by Sable Hunter
Tricia frowned, then burst into giggles. “No way.”
“Way.” Lance let his eyes glide from her shoulders to her waist.
“So, you’re telling me that the reason I didn’t get very many invitations from men…was because you fancied me and let it be known?”
“That’s the reason no one I knew asked you out, the rest were just idiots.”
Tricia chewed on her bottom lip, hiding a smile. “I think you’re accepting a little too much of the credit, or the blame, or whatever you want to call it.”
“Nope, I’m taking full responsibility for this.” His voice dropped with every word, until he was whispering sensually. “Just like I want to take full responsibility for you.” He pressed his forehead to hers, rubbing noses and capturing her lips in a kiss. “Marry me, Tricia. Let me take care of you and our baby.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Marry me, Tricia.
Marry me, Tricia.
Beautiful words. Precious words. How often she’d imagined him whispering those words to her. Tricia stared at him, paralyzed, letting her hungry gaze eat him up. She was torn between taking what she wanted and doing what was right.
Lance waited for a response to his question. He exhaled sharply. Damn, it hadn’t been a question. Maybe if he asked instead of demanded, he’d get somewhere. “Tricia, will you marry me?” She took one step back and he reluctantly let her go. “Tricia?”
“You don’t have to marry me.”
“I know I don’t.” Lance was finding it hard to get enough oxygen in his lungs. “I want to marry you.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
Bam! Wrong answer. Tricia shook her head. “That’s not a good reason to get married. You’re being noble.”
She started walking toward the bedroom, the guest bedroom – not his. “Wait, Tricia.” Lance followed. “Let’s talk about this.”
Tricia held up her hand. “Please, not tonight.” She went straight for the bathroom. “We need to think about this before we go any farther.”
Lance didn’t need to think. He understood what was going on quite well. “You don’t want to marry me. Do you?”
“I didn’t say that,” Tricia whispered. She couldn’t say that. “I just think we need to slow down and consider what we’re doing.”
Once she was behind a closed door, Tricia wilted, leaning on the counter, tears flowing. All she could think about was what Jaya Starr had said, about Nolan marrying her for the baby and then regretting it. She didn’t want a marriage of regret. She didn’t want a marriage for the sake of their child. Tricia wanted Lance to marry her because he couldn’t imagine life without her.
On the other side of the closed door, Lance stood there for a few seconds, listening to her move around in the bathroom. His first marriage proposal had sunk like a lead balloon. What did he expect? He was no prize.
* * *
“Something’s happened to that spotted cow’s calf, Lance. She just stands down by the windmill and bawls and bawls.” Denver took a drink from his leather canteen. “I’ve looked and looked, but I can’t find the little bull.”
Lance picked up the horse’s reins. “Come on, I’ll look with you. Did you happen to see any buzzards or any tracks? Coyotes could have taken it.”
“No, I looked all around. I didn’t see any sign of a predator or any blood or anything.”
Pulling himself into the saddle, Lance headed out of the paddock. Denver urged his horse forward and followed closely behind.
The ride from the outbuildings to the windmill was about half a mile, giving him a little time to think. He was tired, he hadn’t slept worth a flip. He was right back where he started, laying in the bed and aching for Tricia. Several times he’d gotten up and walked to the door of the guest room to look at her small, still form. He’d been tempted to scoop her up and take her back to bed with him. Maybe if he’d kissed her senseless she would consent to marry him.
He must’ve dozed off just before daylight, because when the alarm went off he’d jerked awake and jumped up with the intention of apologizing, only to find her gone. She’d left a note, saying she was riding into town with Avery and Isaac.
“Do you feel bad, Boss?”
Lance didn’t want to talk. “I’m fine.” He wasn’t. He’d messed up.
What was he thinking?
His proposal of marriage had been spur of the moment. He’d just thrown it out there like a casual offer of a cup of coffee. He should’ve gotten down on one knee. Hell, he should’ve had a ring to offer her. Lance knew women dreamed of moments like those. They wanted romance and tender words. He’d given her neither. There’d been no words of love between them.
