Dr. Colton’s High-Stakes Fiancée

by Cindy Dees

  Someone burst into the room in a flurry of noise and movement. “Finn, come quick! We need a doctor—” Lucy Walsh broke off, looking back and forth between them. “Oh!”

  Finn jumped back at about the same instant Rachel did, but he was first to speak. “What’s wrong?”

  “Craig has collapsed. Hurry!”

  Finn spared Rachel an apologetic glance, then raced out of the room after Lucy. Rachel sat down on the edge of the bed, breathing hard. Holy cow. Finn Colton had been about to kiss her. And he wasn’t drunk this time. At least, she was pretty sure he wasn’t.

  As worried as she might be about her boss, she couldn’t exactly go busting downstairs immediately after Finn with her cheeks on fire. Not if she didn’t want to be the stuff of gossip for weeks to come. She stumbled into the bathroom and splashed cold water over her face until her cheeks had returned to a normal pink in the mirror. Her brown eyes were too big, though, too wide, and her hands were shaking. There was no way she was going to hide the fact that something had happened between her and Finn up here.

  Crud. She seemed to have a knack for doing practically nothing yet managing to put herself into prime rumor position. She really wished she would stop doing that. Reluctantly, she walked downstairs. An ambulance siren screamed in the distance. Oh, dear. Craig must be seriously ill. She hoped it was nothing like a heart attack.

  She stepped out onto the back patio. A crowd of people was clustered around the far end of the pool, and she spotted Finn kneeling next to a prone figure. At least he wasn’t doing CPR on Craig. That was good news, right? A pair of paramedics raced around the side of the house, pulling a stretcher. She watched in dismay along with everyone else while they loaded Craig onto it and, with Finn jogging beside them, rushed Craig out to the ambulance.

  Lucy Walsh, who happened to be standing next to Rachel, turned blindly to her, her face pale. “I’ve got to take my mom to the hospital. She’s too upset to drive. Could you keep an eye on things around here? Everyone can stay if they like, but we’ve got to go.”

  Rachel nodded, stunned. In moments, the Walsh party was nearly devoid of Walshes. Lester Atkins made an announcement that people should feel free to stay and enjoy the barbecue. But the life had gone out of the evening. People trickled out steadily over the next hour until the place was deserted.

  Rachel stepped in to supervise the caterers when Lester got a call from the Walshes and had to race off to the hospital. That couldn’t be a good sign. She said a prayer for Craig and turned to the daunting task of cleaning up after two hundred people. After all, she was the town’s resident pitch-in-and-volunteer girl. Thankfully, the caterers were efficient, and it only took an hour or so for them to pick up the mess, pack the tents and tables and leave the remaining food in coolers in the kitchen.

  Rachel climbed into her car a little after midnight and started the long drive back to town. Finn was a great doctor and he was looking after Craig. Everything would turn out okay. Except an ominous rumbling in her gut said that everything was not okay in Honey Creek.

  Finn parked his truck behind his family’s mansion and sat there for a while staring at nothing. What on earth was wrong with Craig Warner? He understood why the local chief E.R. doctor had recruited him to consult on this case. But even as a specialist in gastrointestinal disorders, he was stumped. He’d seen a lot of strange cases in emergency rooms before, but this one was baffling. He’d ordered up a raft of tests, but the nearest lab was in Bozeman and he wouldn’t have any results on most of the lab work until morning. He’d considered ordering a helicopter to transport Craig up to Bozeman, but frankly, he didn’t think the man would survive the flight.

  Damn it, the guy couldn’t die on him! Besides the fact that he took pride as a physician in hardly ever losing a patient, how ironic would it be for one of the mainstays of the Walsh family to die on the watch of a Colton?

  He climbed out of the truck, shrugging deep into the jacket he’d snagged from the mud room earlier. He didn’t feel like going inside. The weather had swung back from summer warm to cold tonight, and the temperature fit his mood. He strolled out toward the back acreage and spied a light on in the main barn. What was going on out there? He headed for the light.

