Reunion Pass: An Eternity Springs novel (20 page)

Then she pressed a kiss against his knuckles. “Good-bye, Chase. Take care of yourself. Promise me that?”

“I’ll try.” He shoved his hands into his pants pockets and watched her walk away. Just before she topped the rise that would take her beyond his sight, he called, “Lana?”

The tears on her cheeks sparkled like the diamond in his hand. “Yes?”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Her mouth lifted with a tremulous smile. “Thank you for that.”

A hollow sadness for what could have been washed through him. “Take care of yourself.”

“I will. You, too, Timberlake.”

When she was gone, he shoved his hands into his pockets and started to walk back toward the yurt. He was tired. Exhausted. He wanted more than anything to crawl into bed and crash. So, that’s what he did.

Chase took a three-hour nap. Upon awakening, he rolled from the bed and stumbled toward the bathroom where he took a long, steamy shower. Only after he dried off, wrapped a towel around his waist, and stood staring into the mirror contemplating a shave did he remember the dog. The last time he’d seen the puppy he’d been quaking like an aspen in autumn.

Well, hell.

*   *   *

Dark clouds rolled over Sinner’s Prayer Pass and as thunder reverberated through the valley, Lori was reminded of one of Celeste’s sayings about summer storms in the valley.
It’s like being in Heaven’s bowling alley.

She sat in the wooden swing on her front porch, a glass of excellent cabernet in her hand, the sound track from
Last of the Mohicans
drifting through the open window. The scent of rain mingled with that of evergreen arrived with a cool breeze that brought a smile to her face. Moments like this were what she’d missed during her time away at college. The Rockies sang to her soul, and she was ever so glad of her decision to return home.

She lifted her glass of wine and toasted the storm. “Despite my new neighbors.”

She’d made progress on that front today. Chase seemed to be a little more upbeat than before. Maybe Eternity Springs was working its magic on him. If that were the case then she was glad for him. And, she was glad for herself. It hadn’t been easy to be a friend today, but she’d pulled it off. As a reward, she’d decided to indulge herself with wine, a long soak in a hot bath, and a novel. First, though, she intended to enjoy the tempest.

The first wave of the storm had blown in from the west on a southeasterly path and skirted most of the valley, but sheets of rain headed her way now. Rainfall was a blessing. It had been an unusually dry spring and early summer. They needed the moisture.

The first patter of raindrops spattered against the sidewalk, blowing toward her. Green awnings on the houses up the street began to flap in the wind. Pedestrians hurried to beat the downpour.

The sky opened up.

At the corner, a lone figure turned onto her street. She recognized him immediately. Chase. Walking down the middle of the street in the middle of a thunderstorm.

Carrying his dog wrapped in the flannel shirt she recognized from earlier that day.

He wore no rain gear. Just a white T-shirt and jeans. He looked as if he’d been out in a storm for days. Lori set down her empty wineglass and rose from the swing to stand at the porch rail just beyond the splash of rain. “What in the world is he doing?”

According to his sister, Chase had not made a trip back to town since taking up residence in his parents’ yurt. What would bring him down the mountain now? And why was he walking?

“Oh, no.” She put the clues together and drew the obvious conclusion. The dog. The dog must have gotten hurt and Chase must have driven him to the clinic, probably in the jeep the Timberlakes kept garaged at the yurt. He couldn’t call the number listed on her after-hours emergency sign because chances were he didn’t have a phone. He must have decided the easiest thing to do would be to try her house. Someone—Caitlin, probably—had mentioned where Lori lived.

She took two steps toward her front door, thinking she’d grab her raincoat and boots since she wasn’t equipped to treat an injured animal here at home. A glance over her shoulder brought her up short. The expression on Chase’s face made her think that
he
was the injured animal, not Captain.

So, she waited.

Chase turned up her front walk. As he drew close, she was able to get a better look at him. She gasped a breath.

His T-shirt wasn’t simply wet. It was grimy, torn, and bloodied. A raw slash on his left cheek looked like a scrape. He had an ugly bruise on his upper arm. His gaze met hers, his eyes dark with an emotion she couldn’t name. He stopped at the top of the walk just short of the steps. “I can’t do this, Lori.”

