- -
- 100%
- +
“We’ll be on the road again tomorrow.” Stan spoke for the first time, his voice gravelly, as if from disuse. “Darla’s folks live in New Mexico and we’re heading there at dawn. We won’t get back until the night before the sale.”
“I’m not sure I—” Cassie stopped midsentence as she looked beyond the couple’s Dodge pickup to the thin column of dust rising from the lane leading to the ranch. “Well, it looks like this is my night for company.”
Both turned to look at the vehicle approaching from a distance. They exchanged a quick glance before facing her again. “I’m sorry, we don’t want to keep you from your guests. Maybe we will come back tomorrow.” When the man at her side seemed about to speak, Darla went on firmly, “Now, Stan, it’s not going to matter if we head to Clayton a few hours later than planned.” The car in the lane drew closer. As if in a sudden hurry to leave, the couple on the porch headed for the steps and began to descend them.
“I’d be glad to show you around if you can make time tomorrow,” Cassie said politely. Whoever was heading for the ranch had just done her a favor. The newcomer’s arrival had convinced the couple to leave, whereas she had been experiencing a decided lack of success. The two got back in their pickup, the woman driving. With a casual wave, she backed up the vehicle and drove away.
Cassie swung the door shut, a bit relieved. More than likely the new arrival would be Jim. He’d probably decided to drop off the supplies tonight rather than waiting until tomorrow as she’d suggested. If that was the case, it was doubtful he’d even come up to the house.
As she headed back to the den, she considered the spell she’d had prior to the strangers’ arrival. The unexpected lapses in thought and activity had worried Hawk enough. But when they’d been followed by these flashes into the immediate future, he’d been driven to act. Had her mother possessed psychic ability, too, she wondered, or had she used the tea recipe only as a means to alleviate the other symptoms they shared? She was eager for Hawk to return home so she could get the answers to these and a multitude of other questions that had plagued her since their last conversation. Her brother wasn’t exactly a chatterbox under the best of circumstances, but on the phone he was even more reticent than usual.
She’d lived with precognition all her life. But always before, her ability had manifested itself when her defenses were down and her subconscious took over. The dreams she had foretold events days, weeks or, in the case of the most frequent one, years in the future. She didn’t understand why that would change now, and other than Hawk, there was no one she could discuss it with.
Cassie gave a little laugh as she imagined sharing that little tidbit with the medical staff at Greenlaurel Community Hospital. They’d have her fitted for a straitjacket and safely ensconced in a padded room in record time. Her brother had been right. No one else could know about her ability. Other people didn’t, wouldn’t, understand. She’d discovered that the hard way.
The doorbell rang again, and Cassie turned back to the door, puzzled. Jim always went to the side door, so she must have been wrong in assuming her visitor was her foreman. With a sliver of apprehension she went to the door, opened it. Then stood frozen in shock when she recognized the man standing before her.
Shane. A dizzying wave of joy hit her, followed by relief, concern and then apprehension again. Her stomach clenched, tying into tight, neat knots, and her mind went abruptly blank. Now that the time had come, she had absolutely no idea what to say to him.
“Are you going to let me in?” His voice was perhaps the most familiar thing about him. Certainly there was nothing in his hard expression that reminded her of the tender lover who had held her in his arms. But given their acrimonious parting, she shouldn’t be surprised.
The memory of that final scene was enough to have her spine stiffening. Shoving aside any softer memories, she unlatched the screen door, held it open.
“I heard you just returned. I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”
She stepped aside as he walked into the house, careful to avoid touching him. She didn’t need to be assailed by familiar memories, to have old feelings rushing back to taunt her with what had been. She didn’t need to realize that the attraction burned just as brightly as it had three months ago. And every bit as futilely.
When she turned from closing the door, he was facing her, one hand jammed in his jeans pocket. Hungrily her gaze moved over him, taking inventory. He was leaner, harder. She looked at his chest, but could see no signs of the injury she knew was hidden beneath his clothes. The jagged scar that worked down the side of his throat made her heart lurch. And then her gaze rose, to rest on his eyes. The eyes of a stranger, one who’d been to hell and back and hadn’t yet adjusted to the journey.
