At about four thirty that afternoon, Isaiah had just finished spaying a young Lab when Val popped into the surgery. “Officer Keenan is on the phone,” she said.
Isaiah angled his bent arms backward to relieve a kink between his shoulder blades. “I’m done here. I’ll take it in my office.” He glanced at Susan, who’d been filling in all afternoon for Belinda. “Can you take it from here for me?”
The stout blonde nodded. Isaiah tugged off the surgical gloves, dropped them into a receptacle, and peeled off his lab coat, tossing it into a laundry basket as he pushed out the door.
Keenan got right to the point when Isaiah picked up the phone. “Bingo,” he said. “Belinda Baxter has a nasty history.”
Tugging a stethoscope from around his neck and tossing it on his desk, Isaiah said, “After what I saw this morning, I’m not surprised. What’s the scoop?”
“University of Colorado, 1993. Ms. Baxter accused a male athlete of date rape. At the preliminary hearing, her version of the story was contradicted by several credible eyewitnesses, both male and female. They claimed she had a crush on the guy and retaliated when he told her he wasn’t interested.”
“Shit.”
“The following year, she fancied herself in love with a professor. When he spurned her advances, she grew furious and accused him of coercing her into giving him sex in exchange for passing grades. Again, her story didn’t hold together.”
“I can’t believe this,” Isaiah said wearily.
“In short,” Keenan went on, “the lady has a screw loose. We’re trying to locate her for questioning. Unfortunately she seems to have vacated her apartment. We think she’s left town.”
Isaiah hoped she’d left and would never come back. If he never saw Belinda again, it would be too soon. “Does this mean Laura is no longer a suspect?”
“Going on what little I’ve already learned, I’m convinced that Ms. Townsend was set up. I’ll call her the moment we hang up and give her the news.”
“If it’s not against procedure, can you postpone that call?” Isaiah asked. “I’d like to deliver the news to her myself, if that’s all right.”
Keenan laughed. “I’ll give you a couple of hours.”
“I appreciate it,” Isaiah said. “And Officer Keenan? Thank you for all you’ve done.”
“Just doing my job, son.”
Because Laura’s Mazda was impounded, her grandmother had driven her to a grocery store, and Laura was restocking her refrigerator with perishables when a knock came on her door. She froze with a jug of milk in her hand. Since early morning she’d been expecting Isaiah to show up. How like him to wait until he was finished at the clinic for the day.
The thought made Laura’s heart hurt. Some women might be offended when they played second fiddle to a bunch of dogs and cats, but she wasn’t one of them. One of the first things she’d come to love about Isaiah was his devotion to the animals in his care.
Laura shoved the milk in the refrigerator and headed for the front door. She couldn’t avoid him forever. He’d called at least ten times. Knowing Isaiah, he wasn’t likely to stop until she talked to him. She felt stronger today, less likely to fold under pressure. No matter how many times he said he loved her, she would stick to her guns, not because this was easy for her to do, but because her decision to end the relationship would be better for him in the long run.
Before opening the door, she took one last breath for courage. She was surprised to see Belinda standing on the landing. Laura was about to say hello and invite the technician in when she noticed the wild look in Belinda’s eyes and the dried blood under her nose. A heartbeat later she saw the butcher knife clutched in the technician’s hand.
Laura reacted quickly, throwing her weight against the door to slam it closed, but Belinda was faster and had the advantage of greater weight. Laura was thrown off balance as Belinda shoved her way inside. Before Laura could regain her footing, the brunette was upon her.
During rehab Laura had studied tai chi to help her stay calm, improve her equilibrium, and strengthen the right side of her body, which had been weakened. One particular technique called Push Hands had taught her how to defend herself nonaggressively, using her weight and balance to overset an opponent.
When Belinda stabbed downward with the butcher knife, that Push Hands training saved Laura’s life. She caught Belinda’s wrist, shifted her weight, and threw the other woman off her feet. Belinda hit the floor. Laura tried to run outside to scream for help, but to her horror Belinda sprang upright, lunged into her path, and came at her again.
