"What can we do?" Mary asked faintly, fear in her eyes.
"I can do a Caesarean section," Connor answered abruptly. "Circumstances aren't ideal, but I think it would give you and the baby the best chance."
"Then do it." Mary's eyes closed as another contraction overwhelmed her.
Connor watched her for a moment. "Don't you have any questions?"
"What kind of questions would I need to ask? I already know that Sarah trusts you, and that's good enough for me. Besides, what other choice do we have?"
"Not much." Still he hesitated. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather wait for the helicopter?"
"Would you?" Tom asked, watching Connor with fear and bewilderment mixed in his eyes.
"No, I wouldn't. Mary's blood pressure is climbing by the minute. We have to get that baby out of there."
"Then what are you waiting for?" Mary's voice was high and thin as another contraction gripped her.
"Nothing." Connor turned to Sarah. "We'll need to start an IV and get an anesthetic into her."
"I've got it ready," she answered, amazed that her voice was even but determined to keep it that way. She had to forget about her own pain until Mary's baby had been delivered. "Here you are."
Twenty-five minutes later Connor held up a squalling baby and smiled at Tom and Mary. "Well, his lungs certainly sound fine." He reached for the towel that Sarah held out to him and carefully wrapped the baby in it, then handed the baby to Sarah. "You have a good-looking son here, Mary."
She smiled weakly. "Is he all right, Mr. MacCormac?"
"I'll let the pediatrician in Glenwood give you the definitive answer, but he looks great to me."
"And how about Mary? Is she going to be all right?" Tom asked.
Connor looked at the sheriff. "Now that the baby is delivered, her blood pressure should come back down. She'll have to be watched carefully for a few days, and she's not out of the woods yet, but I think she'll be fine."
Tom smoothed the hair away from his wife's face, gazing at her with adoration. "She will be," he answered fiercely.
Ten minutes later, Connor stripped off his gloves and took the baby from Sarah. Handing him to his mother, he squatted down next to her. "I hear the helicopter now," he said gruffly. "You keep that baby next to you all the way to Glenwood Springs. Make sure he stays warm."
"How can I thank you for what you did, Mr. MacCormac?" Mary asked softly, then blushed. "I guess I should say Dr. MacCormac, shouldn't I?"
"You should say Connor," he replied with a tender smile that transformed his face. "And you don't need to thank me. You gave me something almost as precious earlier this morning." He stood up as the paramedics came into the clinic. After a few minutes of consultation about what to do for Mary on the way to Glenwood, he stood back and watched as they carried Mary out the door on a stretcher, the baby clutched in her arms.
The door had barely closed when they heard the helicopter take off again. Sarah slowly turned to Connor.
"Thank you," she said, feeling her eyes fill with tears. "Mary's a good friend."
"Nothing to thank me for." He stepped over to her as if to take her in his arms, then stopped abruptly. "I'm glad I was here."
"So am I, Connor." But why couldn't you have told me earlier? she cried silently.
"I wanted to tell you, Sarah," he said as if he could read her mind. "I almost did, that day when I told you about Perry Cummings."
"But you didn't," she pointed out sadly, turning to go to her office. She had paperwork to do because of Mary's evacuation. And she needed to get away from Connor. She wasn't sure which was worse, her feelings of betrayal or her doubts about her own judgment. She'd fallen in love with a man who didn't trust her enough to tell her the most basic facts about himself.
"Sarah, please don't go. I can't bear to have you turn away from me."
"Why not, Connor? It's what you've been doing all along."
"I never meant to hurt you," he said, sounding desperate.
Still she wouldn't turn around. "But you did. You slept with me, but you didn't trust me enough to share that part of yourself."
"I couldn't," he cried, and the anguish in his voice almost made her go to him. "As much as I wanted to tell you, to share myself with you, I just couldn't." His voice dropped so low that she could barely hear him. "The only way I survived my childhood in Pine Butte was by keeping my feelings a secret, and old habits are hard to break. I let my bitterness toward this town blind me to your needs. I'll never forgive myself for that."
