Reclaiming Nick

by Susan May Warren

  The warm day told him it must be mid-June, and the sprinkling of coneflower and larkspur evidenced a good season. In the distance, he heard contented cows lowing, and something warm curled in his stomach. His ranch. His land.

  His woman. The thought sent a spike of panic through him. Maggy always rode out with him, had spent so many hours working the ranch with him that she felt like an extension of his thoughts. He heard himself calling, but his voice seemed feeble.

  Maybe she was in the house with CJ. He urged his horse toward the yard and hopped off, heading toward the back door in long strides. He stepped into the entryway, and voices in the nearby room—the kitchen—stopped him.

  Bishop and Maggy.

  This wasn’t a dream but a memory. He let the memory free from the places he’d hidden it for so many years.

  “I know that is Nick’s child you’re carrying, Maggy.”

  Cole took the news with a wince. He longed to see Maggy’s expression. Relief? Shock? Regret?

  “The night Nick left, Stefanie found the note and gave it to me.”

  “All this time, you’ve known?” Maggy’s voice, Cole’s question. How could Bishop have known and not said a word? Every day Bishop drove over here to sit with Irene, and yet he hadn’t mentioned anything to Cole.

  “I’m prepared to make it right,” Bishop said. “I want to build you a home on Noble property. Give you and your baby a piece of the Noble legacy. When Nick comes to his senses—which I know he will—you’ll be there, waiting for him. This child can grow up running a ranch right beside his father.”

  Maggy’s voice sounded tight, even angry. “He—or she—will run the ranch with their father—Cole. I love Cole, Bishop. Nick might have given me a taste of what love might be, but Cole showed me what real love is. I know you mean well, but I don’t want Nick back. I want Cole. And if Nick wants to be in his son’s life, he can be. But if Cole will have me, I want this child to bear his name. His character. His legacy. Even if Nick comes back, Cole will always be my choice.”

  Cole stepped out of the entryway, his heart thundering. Maggy loved him?

  He hadn’t tried to make her love him, although deep inside he’d longed to hear those words. Honor and guilt had pushed the desires back, buried them.

  Even now, he felt shame, feeling as if he’d stolen her somehow.

  “Cole will always be my choice.”

  In his memory he saw himself push open the door, but it wouldn’t give. Instead, he saw Maggy again, standing in a stream of light. Stoic as someone hurtled words at her.

  “What were you thinking, telling Nick about Cole being his brother?”

  Cole struggled to place the voice. Bishop? Dutch? He saw Maggy, her hair in two braids, her eyes fierce. This was the Maggy he’d married, the Maggy who hung on to life with both hands. The Maggy he adored. “I was thinking about saving his life. I was thinking that I didn’t want Cole to die.”

  “This isn’t what Cole wanted.”

  “That’s because Cole is living under the warped illusion that I don’t really want him. That I don’t love him. But he’s wrong. I would do anything to save his life.”

  No, Maggy . . .

  “Nick will figure it out. He’ll argue that you influenced Bishop. That he signed the will under duress.”

  “I know.” Maggy rubbed her hands over her arms, but her chin tightened. “But I don’t care.”

  “You’ll lose the land, Maggy. And then everything else after the hospital bills.”

  Maggy only stared at him.

  “You’ll even lose CJ.”

  Maggy’s voice had dropped to a whisper. “How do you know about CJ?”

  The voice paused, and Cole found his own breath choked in this chest. “Bishop told me. He told me that by giving Cole the land, he was also standing in Nick’s stead.”

  Maggy’s tone sharpened, as if regrouping. “Nick would never take CJ from me.”

  “He would if he could provide for him, and you and Cole couldn’t. I suggest you keep CJ’s paternity quiet. I’m the only one besides you and Cole who knows, and I’m not telling a soul.”

  Maggy said nothing. Then she looked over at Cole, seeing him through the cracked door. Without a word, she walked over and shut it.

  Cole stood in the entryway, feeling the wind kicking up, shivering.

