“All the more reason,” Gavin concluded, “for us to finally be sensible and let it go.”
* * *
“ARE YOU OKAY?” Travis asked Erin as Mac walked out with her siblings.
“I don’t know,” she murmured, still in shock. “This isn’t just about the money.”
Gavin walked back in. “You’re right, Erin. It’s about you. And the fact that you’ve sacrificed so much to carry on for Mom and Dad in their absence, seeing to it that Nicholas and the twins were able to live in the home where we all were born...”
“You wanted that, too.” Erin helped Travis clean up the bottles of water and coffee cups and carry them to the law office break room.
“But I wasn’t here for most of it,” Gavin said. “I was off at med school, and now residency. I wasn’t the one struggling to run the store and the ranch and make sure the taxes and the tuitions were paid. All the while weathering my own tragedies and raising my own family.”
Erin stiffened. “I haven’t minded.”
Gavin sighed. “No one says you have. Just that it’s time for you to move on. Comfortably.”
Erin stared at her brother, blinking back unexpected tears. “But what about—”
A throat cleared, and she turned to see Mac looming in the doorway. “Sorry to interrupt. I forgot my briefcase. I wanted to get it before I headed over to the pizza restaurant to pick up Heather.”
Erin glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to go get Sammy and Stevie, too.”
She and Mac said their goodbyes, then walked out.
Just down the street, standing outside the Lone Star Dance Hall, were the roughnecks from Prairie Natural Gas. Cleaned up and ready for an evening out, they were looking Erin and Mac’s way.
“You seem upset,” Mac observed.
Crushed and depressed was more like it.
Erin shrugged, struggling to keep her feelings under wraps. “The meeting wasn’t what I expected.”
He sent her a searching glance. “The meeting or your family’s reaction to my pitch?”
A mixture of anger and defiance warred within her. “The ranch means something to me.”
He slid a hand beneath her elbow as they crossed the street. “It always will, whether you live there or not.”
Erin jerked away from his touch. Behind them, she heard the rude hooting and hollering of the workmen. “How pragmatic.”
“Realistic.” Mac corrected with an implacable look. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his trousers as they continued down the sidewalk. “And I guess you’re right. I am.”
Erin came to a halt, several storefronts away from the pizza parlor. “How much of what Gavin said to me did you overhear?”
Mac’s eyes darkened. “Pretty much all of it.”
“Then you know.” Erin tilted her head to one side. “You’ve got four votes in your pocket. All you have left to do is convince me, and you’re right where you want to be.” Without another word, she stalked off.
* * *
“SO HOW DID IT GO?” Mac’s boss asked on the phone that evening.
Mac glanced over at his daughter, snuggled in her bed, sleeping soundly. With her favorite teddy bear cuddled in her arms, Heather looked so sweet and innocent. So young. It was hard to imagine Erin losing her daughter to cancer at the same age.
“Four of the five heirs are ready to sell,” he said, forcing his mind back to business.
Louise made an approving sound. “I trust you’ll be able to convince the fifth?”
Could he? Usually for Mac, situations like this were all about presenting the business proposal and closing the deal. Having Erin involved made it personal for him. He wasn’t used to that. It felt, suddenly, as if his loyalties were divided. He wasn’t used to that, either. “I’m working on it,” he said finally.
“What about the county commissioners?”
“I ran the figures for them. They’re slowly getting on board.”
“And on the home front?” his boss probed. “Things settling down there?”
It was surprising how quickly his daughter had adapted. “Heather likes her new school. I should be able to stay in Texas until the project is approved, the contracts signed.”
“That’s what I want to hear.”
“Once that happens,” Mac warned, “I’m going to want to make some changes.”
“I figured as much,” Louise returned kindly. “You just let me know how NWE can better accommodate you. You’re too valuable a member of the team for us to lose.”
“Thanks.” Mac hung up and went back to working on the agenda for the following day.