There should’ve been. He loved her. He loved her with all his heart.
“There she is, Lance. See? She’s just standing there lowing like mad.”
Lance could see the big cow. “Yea, something’s wrong.” He’d seen how cows acted after they’d been separated from their calves. “Let’s split up. You circle around by the scrub oaks and I’ll circle around by the windmill. Maybe he’s fallen down in a ravine or something.”
Shading his eyes with his hand, he surveyed the terrain in front of him. He also kept his eyes open for rattlesnakes, his men had come upon two or three big ones this year. A good size snake could kill a calf with one strike. “Where are you, you little mite?” he muttered, scanning the horizon. One thing for certain, when he got home tonight, he planned on rectifying the situation. He wouldn’t have the ring, but he could get down on his knees and tell Tricia how proud he would be if she’d consent to be his wife.
“Hey, boss! Lance! I think I found him!”
Lance jerked his head up to see Denver waving his arm. He was about two hundred yards away, standing underneath a spreading oak. The cow was near him, shaking her head and bellowing. Urging his horse to a gallop, Lance joined him, dismounting from his horse in a jump. Dropping the reins, he ground tied his mount, knowing she wouldn’t leave. “What have you found?”
Denver pointed toward a depression in the ground. When Lance drew closer, he could see some broken timbers. “What the hell?”
“Looks like the remnants of a well to me.” Denver glanced around at the trees and bushes. “I think this was an old home place.”
Lance went to his knees and sure enough, he could hear the weak bleating of a calf. “Get my flashlight out of my saddlebag.”
Denver did as he was asked and Lance laid down flat on the ground and shone the light down in the hole. “Damn, he’s deep.” He moved the beam around and tried to see the condition of the shaft. “This looks iffy, Bolden.”
“Do you want me to shoot him, Boss?”
The suggestion angered Lance. “Hell, no. I’m going down after him. Tie a rope to my saddle horn.”
* * *
“Family Health answered my query letter. I’ve been approved for six thousand words.”
“Fabulous! Congratulations!” Tricia beamed at Freddy. “I’m so proud of you.”
He grinned with satisfaction. “Thanks. Start making notes on the questionnaire and we’ll get together to discuss an outline. Do you think we could have dinner at the Grillhouse on Thursday night?”
“I don’t know, Freddy. How about lunch, instead? You know I’m living with Lance now. I don’t think I should miss dinner with him.” She sounded far more confident than she felt. After last night, she wasn’t sure she’d be living with him much longer.
A cloud passed over Freddy’s face. “No, I didn’t realize you’d moved in with him. I knew you weren’t calling on me anymore, but I figured you’d started driving again.”
“No, I’m not driving.” She hadn’t suffered with a seizure since moving in with Lance, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen at any time. “Lance or his friends have been taking me where I need to go.”
He nodded. “I understand. Lunch Thursday would be good. I’d love to get this article written in the ne
xt few weeks. I know there’ll be plenty of research to do, but I want to discuss the parameters of the piece with you before I get started.”
“All right. Around eleven-thirty?”
He tapped a note into his phone. “I’ll be here to give you a ride.”
“Sounds perfect.”
Once Freddy was gone, Tricia attempted to keep her mind off her troubles by jotting down a few ideas for the article. The main thing she hoped Freddy could get across was the need for education, both for those who suffer with the condition and those who interact with them. Epilepsy affected each person differently, there was no single cause, and no single way it manifested itself. She wanted to address the shame factor and the bullying, the being made to feel less than others. Food suggestions were key also, especially the ketogenic diet. Limiting carbs seemed to really help, even if she occasionally splurged.
Remembering the brownie from the picnic made Tricia smile. Lance had gone to so much trouble, packing such a marvelous meal and picking her up in a horse-drawn carriage. Even more impressive and heartwarming had been the flowers he’d picked. Would he have done all those things out of a sense of obligation?
