What She'd Do for Love (15 page)

Ryder’s boss, Greg Draycut, a tall, wiry man with close-cropped blond hair and thick, black-framed glasses, squinted out across the newly paved lot, toward the row of stores taking shape. “The businesses going in are good. They’ll want to be sure and have access. Good. Good.” He bobbed his head, and shifted his gaze to the graders and back-hoes at work on the future roadway. Greg had driven up from Austin this morning to meet with Ryder. “I thought it would be useful to see how things are going,” he’d said on the phone, but now he seemed agitated. Distracted.

“Is something wrong?” Ryder asked.

“No, no. It looks fine. You’re doing a great job.” He nodded toward the center. “Do they know yet what’s going to be in these buildings?”

The future shopping plaza was still only a latticework of steel beams and concrete. Hard-hatted construction workers carried plywood, sheetrock and power tools in and out of stores in various stages of construction. “I’m not sure,” Ryder said. “The usual chain stores, I guess. And, I hear some businesses are moving out here from Cedar Grove. Near the highway, they’re going to put in some restaurants.”

“That’s good. This should be a popular place.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Let’s make this a priority. We want to complete this section as quickly as possible.”

“Of course.” Ryder began rolling up the blueprints.

“Maybe we should put on extra shifts,” Greg said. “Bring in some floods and work nights.”

That sort of addition would run the budget for the project into the red. “What’s the rush?” Ryder asked. “We’re already ahead of schedule.”

Greg stared at the dirt between his feet. “The legislature is really focused on slashing the budget. They’re cutting everywhere,” he said. “That could mean some pretty drastic cuts across the board.”

“They wouldn’t cut funding for a project that’s already this far along.”

“Don’t be so sure about that. There’s a faction within the statehouse that thinks we ought to concentrate on maintaining and improving the roads we have, not building brand-new ones.”

Was Greg exaggerating, or were things really that bad? “I’ve been so busy I haven’t been paying much attention to politics,” he said.

“I can’t get away from it.” He clapped Ryder on the shoulder. “Do what you can. So far, everything looks great.”

“Can I take you to lunch?” Ryder asked. “Show you some more of the town?”

“I wish I could, but I have to get back for a meeting this afternoon.” He pulled his keys from the pocket of his khakis. “I’ll be in touch.”

He walked to his truck, head down, shoulders bent; he was the picture of a man burdened by responsibility. Ryder directed his attention to the crew positioning one of the giant culverts that would handle the runoff from even the most torrential rains. Surely Greg was exaggerating the threat that any of this would be stopped. They’d already started pouring concrete. They still had miles of roadway to go, but it didn’t make sense to abandon things once they’d begun.

“Hey, Ryder!”

He turned and saw Kelly and Christa striding toward him across the new parking lot.

“What are you two doing out here?” he asked, as they neared his truck.

“We came to take a look at the new location of the Cedar Grove Salon.” Kelly was smiling from one ear to the other. “Mom and I signed the lease yesterday and I couldn’t wait to show Christa.”

“Hello, Ryder.” Christa looked genuinely pleased to see him. He’d meant to call her later in the week, to see how she was doing and feel her out on the possibility of another date. He’d fully expected to have to employ all his charm to get past her reservations about him, so he’d put off the call. But now, she looked so welcoming, he wondered if he’d imagined her earlier resistance. When her eyes met his, all the tension that had been building over his meeting with Greg dissolved, and he couldn’t stop himself from grinning.

“However, there’s not much to see yet,” Kelly continued. “But the builders have promised we’ll be able to move in after the first of the year.”

“It’s a super location,” Christa said. “Between a cosmetics boutique and a kids’ clothing shop.”

“And right across from the coffee shop,” Kelly said. “Handy for when I need a caffeine fix.”

“Congratulations,” Ryder said, forcing his gaze away from Christa to her friend.

“Mom’s scared to death about the move, and frankly, I’m kind of nervous myself, but this could be a great thing for us. I’m hoping we’ll pull in lots of new customers, and that our established clients will be willing to make the drive out here, with so many other stores close by.”

“I’m sure you’ll do well,” he said. “You did a sweet job on Christa’s hair.”

“Thanks.” They both looked at Christa again. “She was great to let me experiment with her,” Kelly said. “but I think she’s happy with how it turned out.”

“I am.” Christa ran her fingers through the shorter, streaked locks. “It’s easier to manage than I thought it would be.”

“Oh, and Christa’s going to help me with my plans to expand my business.” Kelly clutched her friend’s arm. “Show him, Christa.”

“Show me what?” Ryder asked, amused.

She opened her purse and took out a slim, gold card case. She extracted a business card from the case and handed it to him.

He studied the logo of two stylized M’s superimposed on each other. “Montgomery Marketing,” he read.