“Bitch!” Belinda snarled. “He won’t think you’re pretty when I get done with you.”
Laura bent her knees and bounced on her toes, doing a macabre dance with the knife blade in Belinda’s hand, darting to one side, leaping backward, sometimes evading a lethal stab by mere inches.
“Don’t—do—this,” she managed to push out. “Please—don’t.”
Belinda only laughed crazily and came at Laura again. Laura jerked away, but this time she wasn’t quite fast enough. Belinda grunted and stabbed downward viciously. Laura met the swing with a hard upward shove that knocked the other woman’s aim off. Before Belinda could regroup and stab at her again, Laura propelled herself forward, hitting the tech in the midriff with her shoulder.
Belinda whooshed in startled dismay, staggering backward and losing her balance. The backward stumble carried her out the open doorway. Laura didn’t wait to see where or how the woman landed. She threw herself against the door to slam it closed, shoved the dead bolt home, and then raced for her purse to get her cell phone.
For a horrible moment she couldn’t remember the symbol Gram had programmed in for the police. Panicked, expecting Belinda to break through one of the windows at any moment, she scrolled down with frenzied urgency. Balloon, horse, cake, cat, dog. Oh, God. And then she saw it. Star, to represent a badge.
Hands shaking so violently that she could barely control her fingers, she punched the little green phone on the console to place the call.
Isaiah brought his Hummer to a fishtailing halt when he saw the police cars nosed in to the curb in front of Laura’s garage apartment. Lights were flashing. Uniformed men were racing back and forth across the yard. For a terrible moment he thought the crumpled form of a woman lying on the snow was Laura.
“Holy Mother.” Isaiah left the Hummer in the middle of the street. “Laura?”
He leaped over the curb and the snow-covered median to land on the icy sidewalk. He was still running when he saw that the woman had dark hair. He slowed his pace, his gaze fixed incredulously on her limp body. Belinda? He looked up and saw the broken railing.
“What happened?” he asked a police officer in a heavy blue bomber jacket and a hat with lined earflaps. “Is the lady who lives here all right?”
“She’s fine. I think she’s upstairs.”
Isaiah took the steps three at a time. When he reached the landing he saw Laura standing in the open doorway, speaking to a police officer. She looked a little shaken up, but fine otherwise, except that she shivered from the cold.
“An ambulance is on the way,” the policeman was saying.
“I—didn’t—mean—to—hurt—her.” Laura glanced past the policeman and saw Isaiah standing there. Her eyes told him everything he needed to know. “Isaiah?” she cried.
He pushed past the cop to pull her into his arms. “What the hell happened?”
Laura clung to his neck. She was shaking so violently that the tremors ran clear through him. Haltingly she recounted the incident. The cop filled in the blanks. Isaiah glanced over the edge of the landing. All he could see of Belinda now was her dark hair spread over the snow, because she’d been covered with a blanket. He knew it was bad of him, but he felt that she deserved whatever she got.
“Is she dead?” he asked the policeman.
“No. Neck injury, we think. The paramedics are on their way.”
Isaiah tightened his arm arou
nd Laura’s waist and led her back into the apartment. All his rehearsed speeches would have to wait.
An hour later Laura was curled up at one end of the love seat, sipping a second cup of tea. Isaiah sat across from her on an easy chair. Belinda had long since been transported to the hospital by ambulance, and only a few minutes ago the police had called to report that her injuries were minimal. The snow had cushioned her fall. She’d only been knocked out. As soon as the doctors released her, she would be taken to the police station and booked on a number of charges, not the least of which was attempted murder.
Laura had had time to sort it all out now. Her hands were no longer shaking. Her thoughts had cleared. It was time for Isaiah to leave, but he sat on her chair as if he’d put down roots, looking so handsome it made her ache.
Laura knew she should tell him to go. Only it was much harder to do than she’d ever thought it would be. “I’m fine now, Isaiah.”
He smiled slightly and nodded. “That’s good.”
