Ask Me Why (16 page)

DUST COVERED LIZZIE
from head to toe. Her white tennis shoes with rhinestones on them were so brown they didn't even sparkle. Lizzie looked up and smiled at McCall. She'd never had so much fun in her life.

“You're doing great, partner,” he said. “You almost caught that one.”

Lizzie knew she was no good at rounding up calves, but she didn't care and she had a feeling McCall didn't either. They might be working in a dusty corral with half-wild cattle, but Lizzie grinned like she'd been dancing at a grand ball in glass slippers. She was helping him, or at least trying her best to. Having someone to talk to while he worked was as rare for him as it was for her.

Looking down, she giggled. A grand ball indeed. They were standing in a pen with mud and manure all over the ground. He'd been doctoring stock for an hour. Only with her at one hundred pounds trying to control a month-old calf, it seemed an even game. Sometimes she won. Sometimes the calf knocked her down and ran.

At first when he'd laughed it sounded like a cough, but as the day passed she liked to think that the doc was learning how to laugh all over again. She didn't even mind that he called her “partner” sometimes, like they were a team.

As he vaccinated the last calf, he handed her one of the medicine bags and gripped her arm to make sure she made it out of the corral without falling down again. “We got one more stop, then we'll head home. If I can take a rain check on that dinner you offered to cook, I'll buy you supper in town tonight. Where would you like to eat?”

She hadn't had anything since breakfast at dawn. “Anywhere that brings the food to the pickup. I'm too hungry to take the time to clean up.”

He took both medical bags as they left the pen and crossed them over his shoulder as if they weighed nothing.

She slipped her hand around his arm and walked through tall grass toward the truck.

He slowed to her pace and leaned close. “I'm starving. Fast food sounds great.”

She patted his dirty shirt. “I'm thinking if you get any more dirt layered on, you could be your own dust devil.” When he slapped his jeans and dust flew, she added, “I've had a ball, Doc. It's been a wonderful day.”

Now they were out of range of the other cowhands helping with the branding, McCall asked, “How's that wound on your side?”

“It's fine,” she lied. “I haven't felt it all day.” Twice she'd winced when it pulled, and she knew that a few of the butterfly stitches he'd put on were loose. She just hoped it wouldn't bleed through on his shirt that she'd worn all day with the shirttail tied around her waist. If McCall had seen the blood, he would've made her stop.

He opened the pickup door and shoved the bags toward the middle of the seat, then helped her in. “I promised I'd check out the stock coming in for the rodeo before dark, then it's off to the nearest hamburger joint that delivers food to the pickup.”

As they drove back to town, he mostly answered questions. She'd discovered a whole new world and wanted to know all about it. She learned that no two days as a vet were the same. He told her about how great it feels to see a newborn colt stand for the first time and how when he had to put an animal down, he always prayed they were heading to a special heaven.

Lizzie saw McCall's gentle kindness and understood. He wasn't a man used to talking, but as the day wore on, she noticed he liked to touch her. First he'd help her up or offer her a steady brace of his hand along her back, but as time passed she found he often communicated with a pat or by brushing close. Even now, as they rode side by side, his hand, leaning across the bags, rested easy next to her leg.

When she slid her fingers beneath his hand, he lifted her hand and moved it to his leg, then slowly spread her fingers out. She smiled, too shy to look at him. He kept his eyes on the road, but she knew he was smiling also.

When he pulled into the rodeo grounds at the edge of town, he said, “How about you sit this one out, Elizabeth? Just relax. I won't be long.”

Lizzie didn't want to miss anything, but exhaustion and lack of sleep were getting the better of her. With the window down, the afternoon breeze was just right for a nap. “All right, but if you need me, I'll come running.”

He brushed his hand along her shoulder. “You've been great today. Rest up or we'll both sleep through the Western tonight.”

She made no comment as he climbed out and headed toward the corrals at the far end of the small arena. She couldn't have said a word without crying. He talked about watching the Western tonight, like they'd done it a million times. Closing her eyes, she let herself hope. All her life she'd been one of those people trying to have fun but never quite making it. She was always the person at the party who never really had a group to laugh with, and when she tried too hard, it only made her awkwardness worse. Today, she hadn't tried at all to fit in. She'd been her uncoordinated self, and he'd liked her just fine.

She closed her eyes thinking of how she'd curl up against his side tonight.

A pickup pulled up next to her, but she barely opened her eyes. Lizzie was too busy reliving the perfect day and dreaming of being next to him for a Western. Maybe she'd spread her hand out over his leg again. She would like the feel of his muscles beneath the rough fabric of his jeans.

As she drifted off to sleep, she was aware of the dirt parking lot filling up. Horses were being unloaded. Men were talking. Somewhere in the distance, a crew was testing the mics. The rodeo wouldn't start until seven thirty, but hundreds of things had to be ready.

“You Lizzie?” A voice invaded her sleep.

She opened one eye and saw a short man in a cowboy hat standing at the driver's-side window. “Yes,” she said, trying to see his face in the shadow of the big hat.

He nodded and turned toward the arena. “Doc says you're needed in the holding corral. Just follow the chute at the back gate and you'll find it.”

Lizzie scrambled. “Does he need the medical bag?”

No answer. The stranger was gone.

She ran across the parking lot, the bag banging against her leg. At the back of the arena was a gate that led off into an even smaller chute tunneling around smaller stalls. Without hesitation, she ran in. The ground was soft, cut up by hooves and still muddy from the rain. Shadows were long across the high wood fences. She couldn't see the back corral, but it had to be in front of her.

