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He turned and gave her an impatient look. “Aren’t you coming along?”
Her gaze flicked to her own truck and back again. “I—”
“I need you to hold her. I’ll bring you home again later.”
“Oh. All right.” She flew to her truck and grabbed the purse she’d flung onto the floor, then locked the doors before pocketing the keys and hurrying around to the passenger door of Deck’s truck.
It was higher than hers and she had to scramble a bit to get in. The minute she had her seat belt on, he lifted the woman across Silver, placing her in the center seat. Silver caught her weight as she slumped sideways, and eased the woman’s head into the crook of her arm. As Silver supported her weight, Deck slipped his arms from beneath his burden. His face was so near that his lips would brush over hers if she turned her head. As he withdrew from the truck, his arm slid across Silver’s stomach, perilously close to the underside of her breasts.
She nearly jumped out of her seat at the contact, brief as it was. If he noticed, he didn’t show any sign.
Deck came around and slid behind the wheel, turning onto the road again with smooth, economical movements and moving along at a fast clip toward town. He picked up a cell phone and punched some buttons, then waited for a moment and began to speak.
“Sev? Deck. I’m bringing Lyn Hamill in. She’s unconscious, looks like she wrecked her truck.”
He waited while the person on the other end spoke, then replied, “Hold on.” He turned to Silver. “How long’s she been out?”
Silver shrugged. “Probably close to thirty minutes.”
“Thirty minutes,” Deck reported. “But she was conscious right afterward. She got back to the McCall place somehow. McCall’s sister answered the door, and Lyn collapsed.”
He listened again. “No blood that I can see, anyway.” He glanced at Silver with a question in his eyes and she shook her head. “We’ll be there in twenty.”
Abruptly Deck shut off the phone. There was a silence in the truck. Silver’s mind was whirling. “How did you hear my horn?”
“I’m your neighbor. Next place over.” He didn’t sound very pleased about it.
She leaned her head against the back of the seat and closed her eyes for a moment. “I appreciate your help. I guess I’ll have to call a tow truck to move that truck from the entrance to the lane.”
“Your brother can do it with your truck.” His voice sounded almost challenging, and she wondered if he was annoyed with her or the situation.
“My brother’s out of town for a couple of weeks,” she said. She hesitated. “Deck, I’m sorry for inconveniencing you. I could have called an emergency team.”
“Around here folks help each other,” he said. “I was going to town, anyway.” He glanced at the girl in her arms, still ominously quiet, and she saw his eyes soften. “Besides, Lynnie’s had enough trouble in her life. Folks’ll appreciate you helping her.”
“Who is she?” She didn’t like the way his obvious affection for the girl made her feel. How could she possibly be jealous with a man she barely knew?
“Local girl. Her father owned the McCall outfit for a while. She’s had it tough.”
“How old is she?”
Deck shrugged. “Couple years younger than me?” He measured her. “I’m twenty-seven. I’d say Lyn’s closer to your age. You’re…about twenty-five now?”
“Twenty-six.” Then his words penetrated. “You must have grown up with my brother.”
“He and my brother are the same age.” Deck’s voice was flat, and she thought she must be annoying him with her chatter.
Turning her head, she looked out the window. They were rolling through mile after mile of prairie. When Cal had driven her out here the first time, she’d been amazed at the isolation. It had seemed as if a person could drive for days without seeing another house. Of course, she’d come to realize that was an exaggeration. Hours maybe, but not days.
The still form in her arms stirred and groaned, and instantly Silver was alert. “It’s all right, Lyn,” she murmured. “You’re safe.”
“Wha…?” The girl’s hands fluttered. Then, before Silver could offer her any additional reassurance she slipped back into the limp, unresponsive posture.
Silver lifted her gaze to see Deck glancing at them both in clear concern. “I don’t know anything about brain injury,” she said, “but this is scaring me.”
“We’ll be there soon.” To her astonishment Deck reached across the seat and laid a hand across hers where she clasped Lyn Hamill’s elbow. He squeezed gently, a firm, warm pressure that made her long to turn her own palm up and slide her fingers through his. “You did a good thing.”
Two
She was pacing.
Deck watched as Silver sprang to her feet yet again and walked to the corner of the waiting area at the clinic. What the hell was he doing waiting here with her? It had been damn bad luck that he’d been the first one to come across her this morning.
He’d heard that horn and recognized it as some kind of trouble. He’d been stopped by the pasture dam, checking the water level in the dam, and it hadn’t taken him any time at all to investigate. When he realized who it was at the entrance to the McCall place, he’d had an impulse to drive on past just to save himself the aggravation. She was McCall’s sister. He ought to be staying as far away from her as possible.
Then he’d seen Lynnie Hamill and realized he couldn’t drive away and leave either woman.
But that didn’t explain why he was hanging around the clinic. He shouldn’t want to be anywhere near here. Near her.
He watched as she walked the perimeter of the room again. She peered around the corner for a long moment before turning and walked a slow circuit around the room, finally coming to a stop before the single window.
