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I just want to watch this football game. Then we’ll go.
Whatever you think best, sweetheart. We’ll leave whenever you’re ready.
Ten minutes earlier. If they’d just left ten minutes earlier. The grief, nearly four years old now, swamped him, guilt digging its claws deep.
He swiped his thumb over his daughter’s face. He’d studied genetics in college. Dark eyes and hair were supposed to be dominant, but Bel had inherited his dark hair and her mother’s sky-blue eyes. His blonde, blue-eyed wife had been all things lovely, but his daughter’s combination of light and dark had fascinated him.
He shoved the picture back into the drawer and closed it, snagging his kit from the narrow bed as he whirled away and left the room.
Exhaustion pulled at him, so he took three cans of energy drink from the refrigerator in the dispensary. He wouldn’t get much sleep tonight, but he rarely slept well even when he worked himself to the point of exhaustion. On the other hand, only work and slumber let him escape the emptiness, grief and guilt.
He drove from his place on the edge of War Bonnet back to Straight Arrow Ranch. The Billings place was by far the biggest concern in the area. Two square miles in size and well run, the ranch apparently turned a good profit. Though the comfortable, sprawling old house couldn’t hold a candle to the home near Ponca City that Stark had walked away from after the deaths of his family, he couldn’t have gone back. He and his wife, Catherine, had built that place, pouring their hearts into every brick, board and stone. He never wanted to see it again.
Parking the truck to the side of the red-dirt road that separated the Straight Arrow home from the outbuildings, Stark shouldered his kit and automatically reached for his hat. Thinking better of that, he left the wide-brimmed black felt on the seat and got out.
Cool autumn air washed over him as he reached into the back for his bedroll. He hoisted it onto his shoulder, curling his arm around it, and trudged toward the stables, choosing the lit path on the backside of the building. Coming to the welded metal corral fence, he shoved his backpack and bedroll through the lower rungs and onto the ground, then climbed over and dropped down. He shouldered his gear again before going inside the darkened building. The light at the end of the long row outlined the shapely feminine form standing at Soldier’s drooping head.
Meredith Billings was the very last person Stark wanted to see tonight. In fact, she was the last person he wanted to see most days. Those accusatory blue eyes and her obvious disdain pierced him clear through every time. Sighing, he started forward, listening to half-a-dozen horses blow and shift as he walked down the long aisle. She waited, petting the butternut sorrel’s neck and casting glances into the dark as Stark drew closer.
He didn’t say a word, mostly because he knew it needled her, but partly because this was the first time she’d approached him in private. She obviously had something on her mind. He waited for her to come to the point as he carefully stowed his gear, placing the medical kit atop a nearby blue plastic barrel, then unrolling the bedding behind the open gate of the stall. Because the equipment to hoist a downed horse required a minimum of nine feet in clearance, they’d had to rig it from the stable’s central beam, which meant Soldier actually stood, supported by the sling, partially outside his stall. Stark placed the air mattress on the ground under the sleeping bag and attached the foot pump that would inflate the coils. Then he rose and turned to face Meredith, his arms folded.
She lifted her worried blue gaze, and asked, “What happens if he develops pneumonia?”
Stark shoved a hand through his hair. “I don’t want to give you false hope. Pneumonia can be fatal, especially in an older horse, even one that isn’t already seriously ill. Let’s just take it a day at a time.”
Her chin shot up, and she went on the attack. “False hope! Is that your way of saying you’re going to let him die?”
Stark rolled his eyes. “The cat again. And keep your voice down. Animals don’t like shouting.”
She glanced in the direction of the horses. “Admit it! Your solution for every seriously ill or injured animal is a swift death sentence,” she hissed.
He sighed and grated out, “How many times do I have to say it? Your cat was gravely injured. There was nothing I could do.”
“You forget,” she reminded him tartly, “that I’m a nurse, and I know something about medical matters.”
“For humans,” he retorted. “Animals are not people. I suggest that you not assign human attributes to them.”
She stepped back as if stung. “I do no such thing!”
“Of course you don’t. Which is why your family calls you the crazy cat lady.”
“They do not.”
“No?” he shot back. “Then why did Ann forbid me to tell you that Donovan’s cat had kittens?”
Meredith’s eyes lit. “Kittens?”
“And I just told you,” Stark moaned, pinching the bridge of his nose, suddenly aware of the horses grunting and knocking about in their stalls. “Look, Meredith, I’m sorry about your cat. I’d have saved it if it could have been saved. You can trust me to do all that can be done for every one of my patients.”
Meredith adopted a lofty tone, saying, “My concern here is my father’s well-being. He’s ill, and he loves his horse. I don’t want him to suffer any unnecessary losses, not with these tests coming up to determine the status of his cancer. I mean, if that doesn’t go well...” She shook her head. “He’s been through enough.”
