The Rancher & Heart of Stone (24 page)

He grimaced. “I’d never get one of those kind of girls past Boone,” he said with resignation. “He always expects the worst when I date anybody outside our own circles.”

That stung, but she didn’t say so. Clark had been kind to her. “I have to go,” she said. “I had a wonderful time tonight, Clark,” she added. “Thanks.”

“We’ll do it again.” He frowned. “I didn’t mean that like it sounded—about dating girls outside my own circle,” he added. “I always think of you as family.”

She smiled. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me.”

He looked sheepish. “I guess you’d rather I thought of you as an eligible young woman?”

She shook her head. “I like being your friend.”

“I like being yours.” He bent and kissed her cheek. “If you ever needed help, you know you could ask me.”

She chuckled. “Of course I do. But I can take care of myself. Good night, Clark.”

“Good night.”

He watched her go into the house before he drove away.

* * *

H
ER
MOTHER
WAS
unusually quiet. When Keely asked about the house, she only got evasive replies. Carly was nowhere in sight, and hadn’t been for some time. She was out of town for a while, Ella said finally, and didn’t refer to Carly again. There was also a disturbing phone call that Ella had answered with single syllable replies. She wouldn’t tell her daughter what had been said or even who had called.

When a car pulled up at the front door on a rainy Saturday morning, Ella actually gasped. Keely ran to look out.

“It’s Boone Sinclair,” she stammered, shocked.

“Thank God,” Ella said heavily. “Thank God.” She walked back down the hall, went into her room and closed the door.

Surprised, Keely went out onto the porch as Boone exited the car and took the porch steps two at a time.

He was in working clothes, jeans and boots and white Stetson with a checked Western-cut long-sleeved shirt buttoned right up to the neck. He looked down at Keely, his eyes dark and stormy.

“Come for a drive,” he said curtly.

She could have found a dozen reasons not to go. She wanted to come up with an excuse. Her mind agreed. But her body walked back into the house, grabbed her purse and a lightweight jacket and told her mother goodbye.

* * *

B
OONE
OPENED
THE
door of his car, helped her inside and went around to get in and start the engine. A minute later, they were speeding down the highway toward his ranch.

She was nervous, and it showed. Her hands played with her small purse while she listened to the rhythmic sound of the windshield wipers as they brushed away the pouring rain.

Despite all their recent turmoil, she felt safe with Boone. Safe, excited, hopeful, breathlessly in love. Her whole body ached to be held again as he’d held her at the charity dance. She hoped that didn’t show.

It did. Boone was far too experienced to mistake her body language. He smiled softly to himself. If she’d been involved with his brother, as Clark claimed, she wouldn’t be this nervous in Boone’s company. That meant there was still time. If he could convince her that he hadn’t meant to humiliate her.

He pulled out onto a pasture track that led to a closed gate, stopped the car and cut off the engine.

The rain flooded onto the windshield, making the outside world a gray blur. He unfastened his seat belt, settled himself crossways in his seat and stared at Keely.

The silence was a little unnerving. She glanced at him and found her eyes captured and held.

“Clark says the two of you are going steady,” he said.

Now what did she say, she wondered frantically. It wasn’t true, but Clark was using her as a tool of vengeance, apparently, for Nellie’s loss. She bit her lower lip and tried to find a graceful way out of the dilemma.

“Did he say that?” she asked, playing for time to think.

His dark eyes narrowed. “Don’t play games with me,” he said curtly. “Are you or are you not getting mixed up with my brother?”

Sorry, Clark,
she said silently, but no mere woman could have resisted that look in Boone’s eyes.

“I’m not,” she said, sounding breathless, as though she’d run a long way.

The tautness seemed to go out of him. “Well, thank God for one thing going right,” he murmured. “I could have slugged Hayes Carson!”

While she was trying to work out that puzzle, he’d unfastened her seat belt and pulled her over the console into his arms.

“I thought this week would never end.” His mouth ground down into hers as if he’d gone hungry for years and sought to satisfy the hunger in seconds. He crushed her up against him, mindless of her soft cry of protest. “I’m starving to death for you,” he whispered into her mouth. “Dying for you—”

Had she really heard him say that? She gave up protesting. It didn’t do any good, anyway. She curled up against him and ignored the pain in her shoulder and arm, going boneless as his ardor only increased at her response. Her head began to spin. It was the sweetest interlude of her life. Rain pounded on the roof, the hood, the trunk, the wind blew, but she heard nothing over the pounding of her own heart. She had no reserve left. Whatever he wanted, he could have.

