by Norah Wilson
Cal’s mind was blank. “Forgotten?”
“The condom. I’ve never forgotten before.”
Oh Jesus. Oh God. Oh no.
“Don’t worry, I’ve been doing a little mental math.” She traced a delicate finger over his lower lip, seemingly oblivious to the shock detonating in his consciousness. “We’re safe.”
He pushed her hand down. “Oh Jesus, I forgot the condom.”
“It’s okay, really.” She looked at him oddly. “I may not have finished med school, but I was paying attention while I was there. I doubt I could get pregnant at this point in my cycle if I tried.”
“You’re sure?”
“As sure as I can be.”
Well, that was something, at least. Now the rest of it. “You don’t have to worry about disease,” he blurted, taking a step back out of her reach. “I mean, after Marlena…Well, you might be thinking…” He shoved a hand through his hair. Geez, he was no good at this. “What I mean is, I got checked when she left. I’m clean.”
A pause, then: “And since?”
“And since, nothing.”
Silence for a moment. “Nothing, as in…?”
“As in no action. After messing up so badly with my marriage, I sorta benched myself.” His lips twisted wryly. “I guess the rust is showing, huh?”
She laughed softly. “Mine too. We should have had this talk the first night. For the record, I’m ‘clean’ too. I don’t make a habit of sleeping with men on my holidays.”
Her answer resonated with a truth he’d already known. Well, part of him knew it, even as he’d speculated about the probable pastimes of pretty erotica writers. “Well, I’m glad you made an exception on this holiday.”
A shadow moved in her eyes. What was it? Anxiety?
She wrapped her arms around herself, which he supposed was as good a way to secure the dress as any without tying that belt again. He was hoping to get it off her entirely very shortly.
“I know I probably haven’t given you the best impression,” she said, “but it’s true. I’ve never had a casual partner, and I’ve never had sex before without a condom. Not even with—well, not ever.”
Not even with…who? Someone significant. Someone who’s none of your business, Taggart. He pushed the thought away. “I believe you.”
“Good,” she said.
“So,” he said.
An awkward silence fell between them. He laughed, shaking his head. “Man, I am so lousy at this.”
She moved toward him and he took her in his arms again. God, but she felt good. Lean and athletic, but soft in the right places.
“You’re not doing so bad.” She tipped her head back to meet his eyes. “But I do have one question.”
“What’s that?”
“If you hadn’t yet realized we’d forgotten the condom, what were you apologizing for?”
He blinked. “That’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”
“Not to me.”
She was touching his face now, making it hard to think. “You don’t think what I did just now was just a little…barbaric?”
She laughed, a low, musical sound. “Cal, honey, you were an animal. And I loved every minute of it. The only thing that remains to be seen is what kind of animal?” She pressed close again. “I was sort of hoping you’re the water-loving type so I could talk you into that big antique tub with me.”
She touched her mouth to his chin, but he didn’t lower his head to give her the kiss she was angling for.
An animal? Like his prize bull? Like the stallions he kept? A weight seemed to land on his chest, squeezing it.
Chrissakes, Taggart, grow up. That was always the way of it. And a good thing too. He had little else to offer a woman.
Besides, that’s the way it was supposed to be with Lauren. Wasn’t that why he picked her? Honest sex with no strings. And wasn’t Lauren-in-the-water exactly the subject of his fantasy this morning?
Damn right it was. He pushed the confusing stuff to the back of his mind and bent to kiss her slowly, thoroughly.
“Lead the way to that tub of yours, sweetheart. I’ll do my best impersonation of an otter.”
Sometime after two o’clock, Cal jolted awake. Lauren’s bed. Lauren’s cabin. He’d been going to rest his eyes for just a minute before leaving, but he must have fallen asleep. But what had woken him?
Cold, he realized, as a crop of goose bumps rose on his arms. Odd for August.
Beside him, Lauren’s breathing quickened. Maybe the cold had wakened her too. Well, he could warm her. Smiling, he rolled over, looping an arm around her waist.
