by Claire King
“You think someone’s trying to sabotage me? Destroy my business and kill off my entire herd?”
“I know it sounds implausible—”
“It doesn’t sound implausible, Grace, it sounds insane.”
“You don’t have one enemy? No one who would do this to you?”
He looked at her, those horrible expressionless eyes boring into hers.
“Just you.”
She thought she’d been ready for that. “Not me, Daniel.”
“For last night,” he said.
She shook her head, clenched her teeth. “No.”
“Well, not anybody else.”
“What about your brother?”
Oh, he’d thought he was dead inside, but the swipe she took at his little brother was a fresh pain. He was ashamed that the thought had flickered, however briefly, through his mind the instant she’d mentioned sabotage. But he would never believe it.
“No. Not Frank.”
“Come on, Daniel,” she said, unbelievably frustrated. “Do you believe this can all just be some horrible coincidence? Animal Industries confirmed the brucella bacterium in the heifer samples. I didn’t make them up. They’ve tentatively confirmed my diagnosis of anthrax from a description of the bacilli in the smears and the symptoms of death. I don’t believe this could have happened without someone tampering with your herd and my lab. And no matter what you say, no matter how big a bastard you are, you don’t believe I did it to take you down.”
She was furious, terrified, taking in huge gulps of air as she shouted at him. She forced herself to calm, realized that although the door was closed, her chatty assistant could probably hear every word she was saying.
“Do you remember the night we were—the night we spent at Hollowell’s barn? We came back here, and the door was open. Locked, but not closed. Remember?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t explain that. Lisa and Mrs. Handleman say they didn’t come back into the office.”
“It’s pretty thin, Doc. A theory like this one needs something a little more substantive than that.”
“I know. But it’s all I can think of.”
Daniel ran his hands down his face. He understood why she was making this kind of wild accusation. He remembered exactly how it felt to realize he wasn’t going to make his living as a veterinarian. After this second mistake, neither would Grace. But he couldn’t buy it. There was nothing short of an eyewitness or a signed confession that would make him believe his brother would do this to him, to the family. Not one unlatched door, certainly.
“Where’s the cow?”
She sighed in exasperation. He wasn’t listening to her. Well, she’d just have to find the proof on her own then. “Burned. Frank did it, under my supervision. We tried to find you.”
“I was at the sale. Did you keep the head?”
“Yes. It’s bagged, waiting for Animal Industries. Frank’s taking care of the manure disposal, the disinfection of the barns, all the rest.”
“Before the Ag department even checks your results? I’m tried and convicted and paying the penalty on just your word?”
She stared at him. How could he think she’d take the chance of being wrong again? How could he think she’d do that to him? Didn’t he see this was as hideous for her as it was for him? That if she was wrong—again—she’d never work as a vet in any county, must less this one. She kept herself from bowing her head, capitulating as he wanted her to.
“Yes.”
“I want to see the smears.”
“No.”
“I want to see them, Grace.”
“I can’t let you, Daniel. You know that. They’re sealed now. It’s dangerous for you, and completely illegal. They have to stay sealed until Phil Brown or someone from his office gets here.”
“Listen, Dr. McKenna—” he growled from between clenched teeth.
“No, you listen, Daniel. I understand how upset you must be—”
“Upset?’ He said it as though it was wonder she thought so. “You’ve just shut down the Friday sale. You’ve announced to my fellow cattlemen and the damn Idaho Department of Agriculture that I have the most deadly disease in the livestock business, just two weeks after you told them, erroneously, that I had Bangs.
“My ranch is under quarantine for the second time in a month and it is unlikely that, even if your diagnosis is wrong, I will ever be able to sell another calf, or lease my farm ground, or sell my hay. And now you’re telling me I can’t even see the slides that you say have set all this destruction in motion. I’m supposed to take your word for it?”
It took everything she had not to crumble in the face of his quiet rage.
“Don’t do this, Daniel.”
“I want to see those slides.”
“You have to trust that I know what I’m doing.”
“I don’t trust you, Grace,” he said bluntly, and watched dispassionately as she flinched slightly. “I want to see the slides.”
After a moment she nodded, then left her office and walked back to the lab. He stalked silently behind her, snapping up a pair of latex gloves from the box on a countertop, taking the chair in front of the microscope before she could offer it to him. She handed him a mask, took one for herself. He methodically, with clinical expertise, went through every slide.
Anthrax. He could see the bacilli, stained blue with the polychrome methylene she’d added; their distinctive, irregular shape marking them as clearly as if penned there.
“Where are the tissue samples?”
“They’re sealed, ready for the state lab. I can’t let you open them, Daniel. It’s against—”
“Fine.” He didn’t need to see them. She’d been right. Somehow this virulent, lethal disease had infected at least one, and—knowing full well the contagion rate of the disease—possibly dozens of his cattle. They’d have to be shot, burned or buried deep, the rest of the herd quarantined and treated with antibiotics. His reputation was in tatters already, with the Bangs scare; there would be no getting it back now. The land would be tainted, too; not clinically, not actually, but in everyone’s mind.