“That’s Christa,” Kelly said. “Isn’t it exciting? She’s going to open her own marketing company, and I’m her first client.”

“My only client right now.” Christa leaned in for the card.

Ryder held it out of reach. “Can I keep this?” he asked.

“Oh. Sure.”

“She’s helping me design a whole new logo and signs,” Kelly continued. “And we’re going to hand out coupons for the grand opening, and run some ads in the paper. It’s going to be amazing.”

“Congratulations to you, too,” Ryder said. “I know it’s a big step.”

“Thanks. I figured I didn’t have anything to lose, giving it a try. I’m going to talk to the leasing agent about getting a list of other stores and contacting them about hiring me, too,” Christa said. “It’s scary, but exciting at the same time. And I’m going to see what I can do to help the businesses that are staying downtown. I’m hoping we can encourage people to pull off the highway and take a detour into Cedar Grove proper.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” he said.

“Thanks.” Her smile dimmed a little. “My dad isn’t so keen on this plan.”

“Dads worry,” he said.

“I know. I want him to see that I’m serious about this. And it’s a way for me to stay in Cedar Grove, which should make him and Mom happy.”

“You’re happy here,” he said. “That’s what counts.”

“It’s home.” She shrugged. “I went away for a while, but I’m ready to stay now.”

“And you’re going to be here for a while, too, aren’t you Ryder?” Kelly asked.

“A couple of years at least.” After that...well, he’d learned not to look too far ahead into the future.

“You never know,” Kelly said. “You may come to like it so much you decide to make it your home.”

Lively pop music blared from Christa’s purse. She reached in and pulled out her phone. “It’s my dad,” she said.

“His ears must have been burning,” Kelly joked.

“Hello, Dad? What’s wrong? You sound upset.”

Christa’s face paled, and Ryder put out a hand to steady her. Her eyes met his, fear and confusion mixed. “Okay,” she said. “I...I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She dropped the phone back in her purse. Ryder held on to her arm, afraid she might crumple.

“What is it?” Kelly asked. “What’s wrong?”

“My mom...” She swallowed, and took a deep breath. “An ambulance is taking her to the hospital.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

H
ER
FATHER
’
S
WORDS
on the telephone echoed in Christa’s head like a song that refused to leave. “Your mother collapsed and I called an ambulance. They’re taking her to the hospital.”
Collapsed...Hospital.
Only Ryder’s steadying hand on her arm kept her upright. “I’ve got to go to her,” she said, and fumbled in her purse for her keys. If only she could fly to her mother’s side.

“I’ll drive you.” Ryder put his hand over hers. “Where’s your car?”

“It’s back at the beauty shop,” Kelly said. She put her arm around her friend. “She’ll be all right. Your mom is tough. She’s a fighter.”

Christa nodded, trying desperately to breathe normally. She couldn’t panic. She wouldn’t lose it. Not yet. “I’m sure this is merely a precaution. But Dad sounded so upset.”

“Where is he now?” Ryder asked. “Do we need to go out to the ranch and get him?”

“He’s following the ambulance.” She turned to Kelly. “Take me back to my car.”

“We’ll go in my truck.” Ryder took her hand.

“He’s right, Christa,” Kelly said. “You shouldn’t try to drive yourself. What if you had an accident?”

She wanted to protest that she was fine; she could do this. But her hands shook and she had trouble focusing her vision. Obviously, she was in no condition to drive. She looked into Ryder’s eyes, drawing on the strength she found there. “What about your job here?”

“I can leave, no problem.” He put his arm around her. “I want to do this.”

She leaned against him, resisting the urge to bury her head in his shoulder and weep. After so many weeks of worry, this was too much. But she had to stay strong, for her mom. “Thanks,” she said. “But let’s hurry.”

He pulled out his keys. “We’ll leave now. Do you know what hospital?”

“Park Haven. On the south side of the city.”

He helped her into the truck and made sure she was buckled in before he raced around to the driver’s side. As they pulled away, Kelly waved, a worried look on her face.

Christa closed her eyes and sent up a silent prayer that her mother and her father would be okay. “Now I really wish the highway was complete, so we could get there faster,” she said.

“By the time we get there, maybe she’ll have seen the doctor and we’ll know something more,” he said.

“She was doing great over the weekend,” Christa said. “My dad barbecued steaks Sunday afternoon and we were kidding her about how much she ate. Then she had her regular chemo appointment yesterday and that seemed to go okay.”

“Maybe this was a reaction to one of the drugs they gave her. Something they can quickly correct.”

His words filled her with hope. “Do you think it could be something like that? Something so simple?”

“I’m no doctor, but doesn’t that kind of thing happen all the time?”

She collapsed back against the seat once more. “I hope that’s all it is. I mean...I know she’s really sick. She has cancer.” Just saying the word was hard. “But I never let myself think about that. We say things like ‘when your treatment is over’ or ‘when you’re well again’. It’s too frightening to think anything else.”