Jesus! She was rigid as a fence post.
He shook her gently. “Lauren, what is it? Bad dream?”
She didn’t acknowledge him with even a flicker of movement.
He jackknifed up in bed, swearing as he groped for the lamp. After a few fumbling seconds, he located the switch and flooded the bed in a circle of light. When he turned back to look at her, the apprehension in his gut erupted into full-blown fear.
Her jaw was clenched so hard her teeth ground together, and her hands were clenched at her sides. Hell, it looked like her whole body was clenched. But that wasn’t the worst of it.
It was her eyes that struck fear into him. Wide and terrified, they seemed to look right through him. He actually turned to see if she were watching some horror behind him.
“Lauren, can you hear me? Wake up!” He shook her again, this time less gently, but to no better effect. It was as if she wasn’t even there, as if she’d slipped right out of her body.
Ambulance! He needed to call an ambulance. He lunged for the phone on the night table and dragged it back to the bed. “Hang in there, darlin’, I’m going to get you some help.”
“No.”
Just a whisper, but he heard it. He dropped the receiver. “Oh Jesus. Are you okay? You did speak, didn’t you?”
“No doctor.” The words were a little stronger this time, but still little more than a whisper. He put the phone back.
“Look at me,” he commanded. This time she did focus on him. “Thank God! You really are back. Now let’s see you move.”
The fingers of her right hand fluttered feebly.
“Lauren, that isn’t funny.”
“Comes back,” she said, sounding as if she had a mouthful of marbles.
“What comes back? The movement?”
“Yes.”
He dragged a hand over his face. “For the love of God, what is this? What happened to you?”
She made no answer this time, just stared at him mutely. Then one fat tear broke from her eyelash and slid down her temple into her hair.
Groaning, he crawled back onto the bed beside her. “I’m sorry for yelling. You just scared me.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “Would it be okay for me to hold you?”
Another tear slid silently into her hair, but she gave a perceptible nod.
He gathered her carefully into his arms, tucking her head into his shoulder and aligning her frozen limbs with his. She felt stiff enough to shatter, but bit by bit her muscles began to relax until she lay pliant against him. Pliant and sleeping. It didn’t take very long. Maybe fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes for her to regain herself.
Fifteen minutes for him to lose himself.
Lauren smiled. She was having the nicest dream in which she was cocooned in a warm nest. She stretched luxuriously. So warm, so hard…
So hard? Her eyes flew open. Cal. He was still here. But it was full daylight. She glanced at the clock radio by the bed.
Ten o’clock! She shot up. “Cal, wake up. The riding clinic…you’re late.”
“I’ve been awake for hours.” His hand came up to trace the curve of her naked back. “You’re the sleepyhead, darlin’.”
“But the guests…”
“I called Jim around five and told him I planned to have a little lie-in. He’ll have things in hand.”
She blinked. A little lie-in? She
’d bet he’d never slept in once in his adult life. He had too much vitality for that. She groaned. “Oh Lord, what must Jim think?”
His hand fell away. “I expect he’s thinking I’m getting some hot sex, but I figured you’d rather I didn’t tell him about your little rigor mortis routine.”
Rigor mortis routine? What…?
Oh God, yes. The vision.
She’d actually forgotten about it. Once wakened by a vision, she usually huddled wide-eyed on the couch under a blanket until dawn, which had a way of precluding forgetfulness. But last night, after watching that horror show of Marlena having the life choked out of her, she’d actually fallen into a profound sleep. Cal’s strength and toughness had seemed to radiate right into her along with his body heat, robbing the vision of its usual harrowing aftermath.
“You remember now. I can see it.”
“It’s nothing.” She clutched the sheets to her breast and felt the force of her own heart pounding.
“Nothing?” His gaze pinned her. “I almost called 911.”
Should she tell him? Could she?
The voice in her head screamed, No! Every experience she’d had—from her mother to her doctor to her fiancé to her early experience with the police—had taught her there was nothing to gain and everything to lose from telling that truth.
