Apache-Colton Series

by Janis Reams Hudson

  He glanced over his shoulder at Lawrence. The man looked determined as hell. “You can stay on three conditions.”

  “Which are?”

  “One, you have that drink first, because you’re going to need it worse if you stay than if you go. Two, you do absolutely nothing but hold her hand. You have to let me do my job. If you try to interfere, I’ll have LaRisa pick up that big vase in the corner and whack you on the head.”

  “It’s going to be so bad that you think I’m going to interfere? Thank you for that comfort. What’s number three?”

  Spence’s lips quirked. “If you pass out, you’re on your own. I’m going to have my hands full with your wife and baby.”

  Lawrence did, indeed, pass out.

  As soon as Maryanne’s deep breathing told Spence she was completely under the anesthesia, he moved fast and picked up his scalpel. His hand trembled a moment, from exhaustion, from sheer nerves. Then he steadied, and his mind cleared of everything but the task before him.

  He made the first incision. Blood streamed from the abdomen. And Lawrence slid to the floor, his eyes rolled back in his head.

  Telling LaRisa when to administer more chloroform and when to ease off, Spence ignored Lawrence and worked quickly, confidently, his hands moving in a rhythm that came as naturally to him as breathing. He pinched off blood vessels and continued until the womb was exposed enough for him to reach the baby.

  “How’s her pulse?”

  “Strong. Steady,” LaRisa answered.

  Spence grunted in satisfaction. “Good girl, Maryanne. How’s your pulse?” he asked LaRisa.

  She smiled. “Fine.”

  “How’s your stomach?”

  “My stomach’s fine.”

  “Good girl.”

  Lawrence chose that moment to regain consciousness and climb to his feet. “A girl?”

  “Just in time, Lawrence. Hang on, we’re about to find out.” Spence gently lifted the infant from its warm nest. No need to work over this fellow as he’d had to do with the Dunsten baby that morning. This one came into the world kicking and yelling.

  Spence cleared away the afterbirth and turned to Lawrence. “Here, Papa, hold your son.”

  Lawrence’s blank gaze jerked from the gaping wound in his wife’s belly to the squirming infant in Spence’s hands. His eyes widened, his mouth fell open. “My…son?”

  He stared in total awe. The look of wonder in his eyes made Spence’s throat tighten.

  Lawrence reached for the infant, then stopped and glanced down at his hands, then up at Spence. “I didn’t scrub like you did.”

  “Get a towel,” Spence told him. “Be easier to hold onto him, anyway. He’s a slippery little devil.”

  Lawrence grabbed a towel, then took his squirming son from Spence’s hands. The child let out a lusty cry.

  “What did I do wrong?” Lawrence asked frantically, trying to hand the baby back to Spence.

  Spence shook his head. “Not a thing. He was just clearing his lungs, saying hello to the world. Wrap that towel over him and keep him warm while we finish here.”

  Spence turned back to Maryanne and cleaned the womb. With silk ligatures, he tied off the blood vessels, then sutured the womb cavity, then the initial incision. Her pulse was still strong and steady. He dusted the area with antibiotics, then bandaged. LaRisa helped him bind Maryanne’s abdomen tightly with a torn sheet to keep the muscles immobile.

  He had Lawrence hold the baby still on the table while he severed the umbilical cord from the placenta, then tied, clipped, medicated, and bandaged. LaRisa then helped Lawrence bathe and dress the baby. Lawrence couldn’t take his eyes off his son.

  Spence met LaRisa’s gaze and he read so many things there. Relief for Maryanne, exhaustion, pride in him. His chest swelled over the latter and his tiredness slipped away.

  When Maryanne roused from the anesthesia, they introduced her to her new son, then carried them both upstairs. She, Lawrence, and Carlotta were given strict instructions on Maryanne’s care. Spence and LaRisa were given tearful, heartfelt thanks from both of the new parents.

  They left the two of them beaming and cooing over Lawrence Junior and walked home side by side in the cool of the August night, Spence carrying his black bag, which somehow felt lighter after the night’s success, and LaRisa wearing his jacket around her shoulders.

