The Price of Honor

by Janis Reams Hudson

  She would go over them and add her own notes, but seeing that he’d been raised by her mentor, had in fact grown up at this clinic, she felt confident that his notes would prove accurate and complete.

  He stayed with her through those magical moments when the mare stood and started cleaning the foal, when the newborn colt struggled comically onto wobbly legs, only to tumble to the straw, then start over until finally he gained a tentative balance. Stayed through those first insecure steps, the first nuzzling for milk. Stayed until nearly an hour later when the mare delivered the placenta and Rachel examined it to make sure it was intact, that no portions had been detached to cause endometritis or laminitis.

  He kept her fueled with coffee and small talk, and she was glad he was there.

  And Grady was glad to be there. He was glad for the opportunity to see her in action, so to speak, without the distracting stress of it being his own animal she was working on. She was calm, confident, and from the little he’d seen so far, competent. He’d bet his lucky horseshoe that his dad had been busting with pride the day she came to work for him as a doctor of veterinary medicine.

  But Grady had meant what he’d told her earlier. He wasn’t sorry that he’d dropped out of college. He’d found his life’s work, and that was training horses. The things he’d learned in California had helped him build a good reputation in the training business. He intended to build on it now that he was his own boss and could do things his own way.

  Chapter Six

  The next day after work Rachel was restless. She was tired and she had an early call to make tomorrow morning. She should spend the evening with her feet up and her mind lost in a novel. Instead, she found herself on the highway headed south out of town toward the Flying Ace.

  She had the windows down; the wind whipped her hair around, but she didn’t care. She wanted the wind. She wanted speed. The little sports car was loaded with power, and she wanted to let it loose.

  But she didn’t relish getting stopped for speeding, especially if Sheriff Martin was patrolling tonight.

  With a sigh, she kept to the speed limit. Still, it was all right. The sun was behind the mountains and twilight settled gently over the rangeland. To Rachel, this underpopulated corner of the world was the most beautiful place she’d ever seen. It was, quite simply, home. That, to her, said it all.

  When she arrived at the ranch she found Belinda and the kids alone at the house. She spent a few minutes in the living room with the kids, then joined Belinda in the kitchen. The kitchen table was the family’s main gathering area.

  “Where’s Ace?” Rachel asked.

  Belinda rolled her eyes. “It’s poker night. They’re all gathered around Jack’s kitchen table pretending to be he-men.”

  Rachel grinned. “What’s the matter? Wouldn’t they let you play?”

  Belinda snorted. “Not since I won Ace’s favorite Winchester from him last winter. He’s never forgiven me. Neither has Trey, for that matter. Number Three wanted it for himself.”

  “Don’t mind Trey. He’s always wanted that rifle, but all he wants to do is hang it on his wall and tell everybody he won it off Ace.”

  “Yeah, unlike me, huh?” Belinda laughed. “Frank was worried that I wanted to outline my name in bullet holes across the side of the barn, until Ace reminded him I couldn’t hit the side of the barn.”

  Both women laughed.

  “And Donna?” Rachel asked, noting that the housekeeper wasn’t around.

  “She drove into town for the evening. I don’t expect her back for a couple of hours. Why don’t I put on some coffee?” Belinda offered. “You don’t usually drive all the way out here after work in the middle of the week. You look like a woman with something on her mind.”

  Not admitting anything, Rachel pulled out a chair at the table and sat down. “Thanks. Coffee sounds good.”

  Belinda started a fresh pot brewing, then leaned against the counter to wait on it. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain old flame who’s moved back to town, would it?”

  Rachel sighed. She could dodge Belinda for a few more minutes, but to what good? Belinda had a mind like a steel trap, sharp and lethal, and once it got hold of something, it wouldn’t let go. And why should she dodge? Hadn’t she come out here to talk to someone? She might not have admitted it to herself, but that was the truth. And she would certainly rather talk to Belinda, who had only recently met Grady, than to one of her brothers, who’d been present that day they’d learned of his involvement with LaVerne.

