Vickie staggered and almost fell as he walked away. Dazed, feeling numb, she caught her balance. Men, all around her, half of them naked from the waist up. They fought the fire with anything they’d been able to get their hands on, swinging their shirts, blankets, and shower towels to stamp out the flames. Vickie saw the next tent catch fire. She crossed her arms over her waist to grab the hem of her fleece sweatshirt and peeled it off over her head. Then she was on it, beating out the flames licking up the side of Dale’s shelter. To her relief, she stopped the fire there from spreading and was able to smother it with repeated swats of her shirt.
But behind her, the other tent continued to burn. A pine bough above what was left of Slade’s tent caught. Within seconds, Rex was jerking the starting rope of a chain saw. When the motor roared to life, he reached over his head to cut through the tree limb and leaped out of the way when it crashed to the earth. Men descended on it to extinguish the flames.
It seemed to Vickie that an eternity passed. She grew so exhausted that she could barely move her arms to continue swinging her blackened shirt. Her legs felt rubbery. Her lungs rasped from breathing in so much smoke, but she wouldn’t allow herself to stop and rest. Not until every last trace of fire had been obliterated.
Finally silence fell all around her. Vickie swayed on her feet as she glanced at the soot-streaked faces of the men. They looked like oversize raccoons. Her arms went limp and dangled at her sides. Her fleece shirt, barely recognizable now as a garment, slipped from her fingers to puddle on the ground. Trailing her gaze over each male countenance, she searched for Slade, needing to see him again so she’d know he was all right.
He came around the end of what had recently been his tent but was now only a blackened framework of aluminum poles with ragged and charred strips of canvas dangling from them. “Everything,” he said hollowly. “All gone, even my phone. That damned snake got to die listening to my bedtime story.”
“I thought I heard you yell snake,” Kennedy said. “But that was what woke me, and then you started yelling fire, so I thought I dreamed it.”
“Nope,” Slade assured him. “I opened my sleeping bag to crawl in, and there it was, a rattlesnake coiled to strike. I’d turned off the lantern, so I got only a glimpse before everything went black. I hate snakes. Garter snakes, bull snakes, racers, you name it. But nothing terrifies me more than a rattler.” He shuddered and rubbed his bare arms. “Son of a bitch, I’m damned near naked, and all my clothes are gone. Even my boots.”
Vickie ran her gaze from his face down his rangy body. Someone had brought lighted lanterns, and the glow illuminated his skin, which had always been dark, even where the sun didn’t touch. But cast against the inky blackness of the night, he looked as white as a ghost except for the streaks of soot all over him. She registered a bit dimly that age hadn’t changed his physique. He was still a powerfully built man, and looking at him, remembering making love with him, made her heart hurt.
“Where’s Wyatt?” someone asked.
“Probably asleep,” Kennedy replied. “He could have slept through all that commotion. Should I go wake him?”
“Might better,” Slade said. “He’s the only man in camp as tall as I am. With any luck, he may have a pair of pants that’ll fit me.”
“I’m tall,” Kennedy pointed out.
“And skinny as a beanpole,” Slade noted.
As Kennedy turned to advance on his brother’s tent, Rex stepped through what had once been the doorway to Slade’s shelter. “Stove’s on its side. What the hell happened?”
“I ran into it,” Slade explained. “It was as black as smut in there. I couldn’t see. Caught it with my legs and knocked it over.”
“So that’s what started the fire,” John said. “Please don’t tell me you were running to get away from the snake.”
“What the hell else would I run from?” Slade retorted. “Of course I ran. It was poisonous, and I couldn’t see where the hell it went.”
Vickie’s chest felt as if it were imploding. Collapsing in on itself. Flattening her lungs. She found it difficult to breathe. The snake. What she had intended to be a practical joke had sent Slade into such a panic that he’d tipped over the woodstove. He could have been badly burned. He might have died. And it would have been her fault. Suddenly she felt sick to her stomach. The lemony puckering of her mouth that always preceded vomiting made her try to swallow spit she no longer had.