  “His pressure is dropping. I think we have an internal bleed. We may have to go back into surgery.”

  Cole’s eyes flickered open, and he tried to place the images through the haze of sleep. Tubes and Maggy, dressed in a gown, her nose and mouth covered with a mask, standing at the foot of a metal bed. Her eyes were wide and laced with worry, and the words she’d spoken before he went into surgery assaulted him now, clicking suddenly into place with stinging clarity.

  “But I’d chuck it all for one more day with you. I love our land. But I love you more. And I don’t care if we have to sell everything we have and I have to wait tables at Lolly’s—we’re going to have our happily ever after.”

  She’d given up their land to save him. The truth made him weak with grief.

  Her gaze found his. Don’t die, it said.

  And his replied, Oh, Maggy, what have you done?

  He’d spent two days pacing, waiting for the opening he needed to end this. But he saw someone with Nick nearly every moment, and he wasn’t really considered one of the family.

  Instead, he’d watched from the shadows as Maggy hovered over Cole in ICU. He didn’t want to wish ill upon them, but when Cole had been rushed back into surgery twice, he felt a surge of hope. Maybe Nick would be next.

  But after a day, it seemed Nick would live. With Piper and Stefanie playing nurse, he hadn’t had a second to get near him, and time was running out. He leaned against the wall, holding a paper cup, sipping the acrid hospital coffee. He had to get Nick alone, just for a moment. He knew what he would do . . . had planned it out in the wee hours of the night. All he needed was a second to realize his revenge. A second to turn the nightmare back into the American dream.

  Just one second.

  CHAPTER 20

  NICK FELT AS IF he’d been hit by a semi going fifty miles an hour. Everything ached, and his back felt as if it had been bludgeoned.

  He opened his eyes, stifling a groan. His emotions overtook him when he saw Piper seated next to him, her head nestled on the side of his bed, her blonde hair cascading over her face, her eyes gently closed.

  Whoa, she is beautiful. He’d dreamed of her as he’d drifted in and out of consciousness, dreamed that she would be sitting right here, waiting for him.

  Waiting for him to tell her he loved her. That feeling welled in his chest, so alive, so rich that it fed his healing more than any of the drugs pumped into him. He reached down, wanting only to twine his finger around her silky hair, but the bed moved and nudged her awake.

  She opened her eyes, and a soft smile creased her face.

  “Hi,” he said.

  She lifted her head. “Hi.” Her makeup had worn off, leaving only her blue eyes and freckles. That and her rumpled clothes—the same ones she’d worn to the rodeo.

  “What time is it?”

  “What day is it, you mean?” Piper grinned. “You’ve been out for two days. Well, in and out. You had a complication—some extra bleeding. Evidently you have a condition called von Willebrand’s disease. Your blood doesn’t clot well. They had to give you two pints of blood.”

  No wonder he felt as if he could melt into the bed and sleep for another decade.

  Piper cupped his face with her hand. “But if it weren’t for your bleeding, they would have never caught it in Cole.”

  He took her hand, wincing at the pinch of an IV. “How is he?”

  She met his eyes. “He’s still in ICU, but they think he’ll pull through.”

  Nick leaned back into the pillow. “Thank God.”

  “Yes,” Piper said softly. She clasped his hand, brought it to her lips. “You scared me.”

  “S
orry.”

  She gave him a mock glare. She rose and levered the bed tray toward him. He noticed a pink water jug as well as a soggy cup of coffee and the remains of a salad. An empty Caesar dressing packet lay on the tray atop a napkin. “Are you hungry?”

  Nick shook his head. “But I could use a glass of water.”

  Piper poured the glass, handed it to him with a straw.

  He drank deeply, the moisture soothing his parched throat.

  When Piper sat back down, he noticed that tension lined her face. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you before the surgery,” she began. “And . . . well, there’s something I have to tell you.”

  He felt the same way, had regretted that he hadn’t been able to pull her close and explain to her that she’d become precious to him. A fresh breeze in his life. A gift.

  “I . . . I’m not the person you think I am, Nick.” She looked away as she said it.

