by Susan Stoker
He tsked again, and grinned. “With this many violations, ma’am, I’m going to need to search your vehicle.” He leaned in closer to her face. “Do you consent for me to search your vehicle, Miss Fox?”
“Dr. Fox,” she grated through her clenched teeth. “And no, you most certainly do not have permission to search my vehicle.” He sniffed a couple of times, then flipped the cover back over his ticket book as he moved away.
“I think I may smell alcohol on your breath too. Is that why you don’t want me to search your vehicle, ma’am?” He tucked his ticket book into his back pocket. “I’m afraid I’ll need to do a field sobriety test on you. Do you consent to doing that, Dr. Fox?”
Anger shot through her to singe her scalp and Melanie dropped her hands to her sides to clench her fists. “No—and I’m not taking a minute more of this harassment from you.”
Melanie spun on her heel and saw there was now a row of five curious spectators standing in front of the diner. A strong hand closed around her upper arm and she was spun around. “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way, Dr. Fox. You decide,” Brock grated.
“You just want to embarrass me,” she hissed, her eyes burning now. She was mortified when her lower lip trembled as her eyes met his. “I have to get back to the house and take care of my mother and aunt.”
“Like you were embarrassing me?” he countered, holding her eyes with his angry gaze.
She had called him an immature vulture, and poor…and a mockery of a cop. She had no idea how long they’d had an audience either. The only way to end this was to take the high road.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and his fingers loosened their grip on her arm.
“Apology accepted. But just a suggestion? The next time you meet a law enforcement officer, Dr. Fox, you should try to be a little nicer and things will go better for you.”
He jerked his ticket book out of his back pocket, and flipped it open, but a gold mini-van pulled up beside his SUV and Melanie couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard him groan. The door opened, a woman got out and it was Melanie’s turn to groan as she recognized Lucy Morris, the leader of the Mean Girls Club and one of her tormentors.
As Lucy stopped beside Brock to slide her arm through his, Melanie fought the urge to fade back behind the door of her car. Lucy’s eyes quickly assessed Melanie, but it was obvious she didn’t recognize her, thank God.
“Brock, honey, I wanted to tell you that I took Brady to the doctor in Mountain Ridge today and as usual he said nothing was wrong with him, but he’s sick again. He’s asking for you, so can you come by tonight? I’ll fix supper and you can just stay over.”
Of course these two would have hooked up, Melanie thought. They deserved each other, that was for sure. From the misery in his eyes, though, Brock didn’t seem too pleased with the prospect of spending an evening with the blonde bimbo.
“I have to go home first to feed the animals, but I’ll stop by later,” he replied, and the desolation in his eyes edged his voice too. Or was that tiredness? Brock Cooper looked bone weary and she wondered why.
“It’s almost dark,” Lucy whined, and her voice grated on Melanie’s nerves. “Can’t you just park at the station and ride home with us?”
Ride home with us? Brady…she wondered who that was. She didn’t have to wonder long, because the back panel of the van slid open and a pair of spindly jean-covered legs slid out, before a skinny, pale, dark-haired kid with dark circles under his eyes appeared then ambled over to them.
Sleep deprivation? Apnea? The kid looked like it took every ounce of energy he had to walk over to stand beside Brock. Pneumonia? He didn’t appear to be congested, and his breathing wasn’t labored. Mel counted his respirations and they were within normal. Iron deficiency?
“Daddy, please come over,” he begged and Melanie’s heart stopped beating. Desperation filled the kid’s blue eyes. “Please, Daddy—my stomach hurts so bad. My head hurts too.” Beads of sweat collected near the kid’s hairline and a white line formed around his mouth. This boy was in agony, and Melanie couldn’t just stand here and watch it.
Constipation? Bowel Obstruction? Appendicitis? Without bloodwork and a physical exam there was no way to know for sure. His cheeks were flushed, but she didn’t know if it was from fever or his pain.
