She smiled back at him, then chuckled softly. “I’ll try not to.”
Sighing at the utter pleasure he was feeling at the moment, he gathered her close and buried his face in the side of her hair. “I feel like standing up and beating my fists against my chest,” he admitted.
She groaned in protest. “Please don’t do that. I don’t want you to move. I want to keep you here just like this.”
His arms tightened around her. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere. Not for a while, at least.”
* * *
Russ didn’t leave Laurel’s bed, or her house, until the wee hours of the morning. By then it was snowing, and the ride to his own place was too short for the truck interior to warm. When he climbed between the cold sheets, he told himself he must have been crazy to get up and leave her. She hadn’t asked him to. But after thinking it over, he decided it had been the right thing to do.
She’d just now learned what it was like to have sex with him. She needed time to get used to the idea of them being together as a couple before he started pushing his way into her private space and throwing the idea of love and marriage at her.
Love and marriage. He wasn’t ashamed to admit that he was old-fashioned enough to believe the two things went hand in hand, that a man and a woman couldn’t be truly together as one if they didn’t have both entities binding them together.
But he had to admit to himself that the thought of love, marriage and Laurel had never crossed his mind at the same time. Separately perhaps, but never together. Oh, over the five years that she’d worked for him, he’d sometimes wondered if she’d ever loved a man, or had ever planned to marry. But the questions in his mind had been born from a general curiosity that one person has about another, not from a personal interest.
After all, for three years of those five, he’d had Brooke, and while they’d been married his affections had never strayed. He’d never thought of Laurel or any woman in a romantic way. And after Brooke was out of his life, he’d been too hurt and disillusioned to want a woman.
At work with Laurel, he’d always felt good and comfortable, as though she completed him. And away from work, well, he’d not thought much at all about being alone, living alone. He always had Laurel and work to go back to.
It had taken him two long years and a change in jobs for him to see that work without Laurel wouldn’t be the same. Living without Laurel near him wouldn’t be the same. And now, tonight, love had descended on him like an ominous cloud that he couldn’t outrun.
I’m not sure I know what being in love is about.
Earlier tonight he’d tried to brush away Laurel’s troubled statement. He’d not wanted to dwell on it or let the doubts of her words ruin the specialness of having her body close to his.
But now, as he lay alone in the cold darkness, he wondered if all of his newfound feelings were going to be unreturned, if finding real, true love was going to evade him a second time.
Much later, just as dawn was about to break over the mountaintops, Russ finally shut his mind down enough to drift into sleep. But the mental release came to an abrupt end when the cell on the nightstand rang loudly.
The moment he answered, Laramie’s voice sounded in his ear, “Russ, we have a cow trying to calve, but it’s not going like it should. I don’t think pulling is an option. You’d better come.”
Instantly awake, Russ shoved back the covers and reached for his jeans. As he did, he heard a thump behind him and looked around to see he’d caused Leo to slip off the foot of the bed. The cat looked totally insulted, and Russ took a second to place the feline back on the cozy mattress.
“I’ll be right there,” he told the foreman. After jerking on the remainder of his clothes and boots, he headed out the door. On his way to the truck, he punched Laurel’s number.
She answered on the second ring, and he could tell from her voice that she was already wide awake.
Not wasting words, she said, “I got the call, too. I’ll be waiting at the gate.”
Two minutes later, he skidded the truck to a halt and she quickly climbed in. Since snow was still continuing to fall at a heavy pace, she’d flipped the hood of her coat over her head. The furry edge shrouded most of her face from view, but the parts he could see looked pale and tired. He felt guilty about that. Very guilty.
“Did you get any sleep at all?” he asked.
“Maybe two hours. What about yourself?”
“Enough,” he muttered.
The lights from the dashboard illuminated his profile, and as Laurel allowed her gaze to slide over his face, she decided he looked exhausted. Still, she’d seen him looking far worse, during some of those twenty-hour work marathons when he’d not stopped to eat or sleep. Loss of sleep because he’d been making love to her for most of the night was nothing compared to those times.