Laura set her teacup aside and unfolded her legs to sit forward on the cushion. “I’d like you to go now.”
“Don’t lie to me, Laura. You’re lousy at it.” He sat forward, too, which made her want to retreat. “You love me. I’m the guy you were waiting for. Remember? You’re thirty-one years old, and you’d never slept with another man. That’s pretty telling, in and of itself. How can you expect me to walk away from that?”
Laura passed a hand over her eyes. She would do this, she told herself. For him, she would say the words that would drive him from her life forever.
“It was about time I had sex, don’t you think?” She pushed to her feet. For an awful instant she felt a little dizzy. But her head soon cleared. She went into the kitchen to resume putting away her groceries. “I have things to do, Isaiah. It’s over. Both of us need to move on.”
“You’re absolutely right.” He stood up and sauntered slowly toward her. “We need to move on—together. The Christmas party is tonight. I won’t go without you. And what about Christmas Eve and Christmas day? Without you to share it with none of it will have meaning for me.”
Laura’s chest felt as if a vise were tightening around it. “Go away. Please. I don’t want you here.”
“I can’t do that. I love you, Laura.”
She chanced a glance at him. Bad mistake. He was so beautiful—tall and dark, his hair tousled from the wind. He wore a green shirt with a button-down collar. The sleeves were rolled back to reveal his tanned, corded forearms. His Western belt buckle flashed at his lean waist, a preface to his long, powerfully muscled legs and a masculine stance to make any woman’s heart skip beats.
“I know you overheard Tucker’s tirade yesterday,” he said softly. “But you obviously didn’t listen long enough to hear what I had to say. I love you so much, Laura. I honestly don’t think I can face life without you. Tucker left the house understanding that, glad to know that you’d soon be his sister-in-law.”
Laura shook her head. “He was right at the start. You need someone smart and charming and accomplished. Someone who can help you re-alize your poten-tial. If you go into research, you’ll need a wife who can charm people into giving you grants.” She lost her grip on the eggs. The Styrofoam carton hit the floor with a loud report. Laura knew without looking that she’d just broken every shell, and she closed her eyes in frustration. When she bent to collect the container, egg yolks and whites streamed to the floor, forming slimy puddles. “I’m none of those things any-more.”
“Forget research. I’m interested in that end of veterinary medicine. I won’t deny it. But what really vitalizes me, what makes it all worthwhile, is actually working with the animals and making them well. I’d never be happy in a lab, and I’ll never want to teach at a university for precisely the same reason.”
Laura’s heart surged with hope.
“As for my potential, I’m perfectly capable of realizing that by myself, without the help of a wife. That isn’t to say I’d turn down some help. Only it would have to come from the right woman, someone who loves animals as much as I do, someone who can still smile while she’s getting her hands dirty, someone who’ll understand when I come home worried about a patient, and will worry about that patient with me.”
Laura gulped and struggled to breathe, blindly smearing the broken eggs around on the floor with paper towels. Finally she gave up on it and tossed the slimy wad in the trash. “Sooner or later I’m afraid I’d ruin your life.”
“What life? You’re the woman I just described, Laura. You love those damn puppies so much, I’m afraid you’ll want to keep all thirteen, and I love you so much, I’ll let you.”
That brought her head around.
“Remember me, the guy who never remembered to eat? You keep me centered.” He took a step toward her. “Do you have any idea how long I went without reading a novel or watching a movie before you came along? Years!”
“Then you need to change that.”
“I’m trying, but I need your help.”
The sincerity in his voice had her searching his eyes.
“With you,” he went on, “I notice things I’d never notice otherwise—how the air smells after it snows, and that no two snowflakes are alike, and how sweet the breath of a puppy is.” Tears sparkled in his eyes. “Do you really want me to revert to my old habits? I’ll forget to eat. My socks will never match. I’ll go to work with a fabric-softener sheet stuck to the back of my collar and wear a purple polka-dot tie with a red striped shirt to receive the Vet of the Year award.”
