Tyler shrugged, unconcerned. He turned so he was standing with one shoulder braced against the truck, facing her. He reached over and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. “So tell ’em you’ve changed your mind.”
Susie studied the strong column of his throat, visible in the open neck of his shirt. “I made a deal. Besides—” she paused, bit her lip “—this is the only way I know to get them to back off for now.”
“So you’re assuming this won’t work?” Tyler didn’t look unhappy about that.
Nor, Susie realized, was she.
Finally, she felt herself begin to relax. And smile. “Well, duh, of course not,” she said wryly. She paused to look deep into his hazel eyes, noticing all over again what a ruggedly handsome man he was. And it was more than just the symmetry of his features. It was his kindness and compassion. The humor he exhibited. The way he picked up on a person’s slightest change in mood, the way he could always make a person feel better, with an offhand comment or smile.
Tyler McCabe was one man who was beautiful inside and out.
A man who revered family and friends.
A man who should not be going through life alone.
Aware he was waiting for her to continue unburdening herself, she said, “Fix-ups never work.”
He squinted as if doing some inner calculations, then finally allowed in a matter-of-fact tone, “Statistically, there’s probably a slight chance.”
Susie blew out an exasperated breath and shifted, her knee nudging his leg slightly in the process. “Not chance enough,” she muttered. The idea of living some real-life fairy tale occasionally dredged up romantic dreams she’d had about her future. But inevitably reality intervened and hit her with a terrible illness, disabusing her of any notion that she lived in a bubble, protected from all the worst things in life. Others might lead a charmed existence. Not her.
Never her.
“Some of us aren’t cut out for marriage,” Susie said firmly.
“I hear you.”
She smiled. “So don’t look for me to have an engagement ring on my finger, because it’s just not going to happen.”
Was that her imagination or was that a distinctly male satisfaction gleaming in his eyes, before concern took over once again?
Tyler studied her with his usual intuitiveness. “So what else is dragging you down?”
Susie knew there was something more, too, but she couldn’t figure out what.
She just knew, after she had talked to Tyler today, out at Healing Meadow, that she’d felt depressed. And her low mood had continued through the evening, only abating slightly when she had asked Tyler to go to the hospital with her.
Tyler’s voice turned husky. His hand cupped her shoulder, transmitting warmth and comfort through the cloth. “Is it about Emmaline?” He paused. “Did Whit Jenkins tell you something tonight before you went to see her that you’ve yet to share with me?”
Susie shook her head, still holding his eyes. “It’s not that. Whit told me Emmaline’s prognosis was good, that they are expecting her to make a full recovery as soon as she finishes the current course of chemo. Emmaline’s just depressed from the stress of treatment, and needed someone in her life who could relate. Since the hospital doesn’t have a support group for teens—currently she is their only oncology patient in that age group—and she refuses to go to the regular group, he thought—hoped—I would step in to be there for Emmaline.”
Tyler frowned, all protective male again. “Having no idea how hard that was going to be for you.”
Susie gave Tyler a look that let the handsome rancher know he did not have to go after Whit. “I’ve visited with adults who were sick and struggling with the disease. I’ve never talked to kids who were the age I was when I got diagnosed. I guess I just wasn’t prepared for how swiftly it would take me back to that place.”
A place she never wanted to visit again.
Suddenly aware how cold and damp the evening had become, how thin her sweater was, Susie shivered and wrapped her arms more tightly in front of her. “Or how overly emotional it would make me feel,” she finished, teeth chattering slightly.
Tyler scowled, abruptly looking like a knight charged with protecting his queen. “I know you want to help Emmaline. She obviously needs comforting from someone who can relate to her. But it doesn’t have to be you,” Tyler instructed her firmly.
He opened the door to her truck, and guided her inside, his hand lingering on her waist until he was sure she was settled behind the wheel. “I can go see Emmaline, in your place. I can take my aunt Kate. You know she does counseling here. She deals with stuff like this all the time.”
Susie appreciated Tyler’s desire to shield her from hurt, as always. This time she couldn’t let him shoulder the burden. She was strong now, as capable of helping others as he was. And it was time Tyler realized that.
Susie fit her truck keys into the ignition. “Kate is wonderful. I’m sure Emmaline would appreciate seeing both of you.”
Tyler rested a hand on the back of her seat and propped one boot on the running board. Elbow resting on his thigh, he studied her expression and guessed, “But you can’t duck out on her.”
Not and live with myself, I can’t.
Susie bolstered her courage even as she turned the key. “I made a promise to her tonight, Tyler.” She waited until he had closed the door for her, then put down her window and stated, just as firmly, “It’s a commitment I intend to keep.”
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Tyler dropped by the Carrigans’ to see Susie’s parents. A Saturday, both Meg and Luke were working outside in the yard, raking leaves and weeding flower beds. As Tyler approached, he thought about how respected both were in the community. Meg was director of nursing at Laramie Community Hospital. Luke ran the family practice program that had recruited both Tyler’s cousin Riley, and their son, Jeremy Carrigan, to be on the hospital staff. They were good parents and they loved all four of their children dearly.
But they were making a mistake and it was up to Tyler to help them see it.
