Regan's Pride (8 page)

He smiled gently at her. “Coreen, I've been gored before,” he began. “I know what to do.”

Her jaw set. “I'm taking you to the doctor, Ted, you might as well stop arguing because I'll call an ambulance if you don't.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but the paleness of her complexion and the wild look in her eyes stopped him. It touched him deeply that she was that concerned. And he liked the new show of spirit. She'd been subdued for so long now that he'd despaired of her strength ever returning.

“All right, Corrie,” he said, using the familiar nickname for the first time since she'd been here.

She didn't notice. She was terrified that he was going to bleed to death. If only Sandy or Mrs. Bird was here! She had no one to help her.

Ted dug out his truck keys and handed them to her. “Can you handle it? It's a long bed.”

“Yes, I can drive,” she muttered, herding him toward the big red-and-white truck. “And I won't back it into a barn or a ditch.”

He chuckled. “Okay.”

For a man who was bleeding to death, he certainly was cheerful! She got him into the truck and climbed in under the wheel, demanding the name and address of his doctor.

She didn't falter all the way to town. Her eyes kept shifting worriedly to the soaked towel around his forearm, but he was amazingly unconcerned. Just as well, she thought; she was frightened enough for both of them.

At the doctor's office, she led him inside and gave his name to the receptionist, who knew Ted and smothered a grin at the sight of him being led around by this small, determined woman.

But when she noticed the way he was bleeding, she called the nurse and got them right into an examination room. Dr. Lou Blakely came in, wearing a white coat and a grin on her pretty face.

“You're Dr. Lou Blakely?” Coreen asked.

The willowy blond woman chuckled as she began to examine Ted's wound. “Lou is short for Louise,” she explained. “What happened to you, Ted?”

“A bad-tempered bull. She wouldn't rest until she dragged me here,” he muttered good-naturedly, nodding toward Coreen.

“She did the right thing,” Lou said, frowning. “You'll need stitches. How about your tetanus booster?”

“Current,” he said. “Barely.”

“You'll need another. Betty!” she called to her nurse. “Bring some sutures and iodine and a tetanus hypodermic, will you, while I check on Mr. Bailey in room three?”

“Right away” came the reply.

“I'll be back in a minute,” Lou promised, stepping down the hall.

“You can wait outside if you'd rather not watch,” Ted told Coreen, who was sitting stiffly in a chair by the examination table.

She looked up, her face almost tragic. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “If you want me to…”

He let out a sharp breath. “Corrie!” He held out his good hand and she took it. Her lower lip trembled. “Oh, honey!” he whispered huskily, his eyes glittery with feeling. “Honey, don't cry! I'm all right!”

“It's bleeding so,” she whispered brokenly.

He pulled her head to his chest and pressed it there, overcome by tenderness. Tears in her eyes affected him violently. His hand contracted in her hair. “I'm all right!” he said huskily.

Lou and the nurse entered together and Coreen had to let go of Ted while they worked.

Lou smiled at Coreen. “He's tougher than he looks. Honest.”

Coreen nodded, not trusting her voice.

They finished, finally, and Coreen went out with the nurse, Betty, while Lou gave the tetanus booster to Ted.

“How long have you been married?” Betty asked,
oblivious to the fact that Coreen was wearing Barry's wedding band, not Ted's.

“Oh, I, uh…”

“Not long enough,” Ted replied, sliding an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, baby, I'll take you home. Thanks, Betty.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Regan.”

“You let her think we were married,” Coreen protested when they reached the truck.

“Betty's new here. And explanations take too long.” He paused at the passenger door and looked down at her with quiet, soft eyes. “You're still wearing his wedding band. Why?”

She twisted it on her finger. “I thought if I took it off, you'd think it was one more black mark against me,” she said with resignation.

He caught her hand and wrenched the ring off, glaring at it. He dropped it in the sand and ground it under his heel, staring into Coreen's shocked eyes. “But…”

He bent and put his mouth over hers in a brief, hard kiss. “Drive me home.”

