Ask Me Why (17 page)

Some men might have said more, but for Lizzie, he'd said enough.

RICK AND TRACE
stood just outside Lizzie's hospital room, listening to Lizzie and her vet talking quietly.

Rick felt like he'd run a marathon. First, trying to find his cousin in the tunnel of boards she'd disappeared into at the rodeo arena. And then flying down the road to the hospital behind an old pickup he couldn't seem to catch up to, even in his sports car. Trace had been right beside him all the way, telling him to hurry. Telling him how to drive.

He tried to relax now that all was quiet. His cousin was safe. They all were safe. He glanced in at the big vet standing close to his cousin's bed. “I think those two may be falling in love,” Rick whispered to himself.

“Sounds sappy.” Trace folded her arms when Rick offered to hold her hand. “Don't get all mushy on me, Matheson.”

Rick raised an eyebrow. “Don't you believe in love?”

She shook her head. “Lust maybe, but not love.”

“You think that's all it is between us? Lust? Animal attraction? Nothing more?”

“Probably.” She rolled against the wall and bumped her shoulder with his. “Sparks fly. That's all. That's enough. What else do people like us need?”

Rick thought about telling her that he felt used, but if he did, she might stop. Either way he figured he was heading for a heart attack. “It's not that way with me, Trace. It's more. It's deeper. I need you around, not just your body. I need you.”

She looked like she didn't believe him. “So you'd still be attracted to me if we didn't have sex?”

“Of course.” Why else was he thinking of her every waking hour? Why else would he hope every phone call was Trace? Hell, sometimes he half-wished trouble would come back to Harmony just so she would drop in to check on him.

The elevator door opened, and the deputy assigned to Lizzie's room for the night walked out. He had a stack of newspapers, a cup of coffee, and a folding chair. “I'm here, folks. You can go home now.” When they both frowned, he added, “I won't leave this door, I swear.”

Rick and Trace walked to the elevator in silence. She stepped in and pushed the button for the first floor. They stood inches apart as the door closed, then she turned toward him. “I say you're wrong, Matheson. If we're not all about sex, then prove it. Let's go back to your place and sleep, just sleep. No touching, no playing around.”

He smiled. “You know you couldn't keep your hands off me.”

“I can. You'll be the one to break, proving my point. I'm betting you crack before midnight.”

As they walked to the car he glanced at the tower clock. “One hour, I can make that.” All day they'd had the attempt on Lizzie's life to talk about, but now she was safe. “All right, I'll take your bet, but no teasing. No dirty talk. No touching me in foreplay.”

“Foreplay. I didn't think you knew what that was, counselor.”

“You know what I mean.”

“All right, I agree. No talking sex, no foreplay, no touching.” She waited until they climbed in his car before adding, “So what do we do?”

“We talk.”

“About what? My work? Your work? I don't have a family, and I've already met more of yours than I want to know.”

“We talk about stuff. Like hobbies and dreams and our childhood.” Rick tried to think of something, anything.

“I don't have hobbies, and my dreams are usually about you and involve sex, and that subject is off the table.” She stretched.

He forced his eyes on the road. All Trace had to do was breathe and he was turned on. If he didn't concentrate, he'd never make the hour. “Okay, tell me about your childhood, Marshal.” When she was silent, he started talking about every dumb, crazy, wild thing he did from kindergarten to sixth grade. If he went any older, they'd be talking about his adolescent dreams and every stupid thing he said to a girl.

He kept the conversation going until they were inside his apartment. With great care he managed to keep several feet between them. He offered her one of his old football jerseys to sleep in and tried not to fixate on how great she looked in it. She took a shower while he made sandwiches, and she cleaned up while he showered. He offered her his bed and he unrolled the sleeping bag in his empty living room. He set up tables between him and where she was sitting on a huge pillow.

Trace couldn't be still. Finally she stood and paced in front of the windows. He wasn't surprised that she went over every detail, every fact of Lizzie's case. Rick could follow the way her mind worked and knew that was the secret of her success in solving crimes.

When she disappeared with a crisp “Good-night,” he stared out the window. Eleven forty-five. He'd almost made it. He wasn't even sure he'd made sense while they were talking, but he'd kept his hands off her. He'd proved that there was more to them than just sex. Lying back on his bedroll, he thought over every clue she'd lined up. Somewhere they'd missed something. He could feel it and she'd felt it, too. Tomorrow they'd both be up early, tracking down every detail, talking to Lizzie, walking the rodeo grounds, talking to anyone who might have seen anything they'd missed.

