by Diana Palmer
“Does he do it to get his mind off something?” she wondered aloud.
“Nobody’s ever had the nerve to ask. Matt’s very pleasant, but he isn’t the sort of man you question.”
She bumped along beside him in the truck and something nagged at the back of her mind.
“You said you were flying the plane. Did you own it?” she asked carefully.
He drew in a slow breath. He didn’t want to talk about it, but then, she was entitled to know something about him. He glanced at her. “I did. I have an air cargo company.”
Her eyes widened. “And you’re working for wages at a feedlot?”
“They don’t know I own the company,” he told her. “I wanted someplace to…I don’t know, hide out maybe.” He shrugged broad shoulders. “I couldn’t cope with the memories there, and I didn’t want enough spare time to think. I got the most demanding job I could find. I’ve been here three years and I like it. My manager is doing great things with the air cargo company. I’m considering making him a full partner.”
“Is it a profitable company?”
“I’m not in Matt Caldwell’s league,” he said. “But I suppose I’m pretty close.” He glanced at her and smiled. “I could afford to live high if I liked. I don’t. I was too fond of the fast lane. It’s what cost me Anita.” His face tautened as he stared ahead at the long, winding road. “I’d been on the road all of the day before, and I hadn’t slept that night because someone had a party and I was enjoying myself. Anita wanted to go up for a few minutes, so I took her. If I’d had a good night’s sleep, I wouldn’t have done such a sketchy walk-around and I’d have noticed the problem in the engine before it caused a tragedy. That was when I looked at my life and decided that I was wasting it. I came down here to decide what to do.” He shook his head. “It’s been three years and I still haven’t decided that.”
“What do you want to do?” she asked.
His eyes held a faraway look. “I want to settle down and have a family.” He saw the expression on her face and chuckled. “I can see that you hadn’t considered that answer as a possibility.”
“You don’t seem the sort of man to want to settle,” she said evasively. She twisted her purse in her lap.
“I wasn’t, until recently. I’m not that old, but I’m beginning to see down the road further than I used to. I don’t want to grow old and die alone.”
“Most people don’t.”
He grinned. “Including you?”
She hesitated. “I’d never really thought about marrying and having a family,” she said seriously.
“Because you only have one lung? That shouldn’t worry you.”
“It might worry a prospective husband,” she pointed out. “Most men want a whole woman.”
“You’re whole, in every way that matters,” he said firmly. “With or without two lungs.”
She smiled. “Thanks. That was nice. But marriage is a big step.”
“Not really. Not if two people have a lot in common and if they’re good friends. I’ve seen some very happy marriages since I moved to Jacobsville. Marriage is what you make of it,” he said pensively.
“So they say.”
The road dead-ended at a long, winding gravel driveway with a huge black mailbox at the fork which read Caldwell Double C Ranch.
“We’re almost there,” Guy told her, pulling into the ranch road. “Matt runs some of the prettiest Santa Gertrudis cattle in the state. It’s a purebred herd, which means they aren’t slaughter cattle. He sells seed bulls and heifers, mostly, and he does a roaring business.”
“I like Santa Gerts,” she remarked.
“So did my father,” he told her. “He worked on the King Ranch. I grew up with cattle and always loved them. I just loved airplanes more. Now I’m caught between the two. That tickles my parents.”
“They’re still alive?”
He chuckled. “Very. He still works on a ranch, and she’s gone into real estate! I go to visit them every few months.” He glanced at her. “As I mentioned before, I have a brother in California and a sister in Washington State. She has a little boy about four. Her husband’s a lawyer.”
“Quite a family,” she mused.
“You’d like my family,” he told her. “They’re just plain folks, nothing put on or fancy, and they love company.”
“My mother screams about uninvited guests,” she recalled. “She’s not really fond of people unless they come to buy cattle. She’s pretty mercenary.”
“You aren’t.”
She laughed. “Thanks for noticing. No, I’ll never make a businesswoman. If I had a lot of money, I’d probably give it all away. I’m a sucker for a lost cause.”
“That makes two of us. And here we are.”
He indicated a sprawling white two-story ranch house with a porch that ran two-thirds of the way around it. There was a porch swing and plenty of chairs and gliders to sit in. The pasture fences near the house were all white, and behind them red-coated cattle grazed on green grass.
“Improved pasture,” she murmured, taking notes. “You can always tell by the lush grass.”
“Matt’s a stickler for improvements. There he is.” He nodded toward the front steps, where a tall, darkly handsome man in a suit and a white Stetson was coming down to greet them.
Chapter Four
Matt Caldwell was attractive, and he had a live-wire personality to go with his lean good looks. He helped Candy from the truck with a charm that immediately captivated her.
“Glad you got here before I had to leave,” Matt said, greeting Guy as he came around the truck. “I’m going to have Paddy show you the place. I wish I could, but I’m already late for a meeting in Houston.” He glanced at his watch. “I never have a minute to spare these days. I think I need to slow down.”
“It wouldn’t hurt,” Guy chuckled. “Candy Mar shall, this is Matt Caldwell.”
“Glad to meet you,” Candy said with a smile and an extended hand.
