by Lisa Jackson
“ ’Cuz he’s hurt real bad.” Eli’s face was red; his lower lip quivering. “He can’t die!”
“Let’s not go there,” Trace said gently.
“Miss Wallis died!”
“I know.” Boy, did he know. It had been one helluva devastating week for all of them.
“But Sarge is a fighter.”
“Dr. Eagle will do her best to fix him up,” Kacey concurred.
“He won’t die, will he?”
She squeezed his good hand. “I don’t know. We have to just wait and see.” Glancing up at Trace, she said, “Why don’t I take Eli over to Dino’s and get him a pizza or something? Then, when you’re done here, you could come over.”
Since Dino’s Italian Pizzeria was just across the street, the doctor’s idea made sense, he supposed. Until they knew the extent of Sarge’s injuries, there was just no reason for Eli to wait and worry. And if it came down to actually having to euthanize the dog, Trace wanted to handle it his own way. Better for Eli not to witness that decision. “I guess that would be okay,” he said, knowing that Eli liked the woman doctor. “What do you think?” he asked his son.
Eli looked up at Kacey, and she took his small hand in her own. “How about we pick out our ice cream even before we order the pizza?”
“Can we eat it first?” Eli asked.
“Well . . .” She looked at Trace.
“Knock yourself out. I’ll be right there,” Trace answered, and they headed out the door together.
A blast of wintry air swept into the room, and the tiny bell over the doorjamb jingled, announcing their departure.
Through the front windows Trace watched as Kacey bustled his son across the street. She glanced up and down the snowy street, then over her shoulder, her forehead wrinkling with concern.
About the nearly nonexistent traffic?
Or was there something more in her quick scan of the area?
Don’t borrow trouble. She’s just being cautious, for crying out loud.
What was important was the way she guided his boy gently onto the sidewalk. For a second Trace’s stupid heart twisted as he realized his son’s own mother had never seemed so concerned about Eli’s welfare.
Then again, Leanna hadn’t been a prize as far as mothers went.
Funny, he thought as he watched Kacey open the door to the restaurant, whose modern style was at odds with the overall Western theme of the town. The pizzeria’s storefront was all windows, now decorated for the season with painted snowmen and snowwomen skating, hoisting pizzas on their shoulders across a sea of glass. It was eerie how much Kacey reminded him of Leanna. An odd, almost sinister sensation slithered down his spine and burrowed coldly in his gut at the comparison. Hadn’t there been that same thought with Jocelyn Wallis?
Weird, he told himself, bugged at the turn of his own thoughts as the door to the back room opened and Jordan Eagle, her expression grave, returned to the reception area.
“It’s bad,” he said before she could open her mouth and say one word about Sarge’s condition.
“Well, at least not good.”
“Are we gonna lose him?”
“I don’t think so, but I’m not sure about his leg. The tendons and muscles are pretty mangled.” Her dark, honest gaze held his as she explained that she wanted to do surgery, to mend as much as she could.
“Do what you can,” Trace said. He’d grown up on a farm, seen animals suffer, others die, knew his old man had “put down” more than his share on his own, with his rifle or pistol, depending. Death was just a part of life. Trace accepted it. But he was thankful Sarge was going to pull through. He didn’t want Eli to face losing the dog. Not yet. Not when he’d already been abandoned by his mother and just learned about his teacher’s death.
“Do what you can,” he repeated to the veterinarian.
“It could get expensive.”
His jaw tightened. “Just keep me posted.”
“I will.”
“Thanks.” He squared his hat on his head and made his way out the door.
In his mind’s eye he saw the dog, wrapped in a blanket, usually bright eyes dulled with pain as he lay beneath Eli’s short legs on the floor of the pickup. Damn, he hoped the mutt pulled through. Hands buried in his pockets, Trace jaywalked across the street, then peered through the glass doors of the pizzeria, where a Friday night crowd of patrons sat on benches surrounding long tables littered with half-eaten pizza pies and near-empty pitchers of beer.
