by Diana Palmer
She was a modern woman. She could look out for herself. But it was kind of nice to have a man act protective and possessive, especially one like Rey, who didn’t seem the sort to do it habitually. She remembered the hunger in his lean body when he held her, when he kissed her. She remembered the strange tenderness he reserved for her. It was an adventure, just being around him. They’d known each other such a short time, really, but she felt as if she’d known him all her life. The thought of going back to Houston without him was suddenly frightening.
She did the routine things until Sunday, except that when she gathered eggs, she was overly cautious about going into the henhouse. She’d learned from Rey that snakes often traveled in pairs, so she was careful to look before she stepped anywhere that the ground was covered.
She’d become something of a legend among the Hart ranch hands already. They removed their hats when she walked by, and they spoke to her in respectful tones.
“It’s really strange,” she remarked at the dinner table on Saturday evening, glancing from Leo to Rey. “The men seem sort of in awe of me.”
Rey chuckled and exchanged an amused look with his brother. “They are. None of them has ever picked up a copperhead on a stick.”
“It let me,” she reminded him.
“That’s the awesome thing,” Leo remarked. “You see, Meredith, copperheads have a nasty reputation for attacking without provocation. It’s kind of mystic, what you did.” He pursed his lips and gave her a teasing glance over his buttered biscuit. “Any snake charmers in your family?”
“No, but Mike had a pet boa for a while, until it ate one of the neighbor’s rabbits,” she sighed.
“Yuccch!” Rey said, and shivered.
“It was an accident,” Meredith insisted. “It escaped out the window and was gone for three weeks. We figured it was starving, because it hadn’t been fed in so long. Besides that,” she added, “the rabbit was vicious. It attacked everybody who opened the cage.”
“Why did the neighbor keep rabbits?”
“He sold them for meat to a specialty grocery store.”
Rey chuckled. “Maybe the boa was a reincarnated taste-tester,” he mused.
Leo made a face. “I wouldn’t eat a rabbit if I was starving. On the other hand, snake’s not so bad. Remember when we were in Arizona on that hunting trip, camping out, and our guide caught that big, juicy rattler?”
“Sure do,” Rey agreed, nodding. “Tasted just like chicken!”
Obviously that was a private joke, because the brothers looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“What became of the boa?” Leo asked, interested.
“Mike had just sold it to a breeder,” she recalled sadly. “He was engaged to the sweetest, kindest girl I ever knew. It devastated her when he was killed. They had to sedate her for two days, and she couldn’t even go to the funeral.” She shook her head. “I felt as sorry for her as I did for Dad and me.”
“What happened to her?” Leo asked.
She finished her coffee. “She became a missionary and went to South America with a group of them.” She winced. “She had the worst luck…it was that plane that was mistaken for drug smugglers and shot down. I think she was one of the survivors, but she didn’t come back to America with the others.”
“Poor kid,” Rey said.
“Colter was upset over the shooting for a long time, too,” Leo recalled. “Just between you and me, he was sweet on Mike’s girl, but too much a gentleman to do anything about it. He thought the sun rose and set on Mike.”
“I never knew,” Meredith said softly.
“Neither did Mike. Or the girl,” Leo added with a smile. “Colter’s a clam. He never talks.”
“Is he still with the Texas Rangers?” Meredith asked.
Leo nodded. “Got promoted to lieutenant just recently. He’s good at his job.”
She pushed back from the table. “If you two are through, I’ll just wash up. Rey’s going to drive me up to see my dad tomorrow.”
“What a sweet guy!” Leo exclaimed with a wide-eyed look at his brother.
“He’s being nice to me, because I’m the only woman who ever proposed to him,” Meredith volunteered with a wicked grin. “He feels guilty because he turned me down.”
“Good. I’ll marry you, Meredith,” Leo volunteered at once. “You just name the time and place, and I’ll buy a new suit…!”
