by Diana Palmer
"Yes, I will," she assured him with a grin. "And you can have all your medical care free."
"I can hardly wait."
"Don't be sarcastic," she chided. "And you have to be nice to Miss Parker, too."
"She doesn't like me very much."
"You don't like her, either, do you?" she asked curiously.
He stuck his hands into his pockets and frowned. "She's all right."
"If you don't like her, why are you going to help her?"
He couldn't answer that. He didn't know why. She was a woman in a wheelchair, who looked as if in her heyday she'd been nothing more
than a fashion doll on a horse. But she was crippled and in bad financial circumstances, and all alone, apparently. He felt sorry for her. Funny,
that, because since his failed marriage, he didn't like women very much except when he had an overwhelming desire for someone female in
his arms. Loving and leaving wouldn't be possible with Jane Parker. So why was he going out of his way to help her? He didn't know.
"Maybe I feel sorry for her," he told Cherry finally.
"Yes, so do I, but we mustn't let her know it," she said firmly. "She's very proud, did you notice?"
He nodded. "Proud and hot tempered."
"What familiar traits."
He glowered at her, but she just grinned.
At the luxurious house Todd had bought in Victoria, they packed up what gear they'd need for a few days, explained their forthcoming
absence to their puzzled housekeeper, Rosa, promised to be back soon and drove in the borrowed Ford down to Jacobsville to the Parker
ranch.
It wasn't much to look at from the road. There was a rickety gray wood and barbed-wire fence that had been mended just enough to hold
in the mixed-breed steers in the pasture. The barn was still standing, but barely. The dirt road that led past a windmill to the house had potholes
with water standing in them from the last rain. It had no gravel on it, and it looked as if it hadn't been graded in years. The yard was bare
except for a few rosebushes and a handful of flowers around the long porch of the white clapboard house. It was two stories high, and needed
painting. One of the steps had broken through and hadn't been replaced. There was a rickety ramp, presumably constructed hastily for the
wheelchair, on the end of the porch. There was the motor home and horse trailer in the yard, next to a building that might be used as a garage
by an optimist. A small cabin was nestled in high grass that needed cutting; the foreman's cabin, Todd thought, hoping that it was more than one
room. Nearby was a bigger structure, a small one-story house. It was in better condition and it had rocking chairs on the porch. The bunkhouse?
"Welcome!" Tim called, coming out to meet them.
They got out and Todd shook hands with him. "Thanks. If you'll tell me where to put our stuff...?" He was looking toward the cabin.
"Oh, that's where old man Hughes lives." Tim chuckled. "He helps me look after the livestock. He can't do a lot, but he's worked here since
he was a boy. We can't pension him
off until he's sixty-five, two more years yet." He turned. "Here's where you and the girl will bunk down." He led them toward the small
house and Todd heaved a sigh of relief.
"It needs some work, like everything else, but maybe you can manage. You can have meals with us in the house. There are three other hands
who mend fences and look after the tanks and the machinery, do the planting and so forth. They're mostly part-time these days, but we hire
on extra men when we need them, seasonally, you know."
The house wasn't bad. It had three big bedrooms and a small living room. There was a kitchen, too, but it didn't look used. There was a
coffeepot and a small stove and refrigerator.
"I could learn to cook," Cherry began.
"No, you couldn't," Todd said shortly. "Time enough for that later."
"My wife Meg'll teach you if you want to learn," Tim said, volunteering his wife with a grin. "She likes young people. Never had any
kids of our own, so she takes up with other people's. When you've settled, come on over to the house. We'll have sandwiches and something
to drink."
"How's Miss Parker?" Cherry asked.
Tim grimaced. "Lying down. She's not well. I've called the doctor." He shook his head. "I told her not to get on that horse, but she
wouldn't listen to me. Never could do anything with her, even when she was a youngster. It took her papa to hold her back, but he's gone
now."
"She had no business on that horse," Todd said, pointedly.
