Dalton's Undoing

by RaeAnne Thayne

  He was pathetic, he thought. What was this obsession with her?

  This was a pretty miserable way to spend a Saturday night, listening to a teenage boy talk about cars and thinking about his grocery list—and a woman he couldn't have.

  So much for her theory that he was some kind of wild-ass cowboy with nothing on his mind but whiskey and women.

  Maybe he ought to drop by the Bandito to shake things up a little before he went grocery shopping. He tried to summon up a little enthusiasm for the idea but the prospect was about as appealing as walking through the grocery store wearing only his Tony Lamas.

  Something was seriously wrong with him.

  He hadn't avoided the place in the past two weeks, he reminded himself. He had stopped at least two or three times to shoot a little pool, have a couple beers, flirt a little with some pretty girls. But he hadn't enjoyed it much.

  Maybe if he tried to enjoy it a little more, expended a little energy and took one of those nice ladies up on their subtle offers, he might not be so edgy and restless, he thought as he drove through the thickening snow. Even as he thought it, he knew he wouldn't.

  None of them had soft hair of a hundred different shades and a lush mouth that kept a man up at night.

  None of them was Jenny Boyer.

  "How much longer before the custom touch-up paint you ordered comes in?" the boy asked.

  Seth dragged his mind away from his current dry spell in the romance department and turned his attention to the kid. "They said a week or two. Then all we have to do is give her a couple of coats and we'll be done. Maybe during Christmas break we can take her for a ride, if the weather's not too snowy."

  "Yeah. Okay." For all his enthusiasm about working on the GTO, Cole didn't look too thrilled by the idea.

  "You've worked hard to pay your debt. I figured when we're done with the touch-up paint, we'll be square. You'll be glad to lift your last shovelfull of horse manure, I'm sure."

  "I guess." Cole slumped in the seat and gazed out at the wintry landscape.

  He frowned at the almost sullen note of dejection in the boy's voice. Was Cole upset not to be working on the Cold Creek anymore?

  He would be sorry to see the last of him. Tinkering with cars had always been a solitary escape for him, but he'd enjoyed having company the last month and Cole had been a different kid when he was working on the GTO, curious and talkative and enthusiastic.

  He studied him across the dimly lit truck. "Of course, I wouldn't turn away a hard worker if he wanted to earn a little extra money working with the horses and helping out with the occasional mechanical repair," he said on impulse. "The pay's not the greatest, but you could ride the horses all you want. And in the summer after school gets out, I could probably give you all the hours you wanted to work, provided you would be willing to drive a tractor."

  Cole straightened, his features suddenly animated, though he was obviously trying not to show too much excitement. The kid reminded him so much of himself sometimes, watching him was almost painful.

  "We'll have to talk to your mom about it," Seth cautioned as he pulled up in front of Jason Chambers's house. "She might prefer you to find an after-school job closer to home."

  Cole's enthusiasm wavered a bit but not completely. "We could talk to her now," he suggested. "If you wanted, anyway. I know she must be home since my grandpa went to Jackson Hole yesterday and won't be back until Monday."

  Oh, Jenny would love having him show up on her doorstep with an offer like this out of the blue, he thought. But Cole was so eager, he didn't have the heart to refuse.

  "Okay," he agreed, anticipation churning through him at knowing he would see her in just a few moments.

  He parked his truck in front of the house, noting as he did that the sidewalk and driveway needed shoveling. Three or four inches had fallen since noon and several more were forecast before morning.

  "I'll talk to your mother with you, on the condition you help me shovel this snow after we're done."

  Cole made a face. "What's the good of shoveling while it's still snowing? Seems a whole lot smarter to wait until it stops and then you only have to do it once."

  "Here's a little life lesson for you, kid. I know this is probably your first big storm so you might not have learned this yet. Most jobs are easier to swallow if you take them in small bites. Shoveling four inches of snow three separate times in one storm might seem like a pain in the neck. But trust me on this, it's a whole lot easier than waiting until it's all over and having to work a shovel through two-foot deep drifts."