  “A certain old flame,” she said with disgust. “Try the old flame. The only flame, old or otherwise, I’ve ever had.”

  “And now he’s back in town.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you still have feelings for him?”

  Rachel studied the tabletop with an intensity bordering on obsession. “I have no business feeling anything for him after the way he did me.”

  “That wasn’t what I asked,” Belinda said with a soft smile. “But I guess you answered me anyway, didn’t you? Those old embers are still there, huh?”

  “Mom?” Clay said from the doorway to the hall. “Our mouths are bored. Can we have some ice cream?”

  Belinda glanced at the clock on the wall. “I guess that could be arranged.”

  Rachel helped her dish up chocolate ice cream for three little boys. And two women. They made the boys come to the table for theirs. Belinda and Rachel were just sitting down to join them when the back door banged open and all three of Rachel’s brothers clomped into the kitchen.

  “Ah ha!” Ace cried. “See? I was right. They’re eating.”

  Belinda rolled her eyes. “You guys can smell food a mile away.”

  “Where’s ours?” Trey demanded.

  Belinda spooned up a bite of ice cream and motioned toward the freezer. “Help yourselves.”

  Ace kissed the top of Belinda’s head and made for the freezer. “That’s what I love about married life. A woman to wait on me hand and foot.”

  It was hard to tell who snorted the loudest at that blatant lie.

  With narrowed eyes that promised retribution, Belinda smiled around her spoonful of ice cream. “Wrong wife, Slick.”

  Ace grunted and started dishing up ice cream for himself. Jack and Trey were on their own.

  “So what are you doing out here tonight, Little Sis?”

  “Her house is on fire,” Clay stated calmly.

  “What?” all three Wilder men cried.

  Rachel frowned at Clay. “My house isn’t on fire, honey. Why would you think that?”

  Clay shrugged and licked his spoon. “What else could it be? You was talkin’ about flames and embers and all.”

  With all three of her brothers staring at her and waiting for an explanation, Rachel felt another set of flames, this time dancing across her cheeks. “That was, uh, just a figure of speech,” she managed.

  Ace’s gaze sharpened. “As in old flame, maybe?”

  Rachel took her time spooning up another bite of ice cream. “Nonsense.”

  Nothing more was said about flames and embers until the kids finished their ice cream and went back to the living room.

  Then Ace pounced. “You’re not seeing Lewis again, are you?”

  “Ace,” Belinda cautioned.

  “You weren’t here,” he said, his voice hard. “You didn’t see what that jerk did to her.”

  “No,” Belinda said calmly. “I didn’t. And unless Rachel wants to talk about it, it’s none of our business.” She eyed her husband and his brothers. “None of ours.”

  “The hell it isn’t,” Ace said. “I’ll be damned if I’ll stand by and watch her get involved with him again so he can—”

  “Excuse me?” Rachel interjected between clenched teeth. “First of all, big brother, nobody said anything about anyone getting involved. Second, I’m a grown woman. My life is my business, and not yours.”

  “You’re not going to start seeing Grady Lewis again.” Ace mad
e it a statement, not a question. A statement that sounded suspiciously like an order. “I don’t want you anywhere around him.”

  “I see him every day,” Rachel told him with a toss of her head. “It’s kind of hard not to, since I work right there on his ranch, and we’re partners in the clinic.”

  “You know that’s not what I meant,” Ace said, totally unrepentant.

  Rachel sighed. “I know you love me and you don’t want to see me get hurt, and I love you for that. But there’s no way I can avoid being around him now and then, and I don’t intend to try.” She stood and grabbed her purse from the counter. “There are a lot worse men in this county I could be seeing than Grady Lewis.”

  “Not in my book,” Ace muttered.

  “You read your book,” she said tightly, “and I’ll read mine. Good night. Thanks for the ice cream, Belinda.”

  “Dammit, Rachel,” Ace called as she rushed out the back door.