“That’s how you should think of it,” he said. “Cancer doesn’t mean she’s going to die. A lot of treatments these days work.”

But they all knew of people for whom treatment didn’t work. She bit her lip and blinked against the stinging in her eyes.

“What does her doctor say?” Ryder asked.

“I don’t
know
what her doctor says!” She took a deep breath, regaining control of her tattered emotions. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m just frustrated my parents won’t tell me anything. Or they only tell me things they want me to hear.”

“They’re trying to protect you.”

“But I don’t need them to protect me. I need them to be honest with me. I’m a grown woman. I won’t crumble at bad news.”

“It’s hard when our parents can’t see us as adults.”

Something in his voice made her more alert. “Do your parents treat you like a child, still?”

“Sometimes.” He smiled. “My mother always tells me I’m not eating right, and my dad wants to give me advice and money.”

She laughed—a sound that was part relief, part sympathy. “My dad does the same thing. He’s certain that because I’m unemployed, I must be nearly destitute. Although, I suppose living at home with them again doesn’t do anything to make me seem less dependent. So I try not to argue with them.”

“That’s what I do—nod and thank them and then do pretty much what I want. I tell myself that one day I’ll say the same things to my kids. It’s how parenting goes.”

She wondered what kind of dad Ryder would be. Calm, she thought. Protective, but considerate. The same way he was with her. Her heart gave a little flutter, like something lovely waking up.

“It won’t be too long now,” he said. They were on the highway leading into the city. She checked the speedometer; he was doing eighty miles an hour, but traffic was light and the speed didn’t feel reckless.

“Are you sure it will be all right, your disappearing in the middle of a workday like this?” she asked.

“I’ll call my assistant and my boss once we’re at the hospital,” he said.

“Thank you. I’m glad I don’t have to do this by myself.”

“I’m sure if I hadn’t been there, Kelly would have gone with you.”

“She would have. But I’m glad it’s you with me now.”

He reached over and squeezed her hand. “I’m glad I could be with you, too.”

She held on to him, his grip so reassuring and firm.

“I think that’s the hospital, up on the left.” He put on his blinker to exit the highway. Christa released his hand and wrapped her arms around her shoulders. As soon as he stopped the truck, she wanted to leap out, run into the building and demand to know what they had done with her mother.

But she restrained herself and settled for walking briskly toward the entrance, Ryder close behind her.

This was a different hospital from the one where her mother had had her surgery, and was disorienting, with many corridors branching off from the main lobby. “This way.” Ryder pointed toward a small information desk set in a back corner.

“I’m looking for Adele Montgomery,” Christa said, as soon as they were in earshot of the woman behind the desk.

The woman’s fingers clicked on the keyboard. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t see a patient by that name.”

“She was brought here by ambulance just a short while ago,” Ryder said.

“Oh, then you’ll want to go to the emergency department.” The woman pointed. “Down that hall on your left, through the double doors, then onto the second set of doors. Ask at the triage desk there.”

Their footsteps echoed on the tile floors as they hurried through the corridors. Everything smelled faintly of rubbing alcohol and floor polish—antiseptic and impersonal. At the emergency department, Christa waited impatiently for the woman behind the glass partition to look up. “May I help you?” the woman finally asked.

“My mother, Adele Montgomery, has been brought here by ambulance.”

“Let me check.” She consulted her computer and nodded. “Mrs. Montgomery was transferred to the MICU. Third floor.”

Christa turned and raced out of the department, back toward the elevator. “We’re certainly getting our exercise, running all over this place,” she said, as she punched the up button. She glanced over her shoulder at Ryder. “Thanks again for staying with me. You don’t have to if you need to get back to work. I can get a ride home with my dad.”

“I’ll stay until I make sure you’re okay. And I want to find out how your mother is doing, too.”

“Thanks.”

He took her hand and squeezed it, and she fought the urge to lean into him. If she did so, it would be too easy to stay there, head on his shoulders, his arms around her. She wouldn’t want to move for hours, and she didn’t have the luxury of relaxing just now.

A sign on the third floor pointed the way to the Medical Intensive Care Unit. Yet another woman at a desk guarded the entrance. “My mother was just admitted here,” Christa said. “Adele Montgomery.”

“Yes. She’s in room five.”

“Thank you.” Christa started toward the door.

“Wait a minute,” the woman called. “Who is he?” She pointed to Ryder.

He opened his mouth to answer, but Christa spoke first. “He’s my husband.” She grabbed Ryder’s arm. “Come on, honey. Let’s go see Mom.”

Once they were through the double doors, she leaned close and whispered, “I hope you don’t mind. They probably wouldn’t have let you in if you told them you were a friend.”