Suddenly she heard the click of the gate she'd just closed behind her, and then the thunder of hooves rolled toward her down the chute.

Lizzie turned. Bulls. Huge horned bulls were coming after her.

For a few steps she tried to run, but the muddy ground was too slippery. Considering that she couldn't see the end ahead, instinct told her the bulls would reach her before she could get into the holding corral. Even if she did make it, she'd still be trapped with the bulls.

Holding to the bag, she tried to climb the fence. One board, another. More stitches at her side jerked free as she pulled herself up with one arm. She couldn't lose the doc's bag. She couldn't go fast with only one arm.

She heard the bulls coming closer. Too fast. As she turned, she saw them ten feet away and knew she was out of time. Even if she made it one more step, she'd still be scraped off the fence by their huge heads and horns.

Closing her eyes, she lifted the doc's bag and tossed it over the fence. The bag would be safe, and if she was lucky she would survive with only a few broken bones.

As she gulped in her last breath, someone grabbed her from above and jerked her up just as the bulls hit the fence where she'd been. The force of their attack was so hard that it felt like the ground shook, and for a second, Lizzie thought she was flying, out of control.

One arm went around her as they tumbled to the packed dirt outside the chute. Lizzie lay very still on her stomach, slowly breathing in the air she had thought she'd never live to take.

When she looked at the man crumbled beside her, she smiled. “Hi, cousin.”

“Are you all right?” Rick stood slowly as if testing for broken bones. “You almost frightened me to death. I saw you running from the pickup, but I couldn't catch you. When you disappeared into that chute, I knew there was going to be trouble the minute the men started herding stock in behind you.”

She took his offered help and stood. “Thanks for the hand up,” she said, guessing they both knew Rick had just saved her life.

He dusted off. “Anytime. The world would be a much darker place without you around.”

“Thanks,” she said. “That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me.”

Rick put his arm around her. “Come on, Lizzie, the sheriff wants to talk to you.”

“You told her about the shooting?”

“Not me. Everybody knows Alex has radio waves instead of brain waves. She knows everything going on in this town.”

They stepped into the now-empty arena before McCall caught up to them. He'd been in the barn and heard the cattle being moved but never dreamed Lizzie was in danger. She tried to explain everything to him, and then she had to explain it all to Alex. Everyone started asking questions at once. Did she hear anything before the gate opened? Did she see anyone?

When McCall circled her waist to offer comfort and felt blood coming from her side, he ordered everyone to stop talking. He lifted her and carried her to his pickup.

“If you all have any more questions, you can find us at the hospital,” McCall said simply.

No one argued.

While he drove, Lizzie pressed close to him. After he shifted gears, he put his hand across her legs. “We're going to the hospital, Elizabeth, and this time I won't listen to any argument.”

She didn't care. She was hurting all over. “I'm sorry about your bag. I had to toss it over. I'm sorry about your shirt. I'll try to get the blood out when . . .”

“I don't care about the bag or the shirt,” he snapped. “All I care about is you.”

Tears cleaned two streaks down her face.

She didn't want him to say anything more. If he did, she'd lose what little control she had left. Later when she was cleaned up and patched up and more in control, she'd ask him to say the words again.
All I care about is you.
No one had ever said those words to her.

In only minutes, he lifted her out of the pickup and carried her into the hospital. Emergency room staff came running to help. Apparently the sheriff had called in to alert them.

When he stepped back a few feet to give them room to work, McCall announced he wasn't leaving. No one bothered to argue with the vet. They just walked around the tree of a man like he'd been planted there all his life.

Lizzie drifted off. The pain dulled, and it almost felt as if someone kept tickling her side, trying to keep her awake. The air around her smelled of cleaning materials, and the lights above her kept growing too bright, then too dim.

When she awoke, she felt no pain, and the sheriff had replaced the doc at the foot of her bed. “Where's McCall?” Lizzie whispered.

“He's gone to clean up. He told me not to leave your side until he got back.” Alex smiled and brushed her service weapon. “I don't think he would have left you in my care if I weren't armed.”

“I'm all right.” Lizzie tried to make her voice stronger. “I just pulled a few of the butterfly stitches loose.”

The sheriff stepped closer. “Lizzie, I don't know if you're clear enough to understand, but the fall did do some damage to that injured side, only that's not why I'm here. You'll heal, but you're not out of danger. We think the gate being opened and the bulls being driven in after you was not an accident. We believe it was an attempt on your life, just like the shot was Sunday night.”

Lizzie started to ask why anyone would want to kill her. She didn't matter to anyone. But that wasn't true.

She mattered to McCall.

Closing her eyes, she tried to make sense of what the sheriff was trying to tell her, but sleep claimed her before her brain could clear enough to think. When she woke some time later, McCall was standing at the foot of the bed.

“I want to go back to your place,” she whispered with a smile. “We're missing the Western.”

He grinned. “They're keeping you here tonight, partner. Mind if I spend the night with you?” He nodded toward a recliner beside her bed. “When I refused to leave while you were sleeping, one of the staff brought that in.”

“The sheriff said”—she couldn't finish. Maybe it wasn't true. Maybe she'd dreamed that the sheriff thought someone was trying to kill her.

“I know what the sheriff said.” He moved his hand gently along her arm. “Rick filled me in.”

“If it's true, you'd be safer if you left.”

McCall shook his head. “I'm not leaving this hospital until you're with me.”