Is that what you’re calling it, Laurel? Making love? Why don’t you face things as they really are. Russ had sex with you. Hot, wild sex. Love wasn’t any part of it.
The taunting voice in her head made her jaw tighten and her eyes unexpectedly glaze with moisture. Long ago, after her mother had left the family, after watching her sister being lowered into the ground and her father and brother beating a hasty path away from her, Laurel had decided she wasn’t going to invest her heart in a husband or children. Loving her family hadn’t kept them with her or even made them love her back. It had only made her hurt worse when she’d finally lost them. She couldn’t go through that agony again. Not for anything or anyone.
But, oh my, tonight, after she’d given herself to Russ, after she’d lain in his arms and felt his lips worshipping her body as though she were something precious to him, she’d been hit with a longing so deep that she was still aching from it. Even now, she wished things could be different, that she could be bold enough and confident enough to reach for the things that most women dream of—the love of a man and children from that love.
Shoving the impossible thoughts from her mind, she tried to focus on the issue at hand.
“You figure we’re looking at a C-section?”
He nodded grimly. “’Fraid so. Let’s just hope we’ve got enough time to save mother and calf.”
The remainder of the short drive to the ranch was made in tense silence. At times like these, Russ was always preoccupied with the task ahead of them, and she understood he didn’t need to be distracted with a bunch of small talk. Instead, she stared out the passenger window and wondered what this night was going to mean to them later on. Would it eventually draw them closer together or split them completely apart?
Chapter Eight
At the calving barn, she and Russ were met by Laramie and Seth, the manager of the calving operation of the Chaparral. A tall man with a lean, ruddy face, she gauged him to be somewhere in his mid to late thirties.
As the four of them quickly made their way toward the area of the barn where the cow was located, it was clear that neither Laramie or Seth was in a jovial mood.
“The heifer was way too young to be bred in the first place,” Seth explained to Russ. “And the hell of it, we’re expecting about thirty more of these early calves this winter.”
“A downed fence allowed a bull into a section full of heifers,” Laramie spoke up. “We still haven’t figured out how that happened. The cowboys that found it swore it looked as though the wire had been cut, but hell, anything could have knocked it down.”
“Yeah,” Seth added, “and the mess it made is going to continue until all of these calves are born safely.”
“At least we discovered the bull was misplaced before he got to the whole herd of heifers,” Laramie said. “That’s something to be thankful for.”
“Well, let’s hope most of them will calve without incident,” Russ said in an effort to inject a note of optimism.
By now they’d reached the end of the barn, where the troubled cow was in a stall filled deep with straw. After Russ made a quick examination, he determined a C-section would hav
e to be performed and instructed a few of the ranch hands who’d gathered around to move her to an enclosed area with a smooth concrete floor.
To Laurel’s surprise, Maccoy was there and had already gathered all the medicine and tools necessary to treat a troubled birth. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell the older man it wasn’t necessary for him to get out on a Sunday morning, especially when it was so cold and snowy. But she kept the comment to herself. Maccoy was a proud man and he wanted to feel as useful and needed as the next person, even if he was past his prime years. She only wished her own father could have been like Maccoy, ready and wanting to help. Instead, Nels had been too weak or uncaring—she’d never decided which—to offer any sort of care to his dying daughter.
Gathering up the tray of tools, she hurried over to where Russ was already kneeling over the bedded Angus cow. He immediately began to give her instructions, and she followed them by quickly filling two syringes with the correct dosage.
“Is the calf still alive?” she asked as she handed the medication to him.
Without delay, he administered the localized drug into the area where he’d be cutting. “It appears to be.”