She studied the pup. No obvious sign of injury. No sound of distress. He appeared to cuddle snuggly in Chase’s arms. “Can’t do what?”

“Keep him.”

“Why not?”

Lightning flashed and a large boom of thunder shook the neighborhood. Lori and Captain both started. Chase climbed two porch steps then leaned over and set the puppy at Lori’s feet. That’s when a rip in his T-shirt revealed the bloody mess of his skin on his belly.

While she stood frozen, absorbing what she’d seen, he turned and headed back toward the street.

The puppy whimpered. Lori hesitated, her gaze locked on Chase’s retreating form. “Don’t let him go,” she murmured to herself. He was hurt. She might not know how to treat his emotional pain, but she could darn sure do something about his physical injuries.

Even as she stepped forward, the dog took the matter out of her hands by darting back into the rain.
Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap!
A moment later, Captain was nipping at Chase’s heels.

Chase stopped, scooped the puppy up, then turned around and started back toward Lori. When he drew close, she challenged him. “Why can’t you keep him, Timberlake? He obviously wants you to.”

“I can’t…” His voice broke and he looked away. A moment later, he tried again. “I can’t be responsible for another life.”

Lori wanted to run to him and hold him and comfort him, but she’d dealt with enough wounded animals to know that wasn’t the response this moment needed. So she nodded and opened her screen door. “Bring him inside.”

Chase hesitated. Obviously, he wanted to set the puppy down and bolt a second time, but didn’t trust the pup not to follow him again.

Firmly, she added, “He needs to be out of the weather, Chase.”
So do you.

He dragged his feet up the porch steps and preceded Lori into her house. Lori followed close behind, crowding him to step forward when he obviously intended to set the dog down and retreat again. “The kitchen is through the door on the right. Carry him there.”

He moved forward, and she shut both the screen door and the front door behind them, then made a quick detour into the bathroom to grab towels for both the wet animals in her house. She found Chase standing in the middle of the kitchen. Both he and the puppy shuddered visibly. “What happened?”

“I scared him. He hid. I couldn’t find him. I need you to keep him.”

No, I don’t think that’s what you need at all.

Lori might be a newly minted DVM, but she had enough experience to recognize that the injured party in her kitchen walked on two legs rather than four. She also knew skittish animals well enough to know that she would need to approach this one carefully if she intended to doctor his physical wounds.

Lori draped one towel over Chase’s shoulder, then held out the other and gestured for him to hand her the dog. She was a little worried that Chase might take off the minute his arms were empty of wet puppy, so in an effort to prevent it, she fired questions at him in rapid succession while she briskly dried the dog.

“Is he injured?”

“Not that I could see, but—”

“Has he been drinking plenty of water?”

“Sure.”

“How’s his appetite?”

“He eats like a horse.”

“Sleeping?”

Chase hesitated. “The crate hasn’t exactly worked out.”

“Oh?”

“He cried.”

Lori glanced up at Chase, whose brow furrowed as he frowned down at the dog. “Don’t tell me you let him sleep with you.”

“It was the only way to get him to shut up.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Chase.” Shaking her head, Lori set aside the towel. Captain romped a few steps away, stopped, and shook while Lori pulled a plastic bowl from her cabinet. After she filled it with water and set it down for the dog, she turned to her other visitor.

Chase hadn’t moved. The towel still lay draped over his shoulder. Water dripped from his clothes onto her kitchen floor. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she repeated. “You’re bleeding all over my floor. Take off your shirt and let me clean you up.”

“I’m fine. I’ll leave now.”

“You are not fine, and you are not leaving until I look at those scrapes and cuts. All I need is for one of them to get a raging infection and then word would get out that I didn’t treat you. You know it would happen. People talk. They wouldn’t trust me. You’d ruin my vet practice before it barely got started. You might as well change out of your wet jeans, too. Devin left some clothes in the bureau in the guest room. It’s the first door on the left. Go change.”

“No. I’ll just go,” he insisted. Lightning flashed and thunder cracked on top of his words. The puppy darted back toward Chase.

Lori folded her arms. “And heaven has spoken. You are not going anywhere until the storm blows over.” She shooed him toward the hallway. “And bring back your wet things. I’ll throw them in the dryer.”