And the way they made love… The intimacy they shared was sizzling. Every time he touched her, he brought her body to a fever pitch. He was everything she’d ever wanted in a man: handsome, sexy, capable, and kind.
Ting!
When Tricia looked up to greet her customer, she was surprised to see Nathan McCoy. During the time she’d been in Kerrville, he’d grown into a handsome young man. She thought he looked like a young Joseph. What made him even more appealing was how polite and respectful he treated everyone. “Nathan! How good to see you!” Assuming he was there to see Kristen, Tricia explained that she wasn’t in. “I think Bryn said she had a dentist appointment this afternoon.”
Nathan shook his head. “I’m not here about Kristen, Miss Tricia.”
For the first time, Tricia focused on his face. He was upset. “What’s wrong?”
“Aron called me at school to come get you and give you a ride to Tebow.”
“Why?” Tricia was beginning to feel afraid. “What’s wrong? Is it Avery or the baby?”
“No. Lance is in trouble. He needs you.”
The flat statement was so unexpected and so devastating that Tricia sank to her knees.
“Tricia, oh my God! Are you all right?” Bryn rushed to her and Nathan ran around the counter to help her up.
“I need to go to him. I need to go.” A wave of fear swept over Tricia. What could be wrong with Lance? He was invincible. “What happened to him? Is he hurt?” She felt weak. Sick.
Nathan put his arm around her and supported Tricia toward the front door. “He went down in a well to rescue a calf and the shaft has partially collapsed on him. My brothers are working frantically to get him out.”
“Oh, my God. Let’s hurry.” The idea of something happening to Lance was inconceivable.
“I’ll take care of everything here,” Bryn assured her. “Don’t worry.”
Nathan escorted her to his truck and helped her in, fastening her seat belt because she couldn’t make her fingers work. “He’s alive?” She sought assurance.
“Yes, ma’am. I haven’t heard anything in the last few minutes, they just asked me to bring you there safely.”
Tricia prayed all the way to the ranch, not seeing the passing landscape through the veil of tears. “Did he ask for me?”
Nathan didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know, Miss Tricia. Let’s get you there and Aron and the others can tell you more.”
When they arrived, Avery and Libby were waiting with a four-wheeler to drive her to the site of the well. They only stopped to hug her for a moment. “Let’s hurry. He’s asking for you.”
Tricia couldn’t speak, all she could do was look off in the distance, trying to see the place where Lance’s life hung in the balance. She held onto the frame of the ATV, shaking like a leaf, willing herself not to have a seizure. Tricia refused to be weak when Lance needed her to be strong.
As they drew nearer, she gasped to see the crowd that was gathered. Skye was there, holding onto Noah. When she noticed Tricia arriving, she pulled away from her husband to run over. “Tricia! I’m glad you’re here.”
Tricia latched onto Skye and the two women moved forward, drawing strength from one another. “What happened, exactly?”
Skye repeated what Nathan had told her, adding what little more she knew. “Denver was with him, they were searching for a lost calf. When they found it in the well, Lance thought he could lower himself down in there and bring it out.”
Noah joined them, finishing the explanation. “The well is probably a hundred years old. We didn’t even know it was here. Water eroded the topsoil that had been placed over the cover and when the calf stepped on the rotten boards, he fell through. Lance thought he could get in and out safely, but the sides of the shaft were unstable.”
Tricia was listening to him, but her eyes were on the men congregated around a depression in the ground. They had pipe and heavy equipment laid out and one man was lying over the top, yelling down into the hole. “What are they doing?”
“They’re trying to determine what can be done,” Canyon Brady answered as he walked past, a large piece of cross-tie on his shoulder. Tricia shivered, she’d heard the rest of his sentence, even though it hadn’t been spoken. If anything. They were trying to determine what could be done, if anything.
