by Home Fires
CHAPTER 7
Three hours later they were gathered outside a roomy stall. It was bedded in fresh-smelling wood shavings and padded with rubber on the walls and floor.
“What are her chances?” Ty asked. His face was solemn as he curled his fingers around the steel bars that separated him from the mare standing alone on the far side of the door. Her head drooped near her knees and her eyes were half closed, but she was back on her feet.
Sophie stood a couple yards from the stall. Her face was no longer green, but it had been clear early on that despite her usual commanding presence, she would not be much help during these particular proceedings. Although her interest was obvious, she’d barely been able to assist in shaving the surgical site and catheterizing the jugular before leaving the room on wobbly knees. While Ty and Casie watched the doctors incise and empty the mare’s intestines into huge, wheeled garbage cans, Sophie had rushed outside to empty her own stomach.
“Her chances are decent.” Turned out little Dr. Sarah didn’t pull any punches. She stood beside them, the top of her head barely reaching Casie’s nose. A spray of blood still festooned her left cheek. “As you know, there was a torsion, a twist, in the posterior portion of her ileum. It had already become somewhat necrotic. But when we removed that portion of the intestine and sutured her back up, things pinkened up nicely. Still …” She scowled as she glanced at the mare, who looked small and forlorn in the oversized stall. “Her age is against her. But you got her here really quickly.” Lifting her gaze, she stared at the IV that hung from the center of the ceiling and dripped steadily into the mare’s jugular. “We’ll know more in a few hours. Do you want to wait around?”
Casie shook her head. They’d talked about it at some length between Sophie’s rushed trips to the restroom. “We can’t. I’ve got chores to do, and if we hurry, the kids can still get in a couple hours of school.”
“Sure,” Dr. Sarah said and smiled. “Well …” She reached out to shake Ty’s hand first. “We’ll take good care of her. That’s a promise.”
He nodded. “When can I see …” He cleared his throat. Boys in general tended to be uncomfortable with emotions. Cowboys viewed them as lethal. “When do you think we’ll be able to take her home?”
“I’m not sure yet, but we’ve got your contact information, right?” she asked and glanced at the clipboard hanging on the stall door. “Let’s see, we’ve got Sophie’s cell, Casie’s landline, Emily’s e-mail address, and the Dickensons’ home phone. Looks like we should be able to reach you without sending up smoke signals.” She smiled.
“And you’ll …” Ty paused, unsmiling in the face of her upbeat humor. “You’ll call me either way? I mean, if things get worse … I’d like to …” His lips twitched. “You won’t put her down or nothing without my permission, right?”
“No.” She sobered, then reaching out, put a hand on his arm. “If things go poorly, I’ll do my best to make sure you have a chance to say good-bye.”
For a moment Casie was sure he would argue, would assure them all that that wasn’t what he had meant at all, but in the end he just mumbled a thanks and turned away.
The walk to Puke was silent. The day was overcast. A stiff wind blew from the northwest, rustling the needles of the fir trees that grew alongside the parking lot and wafting the pungent scent of sap and autumn over them.
“You okay?” Casie asked, but at that moment Ty turned unexpectedly toward his nemesis.
“You got money,” he said. His voice was low, nearly inaudible. It took a moment for Casie to understand his meaning.
Sophie was even slower on the uptake. Apparently, the sight of seventy feet of intestines being unraveled from Angel’s inverted body was still having some negative effects on her equilibrium. “What?”
Ty pursed his lips, body stiff, eyes narrow. “I’d pay you back. You got my word on that.”
She scowled. “What are you talking about?”
Casie dug Puke’s keys out of the pocket of her canvas jacket and tried not to interrupt. She’d never been comfortable with controversy, but there was no way of avoiding this. God knew she’d pay Angel’s medical bills on the spot if she could. Then again, if she could fly, she’d get them all home quicker. Chances were about equal for both.
“Your dad’ll give you the money if you ask him,” Ty said.