“Huh,” Rex said. “Only got half your sleeping bag.”
“Be careful,” Slade warned. “I didn’t imagine the rattler. If the bag isn’t toast, the snake could still be alive.”
Rex leaned forward, grabbed an edge of the sleeping bag, and flipped it back. “Yep,” he said. “It’s still here. Not really what I’d call alive, though. It’s halfway melted.”
“What?” There was a sharp edge to Slade’s voice.
“I said it melted. It’s—well, it was—a rubber snake, not a real one.”
“It sure as hell looked real,” Slade shot back. A glitter of anger entered his eyes. “Rubber? You mean someone put it in my bed as a fucking joke?”
Slade sliced his gaze through the darkness to settle it on Vickie. She flinched as if he’d slugged her, and when she looked into his eyes, she knew that he knew. She’d been prepared to be his primary suspect earlier. But that had been when she’d seen all of this as a harmless prank. Now she stood next to the rubble of what might have been Slade’s crematory, and nothing about any of it seemed funny anymore.
And then Slade grabbed his chest as if with sudden pain, moaned, and crashed to his knees. Rex leaped clear of the charred debris to reach his boss’s side. He curled a big hand over Slade’s upper arm. “Talk to me, boss. Is it your heart?”
Slade then slumped sideways against Rex’s leg. Three more men converged on them. In the blur of motion, all Vickie could focus on was the man she’d loved nearly all her life. Wyatt arrived, his straight hair in a stir from his pillow. He went immediately to Slade, felt for a pulse in his wrist, and shouted for someone to lend him a watch. Vickie couldn’t move. A heart attack. She’d believed for a few brief minutes that God had given her a pass and somehow worked things out so her prank hadn’t done any lasting harm. Only Slade held a splayed hand over the center of his chest, and his face twisted into a grimace from the pain.
“Get a spare cot into the cookshack!” Wyatt yelled. “Hurry. We need to lay him down!”
Vickie whirled to do his bidding. Dale outdistanced her to reach the nearest guest tent, but she was on his heels as he stepped inside. “I’ll get the bedding,” she told him. “You get the cot.”
Dale did as she said, and within a minute, they were both racing toward the cookshack. Vickie entered first. This was her bailiwick, and she knew her way around by heart. By patting her palms over the table, she located a lantern and matches. Within seconds, the phosphorous sulfide tip of a match ignited, and she lighted the lantern with violently trembling hands while Dale moved behind her to unfold the cot and set it up in front of the prep table. She grabbed the bedding she’d tossed on a bench and quickly made up a comfortable place for Slade to lie down. Her brain ran in circles. They needed to call for help. Was there a helicopter pad anywhere close to them? If Slade was having a heart attack, they had to get him medical care, ASAP.
“Is there a hospital in Mystic Creek yet?” she asked Dale.
“No, ma’am. Only urgent care. They do a good job, though. Get people stabilized for transport. There’s a great hospital in Bend. We’ll have to get him to a heart center.”
Vickie covered her face with her hands, which were smeared with black grime and stank of smoke. “Oh, God. This can’t be happening.”
“He’ll be okay.” Dale curled a hand over her shoulder. “Regroup, Ms. Vickie. He’s a tough old coot. He’ll make it through this.”
Oh, how Vickie wished she were still as young and naive as
Dale was. But she wasn’t. She’d had friends younger than she was keel over dead from heart attacks. It didn’t matter how tough Slade was—or how strong he might be. When the heart blipped to a stop, not even the strongest of the strong could survive without intervention, and Slade was hours away from any kind of help.
A cold knot of fear took up residence in her stomach, crowding out the nausea that had plagued her only moments before. Slade couldn’t die. Not now, when she’d only just found him again. Not now, when there was so much unsettled between them. She’d do anything God asked—anything—if only He’d let Slade live.
But there was no time to pray, no time to bargain with God. Four men entered the tent, carrying Slade between them, two walking backward, their denim-clad rumps poked out behind them. Wyatt and Kennedy each held one of Slade’s feet. With a shuffling of boots and a good deal of cursing, they finally got their boss onto the cot. Vickie hurried forward with a blanket, which they used to cover him. He moaned. Nudging the males aside, she stepped in closer to take Slade’s hand.