He would no longer make his living in this community.
He raised his eyes from the microscope, got slowly to his feet and stripped off his gloves.
She moved past him to reseal the slides in their metal container.
“I’ll be out at the ranch when the Ag boys come out.”
She nodded, sliding the metal container into its case, sealing away, just for a while, the infamy of it. She pulled her surgical mask below her chin, left it tied because she simply didn’t have the will to reach behind her and untie it. She was so tired, suddenly.
Daniel untied his own mask, tossed it into the bio-hazard receptacle. He stood with his chin on his chest, his jaw working slowly, as though, with an effort, he could push all his teeth into the bone. Then, without another word to her, he scrubbed his hands at the deep sink, dried them carefully, and walked out of the lab.
His cousin was waiting for him, and when she opened her arms, he walked into them. A little comfort was what he needed. He’d always turned to family for that.
“Danny, how awful for you,” Lisa murmured against his chest as she hugged him.
He nodded, but his arms didn’t close around her. After a moment, he pushed gently at her shoulders, extricating himself.
“We’ll get through this, Lisa.” He squeezed her shoulders, reassuring her with words he didn’t come close to believing. “The Cash family is tougher than anybody knows.”
“That’s true, Danny,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. She watched him walk out the glass door and get into his pickup. “That’s so true,” she whispered.
Phil Brown was at the clinic an hour later, having made record time in from Payton. He followed in his own government sedan, a midsize, refrigerated van staffed with technicians in full bio-hazard gear. Grace, similarly attired, over-saw the loading of blood smears and the severed cow’s head into
the van, then spoke at length with Brown.
At five o’clock, Grace locked the front door of the Nobel County Veterinary Clinic. There was nothing more she could do for Daniel there.
The Animal Industries people had gone back out to Daniel’s ranch to repeat the quarantine process they’d lifted just a week earlier. Grace’s phone had not rung all day, her pager hadn’t buzzed, not a single client appeared. The stigma was irreconcilable; it was as though she had a vial of anthrax spores and was carrying it around in her pocket, waiting to infect every animal in the county.
“I can hang around, Grace,” Lisa said helpfully. “In case anyone calls.”
Grace looked around at the empty reception area. Not even the little boy with the pet rat who’d asked her if she played for the Utah Jazz would come in today. Or ever again.
“No. I’m having any calls to the office forwarded to my pager.” She smiled weakly. “Not that there will be any.”
“Well, where are you going? Out to the ranch?”
“No. I don’t think Daniel particularly wants me out there right now, and the state boys said they don’t need me. They’re taking over. The recent press about anthrax has put the fear of God into everyone. They want to handle every aspect of the quarantine themselves.”
“Okay, well, I’ll see you in the morning, then.”
“Lisa, I talked to Mrs. Handleman earlier, while you were going over those animal supply receipts. I’m not opening the clinic tomorrow.”
“What?” There was a look almost of panic on Lisa’s face. No wonder, Grace thought. She’d left her job at Cash Cattle to come here. Now there would be no job here, and very likely no job to go back to at the ranch. Decent employment was hard enough to find before Grace McKenna had come to Nobel County, Grace thought ruefully. Now it was downright scarce.
“I’m so sorry, Lisa. I’m closing down the clinic until further notice. I’m selling the practice.”
“No!”
“Lisa?”
“Wait. I’m fine.” Grace watched her assistant pale before her eyes. She’d shown amazing aplomb during the last month, admirable even, considering it was all happening within her own family. But now she looked as though she might vomit from stress. Odd, Grace thought.
“Fine,” Lisa repeated. “I just never thought you’d close the clinic over this. What about the rest of your clients?”
“What clients? I haven’t had a single call in days, since the Bangs tests came back negative. No one is going to trust a vet who makes mistakes like that.”
“Oh, God. I never thought of that.”
“It’s all right, Lisa. Please don’t take this so hard.”
“I just—I just don’t know what I’ll do now. I can’t go back to the ranch. I can’t.”
“Well, no,” Grace agreed, surprised at her vehemence. “Probably not now. I’m so sorry this has happened to your family, Lisa.”
“What? Oh, yeah.”
“Look, I’m going to leave town for a couple days. I want to go up to Washington, see what I can find out.”
“Find out about what?” Lisa asked, the color back in her face, the fear over her job apparently fading.
Suddenly, though she’d intended to, Grace did not want to tell her the reason she was going to W.A.S.U. She didn’t want Daniel to know; she certainly didn’t want Frank to know, and it was unfair to ask Lisa to keep such a secret from her family.
“I’m from there,” Grace hedged. “I’ll probably go back up there to work when this is all finished.”
“Oh. Huh.” Grace could practically see the thought forming in Lisa’s head. “Will you need an assistant up there? I mean, I have no ties here anymore.”
“No ties?”
“I mean, no work ties. I’ll always have Aunt Liz and Uncle Howard and the boys.”
“No, Lisa, I won’t be needing an assistant.”
“What’s going to happen to Danny and Frank now?”
