The Rancher's Family Thanksgiving

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Susie smiled.

  She knew all about wanting to be someone or something else.

  She’d felt that way when Tyler turned down her request they become lovers, too, instead of just friends.

  “LOOKS LIKE CATASTROPHE IS on the mend,” Teddy remarked, the next evening.

  Tyler ran his hand down the stallion’s mane, smiling as the big animal leaned into his touch. Though he’d done his best to keep a professional objectivity, having Catastrophe at Healing Meadow, knowing the horse had no owner to soothe him through the ordeal of being confined via harness and elevated to keep weight off the broken leg, had Tyler spending more time with his patient than he ordinarily would. Two of the nights, he’d slept in the hospital barn, and given the vet tech on duty an unexpected night off.

  Tyler had told himself he was doing it because he wanted to make sure nothing went wrong in the initial recuperative process. The reality was he hadn’t wanted to spend the night alone in his ranch house, thinking about Susie and the way everything had gone right, then wrong. He’d been trying to protect her by refusing to allow them to become physically intimate once again. She’d taken it as a rejection. To the point he feared their short-lived “friendship” might be over, and if that was the case, it was reasonable to expect their ability to call on each other in time of trouble was over, too.

  What was that saying? Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And there was no doubt Susie Carrigan felt scorned.

  “Earth to Tyler,” Teddy teased.

  Tyler stroked his hand down Catastrophe’s sleek, well-muscled side.

  “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you this distracted,” Teddy continued. “Or this enamored of a horse. You sure you want to give Catastrophe up?”

  Why did everyone keep asking him that? First Susie, then his vet tech, now his brother.

  “What would I do with another horse?” Tyler asked, cutting an apple in quarters. “I barely have time to ride my own mount as it is.”

  “Only because you don’t make time,” Teddy countered. “And wouldn’t it be nice to have a horse for a lady friend to ride, should you ever get a steady lady friend?”

  Tyler offered the treat up on the palm of his hand. “You’re a laugh riot.”

  “Just saying you could do with a little less work and a lot more social life.”

  “I’ll take that under advisement.” Tyler offered up another section of apple, smiling as Catastrophe demolished that, too. Tyler gave the horse another affectionate pat, then stepped out of the stall and headed down the aisle. Just outside the door, a black cat was examining a dish of kibble. “Catastrophe is a fine horse,” Tyler continued, checking on his next patient, a mule recovering from a tangle with a barbed wire fence. “He’s perfect for use as a stud. Which is why you should have him.”

  Teddy stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned against the stall. “If you still feel that way after he’s finished recuperating, I’ll take him.”

  “But…” Tyler prodded, checking on a row of stitches that had been flirting with infection.

  Teddy shrugged. “That’ll be weeks from now. By then, you may be so attached to Catastrophe you may not want to give him up. If that’s the case, I’ll understand.”

  Tyler rolled his eyes, as outside the door, the black cat took off like a bat out of hell. “Boy, you don’t give up, do you?”

  His brother smiled. “Let’s just say I know how softhearted you are when it comes to animals who’ve not been appreciated the way they should have been.” At the other end of the hospital barn, the vet tech on duty for the night walked in. Which explained, Tyler thought, why the people-shy cat had taken off like that.

  Gabby Hayes was a twenty-year-old college student who wanted to be a large animal vet someday. Petite and darkhaired, with a lively sense of humor and a strong work ethic, she was everything he could have wanted in a part-time employee.

  “You’re not sending me home tonight,” Gabby told Tyler before he could speak. “I need the experience. And you need the sleep.”

  The question was, would he be able to shut his eyes? Tyler wondered. Or would he just lie there, looking at the ceiling, thinking about Susie again?

  Teddy laughed. “You tell him, Gabby. He doesn’t listen to me.”

  Tyler shot his brother a look and grumbled, “With good reason. You’re an idiot.”

  Teddy took the familial dig with the good humor with which it was given.

