She’d never been a part of anybody’s best anything.
He caught her chin, tilted her head back so that he was looking straight into her eyes, his thumb stroking lazily over her cheek. “Yeah. Really.”
He brushed his lips over hers, claiming her mouth in a slow, sweet kiss that cleared her mind of everything but him.
“Ahem.” Behind them, Jack cleared his throat. “Sorry to intrude, but Chuck says something’s wrong with Baby Doe. He thinks it’s a torsion.”
Nate’s head jerked up. “What?”
Megan could see from the alarm on his face that this was serious.
“I called Doc Jackson already but…”
“Shit.” Nate kissed Megan’s hair. “This is a real emergency, honey.”
She nodded. “Go.”
She watched him disappear down the hall with his father, her lips still tingling.
# # #
An hour later, her suitcases already loaded into her car, Megan sat in the great room watching Emily play with her pony on the coffee table, the scent of homemade spaghetti sauce wafting in from the kitchen. Jack had insisted they stay for supper, and since he and Nate were driving, Megan had agreed. Besides, Jack was an incredible cook.
Still, she was beginning to feel restless, needing to get home, needing to be alone so that she could sort through the confusion inside her.
There’d been no word from Nate about Baby Doe or her foal. Jack had explained that sometimes late in pregnancy a mare’s uterus could twist, cutting off the blood supply to the foal. Unless they were able to correct the problem, they could lose both the foal and the mare. Megan remembered Baby Doe’s beautiful coloring, her soft muzzle, her quiet whickers as they petted her and fed her carrots. She couldn’t stand to think of such a beautiful animal suffering.
On edge, she stood, walked toward the fireplace, and found herself looking at the family portrait on the mantel again. How happy the three of them looked together. Nate’s mother had been such a beautiful woman, her eyes alight with happiness. She had an unmistakable air of class and sophistication about her, from the way she wore lipstick to her elegant clothes to her lovely mabe pearl earrings.
Megan felt shoddy by comparison, cheap. She couldn’t help but wonder what Nate’s mother would think about his interest in her. For that matter, what did Jack think?
Megan knew he knew they’d slept together. His comment at breakfast had proven that. But she had no idea how he felt about it.
She heard men’s voices in the kitchen. Thinking Nate was back and might have some news of the mare, she walked toward the kitchen, then froze.
“She’s that fugitive’s sister.” It was Chuck, the foreman, speaking in a hushed voice. “Remember from a few years ago? She’s a drug addict. She served time in prison for killing someone, I think. You don’t want her sleepin’ with our Nate. He can do a lot better than that.”
Blood rushed to Megan’s head, her pulse rocketing. Chuck had been there this morning when she’d bought the morning-after pill. He must have seen…
A lid clanked against a pot.
Jack spoke. “Let’s go into my office and talk about this.”
Not wanting to be caught eavesdropping, she hurried back to Emily and just managed to sit on the sofa when Jack and Chuck emerged from the kitchen, heading toward Jack’s office.
Jack looked over at her, an angry frown on his face.
She felt a tearing sensation in her chest, the pain sharp and cold. A hard lump formed in her throat, dropping straight into her stomach as she watched him disappear down the hallway, his foreman behind him.
She had humiliated him. She’d brought embarrassment to Jack and to Nate in their own home, exposing them to gossip from the ranch hands.
Once again, her past had caught up with her.
And then it was just too much.
She found their coats by the front door, grabbed her purse and Emily’s mittens off the table in the foyer, fighting back tears. “Come, sweet pea. It’s time to go.”
The dream was over.
# # #
Nate stroked the anesthetized mare’s flank, felt the foal moving inside her. Thankfully it hadn’t been a complete torsion. Doc Johnson had been able to rotate Baby Doe’s uterus back into place vaginally, sparing her surgery. But they were going to have to watch her closely until she foaled.
“I’ve got a hunch as to what caused this.” Doc Johnson pulled the shoulder-high exam glove off his arm. “Either that foal is huge, or she’s carrying twins.”