Matt shook it warmly. “Publicists are getting neater by the day,” he mused. “The last one we had here was twenty-five, unshaven and didn’t know a Santa Gert from a Holstein.”
“I shaved my beard off just this morning,” she said pertly.
Matt chuckled. “Glad to know that you have good personal hygiene,” he drawled. “Paddy will show you anything you want to see. If you need to talk to me, I should be back by tomorrow morning. If that’s not soon enough, you can fax me the questions, I’ll answer them and fax them back to you.” He handed her a business card with Mather Caldwell Enterprises, Inc. in raised black lettering.
“Impressive,” she told him.
He chuckled. “Not very.” He glanced at Guy with a calculating gleam in his eyes. “If you wanted to give her a bird’s-eye view of the ranch, the Cessna Commuter 150’s gassed up and ready to fly.”
Guy’s face went hard just thinking about the small, two-seater plane. It was the type he’d crashed three years ago taking Anita for a ride. “I don’t fly anymore.”
Matt exchanged a complicated glance with him. “Pity.”
“She wants to see cattle on the hoof, anyway.”
“I bought a new Santa Gertrudis bull from the King Ranch. Paddy will show him to you. He’s a looker.” Matt shook hands with them both. “Got to run,” he said. “Paddy should be out here any minute. He was with me when you drove up, but he got held up in the office. Have a seat on the porch and wait for him.”
“Nice porch,” Candy remarked.
He grinned. “I bought the place for the porch. I like to sit out there on warm summer evenings and listen to Rachmaninoff.”
He piled into his Mercedes and gunned the engine as he drove out to the small hangar and airstrip that were barely visible in the distance.
“Does he do that often? Offer you his airplane, I mean?” Candy asked when they were comfortably seated in the porch swing.
“Every time he sees me,” he said with resignation. “I suppose I’m getting used
to it. Which doesn’t mean I like it,” he added.
She didn’t quite know how to answer that. It was a good thing that Paddy Kilgraw chose that moment to come out onto the porch. He was a wizened little man with skin like leather and twinkling blue eyes. He took off his hat, revealing pale red hair on either side of a huge bald spot, and shook hands warmly with them both. He led them out to the barn and Candy got down to business.
Matt’s operation was enormous, but it still had the personal touch. He knew each of his bulls by name, and at least two of them were tame. Candy enjoyed the way they nuzzled her hand when she petted them. To her mother, cattle were for slaughter, nothing else. Candy much preferred a ranch that concentrated on keeping them alive, where the owner liked his animals and took proper care of them. Even cantankerous Cy Parks, who did run beef cattle, was concerned for their welfare and never treated them as if they were nothing more than an investment.
But the barn, while neat and clean for such a structure, was filled with wheat straw, and it was strictly an enclosed space. They’d barely entered it when Candy started coughing. She bent over double and couldn’t stop.
Guy asked Paddy for a cup of coffee, which the little man went running to get. Meanwhile, Guy lifted Candy and carried her out of the barn, to where the air was less polluted by wheat straw dust. But once outside, seated on the running board of the truck, she was still coughing. Tears were running down her face, which was red as fire.
Paddy appeared with a cup of coffee. “It’s cold, will that do?” he asked quickly.
“Cold is fine. It’s the caffeine we want.” Guy held it to her lips, but she was coughing so hard that she couldn’t even drink in between spasms. His face contorted with fear. He looked up at Paddy from his kneeling position beside Candy. “I think it’s a bad asthma attack,” he said abruptly.
“Has she got an inhaler on her?” Paddy asked.
Guy shook his head worriedly. “She hasn’t been diagnosed by a doctor yet. Damn!”
She bent over again, and this time she was definitely wheezing as she coughed. It was getting worse by the second and she looked as if she was struggling to get a single breath of air.
“It’s twenty-five minutes to Jacobsville!” Guy said harshly. “I’ll never get her there in time!”
“Take the Commuter,” Paddy said. “I’ve got the keys in my pocket. Boss said you might like to fly her while you were here.”
Guy’s eyes were haunted. “Paddy, I can’t!” he bit off, horror in his expression at the memory of his last flight.
Paddy put a firm hand on his shoulder. “Her life depends on it,” he reminded the younger man solemnly. “Yes, you can! Here. Go!”
Guy took another look at Candy and groaned. He took the keys from Paddy, put Candy in the truck, swung in beside her and gunned the engine out to the airstrip, with Paddy hanging on in the truck bed.
He pulled the truck to a stop at the hangar. Leaving Candy in the cab of the truck, Guy and Paddy got the little Cessna pulled out onto the apron. Then Guy carried Candy and strapped her into the passenger side. She was barely conscious, her breath rasping as she tried desperately to breathe.
“You’ll make it,” Paddy said firmly. “I’ll phone ahead and have an ambulance and EMTs waiting at the airport in Jacobsville with the necessary equipment. Get going!”
“Thanks, Paddy,” Guy called as he ran to get inside the plane.
It had been a long time since he’d flown, but it was like riding a bicycle, it came right back to him. He went over the controls and gauges and switches after he’d fired up the engine. He taxied the little plane out onto the runway and said a silent prayer.