  It was after ten, and the neighborhood was quiet. Lights flared and dimmed in a few windows. A dog barked, a cat cried. At the corner, the sweet smell of honeysuckle was thick in the air.

  “You were…magnificent,” LaRisa said softly.

  Spence swallowed, humbled by her praise. “You were pretty terrific yourself.”

  “You were exhausted when you got there. What happened at the Bar D?”

  Spence shook his head. “It was a long, hard delivery, and when the baby finally came, she didn’t want to breath. She’s okay now.”

  “And the little girl with the measles?”

  “No measles. Not a spot on her, just a rash. Near as I can tell, she had a bad reaction to the half-gallon of strawberries she ate when no one was looking.”

  “Strawberries?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But I knew a kid once who used to break out in a rash when he ate strawberries. The little Dunsten girl looked just like that.”

  “And Mr. Dunsten?”

  “Mr. Dunsten. Well, I’ll tell you. We had a kid with a nasty rash and a terrible belly ache, we had a woman in labor for more than eighteen hours, and a baby who didn’t want to breathe. They were a snap compared to setting that man’s leg. You never heard such hollering in your life. You’d have thought I was amputating it, the way he screeched.”

  The quiet neighborhood was behind them. Now they passed streets of saloons, hotels, “boarding houses” whose boarders came and went late at night. Spence kept himself between LaRisa and the street.

  “How do you feel?” LaRisa asked.

  “Can a man feel humble and proud at the same time?”

  “I don’t see why not, although from what I saw at the Hoddingers’, I can’t imagine what you think you have to feel humble about.”

  Spence took in a deep draft of cool night air. “The look in his eyes when I handed him his son would humble a rock.” He knew that if LaRisa were to give him a child, he would have that same dazed, grateful, proud, awed, reverent look, too. “And I feel grateful. To you.”

  “Me?” LaRisa asked, startled. “Why me?”

  “For badgering me that day we left Bisbee. If you hadn’t made me stop and think, I might not have agreed to fill in for Mac, and Maryanne and her baby might be dead right now.”

  They walked on to the quieter side street where Mac’s office was located.

  “So you’re glad to be practicing medicine again? You’re going to stick with it?”

  “Yes, and yes.” He opened the door to the office and ushered her inside. When they reached the living quarters upstairs, he closed the bedroom door, leaned back against it, and with a deep sigh, pulled LaRisa to his chest and held her. Just held her. “God, I’m tired. And you feel so good. I missed you last night,” he confessed. “And today.”

  LaRisa felt an ache bloom in her chest. She had missed him, too, terribly, but the words stayed locked behind her lips.

  “I know you didn’t want to come to Tucson with me, Risa, but I’m damn glad you did. I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here with me.”

  The ache in her chest grew more acute. He was admitting he needed her? She had wanted to feel needed. But by him?

  As they made ready for bed, a need of her own grew, a need she continually fought—the need for his touch. They turned out the lamp and crawled into bed. Spence pulled her against him and wrapped his arms around her.

  Her heart started a slow, heavy beat. She waited, breath suspended, for him to kiss her.

  He didn’t move. A moment later, his deep, even breathing told her he slept.

  LaRisa buried
her face against his shoulder. How could she want him so much? Was this love? This constant turmoil, this sick feeling of terror deep inside? This loss of control? If this was love, she wanted no part of it. She didn’t want to love Spence. Didn’t want to need him. She wanted…God, she didn’t know what she wanted anymore.

  But a feeling was growing in her, somewhere deep inside. A feeling that told her something was going to happen. Something would show her the way, tell her why her feelings were so mixed up. A revelation was coming. Not necessarily a welcome one.

  She realized then, lying in the dark and listening to the reassuring sounds of Spence’s breath, what a coward she had become. She felt she was on the verge of understanding herself, and she was terrified.

  The gray light of dawn found LaRisa still awake. Still feeling as though she was waiting for something. Something she didn’t want. Dread built inside her.

