Hunter's Woman

by McKenna, Lindsay

  Catt sat down on the deck of the tug about two feet away from Ty, her hands on either side to steady her. “It worked?”

  “Yes, it did. About ten minutes after I’d rubbed it, he started to come out of the coma. He was flailing around, trying to rip the life support tubes out of himself. I panicked, hit the call button and yelled for the nurses to come down to his room pronto.”

  She saw the humor in his face. “So Reid lived because of the homeopathic medicine?”

  Ty nodded. “That’s right. The docs at the hospital had all said he’d die, that it was just a matter of tim His voice turned grim. “I wasn’t about to let Reid die if I could help it. Rachel Donovan-Cunningham is a miracle worker as far as I’m concerned. Her and those little white pills of hers. She’s married now to an EMT by the name of Jim Cunningham and they live in Sedona, Arizona. She’s a world-class homeopath and when I’m in trouble, I call her, and she lets me pick her brain. Rachel’s the one who gives me the correct remedy for these kinds of situations.”

  Rubbing her brow, Catt said, “I’d like to say that Reid’s own body made him live, but if the doctors were ready to give him the last rites, this is a strong anecdotal case for homeopathy. Have any blind trials been done on this stuff?” she asked, pointing to the dark green plastic case that sat next to him, on which was printed Hahnemann Pharmacy, Advanced First Aid Kit.

  “Yes, there are some going on now, as we speak,” Ty told her. “And they clearly show that homeopathy is working.” Tapping the case, he said, “I never leave home without it, believe me.”

  Worriedly, Catt looked down the river in the fading light. “Well, depending upon what we find at the Juma village, who knows? Maybe if we run out of options, I’ll be asking you about your little white pills to help out. Does this stuff do well in epidemic situations?”

  “Yes. I had Congo fever and it pulled me through.”

  Nodding, Catt studied his large hand, splayed across the case. It was a hand that had caressed her so many, many wonderful times. She’d wanted to forget those times, but she had never been able to. How could she? She’d loved Ty as she had no other man before or since. In fact, she’d never loved again after Ty. Hurt throbbed through Catt. She wanted to cry. It was funny how Ty always brought all her emotions to bright, burning life—the good and the bad. There was just something about him, something in his character, that made her want to relax, share everything with him and receive that nurturing quality that was usually so rare in men. That quality was still there in Ty, she realized lamely.

  “Well,” Ty said, “if all else fails, I can always get an idea of the symptoms and repertorize them to see if any of the remedies I have might parallel them. Like cures like.”

  “Do that,” Catt said. “You made a partial believer out of me. My migraine’s gone, and when one of those suckers gets roaring through my head, I usually have it for two or three days. And it lays me out flatter than a pancake.”

  He smiled a little and absorbed her softened Texas drawl, that slight Southern twist that still lingered in her voice. “I admire you for your open-mindedness despite what’s happened,” he told her, meaning it sincerely. He saw surprise and then momentary pleasure in her eyes. And just as quickly, it was replaced with that defensive wall again. He knew Catt didn’t like him. The reality was she probably hated him. And she had every right to hate him.

  Ty knew it was now or never. “Listen, before we arrive at the Juma village, which we should do in about an hour, I need to talk to you,” he said in a very low tone that only she could hear.

  Catt tensed. She stared at him. “About what?”

  “Us. Our past. I need to clear the air so that we can work together without it getting in our way.”

  Savage pain scored her heart, and her mouth twisted as she held his beseeching look. “So, you didn’t know you’d be working with me before you got here?”

  Ty shook his head gravely. “No…I really didn’t.” He almost said, even if I knew, I’d have come anyway, but she wouldn’t want to hear those thoughts. The guarded look in her eyes made him ache for her as she sat on the deck of the tug, her fingers digging convulsively into the graying wood that badly needed sanding and painting. He felt the tension coil up in her. The fear in her eyes made him feel worse than he did already. Taking a deep breath, he rasped, “I owe you an apology I never got to give you, Catt. So much was happening in my life there at the naval air station. I was a young shavetail lieutenant just out of the academy, hit with a huge assignment—to prepare security for the president of the United States, due to arrive the next day.” He held up his hands. “Not that it was an excuse for what happened.”

