The solution was plain to Becky, and she was drunk. What was wrong with these people? “Okay, why doesn’t Ronan knock up his wife and solve the problem?” Getting pregnant only took one time and Ronan’s wife didn’t have to be in town to deliver the baby.
Amelia bared her teeth and scrunched her eyes. “Well, he would, but Bethany is sterile. And she’s not what I’d call a ‘loyal and loving’ wife. Two months ago, for example, she didn’t even aim for discretion and leave the mayor’s house at night. His wife was out of town and Bethany had stayed the night. She left during Sunday brunch. The mayor lives down the street from the diner.” She sucked against her teeth. “Even if she could get pregnant, Ronan would never know if the kid was his and he’s too proud to ask for a paternity test.”
Becky’s head swam and not just in alcohol. The facts were distorting themselves and part of her sympathized with Ronan but already she couldn’t remember the reason. “Okay, wait, why does he doubt the marriage? Didn’t you and Robbie get married with the cake and the veil and all that?”
Face pale, Amelia twisted the band on her finger. “Not exactly. Just in front of a judge up in Kalispell, a town north of here.” Her eyes roamed the room and didn’t stay on any one spot.
“Okay, come clean. I’m Mac’s doctor. What aren’t you telling me?” Becky crossed her arms over her chest. She’d had it.
“I… We didn’t actually get married. I married Slate but he was acting like Robbie.”
“I don’t understand. Like proxy? Then what’s the problem.” Things were getting fuzzier.
“No, proxy is when you have someone’s permission. I’m married to Robbie. But he doesn’t know it.” Amelia grimaced. “Slate produced Robbie’s license and passed himself off as his brother and signed all the documents. That was three days before Mac’s birthday. Robbie hasn’t been in town since I was three months pregnant and Ronan knows it because he drove him to Missoula.”
Becky groaned. “This is like watching a terrible soap opera. What’s next? Is your great-great grandpa going to come back to life and say he’s your son?” She pressed her fingers to her temples. She sighed. “What can I do for you, Amelia?”
Amelia tossed a look at the closed door. “I need you to date Slate.”
Becky’s throat constricted. Was she kidding? “I’m sorry?”
“I don’t expect you to marry him or anything. I need you to date Slate so Ronan is convinced nothing is going on between me and him. It’s part of his defense. If Slate has a girlfriend or another woman he’s seen with it will nullify that portion of the claim. I don’t care about the property, I just want Mac to have what’s rightfully his.” Guileless, Amelia’s eyes beseeched Becky. “Plus, if Mac has his inheritance defined, then Ronan would have to stop harassing Slate about the money owed on Lonely River.”
But Becky was lost in the request to date Slate. Did Amelia suspect Slate and Becky had almost rolled around in the hay – literally – outside? Well, in all honesty, Becky had almost done it while Slate laughed at her. Heat encircled the back of her neck. “What makes you think he’d go out with me?”
“Are you kidding? If you can ask that, you haven’t seen the way he looks at you. Like Pig looks at his favorite mare.” She offered a soft chuckle.
Becky sighed. “Do I look like a horse or something? He’s said things about me being like a horse, too. It’s ridiculous.”
Disbelief widened Amelia’s eyes. “He’s compared you to a horse? That’s like comparing you to gold. Horses are everything to these guys, Slate in particular. Not only does he value them money-wise, but he cares about them as well. Wow, now you have to date him.”
Have to? Did Becky have to? Maybe as a favor to her client’s mom, or maybe as a favor to herself, but she didn’t commit one way or another to the plan. Amelia had given Becky plenty to think about. Becky just hoped she could sort through it all after the alcohol wore off and make sense of it. If she even remembered the events of that night.
She returned to her room before Slate could find her. Not that he was looking for her.
~~~
A mare. Something about a mare. Becky rolled over on the layers and layers of down bedding. Her jeans were still on. Nothing seemed familiar. She rolled over further to stare at the nightstand. Oh, right. The flask glared at her. Lovely. She must have missed dinner.
