Every Breath She Takes (29 page)

After what seemed like forever, a nurse approached, her rubber-soled shoes squeaking rhythmically. “Callum Taggart?” she said, mispronouncing it “Cawl-lum.”

Cal shot to his feet. “Here.”

Lauren watched the nurse’s gaze slide over Cal. She touched her hair in a gesture Lauren was sure was completely unconscious.

“Your father is doing just fine, Mr. Taggart.”

“Thank God.”

“The doctor would like to talk to you, though.”

“Can Lauren come too?”

The nurse glanced at Lauren. “You’re family?”

Lauren thought she detected more than professional interest on the other woman’s part in hearing her answer. “No.”

“Dr. Townsend is a medical professional,” Cal said without missing a beat. “I’d like her to be there.”

“Of course.” Lauren blushed when the nurse looked at her with new deference. “This way, Mr. Taggart, Dr. Townsend.”

They followed her to a small examination room at the end of a long hallway, where they found Zane reclined on a bed. He looked much better despite the alarming number of electrodes and wires snaking out from under his hospital gown. Electrodes that a short, white-coated doctor was in the process of removing.

Zane’s color was much improved, she noted, but his gray eyes flashed his displeasure at finding himself in such a vulnerable position. A smile curved her lips.
Like father, like son.

It struck her again how much he looked like Cal. For an instant she saw him not as Cal’s father but as a man, splendidly virile despite the silver in his hair and the softening jaw.

What would happen if Cal ever saw his father as another man? Maybe their relationship was in a state of arrested development, Zane the disapproving parent and Cal the rebellious child. Of course, it wasn’t that simple, she realized. Zane had destroyed the thing that Cal loved beyond all else.

Cal cleared his throat. “How’s the ticker?”

“Embarrassingly sound,” Zane growled, tugging the johnny shirt more modestly around him.

The doctor looked up. “You must be the son. Cal, is it?”

“Yup.”

“Dan Matchett.” He pushed the portable monitor clear. “And this is your…?”

“Friend,” Cal supplied. “What’s he mean, sound? His heart’s okay?”

“Whoa, I’m still here.” The elder Taggart’s voice was testy. “My heart’s fine, thank you, and so are my wits.”

Cal studied his father with narrowed eyes, then turned back to the doctor. “That true?”

Zane made a strangled noise.

“Insofar as we can tell, yes, his heart’s fine. Certainly he hasn’t had an infarction and no irregular rhythms.”

“He means I ain’t had no heart attack, and it’s ticking over like a Timex.”

“But?” Cal didn’t take his eyes off the doctor. “There must be something. I saw him, Doc. He was in serious pain.”

“That’s what we need to find out. It could be as simple as a hiatal hernia giving him some gastric reflux.”

“Indigestion.” Zane grunted in disgust. “You hear that? You stuffed me into an ambulance for
heartburn
.”

Again Cal ignored his father. “Or as serious as…?”

“Could be an ulcer.”

“Is that a big deal?”

“It can be. Which is why I’d like to do some tests. I could set something up early next week.”

“What’s wrong with now?” Cal asked.

“We’re a small facility, Mr. Taggart. Our capacity for testing on the weekends is limited, so we reserve it for inpatients. As you can see, we don’t really have any reason to admit your father.”

“See?” Zane sat up, suddenly cheerful. “By the way, Doc, I’m afraid I’ll be long gone by next week, but I’ll get that looked into.” He swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

“Set the tests up,” Cal said. “He’ll be here.”

Zane spluttered. “I’m
still
here and I can speak for myself. And I say I’ll be gone next week.”

“Gone where?” Cal asked.

Zane bristled. “Wherever I please. I don’t expect I’ll have any trouble landing a job.”

“I’m sure you won’t. But you’re not going anywhere until they check out your innards.” Cal fixed his father with a glower. “I know how it is hiring yourself out. I did my share of that before the rodeo paid off. You wind up going from pillar to post, taking jobs when and where you can find them. You’d never stay put long enough to get tests done.”

