High Country Rebel. Lindsay McKenna

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СКАЧАТЬ admitted softly. “Over the years, she brought out all her photo albums.” She gave him a tender look. “I guess you might say I got to know you from the time you born. Sandy is so proud of you, Talon. I knew you were in the Navy, went into the SEALs and she really didn’t have much in the photo album from recent times except for the few pictures you sent back to her when you were in Afghanistan.”

      Wincing internally, Talon remembered those photos he’d sent her. They were all of Hayden and him or Zeke. His mother loved animals and he could email her about Zeke. He could never tell her about his missions or anything that had happened on them, but she loved his stories about Zeke. His heart clenched with renewed grief. Cat had seen photos of him and Hayden together, their arms across one another’s shoulders, their M-4 rifles propped on their hips, grinning like fools into the camera after a twelve-hour patrol. He dragged in a shallow breath, the pneumonia still not allowing him to take a deep one.

      “I’m glad you’ve been here for my mom,” he admitted, giving her a quick look of sincere thanks. His heart contracted. There were still tears in her eyes. Cat was too easily touched. He felt helpless to fix this.

      “Sandy’s a wonderful person,” Cat said quietly. “And I can see so much of her in you. She has been such a strong member of our community. She did a lot of volunteer work before she got sick. Now all those people she’s helped over the years have turned around to help her. You need to know your mom is greatly loved, Talon. Gwen Garner, who owns the quilting store, has her club members see Sandy weekly. In fact, it’s Gwen who gave all of us a monthly visiting schedule. Your mom gets lots of company every day. Gus fixes her a dinner once a week and I drive it over to her. A lot of the quilters make her breakfast or lunch.” The darkness in Talon’s eyes lightened, some of the tension around his hard, thinned mouth dissolved. “About fifty people volunteer to help Sandy. I don’t want you to think your mom has been abandoned. We’ve embraced her and she’s as happy as she can be. And now you’re home.” Cat’s voice grew stronger with feeling. “I know how much she’s been looking forward to this. You’ll give her a level of hope and care none of us ever could. This is the time when she needs you at her side.”

      Nodding, he stared down at Zeke, who had laid his head on his thigh. “She sounds so damned weak.” And it scared the hell out of him to realize how close she was to dying. When he’d call her from the Naval Hospital, about once a week, she was always cheerful, upbeat and hopeful. Not now.

      Cat placed her hand lightly on his shoulder. “She is weak. It’s the chemo. And I know you’re feeling pretty weak yourself right now. It’s going to take about two weeks for you to throw off this pneumonia and begin feeling halfway human. Did Sandy understand you couldn’t see her right away?”

      “Yeah, I lied a little.” Talon absorbed Cat’s touch, desperate for more contact with her. He’d wanted to kiss her. Make love to her. How she sensed his needs was beyond him, but he was grateful anyway. “I made light of my pneumonia because I didn’t want her to worry. She knows I can’t be sick and visit her or it could impact her lowered immune system in a major way.”

      “I think calling her daily will be a huge emotional boost for her,” Cat murmured, smiling a little. She couldn’t keep her hands off Talon. Just simply moving her fingers across his shoulder sent heated signals to her lower body. Wanting. Just him. Just Talon. Cat removed her hand. There was so much uncharted emotional territory with this man and she couldn’t trust herself.

      “I can at least do that,” Talon agreed, his voice gravelly. His flesh was tingling, heat radiating from where her fingertips had rested. Did Cat know her power over him? That she gently held his heart between her work-worn hands? That any contact with her made him grow hard? The innocence in her expression stunned him. She was old enough to understand a woman’s ability to inflame a man. Talon wanted to know everything about Cat. His finely honed sixth sense told him her innocence was real, that she wasn’t worldly.

      Something...God, he knew something terrible or traumatic had happened to Cat to make her this way. And his sexual response to her was like that of a hungry wolf. She’d saved his life, brought him back from the brink of death. She sure as hell deserved a helluva lot more than him stalking her like a selfish bastard. Talon moved his hands slowly up and down his thighs, scowling. Unhappy with himself.

      “I need to check your lungs and get your temperature,” Cat told him, forcing herself to move. A chance to touch him again, but this time, it really was about checking Talon’s temperature and making sure he stayed on the road to recovery. “Can you lie down?”

      “Yeah,” Talon grunted, easing Zeke from between his legs and then lying down on the bed. He watched Cat through half-closed eyes. When she looped the stethoscope around her neck, he couldn’t help saying, “Whoever the guy is in your life, he’s one lucky bastard.”

      Cat’s eyebrows moved up and she froze for a moment. She stared at Talon on the bed. He was a big man and his hands were tucked behind his head, his expression curious. She managed a short laugh. “There’s no one in my life.” She reached down into her bag and retrieved the handheld Braun ThermoScan thermometer.

      “Why?” Talon cursed himself for his bluntness. Pain flashed across Cat’s face as she sat down on the bed.

      “I have bad luck with men in general,” she admitted. Opening his shirt and folding it open, she listened to his lungs.

      Talon stared up at her. Cat had problems with men? He watched her closely as she listened intently through her stethoscope. When she was finished, he asked, “So, you’re not seeing anyone presently?”

      She picked up the ThermoScan and eased it into his ear. “That’s right.” Shame flowed through Cat. Her latest bad choice involved Beau Magee, a truck driver with Ace Trucking. As she removed the thermometer, she murmured, “Good, your temp is ninety-nine degrees.” She smiled down into his troubled-looking eyes. “That antibiotic is really taking hold.”

      “And my lungs? How do they sound?” He absorbed her every move, her every expression. That smile of hers was like sunlight piercing the heavy darkness of his mangled heart and broken soul.

      “Improving. Still crackling sounds, but less so.” She patted his hand. “You’re really going to have to rest for two weeks, Talon. If you overdo it, you’ll relapse.”

      “I’m not the type to sit around.”

      “Yeah,” Cat said, and chuckled, getting up and walking to her medical bag. “I got that. You’re a man of action.”

      “Being a SEAL, you’re on the move all the time. I get antsy if I have to stay anywhere for more than fifteen minutes.”

      As she leaned down to put her equipment away, he truly appreciated her rear, those generous hips. It was too bad she didn’t wear clothes that fit her a little better. Everything Cat wore hung on her, as if she were hiding her body within the folds of the fabric. She should be proud of it, showing it off.

      Straightening, Cat turned and grinned at him. “Well, you’d best give yourself a talking-to about that, because as bad a case of pneumonia as you have, enforced rest is mandatory.”

      “So, do you play any card games?” he teased. Talon liked the way her mouth curved upward.

      “No, but I like Scrabble. I’m always trying to improve my vocabulary.” Because in grade school she nearly flunked out of reading. But then with her father stalking her, abusing her, Cat’s mind wasn’t really focused on learning the alphabet, phonetics or reading. She was focused on surviving. “Actually, your mom got me into it. I would read to her and stumble over words СКАЧАТЬ