  “Piper, you already told me about your past. It’s not your fault—”

  “Shh.” She touched his mouth with her fingers. “I gotta get this out.”

  An icy dread trickled through him. He tightened his grip on her hand. “What is it?”

  “I can’t cook, Nick.”

  He snorted in laughter at her confession. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, George. Your ribs were great. Although, yes, there were a few biscuits I thought we might be able to patent for use in the war on terror.”

  She narrowed one eye at him. “What happened to ‘Cookie, you make anything taste great’?”

  He laughed at her mimic of him, then grimaced. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”

  Her smile dimmed.

  “So, if you don’t cook—which I don’t believe—then why did you come to the Silver Buckle?”

  She turned his hand over, tracing the place where the IV entered, as if contemplating his words. “Listen, I came because I was searching for something.”

  A husband perhaps? Because Phillips was full of women searching for the right cowboy. Look at Lolly. “What?” he asked, wanting to ask if she had found it.

  Her forlorn expression hinted at no.

  Something didn’t feel right again. Then she swallowed, as if fortifying herself for her answer, and he knew that he wasn’t going to like her next words. . . .

  Instead, he heard the theme from Scooby Doo.

  He raised his eyebrows as she reached into her pocket. “That’s my cell.”

  She had a cell phone that played Scooby Doo?

  She flipped open the phone. “Hello?” Her face tightened into a frown. “Just a second.” She covered the phone with her hand. “I’ll be right back.” Then she got up and exited into the hallway.

  Leaving his hard, cold questions to roil through his head.

  Outside, the sun had begun to shine against the Bighorns. Nick leaned back into the pillow, sifting through the little information she’d given him. What was Piper searching for that would make her lie about being a cook?

  A fist tightened in his gut as he stared at the remains of her salad.

  The door swung open. “Piper . . . ah, I have to ask you something kinda crazy. . . .”

  “What’s that, Nick?” The voice didn’t belong to Piper. Saul Lovell walked over to the far side of his bed, scanned his monitors, surveying his morphine pack. “How’re you feeling?”

  “I’m . . . okay. What are you doing here?”

  Saul stared at him, his face dark. “You should have signed over the land, Nick. You brought this on yourself.”

  Nick’s mind reeled. In the dim morning light, Saul looked old, even weary, bags under his eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Nick. I never thought it would turn out like this. But I don’t have a choice. I promise I’ll take care of Stefanie as if she were my own.” He leaned over Nick, pressed his hand against Nick’s mouth.

  Nick roared, but beneath Saul’s grip, it came out as a moan. Saul pressed his arm into the bed and dodged as Nick took a swipe at him. He felt his energy drain as his arm flopped onto the bed. Then he went weak as he watched Saul Lovell, his father’s best friend and lawyer, open his morphine drip to full.

  The cold liquid poured into Nick’s veins.

  “Back up, Carter. Say that again?” Piper moved close to the window at the end of the hall, where her cell had full reception.

  “Elizabeth Hatcher inherited half of the Hatcher estate when her father died.”

  “You mean Elizabeth Noble—”

  “Yes. But it’s important to know that she had a sister—Loretta.”

  “I know about Loretta.”

  “Loretta got half the estate also.”

  Piper pressed her hand over her forehead. Her face felt hot, her pulse skipping. She wasn’t sure how she felt about Carter interrupting her confession to Nick. She’d been winding herself up for it for two days, each beep of the heart monitor strengthening her resolve to come clean, each hour spent memorizing Nick’s face solidifying her feelings for him.

  She loved him. He’d gotten inside the wall of her defenses and tended the wounded soil inside. He’d loved her with his patience, his protection, his laughter. His gentleness. And by his sacrifice for Cole, he’d made her believe that if she threw herself at his feet or in his arms, he’d forgive her.

  She hoped she wasn’t lying to herself.

  Then again, that would make the circle complete, wouldn’t it? She’d been lying in one form or another for years. Seemed only right that she would finally be her own worst enemy.