  Gabby hung up her jacket and purse. Her expression turned serious. “Listen, Doc, I know you don’t like to gossip, but I heard something today when I went in to my hairdresser’s. I didn’t want to ask anyone then, but I figured you might know. Has Susan Carrigan got cancer again?”

  For a moment, Tyler thought he couldn’t possibly have heard right. Teddy looked just as sucker punched as he felt.

  “What makes you think that?”

  Worry lit Gabby’s eyes. “She took these two wigs in to get them cleaned and styled. Then she had her hair cut in the same short, curly style. Her stylist said something about not having seen the wigs since Susie was sick, years ago, and Susie said she hadn’t looked at them, either. Then everybody got kind of quiet. And somebody said they were glad Susie was healthy now, and Susie kind of nodded, but she didn’t say anything else about it, she just changed the subject.”

  Tyler’s insides turned as cold as ice. The thought of anything happening to Susie was more than he could take.

  Was that why…

  Surely she hadn’t known she was ill again when she asked him to make love to her. Or had she?

  Aware both Teddy and Gabby were waiting for his answer, Tyler cleared his throat and said, “I haven’t heard anything that would indicate Susie Carrigan was ill again.”

  Gabby relaxed slightly. “I hope not. She’s such a nice person. Everybody buys their landscape plants and flowers from her.”

  Tyler paused to give Gabby updated instructions for the hospitalized animals care, then walked outside with Teddy. The two brothers exchanged mutually concerned glances.

  “Amy said anything to you?” Tyler asked his brother.

  Teddy shook his head. “No. And I know if Amy knew anything about her sister being sick that she would have said something. This is not the kind of news Amy would keep to herself.”

  “Unless the family wanted to keep it quiet for a while. Let Susie get through Thanksgiving without a lot of tea and sympathy.” Tyler recalled how much Susie had hated the pitying glances of others, no matter how well meant.

  Teddy clapped a comforting hand on Tyler’s shoulder. “Look, if it were true, I’m sure Susie’d head straight for you.”

  Would she?

  After the way they had parted the other night?

  Tyler felt a sinking feeling deep inside, and more regret, fear and guilt than he could ever recall experiencing in his life.

  “Call her. Find out what’s going on,” Teddy urged.

  Tyler was already heading for the Healing Meadow ranch house. “I will.”

  The only problem was Susie wasn’t answering her cell or home phone. Nor did she appear to be home. Finally, in desperation, Tyler called one of her employees at the landscape center, Mark Paggiano. “I’m trying to track down Susie.”

  “She went to Dallas for a few days.”

  Dallas. Where she had received her chemotherapy, years ago, because Laramie Community Hospital hadn’t had an oncology unit then. Tyler fought to keep his voice casual. “Do you have a number where she is staying?”

  “Actually, I do.”

  SUSIE FIGURED IT WAS MAID service, there to clean her room, when she heard the knock at seven-thirty the next morning. Reluctantly, she rolled out of bed, and padded barefoot across the plush carpet. Still yawning, she opened the door as far as the steel privacy cross bar would allow and blinked at what she saw. Six feet four inches of handsome Texan. Hazel eyes staring at her as if she were a ghost.

  Susie blinked, sure she must be dreaming. Her heart rate picked up a
nd she shut the door enough to take off the privacy lock. “What,” Susie asked Tyler McCabe, ushering him in, “are you doing here? “

  As the next thought occurred, her heart skidded to a stop, before resuming at a much quicker rate. “Everything’s okay in Laramie, isn’t it? I mean family, friends. No one’s hurt or sick.”

  Tyler lifted a hand to let her know her concern for her loved ones was unwarranted. “Far as I know everyone there is okay.” Tyler continued staring at her, his gaze roving her hair.

  Remembering she’d had it cut and he hadn’t seen it, she touched a hand to the tousled curls. When her hair was shoulder length or longer, the weight of it pulled it down into thick albeit somewhat unruly waves. When it was short like now, the curls came alive and formed springy corkscrews unless she went to the trouble of straightening it with an iron, which she had not done.

