by Diana Palmer
‘‘Okay. Wear a jacket,’’ she said, smiling up at him.
He bent and brushed his mouth against hers one more time. ‘‘It’s not cold.’’
‘‘It is. Wear a jacket,’’ she insisted.
He sighed and made a face, but he picked up his lightweight denim jacket from the hat stand by the back door as he went out.
Leo followed him, but with a new expression on his face. He’d seen something he hadn’t expected during that teasing exchange. He wondered if Rey realized that he was in love with that sweet little biscuit-making woman. And unless he missed his guess, it was mutual.
Ten
The next morning, Meredith sat next to Rey in church and felt his hand holding hers almost all the way through the service. She felt different with him than she’d ever felt with anyone else. Rey made her feel as if she could do anything. He made her feel strong and confident and safe.
She glanced up at him while they shared a hymnal and he forgot what he was singing. They searched each other’s eyes slowly, until they realized that everybody else had stopped singing and were sitting down. Smiling sheepishly, Rey sat down and tugged her down beside him.
After the service, they got amused, affectionate looks from bystanders who knew Rey and had heard about his new cook.
But he didn’t seem to be the least bit embarrassed by the attention. In fact, he made a point of introducing Meredith to several people, adding the little known information that she was a licensed nurse practitioner as well as a great biscuit chef.
Meredith flushed, because it sounded as if he were very proud of her, especially when he related how her quick thinking had probably saved Billy Joe’s life at the target range. Billy Joe was well-known and liked locally, so that brought even more smiles. She clung to his hand with unashamed delight when they left.
‘‘See, you’re already a local celebrity,’’ he teased. ‘‘And I didn’t even get around to mentioning the snake.’’
‘‘We should forget the snake,’’ she said quickly.
He chuckled. ‘‘No, we shouldn’t. It wins me points if I have a…cook who isn’t even afraid of poisonous snakes.’’
She heard that hesitation before ‘‘cook,’’ as if he wanted to say something else instead. It made her tingle all over. She couldn’t stop smiling, all the way to the Jaguar convertible he drove when he wasn’t working.
‘‘This is a very flashy car,’’ she commented as he put her in on the passenger side.
‘‘I like sports cars,’’ he said with a grin.
‘‘So do I,’’ she confessed. She didn’t even put on a scarf. In fact, she pulled the pins out of her hair and let it fall around her shoulders.
‘‘Won’t it tangle in the wind?’’ he asked when they were seat-belted in place.
‘‘I don’t care.’’ She looked at him and smiled warmly. ‘‘I like to feel the wind.’’
‘‘Me, too.’’
He started the car, put it in gear, and pulled out onto the highway. When they were on the interstate, heading toward Houston, he let the powerful car do its best.
‘‘Now this is a HORSE!’’ he called over the roar of the wind.
She laughed with pure delight. It was the most wonderful day of her life. She even forgot where they were going in the excitement of being with him in the elegant vehicle.
But all too soon, they were pulling up at an impressive brick building with its function discreetly labeled on a metal plate near the door. It was a substance abuse rehabilitation center, three stories tall, and staffed impressively with psychologists, psychiatrists, and health professionals, including physicians.
Rey held her hand to the information desk and then up to the second floor waiting room, where her father would be brought to visit with them.
‘‘They don’t like visitors the first week,’’ Rey explained to her. ‘‘You probably knew that,’’ he added, remembering her profession.
‘‘I’ve never had anybody in here,’’ she said quietly. She was nervous and she looked it.
He caught her fingers in his again and held them tight. ‘‘It’s going to be all right,’’ he said firmly.
She met his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘‘Okay,’’ she said after a minute, and her body lost some of its rigidity.
There were footsteps and muffled voices. A minute later, her father came in the door, wearing slacks and a knit shirt, and behind him was a uniformed woman with a clipboard.
‘‘Miss Johns? I’m Gladys Bartlett,’’ the woman introduced herself with a firm handshake. ‘‘I’m the staff psychologist on your father’s case.’’
‘‘Hello, Merry,’’ her father said hesitantly. He winced when he noticed the faded bruises on her face. ‘‘I’m sorry, my dear,’’ he choked.