Hoping his meddling wouldn’t be taken the wrong way, Tyler headed up the walk. The last thing he wanted to do was make Susie’s life more difficult than it already was.
“Hi, Dr. Carrigan.”
“Tyler.” Luke put down his edger and ran a hand through his silver-blond hair.
Tyler nodded at Susie’s mother. “Mrs. Carrigan.”
Meg left her spade in the dirt and rose from her place beside the flower beds. Her auburn hair was mussed from the breeze stirring the fall air. Dirt and grass stained the knees of her coveralls. She smiled at Tyler, inching off her work gloves.
“Mind if I have a word with you?” Tyler asked.
“Of course not.” Meg motioned him to the screened-in back porch at the rear of the large turn-of-the-century Cape Cod.
Unlike the evening before, the afternoon was pleasantly warm.
She slipped into the house and came back with three glasses of mint iced tea.
“What’s up?” Luke Carrigan always got straight to the point.
Tyler sat in a cushioned wicker chair, opposite the long-married couple. “I want to talk to you about this plan to fix up Susie with four more guys.”
Brows lifted. Meg and Luke exchanged the kind of husband and wife glances that brimmed with understanding but required no words. “She told you,” Meg said finally.
Tyler nodded. “The first introduction didn’t go so well.”
“Yes, we know,” Luke said.
“Whit called this morning to say he and Susie were destined to be friends. The chemistry just wasn’t there.” Meg made no effort to hide her disappointment.
The next was a little harder to broach. Tyler frowned. “She’s upset you paired her with an oncologist.”
Meg and Luke clearly did not agree with Tyler’s opinion that it had been a stupid thing to do.
Giving Tyler the kind of man-to-man look that held nothing back, Lu
ke replied, “Who better, if it had worked out?”
Me, Tyler wanted to say, though he had no idea where that thought had come from. He and Susie were not—had never been—a couple. They were crisis buddies, pure and simple.
Most of the time they were busy living their own lives. But right now Susie needed his help in the worst way.
Tyler approached her parents with the same mixture of tempered caution and compassion he used on his patients’ owners.
“Susie is trying to put the disease in her past.”
Meg’s expression clouded with remorse. It was clear she was reacting as much as a medical professional now, as a mother.
“That’s not possible, Tyler,” Meg said.
Luke added, with empathy, “None of us can ever forget what Susie went through to regain her good health.” He paused, looked Tyler straight in the eye, his aggravation plain. “I would think you would understand that better than anyone, given how much time you spent with Susie during her treatment.”
“And every time since, when she has encountered some sort of difficulty,” Meg added, with a look at her husband.
It hadn’t mattered what kind of problem Susie’d had, Tyler thought. Business, personal, whatever. If she needed a shoulder to lean on, he was there. And when she no longer needed him, he just as conveniently disappeared. That way, they could maintain the status quo. It was very important to Tyler to maintain their relationship just as it was. To not do anything that would risk what he hoped would be a lifelong connection.
“And we appreciate all that you’ve done for her, thus far, more than we can say,” Luke continued.
Not about to be cast in the role of hero now, as he had been by the Carrigans back then, Tyler shrugged. As much as he pretended Susie was just another friend, deep inside he knew that was not the case. Susie and he shared an intimacy, an ability to tell each other anything, he had with no one else, and that included his two triplet-brothers. Tyler sensed that for Susie, as close as she was to her family, she felt the same way about him. She could unburden herself to him in a way she could not confide in anyone else.
It had been that way from his very first visit to her hospital room. It was that way now, and always would be, he figured, no matter who else came and went in their lives. And if the past was any indication, other people would always come and go, since neither he nor Susie had the desire to marry and settle down.
Aware the Carrigans were waiting for him to continue explaining why he felt the need to butt into a family matter that was clearly none of his business, or should not have been, anyway, Tyler said, “I’m glad you appreciate what I’ve done for your daughter, but it’s a two-way street. Susie has been there for me, too, when I’ve needed her.”
Luke drained his tea. His expression shifted into Overprotective Father mode. “Unfortunately,” Luke stated evenly, “we also know Susie needs a lot more in her life than you can give her as a go-to friend.”
Meg held up a hand before Tyler could comment.
“Getting Susie to admit that, however, has proved difficult,” Meg concurred with Luke, like a mama bear protecting her cub. “Which is why her father and I have taken matters into our own hands and given her the nudge she needs to get out there and really start living her life again. Not just day to day, the way she has been, Tyler, but with a real eye toward the future and all she has left to experience.”
“I HEARD YOU STOPPED BY my folks’ this morning on your way to the clinic.”
Tyler looked up to see Susie framed in the doorway of his office.
He pushed back from the endless paperwork that occupied him the first and third Saturday afternoon of every month. He had hoped she wouldn’t find out about his visit.
“Can’t keep anything from you, can I?” he teased.
As expected, Susie refused to let his cajoling get him off the hook.
She sauntered in, looking beautiful in jeans and a white V-neck T-shirt. Four oddly shaped pearls hung pendant style around her neck from a thin piece of brown leather necklace, two more adorned her ear. Tyler smiled. Susie liked to accessorize, and her tastes ran to the unusual.