"That was a bad attack of pride," Tim told him. "Some newspaperman wrote a column about the rodeo and mentioned that poor Jane
Parker would probably come out to accept the plaque for her father in a wheelchair, because she was crippled now."
Todd's face hardened. "Which paper was it in?"
"That little weekly they publish in Jacobsville," he said with a grimace. "She took it to heart. I told her it was probably that Sikes kid who
just started doing sports. He's fresh out of journalism school and fancies himself winning a Pulitzer for covering barrel racing. Huh!" he
scoffed.
Todd mentally stored the name for future reference. "Will the doctor come out?"
"Sure!" the wizened little man assured him. "His dad was Jane's godfather. They're great friends. He has an assistant now, though—a female
doctor named Lou. She might come instead." He chuckled. "They don't see eye to eye on anything. Amazing how they manage a practice
between them."
"The doctor isn't married?"
He shook his head. "He was sweet on Jane, but after the accident, she cut him dead if he so much as smiled at her. That was just before
Lou went into practice with him. Jane doesn't want to get involved, she says."
"She won't always be in that chair," Todd murmured as they walked toward the house.
"No. But she'll always have pain when she overdoes things, and she won't ride well enough for competition again."
"That's what she told Cherry."
Tim gave him a wary glance. "You won't hurt her?" he asked bluntly.
Todd smiled. "She's very attractive, and I like her spirit, but I've had a bad marriage and I don't want to risk another failure. I don't get
serious about women anymore. And I'm not coldhearted enough to play around with Jane."
Tim sighed. "Thanks. I needed to hear that. She's more vulnerable than she realizes right now. I'm not related to her, but in a lot of ways,
I'm the only family she's got—well, Meg and me."
"She's a lucky woman," Todd replied.
He shrugged. "Not so lucky, or she wouldn't be in that chair, would she?"
They walked up onto the porch, avoiding the broken step. "Meant to fix that, but I never get time," Tim murmured. "Now that you're here to
tear your hair out over the books, maybe I'll be able to get a few odds and ends done."
' 'I can help, if you need me,'' he volunteered. ' 'I do woodwork for a hobby."
"Do you!" Tim's face brightened. "There's a woodworking shop in the back of the barn. We built it years ago for her dad. He made all the
furniture in the house. She'll like having it in use again."
"Are you sure?" he asked doubtfully.
"You can always ask her."
They walked into the living room. Jane was lying on the sofa, putting up a brave front even though her face was stark white with the effort.
Cherry was curled up in an armchair beside the sofa, her cheek on her folded arms, listening raptly to her idol.
"Doctor should be here soon," Tim told Jane. He paused to pat her gently on the shoulder. "Hang on, kid."
She smiled at him, and laid her hand briefly over the one on her shoulder. "Thanks, Tim
. What would I do without you?"
"Let's agree never to find out," he returned dryly.
"Okay." She glanced toward Todd Burke. The expression on his lean face made her angry. "I'm not a cripple," she said belligerently.
He knelt by the sofa and pushed back a strand of her hair. It was wet, not with sweat, but with tears she'd shed involuntarily as the pain bit into
her. He felt more protective about her than he could understand.
"Don't you have something to take?"
"Yes," she said, shaken by his concern. "But it isn't working."
He tucked the strand of hair behind her small, pretty ear and smiled. "Guess why?"
She made a face. "I wouldn't have tried to ride out into the arena if it hadn't been for that damned reporter," she said gruffly. "He called me
a cripple!"
"Cherry and I will rush right in to town and beat the stuffing out of him for you."
That brought a pained smile to her face. "Cover him in ink and wrap him up in his newspaper and hang him from a printing press."
"They don't have printing presses anymore," Cherry said knowledgeably. "Everything's cold type now...offset printing."
Jane's blue eyes widened. "My, my, you are a wellspring of information!" she said, impressed.