Meredith let go of Rey’s hand and went forward to hug her father warmly. Mr. Johns closed his eyes and hugged her back, hard. His lips trembled as he forced them together, but tears ran down his lean, pale cheeks. ‘‘I’m so sorry,’’ he sobbed.
She patted him on the back and tears fell hotly from her own eyes. ‘‘It’s okay, Daddy,’’ she whispered brokenly, comforting him the way he’d once comforted her and Mike when they were little, and something had hurt them. He’d been a wonderful father. ‘‘It’s okay,’’ she said again. ‘‘You’re going to be fine. We both are.’’
‘‘My son. My boy!’’ He shook all over. ‘‘I said I was too busy to take her to the bank. I asked him…I asked Mike…to go instead. He’d be alive, but for me!’’
‘‘Now, Mr. Johns,’’ the counselor said gently, ‘‘we’ve been over this several times already. You can’t assume blame for the lawless acts of other people. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, nothing would have happened if you’d asked your son to go to the bank on your behalf.’’
‘‘But this was the one out of a hundred,’’ he husked. ‘‘And I can’t live with the guilt!’’
‘‘I’ve had my own problems with it,’’ Meredith confessed. ‘‘I could have refused to go in to work that day and taken her instead.’’
‘‘And you’d be lying dead instead of Mike,’’ her father replied curtly. ‘‘And I’d be just as eaten up with guilt!’’
‘‘You’re both missing the point,’’ Rey said, standing up. ‘‘You can’t control life. Nobody can.’’
They all looked at him. He stood quietly, his hands deep in his slacks pockets, and stared back. ‘‘Einstein said that God didn’t play dice with the universe, and he was right. Even in seeming chaos, there’s an order to things, a chain of events that leads inevitably to conclusions. People are links in the chain, but people don’t control the events. Life has a pattern, even if we don’t see it.’’
‘‘You’ve studied philosophy,’’ Mr. Johns said quietly.
Rey nodded. ‘‘Yes, I have.’’
The older man, with thinning hair and glasses and a faintly stooped posture, moved away from Meredith and smiled. ‘‘I took several courses in it, myself. You have a degree, haven’t you?’’
‘‘I do, in business. A master’s, from Harvard,’’ Rey volunteered, something that Meredith hadn’t even known.
‘‘Mine is in medicine. Veterinary medicine. I’m…’’
‘‘I know. You’re Dr. Alan Johns,’’ Rey said, shaking hands. ‘‘Your daughter is staying with us on the ranch in Jacobsville, baking biscuits, while she recovers.’’
Dr. Johns winced and flushed. ‘‘They told me what I did to you,’’ he said, glancing shamefaced at his daughter. ‘‘I swear before God, I’ll never take another drink as long as I live!’’
‘‘You won’t get the chance,’’ Rey said. ‘‘I intend to watch you like a red-tailed hawk.’’
‘‘Excuse me?’’ Dr. Johns stammered.
Rey studied his boots. ‘‘We don’t have a vet on staff. We have to call one down from Victoria, because our vets are overworked to death. It would be nice to have our own vet. We pay competitive salaries and you’d ha
ve your own house.’’
Dr. Johns sat down quickly. ‘‘Young man, I…!’’
Rey lifted his head and stared him in the eyes. ‘‘You made a mistake. People do. That’s why they put erasers on pencils. You can work for us. We’ll keep you straight, and you won’t have to take some sort of menial job in Houston just to make ends meet. You’ll like the ranch,’’ he added. ‘‘We have a good crew.’’
‘‘Someone might know what I did,’’ Dr. Johns stammered.
‘‘Everybody knows already,’’ Rey said, and shrugged. ‘‘It’s no big deal to us. We’ve got one man who came back from cocaine addiction—let me tell you, that was a story and a half—and another one who was a habitual DWI for six years until we hired him and helped him get straight.’’ He smiled. ‘‘We don’t hold a man’s past against him, as long as he’s willing to stay straight and work hard.’’
Dr. Johns was having a hard time keeping control of himself, and it was obvious. ‘‘Young man, I’ll work without a salary, if that’s what it takes. And I promise, you’ll never have cause to regret giving me a job.’’