“Did they do blood work?” she asked and both Brock and Lucy’s gaze snapped to her.
“Who are you?” Lucy asked, her eyes narrowing before they slid down Melanie’s body to her toes.
Someone who’s done a lot more with her life than giving birth to the football captain’s child.
No, she couldn’t get involved in this situation considering the way she felt about the boy’s mother. Melanie’s eyes bounced from the boy to Brock…or his father, she added, because there was no denying this child was his.
“If he’s in that much pain, why don’t you just take him to see Doc Carter?” Melanie asked, adding twelve years to the sixty he must’ve been when she left town.
“That old quack retired three years ago and died last year,” Lucy informed coldly.
That old quack was the reason she went to medical school, the one who’d written her a recommendation to UCLA, his alma mater, and anger boiled her blood at having to listen to him be maligned by this low-life piece of trash.
That old quack had been the one who’d kept her father alive until the air-med helicopter arrived. He was a forty-year fixture in this town and had treated every resident here at one time or another. He deserved gratitude and respect, not derision.
After her father’s accident she’d gotten to know him very well, because she had become his unpaid receptionist/assistant her senior year in high school.
Her heart hurt that she hadn’t been around when he died. That would’ve meant coming back to this town, though, and with every second she was here, she was reminded why she’d stayed away. Tomorrow she’d pay a visit to his widow and offer her condolences. This nasty woman didn’t deserve the ounce of breath and minute of her time it would take to argue with her.
“I’d suggest taking your son to the ER for a workup,” Melanie said, before she turned to shut her car door. “If you’re not going to write me that ticket, Sheriff Cooper, I need to get back to my mother and aunt.”
“Just keep it to the speed limit from now on,” he replied, but it was obvious that wasn’t where his mind was when his worried eyes fell to his son again.
Melanie felt horrible for walking away, but she had to—this was not her business. She had her mother and aunt to worry about right now, so Brock Cooper would just have to deal with his own problems, which seemed to be a lot more complex than her own.
You made your bed, stud, now lie in it.
Chapter Four
‡
“I’m not crazy—eccentric, yes—but definitely not insane,” Merry Fox said, and her sister June Short nodded. “Just because you don’t believe doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, Melanie, and it doesn’t mean we’re off our rockers.”
“I’m telling you the only reason I’m back in this godforsaken town is because you fell off that roof and broke your leg, Mother.” This wasn’t the first time Melanie had an argument of this nature with her mother, and she was just as frustrated now as she’d been the thousand other times growing up when her mother tried to prophesize to her. “As soon as you’re on your feet again, I’m going back to Texas. There’s nothing metaphysical or cosmic about it.”
“I read your tea leaves and Aunt June read the cards to confirm it. You’re back here for a purpose that has nothing to do with me and you won’t be going anywhere. I’m so glad you’re back home where you belong.” Her eyes teared up, and she reached beside her to cover the end of June’s hand, which stuck out past the hot pink cast on her arm. “We’ve missed you…your sister hasn’t been home in four years either.”
“The cards showed an unexpected visitor too, so maybe she’ll show up. You know I spoke to my spirit guide too and he said something od
d…”
That the supposition she spoke to a spirit was the odd thing didn’t seem to occur to her Aunt. Because she was odd. Off-balance and kooky, just like her mother.
They were both crazy in Melanie’s opinion.
She often wondered where they’d come about all the strange notions and methods they used in their prophesies. They’d grown up in the Appalachian Mountains—amongst folks with the second sight, according to her mother. Then she met George Fox, who swept her off her feet and moved her to Sunny Glen. Aunt June moved here when her husband died fifteen years ago and it really was a good thing she was here for her sister when her husband died. Here for all of them, because that had been a very rough time.
“What did Charles say?” Merry asked, her eyes flying to June.
“He was sad and said a young’un is close to passing over if he isn’t helped. He had to go before I could ask more.”