  "Or we could all move somewhere warm so we wouldn't have to worry about shoveling snow."

  "What? And miss all this?" Seth opened the door and snow swirled inside, icy and cold. The kid rolled his eyes but climbed out of the passenger side.

  Their boots left prints in the snow as they trudged up the sidewalk through the dark night. He could see the dark shape of the Christmas tree they'd cut in the window but the lights hadn't been turned on and neither were the porch lights.

  Odd, he thought.

  Cole pushed open the front door. "Mom, I'm home," he called. He hit a switch and instantly the tree lit up with hundreds of colorful lights. It was beautiful, decorated with a hodgepodge of ornaments, most of which looked homemade. His favorite kind of tree, Seth thought with satisfaction.

  "Mom?" Cole called again.

  An instant later, Jenny burst into the room wearing a half-buttoned coat and one glove and holding her car keys in the other hand. She looked frazzled and close to tears.

  Her gaze locked on Seth. "Oh, thank heavens! I can't tell you how glad I am to see you."

  Seth raised an eyebrow. It wasn't quite the reception he'd expected. He might have made some crack about absence making the heart grow fonder, if she hadn't looked out of her head with worry.

  "What's going on?"

  "Morgan. She's having a bad flare-up. It's been going on for nearly half an hour and nothing we've tried is helping. I called your brother and he's meeting us at the clinic but I can't get my car started."

  "I'll drive you," he said instantly, already moving. "Of course I'll take you! Where is she?"

  "In the kitchen."

  She led the way and his heart broke when he found Morgan looking terrified and breathing into a nebulizer.

  For a moment as he took in her pale features and labored respirations, he was ten years old again, frightened and unable to breathe. He pushed away the ghosts of the past.

  "Okay, sweetheart. Asthma-slayers to the rescue here. We're going to get you to Dr. Jake and he'll make everything okay."

  He was completely humbled by the absolute and unequivocal trust in her eyes as she nodded.

  He scooped her up, blanket and all, and headed back through the house toward the front door and his waiting truck.

  After he set Morgan on the seat and fastened her belt, he helped Jenny in after her.

  "I've only got three seat belts in my pickup, and I don't dare drive without everyone belted in these road conditions," he said to Cole. "Do you mind staying here?"

  "No," he said, looking worried. For all his attitude sometimes, he was just a kid, Seth reminded himself. A boy worried for his sister.

  "Don't worry," he said as he went around the truck. "She's tough. Jake will take care of her and she'll be just fine. Meanwhile, your mother and sister would probably appreciate it if they didn't have to trudge through snow to get into the door when we get back."

  Cole nodded with a man-to-man kind of look and Seth was pleased to see him already reaching for the snow shovel on the porch.

  "I'm very sorry about this," Jenny said as he drove toward the clinic. "I was just about ready to call the ambulance."

  "Forget it. We can get her there faster this way, rather than wait for the volunteer paramedics to try to come in to the fire station through the snow."

  He had to concentrate on driving for the next few moments as the storm's intensity seemed to increase by the minute. With
each passing second, he was aware of Morgan's wheezy struggle to breathe and the huge weight of responsibility pressing down his shoulders.

  It gave him some tiny inkling of what parents must go through, this fragile terror at knowing they can sometimes literally hold a child's life in their hands.

  When he finally pulled up in front of the clinic, he was sweating through the heavy layers of his coat. He gave a silent prayer of gratitude when he saw Jake's Durango already in the parking lot and all the lights blazing inside.

  He scooped Morgan into his arms and headed for the door, shielding her from the snow with his body. His sister-in-law Maggie was the first one to greet them inside, ready with oxygen and a wheelchair. Jake was right behind her, bustling with the calm competence that made everybody in town trust him with their health.

  They both looked surprised to see him there but he didn't waste time in explanations as he set Morgan into the wheelchair then stepped back to let them do their thing.