She lowered her head. “The doctors describe it as a seizure.” That, at least, was truthful.
“Like epilepsy, you mean?”
Her head snapped up. “No, not epilepsy.” Though the family doctor had mistakenly treated her for it when she was a child. She’d tried to tell him—and her mother—that it was just what happened when she had the visions, but her efforts earned her tears from her mother and a session with a pediatric psychiatrist. After that, she’d learned to stay quiet about it and palm the pills.
“I always know when it’s coming. I have a good half hour’s notice, plenty of time to get to a safe environment.” She lowered her eyes and plucked at the blanket. “I’m not an insurance risk, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
He swore. “This happens regularly?”
“No, not regularly. Occasionally.” She looked up at him then. “I am safe, Cal. If I can work around it well enough to perform surgery, I can handle myself here.”
He raked a hand through his hair. “Hell, Lauren, I wasn’t thinking about me, I was thinking about you. You couldn’t move, couldn’t talk. You were so…vulnerable. I hate that.”
“I hate it too, but I can make the necessary adjustments.” She ran a hand along his stubbled cheek. He looked so appealing, his eyes clouded with concern and his hair sexily tousled. Unexpectedly her heart squeezed. “I should have told you this last night, but I guess I zonked out on you. You really didn’t have to stay.”
“It was no hardship.” He turned his face into her palm, and the slight rasp of it sent a shiver through her. “That is, if you don’t count the part about letting you sleep unmolested. I didn’t know I had that much saintliness in me.”
She laughed, then drew him down with her. “Such saintliness should be rewarded, don’t you think?”
“Mmm, I sure hope so.”
Before she could claim that angelic mouth for her own, someone rapped on her door, hard, and a male voice sounded.
“Cal, you in there?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Spider. Dammit.” Cal leapt up and dragged his jeans on.
To her credit, Lauren shifted gears quickly. “Spider Jenkins, your cowhand?”
Like there could be another Spider. He almost grinned, even with the anxiety blooming in his gut. “Yeah. He wouldn’t track me down here unless something’s wrong.” He shrugged into his shirt, then went to get the door. Spider stood on the threshold, the brim of his hat clutched tightly, his balding head gleaming in the sun.
“Come in, Spider, before you mangle that hat.”
Spider stepped inside. “Sorry about this, Boss.”
Cal shrugged. “If Jim sent you, it’s gotta be important.”
“You got a dead yearling on the west boundary, right close to the old MaKenny spread.”
Hell, there went another chunk of change. “What happened?”
“Well, that’s why I’m here. I never seen nothin’ like it.”
“Grizzly?”
“No, it weren’t nothin’ like that. Seems like it died from the inside out.”
Cal’s heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean?”
“Billy says it couldna died more than a day ago, but it’s bloated something wicked. And blood. Looks to me like it bled pretty bad from the nose.”
Merciful God, no. Not disease. “How far?”
“Won’t take no time to get there. We can take my truck.”
Cal exhaled, forcing down his apprehension. “It’s not far off the track then?”
“You can see it from the road. That’s how Billy knew it musta died recently. He swears it weren’t there yesterday.”
Cal looked around for his hat, then realized he didn’t have it with him. To hell with it. “Let’s go.”
“I’ll come with you.”
At Lauren’s voice, Cal glanced up to see her in the doorway fully dressed, a set of binoculars around her neck and a backpack slung on her shoulder.
Of course she’d want to come.
He nodded once. “Right.”
Spider’s eyes bulged at Cal’s easy acquiescence. “You’re the boss, Boss, but do you think that’s a good idea? I almost lost my breakfast, and I’ve seen some ugly stuff in my day.”
Cal managed a smile. “I imagine she’s seen more things die ‘from the inside out’ than we have, Spider. Lauren here is a vet.”
Spider grinned. “Ah! That must be how you won that bet with Cosmo then? Ain’t often the boss loses a wager. Folks are still talkin’ about it.”