Tears sprang to Laura’s eyes, too, even as a smile touched her lips. It would happen, she knew. Isaiah was nothing if not preoccupied and distracted.
Isaiah glimpsed the slight smile that touched her mouth. That was all he needed to see. He was across the kitchen and gathering her into his arms before she could protest.
“I love you. I need you in my life. What must I say, what must I do, to make you realize that?”
Laura leaned her head back to search his dark face, and in that moment she needed no more convincing. She saw his love for her in his eyes.
“You said you’d marry me,” he said fiercely. “I’m holding you to it. I want you to have my babies. I want to grow old with you. You talk about my potential and my realizing my dreams? What’s it about if all I do is work and never enjoy the everyday business of just being alive?”
“Oh, Isaiah,” she said shakily. “I love you, too.”
“I know you do,” he whispered.
And then he kissed her. A sweet, tentative kiss that soon turned deep and hungry. Laura was incapable of resisting the delicious draw of his mouth. She curled her arms around his neck and went up on her tiptoes, accepting what she should have known all along—that she belonged exactly where she was, in his arms.
Epilogue
January 8, 2005
The cork shot from the bottle, and French champagne spewed like a geyser, drenching the sleeve of Jake’s dark suit jacket. He laughed and reached across Isaiah’s dining room table to fill the crystal flutes of the bride and groom.
Laura and Isaiah intertwined their arms, gazed deeply into each other’s eyes, and took their first sip of champagne together as husband and wife. Laura was almost giddy with happiness. Everything in her world was exactly right. After her accident, she’d believed that her life had been destroyed. Now, lost in her husband’s shimmering blue eyes, she realized that she’d had to lose her life in order to find it. And perhaps, in a much different way, he had as well.
Over the last couple of weeks, they had both come to understand so many things, namely that happiness wasn’t about success or money or a brilliant future. It was about right now, today, and how well they lived each moment.
Bearing that in mind, they had chosen not to waste any of their moments together and had planned a quick wedding at a small church with only the people they loved present to witness their vows. Because Laura’s parents were retired and living on a fixed income, she had
handled all the details herself—making her own dress, doing her own flower arrangements, and simply phoning everyone to invite them. Natalie, Zeke’s wife, had provided the music, and, best of all, had composed a song especially for Isaiah and Laura that they would cherish all their lives. The wedding feast had been potluck, with everyone bringing dishes, so there had been plenty of food, served family style, with very little fuss.
“Toast!” Hank yelled.
Laura’s father raised his glass and turned toward her and Isaiah. Laura expected him to say the usual sappy stuff about losing his little girl and gaining a son. Instead he winked at her and said, “To the bride and groom. May they live happily in peaceful harmony until death do they part. If by chance, however, all doesn’t go well, I have one im-portant request, Laura. If you ever come running home to your mother, don’t bring all fourteen dogs.”
As if on cue, Hapless came bounding into the room and gave a happy bark. All thirteen rottweiler puppies wobbled in behind him. Everyone in the room burst out laughing. Laura had no intention of keeping all the dogs, of course, only Frown Face, but she was still glad to have puppies darting every which way at her wedding reception. Frown Face latched onto her father’s pant leg, gave a gleeful growl, and braced his stout little legs to tug with all his might. Why not begin the first day of their life together the way they meant to continue, with ani-mals playing a major role?
“Who let them loose?” Isaiah asked.
Jake’s son, Garrett, skidded to a stop on the hardwood floor, glanced guiltily at his mother, Molly, and said, “Sly did it.”
Isaiah chuckled and hooked an arm around Laura’s waist. “Now, there’s a chip off the old Coulter block. Blame it on the other guy.”
Molly and Carly began trying to catch the puppies. Bethany followed behind in her wheelchair, ready to hold the furry little captives on her lap while her sisters-in-law captured the rest. Tucker and Ryan went to lend their assistance.
“Now you know why they held the reception at their house, Mom.” Tucker glanced back over his shoulder to wink at Mary. “Leaky puppies and your carpet wouldn’t go well together. You can thank your lucky stars.”