  “Then why are you here?” Susie demanded, perplexed.

  Catching sight of a businessperson on his way to a meeting, looking at Susie in her clingy tank top and low-slung pajama pants, Tyler shouldered his way in, shut the door behind him. “I need to talk to you.”

  Susie perched on the edge of her bed and rubbed the last of the sleep from her eyes. “Obviously. The question is why?”

  Tyler checked out the remains of her minibar feast the night before.

  “I want to make sure you’re okay.”

  Susie got up and began collecting the candy bar wrappers and diet soda cans. She had always used chocolate and caffeine to comfort herself. Last night had been no exception. She balled them up and tossed them into the trash can. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

  Tyler sat down in one of the chairs next to the window. He leaned forward in a confidence-inspiring pose, forearms on his thighs. “You tell me.”

  Inexplicably, Susie felt as if she had landed in the middle of an episode of Dr. Phil. Arms crossed, she ignored his obvious desire she take the comfy club chair opposite him and kept her distance. “No. You tell me. Something brought you here. What was it?”

  Tyler sat back and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “I heard you’d cut your hair in the same style as the wigs you used to wear when you were undergoing chemo.”

  Too late, Susie realized her current position had him at eye level with her exposed navel. “So?” She rummaged around in the minifridge behind her for another can of cola. She offered him one, he shook his head, refusing.

  “I also heard you took the wigs in for cleaning and styling.”

  Susie popped the lid on her drink. She was too sleepy to be playing guessing games like this. “And then what?” She took a sip of the bubbly cola. “Someone alerted the media?”

  Tyler seemed to be struggling with himself. Finally, he swept his hands through his rusty-brown hair, left them momentarily clamped behind his neck before dropping them to his lap again. Not once did he take his eyes off her face. “You’d tell me if you were sick again. Wouldn’t you?”

  Yet another bizarre question, way too early in the morning. Susie shrugged. “I don’t know if I would or not, but I’m not, so…” Shivering in the cool air of the room, Susie caught a glimpse of herself in the bureau mirror, noticed her nipples were visible beneath the thin cotton top. She put her drink down on the top of the TV and went to the closet. She reached for a cropped cardigan she’d had on the day before, and slipped it on.

  Tyler’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Then why’d you cut your hair like that?”

  Susie regarded him with mounting exasperation. What gave him the right to give her the third degree? Yet she knew the fastest way to get to the bottom of whatever was going on was simply to answer his questions. “I recalled how much I liked it this way, it’s a cut that’s coming back into style, and I hadn’t worn it this way for years, so…” She went back to sipping cola, and letting the icy beverage energize her. “I went for it.”

  He stood and came closer. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and the stubble of rusty-brown clung to his stubborn McCabe jaw, giving him a faintly outlaw look that she found very appealing. “There’s more to it than that.”

  Once again, he’d seen things others had missed.

  Susie’s emotions bubbled to the surface. “I did it for Emmaline.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “When you’re sick like I was, and Emmaline is now, all you want to do is get things back to normal as soon as possible. Any reminder—like the loss of your hair due to chemotherapy—gets in the way of that and makes you feel bad about yourself and the whole process of recovery. I spent far too much time during my illness resenting the loss of my hair and the way I looked, just as Emmaline is doing now. I think I would have been happier and gotten better sooner if I’d stopped resenting the changes in my appearance and instead embraced the opportunity to make over my image by adapting a different look. So I cut my hair in an attempt to show Emmaline that short hair is in vogue, and change is good. End of story.”

  “And I suppose it’s coincidence that it’s the same style as the wigs,” he countered.

  Susie tilted her head and regarded him meditatively. The thought of Tyler being so desperate to protect and understand her made her happy and she shrugged. “Sort of yes, sort of not.”

  “Why are you having them fixed up?” he probed, giving her a look that told her this was only the warm-up to what he really wanted to ask.

  Susie pretended an insouciance she couldn’t begin to feel. “None of your business,” she countered playfully, mocking his tone, which was far too serious for this early in the morning.