She turned to face him, forcing herself to stand still. The pain in his eyes reached out to her, trying to pull her closer.
"I thought I'd fallen in love with you, Connor," she whispered, whipping herself with her lack of judgment, feeling the pain of it cut into her heart. "But it was all a fantasy, wasn't it, a fling with a man I'd created in my imagination. I never knew the real Connor MacCormac, never knew what had happened in the twelve years since you left. You never let me see the real person underneath your skin. And what hurts the most is that I fell in love with you anyway."
She turned away, unwilling to let him see her cry. It would be a long time before she trusted her own judgment again.
The front door of the clinic opened and Josie walked in. "'Morning, Sarah. Hi, Connor." She breezed past them and into the next room, closing the door behind her.
Sarah froze, swallowing hard against the lump of tears in her throat. "It's late," she muttered to Connor. "You wanted to get right out to the mine. Look what time it is."
"It's okay, Sarah."
"I don't want you to miss your chance to find out what happened to your father."
"Two lives were saved," he said gently. "I think it's a fair exchange. Besides, they're not going to clean up that heap in just a couple of hours."
"Why don't we leave right now?" she asked, groping in her pocket for a tissue to blow her nose.
"You don't want to come with me now, Sarah," he said, his voice flat.
No, she didn't want to go with him. She wanted to crawl into the nearest hole and curl up in a ball until the pain went away. And if she had any sense at all, that's just what she would do.
But sense had nothing to do with it. In spite of the ache in her soul, she wasn't about to let him walk into a dangerous situation by himself. "I'm not letting you go alone. They're my uncle and cousin, and I'm going up there, even if I have to drive there myself."
He didn't say anything for a long time. She felt his hot gaze on her, although she wouldn't meet his eyes. Finally he said, "Did anyone ever tell you that you were damned stubborn?"
She heard a note of wonder in his voice, but instead of looking at him she shoved her hands in her pockets and pushed past him, going into the next room to talk to Josie.
After leaving instructions about rescheduling her patients, Sarah followed him to the truck. As they bumped along the now-familiar road to the mine, she searched frantically for something to say to him. Silence hung between them, thick and heavy with pain and guilt. If she didn't say something soon, she would embarrass herself. She couldn't bear for him to see how vulnerable she was to him.
"Can I ask a question?" she said in a shaky voice. She hurried on before he could answer. "Why did you decide to become a doctor?"
She could feel him relax slightly next to her, but she didn't look at him. He glanced at her, then turned and looked out the window.
"When I left Pine Butte, I was just running. Barb…" He paused, then said carefully, "I couldn't stay here. I had to leave, but I had no plans, no money, nowhere to go. I got as far as a little town called Rio Blanco and got hungry."
She glanced at him and saw his mouth twist. "What happened?" she asked.
"I stole a car."
Her face must have expressed her shock, because he smiled grimly. "Yeah, I went from a wild kid to a criminal in about ten minutes. But I was a damned lucky stiff. The car happened to belong to the town doctor, and he caught me in the act. He saw something in me, and
to this day I don't know what it was, but he didn't call the cops. Instead, he sentenced me himself.
"My punishment, he said, was going to be to ride with him for the next two weeks. He told me that he wanted me to learn the consequences of my actions."
He smiled softly. "I learned, all right. I saw exactly what would have happened if I'd been successful in stealing his car. I saw all the people that would have been in real trouble if Doc Webster hadn't been able to get out to treat them. I saw babies born, old people sick with pneumonia, children that needed their knees sutured after they fell out of a tree. It didn't take more than a couple of days for me to stop sulking and realize what I'd almost done. Before the two weeks were up, I knew there was nothing else in the world I wanted to do but become a doctor."
She blinked furiously to clear her eyes. "Your Doc Webster sounds like a wonderful man."
"The best," he said simply. "I stayed with him for the rest of the summer, then he helped me get financial aid to go to college. I spent all my vacations with him." He paused, then continued in a low voice, "He was my family, especially after my mother died."