He was nearly done when he heard a ruckus outside. Pickup trucks arriving, a little too fast. Doors slamming. Rowdy, slurred voices. Hoots of laughter. Great, Mac thought, as the partying in the parking lot of the Laramie Inn picked up. This was all he needed, for Heather to wake up.
He was just putting on his shoes to go outside and ask the guys to tone it down when a vehicle alarm went off. The piercing sound echoed through the parking lot.
Mac looked through the drapes to see whose vehicle it was, and discovered the blinking lights and honking horn were from his rented SUV.
Super. He cast another look at Heather, grateful she was still asleep. He grabbed his keys and eased out of the hotel room onto the cement balcony of the second floor. He hit the panic button on the keypad. Nothing. The alarm kept ringing instead of deactivating.
Frowning, Mac headed down the outside stairs. When he reached his SUV, a menacing figure stepped out of the shadows. Mac recognized the tall, bearded man from the group of roughnecks who had been following him around. The guy had a transmitter in his hand, and he punched it with his thumb. Mac’s car fell silent, the way it should have when he hit his own keypad.
Mac swore silently. The scoundrels had tampered with the rented vehicle’s security system. It didn’t matter how. They’d done it, and they wanted him to know they were responsible.
His opponent removed a ball-peen hammer from his belt. “This vehicle of yours is a damn nuisance.”
Mac looked his opponent in the eye. “I don’t want any trouble here.”
His adversary sneered. “If you felt that way, should have stayed back East, city boy.” He smashed in a taillight with the hammer.
Another roughneck, reeking of booze, stepped out from behind a car. He cradled a tire iron in his hands. “And just so you know we mean business, Philadelphia...” he taunted, rearing back to smash first one SUV headlamp, then the other.
Aware that everything they had done so far could easily be pleaded down to misdemeanors, Mac adapted a bored tone and said, “Why don’t you-all just move along, and we’ll chalk it up to one too many whiskeys on a wild Friday night.”
“You-all hear that, fellows?” A third man emerged from the shadows. “This dude is trying to talk just like us!”
A fourth instigator came around to the left of Mac, a knife in his palm. “Well, gotta reward that, boys!” He slashed one front tire, then the next.
“You do know this is a rental car?” Mac asked drily.
“So we’re not hurting you, is that it?”
He returned the intimidating taunt of the gang leader with a lethal glare of his own. “Pretty much.”
“Then maybe—” the second troublemaker stepped forward “—we should rectify that.”
Mac scoffed. “I’ll take you all on, but it’s got to be fair. Fists only.”
“One of you? Against all four of us?”
“Unless,” Mac dared, “you’re all so scared of me you have to use a weapon?”
* * *
THE PHONE CALL CAME at four in the morning. Caller ID said Laramie Community Hospital. Grateful all her family were home and accounted for except her oldest brother—who was working the night shift—Erin grabbed for the phone. “Hello,” she said sleepily.
“Erin? It’s Gavin. We’ve got a problem here.”
She sat up against the headboard, rubbing the sleep from
her eyes. Over the phone, she was pretty sure she could hear a child crying. It sounded like a little girl.
“Mac Wheeler was brought in. He’s getting stitched up now.”
Stitched up? Erin blinked, wide awake. “What about Heather?”
“That’s her you hear crying. Uh—she’s pretty upset, and none of the staff can calm her down. Mac said you’re really the only one she’s bonded with locally, so far.”
Erin’s pulse quickened in alarm. “I’ll be right there.”
She threw on some clothes and then went in to tell the twins where she was going. They promised to hold down the fort in her absence. Two minutes later, Erin was on the road. Although she tried not to imagine the worst, her heart raced the entire way there.
Finally, she reached the hospital and parked in the lot. Gavin saw her the moment she rushed through the E.R. doors. He waved her past the front desk and led her toward an exam room.
Heather was still crying, though much more softly. “Is Mac...” Erin couldn’t finish the sentence.
Her brother lifted a hand. “He’s going to be fine. Just got beat up a little. They had to wake Heather up when they were trying to get him to the hospital. She saw the blood and the black eye and got scared.”
“Black eye?”