“I don’t know why I came,” he said harshly. “We said all we had to say before I left.”
Anger, a quick violent surge of it, flared through her, like a comet blazing a path through the night sky. “Your brush with death obviously didn’t teach you tolerance.”
He stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. “You talked to Simon at the hospital?”
“All he said was that you were coming home,” she said simply.
He considered her for a moment longer. His friend Simon Thurson was the only person Shane had given even the sketchiest details of his experiences to. Finally he shrugged. “I don’t know what you heard about my injuries, but I’m fine.” At least he would be, once he’d slept for about three days and regained some more mobility in his shoulder. With any luck, he could be back in the operating room within a couple weeks.
Her mouth twisted. “You’re far from fine, Shane. But if you’re convinced, who am I to argue?” She went past him to the couch and sat. He remained where he was. With the remarkable clarity of hindsight he realized he shouldn’t have come. It wasn’t like him to entertain himself by pulling scabs off barely healed wounds. And the wound caused by their breakup was every bit as painful as the injury in his shoulder.
His free hand clenched into a fist. No, he shouldn’t have come. They could have said anything that needed saying in a terse phone call. He’d told himself that the entire time he was in the drugstore. At the hospital. But still he found himself making the drive out to the ranch, calling himself a fool with every passing mile.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Cassie suggested.
“I won’t be staying.” He was far more comfortable keeping a distance between them. Even if he sat on a nearby chair, he’d be able to smell the shampoo in her hair, something fresh and lemony. He’d be able to see the softness of her skin, so at odds with the denim shirt and jeans. He’d remember all the times he’d stripped her and possessed every inch of that softness. Explored it by touch and sight and taste. The nights he’d lain awake with her in his arms, unwilling to sleep and miss a single moment of that magic.
And he’d remember anew the agony of their parting.
“Let’s not do this again, Cass.” His voice was raw. So were his feelings, though he’d half convinced himself he no longer possessed any. “Nothing’s changed, and there’s no reason to put ourselves through hell. It’s over between us.” The words burned his throat as he uttered them. But if they affected her, there was no sign of it on her face.
“You’re right—it is over.” She’d made the biggest mistake of her life when she’d trusted him with her secret. When she’d expected love to mean acceptance. It wasn’t a mistake she’d repeat. And it had been an act of supreme self-indulgence. She knew what the future held for her. She’d dreamed it all too often in excruciating Technicolor detail. It would be hideously unfair to put a loved one through the pain caused by her death. It was better, far better, to limit the number of people it would impact.
She quieted the inner voice jeering at that thought and concentrated on the man before her. “I won’t pretend I wasn’t tempted to avoid this meeting. But you deserve to know the truth.”
“The truth?” A corner of his mouth pulled downward. “I’m not sure you and I can ever agree on exactly what that means.”
His words stung like tiny angry bees. “This has enough scientific evidence to satisfy even you. I’m pregnant. You’re going to be a father.”
Chapter 3
The news punched through him like a fist to the solar plexus, leeching his lungs of oxygen. Senses reeling, Shane shook his head a little, as if that would help him make sense of the incomprehensible.
“But…we were careful.” As soon as he managed the words, he winced. As a doctor, he knew better than most the limitations of birth control. But shock was hazing his thinking, making logic difficult to summon. Cassie was pregnant. And the baby was his. He never entertained a doubt about that.
Raking her still slender form with his gaze, he demanded, “How far along?”
“Fourteen weeks.”
“The bed-and-breakfast,” he murmured.
“Probably.”
For a moment their gazes caught, an unspoken sea of memories eddying between them. Sunlight slanting through the sheers at the window, long leisurely mornings spent in bed as the world had seemed to narrow its focus to just the two of them.
Before the memories could ensnare him, he neatly sidestepped them. “Who’s your doctor? Have you had any tests yet? How’s your health?” He cocked his head, his gaze turning professional. “How much weight have you gained? You are eating, aren’t you?”
“Relax. I’m seeing Dr. Godden.”
