by HELEN HARDT
She had been home for nearly four weeks, and today was the day to have her follow-up blood work done. For the last week, she’d been feeling fatigued, but today she was downright ill. And sad. It could only mean one thing. The first blood test hadn’t been a fluke. Her white cell count was up because her leukemia had returned.
She finished cleaning out the stalls and pushed her hair out of her face. It would have made so much more sense to braid the long waves like she used to, but for some reason she felt she should wear it down for Zach’s sake. Stupid, she knew. Especially since it would likely all fall out in the next month or two.
Sam’s head popped in the stable. “Ready to go, Dust?”
“Yeah, just let me wash up first.”
After a quick shower, she joined Sam in the old Ford pickup, and they headed to the hospital for her blood test. Her oncologist, Dr. Lloyd, took them into his office after he had examined Dusty.
“What do you think, Doc?” Sam asked.
“Your sister’s temperature is slightly elevated, but that in itself isn’t a major concern. However, the fact that she’s been fatigued, and now nauseated, is cause for worry, I’m afraid. There was no abnormality in the white cells in the last sample, but there was an increased number. Obviously, if today’s sample shows the same thing, even if the cells aren’t leukemic, we need to be on guard.”
“And if she does have leukemic cells?” Sam hedged.
“She’ll go back on chemotherapy to induce remission.”
Dusty said nothing, content to let Sam question the doctor. She knew what was going on. She’d been there before.
“And if they’re not leukemic?”
“If the white cell count is elevated, but there are no leukemic cells, we’ll monitor her closely over the next several months. The good news is we’ve caught it early, whatever it is.”
“She was so close to her five year mark,” Sam said, the softness of his voice revealing to Dusty how worried he was.
Dusty, on the other hand, felt numb. Numb and nauseated, but not worried. That would come later tonight.
“Yes, I know. It happens sometimes. But we don’t know anything just yet. I should have the results of today’s test by Monday.”
“How am I going to get through this weekend, Sam?”
“We’ll get through it, Dust.” Sam rose and shook the doctor’s hand. “Thanks, Doc. We appreciate your help and your concern.”
“I wish I had better news for you. Perhaps I will, come Monday. I’ll call you at home, Dusty, as soon as I know anything.”
“Thank you, Dr. Lloyd.”
“Come on, Dust.” Sam linked her arm through his and they walked through the hospital parking lot to the pickup. “I’m taking you to lunch.”
“We can’t afford to eat out, Sam.”
“We can just this once.”
Dusty sighed. “I’m not hungry. Not in the slightest. In fact, I feel like I’d throw up anything you put in my stomach. So let’s not waste the money, okay? I’ll make you a sandwich at home.”
Sam squeezed her hand. “All right. If that’s what you want.”
“It’s what I want.”
* * *
“I told you I’m busy,” Zach said, resisting Chad’s pull on his arm.
Chad ignored him and ushered Zach into his mother’s sitting room in her sprawling ranch house. “We need to talk to you.”
“Not now. I’m expecting an important call from one of our distributors. I’m swamped.”
“Too busy for your mother?” Laurie took his hand and led him to her settee.
“Can’t sit,” Zach said. “What is it you all want? I have work to do.”
“All you’ve done is work since we got back from Denver,” Laurie said. “You’re lucky you didn’t re-infect your wound. Now sit.”
Zach huffed and sat down roughly in an armchair. “Fine. What is it?” He rubbed his chin, still not used to his short goatee.
“Chad and Dallas have some things to say to you.”
“What is it? Let’s get this over with so I can get back to what I was doing.”
“Well,” Chad said, “since you’ve been moping around here like a bull who just got his nuts cut off, Dallas and I decided to do something about it.”
“I ain’t been moping around. I’ve been carrying my weight.”
“That’s not what he means, and you know it,” Laurie said. “Now hear him out.”
“I made a phone call a couple weeks ago, to an old friend of mine from high school. Larry Parks. You remember him?”
“Hell, no.”
