Every Breath She Takes (26 page)

“Not as many as I’ll be butchering when your herd falls to me at auction. When the bank forecloses on this circus, I’ll—”

Without thought, Cal shot a hand out like a striking rattlesnake to grab Harvey’s shirtfront. “That’s it, McLeod.” He yanked the taller man close. “Get the hell off my land and stay off. You’re not welcome here.” He released Harvey with a shove that sent him staggering. “Go on! Git!”

Harvey stumbled a few steps, then recovered his balance, tugged his twisted shirt back down.

Marlena rushed to Harvey, laying hands on him as though to steady him, but he shook her off.

“Enjoy it while you can,” he spat, throwing the paper in the dust. “The tables’ll be turned soon enough, and it’ll be me kicking
your
skinny ass off
my
land.”

With that, he stormed over to his truck. Marlena hurried after him, but he shut the door on her. Starting the truck, he reversed it in a hail of gravel and sped off down the long driveway to the road.

Beside him, Lauren let out a shaky breath as they watched the truck disappear in a trail of dust.

“Well, that went well, don’t you think?” she said.

Cal’s laugh came out as a hollow bark. “Oh, yeah,
real
well.” He turned back toward his group of guests, many of whom looked shell-shocked. Some met his gaze with frank concern, but other gazes slid away. The sliders he knew would check out immediately; the others, he might be able to keep.

He took a deep breath. “Okay, here’s the situation. We
did
have a steer die forty-eight hours ago, way over yonder, past that ridge you can see in the distance.” Heads swiveled to contemplate the horizon toward which he pointed. “Like I told Mr. McLeod, we don’t have a diagnosis yet to say yea or nay whether it’s anthrax. No more cattle have died, though, and that’s a real good sign. We expect to hear for sure within the next twelve hours, but if you prefer not to stay under the circumstances, your money will be refunded.”

Dr. Rinehart, the physician who’d checked Cal over earlier, stepped forward. “For what it’s worth, I’ve never seen or even heard of a case of anthrax in my whole career. I suspect he’s right that it’s not a big risk for us.”

The investment broker cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Doc, but you’re from back east, right? Couldn’t it be that anthrax is just not endemic there like it is here?”

The doctor rubbed his chin. “I honestly don’t know, Neil. You could be right,” he conceded, giving Cal a shrug and a look as though to say
I tried
.

Another man spoke from Cal’s left. “Well, we’ll be leaving.” He shrugged apologetically. “I’ve got a family to think about. We can’t stay with this thing looming.” Dale Travers, a lawyer, Cal recalled with a sinking sensation.

He scanned the group, saw the way other parents exchanged worried glances.

Cal nodded curtly, then turned to Jim. “Would you explain the situation to Delia? Tell her to refund Mr. Travers’s money and anyone else’s who wants to leave.” Jamming his hat down on his head, he strode toward the corral. “Spider, Brady,” he called. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

A man’s back could say so much.

Lauren’s throat ached as she watched Cal. She’d seen the stiffness creep into that spot between his shoulder blades, noted the way he pulled his shoulders back as the audience dwindled to four spectators—Dr. Rinehart, his wife, Marlena, and Lauren. Well, five if you counted Brady, but he was clear around the other side of the corral with Seth and the other cowhands.

Cal backed his horse behind the barrier for the last run, and the chestnut danced skittishly. Lauren could practically feel the normally steady mare’s agitation, which no doubt sprang from Cal’s own anxiety. This time Spider was heading and Cal was heeling. When the steer was released, Spider broke after it, roping it neatly around both horns. Cal’s rope snaked out, but snagged only one of the animal’s back hoofs. Sienna danced backward to pull the rope taut and the steer went down, but it wasn’t clean.
Cal looked grim as Jim announced the time into the PA, complete with a five-second penalty for failing to rope both back feet.

“That’s our show, folks,” Jim said. “Thanks for watching.”

As the men cleared the steers out, Marlena turned abruptly and headed to the house. Lauren didn’t know whether or not to be grateful that there’d be no confrontation between Marlena and Brady tonight, at least not in public. If it
were
public, she might be better able to gauge Brady’s emotion. On the other hand, Cal didn’t need another scene on top of everything else.