Satisfied, he gave a quick nod. “Joanne’s good.”
“And—” a corner of her mouth rose “—you should know by now that nothing could ever keep me from eating.”
She managed to surprise a smile from him. “I remember. But nausea often accompanies the first few months of pregnancy. It’d be better if you could get through it on your own, but there are medications available if you can’t.”
“No nausea. I’ve gained two pounds already.”
He frowned, crossed to sit next to her. “That’s not enough.”
“Dr. Godden isn’t concerned. You shouldn’t be either.” She hesitated then, before adding briskly, “I mean that, too. I don’t want you to worry about anything. Neither of us planned on this, but I’m going to keep the baby and raise it. I thought it would be easiest all around if I gave it my last name. You can be involved to whatever degree is comfortable for you, or not at all, if that’s what you want. The decision is yours.” The last few sentences came out in a rush, as if she’d practiced them long and hard and wanted them uttered before she lost her nerve.
She rose then, and turned toward the door. “I know this is a lot to lay on you all at once as soon as you returned, so feel free to take your time thinking about it. You can let me know whatever you decide.”
There was a little flare of anger directly beneath his heart. As a dismissal, it wasn’t particularly subtle. Reaching for her hand, he tugged on it. She bounced down on the couch again, and he kept her there, not releasing his grip. He waited for her to look at him before saying, “A tidy little speech, Cass, designed to let me off the hook. But you’re overlooking one thing—this baby is mine, too.” Saying the words out loud somehow made them feel more real. “And I’d never walk away. I intend to be fully involved.” Abandonment came easily to some men. Certainly his father had never looked back when he’d left over twenty years ago. There was no way Shane would ever do that to his own child. And the fact that Cassie had thought he might hurt more than it should.
“I…” Her gaze went to their hands. “All right, then. I just wanted you to know you had a choice.”
He smiled humorlessly. “No. I don’t.” He didn’t expect her to know that, or to understand it. Emotional scars could last far longer than physical ones. Every experience, especially the painful ones, left indelible marks on a person’s character. And it wasn’t in Shane’s to walk away from his responsibility, to let his child grow up without a father in its life. He hadn’t changed that much.
“Okay, then.” She tried for a smile, didn’t quite manage to pull it off. When she attempted to slip her fingers from his grasp, he didn’t let her. Wetting her lips, she faced him squarely. “I know this is complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. I’d never deny you access to the child, and if you stay in the area, there’s no reason we can’t share custody. I’d have some concerns with visitation, of course, if you decide to practice elsewhere, say out-of-state, at least until the child is older. But if—”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Thirty minutes earlier he’d never have imagined uttering that sentence. He’d come back to Greenlaurel not knowing anymore who he was or where he belonged. But he had a piece of that answer now, from a most unexpected direction. He belonged with his child.
She tugged at her fingers again. “If you’d let me go, I’ll get the ultrasound picture to show you.”
He released her and she left the room, returning in a minute to hand him the picture. He’d seen many of them, of course. As a resident, he’d done a stint in the OB-GYN unit at Boston General.
So he was unprepared for the tide of emotion that ambushed him then, filling his chest and straining his heart. It shoved aside the clinical, scientific detachment he’d always examined these pictures with before. He stared at the white lines on the picture, detailing the tiny perfect form. Unconsciously he traced them with his forefinger. The baby had one small fist to its mouth, as if already searching for the contentment supplied by a miniature thumb. The date was stamped across the top, almost a month ago, with Cassie’s name next to it.
“Shane?” Cassie’s voice held a question. Only then did he realize how long he’d spent staring at the picture. “You can keep that if you want. I have another.” When he didn’t answer, couldn’t, her voice grew uncertain. “Unless you’ve… Have you changed your mind?”
“No.” Because his throat seemed full, he cleared it. “I haven’t changed my mind.” The curtain of numbness that had shrouded his emotions for long months had begun shredding the moment he’d seen her letter, had rented when she’d opened the door and he’d seen her once again.
His defenses had crumbled when he’d taken one look at the tiny form in the picture and fully realized what it meant. His child.