“Sure you do. Geeky kid. Kind of short and freckled?”
“Whatever.”
“Anyway, Larry’s a big time PI in Denver now. Not cheap either. Course he gave me a break.”
Zach rolled his eyes. “What the hell are you talking about, Chad?”
“He can uncover just about anything. But he has to leave his scruples at home sometimes…”
“This is becoming tedious.”
“Big word, Harvard man.” Chad chuckled. “Can’t you just say boring?”
“Christ,” Zach muttered.
“All right, all right.” Chad fingered a few manila folders on Laurie’s coffee table. “Larry owed me a favor, so I called him up and asked him to do a little investigating.”
“And I should care about this because…”
“Because I had him investigate a little filly named Dusty O’Donovan.”
“Goddamn it, Chad.” Zach rose. He was pretty sure steam would shoot out his ears soon. “I ought to tan your hide.”
“Aw, sit down. I’m bigger than you anyway.”
“But not tougher.”
“You can whoop my ass later. Besides, it was Dallas’s idea.”
Zach turned his scathing gaze on his older brother. “I’ll whoop his ass too, then.”
“Simmer down,” Dallas said. “Before this goes any further, I have something to say.”
Zach crossed his arms. “I stopped caring what you had to say twenty years ago.”
“I know.” Dallas cleared his throat. “I don’t blame you, but after thirty years of being my little brother, I think you have the right to hear this once. I was wrong.”
“About what?” Zach asked.
“Yeah, there have been so many things,” Chad joked.
Dallas ignored Chad. “About Dusty, Zach. She wasn’t after your money.”
“I think that’s obvious,” Zach said, “or she’d be here.”
“She’d be here if she could, I think, and not because of your money. But I’ll let Chad tell it. He’s the one who got all the info from Larry. I think you’ll find the story very interesting.”
“Ma, you were in on this?” Zach asked Laurie.
“No, Zach, I wasn’t. Chad and Dallas didn’t tell me until they had gotten the report,” Laurie said. “I think you need to listen to what they have to say. It’ll explain a few things.”
“Look, I already know that her ranch needs money. I offered to help her. She turned me down. She left me. She doesn’t love me. It’s over. Kaput. Finito. The end.”
“Just give me a few minutes to explain what Larry found out,” Chad said. “Then, if you’re not interested in learning more, we’ll call it over.”
“Please, Zach,” Laurie said. “For me.”
Zach relented and sat back down in the chair. “Go ahead.”
“Turns out Mollie O’Donovan’s parents were killed in a car wreck about ten years ago,” Chad said. “They left the ranch to Sam and Dusty. Sam was a senior in high school, and Dusty was only thirteen, so Sean-Patrick, their dad, took care of the ranch for them. It’s a small parcel outside of Black Eagle, about a hundred acres or so. It was never a big operation, but Sean did okay. Raised some beef, trained some cutters. Trained Dusty as a barrel racer and Sam on bronc busting. You know that.”
“Yeah.”
“Anyway, Sam went off to school at the university, majored in agriculture, came
back, and Dusty started college. She had a scholarship. Smart as a whip, that one. It’s well-known around the area that she’s some kind of mathematical genius, as well as a wizard with animals. She could even rival your brains, I reckon.”
“Keep talking.”
“Anyway, she dropped out of school after a year.”
“Because of money?”
“Hell, no. She had a scholarship, remember?”
“Then why’d she quit?”
“She got sick.”
“So?”
“I mean really sick. Acute lymphocytic leukemia.”
Zach jerked forward. “What?”
“A.L.L. Same thing Mollie died from.”
“Oh my God…”
“Unlike Mollie, though, Dusty evidently responded to conventional treatment. She did chemo and went into remission. This was about five years ago.”
“That can’t be right. It’s got to be a mistake. How did you find all this out?”
“The A.L.L. and the chemo are common knowledge, but as I told you, Larry sometimes leaves his scruples at home.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning”—Chad picked up one of the manila folders from the coffee table—“I have Dusty’s medical records.”
