At Home in Stone Creek. Linda Lael Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ looked up at his closest and most trusted friend and wished he’d listened to Vince. Ever since he’d come down with the illness, a week after snatching a five-year-old girl back from her noncustodial parent—a small-time drug runner with dangerous aspirations and a lousy attitude—he hadn’t been able to think about anyone or anything but Ashley. When he could think.

      Now, in one of the first clearheaded moments he’d experienced since checking himself out of the hospital the day before, he realized he might be making a major mistake—not by facing Ashley; he owed her that much and a lot more. No, he could be putting her in danger, and putting Tanner and his daughter and his pregnant veterinarian wife in danger, as well.

      “I shouldn’t have come here,” he said, keeping his voice low.

      Tanner shook his head, his jaw clamped down hard, as though irritated by Jack’s statement. Since he’d gotten married, settled down and sold off his multinational construction company to play at being an Arizona rancher, Tanner had softened around the edges a little, but Jack knew his friend was still one tough SOB.

      “This is where you belong,” Tanner insisted. Another grin quirked one corner of his mouth. “If you’d had sense enough to know that six months ago, old buddy, when you bailed on Ashley without so much as a fare-thee-well, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

      Ashley. The name had run through his mind a million times in those six months, but hearing somebody say it out loud was like having a fist close around his insides and squeeze hard.

      Jack couldn’t speak.

      Tanner didn’t press for further conversation.

      The ambulance bumped over country roads, finally hit smooth blacktop.

      “Here we are,” Tanner said. “Ashley’s place.”

      “I knew something was going to happen,” Ashley told Mrs. Wiggins, peeling the kitten off the living room curtains as she peered out at the ambulance stopped in the street. “I knew it.”

      Not bothering to find her coat, Ashley opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. Tanner got out on the passenger side and gave her a casual wave as he went around back.

      Ashley’s heart pounded. She stood frozen for a long moment, not by the cold, but by a strange, eager sense of dread. Then she bolted down the steps, careful not to slip, and hurried along the walk, through the gate.

      “What…?” she began, but the rest of the question died in her throat.

      Tanner had opened the back of the ambulance, but then he just stood there, looking at her with an odd expression on his face.

      “Brace yourself,” he said.

      Jeff Baxter, part of a rotating group of volunteers, like Tanner, left the driver’s seat and came to stand a short but eloquent distance away. He looked like a man trying to brace himself for an imminent explosion.

      Impatient, Ashley wedged herself between the two men, peered inside.

      Jack McCall sat upright on the gurney, grinning stupidly. His black hair, military-short the last time she’d seen him, was longer now, and sleekly shaggy. His eyes blazed with fever.

      “Whose shirt is that?” he asked, frowning.

      Still taken aback, Ashley didn’t register the question right away. Several awkward moments had passed by the time she glanced down to see what she was wearing.

      “Yours,” she answered, finally.

      Jack looked relieved. “Good,” he said.

      Ashley, beside herself with surprise until that very instant, landed back in her own skin with a jolt. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

      Jack scooted toward her, almost pitched out of the ambulance onto his face before Tanner and Jeff moved in to grab him by the arms.

      “Checking in,” he said, once he’d tried—and failed—to shrug off them off. “You’re still in the bed-and-breakfast business, aren’t you?”

       You’re still in the bed-and-breakfast business, aren’t you?

      Damn, the man had nerve.

      “You belong in a hospital,” she said evenly. “Not a bed-and-breakfast.”

      “I’m willing to pay double,” Jack offered. His face, always strong, took on a vulnerable expression. “I need a place to lay low for a while, Ash. Are you game?”

      She thought quickly. The last thing in the world she wanted was Jack McCall under her roof again, but she couldn’t afford to turn down a paying guest. She’d have to dip into her savings soon if she did, and not just to pay Brad.

      The bills were piling up.

      “Triple the usual rate,” she said.

      Jack squinted, probably not understanding at first, then gave a raspy chuckle. “Okay,” he agreed. “Triple it is. Even though it is the off-season.”

      Jeff and Tanner half dragged, half carried him toward the house.

      Ashley hesitated on the snowy sidewalk.

      First the cat.

      Now Jack.

      Evidently, it was her day to be dumped on.

      Chapter Two

      “What happened to him?” Ashley whispered to Tanner, in the hallway outside the second-best room in the house, a small suite at the opposite end of the corridor from her own quarters. Jeff and Tanner had already put the patient to bed, fully dressed except for his boots, and Jeff had gone downstairs to make a call on his cell phone.

      Jack, meanwhile, had sunk into an instant and all-consuming sleep—or into a coma. It was a crapshoot, guessing which.

      Tanner looked grim; didn’t seem to notice that Mrs. Wiggins was busily climbing his right pant leg, her infinitesimal claws snagging the denim as she scaled his knee and started up his thigh with a deliberation that would have been funny under any other circumstances.

      “All I know is,” Tanner replied, “I got a call from Jack this afternoon, just as Livie and I were leaving the clinic after her checkup. He said he was a little under the weather and wanted to know if I’d meet him at the airstrip and bring him here.” He paused, cupped the kitten in one hand, raised the little creature to nose level, and peered quizzically into its mismatched eyes before lowering it gently to the floor. Straightening from a crouch, he added, “I offered to put him up at our place, but he insisted on coming to yours.”

      “You might have called me,” Ashley fretted, still keeping her voice down. “Given me some warning, at least.”

      “Check your voice mail,” Tanner countered, sounding mildly exasperated. “I left at least four messages.”

      “I was out,” Ashley said, defensive, “buying kitty litter and kibble. Because your wife decided I needed a cat.”

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