A flashback of the hollow-eyed kid she’d met earlier flashed through Melanie’s mind and a tight band of unease squeezed her chest, but she pushed it away. This was so much malarkey and she couldn’t believe she was letting herself get sucked into it. She was a respected medical professional, a scientist who believed in cold, hard facts, not fairy tales and witchcraft.
And these two were deflecting the conversation she’d been trying to have with them.
“I need you both to promise me when I leave you will not go back out into those woods naked, or climb up on the roof of this house.”
And Melanie was leaving just as soon as she could get her mother ambulatory. According to her orthopedic doctor, she was going to be non-weight-bearing for at least four weeks, and then would need three months of therapy.
Melanie knew she couldn’t stay here that long. When she spoke to the administrator at the hospital she’d arranged for six weeks family leave, but was told anything beyond that would have to be approved by the board. As many times as she’d been before them with employee complaints in the four years she’d been there, she knew how that would end.
“I told you I was moonbathing and meditating. I’m half-a-century old, and I’ll do as I damned well please.” Her mother sat up straighter in her wheelchair and flinched. “That sheriff and his sidekick are not going to stop me from practicing my religion—that is against the law. If they’d have just left me alone, I wouldn’t have had to climb on the roof. But if it makes you happy, I will wear a robe from here on out.”
“It’s dangerous for you to go out in those woods alone at night, Mother.” Wild animals lived in those woods, if not wild men. She’d heard stories of hermits who had shanty shacks in there from her father who also told her they weren’t too keen on visitors.
“There are five hundred people who live in this town and I know four hundred and fifty of them. The other fifty are kids who I’ll know before they grow hair on their—”
“Enough!” Melanie shouted, standing up. “Just promise me you won’t go alone, then.” That was the most she could hope for and she knew it.
“Um—I can’t promise that either. I enjoy my, ah, my solitude and June has a man now, so she isn’t always available to go with me.” Her mother cast a warning look at her sister, which made Melanie wonder what they weren’t telling her. “I promise I’ll try—that’s the best I can do.”
Melanie studied her mother’s creamy, unlined face and the firm set of her mouth that said she wasn’t budging before she met her blue eyes.
“I’m buying you a shotgun then. I’m going to make sure you know how to use it before I leave, and I want you to promise to take it with you when you go into the woods.”
Her father taught her how to use a shotgun, but Melanie hadn’t needed that knowledge in med school so it had been years since she’d fired one. She figured it was like riding a bike, though, and once she had one in her hand again, she’d remember.
Having the peace of mind that Merry and June could protect themselves in the antics they pulled meant she could leave here with a clear conscience because she’d done everything she could to save the two crazy old women from themselves.
When her mother’s mouth opened, she held up her hand. “And I also want you to swear you won’t go again until you are fully healed.”
Her mother stared at her a minute, then looked at June. “Can you believe she came all this way just to lay down the law to me?”
June snorted. “It’s about time someone did. I’m getting too old to keep you out of trouble that’s for sure.”
Her mother harrumphed. “Well, isn’t that the pot calling the damned kettle black—”
“I’m going to take a shower and I’ll be back down to help you into bed in a few minutes,” Melanie announced, cutting them off, because honestly? She had no idea how much more of this she could take.
A yearning for her peaceful apartment down the street from the hospital where she crashed when she wasn’t on shift hit her hard as her foot landed on the first tread on the stairs. There were no irrational old ladies bickering there, and there certainly wasn’t a brooding sheriff in town who was looking for reasons to harass her. A man she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since their run-in at the diner.
*
“There has to be a doctor who can figure out what’s wrong with him,” Brock said as he lifted Brady from the backseat. He groaned and wondered if Lucy ever cleaned the damned van he’d bought her when he saw multi-colored gummy candy ground into the seat under him and fast food bags littering the back floorboard. “This has been going on too long,” Brock said, as he carried him to the front door of the apartment and waited for Lucy to open it.
Brady had been this way since he was three-years old. Brock felt so damned helpless not knowing what to do for him.