“You think she’s been in labor for very long?” Something about seeing mother animals struggling to give birth always got to Laurel more than anything else she encountered in her job. She understood it was a part of nature and the cycle of life. But she was a woman, and in spite of her plans to remain childless, she could imagine their suffering, the fierce need to bear and protect their little ones.
“Yes. She’s exhausted. But she’ll be okay, I think.”
Laurel didn’t ask more. She’d been at the job long enough to know there were no certainties in cases like this, only gut feelings. And for the moment Laurel’s feelings were twisted with worry. But she shoved them aside and focused on the task of helping Russ open the cow’s womb.
As always, his hands worked quickly and precisely, and in a short amount of time he was pulling the calf away from its mother and onto the floor.
Next to him, Laurel was ready and waiting with a large sheet of absorbent muslin. He took it from her and immediately wiped the calf’s nose and mouth, then paused as everyone in the room waited anxiously to hear it draw in a breath.
“Come on, little girl,” he said to the lifeless calf. “You’re out in the big world now. You’ve got to breathe for yourself now. Mama can’t do it anymore.”
The slick, wet calf made no sound or motion, and Russ gestured to Laurel. “I’ve got to close the mother up. Get the calf off the concrete and see if you can get any response from her.”
Before any of the men could make a move, Laurel picked up the newborn calf and rushed to a nearby stall where a heater hanging from the rafters blew warm air into the small square of space covered with straw.
Even though Laurel’s insides felt as if she were moving in a panicked rush, on the outside she managed to keep her ministrations smooth and deliberate as she massaged the heifer’s tiny nostrils and pushed gently against her rib cage.
She had to live. She had to live.
The desperate mantra went over and over in Laurel’s head as she worked frantically on the calf. The baby was her and Russ’s first test on this ranch. Her survival represented everything that the two of them stood for.
“Breathe! Breathe!” Laurel whispered the command.
“Maa-oooo.”
The sound was a weak cry, but it was a start. And then she saw the calf’s rib cage suck in a deep, life-giving breath.
Overcome with relief, she practically sobbed. “That’s it, girl! Keep going. You’re fine now. Just fine.”
Laurel watched the calf take several more breaths. When it began to kick and attempt to lift its head, its survival was apparent. As she went to work cleaning and drying the rest of the body, a spattering of cheers and claps sounded behind her, and she jerked her head around to see a few of the ranch hands had gathered at the opening of the stall.
Smiling, she gave them a thumbs-up sign just as Russ parted his way through the group of celebrating men and stepped into the stall.
As he joined her at the calf’s side, Laurel smiled triumphantly up at him. “She’s going to live.”
“So is the mother. We’ll get her set up with an IV and get her on her feet, then move her in here with her baby.”
“What about her milk?” Laurel asked, knowing that young mothers, especially after a difficult birth, sometimes had problems producing enough.
“Looks like she’s going to have plenty. But we’ll keep a watch on both of them for a few days before they’re turned back out to pasture. We were lucky that the ranch hands were keeping a sharp eye and found her before it was too late.”
Rising to her feet, she saw relief in his brown eyes and something else she couldn’t quite define, something that said he wanted to pull her into his arms. The idea thrilled her, yet at the same time a tiny part of her wanted to scurry backward and away from the connection that seemed to be drawing them closer and closer together.
“The cowboys did a good job finding her, but without you here to treat her, the cow and calf would have perished,” she pointed out.
A wry grin twisted his lips. “I’m not wearing an S on my chest or leaping over tall buildings in a single bound, Laurel. All I did was perform a plain and simple C-section that any decent vet could manage out in the pasture. Besides,” he added in a voice lowered just for her. “I couldn’t have done it without you. We’re a good team.”
He’d never praised her like this before. In fact, she’d always believed that he took her work for granted. Having him describe the two of them as a good team caught her completely off guard.
As she tried to decide how to respond to his compliment, a smile crept its way across her face.
“You’re full of surprises, Dr. Hollister,” she said finally.
“Yeah, sometimes I surprise myself.”
