by Marie Force
She’d never thought of herself as having a type of man, but someone like the doc wouldn’t be in the running. He would more likely make the good-friend category. They shared a love for animals, so that was a good base. He wasn’t noisy and never had wild parties; he could help her with her pets and even give her advice on bullet wounds. Cuddling with him had been nice, but now it was about time to move to the “let’s just be friends” category before either of them became foolish enough to think there could be more.
It was late, but she was in no hurry to go back to her place. The way he’d held her, all protected and warm, made her wish they could go back to the couch and hold each other for just a few minutes more. Only affection wasn’t something she’d ever known to come in quantity.
She realized she didn’t even know his first name. Everyone just called him Doc, or McCall. Someone said he was a widower, but there were no pictures of his life before Harmony, so it was hard to tell. Maybe he was divorced. Wouldn’t a man who lost his wife keep her picture?
The rooms he lived in were as bare as those in a cheap hotel. Everything that wasn’t wood was brown. As far as she knew, he never traveled or joined any clubs or churches. He simply worked. His old pickup was either parked in his lot out front or flying down a back road to check on some rancher’s stock.
There was nothing exciting or even mildly interesting about McCall, she decided, except one observation: He loved animals as much as she did. She had seen him kneeling by a mare once, fighting to save mother and colt. He cared.
“I guess I should be going.” She helped him pick up coffee cups off his little dining table.
“I’ll walk you home,” he said. “If you like, old Scotty can stay with you. He’ll bark if anyone comes near your house, so he’s good to have around on a night like this.”
She wasn’t worried. No one uninvited had ever come near her house. Most of her Matheson relatives hadn’t even seen the inside, and she didn’t even know what her mother’s relatives looked like.
Her pet grooming salon was in an old converted beauty shop across the road from the vet’s office. The Matheson relatives who did stop by usually visited her there. Two of her favorite great-aunts came every Wednesday with a bag of hamburgers and fries. She’d learned never to book a twelve o’clock appointment and to have the iced tea ready. They’d huddle around the break-room table and talk like they hadn’t seen her in months.
“Thanks for helping me out tonight, Doc.” She moved outside, feeling the cold more than she had earlier. If she’d been brave, she would have begged to stay longer.
He followed her out to the long porch that wrapped around three sides of his offices. The two old dogs tagged along behind him. When he jumped off the porch, he turned to face her. Now that he was three steps below her, she was finally at eye level with the man. Both smiled.
“You’ve got pretty eyes,” he whispered.
“So do you.” She giggled, thinking her aunt Fat would say he had bedroom eyes if she saw him in this moonlight.
Without a word they walked the path. The lights around his business and her front-porch light offered just enough glow to see the way. All the world seemed fussy in the damp night.
“When it rains, I don’t mind you parking in my lot,” he finally broke the silence. “I’ve got plenty of room, and I’d hate you getting stuck in the mud in that trail you call a road.”
“Thanks, but I don’t know when I’ll get another car. Since I totaled the last one, I don’t feel much like going shopping. Usually one of my relatives calls me and offers to sell me his old car. They all know my record. I seem to be where Mathesons send their vehicles to die.”
He laughed. “You’re not so bad. I heard the last car got hit in the parking lot.”
She shrugged. “That’s right. I wasn’t even in it. Guess I should have parked between the lines, though.”
“And the one before that someone said you wrecked on an icy road.”
She nodded, guessing he heard a great deal about her problems while he circled the relatives’ ranches. Suddenly Lizzie wanted to change the subject.
“Why didn’t you buy my place when you bought the clinic?” She’d always wanted to ask him. After all, the old vet had built the business and then the home to live in. Some old-timers said the former vet’s wife had tried her hand at running a beauty shop across the street, but it never took off. It only made sense that the property would have sold as one place.
“I didn’t have the money,” he answered honestly. “The offices were already under the same roof as the clinic. They had a little kitchen and bathroom, so I figured I’d just live there. I really didn’t have any use for your house or the shop. I wouldn’t have minded having the land around, though. I understand you bought the pastures on either side of me.”
She shrugged as she realized her property almost surrounded his. “If you ever need to put an animal in those pastures, I wouldn’t mind. I’ll trade you for the parking space if I ever get another car.”
He leaned low and nodded, as if sealing the deal as they crossed the boundary line between their places. The old tree Trace had fallen from shadowed the path. He took her hand in his. “I wouldn’t want you to fall, Elizabeth,” he said softly. “That wound could start bleeding again. It might seem small now that it’s stitched up, but you need to be careful.”
Lizzie almost giggled again. In his way, he was taking care of her, and no one had taken care of her in so many years.
When they were past the shadow, he squeezed her fingers before letting go. “If you want, I could check the wound for you tomorrow. I’ve got to spend most of the day out on farms, but I should be in by seven.”
She thought about saying that she could take care of herself, but she liked being around him. Better yet, she had the feeling he liked being around her. “How about you come to dinner tomorrow? Then after supper you can check me out.”
He didn’t answer, but slowed. After a moment, he whispered, “Elizabeth, your front door is wide open. Did you leave it that way?”