“So I’m supposed to hang around here and do exactly what?”

“You can work for me.”

Lauren’s eyes widened in surprise. Judging by Cal’s expression, she’d bet he’d surprised himself too.

Zane scowled. “I didn’t come here looking for charity.”

“Good, cuz you’d be sucking on the wrong teat for that.” Cal beetled his brows fiercely, and Lauren had to cough to cover a laugh. They were so alike. “You’ll stay until you have a clean bill of health,” he said. “That’s the only condition on which I’ll accept your fat little atonement check. You can work if you want to or kick back and rest. Makes no difference.”

Zane drew breath in through clenched teeth. “You’re a mean-spirited man. Anybody ever tell you that?”

“Yeah, well, I learned from a master.”

“Hell.” The older man lifted his left hand and dragged the back of his thumb across his eyebrow. Lauren goggled at the familiar gesture. “Okay, you got a deal. I’m your flunky until Doc here can get the tests done.”

“Good,” said Cal.

“Good,” said Zane.

Really good
, thought Lauren.

“This one needs to see the farrier, I think.”

Cal lowered the bay’s hind foot he’d just finished dressing. Giving the filly a scratch on the rump, he stepped around her to peer into the next stall where Lauren crouched next to a wiry little mustang. “That left front hoof again?”

“Vertical shear about an inch to the outside of the toe.”

“Yeah, it’s been a devil to fix. Said he’d try a composite repair next time, maybe cover it with Kevlar.”

She released the gelding’s foot and stood. “He might want to try drilling holes in the wall on either side and suturing it first for more stability.”

Cal nodded. “I’ll suggest that.”

They’d worked companionably for the last hour, checking each of the animals over and dressing hooves.

Cal knew he should be in his office. He really should be thinking about animal unit months and tinkering with the grazing plan. Unfortunately he didn’t have the headspace for it.

His life was a mess, and to top it off, he’d just taken his father onto the payroll and sent Delia to town to deposit that thirty-thousand-dollar check. His brain froze up when he thought
about that, which is why he was out here in the cool, dark barn, rubbing pine tar into horses’ hooves.

The door from the tack room banged shut and he glanced up to see Marlena approaching. Great. Feeling hunted, he elbowed his way into the roan stallion’s box. “Hide me, Blue,” he muttered.

Marlena stopped unerringly outside the roan’s stall. “Ugh, pine tar. You’d think they could come up with something better.”

Cal didn’t look up. “Hundred percent hydration rate to the hoof, and it’s generic. Pretty hard to beat.”

“I’m bored.”

He bit back a sigh. “Go play with Brady.”

She lifted the hair off her neck with a flip of her hand. “I can’t. He’s mad at me.”

This time he rolled her a sideways look. “Whatever for?”

She had the grace to color. “Lend me the Blazer.”

“No.” He bent to examine the roan’s right front hoof.

“The old Ford then.”

“You’re not going into Calgary.”

A pause. “You can’t keep me here, Cal.”

He snorted. “Who says I want to?”

“Then give me a vehicle, dammit!”

He straightened, abandoning hope she would go away and leave him in peace. “Your little loan shark problem disappear overnight? Some benefactor paid him back for you maybe?”

Her beautiful eyes flashed. “No.”

“I see. Then you think he’s forgiven your default in the whole three weeks you’ve been here?”

“No, but…”

“Then don’t go showing your face in town. You want to hide out here, fine, but you’re not going to run back and forth to Calgary. I’ve got enough to worry about without you leading some thug to my doorstep. If you leave now, you don’t come back.”

“You are such a bastard.”

Cal disregarded the insult. The sheen in her eyes told him she was very close to the edge, and he hadn’t finished with her yet. “One more thing. You need to decide what you’re going to do about Brady. If you’re done with him, stay clear of him. And if you’re not, for God’s sake, stay away from Harvey McLeod. Now that you know about the bad blood between those two, there ain’t no reason to go stirring the pot.”

