by Marie Force
She pulled the tea towel from his shoulder and placed it between them. “We’ll share this. Tell me what you have to tell me.”
He nodded and they both forgot about the food.
His words were low at first. “I know most folks think my wife is dead and I never have said she wasn’t, but she’s alive. Or at least she was the last time I saw her four years ago. She just left me one day like it was no big deal. Like tossing away the life we planned was easy.”
“You loved her deeply?” Lizzie asked.
He shook his head. “That’s just it. I thought I did. I thought I’d die without her, but I didn’t. I think her simply saying that she didn’t want me hurt more than her leaving. She just didn’t want me.
“I told her I’d change, but she shook her head and said, ‘Into what?’ She said people are what they are. A person has to take another like they are or leave.”
Lizzie fought to keep from touching him. She’d known a lifetime of not being wanted; somehow knowing that someone else had also felt such pain cut hers in half.
He met her stare. “I thought I loved her. I thought we’d grow old together, but all I felt was relief when she walked away. I tried to remember when we were happy, when I’d measured up, when she’d loved me, but it was hard. I never lived up to her plans, and I don’t remember her saying she loved me after our honeymoon. We were always trying to make the marriage work when we didn’t fit with each other after all.”
“What happened to her?”
“She divorced me and married our next-door neighbor four months later. I didn’t fight over a thing she wanted. Turned out she wanted everything we had, except me. She wanted to stay at her job, live in the same town, even keep the same friends. So that left me with moving on.”
Lizzie couldn’t understand why his wife left him. How could a woman not love a man who loved animals as much as Doc did? “Why are you telling me this, McCall?” It crossed her mind that he was about to say he didn’t want her now, so he knew how his wife must have felt about him.
Only McCall just stood. “I wanted you to know how it is with me. I’m not much with conversation and I’ve never been the life of any party. I’m working my way from broke to poor, but I’m honest. You’re way out of my league, but I’m good with animals and you seem to like them, too.”
“Are you saying you’d like to date me?” She wasn’t sure if he was trying to tell her he didn’t want to see her again or he wanted to make more of the friendship they had.
He laughed without smiling. “I’m no good with dating. Don’t have the time or energy after I work twelve hours a day. I was thinking more something like we get married, or move in together if I’m rushing you. After four years in the same little town living next to each other, we probably know one another pretty well.”
This was the strangest proposal she’d ever heard of. She couldn’t tell if McCall was trying to talk her out of it while still asking, or if he was simply so shy he couldn’t line up the words right.
“What are you saying?” she asked again.
He stood and moved to the door. “I’m making a mess of this whole thing. We should have just eaten the breakfast. That’s another thing I can’t do. I can’t cook. Half the time the dogs won’t even eat my cooking.”
Lizzie noticed Sam had jumped on the doc’s chair, but didn’t look interested in sampling their breakfast.
“What do you want, McCall?” she said again, needing to know what he was thinking.
“I’m saying I had more fun yesterday than I’ve ever had. I liked being with you and holding you and worrying about you. I want to hold you every night while we watch a movie, and I want to take care of you when you’re hurt. You’re a kind person, Lizzie. Your whole family loves you. I can tell by the way they talk about you. They say you’re a terrible driver, but you’ve got a heart as big as Texas.” He reached for the door and opened it. “You think about the possibility of me and you, and if you’d be willing to take a chance on me, I’d be much obliged.”
The door slammed so hard it shook the house. For a moment she just stared at the breakfast as his footsteps thundered across her porch and down her steps. He was running. Storming away from her. Not because he was mad, but because he was afraid she’d turn him down.
Only a fool would turn him down. She had to do something fast.
She rushed to the door, pulled on her boots, and hurried outside, but he was already to the gate of his corral by the time she hit the mud of her yard. Following him didn’t seem logical. She needed to think. Someone was trying to kill her. She was wounded. A man had just asked her to marry him and she didn’t even know his first name.