  Holding her gaze, Ty felt raw pain radiating from her. He wanted to add that back then he’d wanted to shine before his superiors, to make his father proud of him. Dev and Shep were always winning trophies and being top in sports. And their successes as military men gave them center stage in their father’s heart. Ty had never quite measured up to his two older brothers and that had always caused him pain. Especially since his father doted on his older sons’ accomplishments. The security assignment had been Ty’s opportunity to show he could successfully handle something big—to do something that neither Dev nor Shep had ever done. Looking back on it, Ty could see where his eagerness to please his father had come between him and the woman he’d loved so fiercely. He’d made the wrong choice. He should have been there for Catt—for their child….

  “When you called me and told me you were pregnant,” he continued painfully, the memories causing an ache in his chest, “I should have done things a lot different than I did at that time. I should have come home. I should have been with you when—” He broke off, all the sorrow from their past hitting him with renewed force. “I know my priorities were wrong. I was young and overwhelmed with the assignment and just plain scared. I—just didn’t see things clearly. And for that, I’m very sorry. You were angry and hurt and you hung up on me. I couldn’t track you down for months after that and the next time I got in touch with you you told me—” his voice broke once more “—that you had lost our child. And that you never wanted to see me again.”

  Mouth pulling in pain, Catt couldn’t bear to look at Ty any longer. Her heart hurt. She ached in her lower body. It was an ache she remembered all too well and had not forgotten to this day. “I didn’t want to be found by you, Hunter,” she replied in a hoarse whisper. “And you damn well know why. You made it clear to me that your responsibilities were to the Marine Corps. I know all you wanted was to build your precious new career so you could impress your father. You wanted nothing to do with a twenty-year-old who was pregnant with your baby. No,” she breathed rawly, “I got your message loud and clear. So why would I want to be with you after—” She stopped, overcome. Then anger filled her once more. She wouldn’t cry now, after all this time. And not in front of Ty. He hadn’t been there for her then. And she wasn’t about to cry on his shoulder now.

  Ty rested his elbows on his thighs and clasped his hands between his opened legs. “I got the message. Especially when you disappeared once again after telling me you’d lost the baby. I felt helpless. I tried a lot of different ways to track you down.”

  “Well, none of your methods worked because I didn’t want them to work.”

  He studied Catt in the dusky light, her beautiful face marred with grief and pain. “Where did you go?”

  “Down to the Caribbean to finish off my medical education. I then took the entrance exams to get a U.S. medical license, and passed.”

  This was the hardest part. Ty tried to gird himself emotionally. “And you changed your name, too?”

  “Yes. I took my mother’s maiden name, Alborak.”

  “I see….” There was much he longed to know, so much she had refused to tell him during that brief phone call when she’d told him about the miscarriage. He often wondered about what she’d gone through. Brows dipping, he said in a choked voice, “And the baby? How—how far along were you when
—” He broke off then, knowing this was an explosive issue because Catt suddenly stood up, her arms wound tightly against her chest. Her eyes glittered, and he realized in the twilight it was because they were filled with tears she refused to allow to fall.

  Hot, violent pain twisted through Catt. She gasped at the power of her emotions as they surged up from her abdomen straight into her wildly beating heart. She saw the hopelessness, the utter apology, in Ty’s face. Her nostrils flared and quivered. Her words came out clipped and filled with agony. “Days after I called you to tell you I was pregnant, I miscarried. I lost my baby.” I lost you. I lost everything. She stood there, riddled with hurt, yet still fighting the tears that threatened.

  Rising to his feet, Ty unthinkingly reached out, his hands curving around her upper arms. He felt the tension in Catt, saw the pain in her eyes, which were huge with unshed tears as she looked up at him angrily. They stood tensely, like two warriors ready to battle one another. She was breathing hard and erratically. Her lips were tight from the pain she was feeling.

  “Oh, Lord,” Ty rasped, “I—I’m so sorry…I should have been there for you, Catt.” He choked, as tears pummeled the backs of his eyes. He felt Catt sway toward him in that instant and then he saw her catch herself and jerk out of his reach.