“It’s going to be all right, honey,” he told Candy in a harsh tone. “Try to hang on. I’ll have you to the hospital in no time in this!”
She couldn’t manage a reply. She felt as if she were drowning, unable to get even a breath of air. She gripped the edge of the seat, crying silently, terrified, as Guy sent the little aircraft zipping down the runway and suddenly into the air.
He circled and turned the plane toward Jacobsville, thanking God for his skill as a pilot that had made this trip even possible. He could see that Candy was slowly turning blue and losing consciousness.
“Just a little longer, sweetheart,” he pleaded above the noise of the engine. “Just a little longer! Please hold on!”
He kept talking to her, soothing her, encouraging her all the way to the Jacobsville airport. He was so preoccupied with her welfare that his horror of flying took a backseat to his concern for Candy. He called the tower and was immediately given clearance to land, which he did, faultlessly. An ambulance pulled onto the tarmac, lights flashing, and came to a halt as he taxied onto the apron and cut the engine.
Seconds later, they had Candy out of the plane and on oxygen. They loaded her into the ambulance, with one EMT and a worried Guy in the back with her. They roared away to the hospital, with Guy holding her hand and praying silently that he wasn’t going to lose her, when he’d only just found her.
Her color was better and she was breathing less strenuously when the ambulance pulled up sharply at the emergency entrance. The physician on duty came running out behind the nurses and supervised Candy’s entrance.
Guy was gently put to one side while Candy was wheeled right into the emergency room, into a cubicle.
“You can sit here in the waiting area,” a nurse told him with a gentle smile. “Don’t worry. She’s going to be fine.”
Easy to say, he thought worriedly. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and paced, oblivious to the other people also waiting and worrying nearby. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so upset.
He glanced toward the swinging doors through which Candy had been taken and sighed. She’d looked a little better after the oxygen mask was put into place, but he knew it was going to take more than that to get her back on her feet. He was almost certain that they’d keep her overnight. He hoped they would. She was stubborn and unlikely to follow instructions.
Just when he was contemplating storming the doors, the physician came and motioned him inside.
He pulled him into an empty cubicle and closed the curtain. “Is she your fiancée?” he asked Guy.
He shook his head. “She’s a visiting publicist for the cattlemen’s association. I was deputized by our local association to escort her around the area ranches.”
“Damn!” the doctor muttered.
“Why? What’s wrong?”
He glowered. “She’s got the worst case of asthma I’ve come across in years, and she won’t believe it. I’ve got her on a nebulizer now, but she’s going to need a primary care physician to evaluate and treat her, or this isn’t going to be an isolated incident. She needs to see someone right away. But I can’t convince her.”
Guy smiled wryly. “Leave it to me,” he murmured. “I think I’m beginning to know how to handle her. Is this a long-standing condition, do you think?”
“Yes, I do. The coughing threw her off. Most people don’t associate it with asthma, but while it’s not as common as wheezing, it is certainly a symptom. I’ve prescribed a rescue inhaler for her to carry, and told her that she needs to be on a preventative. Her own doctor can prescribe that.”
“She lives in Denver,” Guy said. “I’m not sure she goes to a doctor regularly.”
“She’d better,” the young man said flatly. “She almost got here too late. Another few minutes and it would have been touch and go.”
“I figured that,” Guy said quietly.
“She owes you her life,” he continued.
“She owes me nothing, but I’m going to make sure that she takes care of herself from now on.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“May I see her?”
He smiled and nodded. “Sure. She won’t be able to talk. She’s very busy.”
“Good. She can listen better. I’ve got a lot to tell her.”
The doctor only chuckled. H
e led the way into a larger cubicle where a worn-looking Candy was inhaling something in a mask that covered part of her face. She glanced at him and looked irritated.
“Asthma,” Guy said, plopping down onto a stool nearby. “I told you, didn’t I?”
She couldn’t speak, but her eyes did. They were eloquent.
“He says you need to see a doctor and get the asthma treated.”
She tugged at the mask. “I won’t!”
“You will,” he replied, putting it firmly back in place. “Committing suicide is not sensible.”
She struck the side of the examination couch with her hand.
“I know, you don’t want any more complications,” he said for her. “But this could have cost you dearly. You have to take precautions, so that it doesn’t happen again.”
Her eyes seemed to brighten. She shifted and shook her head.
“Hay and wheat and ranches sort of go together,” Guy said. “If you’re going to spend any time around them, you have to have proper care. I’m going to make sure you get it.”
She gave him a look that said him and what army?
He chuckled. “We’ll go into that later. Getting easier to breathe?”
She hesitated, and then nodded. She searched his eyes and made a flying motion with her hand. She tugged the mask aside for a second. “I’m sorry…you had to do that. Are you…all right?”
He put the mask back in place again, touched by her concern for him at such a traumatic time for herself. “Yes, I’m all right,” he said. “I didn’t have time to think about myself and my fears. I was too busy trying to save you. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Of course,” he added with a faint smile, “I was pretty preoccupied at the time.”
“Thank you,” she said in a ghostly, hoarse tone.
“Don’t talk. Breathe.”
She sighed. “Okay.”