by Lisa Jackson
“As soon as I alert his brothers,” Nicole said, her head finally clear again. Somehow she had to put her own emotions aside and don her facade of professionalism, not only for herself, but for Thorne as well. Her fingers were still slightly unsteady, but she picked up the phone. “Matt and Slade need to know that their brother’s been in an accident and admitted to St. James.” She didn’t wait for a response, just dialed the ranch and gave the message to Slade, who shocked, didn’t say a word until she was finished.
Then he swore a blue streak. “Damn it all, how can this happen? What kind of a fool gets into a plane in the middle of a blizzard?” he asked, then sighed loudly. “I guess it doesn’t matter. Just tell me. Is he gonna make it?”
“Yes—I think so.” The thought of Thorne giving up his life was too painful to consider. She cleared her throat and was aware of the detective’s eyes silently assessing her and her reaction. “A team of our best doctors is working to stabilize him in the emergency room. From there he’ll see specialists.”
“Son of a—” Slade began, and then shouted in another direction. “Juanita, can you watch the baby for a while? Thorne’s been in an accident and he’s at the hospital.”
“Dios!” the woman cried. “This family, it has a maldición!”
“There is no curse, Juanita.” Slade’s voice was muffled but firm. “Will you watch—”
“Sí, sí! I will stay.”
“I’ll round up Matt,” Slade said into the mouthpiece. “We’ll be there as soon as we can.” He hung up and Nicole, still shaken, slowly set down the receiver. Once again, she found herself staring into the scrutinizing gaze of Detective Kelly Dillinger.
“They’re on their way?” she asked.
“Both Matt and Slade.”
“Good.”
“What is it you want to know?”
“Just a little family history,” the detective said, pulling out a notepad. “The reason is simple. First the sister is nearly killed in an accident, has a baby who nearly doesn’t make it, remains comatose and leaves a lot of questions unanswered. We can’t contact the baby’s father as no one seems to know who he is, and we can’t talk to her and find out why her car went out of control.”
“I thought she hit ice,” Nicole said, a needle of dread piercing her heart.
“She did. But the family’s insistent that there was another vehicle involved. They hired an independent investigator who’s determined to prove that there was some kind of foul play.” She took off her hat and red hair spilled around her face in soft layers. “Okay, that’s what some families do. It makes them feel better—to pay someone to dig deeper than the police. Or so they think.”
“But—was there? Foul play?”
“We don’t know,” the detective said, her face without expression, her eyes serious. “But I’m trying to find out.” She clicked her pen a couple of times, then jotted a quick note. “I wasn’t convinced that there was anything to go on, but now there’s been another accident involving another member of the family, so I guess I’m just covering all bases.”
“But the plane crash, it was an accident.” It had to have been. No one would try to harm Thorne—to murder him!
“Most likely it was an accident. The storm was bad and those light planes…well…” She cocked her head to one side. “But if it’s all just coincidence, then this McCafferty family is having one string of bad luck. If not…then maybe that P.I. knows something the sheriff’s department doesn’t. I’m here to figure it out.”
Nicole’s head pounded. Was this possible? Someone out to hurt the McCafferty clan? She swallowed hard and refused to give in to that kind of fear. So far no one had proved anything other than the fact that there had been some accidents. Bad luck, that was it. It had to be.
She checked her watch. Thorne had been in the ER for over thirty minutes. Surely someone knew the extent of his injuries by now. Yet no one had called and she was edgy, her nerves strung tight as piano wires. What if something had gone wrong? Distracted, she tried to answer as many questions as possible and talked with the detective for a few more minutes before she explained that she really had to go back to work.
“That’s fine. I’ll need to speak to the patient when he wakes up,” Kelly Dillinger said, “and I’ll want to talk to his brothers.” She scraped her chair back, grabbed her hat and together they took the elevator down to the emergency room. The detective hurried out to her police car and Nicole was immediately immersed in her work.