Marlena drew her breath in on a hiss. “You smug, superior sonofabitch! It must be nice being so damned perfect.”

On that note, she marched out. Perfect? Him? That was rich. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d put a foot
right
.

Lauren emerged from Sarge’s stall to stand outside Blue’s. He took one look at her and sighed. She had that look again.

“What?” he demanded.

“I’m not being critical.”

He arched a brow, searching her face with narrowed eyes. “No? You look like you want to say something.”

She held his gaze for just a split second before glancing down at her hands, but it was long enough for him to glimpse indecision. Not your garden variety
should-I-tell-him-his-judgment-sucks-or-keep-my-mouth-shut
indecision, either. This was great big indecision. Mixed, he thought, with a little fear.

“Okay, spill it.”

The faintest blush touched her cheekbones, but she lifted her head and looked him straight in the eyes.

“I was thinking maybe Marlena
would
be better off somewhere else. Maybe you should just give her a vehicle and some money and send her off somewhere.”

“Send her away?” His mind staggered under the thought, a thought he found difficult to attribute to Lauren. “Geez, Marlena’s not my favorite person either, but there are people out there with a vested interest in messing her up. She defaulted on a debt and they aren’t about to turn the other cheek.”

“I know. It’s just—”

“Okay, they probably wouldn’t whack her over ten grand, but they can’t afford to let her go scot-free either.” Lauren really thought he should cut Marlena loose? “That’s the deal—you pay one way or another.”

“She could go somewhere quiet, stay low…”

“What’s wrong with right here?” He watched her face carefully. “It doesn’t get much quieter than this, especially now with the guests gone. If we try to put her into total cold storage, she’d be back in Calgary inside a week.”

“There
must
be a safer place for her.”

He snorted. “Yeah, it’s called police protective custody, but I don’t think they grant that for loan defaulters. Not that she’d go along with it anyway.” He let himself out of the stall to move closer to her. “I don’t get why you think she’s at special risk here. She used her maiden name for the loan, so they’re not likely to track her down. And even if they did, they’d have to get through me and the boys first. We can protect her here.”

She bit her lip. “I’m not sure we can.”

A sudden thought struck him. Maybe she just wanted to get Marlena out of the way? But why? Could she be jealous of the idea of him and Marlena?

No
. He shook his head to clear it.
No way.
Lauren probably understood better than anyone how utterly uninterested he was in resuming that relationship.

What other reason could she have for wanting Marlena out of the picture? Could Lauren be interested in Brady?

No
. Again the answer came with absolute certainty. Not that he had any illusions that she loved him, but there was no doubt she wanted the hell out of him. No one could make love like that while fantasizing about someone else.

Which brought him back to the protection issue. “I don’t understand why you think she’d be safer somewhere else. You know something I don’t?”

She drew a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “It’s not so much the thugs I’m worried about,” she said at last. “It’s the thing with Brady and Harvey that scares me.”

Of course. Damn, he must really be tired. She’d talked about it before. “This is about that premonition, isn’t it?”

She clasped her arms around her chest. “It’s kind of a recurring thing.”

This time when he looked into her eyes, it gave him a jolt. Shit, she really was scared.

“Cal, I have a bad, bad feeling about this.”

Despite the anxiety in her eyes, he felt himself relax. Just a bad feeling, a sense of impending doom. Now that was familiar territory. Lord knew he’d had his share of bad feelings over Marlena. Lauren was scared now, but she’d shake it off.

“Well, that makes two of us, sweetheart. Anyone can see Marlena’s a menace to herself.” He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead, then cupped her face. “But don’t you see? It really wouldn’t matter where she went. She carries trouble with her. At least we can protect her here.”

She lowered her lashes. “You’re right.”

Her acquiescence should have pleased him, but he couldn’t completely shake the unease that had taken root when he’d seen that fear in her face. He tipped her chin up with his finger and smiled into her eyes. “She’ll be all right. You’ll see. Hey, nothing came of it the last time you had a bad feeling, right?”