‘‘Not unless you keep calling me ‘young man,’’’ Rey said with a grin. ‘‘I’m Reynard Hart, but everybody calls me Rey.’’
‘‘Glad to meet you,’’ the older man said. ‘‘Rey.’’
Rey nodded. ‘‘How much longer will they keep you?’’ he asked, and glanced at the woman with the clipboard.
‘‘Another week should do it,’’ she said with a big smile. ‘‘And how nice, to see him with a settled environment to look forward to the day he leaves! I believe in minor miracles, but I don’t see many. This is certainly one.’’
Rey gave her a complacent smile. ‘‘Miracles only happen for people who believe in them,’’ he said, chuckling.
‘‘Thanks, Rey,’’ Meredith said huskily.
He only shrugged. ‘‘How could I ignore the father of the only woman who ever proposed to me?’’ he said, matter-of-factly, and with a smile that made her blush.
‘‘You proposed to him?’’ her father asked with raised eyebrows.
‘‘Several times,’’ she said with mock disgust. ‘‘But he has to wash his dogs, so he can’t marry me.’’
Dr. Johns laughed heartily.
The counselor relaxed. This was going to work out. Dr. Johns was never going to end up in rehab again, she was certain of it. She only wished she could say the same for more of her poor patients.
On the drive back to Jacobsville, Meredith was on top of the world. ‘‘Not only does he get a new job, but one doing what he always loved best, working around large animals.’’
‘‘He likes cattle, does he?’’ Rey asked absently, enjoying Meredith’s animated company.
‘‘He grew up on a cattle ranch in Montana,’’ she explained. ‘‘He was even in rodeo for six or seven years before he went to college.’’
Rey expelled a breath. This was going to work out even better than he’d dreamed. Amazing, he thought, how a single act of kindness could expand like ripples around a rock dropped into a pond.
‘‘He’s not much good on a horse anymore,’’ she continued chattily, ‘‘but he really knows veterinary medicine.’’
‘‘He might go back to teaching one day. Not in Houston,’’ he added gently. ‘‘But Texas is a big state, and when he’s been away from alcohol a couple of years, who knows?’’
‘‘The ranch will be good for him. You did mean it, didn’t you?’’ she added quickly. ‘‘It wasn’t something you said to help him want to get better?’’
‘‘I very rarely say things I don’t mean, Meredith,’’ he replied. ‘‘Well,’’ he added with a frown, ‘‘I wasn’t exactly telling the truth about washing the dogs.’’
‘‘Excuses, excuses.’’ She toyed with her purse. ‘‘Rey, thank you for giving him a second chance.’’
He laughed gently. ‘‘I’ve got an ulterior motive,’’ he murmured dryly. ‘‘When you come to the ranch to visit him, you can make me a pan of biscuits.’’
‘‘Just you? Not one to share with Leo?’’
He shifted behind the wheel. ‘‘He can go find someone to make him biscuits,’’ he said. ‘‘Surely, somewhere in Texas, there’s a woman who’d do it just for him.’’
‘‘Your other brothers, do their wives bake?’’
‘‘Dorie and Tess do,’’ he said. ‘‘But Tira hasn’t got a clue how to,’’ he added on a sigh. ‘‘Simon doesn’t mind. They have a cook who can. Although he’s really not much on biscuits, so it doesn’t matter.’’ He grinned. ‘‘You should see him with his sons. Two of them now. They’re still toddlers, and he’s a whiz at fatherhood. Dorie and Corrigan have a boy and a girl and Cag and Tess have a son. That makes me an uncle five times over! Christmas is going to be a real treat this year.’’
She thought about Christmas. It was going to be a lonely one for her, with her father down here on the ranch.
He saw the look on her face and reached out to catch her hand in his. ‘‘Hey,’’ he said softly, ‘‘you’re invited for Christmas, you know. We’ll pack up the kids and go over to the annual Christmas party at the Doctors Coltrain. They have huge layouts of Lionel trains that they run every year, especially with a little boy of their own who’ll be big enough to play with them in a couple of years. Draws a big crowd. Do you like train sets?’’