“Please, God. Please God,” she prayed, muttering the plea like a chant. After a few minutes, Aron came to them. “What’s going on, Aron? What are you going to do?”
“We’re going to dig a hole parallel to the old well shaft and then try to send someone down to the same depth as Lance. If everything holds, we’ll dig over to where he is and pull him through, but we’ll have to stabilize everything as we go with pipe and timbers.”
“Have you talked to him?” Skye asked. “Is he conscious?”
Aron nodded. “We talked to him earlier, he was on a limestone ledge about fifty feet down. Both he and the calf were fine.”
“Earlier?” Tricia asked. “What do you mean?”
“There’s been another shift of rocks and earth above him. We don’t know if there’s a pocket of air above him or not.”
His stark words crushed Tricia. Skye began weeping, holding onto Noah.
Aron placed a hand on Tricia’s shoulder. “When we talked, he did send you a message, Tricia.”
“What?” She held her breath, her heart hammering in her chest.
“He said to tell you that he loved you.”
Tricia sank to her knees. “Tell him I love him too.”
“I’ll let you tell him yourself,” Aron promised. “Just as soon as I get him out of there.”
Over the next three hours, Tricia and Skye sat on the ground and held hands. Their eyes were fixed on the place where Lance lay buried. The family hovered around them, the men working frantically to dig an adjacent hole, big enough to allow men to take digging equipment down with them.
“He’s going to make it,” Tricia whispered. “I won’t survive if he dies.”
“He’ll make it.” Skye was adamant. “Lance can do anything.”
Noah did his best to comfort the two women. “This part of the country is riddled with caves. Where Lance was situated, there may be some protection or shelter from the falling rocks and earth.”
“Let’s pray this is so.” Skye held tightly to Tricia’s hand.
“Where’s Blue?” Tricia asked, knowing Skye was dealing with the possibility of losing her child as well as her brother.
“Jessie and Molly have the children. Tennessee, Noah’s cousin, arrived earlier, along with Bowie Malone and Tanner Barron. They’re all trained in rescue operations and Bowie owns all this heavy equipment.”
“We’re lucky to have such good friends,” Trisha said weakly, her eyes following the activity taking place in front of them. The roar of the machine
ry was loud and every time one of the men yelled for something, she jumped, thinking they’d found Lance.
“Yes, we are,” Skye agreed. “I’m holding onto that truth. We did receive some good news on Blue Dawn’s situation.”
“You did? That’s wonderful.” Tricia tore her eyes away from the scene before her to study Skye’s tear-streaked face.
“Yes, Zane’s partner, Adam, he did some questioning around where Mr. Hughes worked as a PR executive and found that he’s been accused of sexual harassment several times. The suits were dropped, but there seems to be some evidence that he paid these women off. Zane thinks the judge will consider the possibility of him being a sexual predator a roadblock to their case.”
“Just the thought of that man being around Blue is scary. I’m sure the judge will rule in your favor.”
“I hope so.” Skye barely had the words out of her mouth before she jumped up. “Look, Tricia, Tanner is getting ready to go down.”
Tricia stood and saw that Tanner Barron was entering the hole. Joseph and Tennessee were handing him an oxygen tank. The sight made her want to scream. She knew they were taking precautions, but the idea of him being down there and unable to breathe was unbearable. What if she’d wasted their last night together?
No, she couldn’t think that way.
He’d sent word to tell her that he loved her, so Tricia planned on having something to say to him the moment he was back in her arms.
The next half hour was agonizing. Tricia and Skye tried to see what was going on, but they were kept a safe distance away. “They’ll tell us the moment they know anything,” Noah assured them.
Tricia sat on the ground, her legs drawn up, her arms wrapped around her knees. She rocked back and forth, her mind completely focused on what was transpiring in front of her.
Inhale. Exhale.
Tricia took measured breaths, willing Lance to be breathing too.
“We’ve got him! We’ve got him!”
