Blood Trails

by Sharon Sala

  Before his coat was off, Holly saw the gaping wound on the palm of his hand. “Oh, no, that’s going to need stitches. Leave your coat on. I’m driving you into Missoula.”

  “Well, hell.”

  “Does it hurt much?” she asked, as she grabbed a fresh towel and wrapped it tightly around his hand.

  “It’s beginning to.”

  Holly saw a muscle jerking in the side of his jaw; his skin was pale and clammy. Shock.

  “I’m so sorry.” She cupped the side of his face. “Let me get my coat and the car keys, and we’ll be ready to go.”

  Bud flinched at her touch, and tried not to give himself away. Needing to keep an emotional distance between them, he glanced through the doorway to the suitcase on her bed.

  “Looks like you’re busy packing. I can get one of the men to drive me.”

  Holly turned on him, her eyes blazing. “You’ll do no such thing!” She grabbed her coat from the closet and her purse off the bed, and led him back through the house and into the garage.

  “We should take the work truck,” Bud said, as he hesitated beside the door of the family Lincoln. “I’ll get blood on these seats.”

  Holly ignored him and opened the passenger door. “Sit,” she said briefly, then leaned over and buckled him in.

  She was so focused on hurrying that she didn’t hear his swift intake of breath as her hair brushed across his face, and even if she had, she would not have recognized it as the bone-deep want for Holly Slade with which he lived.

  Within minutes Holly was on the highway and speeding toward Missoula.

  “There’s no need to speed,” Bud said.

  Her lips were pressed tightly together, her eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun coming through the windshield. She glanced quickly at Bud’s hand to see if blood had begun seeping through again, then back at the highway.

  “You’ve lost a lot of blood. What if this had happened after I was gone?”

  “Then one of the men would have driven me into town,” he said, and looked away, suddenly interested in the passing scenery.

  Knowing she was going back to where she was born and into such a dangerous situation was making him crazy. If he’d been paying attention to his business instead of thinking about her, he would have had the presence of mind to get out of the way of the mares and not been cut at all.

  Holly’s fingers gripped the steering wheel even tighter as she drove. Even though it was an improbable title, she considered herself the caretaker of the Triple S. She didn’t want someone else usurping her place, which was just another reason she’d told herself she shouldn’t go.

  She made the drive to Missoula in record time, took the street leading to the hospital and then made the turn leading to the emergency room. She was out and opening Bud’s door before he could unbuckle his seat belt. Again she leaned in, hit the button and released the catch.

  “Lean on me,” she said, and slipped her arm around his waist to steady his steps.

  He felt helpless, which made him angry. “There’s nothing wrong with my feet.”

  “You’ve lost a lot of blood,” Holly argued.

  “I’m not going to pass out.”

  “You don’t know that,” she muttered, as they walked into the E.R.

  The receptionist looked up.

  “We need a doctor. He’s bleeding badly,” Holly said.

  The receptionist offered her a clipboard with a personal history chart and insurance info to be filled out.

  Holly glared. “I’m sorry. You must not have heard me. He has been bleeding like this for the past twenty minutes. That bloody towel on his hand is the second one he’s soaked. We need a doctor, not a medical form.”

  The receptionist frowned, but got up from her chair and hurried through a pair of swinging doors, then returned with a doctor.

  “Thank you so much,” Holly said, and pointed to the clipboard. “I’ll help him fill that out while they’re stitching him up.”

  Still irked that her rules had been challenged, the receptionist handed her the clipboard without comment.

  Holly didn’t care if she’d ruffled some feathers. Her focus was on Bud’s welfare as she followed him into an exam room. Within minutes the doctor and a nurse had his coat off and his shirtsleeve rolled up, and the nurse was cleaning debris from the cut while Holly dutifully filled out the questionnaire, asking Bud questions when she didn’t know the answers.

