Rancher's Redemption

“Why were you on his property? I thought you lived in San Antonio now.”

“I do. I—” She sighed, then gave him a watered-down version of the truth. Knowing this town, word had probably already spread about the Taurus being found at the Bar None. “So I was looking around his south pasture and…boom, fell in a sinkhole. Thus the possibly broken ribs.”

A bit of the color leeched from Billy’s face. “You fell in a hole?”

She flashed a chagrined smile. “Klutzy me.”

Clay strolled over and stuck out his hand toward Billy. “How ya doing, Akers?”

Billy shook hands with Clay. “I’m…uh, fine. You?”

“Good.” Her ex shifted his gaze to her. “They’re ready for you.”

Billy excused himself, promising to give her regards to his parents and offering well wishes for Tamara’s speedy recovery.

As Clay rolled her to the exam room, Tamara grinned. “That’s a small town for you. Can’t go anywhere without running into a neighbor or a lady from church or your parents’ bowling partners.”

“Which is why we always drove away from town for our dates in high school.”

“Dates? You mean when we went parking.” She wished she could recall the words as soon as she said them. No point reminding Clay of the car windows they’d steamed…or the first time they’d made love.

“Yeah. That’s what I meant.” His voice had a thick seductive rasp that told her those memories still affected him. Her pulse stuttered. Maybe he hadn’t totally wiped her from his life after all.

Doc Mason’s nurse, Ellen Hamilton, stuck her head into the hall from an exam room a couple doors down. “Right in here, Ms. Brown.” After Clay wheeled Tamara into the exam room, the petite gray-haired woman laid out a sheet and a paper gown. “Would you like help changing out of your clothes, honey?”

Tamara tried to push herself out of the wheelchair and fiery needles stabbed her chest. She muffled a moan. Instantly Clay tucked his arms under hers, lifting her and helping her to the exam table.

Tamara glanced to the nurse. “Yeah. I think I’ll need help.”

“Fine.” Ellen turned to Clay, her expression patient.

Unmindful of the nurse’s stare, Clay took Tamara’s foot in his hand and unlaced her shoe. After sliding it from her foot, he moved to the next shoe.

Tamara was so stunned at his presumptuousness that she could only gawk. When he gave her foot a soft rub, her breath snagged in a hiss of surprise.

Foot massages after a full day tending the ranch had been one of Tamara’s greatest pleasures when they were married, a relaxation treat that often led to full body contact, clothes shed, lusty appetites sated.

Clay’s eyes locked with hers, and he grimaced. “Sorry. I was trying to be gentle.”

She started to tell him the gasp hadn’t been one of pain, but the nurse cleared her throat.

“I meant that I’d help her change.” Now her expression was challenging. She lifted a sculpted eyebrow and tipped her head toward the door.

Her ex-husband wasn’t stupid and wasn’t easily cowed. He straightened his spine and set his jaw in a manner that Tamara knew well. He had no intention of backing down.

Tamara almost laughed at the standoff, until she realized that Clay thought he still had a right to be in the exam room with her, that it was natural for him to help her change into the hospital gown. A warm swirl of nostalgia flowed through Tamara followed closely by a shot of irritation.

Clay had lost any claim to such marital intimacies when he signed their divorce papers without blinking, without so much as a tremble of his hand. She, on the other hand, had been shaking so badly she barely recognized the signature she’d scratched as hers.

And now he wanted those privileges of familiarity back? She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Would you please step outside, Mr. Colton?” Ellen Hamilton asked.

A muscle in Clay’s jaw twitched. He raised his chin, his eyes determined.

“Clay.” His name squeezed past the lump of regret that clogged her throat.

He snapped his rich coffee gaze to hers, and the stubborn glint faded, replaced by a wounded expression, a chagrined acceptance that plucked at her heart. He hid it well. Someone who didn’t know Clay and his take-no-prisoners attitude, his stubborn cowboy pride, would have missed it. But Clay had been her husband, half the blood and breath that made her whole. An ache wholly unrelated to her injuries pulsed through her chest.

He ducked his chin in a quick jerky nod of understanding and concession that broke Tamara’s heart. “I’ll be in the waiting room when you’re ready to go.”

He left without a backward glance, and the room seemed infinitely colder and more lifeless with him gone.

A moment later, a lean man in his late forties with thinning dark hair stepped into the room and shook Tamara’s hand. “Ms. Brown, I’m Frank O’Neal, Dr. Mason’s fill-in. I hear you took a nasty tumble.”

“You heard right.”