  The dew soaked through his docksiders and the night air bit sharply at his nose. The warmth of the barn was tangible as he stepped inside. A rich smell of cattle and disinfectant washed over him. This always had been his favorite place on the whole ranch. Damien leaned against a stall door at the far end of the cavernous space.

  He joined his brother and glanced into the stall. A cow lay on her side, straining in the distinctive spasms of delivering a calf. “Everything okay?” Finn asked.

  Damien shrugged. “First calf. She’s struggling with it. Thought I’d keep an eye on her in case she needs help.”

  “Late in the year to be calving, isn’t it?” Finn murmured.

  Damien shrugged. “I wasn’t around ten months ago to know how she got in with the bull.”

  Finn fell silent. They watched the cow stand, pace around a bit, then lay back down and strain again. Finn asked, “You check the calf’s position?”

  “Yeah. Presentation’s normal.”

  Funny how both of them had been gone from the ranch for over a decade, but the knowledge of ranching and cattle husbandry came back unbidden. The rhythm of life out here got into a man’s bones and never left him.

  Damien commented, “I figure we give her another push or two, and if she doesn’t make any progress, we go in and help.”

  “Want me to call a vet?”

  Damien replied, “I hear Doc Smith retired. There’s no vet in town these days, so we’re on our own. But you’re a doctor. Some of that fancy medical stuff has to apply to cattle, doesn’t it?”

  Finn nodded. Something in his gut ached with longing to go to veterinary school and take Doc Smith’s place as the local vet. But, no. He had to become a “real” doctor. Respectable. Successful. Distinguished.

  Damien looked over at him with that disconcertingly direct stare he’d developed in prison. “What brings you out here at this time of night? I thought you were going to the Walsh barbecue.”

  “I went. Craig Warner collapsed and had to be rushed to the hospital. I spent most of the evening in the emergency room with him.”

  “He gonna be okay?”

  Finn shrugged. “Don’t know. We can’t figure out what’s wrong with him. He’s in critical condition.”

  Damien frowned. “Can’t say as I wish anyone associated with the Walshes well, but I don’t wish death on the guy.”

  Finn nodded. Once upon a time, Damien had been crazy in love with Lucy Walsh until her father ran Damien off. That was what the prosecutors used as Damien’s motive for supposedly murdering Mark Walsh. Women. The root of all evil.

  “You think?” Damien murmured in surprise.

  Finn glanced over at his brother. Had he said that out loud?

  “You got woman trouble, Finn?”

  He frowned. Did he have woman trouble? He wasn’t sure. He’d been on the verge of kissing Rachel again at the barbecue before Lucy burst in to announce that Craig had collapsed. And that would’ve been a colossal mistake.

  “Only trouble I’m having with women is staying away from them. Or rather getting them to stay away from me.”

  “Rachel’s not stalking you, is she? She didn’t strike me as the type.”

  “Hell, if anything I’m the one stalking her.” He jammed a hand through his hair. “But I know better. The woman’s poison. She reeled me in the last time and then betrayed me.”

  “You mean back in high school?” Damien asked. He sounded surprised again.

  “Yeah,” Finn answered impatiently.

  “You still carrying a torch for her after all this time?”

  “I’m not carrying a torch for Rachel Grant!”

  “Dunno. From where I stand, it sure looks like you are. Helping her with that dog and spending the night at her house. Were you
really only on her couch?”

  Rage exploded in Finn’s chest. It boiled up within him until his face was hot and his fists itching to hit something. What the hell? He checked the reaction, stunned at its violence. Where had that come from? Was he really so defensive of Rachel? Or was it maybe that it just pissed him off to have someone else see the truth before he did?

  The cow laid down abruptly and commenced another contraction.

  “Crap,” Damien exclaimed softly. “The calf has turned. Those aren’t front hooves.”

  Finn followed his brother into the pen. “I’ll hold her down. You’re stronger than me. You pull the calf.”

  They went to work quickly. Finn put a knee on the cow’s neck, leaning on it just enough to keep her from getting up. As another contraction started, Damien wrapped a towel around the calf’s back legs, braced himself with his boots dug deep into the sawdust and commenced pulling for all he was worth.