“Shut the hell up!” Rey said curtly, and hit his brother with his Stetson.
Leo protected his shoulder. “Meredith, he’s picking on me!” he wailed.
“Do you want biscuits for breakfast?” she asked Rey.
He stopped flogging his brother. “All right. But only for biscuits,” Rey said. He got up and deliberately bent and kissed Meredith, right in front of Leo. “Don’t stay up too late. Leo and I have to check the livestock in the barn.”
“Okay. Wear a jacket,” she said, smiling up at him.
He bent and brushed his mouth against hers one more time. “It’s not cold.”
“It is. Wear a jacket,” she insisted.
He sighed and made a face, but he picked up his light-weight denim jacket from the hat stand by the back door as he went out.
Leo followed him, but with a new expression on his face. He’d seen something he hadn’t expected during that teasing exchange. He wondered if Rey realized that he was in love with that sweet little biscuit-making woman. And unless he missed his guess, it was mutual.
CHAPTER TEN
The next morning, Meredith sat next to Rey in church and felt his hand holding hers almost all the way through the service. She felt different with him than she’d ever felt with anyone else. Rey made her feel as if she could do anything. He made her feel strong and confident and safe.
She glanced up at him while they shared a hymnal and he forgot what he was singing. They searched each other’s eyes slowly, until they realized that everybody else had stopped singing and were sitting down. Smiling sheepishly, Rey sat down and tugged her down beside him.
After the service, they got amused, affectionate looks from bystanders who knew Rey and had heard about his new cook.
But he didn’t seem to be the least bit embarrassed by the attention. In fact, he made a point of introducing Meredith to several people, adding the little known information that she was a licensed nurse practitioner as well as a great biscuit chef.
Meredith flushed, because it sounded as if he were very proud of her, especially when he related how her quick thinking had probably saved Billy Joe’s life at the target range. Billy Joe was well-known and liked locally, so that brought even more smiles. She clung to his hand with unashamed delight when they left.
“See, you’re already a local celebrity,” he teased. “And I didn’t even get around to mentioning the snake.”
“We should forget the snake,” she said quickly.
He chuckled. “No, we shouldn’t. It wins me points if I have a…cook who isn’t even afraid of poisonous snakes.”
She heard that hesitation before “cook,” as if he wanted to say something else instead. It made her tingle all over. She couldn’t stop smiling, all the way to the Jaguar convertible he drove when he wasn’t working.
“This is a very flashy car,” she commented as he put her in on the passenger side.
“I like sports cars,” he said with a grin.
“So do I,” she confessed. She didn’t even put on a scarf. In fact, she pulled the pins out of her hair and let it fall around her shoulders.
“Won’t it tangle in the wind?” he asked when they were seat-belted in place.
“I don’t care.” She looked at him and smiled warmly. “I like to feel the wind.”
“Me, too.”
He started the car, put it in gear, and pulled out onto the highway. When they were on the interstate, heading toward Houston, he let the powerful car do its best.
“Now this is a HORSE!” he called over the roar of the wind.
She laugh
ed with pure delight. It was the most wonderful day of her life. She even forgot where they were going in the excitement of being with him in the elegant vehicle.
* * *
But all too soon, they were pulling up at an impressive brick building with its function discreetly labeled on a metal plate near the door. It was a substance abuse rehabilitation center, three stories tall, and staffed impressively with psychologists, psychiatrists, and health professionals, including physicians.
Rey held her hand to the information desk and then up to the second floor waiting room, where her father would be brought to visit with them.
“They don’t like visitors the first week,” Rey explained to her. “You probably knew that,” he added, remembering her profession.
“I’ve never had anybody in here,” she said quietly. She was nervous and she looked it.
He caught her fingers in his again and held them tight. “It’s going to be all right,” he said firmly.
She met his eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said after a minute, and her body lost some of its rigidity.