He took one last glance at the picture before forcing himself to tuck it into his shirt pocket. “Did they tell you the sex?” Although the determination could be tricky at this early date, he had a good idea.
“I didn’t ask.”
He nodded, but his mind was already grappling with a host of other questions. Suddenly a decision that had seemed so easy only minutes ago became fraught with complication, although their situation was hardly an uncommon one. Children grew up all the time with split families.
He’d just never considered it for his child.
Dodging the bleakness that accompanied that thought, he said with more certainty than he was feeling, “We’ll work it out. When’s your due date?”
“April fourth.”
“You should be cutting way back on your work around here.” Concern flickered when he saw the mutinous look on her face. “Cass, you’ll have to take things easy, especially this winter.”
“Dr. Godden says I can continue doing what I’m doing as long as I feel up to it.”
He opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again. Of course, that was standard medical advice for a woman with a low-risk pregnancy. But this was different. This was Cass. And the baby in question was his. It was oddly disconcerting to discover how easily science could be set aside when emotion was involved. He made a mental note to talk privately to Hawk about curtailing Cassie’s activities around the ranch. Despite her slight stature, she worked as hard as any hand on the place. Common sense demanded that she exercise some restraint during the course of the pregnancy.
A sudden thought struck him. “Were you uncertain about the due date originally?”
He noticed the caution creeping into her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Well, they usually don’t order an ultrasound in the first trimester unless there’s a reason for it. And you said your health is fine, so…”
“Yes, it was for the due date.” It may have been his imagination but her response seemed rushed. “Like I told you, the baby is fine.”
The phone rang then, and Cassie rose, not without a feeling of relief. She’d like to delay any discussion of the tests she’d undergone, and the reason for them, for as long as possible. Shane was very much a man of science. A discussion of her symptoms would only worry him, and he wouldn’t put a lot of stock into the recipe for the tea Hawk had found for her.
As the phone sounded again, she quickened her step. Wild horses couldn’t convince her to tell him about the brief flashes into the immediate future she’d been experiencing. She’d learned too late that he wasn’t a man to accept anything that couldn’t be proved and witnessed with his own eyes.
A moment after answering the phone she heard her brother’s voice on the line and a delighted smile broke out. “You’re not checking up on me, are you? Because I can assure you, Jim makes a pretty effective watchdog.”
“Cassie, thank God.” The urgency in his voice had the smile fading from her lips. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you. I don’t know how much time we have. You’re in danger. Is Jim there? The other hands?” She heard him swear, the impatience in his epithet familiar. “Damn. I suppose they’ve all gone home for the day.”
She frowned. “Hawk, what’s wrong?” A shiver raced down her spine, and the room seemed suddenly chilled.
“You need to get off the ranch. Now. Go to town and stay with…I don’t know, any of your friends. Sheila maybe, if Rafe will be there. Just go somewhere safe and don’t return until I get to town. It’s going to take me a day or so. I haven’t been able to get a flight yet. If I don’t find something soon, I’ll start driving.”
It was unusual to hear her taciturn brother string two sentences together at once. So this litany of terse orders didn’t get her back up. It filled her with foreboding.
“You’re going to have to be a bit more specific, Hawk. What’s going on? What kind of danger are you talking about?” She glanced up as Shane moved to her side. At his quizzical look, she shrugged. She couldn’t tell him what was going on when she didn’t understand herself.
Rather than snapping at her, as was his custom when she refused to fall in with his plans, he spoke faster. “Someone is coming for you. I don’t know who will appear, but stay away from anyone you don’t know, just to be safe. I can’t give you details now. Just get out of there, Cassie, as quickly as possible.”
“There was a couple here about an hour ago,” she said acerbically. “They wanted to look at the horses we have listed on the sale bill. Irritating, certainly, but hardly cause for alarm.” Annoyance had replaced trepidation. It wasn’t like him to be so dramatic, but he’d been overprotective ever since he’d learned of her pregnancy, and the weird spells that had accompanied it.
“Who were they?” His voice was sharp. “What’d they look like?”