When he disappeared down the short hallway to the bedrooms, the pup on his heels, Lori allowed her concern to show. A cursory visual examination suggested the puppy was just fine. Chase, on the other hand, had looked almost tortured. What had happened to the smiling man she’d seen just this morning?

She retrieved her glass of wine from her front porch, set out a second glass for Chase, then pulled a new bottle of red from her wine fridge. He returned to the kitchen carrying his wet clothes and wearing a pair of her brother’s gym shorts. A black and purple
COLORADO ROCKIES
T-shirt hung over one bare shoulder.

And what a bare shoulder it was. Lori had to work to keep from ogling him. However, as much as the female in her wanted to stand there gawking at the masculine gorgeousness in front of her, the black and purple bruise on his other broad, bare shoulder required the doctor’s attention—as did the scrapes, cuts, and one long, deep cut that needed stitches.

“You look like you fell down a mountain.”

“I took a careless step.”

Frowning, she motioned for him to take a seat at one of the stools in front of her breakfast bar. She removed a basket of first-aid supplies from a cabinet as Captain settled down at Chase’s feet. “It’s not like you to be careless.”

“The dog was crying. I thought he’d been hurt.”

Lori gently cleaned the scrapes and scratches and rubbed cream onto the bruises, calling upon countless hours of training to keep her hands steady and impersonal as she touched him.

Memories floated like ghosts on the edge of her mind and it took all the self-discipline she possessed to hold them at bay. True, once or twice her fingers lingered on his skin, and a time or two a dab with a cotton ball lengthened to a dawdle, but nevertheless, she managed. It helped that the thorough soaking he’d received meant the only scent she could detect on his skin was that of the antiseptic she applied.

Throughout her ministrations, Chase sat as still as an oak. His mind seemed to be a million miles away.

“What caused this cut?” she asked as she began to tackle the deep slice across his rib cage.

His lack of response supported her theory that his thoughts were elsewhere. She raised her voice and repeated the question. His gaze jerked toward her and he blinked. “Dead tree branch.”

“It sliced you like a knife.”

“No. You hardly feel a knife slice,” he said, his tone flatly matter-of-fact. “The tree branch jabbed and jerked.”

Lori’s gaze climbed to the pink scar across his collarbone and her stomach turned over.
What happened to you over there, Chase?
“You are lucky it didn’t stab and kill,” she observed, as she thoroughly cleansed the wound, then set aside the first-aid kit in favor of supplies from her medical bag. “I’m going to suture it.”

“Are you licensed to do that?” he asked, eyeing the hypodermic needle with wariness.

“I have my defense argument ready,” she said, speaking without thinking. “How many times did you confess to being a dog?”

His gaze shot up to hers, startled surprise giving his eyes a flicker of life. Satisfied to have elicited a reaction, Lori focused on the task at hand and tried not to think about the past. She failed.

“Sex. Sex. Sex. That’s all you think about,” Lori teased when Chase grabbed her hand and increased the length and speed of his stride as they exited the parking garage headed for her apartment. They’d already made love twice that day, and she suspected that had she had any food in the fridge, they might never have left the apartment.

“What can I say?” he fired back, his tone unapologetic. “I’m a dog.”

It had become part of their couple’s code. At one time, Chase’s “woof” had been enough to send shivers down her skin.

But those days were long gone and he was now “woofing” for another woman.

Judging the wound sufficiently cleansed, Lori used a syringe to apply a local anesthetic. She stitched the wound without another word exchanged between them.

Finished, she affixed a bandage to his chest and stepped back, studied her handiwork, then nodded. She tossed him her brother’s T-shirt and turned to pick up her wine. She spied the wet clothing he’d left on her counter when she’d ordered him to sit down. “Shoot. I meant to load the dryer before I dealt with your injuries. Open that bottle of wine, would you, please? The corkscrew is in the drawer directly beneath the bottle.”

Without giving him the opportunity to voice a refusal, she scooped up the clothes and retreated to the laundry room. There, she opened the lid of the dryer, tossed in the flannel shirt, then frowned at the tee. Between the rips and blood, it was beyond salvage. She tossed it into the trash and turned her attention to the jeans.