Gavin put a hand on Erin’s shoulder and propelled her toward the door. “Just go in and tell her everything is going to be okay. And when she’s calm, you can go see Mac. Okay? No one knows how to make a child stop crying better than you.”
For good reason, Erin thought. She’d had tons of practice when her own little girl was sick.
Erin slowly walked through the door. The nurse attempting to comfort Heather slipped out, leaving them alone. “Hey, Heather, how are you doing?” Erin dropped her bag and went toward the child, both arms open.
The little girl fell into them, still sobbing, and clung tightly. Erin’s own eyes filled. Struggling not to sob herself, she sat down and shifted Heather onto her lap. Wrapping both arms around her, Erin cradled her close. Murmuring softly, she rocked back and forth. “Hey, now, hey, it’s okay. It’s okay, honey. I’m here, and your daddy is going to be fine.”
Heather’s tears drenched Erin’s chest, and she held on to her with a death grip. “The bad mans h-h-hit Daddy.”
Bad mans? Plural? Erin gulped, and spoke even more calmly. “Did you see it?”
“The doctor guys in the fire truck said so.”
So Heather had heard the EMS team talking.
Not cool.
But perhaps, under the circumstances, unavoidable. Erin stroked Heather’s tangled blond curls with one hand and, still rocking her gently, patted her back with the other. “Were the policemen there?”
“Yes. They t-t-took the bad men away.”
Thank heavens! “Then everything really is going to be okay,” Erin assured her, “if the bad men are all gone.”
She stroked a hand down Heather’s spine, aware that the child had stopped crying and was beginning to relax. “I know you were scared,” she soothed. “But even so, you’ve been very brave tonight, Heather.”
The child shuddered in relief and closed her eyes. Her heart aching at the thought of all the little girl had been through, Erin continued rocking her. Minutes later, Heather was sound asleep.
A nurse eased in. “Good work.”
“Thanks.”
The woman took Heather’s pulse. Together, they eased the girl onto the bed, where she lay down against the pillows, her eyes closed, her teddy snuggled in her arms.
“I’ll stay with her until you get back,” the nurse promised. “Her dad is ready to be released.”
* * *
MAC KNEW ERIN WAS on the premises. He’d recognized her sweet, feminine voice the moment she entered the E.R. But nothing prepared him for the impact of seeing her walk into the exam room in jeans, a snug-fitting T-shirt and boots. With her curls tousled in that just-out-of-bed way, her stance kick-butt Texan, she looked like the heroine in a big-screen movie, come to save the day.
Worried green eyes roved over him for a long, heart-stealing moment. She exhaled so deeply her breasts rose and fell, then she shook her head. “At least tell me the other guys look worse.” Her soft, bare lips curved slightly as she sashayed nearer.
For once, Mac didn’t rush to rise as a lady entered the room. He lay on the stretcher, one hand folded behind his throbbing head. Needing to hold on to something, he caught her hand in his.
Unlike the last time they’d seen each other, she made no move to pull away.
Their eyes met. Held. Emotion and the sparks of something more elemental arced between them.
He’d never been more grateful to see a woman in his life, even if he hadn’t a clue what to say to her. “You heard, hmm?”
Still holding his palm, Erin sat down on the gurney beside him, her hip resting lightly against his. Her gaze drifted over his face. “Heather’s version. That there were ‘multiple mans’ hitting you.”
Mac started to smile, then grimaced. “Sad but true.” Damned if every inch of his face and upper body didn’t ache like a son of a bitch.
Still looking deep into his eyes, Erin lifted her eyebrows. “Should I ask why?”
Mac gave an abridged version of what had happened.
She sighed loudly, shook her head. “You really thought it was a good idea to taunt them that way?”
Never one to second-guess himself, especially in the heat of battle, Mac shrugged. “I wanted them to put their weapons down.”
Erin tightened her grasp on his hand. “It didn’t occur to you that four guys pounding on you at once was not your best option?”
“That wasn’t part of the plan. The sheriff’s deputies arriving just in time to keep me from getting a few broken ribs and a busted kidney, however, was.”