Except when his hand searched under her blouse and up over her breast, inching toward the strap. She couldn’t, didn’t dare, let him feel her shoulder.

With a sharp little cry, she jerked away from him, her face flushed from his ardor, her eyes wild with passion and dread.

He misunderstood. His eyes grew cold. He pushed her away, dragging in harsh breaths, until he could control himself again. He’d taken her protests the first time he’d kissed her as virginal fears. But this wasn’t. She’d rejected him. She’d lied about her feelings for Clark. She couldn’t hide the fact that she didn’t want intimacy with Boone. His ego hurt, almost as badly as it had when Misty shied away from him in the military hospital.

“Boone,” she began slowly, dreading what she had to tell him now.

“Forget it,” he said, interrupting her. He put his seat belt back on and started the car. “Obviously you can’t get past your feelings for Clark. No sweat.”

He didn’t say another word, or even look at her, until they were sitting in front of her house with the engine running.

“It isn’t what you think,” she bit off.

“The hell it isn’t,” he returned icily. “Goodbye, Keely.”

The way he said it, she knew it wasn’t simply a temporary farewell. He meant that he wouldn’t see her alone again, ever. Her heart broke. He thought she’d rejected him and it wasn’t true. She couldn’t bear to see the look on his face if he got her shirt off. That would end any chance she had with him. Of course, she’d just done that, without the added trauma of what he didn’t know.

She drew in a quiet breath. “Thanks for the ride,” she managed in a polite tone. She opened the door and got out.

He still hadn’t said a word. He was down the driveway before her foot was on the first step up to the house. She didn’t look back. It wouldn’t help.

* * *

H
ER
MOTHER
WAS
still acting oddly. Almost a week had passed since Boone had taken Keely riding and kissed her. The rain had stopped and now the heat blazed. There were wildfires. Everyone was afraid to throw down a match or burn trash or even smoke a cigarette outdoors. It was almost time to harvest corn and hay and peanuts. The corn and hay would have to last the livestock through the winter; it was very important. Combines and tractors were sitting on ready, while the last days counted down to harvest.

On Saturday morning, the sounds of machinery could be heard everywhere. Winnie stopped by to pick up Keely for an impromptu lunch, assuring her first that Boone was out with the combines and wouldn’t be in all day. He’d taken a cooler with him, bearing lunch and beer.

“I hope I have enough eggs to do the egg salad,” Winnie murmured as they pulled up into her driveway past the huge posts that held the now-open gates that led to the house. “If I don’t, I may have to run back to the store. Why didn’t I think of it while I was in town?” she moaned. She glanced at Keely, who looked apprehensive. “Boone’s really out with the combine,” she promised. “I wouldn’t lie.”

Keely relaxed with a smile. “Okay. Sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Winnie replied, leading the way into the house. “Boone raged about you all week, in fact, not to mention Hayes Carson—God knows why. But this morning something came by express. He took it into the office, and got all quiet. He went out without a word, walking really slow.” She grimaced. “God help the cowboys. Somebody will quit by sunset, you mark my words. He’s seething!”

“You don’t know why?” Keely had to ask. “It couldn’t have been something about my father...?”

Winnie looked surprised. “What would Boone have to do with your father?”

Keely felt trapped. “You said he’d talked to Sheriff Hayes...”

Winnie scowled. “Keely, what’s going on?”

She hesitated. “Did Clark say anything to you at all?”

“He said you had to take a bodyguard with you when you went to San Antonio,” Winnie replied gently. “I’m not stupid. There’s gossip about your father being in trouble and threatening you and your mother. But I don’t think Boone would be mixed up with that.”

“No. No, of course not,” Keely said at once. She forced a smile. Winnie had no idea what was really going on with Boone and her best friend. It was probably better that she never did. Boone would never look twice at Keely again, anyway. She wondered how she was going to manage to draw back from her friendship with Winnie without making the other woman suspicious. She had to find a way. Just the thought of running into Boone again, after the way they’d parted Saturday, made her nervous.

They started lunch, but as Winnie had predicted, she should have bought eggs. She only had two.

“I can’t make enough egg salad for us now and for the men later out of just two eggs,” she laughed. She grabbed her car keys and her purse. “You finish the pasta salad and I’ll run to the store. I’ll only be fifteen minutes.” She glanced at Keely’s worried face. “He’s over in the north pasture,” she added ruefully. “Boone couldn’t even
get
here in fifteen minutes. Feel better?”