Nate stared up at him. “You did an ultrasound. There was only one embryo.”
“Hey, once in a while even I make a mistake. Let’s have another look.”
Nate waited with the mare, checking her IV tubing, while Doc Johnson went to retrieve his ultrasound machine from his truck.
Five minutes later, he found himself staring at a blurry black-and-white image of not one, but two foals. Two hearts beating, two heads, two rumps, eight hooves.
Definitely twins.
Shit.
Twin foals rarely survived.
Doc Johnson withdrew his gloved arm and the ultrasound wand from the mare’s rectal cavity and rolled off the glove. “Everything looks good so far, but that’s far from a guarantee that either foal will survive. Our priority, of course, will be the mare. Let me get on the horn with the equine folks at CSU. I would advice boarding her at the hospital until this is over. I know Fort Collins is a long drive, but she needs around-the-clock observation.”
Nate nodded, still stroking the horse’s flank. Losing the foals would be one thing. Losing Baby Doe would be something else. “Thanks, Doc.”
Nate heard footsteps and looked up to see his dad approaching, a worried look on his face. He filled the old man in on what Doc Johnson had told him. “I’ll ask Chuck to get a trailer ready. We’ve got to get Megan home before—”
“Yeah, well,” his dad scratched his head, a sheepish look on his face. “We’ve got a problem, son.”
Nate didn’t like the sound of that. He stood. “Oh, yeah?”
“Megan’s gone.”
# # #
She shouldn’t have run.
The moment she’d reached the highway, Megan had realized that. She should have stayed, stood her ground, proved to Jack that the past couldn’t chase her away. Instead, she’d panicked. She’d grabbed Emily, and she’d run. She’d been so afraid of facing Jack, so afraid of how he and Nate would react, that driving in the dark on snowy mountain roads had seemed the easier course. What a coward she’d been!
She hadn’t even bothered to say thank you or good-bye.
Oh, Nate, I’m so sorry.
She turned onto her street, her neck and shoulders stiff, her head aching from an hour and half of white-knuckle driving, her stomach sick with regret. All she wanted now was to get supper made and Emily to bed so that she could call Nate and apologize to both him and his father. She would have called him already, but she’d left her cell phone in their house somewhere—which meant she would see Nate at least one more time.
Pushing the button on her garage door opener, she pulled into her driveway, grateful to Marc for shoveling while she’d been away. She needed to call him from her landline and tell him she was safely home so that he could send a surveillance team over to watch the house.
She glanced in the rearview mirror to find Emily sound asleep. And no wonder. The sweet little dear had thrown a temper tantrum when Megan had tried to buckle her in her car seat, kicking and screaming because Megan wouldn’t take her to say goodbye to Buckwheat. Megan had felt like the worst mother ever.
“Emily, sweet pea, we’re home.”
Emily stirred, opened her eyes, glanced around, looking sad and grumpy. “Are we going to see Buckwheat again?”
Megan didn’t know how to answer. She parked the car, closing the garage door behind them. “We sure had a fun time up at the ranch, didn’t we? Right now, we’re going to have some supper and get settled in for the nigh
t. I have to go to work in the morning, and you have preschool.”
Megan had no idea what she was going to make for supper. She didn’t have the energy to cook. Maybe she ought to just drop off her laundry, grab a few things and head over to Marc and Sophie’s and spend the night there. But then Marc would ask questions, and she would end up having to explain things she shouldn’t have to explain.
She got out of the car, opened the rear passenger door, and unbuckled the harness on Emily’s car seat, scooping her daughter, toy pony and all, into her arms. She set Emily down outside the door that led from the garage to the kitchen, unlocked it, and let Emily inside, flicking on the light. “You go hang your coat on the hook and put your boots by the front door, okay, sweet pea? I’m going to get our suitcases.”
She walked to the trunk of the car, opened it with a click on her keychain, and lifted out the two suitcases, trying to think her way through the evening. She needed to call Marc first thing. Then she would make dinner, get Emily into the tub, and after Emily was asleep, she would call Nate. As for supper, she could unthaw some chicken breasts and bake them with a bit of marinade. Or given how late it was, maybe she should just grab another jar of sauce and make spaghetti again.