He got into the truck and closed the door. She hesitated, looking down at where the ring had been. But she didn't try to pick it up. Whatever had been, her marriage was a thing of the past. She had to put it out of sight, like the wedding ring that signified it. Was that what Ted had meant with the gesture?

She drove the truck back to the ranch, silent and thoughtful.

When Sandy returned from work, she was astonished at Ted's refusal to see a doctor without prodding.

“You idiot,” she fumed at him over supper. “I try to
save you from lung cancer by hiding your cigarettes and here you go trying to get tetanus! Thank goodness Corrie was here!”

He was watching Coreen. “Yes,” he agreed. “Thank goodness she was.”

Sandy put down her fork and sipped her hot tea. “Ted, have you checked on the apartment for me?” she asked.

He lowered his eyes to his plate and toyed with a bit of steak. “I haven't had time, Sandy. I'll get around to it in a day or so.”

Sandy glanced toward Coreen and rolled her eyes.

“You know very well that Corrie doesn't need to be on her own all day while you work,” Ted said surprisingly. “At least she's properly looked after here.”

“I'm much better,” Coreen protested. “I don't hurt nearly as much when I move around, and I'm not dizzy.”

“You're still in a state of shock, though,” he replied. “You've been through a lot. Too much,” he added shortly.

“He's right,” Sandy agreed. “You aren't really unhappy here, are you, Corrie?”

There was a hesitation. Coreen glanced shyly at Ted. “I like watching the trainer with Topper,” she confessed. “If I move to Victoria, I'd miss that.”

They both smiled. “You'll stay, then,” Ted said.

“Yes, thank you, for now. But I should be able to get a job soon,” Coreen added slowly. “And find a place of my own.”

Ted put down his fork and glared at her. “What's wrong with staying here?”

“But I can't,” she told him. “Ted, I'm not part of the
family, I'm a financial burden you've assumed until I reach twenty-five. You don't have to…”

“Oh, hell, I know I don't have to,” he muttered. “Have you thought about what you're qualified to do? And how much strength it's going to require, working an eight-hour day? And what it will cost, even in Jacobsville, to rent rooms?”

She'd tried not to think about her situation. It showed in her face.

“It's a big house,” he coaxed. “Sandy and I are all alone here. You're company for her, the best friend she has.”

“But…”

“Corrie, just get well,” he said gently. “You've got an allowance from the legacy that will more than take care of your odds and ends until you're completely well. Don't think about tomorrow. There's plenty of time for that.”

“Listen to him, will you?” Sandy said, smiling. “Honestly, I'll go crazy if you leave now.”

“If I'm not in the way,” she faltered.

Everyone knew that meant “yes.” Ted started eating again, and his smile betrayed just a little smugness.

 

The trainer was an elderly man who'd worked with Thoroughbreds all his life. He had a son named Barney who came to visit on weekends, and who noticed Coreen very quickly. He was a sweet-natured man, not terribly educated, but kind. She warmed to Barney quickly and began to spend time with him when he came on the weekends to visit his father.

The problem began when Ted started spending more time at home and noticed the amount of contact Coreen
was having with his trainer's closest relation. He didn't like it, and he stopped it. Coreen missed Barney and asked his father why he hadn't come back.

He told her that Ted had arranged a nice job for his son, and that Barney was over the moon about it. But Coreen wondered if it had been a benevolent gesture on Ted's part or something more. It didn't occur to her that he might be jealous; she simply saw it as one more way he'd found to get at her.

She had to know, so she went looking for him that same morning. She found him in his office, talking on the telephone. She started to back out, but he gestured impatiently for her to come in.

He was giving somebody hell over the telephone. He finished with a curt demand and hung up before the person at the other end of the line had time for any outcry.

“Well?” he demanded, and the leftover anger in his pale eyes made her stand very still.

T
ed saw her apprehension and forced himself to calm down. He leaned back in his swivel chair with his hands behind his head and stared at her patiently. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

She hesitated. “Barney's dad said that you found him a job in Victoria.”