Cherry grinned smugly. "One of my new teachers used to work for a newspaper. Now he teaches English."
"She knows everything," Todd said with a resigned air. "Just ask her."
"Not everything, Dad." She chuckled. "I don't know how to do barrel-racing turns."
"I hear a car," Tim said, glancing out the window. "It's him."
Todd frowned at the way Jane's eyes fell when he looked into them. Did she have mixed feelings about the doctor and was trying to hide it?
Maybe Tim had been wrong and Jane had been sweet on the doctor, not the other way around.
Todd got to his feet as a tall man with red hair came into the room, carrying a black bag. He was dressed in a nice gray Western-cut suit
with a white shirt and a black string tie. Boots, too. He removed a pearl gray Stetson from his head, and tossed it onto the counter. Pale blue
eyes swept the room, lingering on Todd Burke, who stared back, unsmiling.
"This is Dr. Jebediah Coltrain," Tim introduced the tall,
slim man. "When he was younger, everybody used to call him Copper."
"They don't anymore. Not without a head start," the doctor said. He didn't smile, either.
"This is Todd Burke and his daughter Cherry," Tim said, introducing them. "Todd's going to take over the book work for us."
Coltrain didn't say much. He gave Todd a piercing stare that all but impaled him before he nodded curtly, without offering a hand in
greeting. He was less reserved with Cherry, if that faint upturn of his thin lips was actually a smile.
"Well, what fool thing have you done this time?" Coltrain asked Jane irritably. "Gone riding, I guess?"
She glared at him through waves of pain. "I wasn't going to let them push me out into that arena in a wheelchair," she said furiously. "Not
after what that weasel of a sports reporter wrote about me!"
He made a sound deep in his throat that could have meant anything. He set about examining her with steely hands that looked menacing until
they touched and probed with a tenderness that set Todd's teeth on edge.
"Muscle strain," Coltrain pronounced at last. "You'll need a few days in bed on muscle relaxers. Did you rent that traction rig I told you to
get?"
"Yes, we did, under protest," Tim said with a chuckle.
"Well, get started, then."
He lifted her as if she were a feather and carried her off to her bedroom. Todd, incensed out of all reason, followed them with an audible
tread.
Coltrain glanced over his shoulder at the other man with a faintly mocking smile. He didn't need a road map to find a marked trail, and he
knew jealousy when he saw it.
He put Jane down gently on the double bed with its carved posts with the traction apparatus poised over it.
"Need to make a pit stop before I hook you up?" Coltrain asked her without a trace of embarrassment.
"No, I'm fine," she said through clenched teeth. "Go ahead."
He adjusted the brace that lifted her right leg, putting a pleasant pressure on the damaged hip that even surgery hadn't put completely
back to rights. "This won't work any miracles, but it will help," Coltrain told her. "You put too much stock in articles written by idiots."
"He didn't write it about you!"
He lifted an eyebrow. "He wouldn't dare," he said simply.
She knew that. It irritated her. She closed her eyes. "It hurts."
"I can do something for that." Coltrain reached in his bag and drew out a small bottle and a syringe. He handed a package to Todd. "Open that
and swab the top of the bottle with it."
He had the sort of voice that expects obedience. Todd, who never took orders, actually did it with only a lopsided grin. He liked the doctor,
against his will.
Coltrain upended the bottle when Todd had finished, inserted the needle into the bottle and then drew up the correct amount of painkiller.
He handed Todd another package containing an alcohol-soaked gauze. "Swab her arm, here."
He indicated a vein in her right arm and Todd looked at him.
"It's not addictive," the doctor said gently. "I know what I'm doing."
Todd made a rough murmur and complied. It embarrassed him to show concern for a woman he barely knew. Coltrain's knowing look made it
worse.
He swabbed her arm and Coltrain shot the needle in, efficiently and with a minimum of pain.
"Thanks, Copper," Jane told him quietly.
