Wyoming Bold (Mills & Boon M&B) (15 page)

She reacted to it at once, her arms around his neck, her body straining to get as close to him as she possibly could.

His hand went under her blouse, searching for soft flesh to explore. His mouth teased around her lips until he roused her. The kiss was deeper, slower, hungrier than any they’d shared before. He groaned.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, feeling his anguish.

“We should get married,” he blurted out.

CHAPTER TEN

M
ERISSA
 
DREW
 
BACK
 
from him with a faint gasp. “What?” she stammered.

He ground his teeth together. She looked so shocked that he was embarrassed, and suddenly his confidence about her feelings for him took a nosedive. The set of rings in his pocket was burning a hole in the material of his coat now. “I didn’t mean to say that,” he lied. “I’m sorry. I got in over my head a little too quickly.”

“It’s...all right,” she said, moving away from him, back to her own seat. She fastened her seat belt for something to do. “No harm.” She tried to smile. For an instant she’d thought he meant it, and her heart sailed up into the sky. Now he was busy backtracking.

“I’m really sorry...”

“Oh, you don’t have to apologize,” she assured him urgently. “I know men sometimes say things they don’t mean when they, well, you know.” She flushed. He seemed really regretful about what he’d said. She only wanted to ease the embarrassment. “I’m not ready to get married, anyway,” she lied. “So it’s fine. Really.”

He didn’t look reassured. In fact, he looked puzzled and then almost offended. He put his own seat belt back on, put the truck in gear and drove up to her porch.

He cut off the engine. “I’ll walk you inside,” he said quietly. “I want to make sure Carson’s here.”

“Okay.”

They moved into the house in silence, not touching, not speaking. Merissa was concerned. He must be terribly embarrassed to have blurted out such a compromising proposal. He had been vague about the future, but he’d never said anything about marriage. She was crazy about him, and he seemed to have feelings for her. But it was one thing to feel passion for someone, quite another to consider spending the rest of your life with her. She wanted Tank to be sure. And she wanted a proposal that came when he wasn’t out of his mind with desire.

So she didn’t say anything about their former conversation.

“I’m home,” Merissa called.

Clara came out of the kitchen. “So I see. Hello, Dalton,” she greeted with a smile.

He nodded, but he didn’t smile. “I just wanted to make sure everything was okay,” he told the women. “I’ll check back tomorrow. Have a good night.”

He left without even looking at Merissa.

“What happened?” Clara asked worriedly.

Merissa drew in a breath. “I’m not sure. And I can’t talk about it right now,” she added gently. “I’m sorry.”

Clara hugged her. “Have a nice cup of hot chocolate while I peel potatoes for supper. Carson’s outside working on some project of his. He won’t tell me what it is.”

“Is he near the house?” Merissa asked, curious.

“Not really,” her mother said. “He was going to start putting up surveillance devices at the boundaries of the property. Why?”

“I just wondered.” She had an uneasy feeling, but she didn’t want to put it into words. She drew in a long breath and rubbed her temple.

“Not another headache?” her mother asked worriedly.

“No,” she said. “Well, not yet, anyway.”

“You do know where you left your prescription medicine?”

“Of course,” Merissa said, and smiled wanly. “It’s in my bedside table, where I always keep it.” She cocked her head. “You think I’ll get one, don’t you?”

Her mother was noncommittal. “You look worried and Dalton looked, I don’t know, upset.”

Merissa averted her eyes. “We had a little...misunderstanding.”

Clara patted her shoulder affectionately. “It’s early days yet,” she said gently. “You don’t really know each other. Time will take care of that.”

Merissa shrugged. “I hope so.”

“Things are usually a little rocky at first. But he’s very fond of you. He doesn’t make any secret of it.”

Merissa nodded. She glanced at her mother. Clara had made her a cup of hot chocolate. She put it in front of her at the table. She poured potatoes into a big bowl, got a knife and sat down to peel them.

“It takes time for people to grow together and trust one another,” she told Merissa. “He’s been alone for a long time.”

“He’s very rich,” Merissa said through her teeth.

“And you think he’ll consider you a gold digger—is that a proper modern word?” Clara laughed. “You’re the least mercenary person I’ve ever known.”

“Still, it’s a very different lifestyle than ours.”