Light filtered through the soft curtains. Pushing up from the bed, Becky glanced out the window. More snow had fallen during her drunken episode – another foot at least. She refused to be stuck at Lonely River Ranch. A wave of nausea rushed her and she sat back down. Crap, she’d forgotten to drink water the night before.
A knock at the door. “Dr. O’Donald, are you awake?” Amelia whispered through the panel.
Becky rolled her eyes. No more. She remembered the “favor” and didn’t want to rehash the details or be pressed for an answer. She moved with caution to pull the door open a couple inches. “Hey, Amelia. Is Mac okay?”
“Yes, he’s fine, thank you. Actually up and tossing a ball to his uncle from bed. Did you want to come out for breakfast? I’m heading to town in a little bit and I’d be happy to pick up something at your house, if you’d like.” Amelia’s smile resembled a peace offering, hesitant but warm.
She was going in to town.
The overnighter had been a bust. Becky opened the door further. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and watched Amelia from under her slight bangs. “Do you think I could catch a ride in? I have a lot of paperwork to catch up on.” Before Amelia could argue as suggested by her rounded mouth and V’d eyebrows, Becky smiled. “Thanks, I’ll grab my stuff and meet you by the door?” Ducking into the room, she recovered her flask and the small, unopened bag Slate had helped her pack.
Woops, she forgot to wait for Amelia’s answer – sarcasm didn’t make her hangover any better. Ugh.
She closed the door on her way out. Giggles from down the hall made her smile. If Mac was laughing and playing, he didn’t need her anymore. And his joy meant Slate was busy. Becky didn’t have to relive the embarrassment with him in person, just in her own head.
Becky tapped her feet on the floor of the truck. She needed to get out of town. If the clinic was closed for the weather and PA Tim was still at Lacey Caverns but accessible by phone, maybe Becky would try to get out of town for a couple of days. She could check on her parents in person. Rinse Slate from her system – with something other than alcohol.
Amelia lowered the stereo volume. “I’m sorry about last night. I shouldn’t have pushed something like that, or even suggested it. I feel like I’m grasping at straws anymore, you know? And this town is so small, I’m craving girl talk and all the girls talk. I just… I don’t know. I can’t ask any of the other women to date Slate. They all want to date him anyway. He’s known them forever. You’re fresh, you know? He doesn’t know you. He doesn’t know your history or your family’s.” The truck crept forward at ten miles an hour.
Tempted to jump out and push the rig faster, Becky breathed in through her nose and expelled out her mouth. The driver’s lack of girl time was obvious, she wouldn’t stop talking. Becky empathized with her, though. Anytime she got nervous, she talked like mad, too. “Look, it’s not that I’m not attracted to Slate. I am. He’s hot as hell, to be frank. But he’s not as interested in me as you think.”
“I bet that’s not true. You just need to ask him out. I’ll pay for a date night.” Amelia divided her attention between Becky and the road. “Go to the diner or the bakery café. You guys could have fun together.”
Becky faced Amelia. “Let me ask you something, just between us, okay?”
“Sure.” Amelia was serious in her driving and the conversation.
A buzz in Becky’s jacket pocket claimed her attention. She grabbed for her phone. “Excuse me a second.” In the service area, a voicemail flashed on her screen. She dialed and listened to PA Tim whine about something at the Lacey Caverns Ranch and needing her help. Becky ended the
call mid-message. “Would you mind swinging by your brother’s? Tim said there’s something he needs help with.” Must be something pretty tricky if Tim called for assistance.
Amelia pressed her lips together. If possible, she slowed the truck further. “I can, but it’s just a game. He doesn’t need you. Ronan wants to talk to you again. He’s using you.”
Becky shrugged. “I can’t judge that. If I’m needed then I need to go. It isn’t up to me to decide who I do or do not treat. If he’s abusing the services, then I’ll let him know. The last thing I’m going to do is allow the issues between the MacAllisters and James affect my work. Okay?” She tried to be polite about it, but she didn’t pull off the exact level of “nice” she was going for. With the growing ache in her head and a dry coating in her mouth, Becky had to give herself props for not shouting at Amelia to keep her nose out of Becky’s business.
