by Rain Trueax
"Don't come back on this land," Phillip ordered, his own words slurred from a rapidly rising swelling on the side of his jaw.
"We'll see about that," Wes snapped, backing away, untying his horse and heading back down to the barn and his truck. As quickly as possible, he loaded the horse in the trailer and drove off.
"Now, what was that all about?" Helene asked, hands on hips as she surveyed Phillip's damaged face. Besides the nasty cut over his eye, his handsome face was already acquiring a bruised and swollen lopsidedness that was oddly enough attractive to her. Was this the primitive versus civilized male--me Tarzan, you Jane--phenomena?
"It doesn't matter," he muttered in answer to the question she'd already forgotten she asked.
"You aren't going to tell me?" she asked with incredulity.
He felt tentatively of his mouth to see if he'd loosened a tooth, shook his head, then headed resolutely toward the barn.
"Phillip! Come back here!" He ignored the angry command. She glared at his retreating back, unable to believe he would walk off without a word of explanation. "Where are you going?" she yelled even though it was obvious.
"I have to unsaddle Sunshine. Then I need a shower," he growled, not looking back.
Clenching her own teeth to keep back the unladylike phrases that threatened to spew forth, she stomped into the house, muttering to the dog all the way about the unreliability of males, himself not excepted. She waited until she saw Phillip head to his bunkhouse before she retrieved the medical kit which seemed to be getting more than its share of use since Phillip had gotten to the ranch, closed Hobo into the kitchen, and stalked down the hill to the bunkhouse. She grumbled as she walked, unable to make sense out of anything she'd seen or heard. Phillip wasn't the type of man to get involved in a brawl. Although with annoyance, she realized once again how little she knew of the type of man he was.
When she opened the door to the bunkhouse, she heard the shower running. Still angry, she sat primly on a chair by his desk. She would give him a piece of her mind when he came out. She began composing scathing remarks she would heap on what she expected would be his repentant head.
She shivered as she realized the room was cold, the woodstove long since had burned up what wood he'd put into it in the early morning. So, on top of having his face ruined, he was probably going to get pneumonia. With winter coming on, the drafty bunkhouse hardly seemed a suitable environment for anyone to live. Somehow that thought only reinforced her anger, and she again concentrated on scathing comments designed to let him see the true nature of his perfidy... if he hadn't already done so.
By the time Phillip came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his lean hips, she had rebuilt the fire in his stove and gone through a litany of complaints, but somehow the only thing she found herself saying was, "That cut over your eye has been opened up again. It needs stitches."
"It's closing up already," he disagreed, his voice reflecting a considerably better mood after the hot shower.
"It will scar."
"So?"
"So sit down on the bunk and let me look at it."
Surprisingly enough, he yielded to her command. She stood over him, examining the fresh cut, the nearly healed barbed wire scar, and the new discolorations and swellings that marred his square jaw line and beautiful mouth.
"I doubt these cuts are clean," she muttered as she tilted back his head. "I'll need to disinfect them."
He shrugged. "So?"
"It's going to hurt."
She felt his smile before she heard the laugh. "May I say ouch?"
"I'm just warning you," she said testily. She poured alcohol onto a cotton ball and reluctantly, her own face scrunched into an expression of pain, ran it over the open cut. She felt a clenching in her stomach as she saw him wince. She hated hurting him, but she didn't have any choice. An infection near the eye would be worse. She let his skin dry as she opened a tube of antibiotic ointment and squirted some on her finger.
"You seem to be making a habit out of banging up your body since you came to Montana," she complained as she applied the ointment, then pressed a butterfly band-aid over the cut. "Have you always been so accident prone?"
"Only when I was a kid," he mused, his eyes closed, his voice soft and relaxed as though lulled by her touch.
"Were you a tough little kid?" She continued working ointment into the other hurts on his face, none so deep as that near his eye.
"In my neighborhood if you weren't tough, you got hurt worse than if you were. It paid to at least look tough."