“I’ve taken him to every doctor in Georgia, Brock, and you know it. They all say that nothing is wrong with him except his potassium is low. They give me a prescription for supplements and send me on my way, or put him in the hospital for an IV drip. I think they think he’s a hypochondriac, or I’m just a worrywart, because we’re in there so much. I told the doctor today to admit him for more tests, an upper GI and colonoscopy, or exploratory surgery, but they said he’s too young and doesn’t need that. The CAT scan of his abdomen didn’t show anything.”
“I’ve gotta pee, daddy—put me down,” Brady said weakly, and Brock set him on his feet. He gagged as he held his stomach and staggered down the hallway to the bathroom, so Brock knew that wasn’t all he was going to do in there. The retching started and Brock flinched, wanting to retch himself.
“I want you to find a specialist,” he said. This had to stop. Brady couldn’t go on like this and neither could they.
“Aaaargh,” Brady moaned from the bathroom.
Brock sprinted down the hallway, his heart pounding in his ears. When he flew in the door and his eyes landed on the blood coursing in a steady stream from Brady’s nose, he’d had enough. Jerking the towel from the rack, he knelt to press it to his nose.
“Call a damned ambulance—he’s going to the hospital,” he grated.
“No!” Brady yelled into the towel, his eyes frantic.
Frustration churned inside of Brock as he pulled the towel away and wiped the rest of the blood from his flushed face. “You need to get checked out, sport.”
“I have to go to school tomorrow, because I have a spelling test. Will you sleep with me tonight, Daddy?”
How in the hell could he say no? He’d have to call Rowdy and see if he could go by the ranch to feed the animals. “Let me make a call and I’ll see, buddy.”
When Brady gave him a wobbly, relieved smile, Brock’s stomach unclenched and he pulled him in for a tight hug. “Get your clothes and take a bath. I’ll help you study for your spelling test after we eat supper,” he said pushing him away.
“Yes, sir,” Brady said, edging around him to walk out the door. Brock stood, and stared at the toes of his boots.
If they lived at the ranch with him, at least he could keep an eye o
n Brady and know right away when he had an episode. And he could sleep in his own damned bed instead of his son’s twin bed here. Brady had only ever had one seizure when he was three, but that instance proved it could happen. The thought of it happening again and him not being around scared the shit out of him, so he was going to have to seriously consider moving them in with him.
What he needed to do was take off work to go to the doctor with Lucy and Brady, talk to them, maybe nudge them to get answers. He should have done that before now, but left it up to her to handle. Brock had no idea what she was telling the doctor—whether she was minimizing the situation or what. Because surely, if she would have related the severe pain and problems he was having they would be more inclined to do something.
Lucy was flaky at times, not good at getting her point across, and he wondered if that was the case here. He’d have her make another appointment tomorrow morning, and he was going with her to Mountain Ridge.
Screw his meeting with the mayor and commissioner. Brady was the man’s grandson, so he would just have to understand.
Blowing out a breath, he walked into the living room and saw Lucy at the stove in the tiny kitchen. He sat on the sofa and grabbed the remote to turn on the television and a beer suddenly appeared in his line of vision.
“Thanks,” he said, and took a long sip from the can. He felt her still behind him, and tensed when her fingers dug into his shoulders.
“I could give you a full massage later, if you like,” Lucy purred, smoothing her hands over his collarbone. “We could eat and put Brady to bed, then have dessert.”
The sides of the beer can dented as his fingers dug in and his free hand flew up to brush her hands away. “Lucy, I told you that isn’t going to happen. I’m here to help with Brady, and that’s the only reason I’m here.”
The mere fact that she could even think about sex right now, or trying to seduce him, made his blood boil. Their kid was sick as a dog—could be terminally ill for all they knew since his mysterious sickness and episodes of it seemed to be getting worse—and she didn’t seem a bit worried about that at the moment. And this is exactly what would happen if he moved them in with him too.