Nicole saw three more patients, a seven-year-old girl who needed five stitches to her forehead after being hit by the end of a twirling baton that had lost its rubber tip and had been wielded by her younger brother, a septuagenarian with a mild case of bronchitis, and an ashen-faced teenager who thought she had a bad case of the flu and showed shock, then horror when tests confirmed that she was nearly three months’ pregnant.
By the time Nicole had finished the examinations, the ER was clear. She talked to the nurses and found out that Thorne had been admitted. He was stable and aside from a few contusions and a broken leg that would require surgery once the swelling had gone down, he was healthy.
“Thank God,” she whispered as she made her way to his private room. Matt and Slade were camped out at his bedside. Both men wore deep frowns and their eyes were dark with worry.
“I can’t believe it,” Slade muttered as he walked to the hallway and reached into the inside pocket of his jacket for a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He retrieved the pack, then realized what he was doing and returned it to his pocket. “What in the hell is going on?” He shot an angry glance at Nicole. “Now we got two in this hospital again! The baby just got home and Thorne winds up here!”
“He’s going to make it, though. Okay?” Matt muttered. “That’s something.”
“Damned fool! What was he doin’ flyin’ in that storm?” Slade closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose as if trying to stave off a headache.
“He thought he should get back—”
Slade’s eyes flew open and he dropped his hand only to raise a finger and jab it at Matt’s chest. “Because he doesn’t have any faith that we can handle the ranch, or the baby or Randi’s situation, ourselves. He’s got no faith in anyone but himself! A control freak. That’s what he is. A damned, corporate control freak.”
“Enough!” Matt’s face had turned a deep shade of scarlet. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”
“I’m going to tell Striker.” Slade rammed his fingers through his hair and as if a sudden thought had struck him, turned all of his attention in Nicole’s direction. “You said you had some article that Randi might have written?”
“I took a copy and sent it to you.”
“Hell, I didn’t even think of the mail today.” He rubbed the back of his neck in frustration.
“Have you talked to anyone from the sheriff’s department?” Nicole asked.
“The sheriff’s department?” Matt’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“They’re investigating the accident. I spoke with a Detective Dillinger and she said she wants to talk to you.”
“Because—?” Matt asked, but the look in his eyes convinced Nicole that he already knew the answer.
“Because finally someone’s starting to believe what Kurt Striker has been saying all along,” Slade answered. “I’m going to call him right now.”
“And I’ll talk to the police.” Matt’s jaw was hard as granite. “If this isn’t just an accident, I’m going to find out who’s behind it.” He squared his hat onto his head. “You’ll call me if there’s a change in Thorne’s condition?”
“Of course.”
As the brothers strode down the hall together, Nicole entered Thorne’s darkened room. She told herself that she saw injured people all the time, victims who had suffered horrid accidents and disfigurements, that she could stomach anything. But seeing Thorne lying inert beneath the crisp bedsheets, with an IV running into the back of his hand, his leg elevated in a t
emporary cast, his face cut and swollen beyond recognition, each breath seeming labored, her heart nearly broke.
“Oh, honey,” she whispered, her throat closing in on itself. She loved him. God, how she loved him and he’d betrayed her; been with another woman. She licked her lips and fought tears. There he lay, a broken leg, a concussion, his head bandaged, his features barely recognizable. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” she said, her voice a rasp, her fingers touching the tips of his. “I did love you. Oh, Thorne, if you only knew how much.” Sniffing a bit, she cleared her throat. “But then I always was a fool over you. I suppose I always will be.” His eyelids didn’t so much as flutter. “You get better, y’hear? I’ll be back and, damn it, if you do something foolish like take a turn for the worse, I swear, I’ll kill you myself.” She laughed a bit at her own stupid joke and realized that tears were falling from her eyes. “Oh, look at this. I’m such a moron. You make me a moron. I, uh, I’ve got to go check on the girls.” She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue she found near the bedside. “But I’ll be back. I promise.” She leaned over the bed and placed a kiss on his forehead, leaving a lipstick smudge and a tearstain that she quickly brushed aside. “You know, Thorne,” she confided, “I was foolish enough to want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
She waited, half expecting him to respond, silently praying there would be a squeeze on her fingers, rapid eye movement behind his closed lids, even the barest change in his breathing, but she was disappointed. Like his sister in ICU, Thorne heard nothing and didn’t so much as flinch.