She smiled, visualizing how he must have looked as a little boy. It was impossible to see him as a little brute. "You must have looked more like a choirboy than a hellion," she observed. She probed his side at the site of a large bruise, trying to decide if he'd broken a rib in the fight.
"It was the attitude that counted; plus learning to box." Wrapping his arms around her waist, he drew her between his legs. "Enough playing nurse."
She ran her fingers soothingly through his hair. "And you developed a tough attitude."
"Of course. By the time a guy was seven, he learned the ropes or paid the price."
Helene didn't like thinking what that price had been, thinking about how Phillip might have been hurt as a child. Had his mother soothed his injuries or had he crawled into a corner to suffer them alone? She guessed it had to have been the latter. He pulled her down to sit on one of his legs.
Feeling the bare skin of his back under her fingers reminded her of other things, of the night they'd spent together. Right now, unsure of his feelings, of what he wanted or of how much the attitude the adult Phillip projected was for self-protection, she couldn't afford to let her mind think the direction her body wanted.
She pulled away, trying to find something to say that would distract both of them from the physical intimacy that seemed so demanding of fulfillment. She moved over to stand beside the stove. "Why did you attack Wes?"
He came to stand beside her; his long fingers lightly tilted her chin so he could look directly into her eyes. "I don't want to talk about Wes."
"Do you want to talk about us?" she asked with a faint smile.
He grimaced. "Are those my two options?" He smiled carefully, fully aware of the damage Wes had done to his face. "What I'd really like to do right now is make love to you, but I don't suppose that would be one of my choices."
"You must be hurting and exhausted."
"That's not the reason I might have second thoughts about it." His blue eyes glittered as he looked into her eyes. "When I have you back in my bed, I don't want to wake up in the morning and find you gone."
"I'd have thought that was exactly what you wanted," she said, her own breath coming uneasily as he loosened his towel and let it drop. She ought to look away, not stare at his naked body as he moved away to pull on jeans, but the temptation was irresistible. His powerfully built torso was near masculine perfection, only surpassed by long, muscular legs and sinewy arms, the biceps clearly defined and beautiful to watch as he flexed them in dressing. If his was not the body of an Adonis, she knew she'd never see one that was closer, even covered in bruises of varying sizes.
It was only when he reached to snap the jeans that she noticed the abrasions on his wrists.
"How did this happen?" she asked, grabbing one wrist and looking at the other.
He looked down at the rope burns. "If I tell you, I will look like a complete idiot."
"That's ridiculous, Phillip. Tell me what happened?"
He smiled reluctantly, shook his head, then told her in as few words as possible about Wes's little joke. As he spoke, he had no clue as to her reaction. When he had finished, he expected her to laugh or ridicule him.
"He could have hurt you badly, yanking you off the horse that way," she said with a frown.
"He did bruise my ego," Phillip agreed wryly.
"Well, he's a heel, and you did right to kick him off the ranch. If you’d told me, I’d have hit him with the f
rying pan instead of throwing water on him."
His eyebrows lifted in surprise. "I thought you were interested in Wes Carlson."
She gave a short laugh. "In the first place, Wes Carlson would be about the last man I'd ever be interested in. He's too much in love with himself for my taste. In the second, he's not interested in me--not in that way. When you were fighting with him, I didn't like it because I was afraid you might be hurt, but otherwise I don't care what happens to Mr. Carlson."
Phillip looked at her dubiously. "If he's not interested in you, why rope me and leave me up in the hills just to be alone with you?"
She thought a moment about Wes's strange conversation. "I think he wants to buy the Rocking H or has a buyer who wants a spread like this one. Maybe to develop the hot springs into some kind of resort. He was hoping I'd help him convince Uncle Amos."
Phillip shrugged into his shirt, wincing as sore muscles let him know the kind of day he'd had. Unfortunately from earlier brawls, he knew the stiffness would get worse before it got better. "He wants Amos to sell?"
