and pipe tobacco and the outdoors. When she opened her eyes she saw an old man at the door, either on his way in or out, but the other man was still there, blue eyes, exactly where he'd been, at the side of her bed while the doctor sat on the other side poking and prodding and asking questions like, "Does it hurt there? There? How about there?"

  She wanted to scream that it hurt all over. She wanted to tell them all to go away and leave her alone, to stop staring, asking, probing.

  But they didn't. They asked harder questions, like "Who are you? Where did you come from? What are you doing here?"

  She shook her head very slightly. Maybe if she didn't jar her brain it would all come back to her. Her name, her address, her reason for being there. But where was there? If she could speak she'd like to ask them a few questions of her own. "Who are you?" and "Where am I?" But they acted like she wasn't even there, the three of them discussing what to do with her as if she were a sack of cement. Or in a coma. Instead of just having a bad case of flu.

  "Like to put her in the hospital, run some tests," the doctor said, pulling out a disposable needle. Expertly he leaned over and inserted it into her upper arm. It stung. She gasped and he apologized. A little late for that, she thought, closing her eyes to block out the pain.

  "But it's a long ride just to the highway on a dirt road," he continued, "so for the moment the best thing is to leave her where she is."

  "What?" Surprise, shock and dismay all crowded into that one word.

  Even with her eyes closed, she knew it was the blue-eyed, tall man who'd said it. The deep voice matched the eyes, the large hands, the broad shoulders.

  "But, Doc, I've got my hands full. Lambing season. I'm short on help. We can't possibly..."

  "Leave her, we'll manage." It was an old voice, tinged with an accent. It was the old man in the door with the sorrowful dark eyes.