But tonight he needed sleep if he was ever going to stay awake tomorrow. Only sleep didn't come easy with Trace a room away in his bed.

Smiling, he realized he'd managed to learn a few facts about her while they talked. She loved to read and admitted she'd like to write mysteries someday. She'd also told him she loved rainy nights and sunrises.

For a while he watched the clock with every cell in his body wanting to run to her. He had no idea how it had happened, but he knew he loved her, and if not touching her was the only way to prove it, he would torture them both.

Finally the tower clock began to strike midnight. One, two, three.

“I love you, Trace,” he whispered, forcing the words out. Maybe he didn't know her favorite color or where she went on vacation as a child, but he knew her down deep to her soul. He knew what mattered to her and what drove her. He knew the good in her, and the fairness and the need she had to set things right. “I love you,” he whispered again a little louder.

The clock chimed. Four, five, six.

“I know,” she answered.

He turned and saw her in the doorway. For a moment he just stared, letting her beauty wash over him.

Seven, eight, nine.

Slowly, he lifted the blanket. “Come to bed,” he said as calmly as if they'd slept together for years.

Ten, eleven, twelve. He'd made it to midnight.

Her face was in shadows, but he saw her hands were balled and her body turned soldier-straight.

“Time won't change a thing, Trace. Whether I touch you or make love to you or stay a room away forever, I'll still love you. I love the you who worries about people. I love the way you don't buy into any of my bull. I love the way you smile at me when you think I'm not looking. I love all of you—the soft curves, the hard edges. I love you.”

She jerked a quick nod and ran to him across the empty room.

When she crawled in beside him, a cry slipped from her. Pulling her close, he cupped her face and felt the tears, though he hadn't heard her crying. He kissed her gently and whispered, “Say the words.”

To his surprise, his Trace answered simply, “I love you, too.”

As the midnight hour passed, their loving grew far deeper than either of them ever dreamed it could be. A silent promise of forever blended with passion and need.

When the night grew silent, he held her as she slept and he whispered, “Now we've got the loving part settled, we'll talk about the marrying part tomorrow.”

COTTON-CANDY-PINK LIGHT SPREAD
across her hospital room as the sun rose, waking Lizzie. Every part of her body ached from the fall she'd taken, but surprisingly her side no longer hurt. It felt as if someone were tickling her again where she'd been shot, which made her smile. A wound shouldn't tickle, must be the pain medicine.

McCall looked sound asleep in the recliner next to her bed. A nurse had covered him with a blanket during the night, but his worn boots were still on his feet and sticking out as if blocking anyone trying to get close to her. The low rumble of his snoring whispered through the silent room.

The doctor from the emergency room the night before walked in. “Morning, Lizzie. How did you sleep?” Dr. Turner looked exhausted. Her white coat was wrinkled and tiny brown curls had escaped from her tight bun.

“I'm fine, but you look tired.”

“All I need is sleep. You're my last stop before heading home.” The very proper doctor looked at the big man sleeping in the recliner. “This yours? You do know we don't allow bears in the hospital.”

Lizzie laughed. “He's not mine, but last night I dreamed I was hibernating in a cave, all cuddled up with one of the bears. It was delightful.”

Both women giggled as Dr. Turner moved to Lizzie's side and began examining her stitches. When she turned on the light the snoring stopped, but the bear of a man looked to be still asleep.

“If he wakes, he'll have to leave,” she said.

Lizzie shook her head. “He says he's staying. Besides, he's already seen my stitches.” When she looked over at McCall, his sleepy brown eyes were staring back at her, but he didn't move. She saw something she'd never seen in a man's eyes before, caring.

“You're fine. No sign of infection.” Dr. Turner closed the chart. “But this time go home and take it easy for a few days. No running with the bulls. Stay in bed or on the couch and have one of your cousins deliver meals.”

Lizzie nodded. “I promise. Aunt Fat has already called and plans to bring over a few meals if the road to my house isn't too muddy.”

Dr. Turner turned out the overhead light. “Try to get some sleep. It'll be another two hours before they get around to checking you out of here.”