Erin bent closer, in a drift of lilac. She examined the cut just below his lip, the stitches along his temple, the others on the underside of his chin. “So they limited their boxing to your face?”
Mac nodded. He pushed the sheet away and struggled to sit up. “Pretty much, except for the few blows they landed in my gut.”
Placing soft hands on his shoulder and spine, Erin assisted him. “Yikes.” She reared back. “That’s a helluva bruise, Mac!” She ran her fingers over his chest. “And another one here!” She touched his left pec. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yes.” He reached for his bloodstained shirt and shrugged it on with her help. “Stop fussing.”
She pushed his clumsy hands aside and finished buttoning the front. “Not in my nature.” She looked around, found his jeans and loafers. Handed them over.
Mac threw his legs over the edge of the gurney and sat there, belatedly realizing he still felt a little woozy. Not surprising, since he’d nearly had the stuffing beaten out of him by four idiots.
Concerned, Erin moved to help him with his slacks, too.
Trying not to think about her exquisitely gently touch as she guided his legs into his clothes, Mac closed his eyes, glad he was too weak to get a hard-on. Or was he? Damn.
He pushed her away before she could discover what was going on, and then motioned for her to turn around.
Her cheeks flushing with color, she complied.
Mac struggled into his pants, fastened them and pulled down his shirttail. Planting a hand on the table, he stood and shoved his feet into his shoes. “You were awfully good with Heather just now.”
Erin turned back around, a hint of a smile tugging her lips. “How do you know?”
Mac shrugged and picked up the ice pack they’d given him to put against his swollen eye. “Exam room walls are pretty thin. Plus I had them leave my door open, so I’d be able to monitor things while they finished stitching me up. I would have had Heather in here with me, but...”
“Having her see the needles probably wasn’t the best idea under the circumstances.”
“No, but neither was having her in the next room, crying her eyes out, either.” Mac straig
htened, then waited a minute for the spinning to recede.
Erin moved closer. Before he could say anything, she had a steadying hand beneath his elbow. “So what next?” she murmured.
Mac swallowed. He’d tried not to think about the fact that he’d unwittingly put his child in harm’s way by bringing her here with him. “Heather and I need a ride to wherever.”
He couldn’t see going back to the Laramie Inn.
Not tonight, anyway.
His daughter would freak.
“You’re coming home with me,” Erin said firmly.
Mac didn’t want to put her and her family in danger, either.
She saw his reservation but brushed it off. “Listen to me, Mac. I’m not hearing any arguments. The Laramie County Sheriff’s Department is excellent and has everything under control.”
That part was true, Mac knew. After the altercation, they’d quickly restored order. Too bad he hadn’t called them at the outset, when he’d first noticed the roughnecks following him around.
“You and Heather have both been through enough. You’ll come home with me,” Erin insisted, “and get some sleep and food. Then you can figure out where to go from there.”
Chapter Six
“Mac?” A delicate voice infiltrated the hazy cocoon surrounding him. Footsteps neared, followed by the faint scent of lilac. He felt a shift of the mattress, the warmth of a hovering body and a silky hand on his forearm. “I hate to wake you, but...”
Mac blinked, opened his eyes. Erin was sitting next to him on the trundle bed in the sun-washed bedroom. In a powder-blue T-shirt and knee-length khaki shorts, she looked pretty and relaxed.
And, Mac noted, all business. “Deputy Rio Vasquez is here to take a statement from you.”
And here he’d thought she had come in to see him. He rubbed his eyes, then winced, realizing his scraped knuckles were as tender and achy as the rest of him. “What time is it?” he asked groggily.
“Almost noon.”
Which meant he’d been asleep about six hours. Mac drew in a deep breath, found the muscles around his ribs hurt, too. He rubbed at his stiff, painful shoulder. “Where’s Heather?”
Smiling reassuringly, Erin inclined her head toward the window. “In the driveway, playing street hockey with Sammy and Stevie.”
The Texas Rancher's Family Page 6