The Crush (41 page)

Wick and Robbins turned in unison.

Rennie was crossing the yard toward them. Her hair was still damp from her shower, indicating that she had rushed to dress and join them. "I saw you from the bedroom window. You've had your heads together for a long time." Her eyes dropped to the pistol tucked into his waistband.

"I nearly shot him." Wick tried to smile convincingly, but his mind was still on everything Robbins had told him.

Robbins gave her one of his typically laconic explanations for why he was there. "Heard you got that cat with one shot straight through the heart.

Folks around here who've lost livestock will be thanking you."

"Do you think I should have called the vet to look at Spats?"

"No," Robbins replied. "You were right. The wound isn't deep, and it's clean. Should be closed up in no time."

Her eyes cut to Wick, then back to Robbins. "I'm going to be away for a couple of days. Would you mind looking after things until I get back?"

The old man hesitated long enough for it to be noticeable. Finally he said, "Happy to. Can I reach you at the Fort Worth number if something comes up?"

"Galveston," Wick said. "I have a place down there. I'll leave you the number." Rennie didn't seem too pleased with him for sharing that.

"I'm going to check on Spats," she said.

"I think she should probably stay in her stall one more day, but I'll let the others out into the corral."

"I'll be over this evening to put them up,"

Robbins told her.

She headed toward the open door of the barn, then glanced back as though expecting Robbins to follow her. "Be right there," he told her. "I need to get that phone number."

"You can always reach me on my cell."

"Doesn't hurt to have two numbers. Just to be on the safe side."

She seemed reluctant to leave them alone again, but she turned and went into the barn. Wick looked at Robbins, but he wasn't sure he wanted to hear any more about Rennie's fatal seduction of Raymond Collier.

"You've got something to add?"

"Yeah, I do," Robbins said. "There's something maybe you should know. It may not matter to you, but I hope it will."

When he hesitated, Wick gave an inquisitive shrug.

Robbins glanced over his shoulder toward the barn, then said in a low voice, "After that business with Collier, Rennie didn't pick up where she left off. She didn't go back to being the way she was before."

Wick didn't comment and waited him out.

"You're right, Threadgill, I don't know you from shit, but I know you're trouble. I read the newspapers. I watch TV. I don't much like you hanging around Rennie."

"Too bad. You don't get a vote."

"Especially with this character Lozada being involved."

"It's because of him that I'm hanging around."

"That the only reason?" His eyes bored into Wick's. "Me and Corinne have been looking after Rennie for a long time. We don't plan to stop now." He inclined his head, moving in closer. "You've got a big gun and a big mouth, but you're dumber than this fence post here if you don't get what I'm telling you."

"I'd get it if you'd say it straight out."

"All right. Rennie's worked hard to get where she's at in her career. I've seen her take chances on horseback that seasoned cowboys and stunt riders wouldn't take. She flies off to the other side of the world, goes to places where there's fighting and God knows what kind of pestilence, and she never shows an ounce of fear.

"But," he said, taking a step closer,

"I've never seen her in the company of a man.

She's certainly never let one spend the night."

He took in Wick's bare chest and made a point of looking down at the fly he had hurriedly buttoned. "I hope you're decent enough, man enough, to handle that responsibility."

WHEN RENNIE CAME IN FROM THE CORRAL
, Wick was watching coffee drip from the filter basket into the carafe. Bare-chested and barefoot, he was wearing only blue jeans. His handgun was lying on the counter next to the Mr. Coffee. None of this was compatible with her safe, familiar kitchen, and all of it was disconcerting.

"Is there something wrong with the coffeemaker?"

He shook his head with chagrin. "I'm just so anxious for it I've been counting the drips."

"Sounds good to me, too." She took two mugs from the cabinet.

"Spats okay?" he asked.

"Just as Toby said."

"He hates my guts."

She passed him a mug. "Don't be silly."

"I'm not. And my feelings aren't hurt.

I'm just stating a fact. Did he go home?"

"He just left."

The last of the coffee gurgled into the carafe.

Wick filled her mug, warning "It's cops' coffee. Strong."

"Doctors have the same kind." She sipped and gave him a thumbs-up.

"Robbins makes a very serious business out of looking after you. He warned me to keep my grubby paws off you."

"He said no such thing. I know he didn't."

"Not in so many words."

She took another few sips of her coffee, then set her mug on the counter. "Turn around and let me check your incision."

He turned, set the heels of his hands on the edge of the counter, and leaned forward. "Can't fool me. You just want to look at my ass."

"I've seen it."

"And?"

"I've seen better."

"Now that hurts my feelings."

The human body held few mysteries for Rennie. She had studied it, learned it, seen it in every condition, size, color, and shape. But yesterday when she saw all of Wick's body stretched out on her bed, it had made an impression. And not from a medical standpoint. His torso was long and lean, his limbs well proportioned. No body she had ever seen had the appeal of his, and she had struggled for professional detachment when she touched it.

She removed the old bandage and gently probed his incision. "Tender?"

"Only when you poke it. It's starting to itch."