“Yes,” Keely said blatantly.

Winnie pursed her lips. “I do wonder what’s going on between you and my big brother. But I won’t ask. Yet.”

She rushed out the back door and closed it behind her. Keely felt less secure.

She finished the pasta salad and put it into the refrigerator. She heard the front door open and close and felt a pang of relief. Winnie was back.

But the footsteps coming down the hall weren’t soft and muffled. They were heavy and hard. Apprehensive, she turned.

And there was Boone, wearing stained jeans and boots, a shirt wet with sweat, his Stetson dangling from one hand. His eyes, as they met hers, were blazing with anger.

“Come into the office, Keely,” he said tautly. “I’ve got something to show you.” He turned and walked away, leaving her to follow.

She paused at the open door of the office, tugging at the buttons on her long-sleeved white shirt she was wearing over tan twill slacks. He was holding the envelope that Winnie said had come by express service this morning. He took out a photograph and held it out to her.

“Have a look,” he said in a tone so threatening that it made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. “And then tell me you don’t have anything going with Clark!”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

K
EELY
MOVED
SLOWLY
into the room and took the photograph Boone held out to her. She almost choked when she saw it. The picture showed two people in bed, in an intimate embrace. The man was Clark. The woman had Keely’s face. But it certainly wasn’t Keely’s body. She almost laughed with relief at the very obvious attempt to frame her by putting her face on another woman’s body.

She looked up with the amusement in her eyes, but Boone wasn’t laughing. He was positively enraged, and he obviously believed the photograph was proof of her lies.

“This isn’t me,” she began.

“Like hell it isn’t!” he raged. He tore the photograph from her fingers and ripped it to shreds, tossing it onto the carpet. “If you’d just told me the truth, I could have accepted it, Keely. You didn’t have to lie!”

“But I didn’t,” she protested. “And I can prove it!”

Her hands went, reluctantly, to the buttons of her shirt. She didn’t want to have to go to this extreme, but he wasn’t going to be convinced easily.

He misunderstood the intent at once. “Spare yourself the embarrassment,” he said curtly. “I don’t care what you look like under that shirt. It was just a game on my part, Keely,” he added with a cold smile. “A little flirting, a little teasing, a few kisses. I’m sure you didn’t take it seriously. I only wanted to see how far you’d go. If you hadn’t made it clear before, you certainly made it clear just now. Either of the Sinclair brothers will do, as long as you get enough to make it worth your while, is that right? And I thought you were so honest and upright and hardworking! It was just a sham. Like all the others, you’re only after money!”

“That is not true!” she said defensively.

His eyes glittered again. “I don’t want you here anymore. Ever. You get out of my house, Keely, and go home. And don’t you come back again. I don’t give a damn if Clark or Winnie invites you, don’t come! Make an excuse, do whatever it takes. But don’t come here again.”

“You don’t understand!” she began helplessly.

“I said, get out! Now! If you don’t, so help me God I’ll call one of Hayes’s deputies and have you taken out in handcuffs!”

He was too angry to listen to reason, and he meant what he said. Keely couldn’t bear the thought of being hauled off to jail for trespassing. It would be all over Comanche Wells and Jacobsville in no time, and she’d never live it down.

She sighed, feeling as if she’d been crushed. She loved him, and he could treat her so badly.

“I’m going,” she said. “You don’t have to make threats to get me to leave. Please tell Winnie something came up.”

He didn’t answer her. He swept back down the hall, out the door and into what sounded like a pickup truck. It roared away as Keely started down the long driveway. Boone didn’t know that Winnie had driven her here. She didn’t have a way home. But she was too wary of Boone to go down to the bunkhouse and ask for a ride. It would do no good, anyway—all the men were out in the pastures, bringing in the crops.

She was wearing a long-sleeved blouse, she had no water, she wasn’t even wearing a hat. The sun was brutal. By the time she got out the gates and a quarter of a mile down the road, she was too sick and thirsty to go on. She’d sit in the shade by the highway, she thought. It was flat here. Winnie would come driving by sooner or later and spot her. Her white blouse would stand out in that grove of mesquite trees. She’d just have to be careful of the trees trailing limbs and long thorns, which were so dangerous that they could pierce a boot.

The big tree near the road afforded a little shade. There was a fallen limb next to it which seemed to have been there for a long time. She slumped down, exhausted by the heat, without looking first. That was a mistake. She heard the sound of frying bacon, which even her addled brain immediately connected with the source that would be making it this far away from a stove; a diamondback rattlesnake.