He nodded slowly, and began to look more unapproachable. His silver hair caught the light and glittered like metal. “So?”

She didn't know how to answer that. She wanted to ask if he'd sent Barney away deliberately because she was spending so much time with him, but that might sound as if she were accusing him of being jealous. Heaven knew, she didn't think that was the reason!

“Go ahead,” he invited.

Her eyebrows arched. “Go ahead and do what?”

“Ask me if I did it to keep him away from here.”

She folded her hands in front of her. “Did you?” she asked.

His pale eyes in one glance took in her body in its pale pink short-sleeved knit top and close-fitting jeans. She was gaining a little weight, and she looked pretty. “What?” he murmured absently, distracted.

“I asked if you sent Barney away because he was spending so much time with me.”

His eyes narrowed and grew cold as they levered back up to meet hers. “As a matter of fact, I did.”

Her lips parted on an expelled breath. “Oh. I see.”

“Do you?” he replied. He leaned forward suddenly and got to his feet. “You might remember that I hired his father, not him.”

“You don't have to justify yourself,” she said in a subdued tone as she turned away. Bitter memories intruded on the present, and her voice was almost absent as she murmured, “Anything that I like has to go, doesn't it, even people? Barry once had a dog shot because I stroked it—”

She was stopped in midsentence by the steely lean hand that caught her arm and spun her around. She gasped at the suddenness of the action. Nor did he let her go when he had her standing stock-still.

“I didn't have the damned man shot, I got him a good job,” he said through his teeth, and his pale eyes were flashing dangerously at her. “I do nothing to deliberately hurt you! Stop tarring me with the same brush you used on my cousin.”

His anger was intimidating. He was like a summer storm in anger, all flashing fury. But she remembered when she'd thrown the flour at him and he hadn't re
taliated. He could control his temper. Barry had never tried.

His other hand caught her by the waist, lightly, and held her when she would have pulled back. His gaze was curious now, speculative.

“Sandy says you're afraid of me,” he asked bluntly. “Are you?”

She lowered her eyes to his chest, and she watched its regular rise and fall. “You're…volatile.”

“I've always been volatile,” he returned. “Hot tempers run in my family. But I've told you before that I don't attack women.”

“I know that. Not even when you're drowned in flour,” she added with a faint smile.

He tilted her face up to his, and she expected to find humor in his eyes. But she didn't. He was solemn, searching her wan face with intent curiosity.

“You were telling Sandy that Barry taunted you with me…”

She pushed at him. “Please, don't!”

“No, Coreen, I'm not trying to embarrass you,” he said gently. He stilled her uncoordinated movements. “Listen, he was playing both ends against the middle. He told me that I was the reason you couldn't bear for him to touch you.”

“That wasn't true.” She couldn't look at him. “I never felt anything with him, physically, except fear and pain. It had nothing to do with you.”

“It made me feel guilty all the same,” he returned abruptly. “When Barry was young, he was my shadow. He always seemed to look on me as a father figure after his own father died.”

“He envied you,” she replied. “You were everything
he wanted to be, and never could. He…said once that he wanted me because he thought you did. It was like a contest for him, taking something you prized away from you.” She laughed bitterly. “Funny, isn't it? He married me and then found out that you didn't want me at all.”

“And made you pay for it?”

She shivered. “I don't want to talk about it, Ted.”

He drew in an angry breath, staring over her head toward the wall. Her comment about the dog Barry had ordered shot gave him even more unwanted insight into what her married life had been like. He hated what he was seeing.

“It's all over now,” she said after a minute. His nearness was disturbing to her. She drew back from him and he let her go, but his eyes still held her, filled with turmoil, with emotions she couldn't read.

“Did Sandy ever tell you about our father and mother?” he asked hesitantly.

She nodded. “Many times.”