“I would have understood if I needed to wait outside.”

“I’d rather have you in here with me.”

He put his arm around her. “Then that’s where I want to be.”

She located room five halfway around the circle of rooms. Steeling herself for the worst, she knocked gently on the partially open door.

“Come in,” her father said.

“Hello, Christa. And Ryder, how nice to see you.” Mom greeted them as if she was welcoming guests in for a glass of iced tea. She sat up in bed, eating from a bowl of soup. Only the various tubes and monitors attached to her—and the blue hospital gown—gave a clue that anything was wrong.

“Mom! You look great,” Christa said.

“I don’t know about that.” She smoothed the hospital gown. “This was all a lot of fuss over nothing.”

“She needed a transfusion.” Dad stood and shook hands with Ryder, then gave Christa a quick hug.

“The chemotherapy drugs are working a little too well,” Mom said. “They killed off a few too many red blood cells along with the cancer.”

“That doesn’t sound good.” Christa perched on the edge of a chair beside her mother’s hospital bed.

“They can pump me full of new blood,” Mom said. “The good news is they’re killing the cancer.”

“That’s what they’re supposed to do, right?” Christa said.

“The new blood tests show the cancer marker levels are dropping,” Mom said. She sounded almost giddy.

“Mom, that’s fantastic news.” Christa jumped up and hugged her. The tears she’d been holding back all afternoon finally overflowed. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in weeks.”

“There’s nothing to cry about.” Mom patted her shoulder. “They’re giving me some medicine to help with the anemia. I can probably go home tomorrow.”

“That is good news,” Ryder said.

“Thanks for taking off work to bring Christa here,” Dad said.

“I hate that you went to so much trouble.” Mom pushed the empty soup bowl aside and lay back against the pillows. “I’m going to be fine.”

“Yes, you are.” Dad moved to her side and took her hand. “I hope you never need to be in the hospital again, but if you do, it won’t take over an hour to get you there.”

“That’s right,” Christa said. “Once the new highway is in—”

“I’m not talking about the new highway,” Dad said. “Your mother and I are going to be moving closer to the city.”

Christa blinked, sure she hadn’t heard him right. “But the ranch...”

“We’re selling the ranch to the state for the new highway project. Ryder and I have talked about it for a while now, and your mother and I agree it’s the right thing to do.”

She stared at Ryder. “You never mentioned this.”

He looked uncomfortable—like a guilty man caught in a lie. “I thought your parents should be the ones to tell you. And nothing was decided for sure.” He sounded so calm, so untouched by the fact that she was devastated by this news.

“It’s decided now,” Dad said. “Ryder, you bring the paperwork by tomorrow and I’ll sign it.”

“Daddy, you should think about this more,” Christa said. “The ranch has been in your family for years.”

“I’ve had months to think about it and I know what I want to do.” He clenched his jaw in a stubborn line.

“We were considering this even before I got sick,” Mom said. “The money the state will pay will give us a secure retirement, and we’ll have money and time to travel and do other things.” She smiled. “We know you’re not interested in raising cows and hay. And our neighbors and friends will get a lot more benefit from the new highway than from another piece of property sitting vacant.”

Christa sat back in the chair, reeling. When she closed her eyes, she had a vision of a swath of concrete cutting through her childhood home. The fields where she’d ridden horses, her grandparents’ house—all paved over.

She opened her eyes to find her parents and Ryder staring at her. “I can’t believe you’d do this,” she said.

“That’s one reason I didn’t tell you before.” Dad said. “I knew you’d be upset.”

“We know you need a little time to get used to the idea.” Her mom’s voice was soft and low. “But it’s for the best. Your father and I are happy about the decision, we hope you’ll be happy for us.”

“I’ll never be happy about this.” She stood and faced Ryder. “And I can’t believe you would do this to me.” Blinded by tears, she raced from the room and out of the MICU. Bad enough that she was losing her home—but the man who was taking it from her was the one man she’d come to believe she could trust.

* * *

C
HRISTA
RAN
BLINDLY
until she reached the parking lot, then common sense returned. She couldn’t get back to Cedar Grove without a car. Why hadn’t she come to the hospital alone instead of letting Ryder drive her?

She knew why—because he’d been there, the big, strong man, happy to take charge.

But taking charge apparently also meant that he decided what she did or didn’t need to know. All those times they’d been together, on and off the ranch, and he’d never even mentioned the possibility that she might lose her home soon. Maybe places didn’t mean much to a nomad like him, but he had to have known what her family’s ranch meant to her.

She moved around the corner from the hospital’s main entrance, into a shadowed alcove, and pulled out her phone. Scrolling through her contacts, she found the number she needed and punched it in. A few moments later, a familiar voice answered. “Hello, Kelly? This is Christa. I need a really big favor.”

“Sure. How’s your mom?”