  Spence’s arms tightened around her. “Good morning,” he murmured near her ear.

  His breath caressed her ear and neck and made her shiver. She fought the tingling warmth that seeped into her. His hands began to roam across her back, her sides, her ribs. Her breasts.

  Where was her will? Why did she always succumb so easily to these sensations? She felt so weak when he touched her this way.

  “Come here, honey,” he whispered as he pulled her beneath him.

  Once again, LaRisa was lost. He consumed her with his passion, and the instant she stopped fighting the inevitable in her mind, she reveled in it. Fire licked at her belly. Need built to a throbbing ache between her legs. He filled the emptiness inside her and took her soaring over the edge of darkness into a world of bright, bursting lights.

  Spence lay in bed and watched LaRisa get dressed. He knew he was embarrassing her, making her self-conscious, but he loved watching her move. She was so graceful. Even if she was covering up the silky skin he was already craving again. Even if she was binding her glorious hair into a tight braid to wrap around her head.

  When she finished, she began gathering the clothes he had left on the floor last night. He wasn’t usually a slob, but he’d been so damned tired. And euphoric, he remembered, over the success of Maryanne’s surgery.

  LaRisa held up the white shirt he had wadded into a ball. “You got blood all over your shirt.”

  Spence glanced at the spots and smears on his shirt front and sleeves. He tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and smiled. “The blood of victory.”

  Something that felt like a lightning bolt of sheer pain shot through LaRisa and nailed her feet to the floor. She squeezed her eyes shut and sucked in a sharp breath. The room seemed to spin. Her own words of months ago echoed silently, loudly, through the room.

  And after a battle, he’ll return to me triumphant and stained with the blood of victory.

  Spence heard her harsh intake of breath and opened his eyes. One look at the shock, the panic on her face, the way she closed her eyes to block out the sight of him, and he knew what he’d said, remembered her words to her father.

  He wanted to kick himself. He’d just reminded her of all her lost dreams. Reminded her that her choices in life had always been, were still being, made by others. Reminded her that there were no more warriors, that the way of life she’d dreamed of returning to was gone, and she was stuck with a white man she didn’t want, in that same white world that had destroyed hers and imprisoned her people.

  “LaRisa…” He lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

  “You mock me.” Her voice was paper thin.

  “No.” He threw an arm over his face. “I wouldn’t. Not about that. I’m sorry.” He swallowed, and the taste was bitter. “I wasn’t thinking. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

  LaRisa wrapped her arms around her middle and turned her back on him. With his careless words, he had destroyed the last remnant of her dream, just as he had destroyed the pieces before, one by one. It had been a childish dream, a warrior to stand beside, a warrior she could love, who would love her. A hopeless, childish dream. But it had been her dream, and now he was forcing her to admit once and for always that it was gone.

  Spence had chipped away at her dream bit by bit. He had pushed away the image of her dark-skinned warrior and insinuated his own golden sun-god looks in its place, where she didn’t want them.

  “Nothing,” she whispered. “You strip away my hope, my dreams, and leave me with…nothing.”

  Tears. She’d had tears on her cheeks when she’d said he had left her with nothing. Giant claws of pain ripped at Spence’s insides. He’d had to leave her like that, standing in the bedroom looking dazed and lost, and it had nearly killed him. But she wouldn’t speak to him, wouldn’t move, wouldn’t do anything, and he’d promised to check on Maryanne first thing this morning. He needed to make sure there were no complications from last night’s dining-room surgery.

  Clouds rolled overhead, thick and dark, like his mood. From the look of the sky, rain was already falling in the mountains. Chances were, the clouds would roll across the parched desert without leaving a drop.

  It wasn’t just his careless words, Spence knew, that had so devastated LaRisa. It wasn’t only her dream warrior she’d lost, and not just the way of life she had hoped to return to some day. No, it was more than that. This was about choices, about making her own decisions, pursuing her own dreams. Living her own life. All that had been denied her since she was eleven years old.