  “Way to go, Slick,” Belinda said.

  Ace started to go after his sister, but his wife’s words stopped him.

  “Don’t you dare,” Belinda snapped. “What are you trying to do, drive her straight into Grady Lewis’s arms?”

  “Of course not,” he protested.

  “Then leave her alone.”

  “She’s right, you know,” Jack said easily. “Telling Rachel not to do something is the same as daring her to do it.”

  “Like waving a red flag in front of a bull,” Trey added.

  “Oh, great.” Ace threw his hands up. “We’re supposed to just stand back and watch her get hurt again?”

  “Maybe he won’t hurt her this time,” Belinda offered.

  All three men stared at her in shocked protest.

  “He cheated on her,” Trey cried.

  “Got another girl pregnant while he was engaged to Rachel.”

  “And the way I hear it,” Belinda offered, “he lost everything he ever cared about because of that one foolish act.”

  Trey looked thoughtful. “He lost Rachel, that’s for sure, and there’s no denying he was crazy about her.”

  “Didn’t he also lose his home, his family, the veterinary degree he was after? Every friend he ever had? Don’t get me wrong—I’d like to wring his neck for hurting Rachel, and I make no excuses for anyone who can’t remain faithful. But it seems to me he’s paid a steeper price than most for his mistake. It might just be that he’s grown up some since then.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Ace said, his eyes wide. “This, from Ms. Feminist herself? He cheated on her, and you’re saying we should forget it?”

  “I’m saying it’s up to Rachel. The rest of us should back off and let her find her own way.”

  “Right after I pay him a little visit,” Ace muttered.

  Belinda narrowed her eyes. “Over my dead body, cowboy.”

  Rachel couldn’t believe she’d done that. Not only had she walked out on her family, she’d come perilously close—if not over the line—to defending Grady. How could she defend the man who had ripped her heart to shreds?

  The question echoed over and over in her mind as she ground her teeth and raced down the gravel ranch road toward the highway. If she hadn’t needed her foot on the gas pedal, she would have used it to kick herself in the rear.

  Not only was she angry, she was worried.

  Scared was more like it. And confused.

  For a few minutes the other night during the foaling, she had been at ease around Grady. It had seemed just then that perhaps they could become friends. It did not hit her until later, as the sun was coming up and she had been climbing into bed for a nap, how much she wanted his friendship. How much she wanted more than friendship.

  How could a woman be so stupid? It was like asking to pet the snake that just bit her. Hadn’t he nearly destroyed her once? Even if all she wanted was friendship, a friend was someone to trust. How could she ever trust a man who had betrayed her? And why would she even want to?

  But she did want to. She finally had to admit that to herself. She wanted to trust Grady. Wanted to be friends. But she knew that she couldn’t be around him without wanting more. Not unless he had changed more than she’d seen. Or unless she had.

  He was a good father to Cody. A wonderful father. He loved that boy something fierce. That had to say something about the man he’d become, didn’t it?

  And that she was even thinking this way had to say something about the deterioration of her own will and mind. There had been more than one time during the past five years when she’d sworn that if she ever got Grady Lewis in her sights again there would be hell to pay.

  Now, it seemed as though she was the one paying it.

  Forced to slow for the cattle guard and the turn onto the highway, Rachel also slowed her racing thoughts. As her car bumped gently over the iron poles, her mind bumped easily back to the past. To the Grady she had known before her world fell apart.

  Before he tore it apart, you mean, and don’t you forget it.

  It was getting dark now. Her headlights stabbed a path down the blacktop. The wind rushing in through her open windows grew colder as she picked up speed.

  When she thought of the Grady she used to know—the boy, the young man she had loved and who had loved her—she didn’t understand how he could have changed so much. Never would she have dreamed he would betray her. He had always been so open and honest with her, all the years they’d grown up together. He had loved her. If there was anything she believed, it was that.

  How could he have changed? He’d had such integrity. A real stand-up kind of guy who fought for what he believed in.