Nicole left the room with a weight as heavy as all Montana pressing down her shoulders. She wrote her notes in a daze, then grabbed her coat, changed into boots and headed home. Outside the snow was still flurrying, swirling and dancing across the frozen landscape. In gloves and a down ski jacket, she turned the radio and heater on full blast, but couldn’t thaw the ice in her soul at the thought of Thorne’s plane crash and how close he’d come to losing his life.
And how would you feel then? If he’d died or was in serious risk of losing his life? Or paralyzed for the rest of his life?
She shuddered and tried to concentrate on a song playing through the speakers, but the lyrics of false love scraped too close to the bone. Angrily, she snapped off the radio. She was no longer involved with Thorne. He wanted it that way. It had been a mistake to get involved with him again but it was over. Over, over, over! His choice. She braked for a stoplight and waited impatiently, gloved fingers tapping on the steering wheel as a few brave souls bundled in scarves, boots and thick winter coats hurried along the snow-covered streets of Grand Hope. Barren trees lifted naked arms to a night sky where millions of snowflakes caught in the neon lights of the city continued to fall.
So what did you expect from him? A marriage proposal? Her wayward mind taunted as the light changed to green and she stepped on the accelerator.
The thought made her laugh without a grain of humor. Then minutes later, still lost in her own thoughts, she turned onto the street where she lived, and promised herself that she would get over Thorne McCafferty once and for all. She had her girls. She had her work. She had a life. Without Thorne. She didn’t need him.
The SUV’s wheels slid a bit as she pulled into the driveway but she managed to park in front of the garage. Hauling her briefcase and laptop computer with her, she dashed through the short drifts and climbed up the back porch. Stomping the snow from her boots and pulling off her gloves with her teeth, she opened the back door and heard squeals of delight.
“Mommy! Mommy! Come see.” Two sets of feet pounded the floor as the girls raced into the kitchen.
Nicole was unzipping her coat, but leaned down to hug each of the twins. Yes, her life was full. She didn’t need a man and certainly not Thorne McCafferty.
Patches hopped lithely onto the counter.
“The flowers. Bunches and bunches and bunches of flowers,” Molly said, holding her arms as wide as she could.
“Flowers?” Nicole asked and noticed the fragrance of roses that seemed to permeate the air.
“Yeth.” Mindy was pulling on one hand, dragging her to the living room. Molly gripped her other.
“You get down!” Nicole ordered the precocious feline as they passed the counter. The cat hopped to the floor as Nicole stepped into the living room and gasped. Jenny was standing near the fireplace and the grate was lit, several logs burning brightly, and all around the room, on every table, in the corners and on the floor, were dozens and dozens of roses. Red, white, pink, yellow—it didn’t matter, bouquet after bouquet. “What in the world…?” she whispered.
“There’s a card.” Jenny pointed to a bouquet of three dozen white long-stemmed roses.
“Read it! Read it!” both girls chimed.
With shaking fingers she opened the small white envelope. It read simply: “Marry me.”
Tears burned behind her eyelids. “Do you know who sent these?” she asked.
Jenny smiled. “Don’t you?”
Knees suddenly weak, Nicole dropped into a side chair. “Dear Lord…”
“What, Mommy? What?” Mindy asked, her little eyebrows knotting in concern.
“Thorne’s in the hospital.”
“What?” Jenny’s smile fell away and haltingly Nicole told her about the plane crash.
“Oh, my God, well you’ve got to go back there. You’ve got to be with him.”
“But the girls…”
“Don’t worry about them. I can handle them.” The twins’ faces fell and Jenny added, “We’ll have pizza delivered and make popcorn balls and…and a surprise for your mommy.”