Moving his hand to the horse’s flank, Stark stepped closer. It had been a long time since he’d noticed a woman, and he didn’t want to notice this one, but those soft blue eyes were tough to ignore. Package them in an oval face with broad, full lips and a petite nose, framed by long, strawberry blond hair, add a shapely figure meant for jeans and knit tops, and he’d dare any man to find a complaint with her looks. Okay, she could be taller. She had to be a foot shorter than him. And she had yet to smile in his presence.
Frowning at that thought, he said, “Meredith, everyone suffers unnecessary loss.”
She blinked at him, her head tilting just so, and he knew instantly that he’d given himself away.
Mumbling, “Excuse me,” he turned and strode down the aisle of the darkened stable toward the open door and the safety of solitude.
* * *
Meredith took a last look at her father’s drooping horse before turning and slowly following Stark down the aisle of the stable. As she stepped into the night, she pulled her cardigan closed against the crispness of the mid-October evening and headed toward the welcoming lights of the two-story ranch house across the red-dirt road. As she walked, she prayed for her father and his horse. Stepping up onto the porch, she wondered what “unnecessary loss” Stark Burns had suffered, for she had heard the unmistakable tone of experience in his voice.
That thought and others kept her awake late into the night. She didn’t know what came over her when Stark Burns was around. He never frightened her like some men did now, but something about him just pushed her buttons, every last one of them. Even with her cat, Tiger, curled next to her on the narrow bed, Meri couldn’t seem to sleep for more than moments at a time. Nevertheless, she woke early the next morning and instantly decided that she owed Stark some sort of apology.
Quickly dressed in jeans, boots and a sweater, she twisted her long, light red hair into a messy bun at the nape of her neck as she left her room. She headed for the stairs, where she met her sister-in-law. Callie held a fingertip to her lips, indicating that at least little Bodie still slept. Wondering if Burns would be awake, Meri slipped out of the house and crossed the road to the stable. He hadn’t closed the door, so she crept inside quietly, only to find the light on at the far end of the aisle and the doctor changing an IV bag.
“How is he?” she asked, walking onto the scene.
Burns didn’t even spare her a glance. “He’s still with us. The next few days will be critical, though.”
“What do we do?”
“We keep as close an eye on him as possible, administer fluids and medication, try to get him to eat... I’m monitoring his temperature. That’s the important thing right now.”
“I can stay with him so you can go to the house for breakfast,” she offered politely. “Callie should be cooking as we speak.” He shook his head.
“No, thanks. I prefer to take my meals alone.”
Meri’s mouth fell open. “Always?”
“Usually.”
She didn’t know what to say to that.
“I have another appointment in an hour so,” he went on absently. “I’ll get something to eat after that.”
We’ll see about that, Meredith thought. Wouldn’t the confounded man even let her be nice to him?
She turned around and marched straight back to the house, where she found Callie busy in the kitchen, as predicted. Explaining that the doctor had to leave soon for another appointment, Meri quickly loaded up a tray and returned to the stable with her peace offering.
She set the tray, a clean dishcloth draped over it, next to his kit on the blue barrel. Stark sat atop a wooden box and glanced at the tray.
“What’s this?”
“Your breakfast. Callie made pancakes and bacon. There’s coffee, too, and it’s getting cold. How do you take it?”
He frowned at her for a long moment before saying, “Black.”
She picked up the mug and held it out to him. “Here you go.”
He took the mug, sniffed, sipped, then slugged back a healthy gulp, sighing. “Why does coffee taste so good when you’re hungry?”
“I drink it, but I’ve never much learned to appreciate it,” she admitted.
“Why do you drink it, then?” he asked, after swallowing another mouthful.
“Two words,” she answered. “Shift work.”
“That’s right. Nurses work around the clock in shifts.”
“And caffeine and shift work go hand in hand.”
“I hear you.” He set the mug back on the tray, picked up the whole thing and brought it down to his lap. Balancing the tray on his knees, he slathered butter on the pancakes with the tines of his fork, then poured on the syrup, saying, “This is mighty nice. Of Callie.”
Meri rolled her eyes. “You don’t give an inch, do you?”
He squinted up at her. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really?”
“You going to stand there and watch me eat?” he muttered, stuffing pancake into his mouth.
She turned away. Okay, if he didn’t want an apology, she wouldn’t give him one. Instead, she moved to the horse, reaching out a hand to signal her presence. Trailing her fingertips over the butternut hide, now dull with illness, she crooned to the animal.
“Hey, boy. How ya doin’?” The horse blew through his nostrils, as if acknowledging her concern, and Meri smiled. “You need to get well. The Straight Arrow wouldn’t be the same without you.”
“That horse doesn’t understand anything but your tone,” Stark pointed out laconically. “You know that, right?”
“Do you always have to be so surly?” she asked, turning just in time to spy a yellow-on-gold-striped cat slink around the bottom of the blue barrel. “Tiger!” she gasped, starting forward, “How did you get out?”
Following her horrified gaze, Stark set the tray aside and slid to the floor, easily capturing the cat as it attempted to streak past him. Crossing his legs at the ankles and bending them at the knees, he brought the cat into his lap, scratching it under the chin.