  “Right,” she spat, her pain transparent even through her anger. “Like I believe you! Don’t stand there and pretend it would have mattered, Hunter. Because you’re lying to me—again.” She looked around realizing her voice had risen, but her team must have made themselves scarce because she couldn’t see any of them at the moment. Swinging her attention back to Hunter, who stood there, shoulders sagging, his lips parted and tears in his eyes, she was caught off guard. Why tears? Fury moved through her. A righteous fury. “You abandoned me, Hunter. You made a choice. I was less important. The baby I carried in my body didn’t count with you. We were number two in your life, not number one like we should have been.” Catt jabbed a finger into his chest. “I don’t give a damn if the president of the U.S. was coming to your silly little naval air station. Being pregnant with your baby should have been a helluva lot more important. But no,” she breathed savagely, pinning his sad eyes with her own, “your career, the politics of climbing up the officers’ ladder and getting your father’s approval were your priorities.”

  Catt stepped back, her breath coming in choppy gasps. Wrapping her arms around her chest, she continued. “You have no idea what kind of hell you put me through. I damned near lost my sanity after losing my baby and you at the same time. I swore I’d never love again, Hunter. Especially after loving a man who was married to his career first. It was a huge lesson for me. I’ve never made that mistake since.”

  A scorching, fiery guilt roared through his chest and Ty stared helplessly down at her. Her raw pain was there for him to see, to feel and to absorb. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, Catt. More sorry than you’ll ever know….” He swallowed against a huge lump forming in his throat. Closing his eyes, Ty wished he could turn back the clock, wished he hadn’t been so young, so callous, so damned stupid. Had he known the costs of his actions then…

  Standing there, he felt his stomach tightening with anguish for all that he had lost. All he wanted to do in that moment was embrace Catt, hold her, rock her, care for her and take away the hurt that was clearly eating her alive. But Catt stood so stiffly, he couldn’t even touch her. Choking on a lump that refused to go away, he rasped, “I really screwed up big-time with you, Catt. Apologizing doesn’t seem like enough. But I never got the chance to tell you how sorry I am that you lost our baby….” And he was. Very sorry.

  Lifting her chin, her eyes blazing, Catt cried, “It was never ‘our’ baby. It was my baby! You didn’t want one, remember? You practically hung up on me because the stupid White House was calling you. Oh, I got your message loud and clear, Hunter, then as now.” She made a helpless gesture with her hand. “I left. It was like everything else in my life: I had to handle it alone. At the ranch, when my father was ill, there was no one to ask for help. My whole life’s revolved around that premise. Why should it have been any different when I reached out to ask you for help?” She glared at him. What Catt didn’t say was that when she left, she asked no one for help when she desperately needed it during the grieving process. Perhaps that was why her driving need to be a doctor—to be there for a patient crying out for help—was the only antidote for her own, unsupported pain and grief. Loving support had never been there for her—ever. Not with her mother who died when she was so young; and not with her tough-as-nails father who felt too embarrassed to hug his only daughter and show her he loved her. She’d never heard those words from her father—ever. The love she held for Ty was slammed in her face, too.

  Ty wondered how Catt had handled the grief, the loss of their child. He felt new grief blossoming in his own heart for the child he would never know. Frowning, he looked out at the muddy water surrounding the tug. “No…you’re wrong, but I can’t change your mind on that now. I won’t even try, Catt. I thought…” He forced himself to look over at her. She stood like a proud, tense avenging angel. “I dreamed of our child. Over the years, I tried to find you…. I wanted to tell you how much our child would have meant to me, how sorry I was over the loss.” With a weak gesture, his voice cracking, he added, “What a lousy mistake I made with you. I should have just come home. I should have just dropped out of that damned assignment.”