Cripes, they’d likely heard about his lost bet in Calgary by now. Somehow he couldn’t muster much pique, though. Not after she’d made losing so gratifying. “Come on. You two can trade laughs at my expense once we get on the road.”
Twenty minutes on the main road and another fifteen on a number of back roads put them in the vicinity of the MaKenny property. They crested a hill and Cal saw the carcass even before Spider touched the brakes. Jesus, it did look swollen.
They climbed out of the truck, ducked under the fence, and headed toward the fallen steer.
“Wait, guys,” Lauren said. “Let me get a look before we get any closer.” Lauren raised her field glasses. Cal watched her face intently. Her lips compressed into a thin line as she focused the binoculars. Then she proceeded to scan the area around the animal. Damnation, he wished she’d say something.
“What do you see?” he asked when he could contain himself no longer.
“You can look for yourself,” she said, passing him the binoculars. “But first, Spider, did I see a tarp in the truck?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Would you fetch it, please?”
Spider looked to Cal, who nodded his sanction, and the cowboy trudged back toward the road.
“Did you really need the tarp or did you just want to get rid of Spider?”
“Both. Now lift the glasses and have a look.”
He obliged. The steer was hugely bloated, its white face bloodied. The drought-yellowed grass around it was splotched with brownish blood. “Jesus.” Cal’s stomach dropped. He could think of only a couple of things that could kill a cow like that, but one in particular leapt to the fore. The stories from the outbreak in Red Deer last year were still fresh in his mind.
“Anthrax?”
“Rapid death, with bloating and epistaxis. You’d have to suspect it.”
“Epis-what?”
“Bleeding from the nose,” she said absently, obviously lost in thought. “Though I believe there’s a strain of botulism…”
He lowered the binoculars. “No, I don’t think it’s botulism. I’ve seen that.”
“Any anthrax reported this ye
ar?”
“Nothing so far this season. Twenty or thirty animals died last summer, but that was over in Red Deer.” His knees went weak as he remembered. Twenty or thirty animals. The shape he was in right now, that’d be a hard hit.
“Have you lost any other animals?”
“Like this? No.”
Lauren tugged on a pair of work gloves. “It wouldn’t have to be exactly like this. An acute case can die within an hour without symptoms, while a subacute case can last days or weeks.”
“No.” He shook his head. “We lost a couple of calves in calving season, a few yearlings to a brush fire and some more to lightning strikes, but nothing like this.”
“Would you necessarily know, with the cattle in pasture?”
“Yep. We move the herd to prevent overgrazing, and when we move ’em, we count ’em. My men would have detected any losses.”
“What about other herbivores? Mule deer, white-tailed deer, that sort of thing? They’re vulnerable because they churn the spores up, then eat them or breathe them while grazing.”
“Don’t think so. My men would report anything like that too.” He watched her chew her lip.
“Speaking of reporting, you’d better call the veterinary inspector.”
The veterinary inspector. The full gravity of the situation crushed down on him. This was more than a dead cow. More than the prospect of twenty dead cows.
“Ah, Christ, this’ll ruin me.” He gripped the binoculars until his fingernails hurt. “I report this, it’ll be in the Globe and Mail tomorrow. Deadly Anthrax Toxin Suspected at Guest Ranch. Who’ll want to spend their vacation here then?”
She blanched. “But, Cal, you have to report it.” She laid a hand on his arm. “You have a statutory obligation. It’s a federally reportable…”
He pulled away. “Hell, Lauren, of course I’ll call them. I know what my responsibilities are.”
“I realize this could make it tough for you, but…”
“Tough?” He laughed harshly. “If this guest ranch revenue dries up, I’ll lose everything.”
Cal felt wound about as tight as he could get, but there was no need to take it out on Lauren. None of this was her fault. He passed a hand over his tired eyes. If only he’d slept last night, he might be able to think. He watched Spider pull a black tarp from the back of the truck. “Okay, what do we do now?”