  It was the first time she could remember seeing him helpless and in pain, and she didn’t like it. He was always the go-to man. It shocked her that he could be felled so easily, which led to thoughts of the only father she’d ever known, Andrew. Once she’d thought the same of him, but fate had proven her wrong. One minute Andrew had been talking and laughing, and the next he had dropped dead of an aneurysm.

  Now she was back in the same hospital where Andrew had been brought, only this time it was Bud on the examining table. Even though this injury wasn’t life-threatening, it panicked her to think she could ever lose him, too.

  As she sat watching them work, her focus was on Bud, and it was as if she were seeing him for the very first time.

  Nearly forty, he was a man in his prime at six feet three inches tall, with dark straight hair and even darker eyes, and angular features. Holly caught herself staring at the sensual cut of his lips, then at a mouth that was often curved in laughter. He caught her staring and winked.

  Holly blinked. Just for a second she’d let herself pretend he was hers to admire. It startled her enough that she blushed and actually looked away, then wondered why. It was just Bud being Bud and trying to lighten the moment. He couldn’t know how she felt. It didn’t mean anything.

  Twelve stitches later they left the emergency room, stopped by the pharmacy to get a prescription for pain pills filled and then headed home. As the city limit sign disappeared in the distance behind them, the panic of the trip to the hospital also disappeared.

  “Are you okay?” Holly asked, looking for signs of pain or stress on his face.

  Bud knew she was rattled. “I’m fine, sugar. Stop worrying. It’s not the first time I’ve gotten stitches.”

  “I guess, but it’s the first time I was the only one around to see it.”

  Bud reached across the seat to give her arm a quick squeeze. “The past week has been hell for all of us, and this didn’t help. I’m sorry.”

  Holly shook her head. “No, don’t apologize for anything. It’s not just Dad dying, or your accident. It’s everything we found out about our pasts. I am scared and mad, but at the same time I feel this huge sense of obligation to go back to my place of birth.”

  This was the first time he’d realized how torn Holly was about leaving. The other two had seemed driven to leave the ranch. He had assumed Holly felt the same. Knowing she did not made it even harder for him to let her go without telling her how he felt. The urge to spill his guts about his feelings was on the tip of his tongue, but instead of giving in, he offered a simple solution to her fears.

  “You don’t have to go alone.”

  Holly grimaced. “Yes, actually, I do. I can’t explain it, but I know that much is true.”

  Bud’s frown deepened. “I don’t agree. Of all Andrew’s daughters, your story scares me most. Your father was a suspected serial killer, Holly. You go back there and stir up old secrets, what’s to keep him from coming after you?”

  “We don’t even know if he’s still alive. If he is, he probably moved years ago. I don’t expect him to be an issue. I just feel like it’s my duty to at least tell the police what my mother believed to be true. I don’t have huge expectations of finding out what happened to her, but I have to at least go through the motions.”

  Again Bud wanted to tell her what she meant to him, that he couldn’t sleep for worrying about where she was going, and again he tempered the urge by reaching for the bottle of pop Holly brought him when she had his prescription filled and taking a long drink. The Pepsi burned the back of his th
roat as he swallowed. After a second swallow, he had his emotions under control.

  Still distracted by the accident and her upcoming trip, Holly didn’t notice Bud’s unusual silence the rest of the way home. It wasn’t until she was turning off the highway onto the ranch that she realized he hadn’t said a word in miles, but she chalked it up to pain.

  A hawk that had been sitting on a nearby fence post took flight. Holly watched until it disappeared into the sun, then shivered. It was like a visual analogy to the women who’d been victims of that years-ago killer. One moment they’d been alive, and the next they were gone. It was an obscenity that her birth father could possibly be the killer. She wouldn’t let herself think of what that made her. Not now. Not yet.

  She pulled into the garage and killed the engine. For a few seconds they sat within the silence of the car without speaking. Then all of a sudden they both spoke at once.

  “Why—”

  “When—”

  Holly grinned. “You first.”