He doesn't have to be your only family, she cried silently. She glanced at him. He stared out the window, obviously lost in memories of the man who'd taken his father's place.
Noticing the scenery, she realized they were getting close to the mine. A knot of fear began to replace the pain in her gut. They were on their way to confront the man who was responsible for his father's death. This wasn't just a little game they were playing, nipping at Ralph Wesley's ankles like a couple of persistent and annoying small dogs. This was deadly serious.
Connor knew exactly what had been going on at the Wesley mine. He had proof, and he intended to confront her uncle and cousin with that proof. She'd told him that her uncle was no murderer, but what would Ralph do when faced by a man who swore that justice would be done?
Ralph Wesley was a man determined to have his own way. He'd had things his own way in Pine Butte for as long as anyone could remember. No one stood up to Ralph Wesley, let alone accused him of a crime like murder.
They were walking, unarmed, into the lion's den. The road swam in front of Sarah as fear washed over her again. The entrance to the mine suddenly appeared in the road ahead, and she gripped the steering wheel more tightly. The coming confrontation would be ugly, and she wished passionately that it didn't have to happen.
She glanced at Connor again. His face was set in stone, hard and unyielding. There would be no dissuading him from facing her uncle, she knew. This was the reason he'd come back to Pine Butte, after all. So all she could do was stay with him and hope that somehow her presence would keep tempers from flaring out of control.
They pulled into the parking lot at the mine and saw the men at work on the ore cars. On the surface, everything seemed the same as the last time they were at the mine. But as they stepped out of the truck, she felt the tension in the air. It was there in the furtive way the men in the yard stared at them. It was there in the unnatural silence that fell over the yard when the men realized who was in the truck. Even the windows of the shabby office building seemed filled with menace.
"Stop it," she muttered to herself. This was no time for her imagination to kick in.
"Did you say something?" Connor asked quietly.
"No. I guess I'm just nervous."
A quick smile flitted across his face. "I thought you were the one so determined to come with me."
Straightening her spine, she said, "I was. I mean, I am. Let's go see who's in the office."
No one stopped them as they approached the building. She half expected her cousin to come running out, yelling at them to leave, but they walked into the dingy structure without seeing a soul.
"Where's your uncle's office?" Connor asked, his voice loud in the unnatural quiet.
She nodded toward the stairs, licking her suddenly dry lips. "On the second floor. This way."
When they reached the door, it was firmly closed, but the murmur of voices behind the door told them the office was occupied. And, judging from the rising pitch of at least one voice, someone was scared.
Connor cocked one eyebrow at her. "I think it's time to make a dramatic entrance, don't you?" Without waiting for an answer, he opened the door and walked in.
Dead silence greeted them. There were three men standing around a desk – her uncle, her cousin and Harley Harrison, the foreman. Their faces were frozen in expressions of incredulity. Apparently they hadn't thought that Connor would be brave enough to beard them on their own territory.
"MacCormac!" Her cousin Richard's face turned an ugly shade of purple. "I thought I told you once before to stay away from here."
Connor's eyes flickered over him and dismissed him, then fixed on her uncle. "I think we need to talk, Wesley. Tell your … son to back off." He spoke without taking his eyes off the elder Wesley, and Sarah saw her cousin flush at the insult. Rage spread on his face, and Sarah saw her uncle reach out and put a hand in front of his son.
"I want to hear what MacCormac seems to think is so important."
Connor let his eyes move from one man to the other, and Sarah saw the utter contempt in them. Only Harley seemed even a little uncomfortable. Richard seethed with anger, and Ralph looked faintly bored.
"I know what's going on, Wesley. Up on the mountain. I know all about the heap leaching, and diverting the water from the stream to make your pool. I know about the cyanide, and so does the EPA."
For the first time Sarah saw a flicker of expression in her uncle's eyes, and she didn't like what she saw. She'd seen that expression before, on the rare occasions when someone had tried to stand up to Ralph Wesley.
It didn't seem to bother Connor a bit. He smiled, but there wasn't a trace of humor in his eyes.