After Cassie described the strangers, she heard her brother’s voice, sounding muffled, as though he were talking to someone next to him. “Sheridan’s found her. She’s already been there.”
“Sheridan?” The shiver was back, an electric current down her back. “They introduced themselves as Billings.” Even as she completed the sentence she knew the couple had lied. There had been something about them from the first that had made her wary. She’d explained away the feeling as a side effect of the mental flash she’d had that had preceded their arrival. Cassie swallowed around a throat that had gone suddenly dry. Aware of the man standing beside her, listening intently, she said, “Hawk, I knew they were coming. Just like I knew about Baby.”
Her brother was silent as he digested the information. She’d called him on his cell a couple days ago, after she’d had one of those strange mental flashes. In this one she’d seen her brother’s beloved dog, Baby, lying on the ground, blood pouring from its flank. Her brother hadn’t been available to answer her call. But when they’d spoken later she’d learned her brother had been involved in a fight for his life, and his pet had been injured by a bullet meant for him.
“This is related to what you found out about our mother, isn’t it? What haven’t you told me about that? Why would people have tried to stop you from discovering the truth about her death?” She felt, rather than saw, Shane’s reaction to her words.
“I’ll tell you everything later,” Hawk promised, a hint of desperation sounding in his voice. “But I think the woman who showed up at your door is Dr. Janet Sheridan. She’s a chemist, and the man she works for will stop at nothing to get you, Cassie. She’ll try to inject you with a drug they’ve designed. You can’t let her near you.”
The ground seemed to shift beneath her. There were, she thought numbly, more pieces than ever missing from the story her brother had yet to tell her about his adventures in the last few weeks. “Who is he?” she demanded. “How would he know about me?”
“That doesn’t matter now. If the woman at your door was Sheridan, and from your description, it sure sounds like it, she’s picked up some hired muscle to help her. I don’t know why she left before kidnapping you, but you can’t wait for her to come back.”
“I know why.” Cassie took a deep breath, forced herself to think rapidly. “Shane was coming up the drive. When they saw the car, they left, saying they’d be back tomorrow.” After their initial insistence on seeing the horses, she’d thought it odd that they’d left in such a hurry. But when she’d discovered who was in the vehicle that had sent them on their way, all thoughts of the couple had abruptly faded.
“Farhold’s there?” Hawk’s voice was sharp. “Let me talk to him.”
She hesitated, torn. Her brother had made no bones about his feelings about Shane when he and Cassie had broken up. But the decision was taken out of her hands, along with the phone.
Ignoring her glare, Shane took a few steps away, holding the cordless to his ear. “Hawk. What the hell’s going on?”
“Get her out of there, Farhold. You’ve got to keep her safe. You owe her that much, at least.”
The censure in the man’s voice didn’t come as a surprise. For all intents and purposes, he’d left Cassie alone and pregnant. Even if he had known about the baby, it wouldn’t have changed what happened between the two of them. Couldn’t change it even now.
“I heard most of what you told her on the phone,” he said evenly. “And there was a car leaving as I came up the lane. You think the couple in it was after her? But why?”
“I’m as certain as I can be. So is the FBI. They’re involved in this case, too. I don’t have time to go into it. Just get her to town and watch her every second. I’ll get there as soon as I can, and the Bureau is sending agents, as well. The danger is real, Shane. Make her believe it. And keep her safe. This guy who’s after her, he’s—” The line went abruptly dead.
“Hawk?” When there was no answer, he clicked off the phone and looked at Cassie. “His phone must have gone dead. Was he calling from his cell?”
“Check the caller ID.” He pressed the button on the receiver that should have displayed the numbers of incoming calls. The screen remained blank.
“Looks like it was your phone that went dead.”
She went to the den and retrieved her cell phone from its cradle. As she reentered the living room, she flicked on the light switch, then stopped midstride when the light failed to go on. She swallowed hard, caught his gaze on her. “The electricity is off.”
A grim mask slid over his expression. “Any chance it happened earlier today and you just didn’t notice?”
She thought for a moment. “I used the microwave and the stove about three hours before you got here. It could have gone off anytime since then, I suppose.”