Sophie shook her head, glossy hair rippling as she finally caught his drift. “Surgery costs …” She scowled as if still trying to get her bearings. “The bill’s already in the thousands. If she needs additional—”
“I’ll pay him back.”
For a moment there was absolute quiet and then she breathed a snort. “How?” The sound was caustic, ushering in her return to normal. “Everyone knows your family doesn’t have a pot—”
“Sophie.” Casie kept her voice low. In the time she’d known Ty, he’d never asked for so much as a dime. But his face was flushed with dark emotion now, his body stiff, as if it took every fiber in his being to beg.
“I’ll pay him back,” he repeated. “With interest. You got my word.”
For a second Casie was sure the girl would laugh again, certain she would come up with some sharp-edged rejoinder, but she just glanced back at the building behind them. Maybe there was something about the cold concrete blocks that convinced her to pull a cell phone from the pocket of her riding breeches. She jabbed a single number and skimmed her eyes away as it rang.
“Hi, Daddy.” She kept her gaze carefully averted.
“Soph?” His voice was clear from halfway across the state.
“Yeah. Hey, I’m sorry I didn’t call you back.” She sprinted her gaze to Ty for a second, then shot it away. “We’ve been … I’ve just been really busy.”
“The agreement was that you’d contact me daily,” he said. “But I didn’t mean you had to call me during school hours.”
“Oh, well … I’m not in class right now.” She glanced at Casie and, lowering her voice, turned away. “Listen, something’s come up,” she said, and pacing toward a row of horse trailers that lined the hospital’s drive, let her voice dwindle away.
Casie sent Ty a fleeting glance. His lips were clamped tight, his body tense, but it was the silent worry in his dark eyes that made her heart hurt, that made her ache to reassure him, to make him smile. But she had nothing to give. No heartfelt wisdom, no salty humor, not even a father with deep pockets.
She was still searching for platitudes or punch lines when Sophie reappeared a few seconds later. The girl’s brows had dipped low over her angry eyes. Her lips were pursed in her trademark expression of irritation. “He wants to talk to you,” she said, and stretching out her arm, handed Ty the phone.
He took it with obvious misgivings, but his voice was low and steady when he spoke. “Hello?”
They could hear a similar greeting on the far end of the line. “I hear you need a loan.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m Googling equine colic surgery right now. Says here it could cost as much as ten thousand dollars.”
For a moment Ty looked as if he was going to be sick. He failed to speak.
“That’s an awful lot of money, Tyler.”
“Yes, sir.” He nodded, face pale, and tightened one hardworking hand into a fist. “I know, sir.”
“How much of that can you pay yourself?”
Ty shifted his gaze to Casie. She felt herself wince despite her best efforts at stoicism.
“I can’t pay more than a couple hundred right out of the chute,” Ty said. His face was ruddy now, but whether that was caused by embarrassment or worry, Casie couldn’t tell. In the end, however, it didn’t matter, because she spoke without thinking, without censor.
“I can come up with a thousand.” Her voice was extremely low. Maybe because it was an out-and-out lie. She had no means of garnering that kind of money, but the painful gratitude on the boy’s face made it worth the fabrication.
“Twelve hundred, maybe, altogether,”
Ty said. His voice was quiet but determined. His course was set. “But I’d pay you back, sir. Every penny. That’s a promise.”
Jaegar sighed. “Listen, I’ve made quite a few investments lately. I don’t have a lot of available cash. Maybe your parents could help you out.”
Ty clenched his teeth. His eyes gleamed with unspoken emotion. “My folks don’t have that kind of cash, neither.”
Another sigh. “Listen, Tyler, I know Miss Carmichael thinks highly of you, but the economy isn’t picking up as well as we had hoped and—”
“You can have the horse,” Ty said.
The world went silent. Casie held her breath, trying not to think of the boy’s chafed hands caressing the old mare’s gleaming hide. Trying not to remember the grueling hours of work he had done in an effort to pay her back.
“What’s that?” Jaegar asked.
