by Diana Palmer
‘‘Going hunting?’’ Meredith asked impishly.
He gave her a wary glance. ‘‘Skeet shooting,’’ he corrected. ‘‘The season’s over, but I practice year-round.’’
‘‘He won two medals at the World championships in San Antonio, this year,’’ Leo told her with a grin. ‘‘He’s an ‘A’ class shooter.’’
‘‘Which gauge?’’ she asked without thinking.
Rey’s face became suspicious. ‘‘All of them. What do you know about shotguns?’’
‘‘I used to skeet-shoot,’’ she volunteered. ‘‘My brother taught me how to handle a shotgun, and then he got me into competition shooting. I wasn’t able to keep it up after I grad…after high school,’’ she improvised quickly. She didn’t dare tell him she gave it up after she finished college. That would be giving away far too much.
He watched her sip coffee. ‘‘You can shoot, can you?’’ he asked, looking as if he were humoring her. He didn’t seem to believe what she claimed.
‘‘Yes, I can,’’ she said deliberately.
He smiled. ‘‘Like to come down to the range with me?’’ he asked. ‘‘I’ve got a nice little .28 gauge I can bring along for you.’’
By offering her his lowest caliber shotgun, he was assuming that she couldn’t handle anything heavier.
‘‘What’s in the case?’’ she asked.
‘‘My twelve gauge,’’ he said.
She gave him a speaking glance. ‘‘I’ll just shoot that, if you don’t mind sharing it. Uh, it doesn’t have a kick or anything…?’’ she added, and had to bite her tongue to keep from grinning at her innocent pose.
He cleared his throat. He didn’t dare look at Leo. ‘‘No,’’ he said carelessly. ‘‘Of course it doesn’t have a kick.’’
In truth, it would kick worse than any other of the four gauges, but Rey was planning to call her bluff. She was putting on an act for his benefit. He was going to make her sorry she tried it.
‘‘Then I’ll be just fine with that gun,’’ she said. ‘‘More apple butter?’’ She offered him an open jar and spoon.
‘‘Thanks,’’ he replied smugly, accepting the jar. He put it down and buttered another biscuit before he spooned the apple butter into it. ‘‘Don’t mind if I do. Leo, want to come along?’’ he asked his brother.
Leo was also trying not to grin. ‘‘I think I will, this time,’’ he told his brother. This was one shooting contest he wasn’t about to miss. He knew that Mike Johns was a champion shooter. If he’d been the one who taught his sister, Meredith would shock Rey speechless when she got that shotgun in her arms. He was going along. He didn’t want to miss the fun.
‘‘The more the merrier, I always say,’’ Rey chuckled.
‘‘Funny thing, that’s just what I was thinking,’’ Leo replied, tongue-in-cheek.
Meredith didn’t say another word. She finished her breakfast, waited until they finished theirs, and put the dishes in the dishwasher. Then she dressed in jeans, boots, and a long-sleeved flannel shirt with a down-filled vest and a bib cap, and went off to let Rey show her how to shoot a shotgun.
The target range was unusually busy for a lazy Friday afternoon in November. It was a cool day, with a nice nip in the air. Meredith felt good in the down vest. It was one she’d often worn when she went to the firing range with Mike in cold weather. Coats were cumbersome and often got in the way of a good, quick aim.
Rey and Leo stopped to pass the time of day with two elderly shooters, both of whom gave Meredith a warm welcome.
‘‘This is Jack, and that’s Billy Joe,’’ Rey introduced the white-haired men, one of whom was tall and spare, the other overweight and short. The short one had walked briskly the short distance from the red pickup truck parked at the clubhouse, and he was out of breath already. ‘‘We all go to district, state and national shoots as a team from our club.’’
‘‘But we get honorable mention, and Rey wins the medals,’’ Billy Joe, the shorter man, chuckled, still trying to catch his breath. ‘‘We don’t mind. We’re just happy that somebody from our club breaks records!’’
‘‘Amen to that,’’ Jack agreed, smiling.
‘‘All right, let’s get to shooting,’’ Billy Joe said, turning back to his truck. ‘‘Stay where you are, Jack. I’ll bring your gun, too!’’