Kacey had lifted Eli off his feet so that he could get a better view of the ice cream in the display case. Nearby a couple of grade-school girls in skinny jeans and oversized sweatshirts were discussing the options.
He pushed the door open, and the niggling sensation that something wasn’t quite right followed after him into the noisy restaurant. The air was thick with conversation and the scents of oregano and tomato sauce, warm bread and beer. A bevy of teenagers cleaned tables and waited at the counter, where a man in his seventies, sporting a thick gray mustache, striped shirt, and black pants, barked orders, manned the kegs and wine bottles, and kept an eagle eye on the cash register all at the same time.
As if by a sixth sense, Eli heard the door open. His head jerked up, and he twisted around, spying his father. Sliding out of Kacey’s arms, the boy hit the floor running. “Is Sarge okay?” he asked anxiously, his small face tight with concern.
“So far, so good, but he needs surgery.” Trace swung his son into his arms. “Dr. Eagle is doing her best.”
“You left him.” Tears puddled in his son’s accusing eyes. Embarrassed, Eli tried to swipe them away with the fingers poking out of his blue cast.
“Just for the night. The doc said she’d give us a call tomorrow.”
“But he’ll be okay?”
“As far as I know.”
“Can I see him?” Eli asked as a heavyset girl behind the pickup area spoke into a microphone. Her voice rang through the barnlike building. “Forty-seven. Brown party. Forty-seven.”
“Can I see Sarge?” Eli repeated.
“Maybe tomorrow. We’ll see.”
Eli wanted to argue; Trace saw it in his boy’s eyes, so he tried to derail the endless questions. “What do you say we get dinner?”
“She said I could have ice cream!” Eli swung his casted arm toward Kacey.
“That’s right,” she answered smartly. “And I think you wanted Christmas Cookie Swirl, right?”
“Yeah!”
“Sounds . . . interesting,” Trace said.
“Delicious,” Kacey proclaimed. “You just can’t go wrong with Oreo cookies, peppermint flakes, and mint ice cream. Yumm-o!” Her green eyes glinted with humor. “I think I’ll get a double scoop!”
“Me, too!” Eli shimmied from Trace’s arms and raced back to the barrels of ice cream.
“Thirty-nine,” a girl with a deep voice intoned. “Rosenberg party. Thirty-nine.” An athletic-looking teenager pushed away from a table of friends and headed for the pickup area, her long blond ponytail bouncing behind her.
“How about you?” Kacey asked, looking up at him. “Double scoop? Triple?”
“Uh . . . maybe I’ll settle for a beer.”
Her smile widened as they reached the counter near the ice cream barrels. “With your cone, right?”
“How ’bout with a Meat Lovers’ Special?” He hitched his chin toward the overhead menu, beneath which a skinny kid with bad skin, a shaved head, and thick glasses waited, ice cream scoop in hand, for them to order as the two girls in skinny jeans drifted off toward a round table.
Trace said, “I’ll buy.”
She was reading the menu. “Or we could order half a Meat Lovers’ Special and half a Veggie Delite and split the bill.”
“Only if you can eat half a pie yourself.”
“Half a pie and a double scoop,” she assured him.
He felt one corner of his mouth twitch. “Tell ya what. I’ll arm wrestle ya for the bill.”
“Don’t
,” Eli warned her. “My dad’s the strongest ever.”
“Is he now?” She was smiling more broadly now. “Well, I guess we’ll see about that.” To Eli she confided, “I’m pretty strong, too.”
“Nah!” Eli shook his head. “Not like my dad!”
“Uh-huh.” She winked. “Only tougher.”
The kid behind the counter was getting antsy. “Can I get you something?”
“We’ll have two double scoops of Christmas Cookie Swirl in . . . waffle cones.” She looked at Eli, who was nodding rapidly.
“And sprinkles!”
Kacey chuckled. “And sprinkles.” She cast a glance at Trace. “And?” Her dark eyebrows arched, and he noticed how thick her eyelashes were, how the green of her eyes shifted in the light. “For you?”