Tugging her feet from the mud-covered boots, she ran barefooted toward him.
He turned to close the gate and saw her a moment before she heard an explosion behind her. The rush of air on her back seemed to push her forward as the sound rumbled in her ears like a freight train. Instinct took over, and she covered her head and began to crumble a moment before McCall reached her.
He lifted her and held her close against him. “Don’t look back,” he ordered, holding the back of her head with one hand, and carried her to the porch of his clinic.
The smell of smoke filled the air. Lizzie didn’t move. Something had happened. Something bad.
He set her down just inside his place. “Call 911, then lock the doors and stay inside until I get back.”
His hard tone left no room for questions. She did exactly as he said as the smell of fire polluted the morning air. She couldn’t look back, wouldn’t look back. If she didn’t see what had happened behind her, it wasn’t real.
She darted to the old phone between the back door and the kitchen window. Her fingers jabbed at the keys—911, 911.
When the Harmony sheriff’s dispatch answered on the third ring, a man’s voice simply reported, “We’re on our way, Doc,” before she said a word.
“Who is?” Lizzie’s voice and hands were shaking.
“Everyone. Fire department. Sheriff. Ambulance and some marshal who said she wanted in the loop about anything that happened. The minute the clinic number came up, I hit the speed dial. They’re all being linked in as we speak. Who may I ask is reporting this call?”
“I’m Lizzie Matheson. I live . . .”
“I know where you live. Your home and cell number are on the emergency list, staring right at me.”
“There’s been an explosion near my house.” Leaning over to the kitchen window, she corrected, “In my house.”
“Is anyone hurt?”
“I don’t think so.” She dropped the phone. Her cats! Sam and Molly were inside.
Lizzie was off the porch and halfway to the corral gate when she spotted McCall coming around the side of her house with a cat in each arm. Neither Sam nor Molly was moving.
As she ran closer, McCall looked up. The sound of sirens filled the air, almost drowning out McCall’s shouts for her to get back inside.
“They’re alive,” he yelled, “but barely. Another minute and the smoke would have killed them.” He handed her Sam, and they ran into his clinic.
“Tell me what to do,” she pleaded and he seemed to understand.
As he worked clearing the animals’ lungs of smoke, he kept talking, telling her how to hold them, how to calm them. His voice kept her from crying and his orders kept her busy. After a few minutes both cats were breathing on their own, and Lizzie felt as if she were taking her first deep breath since the explosion.
“Thank you,” she whispered to McCall.
“I’m afraid I didn’t save anything else. I knew you were safe, and I know how much these two worthless cats mean to you.” He grinned and she knew he was kidding her. “They were probably watching the house burn. Cats are no good at protecting a house.”
She kissed his cheek. “You know, Doc, much as you protest, I think you’re really a cat person.”
He shook his head. “Not a chance.”
She petted her tw
o old cats. In a minute she’d have to deal with the reality that part or all of her house was on fire, but somehow she knew it would be all right. Sam and Molly were with her.
Once Sam and Molly were safe and calm in their hospital cages, McCall took her hand. “Whatever’s out that back door, Lizzie, we’ll deal with it. Right?”
“Right.”
TEN
RICK FLOORED THE gas pedal and raced toward Lizzie’s place. He could hear the ambulance and fire truck behind him.
“She’s all right,” Trace announced. “She made the 911 call. She’s safe at the doc’s place.”
Rick didn’t want to talk. They’d been working leads since dawn. Trace’s contacts had learned that two men had rented a hotel room near Bailee two weeks ago. One paid cash while the other signed in. The hotel was a dump off the interstate thirty miles away, and the manager couldn’t read the signature well enough to get more than a last name of Rogers. He did say they looked enough alike to be twins, but one did all the talking. Kind of a nervous guy. The other didn’t say a word, but he was the one who always drove the tan pickup.