There were footsteps and muffled voices. A minute later, her father came in the door, wearing slacks and a knit shirt, and behind him was a uniformed woman with a clipboard.
“Miss Johns? I’m Gladys Bartlett,” the woman introduced herself with a firm handshake. “I’m the staff psychologist on your father’s case.”
“Hello, Merry,” her father said hesitantly. He winced when he noticed the faded bruises on her face. “I’m sorry, my dear,” he choked.
Meredith let go of Rey’s hand and went forward to hug her father warmly. Mr. Johns closed his eyes and hugged her back, hard. His lips trembled as he forced them together, but tears ran down his lean, pale cheeks. “I’m so sorry,” he sobbed.
She patted him on the back and tears fell hotly from her own eyes. “It’s okay, Daddy,” she whispered brokenly, comforting him the way he’d once comforted her and Mike when they were little, and something had hurt them. He’d been a wonderful father. “It’s okay,” she said again. “You’re going to be fine. We both are.”
“My son. My boy!” He shook all over. “I said I was too busy to take her to the bank. I asked him…I asked Mike…to go instead. He’d be alive, but for me!”
“Now, Mr. Johns,” the counselor said gently, “we’ve been over this several times already. You can’t assume blame for the lawless acts of other people. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, nothing would have happened if you’d asked your son to go to the bank on your behalf.”
“But this was the one out of a hundred,” he husked. “And I can’t live with the guilt!”
“I’ve had my own problems with it,” Meredith confessed. “I could have refused to go in to work that day and taken her instead.”
“And you’d be lying dead instead of Mike,” her father replied curtly. “And I’d be just as eaten up with guilt!”
“You’re both missing the point,” Rey said, standing up. “You can’t control life. Nobody can.”
They all looked at him. He stood quietly, his hands deep in his slacks pockets, and stared back. “Einstein said that God didn’t play dice with the universe, and he was right. Even in seeming chaos, there’s an order to things, a chain of events that leads inevitably to conclusions. People are links in the chain, but people don’t control the events. Life has a pattern, even if we don’t see it.”
“You’ve studied philosophy,” Mr. Johns said quietly.
Rey nodded. “Yes, I have.”
The older man, with thinning hair and glasses and a faintly stooped posture, moved away from Meredith and smiled. “I took several courses in it, myself. You have a degree, haven’t you?”
“I do, in business. A master’s, from Harvard,” Rey volunteered, something that Meredith hadn’t even known.
“Mine is in medicine. Veterinary medicine. I’m…”
“I know. You’re Dr. Alan Johns,” Rey said, shaking hands. “Your daughter is staying with us on the ranch in Jacobsville, baking biscuits, while she recovers.”
Dr. Johns winced and flushed. “They told me what I did to you,” he said, glancing shamefaced at his daughter. “I swear before God, I’ll never take another drink as long as I live!”
“You won’t get the chance,” Rey said. “I intend to watch you like a red-tailed hawk.”
“Excuse me?” Dr. Johns stammered.
Rey studied his boots. “We don’t have a vet on staff. We have to call one down from Victoria, because our vets are overworked to death. It would be nice to have our own vet. We pay competitive salaries and you’d have your own house.”
Dr. Johns sat down quickly. “Young man, I…!”
Rey lifted his head and stared him in the eyes. “You made a mistake. People do. That’s why they put erasers on pencils. You can work for us. We’ll keep you straight, and you won’t have to take some sort of menial job in Houston just to make ends meet. You’ll like the ranch,” he added. “We have a good crew.”
“Someone might know what I did,” Dr. Johns stammered.
“Everybody knows already,” Rey said, and shrugged. “It’s no big deal to us. We’ve got one man who came back from cocaine addiction—let me tell you, that was a story and a half—and another one who was a habitual DWI for six years until we hired him and helped him get straight.” He smiled. “We don’t hold a man’s past against him, as long as he’s willing to stay straight and work hard.”