Lauren glanced at the horizon. At least she could relax on one score. Nothing was going to happen to Marlena tonight—the sun was already sinking, staining the sky a deep magenta.

From the corner of her eye, she caught a movement and turned toward it. Cal. Shoving his stiff new gloves into his pocket, he strode toward her. Her lungs felt overfull as she watched him, yet her chest grew tight. If she hadn’t already admitted to herself that she loved him, she’d have known it in this moment. Because that’s what it was to love—to feel their pain like your pain.

Cal stopped in front of them and removed his hat, exposing that close-cut hair that stood up in a most uncowboylike way. “Thanks for staying, Doc, Mrs. Rinehart.”

“Don’t take any of this personally.” Dr. Rinehart clapped a hand on Cal’s back, and Cal tensed. “I’ve seen it before. One case of meningitis and folks won’t let their kids go to school. Gut-level fear like that is hard to combat with mere reason.”

“I understand.” Cal shrugged out from under the doctor’s sympathetic arm. “And I appreciate your staying. I really do. In fact, tonight’s on me.”

The older man looked surprised and a little taken aback at the suggestion. “We couldn’t. You just lost all your guests—”

“I insist,” Cal said, clamping his hat to his hip. “As a thank-you for your efforts to educate the others.”

“But—”

“Really.” He ground his hat against his hip. “I insist.”

Lauren could read the signs even if Dr. Rinehart couldn’t. “I think this is one argument you’re destined to lose, Dr. Rinehart. Why not just say ‘Thank you, Cal’ and make him happy?”

“Okay. Thanks, Cal.” Dr. Rinehart shifted uncertainly, and his wife looked even more uncomfortable. “Er, well, think we’ll head back to the cabin now. I think there’s a ball game on.”

“What’d you do that for?” she asked when the Rineharts were out of earshot. “That’s revenue you can ill afford to pass up.”

Ignoring her comment, he lifted his right hand and dragged a thumb across his eyebrow from the inner edge to the temple. The gesture, so familiar now, caught at her heart.

“See how I blew that last steer? Greenhorn mistake.” He dropped his arm to his side. “Fitting end to the side show, eh?”

“I’m so sorry, Cal.”

Nervously she twisted the newspaper she’d rescued from the dirt. The motion attracted his attention.

“Let me see that.”

Wordlessly she handed him the paper. He unrolled it, his face hardening as he read Bruce Dysan’s comments. He thrust the paper back at her. “If he wasn’t going to keep his mouth shut, he should have said so. I’d have done things differently.”

“Bruce Dysan didn’t leak the story.”

The tamped-down anger she’d sensed in him flared. “You coulda fooled me. They seem to quote him pretty extensively.”

“I slipped back to my cabin and called him, vet to vet. He says the journalist who phoned him had all the details. In light of what they already knew, he didn’t think it prudent to deny he was investigating a possible case.”

Cal massaged his temple as though to quiet the pulse she could see beating there. He probably had the mother of all headaches. His anger seemed to ebb, leaving him looking bleak. She wanted to pull his head down, pillow it on her breasts.

“Then the leak had to have come from one of my men.”

She met his gaze. “It might have been the backhoe operator, but that seems contrary to his best interest. An outbreak could mean repeat business, but not if he’s feeding the press.”

“One of my guys,” he reiterated dully.

“I’m sorry. I wish I could think—” Suddenly she thought about that moment two days ago, standing by the dead steer with Bruce Dysan while Cal opened the gate for the backhoe. She remembered wondering how a man’s luck could go so bad and asking Dysan to take extra samples…She wished to God the results would come back. If it was anthrax, well, anthrax happened. As that ass-hat lawyer had pointed out, it was endemic here. But if it were something else…She had to tell Cal.

“I saw Brady and Harvey talking just before that last ride.”

What?
Cal’s words ripped Lauren out of her line of thought. “You think Brady might have told his father…I mean Harvey? But why? I mean, if it’s as bad between them as you say, why would Brady volunteer anything?” She tried to search his eyes, but he appeared to be inspecting his hat.

“Maybe he thought he could barter information for approval.” He shrugged.