He shrugged. "What are friends for?" He took a few sample packages out of the bag and gave them to Todd. "Two every six hours for
severe pain. They're stronger than the others I gave you," he told Jane. "You can push this to five hours if you can't bear it, but no sooner."
Coltrain fastened his bag and gave Jane a reassuring smile. "Stay put. I'll check on you tomorrow."
"Okay." Her eyes were already closing. "I'll sit with you until you go to sleep," Cherry volunteered, and Jane smiled her agreement.
Coltrain jerked his head toward the living room. Tim and Todd followed. He closed the bedroom door behind them.
"I want her X-rayed," he told them without preamble. "I think it's muscular, but I'm not going to stake my life on it. The last thing she needed
was to get on a horse." "I tried to stop her," Tim told him. "I realize that. I'm not blaming you. She's a handful." He eyed Todd openly.
"Can you keep her off horses?" Todd smiled slowly. "Watch me." "That's what I thought. She isn't safe to be let out alone these days,
always trying to prove herself." He grabbed his Stetson and started toward the door. "She's in too much pain to be moved today. I'll send an
ambulance for her in the morning and make all the necessary arrangements at Jacobsville Memorial. She won't like it," he added wryly. "But
she'll do it," Todd replied easily. For the first time, Coltrain chuckled. "I'd like to be a fly on the wall tomorrow when that ambulance gets
here."
The telephone rang and Tim answered it. He grimaced, holding it out to Coltrain.
The other man picked it up with a rough sigh. "Coltrain," he said as if he knew who was calling.
His face grew harder by the second. "Yes. No. I don't give a damn, it's my practice and that's how I do things. If you don't like it, get
out. Damn the contract!" He glanced
at the wide-eyed faces near him and shifted his posture. "We'll talk about this when I get back. Yes, you do that." He put the receiver down
with a savagely controlled jerk of his lean hand. His eyes glittered like blue water on a snake's back. "Call me if you nee
d me."
After he was gone, and was driving away in a cloud of dust, Tim whistled through his teeth. "It won't last."
"What won't?" Todd replied.
"Him and Lou," he said, shaking his head. "They'll kill each other one day, him with his old-fashioned way of practicing and her with all
this newfangled technology."
Todd found himself vaguely relieved that the doctor had someone besides Jane to occupy his mind. He wasn't sure why, but he didn't like
the tenderness Coltrain had shown Jane.
Chapter 3
Jane was restless all through the night. When Cherry went to bed, Todd sat with Jane. Tim had handed over the books earlier, so he took the
heavy ledger with him. He looked through it while Jane slept, his reading glasses perched on his straight nose and a scowl between his eyes as
he saw the inefficiency and waste there on the paper.
The ranch had almost gone under, all right, and there was no need. In addition to the beef cattle, Jane had four thoroughbred stallions, two
of whom had won ribbons in competition, and on the racetrack before her father's death. She wasn't even putting them at stud, which could
certainly have added to the coffers. The equipment she was using was obsolete. No maintenance had been done recently, either, and that would
have made a handsome tax deduction. From what he'd seen, there was plenty of room for improvement in the equipment shed, the outbuildings,
the barn and even the house itself. The ranch had great potential, but it wasn't being efficiently used.
He scowled, faintly aware of a tingling sensation, as if he were being watched. He lifted his head and looked into curious blue eyes.
"I didn't know you wore glasses," Jane said drowsily.
"I'm farsighted," he said with a chuckle. "It's irritating when people think I'm over forty because of these." He touched the glasses.
She studied his lean hard face quietly. "How old are you?"
'Thirty-five," he said. ''You?''
She grinned. "Twenty-five. A mere child, compared to you."
He lifted an eyebrow. "You must be feeling better."
"A little." She took a slow breath. "I hate being helpless."
"You won't always be," he reminded her. "One day, you won't have to worry about traction and pills. Try to think of this as a temporary
setback."
"I'll bet you've never been helpless in your whole life."