She smiled. ‘‘I do.’’ It lifted her heart to know that she was going to be included in the family get-together. She loved children. It would make the season less traumatic for her and her father, because they were missing two members of their immediate family.
‘‘We’ll make it a happy Christmas,’’ he said softly.
She tangled her fingers into his. ‘‘I’ll have that to look forward to, when I go back.’’
‘‘It’s premature right now, but if you decide to move down here, too, I’d bet good money that Micah Steele would offer you work.’’
She looked at his big, warm hand holding hers. ‘‘I like Jacobsville.’’
His fingers grew possessive. ‘‘I like you.’’
‘‘Thanks. I like you, too, and if you’ll loan me your cell phone, I’ll call the minister right now and we can set a date,’’ she added with wicked haste.
He chuckled. ‘‘Hold on, tiger, I may have been lying about washing the dogs, but marriage is a big step. You have to look out for me. I know you can tame snakes and handle heart attacks, and you bake good biscuits. But how do you look in a suit, and can you dance?’’
‘‘I look great in a suit,’’ she said firmly, ‘‘and I can do Latin dances.’’
He grimaced. ‘‘I can’t. How about a nice, slow two-step?’’
‘‘I can do that, too!’’
He glanced at her. ‘‘What do you like to read?’’ he asked.
The next few minutes were spent in gleeful harmony, going over things they had in common. They liked the same basic forms of relaxation, and they even thought alike on politics and child-raising. It was a very good start. Meredith had seen far too many relationships start out with nothing more than sex for a foundation, and they didn’t last. It took common interests, common beliefs, friendship, to make a lasting marriage.
Marriage. That word, once so warily approached, now seemed as natural as letting Rey hold her hand all the way back to Jacobsville. She wondered where they were going together in the future, and hoped it was someplace nice.
She had to go back to work the following week. Friday morning she had her suitcase packed. She was wearing her tailored beige suit with her blond hair in a neat ponytail when she followed Rey out the front door. He carried her suitcase to his car and put it in the trunk.
‘‘I’ll be back late this afternoon,’’ he told Leo. ‘‘If you need me, I’ll be on my cell phone.’’ He patted the cell phone carrier on his belt.
‘‘Oh, I think I can cope,’’ Leo drawled with a wink at Meredith. ‘‘Don’t be a stranger, Meredith,’’ he added. ‘‘We’
ll miss you. But thanks for making us all those pans of frozen biscuits!’’
‘‘It’s a good thing you have a walk-in freezer, is all I can say,’’ she mused, chuckling. ‘‘But don’t forget the directions on how to cook them,’’ she added. ‘‘They’re only dough until then.’’
‘‘I’ll have it all down pat in no time,’’ Leo promised. ‘‘Meanwhile,’’ he added, rubbing his big hands together with visible delight, ‘‘there are still six biscuits left over from breakfast!’’
‘‘No use asking you to save me a couple, is there?’’ Rey asked on a sigh.
‘‘Blood is thicker than water, except where biscuits are involved,’’ Leo shot back. ‘‘Sorry.’’
Rey got in the car and started the engine without another word.
Meredith was quiet most of the way to Houston. She was oddly reluctant to go back to work, although she loved her job. She was going to miss Rey and Leo and Mrs. Lewis. She was even going to miss the chickens.
‘‘You can come down anytime you want to,’’ Rey reminded her, when he noticed that she was brooding. It had been hard, but he’d kept his hands to himself for the duration of her stay at the ranch. He was planning a frontal assault in the near future. This wasn’t the time, though.
‘‘I know.’’ She stared out the window at the bare trees and chilly flat landscape. ‘‘Thanksgiving comes along pretty soon.’’
‘‘Your father will be working for us by then. You can come and spend a few days while you’re off.’’
‘‘I might still be on call,’’ she worried.
He was grim and silent himself, after she said that. The rest of the way to Houston, he had the radio on, letting it fill the cool silence.
He dropped her off at her father’s house. It looked cold and unwelcoming as she unlocked the front door so that he could sit her suitcase inside.
She turned back to him, her grey eyes wide and sad as they met his dark ones. He hadn’t removed his hat, and it was hard to see his face in the shadow of it.