“Boy, I really hope that’s not the case. Because if Brady
did
betray your confidence in a bid to win Harvey’s affection back, Harvey didn’t reward him very well.” She replayed in her mind the scene with Marlena getting out of Harvey’s truck, Harvey kissing her while Brady looked on…Surely if Harvey had double-crossed him like that, Brady would have done more than just look daggers at him and Marlena. “No.” Lauren shook her head. “I don’t think it was Brady.”

“Don’t be too quick to rule it out,” Cal said. “I know Harvey rejected him, but Brady spent most of his life thinking Harvey was his dad. Hell, he
was
his father for all those years, took him to five a.m. hockey practices in frigid rinks, watched his games, sent him to hockey school. He wasn’t just one of those rich dads who paid the bills and figured his responsibility ended there.
He was really involved in Brady’s life. Well, as much as a rich, busy CEO is probably likely to be. Then the whole paternity thing came up…” Cal sighed. “I guess the need to please a parent can be pretty powerful when you’re young, and Brady’s just a kid.”

Pretty powerful at any age,
she thought as she studied the shadow of his downswept lashes against his face. Then he looked up and she found herself looking into his eyes. She’d braced herself to see anger, hurt, dejection, but when he lifted his lids, she might as well have been gazing at the gray Atlantic.

“I see my father bailed out with the rest of them. Guess seeing his son screw up so many things simultaneously must have made him rethink his little holiday.”

She blinked in surprise. “Oh, I’m sure he hasn’t left.”

Cal smiled, a grim, self-deprecating twist of his lips. “He’s gone, all right.” He angled his head in the direction of the parking area. “His truck was the first one out.”

“I’m sorry.” Lauren looked at him with troubled eyes.

“I’m not.” His response was immediate and unequivocal. “I didn’t ask him to come here and I’m not sorry to see him go. I don’t know why the hell he came here to begin with.”

Could he really shrug off his father’s unexpected appearance and hasty departure? She tried to put herself in his shoes. Tried and failed. As society-conscious as her parents could be, she knew they’d be there for her when the chips were down.

Cal didn’t have that familial support. In fact, he didn’t have a support network at all, she realized. At least not in
his
mind. He would succeed or fail on his own. To cultivate a support network would imply that he had emotional needs, and Lauren knew he would die before admitting to any such thing.

“Cal, what are you going to do?”

“Have a shower, a belt of ten-year-old whiskey, and a cigarette, in that order.”

“But what then?”

His smile held a world of self-mockery. “Then I expect I’ll repeat steps two and three, as often as necessary.”

“No, I mean tomorrow and the next day.”

His smile faded. “I don’t know. If we have any more animals go down, that’ll dictate what I do for the next weeks.”

“And if you don’t have an anthrax outbreak on your hands?”

“Bring in that second crop of hay, I guess, then gather the yearlings to sell them off.
If
I can find a buyer, that is.”

Her gaze flew to his eyes. “You make it sound as though you’ll be out there with your men.”

“I will.”

“What about your guests?”

“What guests?” He arched an eyebrow. “The Rineharts?” He grimaced. “I imagine my bookings are melting like hailstones on August asphalt. And since I can’t run this kind of operation for so few guests, I’ll have to refund their money and send them on their way. Put my back into some real work for a change.”

Close the guest ranch?
Lauren’s face froze.

He talked on about pregnancy-checking cows, selling dry heifers, and weaning calves, but Lauren didn’t really process it. She was too busy realizing he was going to send
her
away too.

Her heart cramped. Pack up and leave? She wasn’t ready.

And what about Marlena? Lauren sucked in a breath.
How could she have forgotten Marlena?
That was her whole purpose for being here. If she left, who would prevent Marlena from getting her beautiful, reckless, self-absorbed neck wrung?

“You’re evicting me?”

He looked up at her, then his gaze slid away. “Maybe it’s for the best. You have to get back to your practice sometime.”

“No!” The word was wrenched out of her.

His head came up again, gray eyes really looking at her. Looking deep. She felt open and naked and vulnerable, especially after he’d as much as told her to leave.

She lifted her chin. “What I mean is I’m not ready to go back yet. I paid for a ranch vacation, and that’s what I want.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t think I can provide it. If the bottom falls out like I think it will, I’ll have to cancel the liability insurance.” He dipped his head again, angling his face away. “Without insurance, I can’t run a guest program.”

“So hire me.”

That brought his head back around.
“What?”