“He’s a rancher. He loves animals. He loves the land. He’s like us. So are his brothers and their wives.”

Merissa made a face. She sipped the hot chocolate and sighed with pure contentment. “Nobody makes this like you do.”

“Thank you, dear.” She was quiet.

“You’re thinking about my father, aren’t you?” she asked.

Clara nodded. “I loved him once,” she said. “It was a horrible way to die, a horrible thing to do, to bring him back here and sacrifice him.” She lifted her eyes to her daughter’s. “He was evil. But even a dog shouldn’t die like that.”

“I know.” Merissa stared into the hot chocolate. “That man should die like that. The one who sent my father back here, who’s trying to kill Dalton.”

Clara’s knife was still. “You should never wish such things on anyone,” she said in her soft voice.

“I know,” Merissa replied. “It’s unnecessary. I’ve seen his death. It’s...more horrible than you could even imagine.” She shivered.

“Let’s talk about something more pleasant.”

“I hear that some fabulously wealthy man is putting together a manned mission to Mars and he wants volunteers,” Merissa said with a grin. “All I need is a spacesuit...”

“You can’t go.”

“Why not?”

Clara laughed. “You have a very nice future ahead of you, right here in Wyoming. And no, I won’t tell you what it is.”

Merissa grimaced. “Well, it doesn’t contain Dalton, I’m sure of that. He almost left a trail of fire behind him getting out of the driveway.”

Clara didn’t say a word. She just smiled.

* * *

I
T
 
WAS
 
ALMOST
 
inevitable; the migraine. It came on an hour or two after Merissa’s odd conversation with Tank.

She was sitting in the living room with her mother, watching the news, when she began to feel the effects.

She rubbed her temple with obvious pain. It was like a knife in her right eye. When she opened it again, her field of vision in that eye looked like the static on a television station that was temporarily off the air.

“Oh, dear,” she said, feeling nausea rise.

“You’d better take something while you still can,” Clara said worriedly.

“I’ll do it right now.”

She went quickly to her room, picked up the bottle that contained the capsules that she took for her headaches. She should have noticed that they weren’t in the drawer where she’d put them. They were sitting on the table under the lamp. But she was hurting too badly to pay attention.

She shook one capsule out into her hand and popped it into her mouth, swallowing some water to get it down. The prescription was for two, but she hoped she’d taken it early enough to prevent the headache from developing.

While she sipped water from the plastic bottle on the same table as the pills, she glanced at the window curiously. The blinds were askew. She straightened them before she moved back to the bed and slid down onto it. Clara brought her a wet washcloth and put it over her eyes. “Just lie still, honey,” she told the younger woman. “It will pass soon. Can I get you anything?”

“No, I’ll...be fine. I just took one capsule. Maybe it will be enough. Turn off the light and close the curtains, will you?” she whispered.

“At once.”

She did, and tiptoed out, closing the door behind her.

* * *

T
HE
 
PHONE
 
RANG
 
at the Kirk ranch. Mallory picked it up. “Hello?”

There was a hysterical barrage of words from Clara. As he listened, Mallory’s face grew quickly somber.

“Yes, I’ll tell him. Is Carson with you?”

He listened and nodded. “Did you call the EMTs? Okay. Fine. Yes, we’ll be right there. Try not to worry.”

“What’s up?” the others asked, almost in unison.

“Merissa’s in the hospital. Apparently she took a capsule for a migraine headache and had a violent reaction to it. We’re going to pick Clara up on the way to the hospital.”

Before he could even get the words out, Tank was headed out the back door.

Mallory called Darby on his cell phone. “You drive him, I don’t care what he says,” he told the foreman after he’d given him the bare bones of the conversation. “He’ll kill himself trying to get there alone. Don’t worry about Clara, we’ll pick her up and take her to the hospital with us.” There was a pause. “She said Carson was setting up some sort of devices out on the property. She hasn’t seen him in a while. We’ll worry about that later. Drive Tank to the hospital. Hurry!”

He hung up and looked at his family. “He’ll head him off and drive him to town,” he assured them.

“We should go, too,” Cane replied.

“Yes. You stay here with the baby,” Mallory told Morie, “and you should stay, too,” he added, smiling at Bolinda. “I know, but it’s really bad outside and you’re delicate. Morie can’t leave the baby and she needs someone with her,” he lied.