Dr. Johns was having a hard time keeping control of himself, and it was obvious. “Young man, I’ll work without a salary, if that’s what it takes. And I promise, you’ll never have cause to regret giving me a job.”
“Not unless you keep calling me ‘young man,’” Rey said with a grin. “I’m Reynard Hart, but everybody calls me Rey.”
“Glad to meet you,” the older man said. “Rey.”
Rey nodded. “How much longer will they keep you?” he asked, and glanced at the woman with the clipboard.
“Another week should do it,” she said with a big smile. “And how nice, to see him with a settled environment to look forward to the day he leaves! I believe in minor miracles, but I don’t see many. This is certainly one.”
Rey gave her a complacent smile. “Miracles only happen for people who believe in them,” he said, chuckling.
“Thanks, Rey,” Meredith said huskily.
He only shrugged. “How could I ignore the father of the only woman who ever proposed to me?” he said, matter-of-factly, and with a smile that made her blush.
“You proposed to him?” her father asked with raised eyebrows.
“Several times,” she said with mock disgust. “But he has to wash his dogs, so he can’t marry me.”
Dr. Johns laughed heartily.
The counselor relaxed. This was going to work out. Dr. Johns was never going to end up in rehab again, she was certain of it. She only wished she could say the same for more of her poor patients.
* * *
On the drive back to Jacobsville, Meredith was on top of the world. “Not only does he get a new job, but one doing what he always loved best, working around large animals.”
“He likes cattle, does he?” Rey asked absently, enjoying Meredith’s animated company.
“He grew up on a cattle ranch in Montana,” she explained. “He was even in rodeo for six or seven years before he went to college.”
Rey expelled a breath. This was going to work out even better than he’d dreamed. Amazing, he thought, how a single act of kindness could expand like ripples around a rock dropped into a pond.
“He’s not much good on a horse anymore,” she continued chattily, “but he really knows veterinary medicine.”
“He might go back to teaching one day. Not in Houston,” he added gently. “But Texas is a big state, and when he’s been away from alcohol a couple of years, who knows?”
“The ranch will be good for him. You did mean it, didn’t you?” she added quickly. “It wasn’t something you
said to help him want to get better?”
“I very rarely say things I don’t mean, Meredith,” he replied. “Well,” he added with a frown, “I wasn’t exactly telling the truth about washing the dogs.”
“Excuses, excuses.” She toyed with her purse. “Rey, thank you for giving him a second chance.”
He laughed gently. “I’ve got an ulterior motive,” he murmured dryly. “When you come to the ranch to visit him, you can make me a pan of biscuits.”
“Just you? Not one to share with Leo?”
He shifted behind the wheel. “He can go find someone to make him biscuits,” he said. “Surely, somewhere in Texas, there’s a woman who’d do it just for him.”
“Your other brothers, do their wives bake?”
“Dorie and Tess do,” he said. “But Tira hasn’t got a clue how to,” he added on a sigh. “Simon doesn’t mind. They have a cook who can. Although he’s really not much on biscuits, so it doesn’t matter.” He grinned. “You should see him with his sons. Two of them now. They’re still toddlers, and he’s a whiz at fatherhood. Dorie and Corrigan have a boy and a girl and Cag and Tess have a son. That makes me an uncle five times over! Christmas is going to be a real treat this year.”
She thought about Christmas. It was going to be a lonely one for her, with her father down here on the ranch.
He saw the look on her face and reached out to catch her hand in his. “Hey,” he said softly, “you’re invited for Christmas, you know. We’ll pack up the kids and go over to the annual Christmas party at the Doctors Coltrain. They have huge layouts of Lionel trains that they run every year, especially with a little boy of their own who’ll be big enough to play with them in a couple of years. Draws a big crowd. Do you like train sets?”
She smiled. “I do.” It lifted her heart to know that she was going to be included in the family get-together. She loved children. It would make the season less traumatic for her and her father, because they were missing two members of their immediate family.