“They thought your interference was sweet but ill-advised.”
Tyler noted her wavy blond hair had been drawn into a low ponytail at the nape of her neck. He knew Susie only put it back like that when the length and weight of her glossy mane was bothering her. “I take it that means there is a Bachelor Number Two on the schedule?”
She lounged next to his desk, engulfing him in her sexy flowers and citrus perfume. “Gary Hecht. A statistician. I’m meeting him for a half an hour at the driving range this evening.”
With effort, Tyler shifted his gaze from the subtle curve of her hip, to her face. He tossed his pen down on his desk, rocked back in his chair. “I didn’t know you golfed.”
Susie made a face. “I don’t. But he does.” Humor glittered in her amber eyes as she acknowledged with a toss of her head, “I figured that would keep his attention focused on something other than me and make the thirty minutes go a heck of a lot quicker.”
“Glad to hear you’re really getting into the spirit of things,” Tyler drawled.
Susie hopped up on the edge of his desk. She put her hands on either side of her, kept one foot on the floor, and swung the other leg back and forth.
“Which is where you come in,” Susie said.
Tyler’s hand dropped to her fingertips, curled over the edge of his desk. As always he marveled at the feminine sight. Given how much time she spent rooting around in the soil, he would have figured her hands would show the wear and tear. True, her nails were neat and short. And she almost never wore any jewelry on her hands. But her palms were every bit as silky smooth as the rest of her.
Struggling to keep his attention focused on the conversation, Tyler returned, “Oh, yeah?”
Susie nodded agreeably. Devilry colored her low tone. “I want you to accidentally on purpose show up there about the time I am supposed to leave to facilitate my exit, if things get sticky. They may not, but better safe than sorry.”
The idea of rescuing her yet again was not unappealing, although Tyler pretended it was.
Watching how the autumn sunlight streaming through the open blinds brought out the honey-gold in her hair, he regarded her with mock exasperation. “And what do I get for this?”
Susie tapped the pad of her index finger against her chin in a parody of thoughtfulness. “Uh…fresh flowers for the reception desk?”
Tyler rocked back in his chair and clasped his fingers together behind his head. As far as interruptions went, this was the most pleasurable one he’d had in quite a while.
He feigned a disagreeable attitude. “You know I could care less about anything floral.”
Unless it’s a fragrance, adorning your skin.
Tyler didn’t know why, her particular pheromones, maybe, but Susie made perfume—any perfume—smell incredible.
She squinted at him playfully and finally offered up a new bargain. “How about…hmm…I iron some of your shirts?”
His preference for unstarched cotton was a running joke between them. He fingered the pine-green oxford he was wearing. “I like ’em rumpled.”
Susie swung her leg back and forth. “I’ll plant a tree in front of your ranch house.”
“It would just get in the way of my tractor when I mow.”
Trevor wanted his off time and the chores he had to do around his Healing Meadow ranch to be as easy as possible.
“Okay, then—” she batted her eyelashes at him flirtatiously “—I’ll pay for dinner.”
“Now you’re talking.”
She held up a cautioning finger. “But it can’t be here in town. It wouldn’t be sensitive to ditch one date and then publicly go right out and eat a meal with another.”
Tyler tried and failed to keep an amused grin off his face. “But it would be okay to do it behind Bachelor Number Two’s back?”
Susie huffed and hopped off his des
k. She strode back and forth restlessly. “Whose side are you on?”
As if she even had to ask. “Yours. Definitely.”
“All right.” Susie paused and circled her waist with her hands. She tilted her head at him thoughtfully. “So where do you want to eat?”
Tyler shrugged. “You know the area every bit as well as I do. Surprise me.”
GARY HECHT TURNED OUT to be shorter than Susie by a good inch and a half, and movie-star handsome, Susie noted. He also had a great golf swing.
“I gather my parents told you I had leukemia when I was a teenager.” Susie picked a spot near the end of the Armadillo Acres driving range, and set her bucket of balls down on the grass.
“Yes, they did and I immediately ran the statistics.” Gary set his bucket down to the left of hers and plucked a custom club from his golf bag.
He removed the cover and ran his hand lovingly over the stem of the stick, and onto the wood head of the club, his fingers tracing the loft, as if to ensure it were still in perfect shape.
He regarded Susie with scientific enthusiasm. “Do you know that you have a greater chance of getting in a fatal car accident or contracting a deadly form of pneumonia than you do of getting cancer again?”
“No. I can’t say I did,” Susie said drily.
Her attempt at humor was lost on the insurance company actuary. This could be a long thirty minutes.
She loathed being stuck with a humorless companion. Being on a date with one was even worse.
Gary caught her dissatisfied look. “Illness doesn’t scare me, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Satisfied all was in order with his driver, Gary placed a golf ball on the tee and paused to line up his first shot. “And if most people looked at the numbers, I don’t think it would scare them nearly as much, either. Modern medicine has done great things when it comes to improving life expectancy. Thanks to all the research being done, and new protocols developed, the odds of living a long, healthy life are getting better all the time.”
The Rancher's Family Thanksgiving Page 3