“But I don’t want Mommy to leave,” Mindy said.
“Baby!” Molly accused, pointing a tiny finger at her sister.
“Am not!”
“Shh…shh…no one’s a baby.”
Touched by the dazzling array of flowers, Nicole stared at the soft petals and long stems and her heart pounded with a love she so recently tried to deny. “I—I do have to go back to the hospital,” she said, “but I’ll be back soon.”
Mindy’s face began to crumple. “Promise?”
Nicole kissed her daughter’s forehead and stood on legs that threatened to give out again. She plucked one crimson rose from its vase and winked at her daughters. “Promise.”
* * *
Through a veil of pain, he heard the door open and expected that it was the nurse bringing much needed medication.
“Thorne?”
Nicole’s voice. His heart leaped, but he didn’t move. Nor did she turn on the light as she walked to his bedside. Carefully she laid a long-stemmed rose on his chest. “I—I don’t know what to say.”
He didn’t respond. Didn’t move. In his semiconscious state a few hours ago, he’d heard her claims of loving him yet not wanting him, of saying it would never work out, so he’d thought she’d gotten the flowers and had rejected him. He hadn’t been able to respond then, didn’t know if he could now. He barely remembered the accident. There had been a problem, an engine had died and he’d been forced to land in a field, nearly made it when the plane had crashed into a copse of trees…he was lucky…
“I got the flowers. Dozens and dozens of them. You shouldn’t have…oh, Thorne,” she whispered, dragging him back to the present, to Nicole. Beautiful, sexy Nicole. “I wish you could hear me. I want to explain....”
Here it comes again. She was going to repeat what she’d said earlier. Without moving he braced himself for the worst.
“I was—am—overwhelmed.” She cleared her throat and he felt her fingers find his. “I read the card.”
He felt like an idiot. Why had he bared his soul to her? She didn’t want him, she’d made that clear enough. He braced himself against the pain.
“And I wish I could make you hear me, that you’d understand just how much I love you. Marry you? Oh, Lord, if you only knew how much I wanted to do just that, but I saw your picture with that woman at the fund-raiser in Denver and I
—I thought you weren’t ready to settle down, that you never will be and so, I don’t know what to do. If there was any chance that we could be together, you and I and the girls, believe me I’d—”
Despite the pain, he forced his hand to move. His head felt as if it might explode, but he grabbed her hand then, held on to it fiercely. The rose dropped to the floor.
“Oh! Dear God—”
“Marry me,” he rasped, forcing the words through lips that felt cracked and swollen. Pain screamed through his body but he didn’t care.
“But—what? Can you—”
“Marry me.” He squeezed her fingers so tightly that she gasped again.
“You can hear me?”
He forced his eyes open, blinked against the fragile light that seemed to blind. “Nicole—would you please just answer?” Somehow he managed to focus on her face—God, it was a great face. “Will you marry me?”
“But what about the other woman, the one in the paper?”
“There is no other woman. Just you.” He stared at her hard, willing her to believe him. “And there will always only be you in my life. I swear it.”
He watched her swallow hard, bite her lip, fight the indecision.
“I will love you forever,” he vowed and then the tears came, slowly at first and then more rapidly, falling from her gorgeous amber eyes. “Marry me, Nicole. Be my wife.”
With her free hand, she dashed the tears away. “Yes,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “Yes.” He yanked hard, pulled her over him and when his lips found hers some of the pain disappeared and he knew that from this day forward he would gladly give up whatever possessions he had, that nothing else came close to the love he felt for her and he would cherish this woman until he gave up his very last breath.
“I love you, Doctor,” he vowed as she lifted her head and laughed. “And this time, believe me, I’ll never leave you and I’ll never let you go.”
“Oh, I bet you say that to all the women physicians,” she teased, her eyes bright with tears as she picked up the rose and laid it next to him on the bed.
“Nope. Only one.”