There were probably a dozen tan pickups at the rodeo last night and maybe thirty more in town. All had Texas tags. The cowboy who’d given the orders to move the bulls didn’t stand out, either. Medium to short in height, slim build, white hat. Lizzie had talked to a man matching that description, but the sun had been in her eyes and she only remembered his hat.
Rick guessed the two men at the hotel was just a lead. Probably wouldn’t go anywhere. But the pieces seemed to fit with what Lizzie had told them last night. If he and Trace were getting close to the truth, the bad guys might be getting too close to Lizzie.
As they crossed the railroad tracks, Rick saw smoke billowing from behind the clinic. It hadn’t been five minutes since she’d called, and Lizzie’s house already looked like a skeleton fighting flames that danced on the roof.
“Park at the clinic,” Trace shouted. “She called from the doc’s phone. If you’ll check on her, I’ll check on the house.”
Rick nodded. “Be careful.” There were a hundred things he wanted to tell her, wanted to promise her, but he knew she had to do her job. If he really loved her and they were going to ever have any kind of future, he’d have to accept that.
When he cut the engine, she was gone before he even unbuckled his seat belt. He ran for the clinic door as the sheriff pulled up beside his car.
“Stay with Lizzie,” Alex yelled as she climbed out.
Rick just nodded. He’d heard those same words in the same bossy tone one minute earlier.
He watched Sheriff Alex Matheson run toward the fire as Harmony’s volunteer fire department began unloading their gear. Without bothering to knock, Rick crossed the clinic’s foyer and walked into the vet’s office.
Lizzie was sitting on a desk with her back to him while the vet pulled off her top. For the first time Rick saw all of his cousin’s tattoo. Ivy running over one shoulder and brushing along her neck. His first thought was how pretty it was, then embarrassment took over and he backed away.
Lizzie looked over her shoulder. “It’s all right, Rick. Brandon was just checking my stitches.”
Rick didn’t move for fear he’d see more of his cousin than he should.
McCall glanced up at Rick as she pulled an old sweater over her.
“She’s fine.” The vet’s voice was low. “All stitches in place.”
Rick didn’t miss the fact that Dr. McCall was brushing his fingers along his cousin’s shoulders, touching the tattoo. He thought of telling him to stop, but she must know the man well if she’d learned his first name when no one else in town knew it. Maybe his fingers had played along the ivy before?
Rick thought of hitting himself in the head for worrying about that, when she could have died in the blaze burning out of control yards away. Before he could ask any questions, the side door of the office, big enough to haul a horse through, opened.
Trace and Alex pulled a cowboy, shorter than either of them, through the opening. The little man looked terrified and somehow guilty at the same time. Rick had a sickening feeling he’d be appointed to defend him any minute.
“Lizzie, do you know this man?” Alex asked calmly.
“No. Who is he?”
“We don’t know, yet, but Trace found him running along the inside of your back fence. With the fire, she might not have seen him right away if he hadn’t been screaming for somebody named Fred.”
Trace looked at Rick. “We found an old Colt and bomb-making material in his backpack, along with maps of everywhere Lizzie’s been the past two weeks, including the Matheson ranch.”
The man was shaking. “This isn’t my fault. Fred was supposed to wait for me, but he wasn’t there to pick me up.”
“Is Fred your brother?” Lizzie asked. “That’d make you Johnny, my cousin. Your mother left me a message last week that if I was ever in trouble I need to get in touch with her. She said her sons Fred and Johnny would help me out. I didn’t think my granny would have wanted me to call, so I ignored her message.”
The little man cracked. They knew his name. “We didn’t want to kill you, Lizzie. I just wanted you hurt so you’d need us. We’re family. We’d come help you if you needed us.”
To everyone’s surprise, Lizzie jumped off the desk and walked to stand in front of the little man. “But why?”
“Mom said you ain’t got no relatives. No one who cares about you. If you was hurt, you’d come to us for help. She says the oil money you get belongs to all us, not just you, and you’d see that once you got to know us.”