  Yet he’d slept with LaVerne Martin, and then gone off to college with Rachel, and for the next nine months he acted as if nothing had changed, as if he still loved her with every breath he took.

  For five years the questions had haunted her, the answers eluding, always out of her grasp. How could he?

  Ask him.

  She couldn’t do that. She would die if she had to listen to him tell about being with LaVerne, even in the most abstract terms. She would just curl up in a little bitty ball and die.

  Loose LaVerne, of all people.

  “Shame on you,” she muttered to herself. La-Verne had paid with her life for her indiscretion. She didn’t deserve to be remembered with such a derogatory name. Rachel wouldn’t pretend she had ever liked the girl, but she had no business denigrating her when she wasn’t here to defend herself.

  But Grady’s here, and he tried to defend himself. You wouldn’t listen.

  Defend himself? That wasn’t really what he’d said. He’d said he wanted to tell her the truth.

  There was no truth he could tell her that would make any difference. The truth was, he betrayed her. He fathered a child—a beautiful little boy whom Rachel already loved—with another woman. He’d left town. He’d stayed gone for five years. He’d destroyed her life, her dreams. Her heart.

  Those were the truths. If she had to listen to him tell her about being with LaVerne…no, he could keep his truth.

  Why, then, couldn’t she stop thinking about him? Why did the old pull feel stronger every time she saw him? There were times when she thought it was at least as strong if not stronger than what she’d felt as a teenager.

  And there hid another truth. She’d never gotten over him. That was why she’d never been able to bring herself to get involved with another man. Why she’d used school to keep herself too busy for anything but an occasional casual date.

  A flash of light drew her gaze to her rearview mirror. Some portion of her mind had been aware that a car was coming up behind her, but she hadn’t paid any attention. She should have. The light she saw now was red and flashing.

  “Oh, hell.” The needle on her speedometer was dancing boldly on eighty. “Oh, hell.”

  She slowed and pulled off onto the shoulder of the road and waited.

  “Late-night veterinary emergency?”

  Rachel looked up into the startlingly han
dsome face of Undersheriff Dane Powell. She’d met Dane when she came home on spring break a couple of months ago, shortly after Sheriff Martin hired him. Sometimes she caught herself wondering why she couldn’t be attracted to him. He was gorgeous in a hard-edged sort of way. With that black hair, those blue eyes, those chiseled features, you could put him in a room with her three brothers and a stranger would be hard-pressed to pick out the one who wasn’t a Wilder.

  He seemed honest and dependable. She’d seen him back down three angry drunks at once without breaking a sweat, so she knew he was tough.

  But from the moment they met, she’d felt a sort of sisterly affection for him that surprised and confused her. And he treated her as though she were a sister. They were friends, and that’s all they would ever be. And it was a crying shame.

  She gave him a twisted smile. “If I said it was an emergency, I’d be lying.”

  He flashed his flashlight into the car. “At least you’ve got your seat belt on. That’ll come in handy, maybe, when a deer or an elk steps out in front of you. Of course, a little tin can like this, it won’t matter much. You’ll all be totaled—the animal, the car, and you.”

  Rachel rolled her eyes. “And at sixty-five I’ll be ever so much safer.”

  Dane pursed his lips. “At sixty-five you won’t get charged with slaughtering animals out of season. It’ll be a comfort to your surviving family members. You gonna slow down?”

  “Yes, sir.” She gave him a sheepish grin. “I wasn’t deliberately speeding. I just wasn’t paying attention.”

  He shook his head, but she saw the twinkle in his eye. “A smart college girl like you, I thought for sure you could come up with a better excuse than that old cliché.”

  “I promise to come up with something better the next time.”

  “The next time, you’re getting a ticket, no matter how good your excuse.”

  She smiled in gratitude that he wasn’t giving her a ticket this time. “Yes, sir. And Dane, thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.” He smiled back. “I mean, really, don’t mention it. I’m supposed to give you a ticket this time.”