  Yet through all the years since, she had held out hope of being free. She’d taken every blow life dealt her and withstood it. Her imprisonment, her mistreatment at the hands of that hideous woman at Carlisle. Her father’s death. A foolish law that decreed she could not live in her own homeland without constant supervision. Even Mexico had not worked out for her, but Spence couldn’t be sorry he’d dragged her away from there. She would never have been safe with Broken Hand.

  At least, that was his justification.

  Now, after everything she’d been through, she found herself tied to a man she didn’t want. A white man. A man who told her where to live, what to do with her time. A man who carelessly tossed off words she’d once spoken with such hope in her eyes.

  What was he going to do? He couldn’t stand to see her so miserable, yet the only answer he could find was to let her go. He didn’t know if he was that strong.

  LaRisa stood in the bedroom, listening to Spence leave the office through the front door.

  She had no idea how long she stood there, letting the tears quietly fall, when the bell over the door downstairs jingled again. She wanted nothing more than to stay where she was and ignore the intrusion, but no one came to the doctor’s office without a reason. She had to go see what was wrong.

  Spence found Maryanne and the baby in excellent condition. Even Lawrence seemed to have recovered, Spence thought with a wry twist of his mouth as he hurried home. Would LaRisa speak to him? Would he find the words to ease her pain?

  What words were those, he wondered derisively. The ones that said that maybe he could have come up with a better choice for her than being his wife, but that he hadn’t been able to let her go? The thought of letting her go turned him cold inside and sent bleakness settling in his gut.

  It was as he opened the door and stepped into the empty office that he realized for the first time just how important she’d become to him. I’m in love with her.

  The thought burst on him like the sun breaking through the clouds, bright and warm and welcoming. The relief he felt surprised him. He hadn’t planned to fall in love, not since he realized he didn’t want to subject a wife and family to his illness. But he had a wife now, one who had taken such sweet care of him when he’d been sick, one who did not think less of him because of the malaria. One who was strong enough to stand on her own.

  That wasn’t reason enough to love a woman, but it was part of it, he admitted. Her strength, her integrity, her innate honesty. Those things had been there all along, but he hadn’t realized the depth of them until
he’d been forced to lie back and let her take charge.

  Then there was her passion, that vibrant fire inside her that drew him like the proverbial moth to flame. He had yet to get enough of her, might never get enough to satisfy his hunger and greed for her. Did she have any idea what her willing, eager response did to him? Did she know that the mere thought of never touching her again was enough to send terror straight through to his very soul?

  She couldn’t know. He’d never told her, because until this moment, he hadn’t fully understood his own feelings. He was in love with her. Deeply, irrevocably, helplessly in love.

  “LaRisa?”

  His voice echoed back to him. The office had an empty feel to it, as though without her there, even the air was lifeless. He dashed up the stairs, but there, that same emptiness assaulted him. Where could she be?

  A thread of panic worked its way up his spine. She’d been distraught. Devastated. Had she…dear God, had she left him?

  A quick check told him that if she had, she’d walked out with nothing more than the clothes on her back. Not that he wouldn’t put it past her, considering her pride and her stubbornness, but she wouldn’t just leave. She’d probably want to tear a strip of his hide off with her bare teeth first, just to let him know, in case he happened to have missed the truth, that he’d hurt her.

  Then again, striking back was her usual way of dealing with pain. This morning, though, she hadn’t. She had cried. Not like the last time he’d seen her cry, over her father’s death. Then her tears had come hot and harsh, with great racking sobs. This time had been different, as if she didn’t have the strength to cry hard.

  Risa, where are you?

  He had to find her, had to make sure she was all right.

  All right? When I just killed the last of her dream?

  He had to find her.

  He took the stairs two at a time and rushed for the front door. Where could she have gone? Where would she have gone? With the exception of the day and night he’d spent at the Bar D, LaRisa had been at his side every moment since they had moved to town. The only people she knew were patients. She didn’t have any friends…Harriett. He would try Harriett.