Zach rose again, his temper storming through his body. “How the hell?”
“I don’t ask. I just take the information and pay Larry’s bill.”
Zach grabbed the folder from Chad and threw it to the floor. “That’s a huge violation of Dusty’s privacy. Not to mention illegal, Chad.”
“So you don’t want to know the details then?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Zach,” Laurie said, “I don’t condone this invasion of Dusty’s privacy, but I think you should listen. It’ll help you understand why she left you.”
He sat. He couldn’t help the curiosity that flowed through him. His Dusty, sick? He had to know what happened. “Fine. Go ahead.”
“You’re sure?” Chad asked.
“For Christ’s sake, Chad, speak!”
“It turns out A.L.L. has a pretty good survival rate. For some reason, Mollie didn’t respond, but Dusty did. She only needed four months of chemo and she was in remission.”
“God.” The thought of Dusty having to endure even one second of chemo broke his heart.
“A.L.L. is actually more common in kids than adults,” Chad continued. “So it’s pretty weird that both Mollie and Dusty got it as adults. Could be genetic, but nothing in the records indicates that there’s any basis for that. Anyway, the chemo doesn’t have a lot of lasting effects in kids, but in adults, there are things that occur pretty frequently.”
“Such as?”
“Infertility, Zach. Dusty can’t have children.”
“Fuck.” Zach buried his head in his hands. As much as Dusty loved animals, he had a hunch she loved kids even more. “They know for sure she’s infertile?”
“It’s pretty likely. The records are full of references of irregular periods. She’s only had like four periods since she was sick. They’re pretty sure she’s infertile.”
“Damn, it must have killed her to find that out.”
“I imagine,” Laurie said. “That girl’s a born mother if I ever saw one. The way she fusses over animals. It was apparent even when she was a small child.”
“None of that matters to me,” Zach said. “I never told her I wanted kids.”
“But you do,” Laurie said.
“Well, yeah, I do. But we could adopt. I’d rather have Dusty.”
“The story’s not over yet, bro.”
“There’s more?” Zach clenched his jaw. He wasn’t sure he could take anymore.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Go on.”
“Well, you’ve gotta know that chemo ain’t cheap. The O’Donovans didn’t have any health insurance.”
“Oh, fuck.”
“Yeah. Sean was determined that Dusty would get the best care available, especially after what happened to Mollie. He needed money, and he needed it quickly, because as you can imagine, you don’t mess around with cancer. You treat it as soon as you find it. Anyway, he got involved in some shady business dealings that went awry. He damn near lost everything. The ranch ended up mortgaged to the hilt. They had to sell everything—the cattle, the animals, even some of the property itself. The only thing of value they kept was Dusty’s barrel racer, Regina. I guess old Sean couldn’t bear to take the mare away from his sick daughter. You know how Dusty loves animals.”
“It must have killed her to sell Regina to Harper Bay,” Dallas said.
“She sold her horse to Harper Bay?” Laurie shook her head.
“Yeah,” Zach said. “Go on, Chad.”
“Anyway, Sean kind of wilted away after that. He died within a year of Dusty’s remission. Word around Black Eagle is he died of a broken heart, if you believe that sort of thing. But there are some who say he took his own life.”
“What?”
“Larry couldn’t find any solid proof. Probably only Sam and Dusty know what really happened to their pa.”
“I suppose so.”
“Anyway, around the time Dusty was doing her chemo, a neighbor of hers bought a stud bull. Dusty was over visiting and took to the animal. That’s how the whole Bull Whisperer thing started. It seems working with the bulls kept Dusty focused, so she didn’t succumb to the fatigue and depression that’s so common in cancer patients. Turns out she has a unique gift with bulls, as we all know now from experience.”
“I’m thankful she found something that was cathartic for her,” Laurie said.
“Yeah, it no doubt helped when her pa died too,” Dallas said.