The grin he shot her was a shade short of naughty and something she’d never seen on him before. It drew her gaze straight to his lips and the glint of his white teeth, and suddenly all she could think about was the way he’d kissed and held her, the urgency and passion she’d experienced as he’d made love to her. Their time together had been so precious and wonderful. She was already dreaming of when it might happen again. Yet if she was smart, she wouldn’t let herself fall into bed with this man a second time. Not if she wanted to keep her heart distanced from him.
At their feet, the calf struggled to rise on all fours. Grateful for the distraction, Laurel said, “She’s ready to find her mother’s milk. Think the cow can stand?”
“We’ll help her,” he said.
Nodding, she turned away from him to leave the stall, but quickly came to an abrupt stop as a light-headed feeling caused her to weave unsteadily on her feet.
Russ’s hand shot out and swiftly caught her by the elbow in order to support her. “Laurel! Are you okay?”
Drawing in a shaky breath, she attempted to laugh it off. “I’m fine. My head just took a bit of a whirl for a moment. It’s nothing.”
As she passed trembling fingers over her forehead, she noticed that Laramie, Seth and Maccoy had entered the stall, along with a couple of ranch hands. All of them were wearing concerned looks, as though they expected her to collapse at any moment.
“Has Laurel hurt herself?” Laramie questioned.
Russ answered, “I don’t know if—”
Laurel quickly interrupted, “I’m fine. Just a bit dizzy from being hungry. That’s all.”
“Well, that’ll be easy enough to fix.” Maccoy spoke up with a relieved grin. “When I left the bunkhouse a few minutes ago, the cook was stirring up a pan of biscuits. They ought to be ready right about now.”
“We’ll come over as soon as we finish up here,” Russ told the older man.
Seeing that Laurel appeared to be standing on her own power, the men eased out of the stall. She started to follow, only to have Russ’s hand tighten on
her arm.
“Just a minute, Laurel. Are you sure you’re okay? I’ve never seen you have a dizzy spell before. Even when we’re working out in ninety-degree weather.”
A blush suddenly stung her cheeks to a bright red. “That’s because I—well, the two of us haven’t exactly been sleeping all night. And I missed breakfast. You might be able to run on empty. But I’m not too good at it.”
A look of dawning clicked in his eyes. “I wasn’t thinking. I guess you have had an unusually taxing night. The next time we make love, I’ll try to make sure we’re not called out on emergency.”
The next time. Now was the perfect moment for Laurel to tell him there wasn’t going to be a next time. But she wasn’t going to make promises she knew she couldn’t keep. Besides being pointless, it would make it look as though her word was worthless.
“That would be helpful,” she tried to joke.
With his hand still on her arm, he urged her out of the stall. “Let’s go see if we can get mama standing.”
* * *
Three days later, the month rolled into February. Laurel and Russ were so busy at work that she hadn’t had much time to think about the dizzy spell she’d experienced in the calving barn. But at night, when quietness set in and her mind began to drift, the incident would creep back to haunt her. Light-headedness was one of the first symptoms that Lainey had displayed when she’d become ill.
No doctor had ever told Laurel that she would likely develop the same blood disorder that had claimed her twin’s life. But on the other hand, no doctor had ever stepped out on a limb and assured her that she was safely immune to the disease.
The uncertainty was something Laurel had accepted and lived with all these years. And for the most part, she’d not gone around worrying that she too would become a victim of the disease. After all, there was no way a person could really live if he or she was preoccupied with dying. No, her worries had never dwelled upon her own health; they had always been about losing the people that she loved and cared about.
But now that she and Russ had gotten closer, the uncertainty of it all hit home even harder. What if she allowed herself to get closer to Russ? What if she actually let herself fall in love with him and then she became ill? No one had to tell her that he was a devoted man. If he committed himself to Laurel, he’d stay committed to the bitter end. Even if it meant hours of caretaking and giving up a normal life for himself.
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