“Well, well. Haven’t seen this guy before. Tiger, is it?” He held up the cat in one hand, checking its eyes, nostrils and teeth with the other. “Healthy fellow.”
“I don’t know how he got out,” Meredith said, fighting the urge to snatch Tiger out of Stark’s grasp. “I keep him in my room.”
The doctor checked the animal’s paws and inclined his head. “Well, a declawed cat shouldn’t be out-of-doors, especially not in the country, but a bedroom seems like a small space to keep a cat in.”
“It’s not permanent,” she snapped. “He’s usually in my apartment in Oklahoma City. And he was a lot more content before Tux...”
Stark glared at her but otherwise ignored the truncated comment. “Why don’t you give him the run of the house? Just keep him out of your dad’s room. Contrary to myth, clean animals do not spread contagion.”
“I know that. It’s just that everybody forgets, and they let him out.”
“Poor kitty,” Stark cooed, bringing Tiger nose to nose with him. “Nobody looking out for you.”
“I look out for him!” Meredith protested hotly. “He’s all I have now.”
Stark sent her a glance of pure censure, a silent scold that spoke louder than words. She hadn’t meant it, of course. She had her whole family, a growing family, which she seemed doomed to leave. And what right did he, a loner by choice, have to judge her, anyway?
Thankfully, Ann called her name just then. Otherwise, she—the quietest, smallest, youngest, mildest, most timid of the Billings siblings—might have been tempted to do Stark Burns harm. Real physical harm.
Chapter Two (#u06533cf9-665b-54d0-8c9e-1cf0bed3aac9)
“Meri? Meri, the cat’s out!”
“We’ve got him,” Meredith called, keeping her voice even. Stark had to admit, if only to himself, that he liked baiting her.
Ann showed up an instant later, breathless, her long, bright hair billowing about her shoulders as she strode confidently down the aisle behind the stalls. “Oh, good.”
She was an attractive woman, Ann Billings Pryor, but a mite too in-your-face for Stark’s taste, not that Ann’s little sister didn’t have spunk, too. She’d given him what-for since he’d picked up her injured cat off the road out there next to the house the day of her brother’s wedding.
At Ann’s heels trotted the spotted Australian shepherd, Digger. While Ann and Dean’s son, Donovan, was in kindergarten half days, the dog seemed to have attached itself to Ann. Tiger instantly took exception to the dog, bowing his back and hissing.
“Now, now,” Stark crooned, soothing the cat.
“I was looking for you,” Ann explained to her sister. “I just cracked the door to your room, and the thing darted out. Dean was coming in the house behind me, and the next thing I knew, it was out the front door.”
“Really, Ann,” Meredith admonished. “How many times do I have to tell you...and with the dog beside you, no less.”
What a prissy little thing she was—prissy, pretty, intelligent and entertaining, an unwelcome combination as far as Stark was concerned. He had no interest in developing a connection with any woman. Still, he felt an odd compulsion to mend fences if he could.
“Let’s see if we can introduce these two,” Stark suggested, holding out a hand and clucking his tongue at the dog. “Come here, Digger. Come on. That’s a boy.”
The dog trotted over, and Tiger tried to climb Stark’s chest using his back claws. When a cat was declawed, only its defensive front claws were removed. Without those, they had only their tiny teeth and speed for protection. Stark held fast to the feline, talking softly. The dog sniffed and snuffled, while the cat hissed and bared its teeth without making much impression.
“Our cats never act like that around Digger,” Ann complained. “Of course, most of them are still kittens.” She immediately clapped a hand over her mouth.
“I already spilled the beans on that,” Stark admitted with a sheepish grin, while Meredith glared at her sister and the dog trotted off to check out the horses, which were shuffling around their stalls in hopes of being let out soon.
Ann stiffened her spine and squared her shoulders, folding her arms. “Meredith,” she said sternly, “you cannot have another cat.”
“Why not?” Meredith demanded. “Because I’m the crazy cat lady?”
Stark sighed as Ann glared daggers at him. “One or two spoiled cats do not make a crazy cat lady,” he said calmly. In point of fact, Meredith Billings was the furthest thing from a crazy cat lady he’d ever seen. And there was that smile at last.
He almost wished he hadn’t seen it. She was really quite amazingly lovely without it. With it, she took away his breath. Her teeth blazed white in her oval face, her plump pink lips forming a perfect bow, while her cheeks plumped into creamy apples and her blue eyes sparkled.
Which was more than enough reason to keep his distance.
The timer on his phone tootled, as if reinforcing that fact. Putting his feet on the floor, he rose in one smooth movement, thrust the cat into its owner’s arms and shouldered past the two sisters to the horse.
“I’ll just remove the IV bag before I go,” he said, “and be back as soon as I can.”
“I’ll be glad to help,” Meredith began.
He gave her instructions as he worked. Nothing much could be done, but someone needed to keep an eye on the animal to make sure it didn’t take a turn for the worse before Stark could get back to set up another IV bag and administer more medication. Meredith watched as he removed the connections, leaving the catheter in the jugular.