Lizzie waited for her to leave, then tiptoed over to the recliner. On the way, she noticed the vet's old sweater and put it on to cover the gap in her hospital gown. It felt grand and almost went to her knees. “McCall.” She poked his shoulder. “I want to sleep in the cave with my bear. Would you mind?”

He opened his arms and she slowly moved into the chair with him. To her surprise, he kissed the top of her head. “I shouldn't have taken you with me yesterday. I shouldn't have believed you when you said all was fine. I shouldn't have . . .”

She rubbed the rough line of his jaw, wondering why all the single women in town didn't see how handsome he was. “If you ask me, you did everything right yesterday. You made me laugh all day, and you worried about me the minute you thought I was hurt.”

When he would have argued, she touched his lips, surprised at how soft they were next to his whiskers. “
Shhhh,
bear. I just want to sleep inside my perfect dream for a while.”

He held her a bit tighter and didn't say another word.

Two hours later when they left the hospital, he still wasn't talking, but his gentle touch never left her. He loaded her in his old pickup and drove to the clinic, then carried her through the mud to her house. The rain of the night before had left her dirt road a river. After she changed into clean pajamas and put his old sweater back on as her robe, she found him in her kitchen cooking breakfast.

“I thought you'd be gone. I know you've got a full day of work waiting.” She'd seen his calendar yesterday and knew he was already late for his first call.

“You want me to go?” he asked without looking up.

“No.” The one word was the most honest thing she'd ever said.

He glanced at her then and smiled. “You planning to give me back that sweater?”

“I'm thinking no.”

“I'm thinking I like looking at you wearing it.”

She moved a foot closer. “It makes me feel like you're hugging me, even when you're not around.”

“Then that's a reason to keep it, partner. If you're up for it, I think we'd better talk. I got some things I have to say, and I might as well say them before you change your mind and push me out the door.” His words sounded rehearsed, as if he'd been waiting for a chance to say them.

Lizzie sat at the little kitchen table and waited. He put a plate of burned eggs and bacon on the table, folded into the extra chair, then stood up to get the toast. He sat down again, bounced up to get the jelly. Before he finished spreading jelly, he started to jump up again.

She put her hand on his shoulder. “Stop.”

“But I forgot the napkins.” He looked like a man solving world peace, not setting the table.

She pulled the tea towel from his shoulder and placed it between them. “We'll share this. Tell me what you have to tell me.”

He nodded and they both forgot about the food.

His words were low at first. “I know most folks think my wife is dead and I never have said she wasn't, but she's alive. Or at least she was the last time I saw her four years ago. She just left me one day like it was no big deal. Like tossing away the life we planned was easy.”

“You loved her deeply?” Lizzie asked.

He shook his head. “That's just it. I thought I did. I thought I'd die without her, but I didn't. I think her simply saying that she didn't want me hurt more than her leaving. She just didn't want
me
.

“I told her I'd change, but she shook her head and said, ‘Into what?' She said people are what they are. A person has to take another like they are or leave.”

Lizzie fought to keep from touching him. She'd known a lifetime of not being wanted; somehow knowing that someone else had also felt such pain cut hers in half.

He met her stare. “I thought I loved her. I thought we'd grow old together, but all I felt was relief when she walked away. I tried to remember when we were happy, when I'd measured up, when she'd loved me, but it was hard. I never lived up to her plans, and I don't remember her saying she loved me after our honeymoon. We were always trying to make the marriage work when we didn't fit with each other after all.”

“What happened to her?”

“She divorced me and married our next-door neighbor four months later. I didn't fight over a thing she wanted. Turned out she wanted everything we had, except me. She wanted to stay at her job, live in the same town, even keep the same friends. So that left me with moving on.”

Lizzie couldn't understand why his wife left him. How could a woman not love a man who loved animals as much as Doc did? “Why are you telling me this, McCall?” It crossed her mind that he was about to say he didn't want her now, so he knew how his wife must have felt about him.

Only McCall just stood. “I wanted you to know how it is with me. I'm not much with conversation and I've never been the life of any party. I'm working my way from broke to poor, but I'm honest. You're way out of my league, but I'm good with animals and you seem to like them, too.”

“Are you saying you'd like to date me?” She wasn't sure if he was trying to tell her he didn't want to see her again or he wanted to make more of the friendship they had.

He laughed without smiling. “I'm no good with dating. Don't have the time or energy after I work twelve hours a day. I was thinking more something like we get married, or move in together if I'm rushing you. After four years in the same little town living next to each other, we probably know one another pretty well.”