It would be nothing like Jack’s spaghetti.
How funny that she’d been so restless to get home, and now that she was here, she wished with all her heart she could relive these past two hours and stay at the Cimarron.
Feeling weighed down by more than luggage, she walked inside and set the suitcases down, shutting and locking the door behind her. She was about to reach for the phone, when she noticed it…
A strange smell—like a faint whiff of burned plastic.
And there were dirty dishes in the sink.
She hadn’t left the house like that. She hadn’t…
The adrenaline hit just as Donny stepped into the kitchen, Emily in his arms, one filthy hand clamped over her mouth.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Megan.” He laughed. “Oh, come on! Don’t just stand there staring at me. Come give your sugar daddy a big kiss.”
CHAPTER 13
Megan’s mouth went dry, her heart thudding sickeningly in her chest. Her mind raced, looking for a way out of this, but all she could see was the terror in Emily’s eyes—and the tinge of meth-fueled mania in Donny’s.
Think! Think! Think!
A knife?
No, he would use it against her—or maybe threaten Emily.
Try to take Emily away from him?
No, Emily might get hurt in the scuffle.
Grab the phone and dial 911?
Megan didn’t dare as long as had her daughter.
If only she hadn’t forgotten her cell phone, she might have been able to text Marc or dial 911 with the phone in her pocket. There was a phone in her bedroom. If she could get Emily away from him and lock herself in her room…
Donny sneered at her, his face beaded with sweat, his body jittery. “Your asshole brother thought I couldn’t find you, but here I am. I waited till you left and he called off the cops. Then I came in through the crawl space—and just made myself at home.”
Something in his eyes, in the tone of his voice warned her not to show fear.
She swallowed, tried to speak in a cold but calm voice. “It… It’s not polite to drop in without calling, Donny. I haven’t even made dinner yet. How does chicken sound?” She crossed the kitchen to the fridge, opened the freezer door, and took out a packet of chicken breasts, her pulse a thrum in her ears. “Emily, go wash up for supper.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Megan saw the look of confusion on Donny’s drug-worn face. He did nothing to stop Emily as she kicked and wriggled her way to the floor.
But rather than going to the bathroom, as Megan had hoped she would, Emily ran straight to her and threw her arms around Megan’s legs.
Megan scooped her up, held her tight, then reached with one hand to put the frozen chicken in the microwave, her fingers pushing some sequence of numbers—she didn’t know what—on the keypad. “It’s okay, sweet pea. It’s okay. I’m right here.”
She needed to get Emily away from Donny somehow.
“While this thaws, let’s go hang up your coat and get your hands washed, okay? Donny, when that beeps, take it out. If you’re going to eat my food, the least you can do is help—and clean up your own dishes.” As she turned to walk to the bathroom, she glanced down at the full sink—and froze.
Her Pyrex baking dish was ringed by a dark stain, her stainless steel stock pot crusted with something, the drinking glasses…
They weren’t drinking glasses. They were … beakers? Beneath them sat a length of coiled plastic tubing and…
Oh, my God!
He hadn’t been cooking food. He’d been cooking up meth.
The funny smell.
She had to get Emily out of here. Now.
She walked passed him, praying that he would be too confused to guess what she was doing. If she could only make it to her bedroom, she could lock the door and call—
Bony fingers grabbed her arm.
“You think I’m stupid?” The nauseating stench of his rotting teeth and body odor hit her full in the face. “You’re going downstairs—both you and the kid.”
Megan tried to jerk her arm away. “I have to get my daughter out of here. You’ve been cooking meth in my house! That stuff is toxic! Every second we’re in here, she’s breathing—”
“Shut the fuck up!” A gun appeared in his hand. “Turn off the lights, take the brat, and go downstairs.”
Fear slid like ice into her veins.
If pressed, Donny would use the weapon—of that she had no doubt. He had once attacked Marc with a knife.