She clearly hadn’t been planning on going anywhere this morning. She wore a pair of skin-tight old jeans that were white at the stress points, tennis sneakers that probably had been white once and an oversize T-shirt. The fabric was pulled into a knot at the waist, draping softly over her breasts in a manner that left his mouth dry and his body reminding him that he’d been without a woman too long. Her dark hair was as wildly curly as it had been the first day he’d seen her, though she had nothing in it today. It flew around her shoulders from a side part with each new motion.
Motion. Ah, the woman definitely could move. He couldn’t remember ever seeing a filly with such pretty action before in his whole entire life. Though he wasn’t fond of fidgety women he enjoyed the contained energy in her stride, the flex of supple muscle beneath her jeans, the slender rhythm of her hips.
He could think of ways he’d enjoy those hips even more. His body reacted as it had every time he’d so much as thought of Silver Jenssen in the past few days, and he shifted uncomfortably on the thin pad of the waiting room chair. He was starting to feel like his stallion penned next to a mare in season. Every time he’d looked at the poor critter, the horse had been more than ready to do his manly duty. A man couldn’t help but feel sympathy for such frustration.
He rose, unable to resist getting just a little closer and walked over to her. “You might as well stop fretting,” he advised her. “Sev said the ambulance’ll be here soon.”
“I know.” Silver didn’t turn from the window. “I’m just so afraid for her…”
He lifted his hands. After a second’s hesitation he clasped her shoulders in his palms, rubbing gently at the knots of tension he felt there. The feel of her softness beneath his hands made his fingers clench in automatic reaction before he got the surge of lust under control. “She was married to a first-class bastard,” he said. “They were divorced but I heard he wouldn’t stop coming around.”
Silver’s whole body had stilled beneath his touch. She rolled her shoulders and tilted her head to one side, giving him unspoken permission to continue his massage. “I don’t think all those marks on her face were from the accident,” she said. “Some of them weren’t fresh.” She turned and looked up at him, and her mouth was firm. “I won’t let her be abused anymore,” she said.
Deck knew he should take his hands from her shoulders now that she was facing him. It was too much like an embrace, and the last person in the world he ought to be hugging was Cal McCall’s sister.
But her flesh was warm and soft beneath his hands, and her eyes were so troubled that he couldn’t just walk off. “I haven’t seen her in a long time,” he said. “Nobody has.”
“If she needs a place, she can stay with me,” Silver said.
“Your brother might not be too thrilled with that.” He didn’t know why he’d felt compelled to bring Cal into the conversation, but the mention of his name banished the aura of intimacy.
“Cal wouldn’t mind,” she said confidently, though he thought he saw a flicker of doubt in her eyes for a moment. “Besides, he needs me to get his house in order, so he owes me one.” Then her face fell and she sighed heavily. “I hate sending her off to a strange hospital all alone. Maybe I should go along.”
He shuddered. He couldn’t prevent it, couldn’t conceal the revulsion that he knew showed on his face. It was all he could do to tolerate a place like this. Hospitals…he hadn’t been able to force himself to set foot in one since the terrible hours after Genie’s accident. The smell made him nauseous, the hushed atmosphere made him want to jump up and shout, the sight of people in white coats rushing around flat out scared the hell out of him.
“There’s no call for that,” he said aloud. “She’ll be in good hands.”
“It’s not that.” She looked up at him earnestly. “I just don’t want her to wake up alone without a friend. That girl looked like she could use a friend.”
With her face tipped up, those wide eyes so serious, she was all but irresistible. His gaze slid down to her mouth, noting the parted lips, the nervous habit she had of nibbling on the bottom one when something was upsetting her as it had been today.
She was Cal McCall’s sister, he told himself. He shouldn’t be talking to her, much less touching her.
Why not? whispered a little voice inside. He took your sister. It would be the perfect revenge.
Right. Like getting cozy with Silver Jenssen could make up for what he’d lost. No one in the world would ever understand. Part of himself had died, too, when Genie had died. A part that could never be regained or replaced.
“Deck?”
He focused on the present again, and there she stood, those beautiful eyes with their dark-rimmed irises looking at him with concern. What the hell—he had to have just one little taste.
“Are you all right?” She spoke again.
He cleared his throat. “I’m fine. Except that I’m holding the prettiest woman in town in my arms and I haven’t kissed her yet.”
Surprise flared in her eyes. Then, before he could lower his head, she stepped backward out from under his hands. “I wish that ambulance would get here.”
The minute she finished the sentence a door banged down the hall and heavy footsteps moved rapidly in their direction. Deck stepped away from Silver and looked out the window.
He hadn’t expected her to rebuff his advance. True, she barely knew him, but he could say without false modesty that he’d kissed a whole lot of women who’d spent even less time with him. He didn’t often make the effort to pursue, because he didn’t need to. He guessed that in this case he might have to make that effort. The primitive hunter within him stirred and woke. Oh, yes, he’d definitely have to make the effort.
Sev Andressen came into the room, a white hospital-style coat over his jeans and shirt. “She’s still unconscious,” he reported. “The ambulance is coming in right now.”
“I’m going along with her,” Silver said. “I won’t be able to give them much, but I’ll explain it.”