“I’ll stick with pizza.”
He placed their order for pizza, along with two beers and a soda, then, for the better part of the next hour, as the pizzeria became busier still, he sat in an uncomfortable booth, getting to know this woman, a damned doctor, who talked to Eli so easily. She had lied, though, about her appetite, and managed to eat only two slices of the vegetarian side of the pizza, while he and Eli polished off all the meat-covered wedges. Actually, as he thought about it, he’d eaten most of the cheese-and pepperoni-slathered slices himself, as his boy was pretty full after the ice cream. Just what the doctor ordered after the week they’d all had.
“I never asked. What were you doing at the vet’s clinic?” He hitched his chin toward the window and the building on the far side of the snowy street.
“I’m looking for a dog,” she admitted.
“Any kind?”
“The one I hope to adopt is a mutt. Big dog. Boxer and pit bull probably. At least according to the vet.”
“Guard dog?” he asked, remembering the way she glanced over her shoulder as she crossed the street with Eli an hour earlier.
“That’s one criterion.” Her eyes shifted away, toward the area where Eli and a group of kids were crowding around the arcade-type machines. “I, um, live alone.” She picked up her glass. “Could use the company. You know.”
“Yeah.” He nodded, thinking of Sarge and silently praying the dog would pull through.
“So, you grew up around here?” she asked, changing the subject and pushing a bit of uneaten pizza crust to one side of her plate.
“Been here most of my life, except for college and a few years in the army. Inherited the place and decided ranching was a good life. What about you?”
“I was born and raised in Helena, but my grandparents lived here, so I spent my summers at their farm.” She smiled thoughtfully, caught up in the nostalgia of the moment, seeming to study her near-empty glass, though he suspected her mind was miles and years away, conjuring images of her youth. Vaguely, he wondered if she’d known Leanna, who had spent the first years of her vagabond life in Montana’s state capital as well.
“So you decided to settle down here?”
“Eventually.” Her eyes shifted, and she looked up at him again. “I went to college in Missoula, medical school in Seattle, and stayed for a while. I got married, then divorced and, since I’d inherited the farm, decided to move back.”
“No kids?”
She shook her head, her nose wrinkling in distaste. “He. . . wasn’t ‘ready.’ ” She made air quotes, then, as if she’d thought better of it, shook her head. “It’s over, has been for three years, and I told myself I’d try never to be catty about it, even if he is an easy target.” She lifted one slim shoulder, dismissing the man to whom she was once married. “So, how about you? What happened to Eli’s mother?” She took a sip from her glass.
“She took a hike. Never hear from her.”
She thought about that long and hard.
“We do fine,” he stated firmly.
Her expression was neutral, but he bet she didn’t believe him for a second. And the thing of it was, she was right. He remembered Eli’s most recent crying jag, when he’d begged to find out where Leanna was. God, it tore his heart out, and he couldn’t help wondering how scarred his boy was.
Before the conversation went any further, they were interrupted. “Hey! Doctor Lambert!”
Trace turned to see the receptionist for the clinic wending her way through the tables. She was balancing a glass of wine in one hand. The fingers of her other hand were laced with those of a twentysomething guy who sported a scruffy beard and wore a frayed stocking cap drawn down over his ears.
“Hi, Heather,” Kacey said.
“This is Jimmy,” she said quickly; then her gaze landed on Trace. “And you’re Eli’s dad, right?” She was nodding, agreeing with herself. “How’s he doing ... oh!”
At that moment Eli came barreling back to the table. “I need more money!”
“Hey, dude, don’t we all?” Jimmy said.
Eli cast him a who-the-heck-are-you glance. “To play the games,” he said to his father.
“I think maybe it’s time to go.” Trace scraped his chair back.
“Wow.” Jimmy took a look at Kacey as she stood. “You kinda remind me of someone.”
“Miss Wallis!” Eli said; then his expression clouded as he remembered that she was gone.
“Shelly Bonaventure,” Heather said.