He turned back toward the truck, rushing and still breathless. Meredith frowned. His cheeks were unnaturally pink, and it wasn’t that cold. His complexion was almost white. He was sweating. She knew the symptoms. She’d seen them all too often.
‘‘You might go with him,’’ Meredith said abruptly, interrupting Jack’s banter with Rey.
‘‘Excuse me?’’ Jack asked.
Just at that moment, Billy Joe stopped, stood very still for a minute, and then buckled and fell forward into a crumpled heap at the door of his truck.
Meredith took off at a dead run. ‘‘Somebody get me a cell phone!’’ she called as she ran.
Leo fumbled his out of the holder on his belt and passed it to her as she knelt beside Billy Joe.
‘‘Get his feet elevated. Find something to cover him with,’’ she shot at the other men. She was dialing while she spoke. She loosened the man’s shirt, propping the phone against her ear—the worst way to hold it, but there was no other way at the moment—and felt down Billy Joe’s chest for his diaphragm. ‘‘Get his wallet and read me his weight and age from his driver’s license,’’ she added with a sharp glance in Leo’s direction.
Leo dug out the wallet and started calling out information, while Rey and Jack stood beside the fallen man and watched with silent concern.
‘‘I want the resident on duty in the emergency room, stat,’’ she said. ‘‘This is Meredith Johns. I have a patient, sixty years of age, one hundred and eighty pounds, who collapsed without warning. Early signs indicate a possible myocardial infarction. Pulse is thready,’’ she murmured, checking the second hand of her watch as she took his pulse with her fingertips, ‘‘forty beats a minute, breathing shallow and labored, grey complexion, profuse sweating. I need EMTs en route, I am initiating cardiopulmonary resuscitation now.’’
There was a long pause, and a male voice came over the line. With her voice calm and steady, Meredith gave the information again, and then handed the phone to Leo as she bent over the elderly man and did the spaced compressions over his breastbone, followed by mouth-to-mouth breathing.
Rey was watching, spellbound at her proficiency, at the easy and quite professional manner in which she’d taken charge of a life-or-death emergency. Within five minutes, the ambulance was screaming up the graveled road that led to the Jacobsville Gun Club, and Billy Joe was holding his own.
The EMTs listened to Meredith’s terse summary of events as they called the same resident Meredith had been talking to.
‘‘Doc says to give you a pat on the back,’’ the female EMT grinned at Meredith as they loaded Billy Joe onto the ambulance. ‘‘You sure knew what to do.’’
‘‘Yes,’’ Rey agreed, finding his tongue at last. ‘‘You’ve obviously had first-aid training.’’
He probably meant it as praise, but it hit Meredith in the gut. She glared at him. ‘‘What I’ve had,’’ she emphasized, ‘‘is five years of college. I have a master’s degree in nursing science, and I’m a card-carrying nurse practitioner!’’
Seven
Rey stared at his new cook as if she’d suddenly sprouted feathers on her head. His summation of her abilities was suddenly smoke. She was someone he didn’t even know. She was a health care professional, not a flighty cook, and certainly not the sort of woman to streetwalk as a sideline.
She nodded solemnly. ‘‘I figured it would come as a shock,’’ she told him. She turned her attention back to the EMTs. ‘‘Thanks for being so prompt. Think he’ll be okay?’’
The female EMT smiled. ‘‘I think so. His heartbeat’s stronger, his breathing is regular, and he’s regaining consciousness. Good job!’’
They waved and took off, lights flashing, but without turning on the sirens.
‘‘Why aren’t the sirens going?’’ Rey wanted to know. ‘‘He’s not out of danger yet, surely?’’
‘‘They don’t like to run the sirens unless they have to,’’ Meredith told him. ‘‘Some people actually run off the road and wreck their cars because the sirens rattle them. They use the lights, but they only turn on the sirens if they hit heavy traffic and have to force their way through it. Those EMTs,’’ she added with a smile, ‘‘they’re the real heroes and heroines. They do the hardest job of all.’’
‘‘You saved Billy Joe’s life,’’ Jack said huskily, shaking her hand hard. ‘‘He’s the best friend I got. Thank you.’’
She smiled gently and returned the handshake. ‘‘It goes with the job description. Don’t try to keep up with the ambulance,’’ she cautioned when he went toward Billy Joe’s truck, which still had the key in the ignition. The two men had come together.