This was the strangest proposal she'd ever heard of. She couldn't tell if McCall was trying to talk her out of it while still asking, or if he was simply so shy he couldn't line up the words right.

“What are you saying?” she asked again.

He stood and moved to the door. “I'm making a mess of this whole thing. We should have just eaten the breakfast. That's another thing I can't do. I can't cook. Half the time the dogs won't even eat my cooking.”

Lizzie noticed Sam had jumped on the doc's chair, but didn't look interested in sampling their breakfast.

“What do you want, McCall?” she said again, needing to know what he was thinking.

“I'm saying I had more fun yesterday than I've ever had. I liked being with you and holding you and worrying about you. I want to hold you every night while we watch a movie, and I want to take care of you when you're hurt. You're a kind person, Lizzie. Your whole family loves you. I can tell by the way they talk about you. They say you're a terrible driver, but you've got a heart as big as Texas.” He reached for the door and opened it. “You think about the possibility of me and you, and if you'd be willing to take a chance on me, I'd be much obliged.”

The door slammed so hard it shook the house. For a moment she just stared at the breakfast as his footsteps thundered across her porch and down her steps. He was running. Storming away from her. Not because he was mad, but because he was afraid she'd turn him down.

Only a fool would turn him down. She had to do something fast.

She rushed to the door, pulled on her boots, and hurried outside, but he was already to the gate of his corral by the time she hit the mud of her yard. Following him didn't seem logical. She needed to think. Someone was trying to kill her. She was wounded. A man had just asked her to marry him and she didn't even know his first name.

Tugging her feet from the mud-covered boots, she ran barefooted toward him.

He turned to close the gate and saw her a moment before she heard an explosion behind her. The rush of air on her back seemed to push her forward as the sound rumbled in her ears like a freight train. Instinct took over, and she covered her head and began to crumble a moment before McCall reached her.

He lifted her and held her close against him. “Don't look back,” he ordered, holding the back of her head with one hand, and carried her to the porch of his clinic.

The smell of smoke filled the air. Lizzie didn't move. Something had happened. Something bad.

He set her down just inside his place. “Call 911, then lock the doors and stay inside until I get back.”

His hard tone left no room for questions. She did exactly as he said as the smell of fire polluted the morning air. She couldn't look back, wouldn't look back. If she didn't see what had happened behind her, it wasn't real.

She darted to the old phone between the back door and the kitchen window. Her fingers jabbed at the keys—911, 911.

When the Harmony sheriff's dispatch answered on the third ring, a man's voice simply reported, “We're on our way, Doc,” before she said a word.

“Who is?” Lizzie's voice and hands were shaking.

“Everyone. Fire department. Sheriff. Ambulance and some marshal who said she wanted in the loop about anything that happened. The minute the clinic number came up, I hit the speed dial. They're all being linked in as we speak. Who may I ask is reporting this call?”

“I'm Lizzie Matheson. I live . . .”

“I know where you live. Your home and cell number are on the emergency list, staring right at me.”

“There's been an explosion near my house.” Leaning over to the kitchen window, she corrected, “In my house.”

“Is anyone hurt?”

“I don't think so.” She dropped the phone. Her cats! Sam and Molly were inside.

Lizzie was off the porch and halfway to the corral gate when she spotted McCall coming around the side of her house with a cat in each arm. Neither Sam nor Molly was moving.

As she ran closer, McCall looked up. The sound of sirens filled the air, almost drowning out McCall's shouts for her to get back inside.

“They're alive,” he yelled, “but barely. Another minute and the smoke would have killed them.” He handed her Sam, and they ran into his clinic.

“Tell me what to do,” she pleaded and he seemed to understand.

As he worked clearing the animals' lungs of smoke, he kept talking, telling her how to hold them, how to calm them. His voice kept her from crying and his orders kept her busy. After a few minutes both cats were breathing on their own, and Lizzie felt as if she were taking her first deep breath since the explosion.

“Thank you,” she whispered to McCall.

“I'm afraid I didn't save anything else. I knew you were safe, and I know how much these two worthless cats mean to you.” He grinned and she knew he was kidding her. “They were probably watching the house burn. Cats are no good at protecting a house.”

She kissed his cheek. “You know, Doc, much as you protest, I think you're really a cat person.”