"His conversation was a little strange, but I think that's what it all adds up to."
"The weasel."
Helene laughed. "At least we agree on that. Come on up to the house, and I'll fix you a belated lunch."
Phillip rotated his jaw, feeling of his cut mouth with his tongue. "I'm not sure how much I can chew."
"How about soup and biscuits?"
He smiled. "That might."
Half an hour later, she was serving him hot soup and tender biscuits fresh from the oven. She sat sipping a cup of herbal tea as he ate. She didn't know what to say to him, how to treat him. What kind of relationship did they have? Was she a soon-to-be divorcee or was there some hope for them as a couple? What did Phillip want? She didn't even know what she wanted.
“Have you been to that hot springs?” he asked.
“Yes. It’s up in pasture five, back against the rock bluff.”
“That’s what Wes said he was going to show me.”
“It’s pretty. I suppose it is worth money as a hot springs. We used to soak in it as kids. I haven’t been up there though in years.”
Before she had a chance to ask any of her own questions, Amos drove up. When the old rancher came into the kitchen, she insisted the reluctant Phillip tell him the whole story about Wes's idea of games. When Phillip had finished, Helene added her own theory about Wes's ploy.
Amos listened. Shaking his head, he poured himself a cup of coffee. "I knew he wanted the ranch. I didn't know how much. He's been playing it pretty close to the vest with me."
"You don't want to sell, though, do you?" Helene asked, filling the sink with detergent and water.
"Of course not, but I might not have any choice about selling to somebody if not him," Amos admitted. "I am getting old. Wes is right about that."
"What did Doc say?" Helene asked as she remembered the purpose of his trip to town."
"About what he always says," Amos griped. "The plumbing's gettin' old. Blood pressure and cholesterol's too high. Ain't hardly worth living with all the things they want a man to give up."
"It's just so you can live a longer life," Helene said.
Amos snorted. "What good's living if a man can't have a steak?" He stared out the window, drawing Phillip's attention to snowflakes beginning to sifter down. "I heard on the radio we might get a mite of snow tonight. I figure we ought to be ready just in case.
"What do you do to get ready?" Phillip asked, rising and wincing as his sore muscles protested the quick action.
"You don't do nothing. You been run through the ringer this morning. I can see that for myself. I'll go get Curly, and we'll load up a little extra hay for the cattle, stack it across the fence from their field. Gets cold and snow on the ground, they need more feed."
"How do you get the hay up there if you get a heavy snowfall?" Phillip asked, staring out at the threatening sky.
"Jake and Teddy, those fat, old work horses that look to be living the life of Riley over there. We hitch them to the sled. She ain't fast, but she gets the job done."
"You better show me how that works, just in case," Phillip said, heading for the door.
"You can watch," Helene ordered, her brusque voice not hiding the concern underlying the words, "but I don't want you doing anything that might send a rib through your lungs. I'm not convinced that big bruise on your side isn't a sign there's been some damage done inside."
"Yes, ma'am," Phillip said with a faint smile.
"One other thing," Helene said, placing dishes in the hot, sudsy water.
Both men, poised to go outside, looked at her expectantly.
She refused to meet their gazes and looked down at the dishwater instead. "Phillip shouldn't sleep down there in the bunkhouse any longer. It's too cold with winter coming on."
"And where should I sleep?" Phillip asked, an undertone to his voice she hoped her uncle wouldn't notice.
When she looked up, she tried to ignore the teasing grin on Phillip's face and the glint in his intense blue eyes. "There are several extra bedrooms upstairs. Any one would be fine," she said primly.
"Sounds reasonable to me." Amos pulled on a heavy coat. "You two work it out however you want."
"What about my computer?" Phillip asked, still grinning. "You know how important--communication is to me."
She felt like telling him what he could do with his computer but instead managed to keep a level tone to her voice. "If Uncle Amos doesn't mind, you can share the den. We had been talking about getting a dish."