  “Ease up,” Finn said as the contraction ended. Damien and the cow had the calf’s entire hind legs out. Damien tore back the silver-white amniotic sac to get better purchase on the slippery calf.

  “Big calf,” Damien commented, breathing hard.

  “Here comes the next contraction,” Finn replied.

  Damien nodded and commenced pulling again. It took maximum effort from cow and human, but a few moments later, the calf popped out in a rush of fluid. Finn and Damien pulled the sac back from the calf’s face and cleaned out its nose. The calf shook his head and snorted, breathing normally. The cow lowed to her baby and after passing the afterbirth got to her feet to examine her offspring. While mother administered an energetic bath to her baby, Finn got a barn shovel, took the afterbirth out of the stall and checked it make sure it was intact and whole.

  He and Damien leaned on the stall wall and watched as the calf started struggling to get to its feet. Mom’s enthusiastic licking wasn’t helping, and she knocked the little guy over a few times. There was something miraculous to watching new life unfold like this. It put everything else in the world into perspective.

  Damien murmured, “Rachel seems like a decent woman. Why is it you hate her guts, again?”

  Finn was startled. Why had Damien circled back to this subject? “You know why. She slept with some other guy. Hell, she ripped my guts out and stomped on them.”

  Damien shrugged. “Yeah, yeah. I remember. I was there when Maisie told you.” He paused. “But it’s been fifteen years. That’s a long time. People change.”

  “Yeah, but just because people change, that doesn’t mean it’s always for the better.”

  “They don’t always change for the worse, bro.”

  Finn looked over at Damien in surprise. “When did you become such an optimist about the human race?”

  “I’m no great optimist. It’s just that…” Damien seemed to search for the right words and then settled on “…life’s too short. You gotta do what makes you happy. If you want to give things with Rachel another go, then you should do it.”

  Finn reared back. “I don’t want to give things with Rachel another go!”

  “Why the hell not? She’s a beautiful woman, and she’s plumb tuckered in love with you. If I had a woman like that who wanted me like she wants you, I wouldn’t think twice about going for it.”

  “In love? With me? You’re nuts. She hates my guts!” His outburst startled the cow into turning defensively and banging into her calf, who stumbled and fell over.

  “Shh,” Damien hushed him. “You’re upsetting momma and interfering with junior’s first meal.”

  Finn subsided, but his brain was in a whirl. Why on earth did Damien think Rachel still had a thing for him? She might have turned to him for help with her injured dog, but she’d made it plenty clear that she wished he’d leave town and stay gone. Except she’d kissed him back last night when she thought he was too drunk to remember the kiss today. And earlier this evening at the barbecue, she’d definitely leaned toward him when he’d leaned toward her—

  Cripes. Was he so desperate that he was analyzing leaning, now?

  The sound of sucking pulled his thoughts back to the moment. He smiled as the calf butted his mother’s udder and sucked some more.

  “Nice-looking calf,” Damien commented. “Maybe I’ll ask the old man to give him to me as a starter bull for my new ranch.”

  “You still planning to move to Nevada and start your own place?” Finn murmured.

  “Nothing to hold me around here anymore,” Damien retorted. “Just a whole lot of bad memories and bad blood.”

  It hurt to hear the pain in Damien’s voice. The guy’d been through so much and gotten such a raw deal. Finn really wished there was something he could do to put a smile back into his brother’s eyes.

  “Things sure didn’t turn out how either of us planned, did they?” Finn muttered. “I thought I was going to marry Rachel, go to vet school and live happily ever after, and you were going to run the ranch and marry Lucy.”

  Damien’s gaze went glacial. Finn froze as actual violence rolled off his brother’s massive shoulders. For the first time since he’d gotten home, Finn was a little afraid of his older brother. By slow degrees, Damien’s bunched muscles relaxed and the violence pouring off of him ebbed. Finn released a slow, careful breath.

  Damien glanced wryly over at Finn. “It’s not too late for you. You can still have it all.”

  Finn wanted to shout that he didn’t want Rachel Grant, but once again, the words wouldn’t come out of his throat. They stuck somewhere in his gut and refused to budge.