Grace shook her head. “It all depends upon what the state boys find out there. If it was just an isolated case, they’ll quarantine the herd and begin antibiotic treatments. If it’s an epidemic, they’ll shoot the herd, incinerate the bodies.”
“Either way, Danny won’t be able to sell anything? No matter what?”
“No. Not for a while.”
“So they’ll go under.”
“That’s what Daniel has said. I don’t know their financial situation.”
“I do,” Lisa said thoughtfully. “They’ll go under. No rancher could survive this kind of thing, no matter how tough he thinks he is. No matter how much he bounces back from things.”
“I hope you’re wrong, Lisa. More than anything in the world, right now, I hope you’re wrong.”
Chapter 11
The snow came in from the west, surprising all but the cattle. They’d been bunching up for hours before the spring blizzard hit, and if he’d had his mind on his business, Daniel thought, he would have noticed it. But his mind hadn’t been on business. Not for days.
He wanted so badly to be over Grace, and really, couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t.
He didn’t love her. He didn’t feel guilty for hurting her. The cool and barely beating lump in his chest wouldn’t allow for such tender emotions toward any woman, he was sure of that. But he missed her, found he missed her more every day, and it confounded him why that should be so. He missed the staggering sex her long, powerful body was capable of. He missed sparring with her, talking with her, missed her quick mind and sharp tongue. Missed the way her brown eyes went cloudy when he kissed her.
But the loneliness seemed deeper, more important, than just missing her company of her body. She was a nagging, aching hollow in his gut, like a hunger pang that never went away, reminding him every minute how empty he was.
He eased his horse down a rocky slope behind a small bunch of cows and late calves. The going was slow; the cows knew the storm was coming and were not anxious to move out of the little canyon, and the calves were small, too young yet to be wary of his big gray horse and his booming voice. Flakes hit them and stuck on their long lashes, making them blink, their already bewildered-looking faces appearing even more baffled.
“Get up,” he rumbled at them. He wanted them off this exposed slope before the snow came in earnest, and back on home pasture. He’d been planning to drop them down through the wash onto the edge of the property—where they’d be legal, he mused bleakly, his gloved hands tightening on his split reins—but the snow was thickening by the second, and he knew this bunch, with the youngest of his calves, would need the hay and security of a close pasture until the storm blew over. In Idaho, in March, that could mean tomorrow, or a week from tomorrow. “Come on, now, girls, get moving.”
The lead cow took a path through the gathering snow on the ground, and Daniel let his horse have its head to follow along the narrow trail. “Good girl,” he murmured to the cow. She knew where she was going now, and would take the rest of the bunch with her. They’d be home in a couple of hours.
Daniel would be soaked through by then and freezing, but the prospect didn’t much seem to matter to him. He ducked his chin into the collar of his slicker and brooded over the landscape.
He’d never been empty before. When he’d been drummed out of school he’d been furious, frustrated, unimaginably defeated. When Julie had left him he’d felt betrayed, and so disgusted with her, with women in general, that he’d vowed to never fall in love and open himself up to such treachery again. But he hadn’t felt empty. He was Daniel Cash, and the only person he needed to feel whole was himself.
That was still true. It had to still be true. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if it wasn’t. But when she’d whispered that she loved him, there in that soft bed with her body still quivering faintly from their lovemaking, he’d felt a loosening in his chest he hadn’t felt for years. A hope. A wonder. A woman like Grace McKenna loved him? It was something of a miracle.
He’d wanted desperately to tel
l her the same thing, to tell her that he loved her, too. But it wasn’t true, couldn’t be true. He simply could not love her, no more than he could go back to vet school, no more than he could admit he had anthrax in his herd. He was not going to risk failure again. Not for her, not for anyone.
He didn’t need her. He wasn’t empty without her. He was Daniel Cash, dammit.
Daniel watched his cows head down the disappearing trail and absently rubbed the heel of his gloved hand into the depression at the base of his sternum.
Then why did he ache?
Grace found him at home, his zippy little all-terrain vehicle parked almost at the door. She parked her truck in the short drive and hurried through the gathering snow to pound at his door.
Frank opened the door after a minute and stood staring down at her.
“What?” he said, terse with her more as an automatic reaction than with any real animosity.
“I need to talk to you.”
“What about?” he asked.
“May I come in?”
He stepped aside to let her in, his stocking feet making no sound on the old linoleum. His wet boots had left a damp place on the floor by the door and he kicked them aside as she came over the threshold.
“You want coffee?”
“No.” She was shaking, but not with cold. She was terrified of this confrontation, but determined. Daniel would never believe her if she didn’t have proof. A confession. And it was desperately important, vital, even, that Daniel believe her.
“Did you go up to W.A.S.U. when Daniel was there?”
He appeared not to have heard her question. “You want to sit down, Grace?”
It was the first time he’d called her by her name. Stupid, but she hadn’t even been sure until that moment he knew it.
“No, thank you. Frank, did you go to see Daniel before he was kicked out of school?”
He focused on her feet. “Your boots are wet. Do you want to take them off and put them in front of the fire?”