The doctor flashed a polite smile. “Well, let’s see about getting you all fixed up.”

Over the next hour, Dr. O’Neal X-rayed and examined Tamara from head to heel. He taped her ribs, gave her injections for pain and to relax her cramping muscles, all of which made it far easier for her to move unassisted. While the X-rays developed, she redressed by herself, though the process wore her out.

She sat in the exam room alone, remembering Clay’s earlier hurt expression, when the sound of raised voices filtered through the door left cracked open.

Concerned that something was wrong, Tamara strained to hear the exchange between Ellen Hamilton and Dr. O’Neal.

“How long…—azine…missing…” Dr. O’Neal groused.

“I don’t know.” The nurse who’d stood up to Clay sounded shaken.

“…your job to…any idea…hell we could catch if…missing?”

“…well aware…accounting of…narcotic. Doc Mason always…himself.”

“Have any…—peared before?”

The nurse’s answer was too quiet for Tamara to make out.

The scuff of hard-soled shoes drew closer then hesitated just outside the exam-room door. Tamara looked up, and through the narrow opening, she met the doctor’s shaken gaze. The man’s brow furrowed, and he rubbed a hand over the nearly bald spot on his head. Appearing agitated, he glanced away for a moment before schooling his expression and entering the exam room.

He plunked two bottles of pills on the exam table and gave Tamara a tight grin. “I want you to take one of these every four to six hours when you need them for pain. The other is a muscle relaxant. Since people react differently to this medicine, it’d be wise for you to have someone stay with you while you recuperate.”

She studied the bottle of pills. “I occasionally get migraines. These won’t trigger a headache, will they?”

He shook his head. “Shouldn’t. This is one of the best pain meds on the market. However some people report getting sleepy, some get loopy, some feel a little dizzy.”

Clearly the man didn’t want to acknowledge that she’d overheard his heated discussion with his nurse. Tamara took the hint and dismissed the issue.

Dr. O’Neal shoved his hands in his lab coat’s pockets. “Do you have a roommate?”

“No. I live alone in San Antonio.”

A knock sounded on the door before it was opened. Clay peered into the room. “Ms. Hamilton said to come back, that you were ready to go?”

The doctor nodded. “I was just telling Ms. Brown that the prescription I’ve given her for pain could make her sleepy or one of several other side effects. She needs to get plenty of rest and to have someone with her for the next couple days until she knows how her body reacts to the meds.”

Clay nodded. “She can stay with me.”

Tamara shot him a startled glance. “No, Clay, I couldn’t… I—”

“I could admit you to the hospital for observation if you’d rather.” Dr. O’Neal gave her a teasing grin, but also arched an eyebrow, telling her the threat wasn’t idle.

“No, I—”

“Good. Make sure she takes it easy,” Dr. O’Neal said with a nod to Clay. “And I’d like to check in with you again in a couple days to see how you’re doing.”

Holding his Stetson, Clay fiddled with the brim. “When do you expect Doc Mason back?”

The doctor glanced up from scribbling a note on Tamara’s chart. “Not sure. He didn’t give us a time frame. Just said he needed to get away for a while.”

Clay cocked his head. “Well, good for the Doc. He’s sure earned a vacation. Can’t say I remember the last time he took off longer than an afternoon to fish.”

The nurse bustled in with Tamara’s X-rays and clipped them on the light board.

Dr. O’Neal stepped over to study the images. “Well, I don’t see any fractures. All in all, I’d say you were quite lucky to walk away from a fall like that with no more than bruised ribs and some superficial lacerations. If you take it easy over the next few days, limit your activity and take your muscle relaxants, you should make a full recovery in a couple weeks.”

Tamara thanked the doctor, paid the bill, and soon she and Clay were headed back to the ranch.

Staring at her hands as they drove, she considered Clay’s invitation to recover at the Bar None. He hadn’t so much asked her as declared that was how it would be. Did he really want her there? Or was he motivated by guilt and responsibility because she’d fallen on his property? Either way, sharing the same roof with Clay, even if just for a few days, would be awkward at best.

“Clay, I—” When his dark brown eyes met hers, her argument drowned in their fathomless depths. She fought the mule-kick loss of breath. “I…think I’ll be fine at my place in San Antonio. I appreciate the offer, but—”

His brow lowered. “You have someone in the city who can stay with you?”

“Well, no.”

“You heard the doctor. You need rest and someone to keep tabs on you.”

“I know, but—”

Clay’s cell trilled, cutting her off.