“If you cover the bill you can have her. I’ll still pay you back. She ain’t much. I mean …” Ty’s voice cracked. “She’s old and she ain’t got no papers or nothing, but she’s cowy and she’s quick. Your girl, Sophie …” His lips jerked as he shifted his gaze to her. He looked like little more than a cornered animal now, the hope all but gone from his eyes. “She could give riding lessons on her or something.”
“That’s very generous of you, I’m sure, Tyler. And I’d like to help you out, son. Really, I would, but—”
“Give me the phone.” Sophie’s face was tight as she stretched out her hand for the second time.
Ty scowled.
“Give it to me,” she demanded, and with obvious uncertainty, he handed it over.
She turned away with military precision, silky hair swinging. In a moment she had disappeared from sight. Even her voice was gone. Ty shuffled his feet on the graveled parking lot. Casie cleared her throat. The tension was tight enough to strangle them both, but in a matter of moments Sophie had returned and was shoving the phone back into her pocket.
The silence stretched away like a tightrope.
Ty’s face was absolutely devoid of color. Casie felt like shaking the girl until her teeth rattled. “Well?” she rasped finally.
“He’s calling the hospital with his credit card number,” Sophie said.
They were the last words spoken until they turned onto the Lazy’s bumpy drive.
“You okay, Em?” Casie asked and rose from the table, taking her plate with her. In the background, Josh Turner crooned softly about dancing up the stairs.
Emily glanced sideways, still up to her elbows in soapy dishwater. Fresh-smelling herbs lined the windowsill in one long terra-cotta pot. The tiny leaves of thyme nestled cozily against the broad herbage of purple basil. “Sure. Why do you ask?”
“You only ate a gallon or so of chili.”
“Baby Osgood was ravenous this afternoon. We had half a loaf of barley bread before you got home. I was thinking, maybe I should be a vocalist.”
“You can’t sing.”
“Yeah, that could be a drawback,” Emily said, ruminating silently for a second. “Do you think Ty’s okay?”
Casie scowled as she returned for the remainder of the dishes on the table. Sophie had wandered upstairs to catch up on homework nearly an hour earlier. “I don’t know. Sometimes he seems so strong, but sometimes …” She sighed, heart aching. “He’s not as tough as he seems.”
Emily snorted. “Ya think?”
“Guess you knew that already, huh?”
“Je … eez,” she said, remembering just in time to avoid using God’s name in vain. “Sophie probably even knows that.” She glanced toward the stairs. “How bad was she anyway?”
“Who? Soph?”
“No, the Wicked Witch of the West.” She cocked her head to add a dose of attitude to the sarcasm. “Yeah, Soph.”
Casie stifled a grin. She had no idea why the girl’s sass amused her. “She wasn’t so bad.”
Emily raised her brows. “I guess the fact that you allowed her to live tells me something.”
Casie remained silent for a moment, considering that statement. If Emily thought she favored Ty, she didn’t seem to take offense. Sophie, however, was a horse of a different color.
“It was nice of her to ask her dad for the money,” Casie said.
“Nice?”
“Yes.”
“You know she’s going to make us all pay, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, Cassandra May.” Emily sighed, long-suffering, as she shook her dreadlocks. “So innocent.”
“How’s she going to make us pay?”
“Far be it from me to divine what devious means she’ll devise, but I tell you this …” She lifted a soapy forefinger to shake it at Casie. “If she hurts Ty I’m going to kick her skinny ass from here to Sunday.”
“Well, it better happen soon then,” Casie said, skimming her gaze over the girl’s ever-burgeoning figure. “While you can still lift your feet off the floor.”
“Don’t underestimate the power of mom hormones. I can still—” she began, but the doorbell rang.
“Who’s that?” Casie’s stomach cramped with nerves.
“You know what?” Emily asked. “Even mom hormones don’t necessarily make one psychic.”
Casie gave her a glance. “You’re not expecting anyone?”
She glanced meaningfully at her belly. “No one capable of using a doorbell.”
Casie rolled her eyes. They stood faced off. “Don’t you want to get that?”