“I’m here, Slade,” she said shakily. “I’m right here.”
“Vickie?”
“Yes, it’s me, sweetheart. I won’t leave you. I promise.”
“Never?” he asked, his voice sounding fainter.
Tears sprang to her eyes, nearly blinding her. Why had it taken something like this to make her realize how very much she loved him? Why, oh, why hadn’t she come home years ago with Brody in her arms so Slade could have seen his only son at least once? Now it might be too late. Too late for Slade. Too late for Brody. Too late for her.
“Never,” she pushed out. “I’m right here with you. Wild horses couldn’t drag me away.”
His hand went limp in hers. Terror, icy and cold, washed through her in waves. She gripped his lax fingers with all her strength. “Slade? Slade!”
He stirred and fixed a twinkling gaze on her. “Gotcha.”
Vickie jerked and loosened her grip. She shot him a bewildered look, and he gave her one of his trademark grins. “What?” she said stupidly.
“You heard me.” His voice didn’t sound weak at all now. “Gotcha. Or maybe I should say, Gotcha back.”
Wyatt, who stood at the foot of the cot, said, “Okay. We’re out of here. Guests are coming tomorrow. While these two kill each other, let’s grab some shut-eye, boys.”
Kennedy’s voice rang out. “But it’s just now getting interesting!”
“We-are-out-of-here,” Wyatt said. “We means everybody.”
Vickie heard boots shuffling over the plywood to the door. Wafts of cold air came in as the tent flap lifted again and again to provide egress for the men. Her senses began to clear. She focused on Slade’s chiseled features and then on the twinkle of mischief in his gray eyes. She’d seen that look so many times, mostly after he’d done something playfully ornery. After shoving a snowball down her shirt, his eyes had always twinkled in just that way. When she ran from him and he caught her, he’d looked at her just the way he was now.
“You son of a bitch,” she whispered.
He laughed and sat up, looking as muscular and fit as a man half his age. “Yep, that’s me, and I have to tell you, it feels really good. I could get into this practical joke stuff. It’s kind of fun.”
Vickie had dropped to her knees to grieve at his side. Now she felt like a complete idiot. It all came clear to her then. How Slade had grabbed his chest and pretended to be in pain right after Rex told him the rattlesnake in his bed had melted. He’d instantly known that she had been responsible, and he had decided just as quickly to teach her a lesson she would probably never forget.
“How could you?” she asked in a voice that sounded more like her own. “I thought I’d killed you! That I’d caused you to have a heart attack. How could you?”
“How could you?” he volleyed back. “You know I’m phobic about snakes. That they terrify me. But you planted one in my bed. All in good fun. Right? Well, maybe now you have an inkling of how it feels when you’re on the receiving end of a vicious prank.”
Vickie pushed to her feet. He ran his gaze over her with insolent slowness. “Nice bra.”
She dropped her chin to look down, just then remembering that she’d jerked her shirt off to help fight the fire. Her first urge was to cover herself with her arms. But she refused to do any such thing. She’d seen bikini tops that made her bra look modest. “Luckily, I kept it on under my sleepwear.” She forced herself to smile, a sugary smile that she hoped would irk him. “I knew you’d start screaming like a little girl when you saw the snake, and I’d have to race to your tent, acting as surprised as everyone else. Running without a bra is . . . not fun.”
He pushed away the blanket and swung his legs over the edge of the cot. Bracing his hands on the metal frame, he gazed up at her with an expression that was suddenly solemn. “I love you, too,” he said. He held up a hand when she started to speak. “Don’t deny that you love me, Vickie. You were terrified when you thought I might die, not just in here, but out by the tent. If I hadn’t stopped you, you would have leaped through a wall of fire to reach me.”
He was right; she couldn’t deny that she had feelings for him. “So what? I’ve loved you since I was a little girl. You threw that love back in my face.”
“No. You think I did that, but I didn’t.”