He ran a lean hand through his silver hair. “The age difference between them destroyed their marriage. Eventually he couldn't keep up with her in the social whirl she liked. She started going out alone, left him behind. It was inevitable that she'd fall in love with someone closer to her own age and leave him, but he couldn't see it. He grieved all his life for her, and Sandy and I paid for that. He blamed us because she left him. He said that if it hadn't been for him wanting kids, she'd still be with him.”

She winced at his tone, and her heart ached for the little boy he once was. It must have hurt him terribly to overhear such things. “Oh, Ted, if it hadn't been you and Sandy it would have been some other excuse. She
couldn't have loved him enough, don't you see? If she had, she'd have been home with him, not going to parties! She wouldn't have wanted to go anywhere without him!”

He turned and looked at her, his eyes narrow and assessive. “Is that your definition of a happy marriage? Two people who are inseparable?”

“Two people with common interests,” she corrected, “who love each other but are kind to each other and want the same things from life.” She shrugged helplessly. “Barry wanted bright lights and alcohol and beautiful companions. He liked people with his same sort of intolerance for differences and his pleasure-oriented attitude toward life. I don't like social occasions at all. I like being outdoors and I love animals.” She folded her arms over her breasts. “He wouldn't even let me have a goldfish in the house.”

He felt as if he'd never known one single thing about her as she said that. She liked the outdoors, liked animals…of course she did; she'd spent plenty of time at the ranch before she married Barry. She loved horses and riding and she'd never been one for parties. Why hadn't he noticed? She even liked skeet shooting, or she had before he'd made it impossible for her to go to the gun club with her father.

His tormented look puzzled her. She studied him curiously.

“I never knew you,” he said slowly.

“You never wanted to,” she replied flatly. She sighed and turned away. “And what does it matter now, anyway, Ted?”

She had her hand on the doorknob when he spoke.

“If Barney's company means that much to you, I'll withdraw the job offer,” he said bitterly.

She didn't look back. “No, it's…he's very happy, his father said. He was just being friendly, Ted, that's all. You and Sandy have been very kind to me. It's just that…” How could she tell him that she was alone too much, that she needed someone to talk to? Sandy had to work and so did he. Besides, it would sound as if she was begging him to keep her company. “Never mind.”

“Are you lonely, Coreen?” he asked softly.

Her hand tightened on the doorknob. She drew in a slow breath. “Aren't most people?” she asked in a haunted tone. She opened the door and went out.

 

Coreen was surprised to find Ted at the table the next morning when she went to eat breakfast. Sandy had said that she'd have to leave very early for an appointment in Houston, and Coreen had given herself the luxury of sleeping late. It was after ten when she dressed in jeans and a floppy knit blouse and went in search of toast and coffee.

She stopped in the doorway, staring at Ted.

“Sleepyhead,” he chided kindly. “Sit down and eat.”

“It's after ten,” she commented.

“Oh, I had something to do this morning,” he said mysteriously. He poured her a cup of coffee and put it at her place, pushing the milk and sugar toward her. “Nibble on something and then I've got a surprise for you.”

Her eyes widened. “For me?”

He nodded. His pale eyes twinkled. “No, I'm not going to tell you yet. Eat up.”

She hadn't had many pleasant surprises. She ate a piece of toast and drank her coffee, all the while watching Ted intently for any giveaway expression. It wasn't like him to give presents, except to Sandy.

“Through?” he commented when she dabbed at her unvarnished lips. “Okay. Come on.”

He led her through the kitchen, calling a greeting to Mrs. Bird on the way through. They went out to the stable and she looked up at him curiously as he stopped at the first stall and opened it to let her in.

Curled up on a soft cloth in the stall was a baby collie. Coreen could hardly breathe as she looked at it.

She went down on her knees beside the little thing. It opened its eyes and made tiny whimpering sounds. She gathered it up in her arms and cuddled it, laughing when it licked her chin. Tears of joy and gratitude and surprise rolled soundlessly down her cheeks.