“I-I’m taking food.” Megan couldn’t keep the quaver out of her voice. She turned toward the pantry and managed to grab a box of granola bars before Donny shoved her. “She’s hungry. She needs to have her supper.”
“There’s food downstairs.” He flicked off the kitchen lights, leaving the house in darkness. “Now go!”
Megan felt her way to the stairs, swamped by a sense of déjà vu, an all too familiar feeling of despair, of helplessness. “What do you want? Why are you doing this?”
“Shut up!”
Megan walked down the stairs on unsteady legs, Emily’s face buried in her neck. “It’s going to be okay, sweet pea. Just do exactly what mommy tells you to do, okay?”
She heard Donny close the door behind them, the sound ominous—a trap swinging shut.
The basement was a mess. Plastic bottles of chemicals sat near the stairs, rocks of crystal meth on the coffee table, a bag of potato chips lying discarded on the floor beside a banana peel, empty beer bottles, water bottles, and jackets from dozens of porn DVDs. The television was on, the graphic image of a man’s penis inside a woman’s vagina frozen on its screen.
Of course, there would be porn. Donny had always loved it.
Relieved that Emily hadn’t seen, Megan quickly turned the TV off, then carried her daughter to the play corner and sat on the carpet beside her dollhouse, holding Emily in her lap. “Do you see that stuff on the coffee table, Emily?” she whispered. “It’s poison. It’s very bad. Don’t touch it! Don’t eat it! Do you hear me?”
Emily nodded, tiny tears on her cheeks.
“Hey, did I say you could turn off the TV?”
Megan glared at him. “I won’t let you expose my daughter to that kind of filth, even if you do have a gun.”
He sat down on the couch, his gazed fixed on Emily. “She’s my daughter, too.”
Megan cringed at his words, held Emily tightly against her chest, hoping Emily hadn’t understood. “What do you want? Money to pay off the gangbangers who were after you? They’re in jail.”
He frowned, looked confused.
“You didn’t know? Marc caught them.”
Donny’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying.”
“No, I’m—”
“Shut up!” His
shout made Emily cry and Megan jump. He bolted to his feet, sweat trickling down his temples. “Now, here’s what’s going to happen. Tomorrow morning, you’re going to go to the bank and withdraw every penny you have while I stay here with the kid. When I have the money, I’ll go. But if you take off or you try to come back with your brother or the cops, I’ll shoot the girl. I gave her to you. I can take her away. Got it?”
Megan thought she might throw up. “Yes.”
“Good.” Donny sat again, his body visibly twitching. “We’ll just have ourselves a little night together—a family reunion.”
# # #
Nate parked in front of her house, surprised not to find an unmarked police car on the street. If he’d been Marc Hunter, he wouldn’t have taken his eyes off Megan until that bastard Donny was either dead or behind bars.
Nate got out of his pickup, Megan’s cell phone in his pocket, and walked toward the house. The sidewalk and driveway had been shoveled, but the house was dark, the curtains drawn. There was no sign that anyone was home, apart from the trail of snow her tires had left on the concrete driveway when she’d driven into her garage.
He rang the doorbell.
Nothing.
He waited, rang again.
Nothing.
Damn it!
Nate’s dad had come straight out to get him the moment he’d realized Megan was gone. The old man had known exactly why Megan had left so abruptly. Nate had called her right away, hoping to explain, but she hadn’t answered. Only after he’d called from the kitchen and had heard her phone ringing upstairs had he realized why. The cell phone had given him an excuse to follow her. He’d left his father in charge of the situation with Baby Doe and had come after her, but by then she’d been halfway back to Denver.
Right now Nate wasn’t sure whose ass he wanted to kick more—his own for rushing things, for pushing Megan too far, too fast; his father’s for allowing Chuck to wag his tongue with Megan in the other room; or Chuck’s for getting involved in something that was none of his damned business. Yeah, Chuck meant well. He’d been with the Cimarron since Nate was a kid. But that didn’t mean he could offer his two cents on Nate’s love life. At the end of the day, he was an employee, and he needed to remember that.