  Catt shook violently. “Sure…you’re all hearts and flowers now, Hunter. Frankly, I see nothing but guilt written on your face and in your voice. It’s about time you paid a little penance for your decision, as far as I’m concerned. And yes, you had your priorities all screwed up. Your career and your father’s opinion came first over other things, that was for sure. And that wasn’t the first time I’d seen it. No, I got the message, believe me. That’s why I disappeared for good after the miscarriage. I didn’t want a damn thing more to do with you. If you were going to put your career above more important priorities, you were the wrong person for me to think I loved.”

  Wincing, Ty closed his eyes. When he opened them, he saw that Catt had moved a little farther away from him. He stepped toward her because he didn’t want their personal laundry aired for everyone on the small tug to overhear. “I made a mess of everything,” he admitted rawly. “And there’s no way to go back and change what happened.” Opening his hand toward her, he pleaded, “I don’t expect you to forgive me, Catt. I don’t deserve it. I made a mistake I’ll live with forever. And it’s one that has cost us both dearly. I don’t expect you to believe that it hurt me, too.” He wanted to say, I loved you. I never stopped loving you. Any woman who came into my life I held up and compared to you, and no one even came close to you, your burning, fiery way of living life. If he admitted that, Catt would laugh him off this old, dilapidated tug. His chest ached with unparalleled grief. His baby had died. He had known that all along and yet his pain seemed more real, more raw, now that he’d finally shared it with Catt. Their child, the creation of their powerful, wonderful love for one another, hadn’t lived to share their lives. He blinked back the tears. Right now, Catt was his first concern, not his own selfish emotions.

  “We have to work together for at least a month or more,” he told her quietly. “We needed to clear the air on our past so we could get on with what we have to do at that village. You and I can’t afford to keep dragging up old history in the middle of this crisis.”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Catt demanded harshly. “I didn’t trust you then and I don’t trust you now, Hunter. You abandoned me and my baby in our greatest hour of need. There is nothing you could do to make me think you are more reliable now, even with this epidemic raging.” She shook her head adamantly. “No, you’re not trustworthy, and I don’t care how many times you say it, how loudly or how often. My experience with you tells me everything about you. You might be a part of my team, but I’m going to make sure you are not working with me. I’l
l put you in a dusty little corner to run lab samples. Out of sight, out of mind.”

  Anger stirred in him, along with the hurt and concern he felt. Ty grappled with his rising emotions. “You have every right to feel that way about me based upon the past, Catt. But I’m ten years older now and I’d like to think I’ve matured a little in that time, that I’ve learned what’s really important in life. My career is not primary anymore. People are. You are. The safety of your team is my only priority on this mission.”

  How badly Catt wanted to believe him! Ty looked earnest and genuinely sincere. His voice flowed through her, soothing her anger and pain like a healing balm. She wanted to ignore that fact, but she couldn’t. “Sorry, it doesn’t wash with me at all.” Catt jabbed a finger in his direction. “I’m the boss on this mission. You’re going to be as far away from me and my team as I can put you.” Her eyes narrowed. “And this is one time when you aren’t going to get your own way, Hunter. I’ll be damned if you’re going to be at my elbow, day in and day out, as we try to save lives and define this killer.”

  He stood very still. It wasn’t that simple, but Catt didn’t know it and he couldn’t tell her. Something told him to just keep his mouth shut and not engage her on this—yet. “Let’s get to Rafe Antonio’s houseboat,” he suggested slowly, “and assess the epidemic status. That will help you decide these issues….”

  Lifting her chin at an imperious angle, Catt hissed, “I don’t care what the status is, you are not going to be around me at all during this mission.” The truth was, he was too close, too virile, and it was too easy for her to simply walk into his arms, to be held once again. Catt knew she could not afford to do that. But whether she liked it or not, her heart clamored for his nearness. She was too scared, too hurt to allow him that kind of access to her ever again. Once they got to Antonio’s houseboat, things would change; she’d be in charge, leading the attack against an unknown danger. And that was what she’d done best since losing her baby and the man she loved: hurl herself into deadly situations with a hell-bent-for-leather abandon that scared even the most seasoned epidemic specialist on her team. She had died when she was twenty years old. Now there was nothing left to live for, to protect herself against. The living dead—that’s what she was. Thanks to Ty Hunter, she was immune to any threat life could offer.