“You’re wrong,” Rick snapped. “She has the whole Matheson family who cares about her and most of the people in town.”
The little man looked scared. He’d said too much, but he couldn’t stop. “I didn’t mean to burn down her house. I was just going to bomb the shed out back. Only this fat cat ran out of the bushes and frightened me. When I fell, the bomb hit her porch and went off.” He gulped down air and cried. “It’s not my fault. Fred was supposed to wait for me. He said we’d never get caught.”
“As a lawyer, I’d advise you to stop talking, Mr. Rogers.” Rick thought of adding that everyone in the room, except Lizzie, was probably thinking of beating the guy to a pulp. Lizzie, on the other hand, looked like she felt sorry for her brainless relative.
Alex cuffed Rogers while he asked Rick, “How much trouble am I in?”
“Ten years, maybe five if you have no priors.” Rick wanted to say something, like a dozen Mathesons would be waiting for him when he got out, but Rogers looked like he was already on fire with fear. There was no need to toss matches.
Alex and Trace ushered Rogers out. As Trace passed Rick, she whispered, “See you tonight. I want in on this case.”
He saw the excitement in her eyes. She loved her job and if he was going to love her, he’d have to understand. “Tonight,” he whispered back, wishing he could touch her just once before they were pulled apart. But there was no time.
A dozen things seemed to be happening at once. Firemen put out the house fire, but the place looked like a total loss. Rick, Lizzie, and the vet watched it all from the porch of his clinic. To his surprise, his cousin took it all with only a few tears.
When the vet went in to answer the phone, he hugged her. “You all right, Lizzie Lee?”
She nodded. “I learned a long time ago not to get too attached to things.”
“You want me to take you over to the Matheson ranch? I’m sure the aunts will take you in for as long as you want to stay.”
Lizzie shook her head. “I got an offer to stay here, and I think I’ll take Brandon up on it.”
“How’d you get him to tell you his first name?”
She giggled. “I asked him.”
Rick left her in good hands as he drove back to his apartment. Trace had called in saying they’d picked up the other Rogers brother, and both were claiming the other was the mastermind of the plot to frigh
ten Lizzie.
To Rick’s way of thinking, there was no mastermind. The Rogers boys didn’t have enough brain cells between them to think up this plan. He’d bet that because their address was still their mother’s home, she’d thought it up. Dear old invisible Aunt Alice was probably at home in Dallas, waiting for her sons to call in with good news.
By the time he finished taking a shower, Trace was crawling through the window. “Evening, dear,” he said as he handed her his cup of coffee. “Have a good day at the office?”
She kissed his cheek. “I had a great day.”
They sat down on the two end tables that had been left in his living room and talked. Then, like an old married couple, he went to bed while she took a shower. When she cuddled beside him, he turned to face her.
“Somehow, Trace, we have to make this work. I can’t do without a heart, and it leaves every time you do.”
“I know. After today I think Harmony might be a fascinating place to live.”
He pulled her closer. “After tonight, you’ll know it for certain.”
ELEVEN
AS THE WESTERN ended, Lizzie clicked off the TV and glanced over at McCall’s two dogs sleeping on the kitchen rug; her two cats were two feet away in the kitchen chairs. McCall had been asleep since the middle of the movie they’d both already seen. She’d spent the time thinking of all the ways she’d color his world.
They’d spent an hour eating pizza, planning how she could fit into his already small space. Since she had no clothes or furniture, it wouldn’t be too hard.
There were so many things yet to talk about. So many days to share. She thought it strange that he’d been right in front of her, waiting for her to see him. Now that she had, she couldn’t imagine a day in the future without him.
As he slept, she snuggled close and saw their future. They’d build a house in the pasture beside his clinic. They’d work together most days. She’d always cook supper, and he’d probably always fret over her. He’d try to boss her around and she wouldn’t listen. They’d have a big wedding and maybe children. They’d grow old together. They would never stop loving each other.