“Hello? Hey, Jericho.” Clay glanced at Tamara. “Yeah, she’s with me. We’re headed home from Doc Mason’s clinic. Why?” When he frowned, Tamara’s pulse kicked up. She didn’t need more bad news.

“Maybe. Let me ask her.” Clay held the phone against his chest. “Feel up to a short side trip by the south field? Jericho is out there with Deputy Rawlings, and they haven’t found the body you saw. They need you to show them where it is.”

The injection she’d gotten for pain at the doctor’s office was already making her drowsy, but she had a duty to her job and to the deceased man’s family. She stroked a hand over her taped ribs. “Sure. I can manage.”

Ten minutes later, she and Clay were standing with Jericho and Deputy Rawlings beside the sinkhole. The sheriff shook his head. “We’ve been down with searchlights. Turns out this hole is an offshoot cave from the old tunnel Clay and I used to play in when we were kids.”

“A tunnel? For what?” Tamara asked.

Clay shrugged. “Don’t know what it used to be, but the tunnel’s been there for decades. When I bought the ranch, I put barbed wire across the entrance of the tunnel so none of my horses would wander in there and get stuck.”

“The point is, ma’am,” Rawlings said, narrowing a look at Tamara that suggested he thought she’d lost her mind. “Sheriff and I have been all up and down the passages of the tunnel, and there’s no body in there.”

All three men turned toward her. She bristled. “I saw the body myself! I touched it, not more than four hours ago!”

She shuddered at the memory.

The sheriff looked skeptical. “Did you hit your head when you went down?”

“There was a body, Jericho!” Nausea swirled in her gut. Did they think she was lying? Or hallucinating?

“I’m sure you were in shock,” Jericho said. “Maybe—”

“No maybes, Jericho.” His shoulders squared and stiff, Clay took a step closer to her side. “If Tamara says there was a body, there was a body.”

Her protest stuck in her throat. She turned to Clay, wide-eyed, her mind reeling, her heart full. They’d been on opposite sides of so many issues in the final months of their marriage, she’d grown used to butting heads with this stubborn man. Having him back up her story, believe her on something as important as this, touched her deeply, warmed her soul.

Suspicion furrowed tiny creases at the corner of Clay’s eyes. “The only real questions here are who moved the body…and why.”

Chapter 5

Tamara limped across Clay’s family room and eased her throbbing body onto one of the leather sofas. Fatigue bore to her bones. The painkiller dulled the ache, but her muscles were stiff and sudden movement sliced rippling pain through her abdomen. As the prescription kicked in, her body begged for rest and her eyes screamed for sleep. But restless thoughts zinged through her brain.

Where was the dead man she’d found in the tunnel? Was it possible she’d imagined the body, as Rawlings had suggested?

She shook her head to clear the medicated haze. No! Her hands had touched cloth. She had smelled decaying flesh. She had seen the partially buried corpse.

Someone had moved the dead man. But who?

Her CSI team would vindicate her. Even now they were searching the tunnel, looking for hairs, blood or tissue to substantiate her claim and try to identify the victim. With luck they’d also find footprints or drag marks showing the body had been moved.

Clay carried two glasses from the large farm-style kitchen and set one on the wagon-wheel coffee table in front of her. “Marie says she made a fruit salad to go with dinner, but you can have some now if you’re hungry.”

“No, thanks.” Tamara sipped her drink. Sweet tea with lemon, just the way she liked it. Clay had remembered.

She closed her eyes and battled the swell of bittersweet emotion the simple kindness stirred. Though stress and the effect of the painkiller had her on edge, she couldn’t allow herself to lose it.

Of course he’d remember her favorite drink. They’d been intimately connected since high school, mind, body and soul. He’d have to be thickheaded to forget such a basic preference. Clay was anything but stupid. His slow gait and laid-back manner belied the razor-sharp mind that clicked behind those dark eyes.

“You should go to bed. You’ve had a rough day.” Clay sat on the opposite couch.

“Not until I hear back from my team.” She huffed her frustration. “I should be out there. This was my case.”

Clay arched an eyebrow and shot her a skeptical look. “You’re in no condition to work.”

“I know but—” She balled her fists and sighed, trying find the words to express how the waiting killed her, how she hated starting something she couldn’t finish, how the need for answers kept her mind in turmoil.

“But it’s hard to rest up here when your heart and mind are down at that tunnel with your team,” Clay finished for her matter-of-factly.

She blinked, her stomach flip-flopping. “Yeah. Exactly. How did you know?”

He shrugged and took a long swallow of his iced tea. “It’s hard for me to delegate, too. I have to be hands-on with anything that matters.”

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