Vickie was so tired of the lies and she was fed up with his refusal to acknowledge his son’s existence. She folded her arms at her waist, which made her feel less vulnerable. “You’re so full of it your eyes should be brown. And just for the record, I no longer care if you slept with April or not. That was your choice.”
Shadows darkened his gray eyes, revealing pain and yearning but absolutely no regret. “I didn’t make that choice, though. I told you then and I’m telling you now, I never touched her. And if you no longer care whether I did it or not, why in the hell do you still hold such a grudge against me?”
“I sent you four letters, Slade. One might have been lost in the mail. Hell, I’ll cut you even more slack than that and say two might have gotten lost. But all four, Slade? How dumb do you think I am?”
He frowned and rubbed his forehead, leaving a black smudge just above his nose. “Letters. I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I’d really appreciate if we could stay on topic.”
“That is the topic. It’s the only topic. I still love you. Why, I don’t know. You don’t deserve it. But those feelings have been buried for so long, Slade, that they can just stay buried now. The important thing at this point, the only important thing, is that you step up to the plate like a man and finally acknowledge our son!” Tears filled her eyes, the blur of them almost blinding her. “I won’t allow you to pretend he doesn’t exist anymore.”
“What?”
The incredulous, stunned expression on his face grabbed at her heart, and she wanted to believe in him so badly that she almost wavered. But no. She’d learned long ago that Slade could be a very convincing liar when he chose to be. “You heard me. I will no longer allow you to deny our son’s existence. Game over!”
The stunned look turned to outrage so quickly that Vickie fell back a step as he sprang to his feet. The muscles in his face tightened, contorting his features. A flush crept up his neck and flooded into his cheeks. “What?” he said again.
“Stop it!” she cried. “I know you got those letters, damn it! I know you saw the snapshot of Brody! How could you look at that baby and tell yourself he wasn’t yours?” She no longer cared how angry he might be and took a step toward him. “Were you afraid Brody and I were a package deal? That you’d get tied down with a wife you didn’t want and a passel of kids that would cramp your style? Think again! You’d already made me eat my pride! I wasn’t about to crawl back here and spit it out at your feet so you could walk all over it again!”
He bent his head and held up both hands as if to sile
nce her. “Give me a minute. I need a time-out.”
“You’ve had a forty-one-year time-out!”
He raised his head, and he shot out a hand so fast to grab her arm that she barely saw him move. His fingers bit into her flesh. “God forgive you,” he said raggedly. “I have a son? I have a son, and you never told me?”
She tried to jerk her arm free from his grasp, but the clamp of his hand was like an iron manacle. “I did tell you! Four different letters, Slade! Don’t you get all self-righteous on me! I did my part! You never wrote back. I included my address on each envelope, and you never once showed up on my doorstep wanting to see that little boy! The least you could have done was stick a check in the mail every year to contribute to his support.” She jerked away from him, surprised when he relaxed his hold and let her go. “You didn’t even do that much.”
“You need to leave,” he said, his voice gone flat and expressionless. “I need some space. Please, go. I’ve never struck a woman in my life, but God help me, I’m tempted to now.”
Her feet felt stuck to the plywood. “I’m not afraid of you, Slade Wilder.”
“Right now, you should be.”
“Fine! I’ll leave. But know this! He’s your son, and if you try to deny that any longer, I’ll steal some of your DNA to prove it.”
She whirled to storm out the doorway and stopped right at the edge of the flooring. “One other thing.” She turned to face him again. “Don’t think for a minute that I’m after your money, if you even have any. That’s not why I came here. Your son needs help right now that I can’t give him. I came here, hoping against hope, that you might finally step up to the plate and act like a father instead of a deadbeat jerk.”
When Vickie burst out of the tent, she almost ran into Wyatt, who stood with his shoulder braced against a tree. “I didn’t stay to eavesdrop. That’s impossible for me. I just had to be sure everything was okay.”
“He isn’t in any danger of dying from a heart attack. You can safely go back to bed.”
“It’s dark. You’re too far away. I can’t read your lips.”
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