Morie grinned. “Yes, she does.”

“Okay, then, but give Merissa my love,” Bodie agreed finally.

Cane gave Mallory a grateful look.

“Mine, too,” Morie told her husband.

He nodded, kissed her gently and left Cane to say a brief, affectionate goodbye to his own wife. Then they drove over to pick up Clara and rushed to the hospital.

* * *

T
ANK
 
WAS
 
PACING
 
the waiting room.

“How is she?” Mallory asked as he and Clara and Cane moved to Tank’s side.

“Bad,” Tank said unsteadily. “They won’t tell me anything because I’m not a relative,” he added angrily.

“It’s all right,” Clara said. She’d been crying, but suddenly she was more positive. “I’ll find out what’s going on.”

“You sent those capsules she was taking with the EMTs, didn’t you?” Mallory asked.

She nodded. “Yes, I did. The first thing I thought was that it was an allergic reaction. She only took one, so maybe it isn’t too bad. I made sure they took the bottle along with her. I’ll see if I can find out anything.” She went to the emergency room desk.

“They were doing tests, they told me,” Tank said to his brothers. “Tests! They won’t let me see her,” he groaned.

“Take it easy,” Cane said gently. “Just breathe. We’ll know something soon. Okay?”

Tank calmed down. He nodded.

Mallory put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “First rule of medicine is ‘do no harm,’” he reminded him. “If they treat her in the dark they could kill her. If you weren’t so upset, you’d know that.”

Tank looked up at him with the fear in his eyes that she wouldn’t recover, that they wouldn’t be in time...

The doctor, a small, dark-haired woman in a lab coat with a musical accent came to where they were standing in the waiting room, with a relieved Clara at her side. “It’s all right. We know how to treat her now,” she said, smiling. “The interesting thing is that, after we ran the toxicology screen on the capsules and a blood sample, we couldn’t understand how she would ingest such a substance in a headache remedy. There was no trace of it on her mouth, her clothing...”

“What was it?” Tank asked.

“I could give you the technical name, but you probably know it as Malathion. It’s used...”

“As a pesticide,” Tank said for her. “Yes, we use it on the ranch. It’s considered one of the safer methods...”

“The capsules were tampered with,” she interrupted gently. “Someone substituted the Malathion for the prescription medicine. It was a very professional sort of job, although there was not enough in the one capsule her mother said she ingested to kill her, but there was enough to make her very sick. All the remaining capsules in the bottle were similarly replaced with the pesticide, with a very pure form of it. I’ve telephoned the authorities. It is my professional opinion that she was deliberately poisoned.”

“Good God!” Tank burst out, agonized. His face tautened. “Will she live?”

“I think so,” she said cautiously. “We’ll keep her on cardiovascular support, administer antidotes, keep her sedated. You need to contact law enforcement, as well,” she added. “This was an ugly business. For someone to do such a thing to a young woman...it’s monstrous.”

“Yes, it is,” Tank agreed. “Can I see her?” he asked. “Please?”

“And me?” Clara pleaded.

The doctor was kind, but firm. “I would love to be able to do that, but we must work to save her life. If she had ingested more, or there had been a long delay in getting her to the hospital, she would certainly be dead.”

“When can we see her?” Tank persisted.

“Come back in a few hours. We’ll see,” she promised. “Meanwhile, try not to worry. I think the prognosis will be good, since she was seen so quickly.”

“Okay, then.” He managed a smile. “Thanks.”

She smiled back. “We’ll take good care of her.”

* * *

T
ANK
 
DIDN
’
T
 
WANT
 
to leave. He wanted to sit with her, comfort her, hold on to her. When he thought of the deliberate poisoning, the underhanded, low-down manner of it, he wanted to kill the man who had him targeted.

“We have to find this perp,” Tank told his brothers on the way to Clara’s house. “We have to find him now, before he kills her! Why her?” he added in anguish. “Why not just kill me?”

“He seems to be into torture,” Cane said quietly. “He’s playing with you. If he’d put enough Malathion in those capsules, she’d be dead already. He just wanted to make her sick, to scare you.”

“Well, it worked,” Tank said through his teeth.

They didn’t comment. Mallory, who was driving, pulled up at the cabin. All three got out, along with Clara, who was sitting in the cramped second seat.