The curve was just up ahead. Amelia pulled onto the driveway, her knuckles white with her grip on the wheel. “Can I just drop you off? I can come back when you’re done and give you a ride back to Lonely River, if you change your mind.” Amelia drove into the driveway but shifted into reverse.
Bag in hand, Becky nodded her head. “Thanks, Amelia, but I’ll make Ronan or Tim drive me in to town.”
“Be careful.” Her meaning was clear.
Knocking on the partly open door, she pushed it further into the house. “Tim? Mr. James? It’s Dr. O’Donald.” Her voice reverberated off the high wooden ceilings with a hollow tone.
No answer. The moment felt similar to one in a horror flick. If a dead body appeared on the floor, Becky would be more pissed than scared. She could be back at her place showering, checking on her parents, or doing chart work. Where were they?
A faint but chilling scream sounded from behind the house. Becky dropped her overnight bag by the door and ran around the perimeter, high stepping through the deep snow, cold soaking through her jeans. Her wound didn’t stop her as much as it had the day before.
Louder, the next scream pulled her around the next corner and the next. Directly behind the house, off the edge of the spread out deck, a wide field covering the length of a football field blanketed in white showcased a horrifying scene.
Bright red splashed across the snow from a central point at the barbed wire fence.
Becky ignored the burn growing in her leg. Hell, the wound she had paled in comparison to the crap the horse was going through.
Ronan, Tim, and Slate huddled around a small version of Pig wrapped in barbed wire. Slate’s voice crooned across the flat expanse dwindling between them with each step. His rhythm stilted when he noticed her approach. A trickle of sweat escaped his dampened dark hair peaking from under the cowboy hat.
A silent snowmobile sat on his side of the fence. He’d arrived to help rather fast.
Becky avoided the question in his eyes and his large hands encased in thick, leather gloves. She tapped Tim’s shoulder. “Did you guys call me?”
Ronan looked up from the wire cutters in his hand and grunted. “Doc. We called up to LRR to get you and got MacAllister instead. He said you’d already left.” He nodded in Slate’s direction. “So he came down to help pull out the horse.”
The snow was cold, but Becky ignored its wet embrace as she knelt in the smashed piles surrounding the captured animal. “Whose horse is this?”
“MacAllister’s.” Tim tilted his head her direction, but his hands worked to hold the horse still. Ronan clipped at the ensnaring wire which tangled around the horse. Slate sat back on his haunches and brushed the horse’s face from his nose to his ears.
The horse struggled again, wire cutting further into his skin. He screamed, chilling through Becky’s blood and frosting the marrow in her bones.
“Damn it, hold him, guys.” Ronan twisted the cutters to the right, the left, up and down. More blood spread around the black body. The dark red metal he pulled on disappeared into the flesh. He tossed the wire cutters to the ground and sank his head into his hands.
A moment of heavy breathing passed. No one seemed to know what to do.
Becky’s mouth fell open, white puffs of air bursting before her with her fast breathing.
Ronan pulled a .357 Magnum from his hip holster. Becky hadn’t seen one since before her mom’s first stroke. The dull black barrel became the sudden focus of the group. He held it out, butt toward Slate, and lowered his eyes.
Slate’s voice cut through the icy chill. “I can’t do this one, R.J. He’s Amelia’s. I don’t…” He swallowed. “He was my gift for her and Mac.”
The words stung, but not as much as the possibility that Becky would be a witness to the death of a young horse. She had to do something. But what could she do? Ronan was obviously unable to get the wire from the horse’s legs and hindquarters and his strength was at least ten times greater than hers.
But maybe that wasn’t what would do it. He’d pulled and yanked in frustration, not patience. Becky stepped forward. “Wait. Let me see what I can do.”
“Dr. O’Donald, this isn’t an appropriate time or place to try your hand at horse surgery. We called you too late. There’s nothing you can do here.” PA Tim rolled his eyes and shook his head, lowering himself further on her list of likeable people.
Slate looked at her, his eyes solemn and dark. “We can only afford another minute or so before it’s just being cruel to the animal. He’s lost a lot of blood, already.”