  Bud tried to smile, but it just wouldn’t come. “When does your flight leave?”

  “Nine-fifteen tomorrow morning.”

  “I’m driving you.”

  “But your hand…”

  “Is still attached to my arm, which will come in handy when I drive you into Missoula to catch your damned plane,” Bud said. “Thank you for driving me. I need to go check on the men.”

  Holly blinked away tears as he got out of the car and walked away. He sounded angry. But that didn’t make sense. He was probably in pain and didn’t want to admit it.

  She gathered up the sack with his pain pills and what was left of his Pepsi, and went into the house.

  Holly was packed. The suitcase sitting by her bedroom door was a potent reminder of what tomorrow would bring. She still had tonight to get through and didn’t want to waste it on regrets. Her place in this house was grounded in the everyday realities of life.

  After her stepmother, Hannah, had died, she’d become the caretaker, the housekeeper, the cook. Like her sisters, she’d opted to live at home during her college years and had stepped into the role of “lady of the house” without an issue.

  Bud was due back at any time. This was the last time she would get to cook for him for a while, and she was determined to make his favorite foods. He would be on his own when it came to laundry and meals until she returned, although she’d arranged for a local cleaning service to come out once a week and clean house.

  The roast she’d put in the oven a couple of hours ago was done, as were the vegetables she’d put in with it. She’d just taken a chocolate pie out of the oven and set it on the counter to cool. The meringue was a thing of beauty, with the peaks browned lightly to a golden perfection. Now all she had to do was make a salad and the meal would be ready.

  She glanced at the clock. It was half past seven. The sun had already set. She walked out onto the back porch to look toward the barn, then beyond to the stables to see if she could see Bud’s truck. No luck.

  She shivered as a blast of cold air whipped around the side of the house. Spring was here, but Montana weather had yet to catch up with that fact. She had turned to go back inside when she heard the sound of an engine and saw the lights of Bud’s truck coming out from behind the barn. Instead of going inside, she wrapped her arms around her waist and waited for him to reach the house.

  Bud’s mood was glum until he looked up and saw Holly standing beneath the porch light. At that moment everything that had been dragging him down, from the pain in his hand to the knowledge that she was leaving tomorrow, disappeared.

  The wind was cold, whipping her hair about her face. She wasn’t wearing a jacket over her jeans and sweater, and yet she stood there waiting, like a beacon in the dark—waiting for him. The surge of emotion that swept through him was so strong that his vision blurred.

  God.

  He’d never thought it possible to love anyone as much as he loved her. All he could think as he drove toward the house was that he had to get through this night and see her off on her flight without losing it.

  By the time he parked, Holly had come off the steps to meet him.

  “How’s your hand?” she asked, as she opened the driver’s side door.

  Bud tweaked her ear. “You are such a mother hen.”

  Holly grinned. “So shoot me. I’m just practicing for the real thing.”

  Bud stumbled. The thought of someone else being the father of her children was physically painful.

  Holly grabbed his elbow, then slipped an arm around his waist to steady him. “See? You do need a keeper.”

  Bud gritted his teeth to keep from sweeping her into his arms. “As long as it was you, I guess I wouldn’t mind.”

  Holly snorted softly. “You say that, but we both know you’re not the kind who’d ever stand for that kind of help full-time. Supper is ready. I hope you’re hungry.”

  “I’m starved,” he said. “I just need to wash up.”

  They walked into the house arm in arm, as they’d done a thousand times before, and without speaking of it, both knew that this might never happen again in just the same way. Andrew Slade’s death had changed everything. It remained to be seen how the future would unfold.

  “Lord, something smells good,” Bud said, as he eased his sore hand out of a glove, then shrugged out of his coat and hung it on a peg by the back door.

  “Pot roast and vegetables,” Holly said. “You wash up while I make the salad.”

  Bud paused. “That’s my favorite meal.”