Before she could even turn her head to look for it, the snake struck. It bit her on the forearm and withdrew, still rattling.

Terrified, she jumped to her feet and ran backward before it could get her again. The bite mark was vivid, stained with blood.
Tourniquet,
she thought.
Stop the blood running to the heart. Get the bite lower than the heart...

She dragged the handkerchief she always carried from her pocket and wrapped half of it around her forearm between the bite and her elbow. She grabbed up a stick and used it to tighten the handkerchief.
Only use it to keep the poison below the skin,
she recalled from the first-aid book she’d read,
don’t tighten it enough to stop the circulation. Once tightened, don’t loosen it, get help.

Help? She looked both ways. The road was deserted. She’d been bitten by a poisonous snake. Her arm was already swelling as the poison tried to make its way to her heart. She kept her left arm down—it would be the one that was already damaged!—and tried to breathe slowly and shallowly. She’d need antivenin. Did they have any at the Jacobsville hospital? She didn’t have her mother’s cell phone. It was still on the counter in Winnie’s kitchen. The heat had already exhausted her and her head was swimming. She was nauseated. The bite hurt. It really hurt!

She closed her eyes, standing in the middle of the highway. If somebody didn’t come down that road soon, it would be too late. She thought of Boone, the way he’d been at the charity dance, holding her, kissing her so tenderly, almost as if he...loved her.

“Boone,” she whispered. And she fainted.

* * *

W
INNIE
WAS
CURSING
her own bad luck as she drove rapidly back to the ranch. Boone had called her, almost incoherent with fury, daring her to ever let Keely back in the front door. He had photos, he said harshly, of her with Clark that turned his stomach. He’d told her to get out and he never wanted to see her on the place again. He hung up before Winnie could tell him that Keely had no way home. Now she was hoping she could get back in time to save the poor girl a long and uncomfortable walk.

As she approached the ranch road, she noticed a bundle of rags in the road. But as she came closer, she realized it wasn’t rags—it was Keely!

She wheeled her car around and left it running, the door open, as she rushed to Keely’s side.

“Keely! Keely!” she called, as she whipped out her cell phone and dialed the emergency services number without hesitation.

Keely’s eyes opened groggily. “Winnie...snake...rattler...” She tried to lift her left arm. It was swollen and almost black already.

“Dear God,” Winnie whispered reverently. A voice spoke in her ear. “This is Winnie Sinclair,” she said. “Shirley, is that you? I thought it was. Listen, I’ve got Keely Welsh here in the middle of the highway with snakebite. It was a rattler, she said. I’m taking her to Jacobsville General myself, no time to dispatch an ambulance. Have them waiting at the door with antivenin. Got that? Thanks, Shirley. No, I can’t stay on the line, I have to get her in the car.”

She hung up and managed to get Keely into the front seat and belted in, in a matter of seconds, with strength she didn’t know she had. Her heart was pounding as she put the car in gear and left tire marks as she shifted into low gear.

A mile down the road she was met by flashing blue lights. She slowed. The car, Jacobsville Police, spun around in front of her. The door opened and Kilraven’s head poked out. “Follow me!” he shouted.

She nodded, relieved to have help. He took off and she followed close on his bumper. Cars got out of the way. They went right through two red lights and turned into the emergency entrance to the hospital.

As soon as she stopped the car, Kilraven came running back to get Keely and carry her to her door where a gurney and Dr. Coltrain waited.

“Snakebite,” Winnie panted. “Diamondback. She put on a tourniquet herself...”

“It’s all right,” Kilraven told her. “Shirley called them for you. Everything’s ready, except the antivenin,” he added quietly. “They don’t have enough, so they’re having a state trooper run it down here to the county line. Hayes Carson’s going himself to meet him and relay it back here.” He put a big hand on Winnie’s shoulder. “She’ll be all right. You did good.”

She bit her lower lip. Tears rained down her face. She turned it away from him and started up the steps.

He pulled her around and into his arms. “Don’t ever be ashamed of tears,” he said into her ear. “I’ve shed my share of them.”

That was surprising and sort of nice. It meant he was human. “Thanks,” she said huskily after a minute. She drew back and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I was scared stiff and I couldn’t show it. She’s my friend.”

“I know. Come on. I’ll walk you in. I had a call here, anyway. Remember old Ben Barkley? His son put a bullet through his leg when he started beating the boy’s mother.”