"And I know what happened to my father." His voice was so soft that she wasn't sure if the other men in the room could hear him. "But then, all of you have known all along what happened to him, haven't you?"
Ralph Wesley spoke. "Your father died of a heart attack, MacCormac. That's what his death certificate shows, and there's no reason to think otherwise." He straightened and waved toward the door. "Now I have a business to run, and you've interrupted an important meeting. I'll thank you to leave."
"Not a chance, Wesley. Not until I get what I came here for."
Ralph sighed and reached into his desk Sarah felt Connor tense next to her, and he reached out and pushed her behind him. He expects Uncle Ralph to pull a gun, she realized with sudden, blinding fear.
But instead her uncle pulled out his checkbook. "I suppose you want some money." There was nothing in his voice but contempt. "I can't afford for you to make these rash, unsubstantiated statements. How much?"
"Are you offering me money to keep my mouth shut, Wesley?"
Sarah heard the menace in his voice, felt the tension coiling in his muscles. "Connor," she murmured, but he didn't appear to hear her.
"Just like you paid my mother to keep her mouth shut?" His voice was so soft now that she had to strain to hear him. "You'll find I'm not quite as easy a mark. I'm not a widow trying to raise a child on a pitiful pension from Wesley Mining."
"Your mother got her pension from the mine and nothing more," Ralph said flatly. "There was no reason to pay her any additional money. Your father had a heart attack, plain and simple."
"You're wrong, Uncle Ralph." Sarah stepped next to Connor and faced her uncle. "Connor's father died from cyanide poisoning. From the illegal heap-leaching operation you have on the top of the mountain."
"Rubbish. I may have an illegal heap leach, but no one's ever died because of it."
He believed that, Sarah realized with a shock. She looked from her uncle to her cousin. There in Richard's eyes was the answer. He knew. He knew all about Connor's father and the cyanide. And he knew just what had happened.
Richard's gaze met hers. He knew she understood.
As Connor turned to face him, Richard yanked open a de
sk drawer and scrabbled around in it. Pulling out a gun, he held it in a shaky hand. The huge, deadly-looking barrel was pointed right at Connor.
"You didn't learn, did you, MacCormac? You couldn't take a hint." His voice was shrill and high-pitched, and Sarah watched, appalled. She couldn't have moved if she'd wanted to.
"I thought things were going my way when I recognized you on Eagle Ridge Road
. You shouldn't have stopped and taken your helmet off. I'd never forget your face, and when I saw you I knew it was my chance to take care of you once and for all. But that do-gooder sheriff we have found you, and she managed to save your worthless life."
He pointed the gun in Sarah's direction, and Connor drew her behind him again.
"I even followed you that first day you went up the mountain. I was sure you were headed for the heap. You've been damned hard to get rid of, MacCormac." His mouth twisted into a sneer. "At least up until now. Let's see what kind of luck you have against a gun."
Sarah looked at her uncle. For the first time that she could remember, her uncle looked confused. Confused and frightened.
"Uncle Ralph never knew about any of this, did he, Richard?" She tried to keep her voice soft and soothing, to distract him from the gun he held in his hand.
"I don't need my father telling me every move to make," he said shrilly. "I don't have to get his approval for everything I do. And I don't have to wait until he tells me it's okay before I get rid of you, MacCormac."
He raised the gun, and Connor shoved her to the floor before lunging at Richard. He was too late. Harley Harrison was already wrestling with him.
Connor, Sarah and Ralph watched for a moment in stunned silence as the two men rolled around on the floor. Then Connor leaped around the desk and put his foot on Richard's wrist. Sarah heard a sickening crack as a bone snapped, and with a thin scream, Richard dropped the gun. Harley hauled Richard to his feet, and the younger man hunched over, cradling his injured wrist in his other hand. Connor stepped away from him.
"It's broken," he said shortly to the whimpering Richard. "But it'll mend." He turned to Harley. "You knew what was going on."
AN INNOCENT MAN Page 22