  But Carter’s call had hiccupped her momentum, her stride toward reaching out, finding healing. “Get to the point, Carter.”

  “You know, someone who ate the cost of your plane ticket yesterday deserves a little respect.”

  She schooled her tone. “Sorry. Listen, Nick just woke up so—”

  “Elizabeth Noble knew about her husband’s indiscretion.”

  Piper’s breath caught. “What? How do you know?”

  “Probate records. Upon her death, she left her property—her half of the Hatcher ranch—to her eldest son.”

  “I don’t understand. Wasn’t the property owned jointly?”

  “Nope. According to Beau Hatcher’s will, the property passed to Elizabeth. Then she passed it to Nick, making a specific request that it not go to Bishop. In case of Nick’s death without a surviving heir, the land was to pass back to the Hatcher estate, aka Saul and Loretta Lovell.”

  “How much land are we talking about?”

  “About half their current holdings.”

  “Losing the Hatcher property would decrease the Buckle land by half?”

  “Yep.”

  “That means, with Cole’s bequest, the Nobles would be left with nearly nothing. They’d never be able to run their cattle on such a small section of land.”

  “There’s more. I looked into the coal-bed mining like you asked. They mine for methane—a source of natural gas found in coal-bed seams. The thing is, one of the byproducts is sulfur. It can contaminate the underground water and turn it into liquid death. Anything that drinks it only becomes more thirsty, which then sucks all the moisture out of them.”

  “Dying of dehydration right next to a water source.” Piper glanced toward Nick’s room.

  “Not only that, but do you want to know who has the biggest contract for drilling in eastern Montana?”

  “Who?” She turned back to the window.

  “Saul Lovell.”

  Piper’s breath whooshed out of her, and she lowered her voice. “Saul Lovell’s been here the entire time, making sure Nick and Cole made it out of surgery. He’s their lawyer.”

  “And the only one who would benefit if Nick died.”

  “I’ll call you back, Carter.” She closed the phone, hurried to Nick’s room, her investigator’s mind churning.

  If Saul was drilling for methane on his property, then the underground streams could easily seep into the Noble land. And poison the cattle.

  Saul had been at the roundup, at l
east until sunset.

  If Nick died, Saul would get the land . . . so why was he here, acting like he cared?

  She winced . . . the question hitting too close. Only, she did care. She couldn’t get close to the Nobles without wanting to be part of the Silver Buckle family. Her longing had become a growing ache inside her.

  She pushed open the door, cell phone in her grip, hand around the recorder in her pocket.

  Saul Lovell looked up at her, one hand over Nick’s mouth, the other holding Nick’s arm.

  Nick’s eyes found hers. Angry yet drooping.

  “What is going on in here?” Piper demanded, moving to the foot of Nick’s bed.

  Saul moved so fast that even Piper’s karate classes didn’t have a chance to kick in. He slammed Piper against the wall, his hand around her neck.

  She let out the tiniest of screams before he pinched her throat tight. She gasped against his grip, dropping the cell, raking his arm. She . . . couldn’t . . . breathe.

  Saul held her there, his face tight, squeezing.

  She tried to kick, but Saul dodged her. She twisted, fighting. Fear turned her muscles to lead.

  His face swam before her, morphed, and became her father. Piper’s fear boiled out of her in a silent scream.

  No, no, no! She punched at him, aiming for his face, catching his nose. Blood spurted out, and he caught her arm at the wrist and flattened it to the wall.

  Black dotted Piper’s vision, and she felt her knees weaken. Please, God. She heard her pleading in her head, a five-year-old’s voice. Don’t let him hurt me!

  A bang sounded. “Leave her alone!”

  Saul jerked in surprise.

  Piper’s knees buckled as his grip loosened.

  The voice sounded too familiar, too easy. Footsteps, then someone lunged at Lovell. His fingers peeled off skin as they ripped from her neck.

  Piper slumped down against the wall, gasping in hot razors of air. She battled the gray blurring her vision. She heard scuffling, groans. Bone meeting bone.