“Do I look like I want to get that?”
Casie scowled and headed toward the front door like a convict to the scaffolds. To say she was an introvert was an understatement, but she forced herself to open the door. Colt Dickenson stood gazing off over the cattle pastures. She cursed in silence as he turned toward her. The tendons in his dark neck shifted. A grin tilted up the left corner of his lips. Something contracted warily in her gut. What the hell was that about?
“Hey,” he said. He had one hand braced against the door frame. The other was stuck in the back pocket of his jeans. His arms were half bare, the skin dark and smooth where his worn cambric sleeves were rolled just past the elbow. The muscles there were lean and well defined, traced with veins that did nothing but add interest to a too-intriguing physique. “How’s it going?”
“All right,” she said and waited for him to say something meaningful, or maybe she was waiting for her stomach to cease threatening treason.
“Nice night.”
She had no idea how he could get her flustered without half trying. “Yes. A little windy this morning, but …” she began and fought the hopeless impulse to chatter on like a manic chipmunk. “Did you need something?”
“Yeah. A good roping horse.”
She canted her head and raised a brow. “What?”
“I need a good roping horse,” he said and shuffled his scuffed boots on the newly painted porch as if his knees were sore. “Bronc riding is hell on the joints.”
She gave him a WTF look, hoping it was half as potent as Emily’s.
“I’m thinking of quitting the rough stock.”
She let that soak in for a minute. Odd as it might seem, she had always thought of Colt Dickenson as a rodeo cowboy, even before he was one. There was something about the way he moved or looked or smelled or … something. “You’re quitting bronc riding.” It wasn’t a question exactly. More like a skeptical exclamation of disbelief.
“Thinking about it.”
“Are you serious?”
“As hip replacement.”
It took her a second to work that out. Then she shook her head as she remembered that this man had been messing with her emotions for as long as she had emotions to mess with. “Why are you here, Dickenson?”
“I like the look of your bay.”
“My bay?” She glanced toward the horse pastures. “Are you serious?”
“As a broken—” he began, but she interrupted him. Encouraging his sense of humor had been a mistake since he’d begu
n telling her knock-knock jokes in second grade.
“He’s not even gelded yet.”
“I know. Testosterone.” He shifted his hand on the doorjamb, making his biceps flex like pythons. “Puts some nice muscle on them, doesn’t it?” he asked and raised his brows a little. She refrained, with some difficulty, from glancing at his arms. She also refrained, with more difficulty, from smacking him upside the head.
“He’s also incredibly irritating,” she added dryly.
“Yeah?” He grinned, perhaps understanding the connection she was making between him and the horse.
“Causes more trouble than he’ll ever be worth,” she added.
“Well …” He shrugged. “Us Indian cowboys know some tricks.”
Holy Hannah. “Do you?” She made certain her tone was rife with boredom.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said and cracked a grin. “Want to see?”
“Not at all.”
“Hey, Case, thanks for the chili,” someone called from the darkness.
“Emily made it,” she said, entirely unsure to whom she was speaking. “But you’re welcome.”
“I pulled the heating element out of your old water tank. Be back tomorrow with a new one.”
“Oh, okay, thank you.”
“You bet,” he said and disappeared into the darkness.
“Who the … ?” Colt began, then softened his tone and tried again. “Who was that?”
She shrugged, peering past his shoulder for a second before bringing her attention back to the present. “Why are you really here?”
He straightened, exasperation beginning to show on his face. “You don’t think I came to see you, do you?”
“Of course not! I mean … No!” she said and hoped to hell he couldn’t tell she was blushing. “Why the bay?”
“He looks like he’d be a nice ride.”
“What’s wrong with the way Madeline rides?”
He made a face at her. “My old piebald?”
“Is there another Madeline?”
“There was a Maddy in Albuquerque a few months back. Cute gal. Didn’t get a chance to ride—”
“Yes, the piebald!” she snapped, then took a deep breath and calmed herself. “What’s wrong with your pinto?”