Jimmy snapped his fingers. “That’s it. Man, you’re like a dead ringer or something.”
“Or something,” Kacey said, and she, seeming to suddenly want to leave as quickly as Trace did, reached for the coat she’d tossed onto an empty chair.
But the kid was right. Trace was only vaguely aware of Shelly Bonaventure as an actress, but in the last week her picture had been splashed across the front of every magazine near the checkout stand of the store where he bought groceries. He’d also caught the end of an “in-depth” story on the woman when he’d been channel surfing the news for an update on the weather.
“She was from around here, wasn’t she?” Jimmy asked.
“Helena, I think,” Heather said.
“Helena,” Trace repeated, his gaze meeting the doctor’s. Like Leanna. And Kacey.
“I think I’d better get moving,” Kacey said. “Thanks.”
Heather’s gaze swept from her boss to Trace and Eli, and she had trouble smothering a smile.
“Can we see Sarge?” Eli asked again as Trace helped him with his jacket.
“Tomorrow, bud.”
“But I want to see him now.” Eli’s gaze traveled through the window and across the street to the veterinary clinic.
“We have to let Dr. Eagle work with him.”
Eli’s lower lip protruded, but he didn’t offer up any further arguments. Kacey told Heather she’d “see her back at the office next week,” before they all eventually worked their way out of the crowded restaurant and into the icy night, where a few tiny flakes of snow were falling and the temperature was hovering just below freezing.
He and Eli walked the doctor to her car. As she fumbled for her keys before unlocking the Ford, she smiled up at him. “Thanks for the pizza.”
“No problem. Eli . . .” He nudged his boy. “Don’t you have something to say to Dr. Lambert?” His kid looked up at him and blinked. “About the ice cream?” Trace reminded him.
“Oh. Yeah. Thanks,” Eli said, remembering his manners.
“Anytime. Take care of that arm, okay?” With one last glance up at Trace, she said, “Dr. Lambert sounds a little too formal anymore, doesn’t it? It’s Kacey.”
“Kacey,” Trace repeated.
Then she opened the door of her Edge and slid behind the wheel.
Still holding Eli’s hand, Trace watched as she nosed the Ford out of its space and drove away. He bustled his son to his own truck, parked nearby, and as he headed out of town, he thought about her and Leanna and Jocelyn Wallis and Shelly friggin’ Bonaventure.
Two were dead.
One was missing.
And the fourth, Kacey, had glanced guardedly over her shoulder as she’d shepherded Eli a
cross the street earlier.
Three of them had ties to Helena.
And they all resembled each other.
As he slowed for the stoplight near Shorty’s Diner, he wondered what the hell, if anything, their connection was.
She was home!
He heard the key in her lock, the creak of the kitchen door, and the sound of her footsteps as she crossed the kitchen floor.
It was amazing how crisp the quality of the sound was, and he settled deeper into his chair to listen remotely as she snapped on the radio and ripped something that sounded like paper. Oh, of course. Her mail!
Though he had no camera equipment—he hadn’t risked that yet—he could imagine Acacia walking through her house, kicking off her shoes ... running the bathwater. . . .
That a girl ...
In his mind’s eye he watched as she pinned up her hair, then stripped off her clothes, tossing them into a corner in the bathroom. Then, naked, her nipples tight and hard with the cold air, she would settle herself into the steaming tub.
Would she add a stream of bubble bath and let the foam surround her? Perhaps light a candle or two and watch the flames flicker and gleam against the cold panes of the frosted window? Would she sink down low enough in the tub that the tendrils of hair on her nape would become damp? Would the water drops glisten on her long legs as she hooked her ankles over the rim of her old claw-footed tub?
He licked his lips and traced the tip of his finger along that narrow little scar at his temple, the spot where she, with his knife, had sliced his skin so neatly.
His heart was beating loudly in his ears as he heard a soft little splash over the headphones. He didn’t really have time for this; there was so much to do and yet ... He leaned back and closed his eyes. His heart was beating fast now; his breathing a little shallow; his cock coming to life.