‘‘I’ll be careful,’’ the older man promised.
‘‘Whew!’’ Leo let out the breath he’d almost been holding, and put up his cell phone. ‘‘You’re one cool lady under fire, Meredith.’’
She smiled sadly. ‘‘I’ve had to be,’’ she replied. She glanced at Rey, who looked cold and angry as it occurred to him, belatedly, that she’d played him for a fool. ‘‘I can see what you’re thinking, but I didn’t actually lie to you. You never asked me exactly what I did for a living. Of course, you thought you already knew,’’ she added with faint sarcasm.
He didn’t reply. He gave her a long, contemptuous look and turned away. ‘‘I’ve lost my taste for practice,’’ he said quietly. ‘‘I want to go on to the hospital and see about Billy Joe.’’
‘‘Me, too,’’ Leo added. ‘‘Meredith…?’’
‘‘I’ll go along,’’ she said. ‘‘I’d like to meet that resident I spoke with. He’s very good.’’
Rey glanced toward her. ‘‘You’ll get along. He keeps secrets, too,’’ he said bitterly, and got behind the wheel.
Leo made a face at Meredith, opening the third door of the big double cabbed truck so that she could sit in back. He put the gun cases in the boot, in a locked area, and climbed in beside Rey.
The resident turned out to be a former mercenary named Micah Steele. He was married to a local girl, and he’d gone back to school to finish his course of study for his medical license.
‘‘I couldn’t very well carry a wife and child around the jungles with me,’’ Micah told her with a grin. He was tall and big, and not at all bad-looking. She could picture him with a rifle in one arm. But now, in a white lab coat with a stethoscope thrown carelessly around his neck, he seemed equally at home.
‘‘When’s Callie due?’’ Leo asked.
‘‘Any minute,’’ he said, tongue-in-cheek. ‘‘Can’t you see me shaking? I’m the soul of self-confidence around here, but one little pregnant woman makes me a basket case!’’
‘‘Callie’s quite a girl,’’ Rey agreed, smiling at the big man.
Micah gave him a look. ‘‘Yes, and isn’t it lucky for me that you hardly ever went into her boss Kemp’s office for legal advice, while she was still single?’’
Rey pursed his lips. ‘‘Kemp eats scorpions for breakfast, I hear. I like my lawyers less caustic.’’
‘‘Last I heard, the local bar association had you down as a contagious plague and was warning its members to avoid you at all costs,’’ Micah replied wickedly.
‘‘I never hit any local lawyers.’’ Rey looked uncomfortable. ‘‘It was that Victoria lawyer, Matherson,’’ he muttered. ‘‘And I didn’t even hit him that hard. Hell, he’s lucky I wasn’t sober at the time! Otherwise, he’d have had twice the number of stitches!’’
Meredith listened to the repartee with wide, fascinated eyes, but Rey wouldn’t meet her eyes and Micah, too, cleared his throat and didn’t pursue the subject.
‘‘Matherson took a client who accused us of assault,’’ Leo volunteered. ‘‘Cag had hit him, several times, after he got drunk and assaulted Tess, who’s now Cag’s wife. But the bounder swore that he was the injured party, that we falsely accused him and all took turns pounding him. He convinced a jury to award him damages. Not a lot of money,’’ Leo added solemnly, ‘‘but the principle was what set Rey off. He was in a bad mood already and he had a few too many drinks at Shea’s Bar, out on the Victoria road. To make a long story short,’’ he added with a chuckle, ‘‘Matherson was having a quiet beer when Rey accused him of handling the ex-employee’s case for spite because he lost an argument with us over Tess when he was handling her inheritance. Matherson took exception to Rey’s remarks, and the two of them set about wrecking the pretty stained-glass window that used to overlook the parking lot.’’
‘‘Used to?’’ Meredith fished, sensing something ominous.
‘‘Yes, well, Matherson made a rather large hole in it when Rey helped him into the parking lot the hard way,’’ Leo concluded.
Micah Steele looked as if it was killing him not to burst out laughing.
‘‘He,’’ Leo jerked his thumb toward Steele, ‘‘had to remove quite a number of glass particles from Matherson’s rear end. And we got sued again, for that!’’