  There was no one on earth he'd rather entrust this sweet little girl to than Jake and Maggie, he thought as he watched them work.

  * * *

  An hour later, Jenny sat beside her daughter's bed in one of the small treatment rooms of the clinic holding Morgan's hand and reading to her from an American Girl magazine Seth had found for them in the waiting room while Jake Dalton checked her vitals.

  "We seem to be through the worst of it," Jake said now, pulling his stethoscope away from his ears.

  "So you think it was her cold that triggered it?" she asked.

  "There's a trace of bronchitis there and I'm sure that didn't help anything. My gut tells me it's viral but I'm going to give you some antibiotics anyway, just in case I'm wrong."

  "Okay."

  "And we'll need to continue the steroid nebulizer treatments every four hours."

  "Check."

  Jake leaned back against the sink. "Now we have a decision to make and I'm going to leave it up to you. I can ship you to the hospital in Idaho Falls if you would feel better spending the night there."

  "Or?"

  "I can send you home with a monitor and you can keep on eye on her oxygen levels throughout the night and run the nebulizer treatments on your own. Either way you're probably not going to get any sleep but she might do better in her own bed. If you have problems, I can be at your house in five minutes."

  Oh, Jenny absolutely hated having to make these decisions on her own. These were the moments she missed having a partner she could count on, someone to lean on during hard times and to help her with these terribly tough calls.

  "Are you sure that's wise?" Seth said from the corner. She'd thought he would retreat to the waiting room, but he had stuck around for the whole proceedings, teasing Morgan and asking questions of Maggie and Jake and offering quiet support to Jenny.

  She wasn't sure what she would have done without him.

  Jake didn't seem upset at the question. "I wouldn't have suggested it as an option if I didn't think she would be fine at home. Since the flare-up is under control, it's probably safer having her in her own bed than trying to transport her through the storm just for observation."

  "I want to go home," Morgan said, her voice frail and small. Jenny squeezed her hand, knowing how much her daughter hated hospitals.

  "I guess we'll take door number two," she finally said. "I have to think the worst of it has passed."

  "I agree. But the only way I'm going to let you take her home is if you promise to call if you have any concerns at all in the night."

  Jenny nodded and gave him and Maggie a tired but grateful smile. "Thank you both for meeting us here. I have to confess, one of my biggest worries of moving to a small town so far from a major medical center was finding good care for Morgan's asthma. I never expected to find such wonderful providers in tiny Pine Gulch. I can't tell you what a comfort it is to have you close by."

  "You won't find better medical care anywhere," Seth spoke up, his voice gruff. "Pine Gulch is just lucky Jake decided to come home instead of taking one of the big-city offers that came down the pike when he finished medical school. Having an experienced nurse-practitioner like Mag is icing."

  His brother looked surprised and touched at the praise, though she thought Seth seemed a little embarrassed after he spoke.

  "Well, I'm sorry I had to drag you both out on a night like this."

  "It's all part of the job description," Maggie assured her. "Don't give it a thought."

  After Jake rounded up an oxygen-saturation monitor, Maggie brought a wheelchair for them to use to transport Morgan out to the truck, but Seth shook his head.

  "I've got it," he said, wrapping the little girl in a blanket and lifting her into his arms again.

  He had pulled his truck right up to the door so only had to take a few steps through the blowing snow to set her inside carefully.

  Jenny's heart seemed to shift and settle as she watched this big, overwhelmingly masculine man take such gentle care with her child. Morgan gave him a sleepy smile as he fastened her seat belt and Jenny had to swallow her sigh.

  Her daughter was already crazy about Seth. This little episode wasn't going to do anything to diminish her hero worship. She desperately hoped her daughter wouldn't have her heart broken by another male in her life.

  Exhausted by her ordeal, Morgan fell asleep before they even made it out of the parking lot.

  Seth drove with native confidence through the miserable conditions. At least a foot had fallen since the storm had started earlier in the evening and most of it was still on the roads, but he hardly seemed to notice it.