  “Are the wigs for Emmaline?”

  She blew out a breath before answering. “Yes, of course they are.”

  He regarded her stoically. “I just needed to make sure you hadn’t come here to get some kind of treatment or second opinion.”

  “I don’t need a first one!”

  He moved as if to take her in his arms. “Susie—” His voice was soft, comforting.

  She held up a hand. She wanted a lot of things from Tyler McCabe. Companionship, friendship, passion. She did not want pity or concern. “I can see you’ve done a lot of deducing, Sherlock,” she told him drily, “but you’ve added two and two together and come up with five.” She gave him a moment to absorb that. “I am not here because I have cancer or think I have cancer again. I am here because it’s been a long time since I’ve done anything really nice for myself, and I thought I had earned a few days in a deluxe hotel.”

  “Is that the only reason you came to Dallas?”

  “No.” She had wanted to try and forget the humiliation of offering herself as his lover, only to be rejected. She had wanted to forget the hurt. The embarrassment. The crushing disappointment.

  “Are you going to tell me what it is?” he pleaded softly, edging closer.

  Of no mind to cooperate, Susie said, “Look around. Figure it out for yourself.”

  For the first time he seemed to notice the bags she had stacked against one wall. “You’ve been shopping.”

  “Brilliant.”

  “For Christmas presents?”

  Trying not to think how much she liked the masculine fragrance of his soap and cologne, Susie tilted her head back. “As well as some new clothes for me. I figure if I’m going to be dating again, I should get some new duds.”

  He looked at her in silent reproach. “You sound happy about that.”

  “I figure if I’m going to do it, I might as well give it my all,” Susie declared with a great deal more enthusiasm than she felt. “Who knows, maybe Bachelors Number Four or Five will be the one, and if not, maybe Number Six or Seven or Ten will be.” Anything to keep her mind off Tyler and what they might have had if he’d only been amenable to the proposal she’d made.

  “You’re going to keep seeing the guys your parents fix you up with?” The set of his lips was grim.

  “Why not?” She hated the fact that he looked so at peace with his refusal to sleep with her again when she was still tied up in knots. �
�Just because I don’t see myself getting married or having kids doesn’t mean I have to go through the rest of my life without love and sex. I’m sure if I put my heart and soul into looking I’ll find someone who will happily meet my terms.”

  Unlike you, Tyler McCabe, she added silently, still feeling more than a little disappointed about his rejection of her, however well-meant.

  Tyler inhaled deeply, shook his head. “You don’t have to do that.”

  Susie smirked. She resented his interference, the way he was trying to impose restrictions on her life. “Really,” she said sarcastically. Ignoring the flare of his nostrils and the set of his broad shoulders, she folded her arms in front of her and glared up at him. “You’ve decided that for me?”

  He nodded. “I’ve had a change of heart, too,” he said, the emotion in his low, husky voice countered by the studied casualness of his words. “I’m willing to adhere to your rules, Suze. Starting now, I’ll be your lover and your friend.”

  Chapter Seven

  Life is not a dress rehearsal.

  “Thanks but no thanks,”

  For the second time in twenty-four hours, Tyler was sure he hadn’t heard her right. “Excuse me?”

  “We had this discussion already,” Susie muttered impatiently. She paced a safe distance away from him, obviously angry. “I don’t want to go through it again.”

  She must have thought they were finished talking about it. He had plenty more to say. And he figured if she were honest, she did, too.

  “I told you,” he said slowly, pausing long enough to let his words sink in, “I changed my mind.”

  “So did I.” Susie put up a staying hand. She had left her cardigan open, and he could see the silky bare skin of her stomach and the indentation of her navel above the low-slung pink-and-yellow-and-white-striped pajama pants. The soft curves of her breasts pushed against the stretchy cotton tank. She looked so sweet and enticing it was all he could do not to take her in his arms and worry about working out everything else later.

  Not that she would have agreed to that. The feisty look in her eyes, and the lecturing quality of her voice told him as much.