  “I know. It’s why I made it,” Holly said. “No telling what you’re going to eat until I get back.”

  “I can cook, but nothing like you do,” he said.

  Holly smiled. She wouldn’t turn down a little praise for a job well done.

  Then Bud saw the dessert.

  “Oh, Lord. Is that a chocolate pie?”

  Holly’s smile widened. “Yes.”

  He gave her a quick hug.

  “Thank you, sugar. I’m already spoiled, but I do appreciate it.”

  Holly didn’t give herself time to think about how it felt to be standing in Robert Tate’s arms. The emotions it conjured were too scary to consider.

  When he left, she busied herself with slicing the roast and putting the food on their plates. By the time he came back, she had their plates on the table and coffee in their cups.

  Bud waited until she’d taken a seat and then chose the chair directly across the table. Surely to God they could get through one meal without coming undone.

  Two

  Bud scraped the last bit of chocolate and meringue from his plate, and popped it in his mouth.

  “Holly, that meal was amazing.”

  Holly beamed. Being successful at something was satisfying. She’d planned to have a catering business one day, which had led her to pursue her business degree. She had the degree, but had left the dream on the back burner.

  “Thank you. I have Mom to thank for that, you know.”

  Bud laid down his fork and leaned back in the chair, watching the smile on her face spread to her eyes. It was good to see her smile, even if it was just for a few moments.

  “What were you…about twelve or thirteen when Hannah died?” he asked.

  “Thirteen, almost fourteen, but I had seven precious years under her tutelage. Everything I learned about being a woman I learned from watching her with Dad. She adored him and us so much. I thought we were the luckiest family in the world to have her for a mom.”

  Her voice trailed off as memories overwhelmed her. Before she knew it, her eyes were full of tears. Unwilling to break down in front of Bud again, she jumped up and began clearing the table. When he stood up to help, she quickly waved him away.

  “No, no, for once you’re definitely excused. You don’t need to get your bandage or your stitches wet.”

  He’d had a glove on it all day, but reality about what came next was beginning to set in.

  “Shoot. How am I su
pposed to shower?”

  As the problem solver in the house, Holly had a solution. “No big deal. I’ll put a plastic bag over your hand and tape it down with duct tape. It will keep the water off your hand at least long enough for you to shower, okay?”

  Bud grinned. “You are definitely Andrew’s daughter. Every vehicle on the property carries duct tape, WD-40 and baling wire.”

  Holly grinned as she pointed at a chair. “Sit. I’ll help you get your boots off.”

  “I’ve got a bootjack in my room.”

  But she wasn’t having it. She stood with her hands on her hips, waiting for him to acquiesce.

  Bud had seen that look of determination on her face too many times to think there was any point in arguing. He sat down and lifted a foot.

  Holly grabbed the boot, deftly pulling it off and then set it aside. “Next,” she said, and snorted softly when he rolled his eyes. “You’re such a fake. You like this, and you know it.”

  When she bent back over to pull off his other boot, his gaze slid to her curvy body. “Yeah, I like it,” he said, then reluctantly looked away.

  “There you go,” Holly said. “Get your shirt off, and then I’ll tape the plastic bag over your hand.”

  Bud sighed. He’d spent years thinking about getting naked with Holly, but not like this. He unbuckled his belt, then unsnapped the first snap on his Levi’s before pulling his shirt out of the waistband, while Holly dug through the cabinet for a plastic bag, then went into the utility room for the duct tape.

  As she walked back into the kitchen she stopped short, as if she’d just been punched in the gut. Surely she’d seen Bud Tate without a shirt before, and it wasn’t as if he was completely nude. But her knees went weak at the thought of that much man without a stitch of clothes.

  Afraid that he might suddenly read her mind, she lifted her chin and strode toward him with purpose.

  “I’m just sick that you’ve done this right when I’m going to be gone,” she said, and slipped the bag over his bandaged hand, then tore off a strip of duct tape and fastened it around his wrist.