  Damn, that woman messed him up like no other female ever had. Coming back to Honey Creek had been a big mistake. A huge one. To hell with the homecoming dance. He’d pay his respects to Coach Meyer in the morning and get the hell out of town.

  Chapter 7

  Rachel dragged herself into work the next morning as exhausted as she’d ever been in her life. Brownie had been restless and uncomfortable last night, and what with worrying over Craig Warner and replaying that almost-kiss with Finn Colton over and over in her head, she’d barely slept at all.

  After hours and hours of wrestling with the decision, she’d determined that no matter how much attraction still lingered between the two of them, she and Finn were better off going their separate ways and living their own lives. Too much time had passed and they’d both changed too much. Even if they had been wildly attracted to one another as kids, teen lust was no basis for a long-lasting relationship.

  Only a few minutes after she’d sat down at her desk, Lester Atkins summoned her to his office. Alarm coursed through her. What could he possibly want with her? As Craig’s personal assistant, he had a great deal of unofficial power at Walsh Enterprises. And some of his power was entirely official. She gathered from her coworkers, for example, that he had the power to fire people at her pay grade.

  Craig Warner’s secretary wasn’t at her desk when Rachel got to the woman’s office, so she stepped through into Lester’s. He wasn’t there. Strange. She glanced into Craig’s office and was startled to see Lester sitting at Warner’s desk. His palms were spread wide on the leather surface, and a look of satisfaction glutted his features.

  Rachel stepped back hastily into the doorway to the secretary’s office and cleared her throat loudly. Lester came out of Warner’s office immediately, the look in his eyes one of suspicion now.

  “Ah. There you are, Miss Grant. I have some paperwork I need you to take over to the hospital and get signed.”

  “Does that mean Mr. Warner’s doing better?” she asked hopefully.

  “No. He’s still in critical condition. I need Mrs. Walsh’s signature.”

  Rachel frowned. From what she gathered, Craig Warner and Jolene Walsh had quietly been an item for the past year or two. She hardly imagined that Jolene would want to deal with business matters when her lover was fighting for his life.

  Lester must’ve caught the frown, because he snapped, “I wouldn’t bother her with trivial matter
s. This paperwork is vitally important and has to be signed right away.” He picked up a thick manila folder off his desk. “I’ve marked the spots that need signing with sticky notes. Jolene doesn’t need to read any of it. You can tell her I’ve reviewed it all and she just needs to sign it. Bring it back to me when she’s done it.”

  Rachel nodded and took the file he thrust at her. As she drove to the hospital, she couldn’t get the sight of that gloating pleasure on Lester’s face out of her mind. She glanced down at the folder resting on her passenger seat several times. What was he up to? She pulled into a space in the hospital parking lot and turned off the ignition. It was none of her business. But the Walshes were bound to be distracted. And she neither liked nor trusted Lester. She picked up the file.

  There had to be a hundred pages of dense legal papers in the folder. She tried to read the first few pages but got bogged down in the language so fast that she shifted into merely scanning the pages superficially.

  And then the words Walsh Oil Drilling Corporation, leaped off a page at her. She stopped and went back to it. She appeared to be in the middle of some sort of contract. She backed up a few pages and read more closely. The contract appeared to be fairly innocuous. Walsh Oil Drilling was leasing mineral rights to several large tracts of land on the West Coast for exploration and possible development. The other party in the deal was a corporation she’d never heard of before—Hidden Pines Holding Company. She plowed through a dozen pages of clauses before she reached the end of the agreement and a sticky note marking where Jolene was supposed to sign the contract.

  Rachel jolted as she looked down at the signature blocks on the page before her. She recognized one of the signatures of a Hidden Pines official. Or, more accurately, one of the illegible scrawls. It looked an awful lot like the scrawls on the fraudulent Walsh Oil Drilling financial records she’d been poring over for the past week. She studied the scribble. It had a different loop at the beginning and trailed off a little more horizontally than the one on the financial records, but the rest of it—the way it floated above the line, the aggressive slash of it—was nearly identical.