“Never,” she said so low the wind stole her answer.
They both slowed. Reason told her Rick might have opened it, but how? It always locked automatically when she stepped out. She’d grown up with only a curtain for a door at Granny’s. Then in the dorm she’d had roommates who always invaded her space. When she moved to Harmony, she loved the idea of having her own place with locks on the doors.
As a kid she’d carried her grandmother’s front-door key on a chain and continued with a dorm key for four years. Even now, with the door wide open, she reached for the key about her neck.
“How about I go in with you?” McCall whispered as if he might frighten a burglar and somehow protect her.
She nodded and let him go in first. Two steps behind him, she turned on the lights as they moved from room to room. All looked as she had left it. The big kitchen lined with appliances she’d bought online, the living room with its long wall of windows on one side and bookshelves on the other. Her paintings and supplies were scattered about in a colorful mess. They passed into the roomy bedroom she loved, with her desk tucked between wide windows facing the sunrise.
“Looks all right,” he said when all the lights were on. “Do you notice anything missing?”
She laughed. “Someone could take a truckful and I probably wouldn’t notice.”
He slowly turned as if just now really seeing the room. “Your world is so colorful. It’s like visiting an art gallery.” He picked up one of the paintings. “I saw this cat once. It looks like the old tom you brought over one day for me to take a look at.”
Lizzie nodded. “Hershel died. That’s why I painted him.” She didn’t want to tell the doctor more. He’d only join all the folks who thought she was strange. But she didn’t want to lie either, so she took a chance that he might understand. “I used to give the paintings to the pet owners. I thought they’d like them. The first one said it was creepy, and she hadn’t liked the pet
anyway—she’d just got stuck with him. The second told me I had no right to paint her precious without permission.
“So now I just paint the ones I want to remember. Sometimes I really believe that animals understand us far more than we understand them.”
McCall nodded. “Folks are funny about their animals. I knew this owner who taught his little colt to rear up and put his front legs on the man’s shoulder. It looked cute when the horse was small, but a few months later I heard the colt had knocked all the rancher’s teeth out with the trick. The rancher sold the horse off the next week like the accident was his fault. Unfair.”
“I know what you mean. One of my ladies comes in once a month for me to cut her dog’s hair just like hers. She even dyed her hair the same color as her pet and swears that they plan to be buried together.”
McCall laughed. “Wonder if anyone asked the dog’s opinion?”
He lifted his hand and gently brushed over the streaks of green in her hair. “Why?” he asked simply.
For a moment she thought of acting like she had no idea what he was talking about, but the truth won out. “I’m afraid of fading away. Sometimes I feel like no one sees me. Maybe if I stand out, people will remember I was here.”
“I see you, Elizabeth. I always have. It doesn’t matter what color is in your hair or what you wear.” He grinned. “Sometimes just watching you walk across my lot on your way to your shop makes me smile. In a small way, you add color to my world.”
Looking up into his eyes she realized that maybe he was trying just as hard to fade away, become invisible, as she was trying to be seen. Before she could say anything, his dogs discovered her cats and a wild chase ensued.
The war finally ended when her tabby, Molly, swung one blow and sent both dogs running.
While she held her fat cat, the doc examined both his dogs’ noses. He scolded them for chasing the cat; Lizzie told her cat to be nice, but it was obvious none of the animals were listening.
Lizzie had always believed that if cats could talk, they’d be cussing most of the time, and dogs, no matter what trouble they got into, always managed to have a “Who, me?” look about them.
She and McCall let the animals go, determined to watch them. “I guess I’d better say good-night, Elizabeth.” He looked toward the windows but didn’t move. “Sun’s coming up.”
“It’s been a long night, but I’m not tired. If I had a car, I’d run into Harmony and have breakfast at the diner.”
He faced her. “Mind riding in an old pickup? We could be sitting at the diner in ten minutes.”
She grabbed her jacket by the door. “I guess that means we’ll have to walk the path again.” Before she could think to stop herself, she added, “Will you still hold my hand when we go by the tree, Doc?”
His face looked deadly serious when he said, “I’d be happy to.”
Her cheeks warmed. That she’d asked sounded childish, but he hadn’t seemed to mind. As they walked back, she was quiet, thinking it would take her half an hour to explain how little she knew about men or dating or even being friends. Rick, her cousin, was probably the only man she felt comfortable with, and they never talked about anything important.
As he’d promised, he took her hand at the tree and didn’t turn loose until they reached his old pickup.
When they got to the Blue Moon Diner, it was just opening, so they had their pick of booths. Lizzie pointed to one in the middle, and he headed toward one at the back corner. Laughing, they settled on a table halfway between.
She was always comfortable in the old diner because breakfast is one meal you can eat out alone and not feel so lonely. At least once a week she’d eat breakfast out—when she had a car and the weather wasn’t too bad. She’d buy a paper and read as she downed her pancakes. No one bothered her.
Only this morning was different. She wasn’t alone.
This morning she was eating with Dr. McCall. After they ordered, he talked about his work and she asked questions. They discovered he loved dogs and horses best. She loved cats and little dogs. They both hated bats, snakes, and rats.