Phillip was frustrated by the delay in getting a system into the bunkhouse; so had no illusions how long it’d take to change it to the main house. “It seems to take a month to get anything done out here.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Amos said with a grin.
With the men gone outside to their assorted chores, Helene turned to her laptop, trying again to make a credible story from the interview she'd gotten from Doc Albertson. She had struggled with the pieces, revising, tearing apart and rewriting so many times she'd begun to think she'd never make sense out of the piece and would have to start over with someone else.
The phone ringing interrupted her work.
"Hi." It was Nancy.
"Hi, yourself. How's that baby coming?"
"I think... right now," Nancy said.
"Right now," Helene yelped. "Why aren't you on your way to the hospital? Why aren't you at the hospital?"
"I... The pains came on so suddenly. I didn't expect it to be like this. Emile and my dad went to Billings to work out the final details on that consignment contract for beef. My mom went along to shop. They won't be back until tonight. I don't know where Krista or Terry are. Nobody answers their phone."
"Today! They all went away today?" Helene asked with disbelief.
"The baby wasn't due for two weeks," Nancy said defensively. Helene could hear her pant into the receiver. "A contraction," Nancy explained, as if Helene hadn't already guessed.
"How many minutes apart?" Helene asked with distress, unsure if she'd know what any of it meant.
"They started at ten. I was hoping they'd ease up, that this was just false labor again, but... they haven't. Now, they're less than five. I don't think I can drive, Helene."
"I'm on my way." Helene threw down the receiver and ran out of the room, grabbing coat, car keys and purse on the way.
At the backdoor, she ran into Phillip and knocked him back a step.
He grimaced and took a deep breath against a sudden shot of pain through his side. "Where are you going?" he managed to ask as she again tried to go through him.
"Nancy's having her baby."
"Now?" he asked with disbelief. "She can't be having it now."
"Tell that to the baby. Everybody's gone. I've got to get there and drive her to the hospital." She slammed the door.
Helene ran down the slope to the truck. She was scarcely aware Phillip had followed her and climbed in the
passenger side.
"What do you think you're doing?" she asked, as her shaking hands tried to get the key into the ignition.
He reached over and pushed the key smoothly in, turning it. She barely had time to push in the clutch before the engine leaped to life. "I'm going with you," he said, looking over his shoulder. "Nothing behind you. Back straight up."
"I know how to back up," she snapped, letting the clutch out too quickly. The truck lurched forward, and Phillip cursed as he slapped a hand against his side.
"What's wrong with you?" Helene asked, glancing at him as she struggled to put it into the correct gear. It was as though she'd forgotten everything she ever knew about driving a stick shift. What a time to get amnesia.
"I think I did crack a rib in either the fall off the horse or the fight," Phillip guessed as the truck thrust backward with the apparent speed of sound, then stopped abruptly, throwing him forward and earning another curse.
"I told you so," she said untactfully. "You shouldn't come with me." She yanked the wheel around and put her foot on the gas pedal. "Where's Uncle Amos?" The momentum carried them both back against the truck seat.
"He and Curly are on their way out to the back pasture. How far apart are her contractions?"
"Five minutes, but what do you know about contractions anyway?"
Phillip's face had paled. "I was there when my mother..."
"What do you mean there?" Helene asked as she turned onto the main highway.
He swallowed hard. "What it sounds like."
"But hospitals."
"No money."
"What about welfare..."
He clenched his jaw. "If you get welfare, welfare looks over your shoulder. My mom had some of us taken away a few times by people supposedly helping... When she got us back, she didn't go around any kind of social services."
"But..."
"I guess she didn't expect any problems. And she had Delores. She'd helped with the others and maybe she would have then, except..." Except nothing went right that night. He hoped it would be different with Nancy.
"Oh Phillip, how could she expect you to..." Helene couldn't believe this. Women didn't have their babies at home. They went to hospitals. They had nurses and doctors, then flowers and friends to visit.