  At her father's house, she was surprised to see all but a skiff of snow had been cleared from the driveway. She frowned. Who could have done it? She could only hope Jason hadn't driven home in these conditions from Jackson Hole.

  Maybe a neighbor, she thought as she followed Seth and Morgan inside. She was discovering people in Pine Gulch took care of each other. It was another reason she desperately wanted to make things work out for them here. She loved being part of a community, a small part of the greater whole.

  "Where am I heading?" Seth whispered inside the welcome warmth of the house. Morgan was still sleeping, she saw.

  "Her room," she whispered back. "I'll show you."

  She led the way to Morgan's room, across the hall from her own and he set her carefully down on the bed.

  "Thank you," she murmured, aware of him watching her intently as she hooked up the monitor then drew the quilt up over Morgan's sleeping form.

  In the living room, they found Cole waiting for them, trying hard not to look worried.

  "How is she?" he asked.

  "Better. Good enough that Dr. Dalton seemed to think she'd be all right at home tonight," Jenny said.

  She was suddenly exhausted after the last two hours of stress and she could feel an adrenaline crash coming on.

  "Good job clearing the walks and the driveway," Seth said.

  She stared at her son. "You did that?"

  He stuck out his jaw. "Yeah. So?"

  She sighed, wondering how she always seemed to say exactly the wrong thing to him. She decided to use actions instead of words and pulled him into a hug. "Thank you."

  In a rare and precious gift, he let her hug him for a long moment before he stepped away.

  "You're supposed to call Grandpa. He said he can come home if you need him."

  "I don't want him driving in this mess. But I also don't want to be stuck here without transportation if Morgan has a relapse."

  "You won't be without transportation," Seth put in. "You'll have my truck."

  She frowned. "If you leave your truck, what will you use to get back to the Cold Creek?"

  "Nothing. Not tonight, anyway. I'm bunking on your couch."

  Chapter Ten

  As he might have expected, Jenny was less than enthusiastic about his declaration.

  Sparks seemed to shoot out of her suddenly narrowed eyes and the look she gave him plain
ly did not bode well for him. She opened her mouth—to flay him alive, no doubt—then cast a look at Cole and closed it again. He had never been so grateful for her son's presence.

  "I appreciate the offer," she said tightly, "but that's really not necessary. I'm sure you have plenty of other places you would rather be on a stormy night like tonight."

  "Nope," he said, and was astonished to realize it was true.

  Something was definitely wrong with him. This was usually his favorite kind of night, stormy and cold, the kind of night designed for cuddling up under a warm quilt with a sweet young thing, putting his mind to work coming up with imaginative ways to keep warm.

  Why did that seem so totally unappealing to him right now? He would far rather be here in Jason Chambers's house with a woman who wanted nothing to do with him, sleeping alone on a cold couch.

  "Jenny, there's no way under the sun I'm going to leave you alone here tonight and that's the end of it. I would never sleep worrying about Morgan and about you stuck here without wheels in this weather. I don't mind the couch."

  The phone rang suddenly in the kitchen and though he looked loath to leave this interesting battlefield, Cole went to answer it.

  Jenny cast a quick look through the doorway to make sure her son couldn't overhear, then she spoke in a low voice. "You can't stay here. It's impossible. What would people think if your truck were parked out front all night?"

  For one near-disastrous second, he almost laughed, but she seemed so serious, so genuinely distressed, the impulse died, leaving a hollow feeling in his gut.

  She wasn't joking. She was so concerned about her reputation, she thought just the sight of his truck parked out front of her house all night would destroy it.

  He had no idea what it was like to be a pillar of society—and he wasn't sure he wanted to know, especially if it meant worrying about something that seemed so inconsequential to him.

  Did she really think anybody would believe the elementary school principal would invite the town's bad boy over for a night of wild sex while her children were in the house?

  He had to admit, the thought of that soft body of hers all warm and cuddly was far too appealing under the circumstances, but he managed to rein in his overactive imagination.