When they finished breakfast, the morning crowds were filling up the booths. A few waved at the doc, and one of Lizzie’s cousins, who worked at the bank, gave her a slight nod.
The excitement of the night faded, and the real world set in as they drove home. She wasn’t some wounded princess, and the doc wasn’t her knight. They were just two neighbors who had had breakfast together. The shooting, the cuddling, the breakfast conversation would fade, and everything would go back like it was.
Only as she climbed into the doctor’s pickup, she began to think. The shot had been real. Someone almost killed her. Maybe they’d been aiming at Rick or maybe she’d been the target.
Lizzie couldn’t shake the feeling that no matter what she’d said to Rick, the bullet hadn’t been a stray shot, an accident. He might feel as if he’d put her in danger because someone was after him, but she suspected the opposite. Maybe she was the one with an enemy?
She had to face facts.
Trouble wasn’t hunting him; a killer was hunting her. In the past year she’d gotten two letters after she’d had accidents. At first she’d thought it only a cruel joke, but now she feared someone might really wish her dead.
One accident she’d had on a rainy road. She’d heard some folks had hinted that it might have been an attempt at suicide. The wreck had left her shaken and bruised. The note arrived two days later in the mail. It was printed in pencil and said simply, Maybe you’ll have better luck with killing yourself next time.
Lizzie thought the note mean-spirited and cruel, but she told no one about it.
Then last month when she stepped on a nail and fell off her roof, another letter came. Typed this time. This one said, Fall on your head next time and finish the job right.
After that, Lizzie quit opening any mail that didn’t have a return address. She wouldn’t even return the call when her aunt Alice left a message saying that it was time they got together because, after all, they were family.
Lizzie thought the notes were pranks, a cruel joke someone had decided to play. Maybe the same someone had cut her phone line at the shop last spring, and two weeks ago that someone might have cut her screen at the shop, just enough to push the water hose in. She’d walked into a flooded shop. If the breaker hadn’t been thrown, she might have been electrocuted when she turned on the lights.
Lizzie had fixed the problems without telling anyone.
What bothered her even more than the letters or the pranks was not knowing who was doing them. It could be anyone. She first thought of cousins on her mother’s side, who hated her for inheriting the money Granny left. Only her aunt had left that message trying to patch things up. Then she considered it might be a Matheson who thought she had embarrassed them one time too many. That side of the family was so normal, and, if not kind, all were at least tolerant of her.
Who knows? Maybe someone hated her in school. She was always the odd one who never fit in, who always ruined the curve in grading, the one who accidentally leaked any secret she heard to the wrong person. Maybe someone in her class cracked up and wanted to start his serial-killing spree with her.
The doc pulled her back from worrying as he parked in front of the clinic. “You’re awful quiet, Elizabeth. Lack of sleep finally catching up to you?”
“No, I’m fine.” She glanced over at his kind face. “Would you mind if I went with you today on your house calls, or barn calls, or whatever you call them? I could help.”
He seemed to understand. “I wouldn’t mind at all. I’d be happy to have the company.”
“Thanks,” she whispered, lowering her head. It wasn’t that she was afraid to be alone, she told herself. She just needed time to think. All her life she had never worried so much about doing what was proper; she just worried about not doing something wrong. When she’d finally grown up, she thought everything would be all right if she just lived alone.
&nb
sp; Only trouble seemed to have found her anyway.
SIX
RICK TOOK HIS time getting dressed as he slowly relived every minute of his night with Trace. She’d felt so good in his arms, in his bed. With her, he believed he just might be a great lover. Only problem was no one would ever know, because he couldn’t imagine loving anyone but Trace.
They fit together so perfectly. They were wild hungry animals leaving bruises one minute, and the next, loving so tenderly he felt he breathed her into his entire body. He hadn’t asked her if she’d taken another lover in the months they’d been apart. He knew she hadn’t. Just like him, she was starving, demanding, on fire. She’d wanted him with every part of her being, just as he’d wanted her.
Strangely, the fact that she hadn’t said good-bye gave him hope. She was still around, and he had no choice but to wait until she appeared again. If she believed someone was stalking him, planning to kill him, she’d be watching over him from somewhere in the shadows. His own private, long-legged, beautiful guardian angel.
When he climbed into his car, a text blinked on his cell phone.
One word. Midnight. He didn’t recognize the number, but he pressed return and punched: I dare you to come back for more.
He pressed Send and smiled. Trace wasn’t gone. They’d have another night.
He didn’t bother to search the corners of the parking garage or study the people in other cars. She was out there. He knew it, but he wouldn’t see her until midnight. An endless day lay ahead, which offered him hours to think about the pleasure to come. He’d make love to her again, wild and free, as if for the first time, or maybe the last time.
He stopped for coffee at the diner, bought a paper in the bookstore, climbed the stairs to his office on the third floor of the courthouse, and adjusted his chair. Fifteen minutes later he was sound asleep.
Finally, the sound of someone pounding on his door woke him. Rick stood, trying to shake off sleep before he made it to the lock. The sunshine that had been sparkling across his floor was gone, so he guessed he’d been asleep for hours. It had to be near noon.