“Riley shot him?” she asked, surprised. The boy was sweet and helpful when he called emergency services to get help saving his mother from his habitually drunk father.

“Riley did,” he asserted. He grinned, and bent low. “We’re going to take him out to our firing range and help him improve his aim, in case he ever does it again.”

She burst out laughing. It was such an outrageous thing to say.

“That’s better,” he said when he saw her face. “Stiff upper lip, now.”

“I’m not British.”

“You aren’t?” he exclaimed. “Why, what a coincidence...neither am I!”

She punched his broad chest, laughing. They walked together to the emergency waiting room.

* * *

F
URIOUS
,
HELPLESS
TO
do anything for her friend, Winnie took refuge in the only thing she could think of that might help—revenge. She phoned Boone and gave him hell.

“Slow down, slow down!” he complained. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying. Wait...” He cut off the engine on the tractor he was using to help with the harvest. “All right, what was that about Keely?”

“She was walking home, thanks to you, and she got bitten by a rattlesnake! She’s at Jacobsville General...Boone? Hello? Hello? Damn!”

She hung up, even more furious now, because he wouldn’t listen to her. She called Clark. “Where are you?” she asked when he didn’t answer for almost a minute.

He sounded out of breath. “I’m, uh, I had to run to catch the phone,” he said lamely. In the background, music was playing and there was a faint protest, which sounded as if it came from a feminine throat.

“Oh, hell, never mind,” she muttered and hung up. She didn’t need to ask where he was. He was almost certainly with that damned Nellie again. So much for restraint.

But he phoned her back ten minutes later, while she was waiting, hoping, for some sort of report about Keely. She stopped nurses, who promised to go and check but never came back. She was getting frustrated.

“What did you want?” Clark asked.

“Never mind. Go back to Nellie,” she muttered.

“Don’t hang up!” he grumbled. “I’m not with Nellie. I’m over at Dave Harston’s place helping him move a piano. His wife’s making us lunch.”

She felt her face go red. “Sorry.”

He laughed. “I guess the sounds must be similar, but I swear I’m not doing anything I’d mind being seen doing. What’s up?”

“Keely got bitten by a rattler,” she said miserably. “I can’t find out what’s going on and I’m worried sick. Her arm was almost black, Clark. I’m scared—” Her voice broke.

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. She’ll be all right, sis. I know she will.”

“Thanks,” she said huskily, and hung up. She prayed that he was right.

A commotion at the desk caught her attention. Boone was bulldozing right past a nurse and a police officer—Kilraven—on his way back to the emergency room. Winnie almost cheered. If anybody could cut through red tape, it was her big brother. They could threaten, but they wouldn’t stop him.

“Coltrain!” he bellowed.

“Over here,” came a deep, resigned voice.

Boone hid it well, but he was terrified. Winnie’s phone call made him feel guilty as hell, and he’d hardly managed to breathe as he rushed to the hospital. One of his cowboys had died from a rattler bite the year before. He was scared to death that Keely might not have reached help in time. If she died, he’d never forgive himself, never!

“Where is she?” Boone demanded, dark eyes flashing, face flushed. He’d come straight from work to the hospital in his work clothes, and never noticed how disheveled he was.

Coltrain nodded toward a cubicle where they were working on her. He knew better than to try to stop Boone. It would mean a brawl, where he could least afford one.

Boone walked into the cubicle and stopped dead. Everything seemed to go out of focus except for Keely’s left arm. They’d bared her to the waist, pulling the sheet only over one breast, leaving the left one and her shoulder bare while they pumped antivenin into her in an attempt to save her life. She was unconscious. Her arm was almost black, swollen out of recognition. But it wasn’t the swelling that Boone was fixated on. It was her shoulder. There were huge scars, which looked as if something with enormous teeth had taken a bite right out of her. The damage was staggering to look at. The pain she must have suffered—

He knew at once that his photographs had been faked, and later he was going to give somebody hell over that botched, so-called investigation. But right now, his whole focus was on this slip of a girl whom he’d misjudged, whom he’d almost killed with his outrage.

“What in hell happened to her?” Boone bit off.

“She was bitten...”

“Not the snakebite. That!” He pointed at her shoulder.

Coltrain wanted to tell him that he should ask Keely, but he knew it would do no good. “She jumped into a mountain lion pit at her father’s game park to save a seven-year-old boy who sneaked under the rail when nobody was looking.”

“Good God! And where was her father while all that was going down?” Boone demanded.

“Standing at the rail, watching,” Coltrain said with utter disdain.