Zach swallowed and took a deep breath. “I knew she needed money. I would have gladly given her everything I have. I never told her I wanted a boatload of kids. I don’t care that she’s a cancer survivor. She’s well now, so why did she leave me? It still doesn’t make any sense. Unless she just didn’t feel the same way about me that I feel about her.”
“I’d wager that she does, bro,” Chad said.
“How so?”
“There’s a little more to my story.”
The ominous look in Chad’s brown gaze told Zach the news wouldn’t be good. He buried his face in his hands. “What is it?” he mumbled.
“Turns out Dusty was nearing her five year mark as a cancer survivor. If you hit five years out from A.L.L., you’re considered cured. She had a blood test shortly before she and Sam came to Denver for the stock show.”
“And?”
“It showed an elevated white count. Her records show a message was left for her at the Holiday Inn in Denver, and she called and got the information the day before her barrel race.”
The day he found her by Diablo’s pen, Zach thought. The day we made love for the first time.
Everything was falling into place now. Her statement that there were things worthy of her fear, but Diablo wasn’t one of them. She’d said short hair wasn’t flattering on her. She meant no hair. She’d said she couldn’t get pregnant, that he deserved better. It all made sense. But why hadn’t she told him? He had opened up to her, professed his love to her.
“God, she can’t be sick again. She can’t be.” Zach buried his face in his hands. Profound sadness threatened to consume him.
“If she is, Zach, she needs you more than ever,” his mother said.
“Dusty was supposed to go in for a recheck in three weeks, which is just about now,” Chad said.
“You don’t have those records?”
“’Fraid not.”
“And no health insurance.” Zach sighed, remembering how he had paid her bill for her concussion.
“Nope.”
“No wonder she sold her mare to Harper. And she wanted that purse for riding Diablo. It wasn’t the ranch. It was her life.” Zach stood and began to pace.
“There’s something else you should understand,” Chad said.
“What?”
<
br /> “Her white count was up when you were in the hospital with your infection. She had to know what a huge risk she was taking by staying with you. You were growing God-knows-what kind of gunk in your leg, and she had a depressed immune system. She risked her health to be with you. To take care of you.”
“She never left your side, Zach,” Laurie said. “Not once.”
“Why wouldn’t she trust me with this? I told her I loved her, for God’s sake!”
“I think she wanted to protect you, Zach,” Laurie said. “You would have done the same for her.”
“Protect me from what?”
“From having to deal with her illness. From the sadness of possibly losing her.”
“Damn it all to hell,” he said. “What good is all my land, my money, my stupid fucking Harvard education, if I can’t save her?”
“Zach, sugar—” Laurie reached out to him.
“No, Ma. Stop right there.”
He’d burn in hell before he let Dusty go through this alone. He’d be there for her, take care of her, love her. Whether she wanted him or not. Zach rose and strode toward the door.
“Now where are you going?” Dallas asked.
He faced them with a determined gaze. “I have to see Harper Bay about a horse, and then I’m going to go get my woman.”
Chapter Sixteen
Sunday afternoon at the Double D Ranch found Dusty tending to one of the barn cats delivering a litter of kittens. A large litter—nine so far, and at least one more was on the way. The cat, a tabby Dusty called Jemma, was having trouble with this particularly large kitten. Dusty had called for the local vet in Black Eagle, but she was out of town. Sam was in Billings and wouldn’t be back until late in the evening, so Dusty was on her own. She was concerned about the cat but secretly pleased that this blessed event required her staunch attention. It kept her mind off the news that was to come the next day.
“Come on, Jem, you can do it.” Dusty massaged the cat’s abdomen, trying to ease the delivery. Jemma squalled, but Dusty remained focused and tried to calm the cat and the newborn kittens searching for a teat.
When the last kitten still refused to budge, Dusty reached in to extract him manually. Jemma screeched but lay motionless, her belly pumping rapidly with breaths. Dusty turned the kitten carefully and at last withdrew him from his mother. Large, as she had expected, and black with caramel stripes. “We’ll have to call you Fatso.”