Ted knelt beside her. “He's a beaut, isn't he? He's already been to the vet for his shots and checkup. He's purebred, too, you'll have to name him… Corrie!” he exclaimed when he saw the tears, shocked speechless.

“Thank you.” She choked out the words, smiling up at him. “Oh, thank you, Ted, he's the most beautiful…thing…!” Impulsively she reached up to pull his face down and she kissed him enthusiastically on his hard mouth.

Then, embarrassed, she pulled back at once and turned her attention to the puppy. “I'll call him Shep,” she whispered huskily. “Isn't he gorgeous?”

Ted was silent. His pale eyes were riveted to her bent
head and he was scowling. He wondered if she even realized what she'd done. The impulse that had led him in search of the puppy made him feel good. It was the first spark of pleasure he'd seen her betray since she'd been here.

“Well, I can see that I won't get another sensible word out of you today. I've got to go to work.” He got up.

Coreen stood up, too, clutching her puppy. “Why?” she asked breathlessly.

He touched her mouth with his forefinger. “Maybe I like seeing you happy.”

“Thank you. I'll take ever such good care of him.”

He smiled. “Sure you will.” He withdrew his hand and left her to it.

 

Sandy was fascinated by the puppy. She was more fascinated by the fact that Ted had bought it for Coreen.

“He's never wanted animals around, except for the horses and the cattle dogs he uses on the beef property,” Sandy explained. “He'd have let me have pets, if I'd wanted to, but he's never been much of an animal lover—well, except for the horses,” she repeated. She frowned. “Curious, isn't it, that he'd buy you a dog.”

“I don't understand it, either,” Coreen confessed. “But isn't he a beautiful dog?”

“Indeed he is. My, my, isn't my brother a mass of contradictions.” She sighed.

Coreen and the puppy were inseparable after that. He followed her on her walks and laid in the corner while she helped Mrs. Bird in the kitchen. She bathed him and combed him, careful not to hurt him where
he'd had his shots from the vet. She doted on him, and vice versa.

When she went to ask Ted about some paperwork Sandy had mentioned he needed help with, Shep came trotting along at her heels.

“My God, the terrible twins,” Ted drawled when they walked into his study, but he was smiling when he said it.

“Isn't he cute?” She chuckled. The puppy had already made a world of difference in her. His vulnerability brought out all her protective instincts, as Sandy had already related.

“I hear you're fighting his battles already,” he mentioned.

She flushed. “Well, it was a vicious big dog. I couldn't let him hurt Shep.”

“What was it you threw at him?” he asked. “A handful of eggs, wasn't it?”

She flushed even more and then glared at him. “Well, they scared him off, didn't they?”

“And I didn't get my chocolate cake for dessert because they were the last eggs Mrs. Bird had, and she didn't have a way to get to the store to buy more,” he added.

“Oh, Ted, I'm sorry! I didn't know!”

He laughed at her expression. “I can live without chocolate cake for one more day. You threw flour at me and eggs at the invading dog—I guess it'll be milk cartons you'll be heaving next.” He pursed his lips. “Talk about mixing up cake the hard way…!”

“Stop making nasty remarks about me or I'll sic Shep on you,” she threatened.

The puppy waddled over to him and began licking his outstretched hand. He gave her a speaking glance.

She glared harder. “Traitor,” she told Shep.

“Little things like me,” he commented, and his face softened as he looked at the dog.

“Haven't you ever wanted children?” she asked without thinking.

His eyes came up and met hers and then suddenly dropped to her waistline and lingered there for so long that she felt hot all over. Her lips parted. Her body responded to that look in ways she hadn't dreamed it could. She stared at him breathlessly while his hot gaze levered back up to her mouth and then to her shocked eyes.

“Are you reading my mind already?” he asked tautly when he saw her expression.

She couldn't find an answer that wouldn't incriminate her. He got up from the chair, slowly, holding her gaze as he walked carefully around the puppy and stopped just in front of her, so close that she could feel the heat of his body and the soft whip of his breath on her temple.