‘‘But the jury, after hearing Kemp’s masterful summation of our grievances,’’ Rey interrupted, ‘‘decided that Matherson was only entitled to the cost of the repair job on his butt. Shea had insurance that replaced the stained-glass window with one of comparable age and exclusivity.’’ Rey smiled smugly. ‘‘And the judge said that if she’d been sitting on the first case, the rat Matherson was representing would have gotten a jail sentence.’’
Leo chuckled. ‘‘Only because Kemp put Tess on the stand and had her testify about what really happened the night Matherson’s client took her on a date. The jury felt that Rey was justifiably incensed by the former verdict.’’ He glanced at Meredith wryly.
‘‘Yes, but I understand that Shea’s two bouncers meet Rey at the door these days and won’t let him in if he’s not smiling,’’ Micah contributed.
Rey shrugged. ‘‘I never get drunk anymore. I’ve learned to handle aggression in a nonphysical manner.’’
The other two men actually walked down the hall. Meredith noticed their shoulders vibrating.
Rey took a step toward Meredith, half irritated by the character assassination job his brother and Micah Steele had just done on him, and even more put out by Meredith’s unmasking.
“You knew I had no idea about your education,” Rey accused Meredith. “Why didn’t you say something at the outset, when Leo first went to the hospital?” he demanded in a low, deep tone. “I may have jumped to conclusions, but you provided the springs, didn’t you?”
She grimaced. ‘‘I guess so. But it was only a little jump from telling you about my job to talking about the reason Daddy started drinking. It’s…still very fresh in my mind,’’ she added huskily. ‘‘It’s only been six months. The memories are’’ she swallowed and looked away ‘‘—bad.’’
Unexpectedly he reached out and caught her fingers in his, tugging her closer. The hall was deserted. In the background there were muted bell-tones and announcements and the sound of lunch trays being distributed. ‘‘Tell me,’’ he said gently.
She bit her lower lip hard and lifted her tormented eyes to his curious ones. ‘‘Not…yet,’’ she whispered tightly. ‘‘One day, but…not yet. I can’t.’’
‘‘Okay,’’ he said after a minute. ‘‘But I’d like to know how you learned to shoot.’’
‘‘My brother, Mike, taught me,’’ she said reluctantly, staring at his broad chest. She wanted to lay her head on it and cry out her pain. There hadn’t been anyone to hold her, not when it happened, not afterward. Her father withdrew into his own mind and started drinking to excess at once. Her job was all that had kept Meredith sane. She hadn’t been able to let ou
t her grief in any normal way.
Rey’s mind was working overtime. He stared down at her, still holding her fingers entwined tightly with his own, and he frowned as bits and pieces of memory began fitting themselves together.
‘‘Mike. Mike Johns.’’ His eyes narrowed. ‘‘Our cousin Colter’s best friend, and one of Leo’s acquaintances. He was killed…!’’
She tried to tug her fingers away. He wouldn’t let her. He pulled her into his arms, holding her there even when she struggled. But a few seconds of resistance were all she had. She laid her flushed cheek against his broad chest and let the tears flow.
Rey’s arms contracted roughly. He smoothed his hand over her nape, caressing, soothing. ‘‘There was a bank robbery in Houston,’’ he recalled quietly. ‘‘Mike was a cop. He was at the bank with your mother. It was Saturday. He was off duty, but he had his service revolver under his jacket.’’ His arms tightened as her sobs grew painful to hear. ‘‘He drew and fired automatically, and one of the robbers sprayed fire from one of those damned little automatic rifles in his general direction. He and your mother died instantly…’’
Meredith’s fingers dug into his wide back. He rocked her, barely aware of curious glances from passersby.
‘‘Both men were caught. You don’t kill a cop and get away with it in Texas,’’ he added softly. ‘‘They were arraigned and treated to a speedy trial just a month ago. You and your father testified. That was when your father really went off the deep end, wasn’t it, when he had to see the autopsy photos…’’
Micah and Leo came back down the hall, frowning when they saw the condition Meredith was in. Even as they watched, her eyes rolled back and she would have fallen to the floor except for Rey’s strong arms lifting her.
Later, she wouldn’t recall much except that she was hustled into a cubicle and revived. But when she started sobbing hysterically, they’d given her a shot of something that put her out like a light. She came to back at the ranch, in her own little garage apartment.