Becky dropped to all fours and crept toward the horse, out of his line of view. Picking up the hand tool, she studied the mess by her lap. Wire was like nylon suture. Her first day in surgery, she’d gotten the needle and clamps wrapped up in each other. The mess had been smaller and less deadly than the one with the horse, but a problem nonetheless. Her instructor had shown her just where to cut to release the materials.
Deep breath in to steady her nerves, Becky pinched the wire just outside of the flesh. She clamped down hard and twisted the metal with the cutters. A snip and a pop followed by a jerk of the horse’s leg and the metal slid from the skin an inch below the knee joint. A few more snips and twists and the horse’s lower leg was free from the fencing, a pile of metal bits lay in a mound of fur chunks, blood and flesh beside Becky’s thigh.
As if sensing his life hung in the balance, the horse sat meek and mild, the whites of his rolling eyes the only indication he was aware of the pain.
Slate continued wiping the horse’s face.
Ronan had knelt beside her and offered a hand to hold the limb she worked on. Becky glanced up and found him searching her face. She glanced at Slate whose downcast eyes didn’t flicker her way, but his jaw had tightened.
Becky didn’t know what was going on, and at the moment she didn’t care. She was on fire. The surgery reminded her of working in a trauma center. Her favorite case to come in had been a twelve-year-old boy who’d wrapped his hand around a firecracker. The accident had been traumatic and she’d gagged in her mouth. The smell of sulfa burned flesh strong in the ER room. But she’d sucked it up and done what was needed, saving the boy from the certain amputation the other doctor had immediately recommended.
She’d saved the horse, at least the outcome appeared better – so far.
A heavy cloth covered the damaged but metal-free flesh she left in her wake. The final wire, barbs deep in the horse’s neck muscles, took forearm muscles she didn’t have to cut through. Ronan slipped his hand over hers, his gloves warm but crusty, and squeezed the cutters in her hands.
Becky didn’t feel anything but the sting of Slate’s gaze.
Chapter 18
Of course Becky would fall for R.J. Every woman succumbed to his Nordic charm.
Slate glowered at his exam table where the young horse lay sedated.
Ronan nodded his head and spoke to Becky. “Doc, I’ll give you a ride into town. We can finish our conversation from before.”
Unable to speak, Slate’s throat tightened, immobilizing his jaw and a loud hissing worked outsid
e his ears.
Becky smiled at Ronan. She didn’t jerk away when his hand closed over hers. In no time, she’d be under his spell and he’d get the blood sample and medical records he so desperately wanted.
“MacAllister.” Ronan nodded his head at Slate who offered a stiff smile. The men weren’t on good terms, but in Montana you helped your neighbor, called a truce while the danger was imminent then returned to the feud once all was clear.
Leaving with She-Doc, Ronan ensured the anger between the men a longer life.
“Um, Slate, is there anything I can do to help before I go?” Becky stretched out a hand and stroked Mini-Pig’s silky mane. “I feel so… helpless, you know? Poor little guy.” Husky and low, her tone caressed the back of Slate’s neck.
Ronan waited by the door for her, pulling his gloves from his pocket and flicking something from the shoulder of his coat. Priss.
“I think you’ve done more than your share, Doc. You know? Thanks to you, Mini-Pig didn’t have to eat a bullet.” Slate shook his head, amazed. “I got him home. I can take it from here. Animals are my specialty, remember?” He tried to push some of their time together into her mind so she wouldn’t head out with Ronan thinking only of, well, Ronan – the bastard. “You don’t have to leave. You could stay. I’ll take you in to town later, if you’d like.” He lowered his voice further. “We need to talk about last night.”
Wrong words.
Becky’s eyes widened and her mouth formed an O. “Uh, um, well, the thing is, I need to dictate some charts and check in with my parents. But I’ll watch for you, okay?” She darted outside with Ronan in tow.
Slate’s stomach dropped. He’d never understand women.
~~~
Night had fallen. Somehow he’d missed that. Slate had stitched three-hundred-and-twelve combined sutures on Mini-Pig’s body.
He would’ve chased after Becky if there hadn’t been so much blood. Or so many questions.
Slate rubbed the back of his neck and opened the front door with his free hand.
Spurs and Lace (Lonely Lace Series Book 1) Page 11