“Wait a minute,” said Deck. “You can’t do that.”
Silver raised one eyebrow as she turned to look at him. “Why not?”
“Because…because…” He was floundering and he knew it. “You don’t have transportation.”
“She can ride along,” said Sev. Then he turned as the scream of the approaching ambulance became audible. “We’d better get ready. These guys don’t fool around.”
The next few minutes were a blur of activity. The medical technicians rushed in with a gurney, and the patient was transferred to it. Then Deck and Sev helped the two men carry the gurney back to the ambulance and load it. Silver followed them and when the cot was safely installed, the technicians scrambled in and one extended a hand to her.
Silver stepped forward, but before she could climb in, Deck stopped her with a hand on her arm. “I’ll come to the hospital tonight.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“You need a way home,” he told her. Was he crazy to be pushing this?
She tossed him an impatient glance. “I can rent a car.”
He shook his head, ducking it as a gust of spring wind threatened to unseat his hat. “I’ll be there tonight.”
“Ready?” The driver turned and gestured at Silver to hurry. “Let’s get moving.”
Without giving Deck another glance, Silver pulled herself into the ambulance and the technician slammed the doors. But as the vehicle began to pick up speed, Silver turned to the window. She met his gaze, unsmiling, but she wiggled her fingers at him in farewell.
As hospital furniture went, this wasn’t so bad.
Silver pulled up the footrest on the reclining lounger and propped her feet on its cushion, idly flipping the channels on the wall-mounted television with the remote. In the bed beside her chair Lyn Hamill, her unexpected guest from early this morning, lay quietly. She had yet to move or speak.
It was ten minutes before eight in the evening, and visiting hours would be over shortly. Maybe Deck had had second thoughts about his promise after he thought about the way she’d rejected his flirtation at the clinic.
He’d looked so disappointed when she’d backed away from him. She knew just how he’d felt. A part of her longed to lift herself on tiptoe and press her mouth to his, to trace the stern line of his lips and touch her tongue to the small cleft that divided his squared-off chin. A shiver worked its way down her spine at the notion, coming to rest deep in her abdomen where it throbbed restlessly. She shifted in the chair.
Stop it, girl. You came out here to get away from man trouble, not find it! Amen to that, she thought, giving in to a huge yawn.
And then “man trouble” walked through the door. Hastily she stifled the yawn and lowered the footrest on the chair as Deck hesitated in the entrance.
“Hello,” she said. “I was beginning to think you took me seriously.”
His face seemed pale beneath the artificial light and he was sweating slightly. As he removed his hat, he swiped a hand across his forehead before resettling the hat in its place. “I told you I’d take you home,” he reminded her.
She didn’t know what to say to that, so she focused instead on the huge vase of fresh wildflowers he carried in one big hand. “Those are beautiful. What a thoughtful idea.” He extended the vase and she took it from him, turning to carry it to the single windowsill. “This room needed something to brighten it up.”
“Looks like you beat me to that.” He glanced around at the helium-filled balloons she had tied in two bunches, one to the wardrobe door handle and the other to the foot rail of the sturdy hospital bed.
She shrugged as she dipped a finger in the vase to check the water level. “I figured it might help if she woke up to something cheerful.”
He nodded, then swiped his hand down the side of his face. “Are you ready to go now?”
“I suppose.” She hesitated. “I thought about staying overnight in case she woke up, but the doctors don’t have any idea how long this state might last. Could be hours, could be days.” Could be forever. “And I have animals to feed.”
“Your brother has stock already?” Deck sounded surprised. “And no help?”
“We don’t need help yet,” she said. “All that’s on the ranch right now are two dogs, a mother cat and kittens and one cantankerous she-goat left by the previous owner.”
She moved around the room, straightening the chair and lying the television remote and a pitcher of water beside a full glass on the rolling tray which she parked within reach at the bedside should Lyn awake. She checked to be sure the nurses’ call button was within plain sight and finally took her purse from the wardrobe, empty except for the tattered remnants of clothing the girl had been wearing. She had a list of Lyn’s clothing sizes in her purse now. “I’m ready.”
She took Lyn’s hand again one more time before letting Deck escort her from the room. “I’m going home for the night,” she told the unresponsive girl, “but I’ll come back. You just rest and get well.”
Deck didn’t speak as they took the elevator down and traipsed through the corridors to the main entrance where he’d parked. In the parking lot she recognized his truck immediately.
One thing she could say, she thought as he opened her door and offered her a hand, the man had good manners. She was feminine enough to enjoy and be grateful for the small courtesies that a former generation would have taken for granted.
“Have you eaten?” It was the first thing he said as he drove away from the medical building.
“Um, I had some crackers earlier, and I ate a little of the lunch they brought to Lyn’s room.” She made a face. “I’d forgotten how bad hospital food is.”
He glanced across at her. “You’ve been hospitalized before?”
“No.” She shook her head and laughed. “I’m healthy as a horse. My mother had some minor surgery last year, so I had the chance to enjoy hospital cuisine then.”
He nodded. End of conversation.