"A sign of healing. A medical miracle considering your shortage of bed rest."

"When will you remove the stitches?"

"A few more days. Stay put and finish your coffee. I might just as well clean it during one of your rare periods of immobility."

"No more shots," he called to her as she left the room.

She retrieved the supplies from upstairs and was actually surprised to find him still in place when she returned. She told him so.

"Doctor's orders."

"Yes, but I can't believe you followed them.

You're not exactly an ideal patient, Mr.Threadgill."

"Why are Toby and Corinne Robbins so protective of you?"

"They've known me since I was a little girl."

"So have a lot of other people in Dalton. I don't see anyone else hovering around you and warding off satyrs like me."

"I doubt Toby Robbins knows what a satyr is."

"But you do, don't you, Rennie?"

"You're not a satyr."

"Was Raymond Collier?"

He was baiting her, trying to get her to talk about it. She wasn't ready to talk about it. She doubted she would ever be ready to talk about it with Wick. Where would she even begin? With the day she had discovered her father's adultery? Could she make Wick understand how shattering it had been to realize the hypocrisy she'd been living with
and stupidly accepting?

Or would she begin with Raymond? How he used to follow her. How his longing gaze had never strayed from her if they were in the same gathering of people, including his wife. How she had loathed his calf eyes and moist hands before she realized that she could use his obsession to punish her father. No, she couldn't talk about that with Wick.

"There," she said as she placed a new bandage over the incision. "All done, and actually you were fairly cooperative this time."

Before she could move away, he took one of her hands in each of his and pulled them around him, to the front of his body, so that she was hugging him from behind.

"What are you doing, Wick?"

"Who was your ideal patient?"

She dismissed the question with a light laugh, something not easily accomplished with her breasts flattened against his back, her hands splayed over the crisp hair on his chest, and her center growing warm from the contact with his rump.

He had covered her hands with his, holding them captive against him. His skin--not his epidermis, but his skin--felt warm and vital against her palms. Beneath her left hand she could feel the strong beating of his heart. For someone accustomed to listening to hearts beat every day, the rhythm of his had a strange effect on her. It was making her own beat faster against the strong muscles of his back.

"Shouldn't we be preparing to leave, Wick? I thought you were in a hurry to get away."

"Your ideal patient. I want to hear about him or her, or we'll stand here until I do, and you know that I'm just stubborn enough to mean it." For emphasis he pressed down on her arms at his sides, forcing a tighter hug.

In surrender, she rested her forehead in the shallow depression between his shoulder blades. But it was far too comfortable, far too nice, so it lasted for only a few brief seconds before she raised her head.

"It was a she. A thirty-four-year-old woman. She was a victim of the World Trade Center attack. I was in Philadelphia on September the eleventh, attending a conference. I drove straight to New York and arrived late that evening.

"She was one of the few who'd been pulled from the rubble still alive, but her injuries were severe and numerous. I worked on her internal injuries.

A specialist amputated her leg. For twenty-four hours we didn't even know her name.

She had no identification on her and wasn't lucid enough to tell us who she was. But subconsciously she knew she was being helped.

Every time I took her hand, trying to let her know that she was safe, that someone was taking care of her, she would squeeze my hand.

"Finally, she regained consciousness enough to give us her name, which we matched with a family, one of thousands desperately seeking information. She was from Ohio and had been on a business trip. Her husband and three children had an emotional reunion with her in the hospital. In the midst of it, she looked at me. Her eyes spoke with such eloquence she didn't have to say anything."

At some point during the telling, she had rested her cheek against Wick's back. He was stroking the backs of her hands where they still rested on his chest. "You saved her life, Rennie."

"No," she said thickly. "I couldn't. She died two days later. She knew she was going to die. We had told her it was doubtful she could survive such massive damage. She was thanking me for extending her life long enough for her to see her family. She wanted to tell them good-bye. It took an act of will and tremendous courage for her to live even that long. Her love for them was stronger than her pain. So when you asked who my ideal patient was, she immediately came to mind."

Several moments elapsed before he said, "I think you're incredible, Dr. Newton. No wonder the Robbinses think so highly of you."

She recognized the statement as a transition.

He wanted to know about her relationship with Toby and Corinne, and this was his roundabout way of asking.

What would be the harm in telling him that much? He probably knew anyway. It was possible that Toby had told him during their extended conversation at the corral fence and Wick wanted to hear her version of it.

This time when her forehead came to rest between his shoulder blades, she kept it there. "After Raymond Collier, my parents enrolled me in a boarding school in Dallas. The first Christmas I was there, they went to Europe. Mother didn't want to go, or so she claimed. But there was no arguing with T. Dan. As part of my punishment for the trouble I'd caused, I was left at school to spend the holiday alone.

"Somehow, Toby and Corinne found out. They showed up on Christmas morning. They brought their children, goodies, presents, and tried to make me happy. They've been seeing to my happiness ever since. If he comes across as overly protective, I think it's because he still sees me as a lonely abandoned girl on Christmas."

"What happened in your father's study that day, Rennie?"

She raised her head and withdrew her hands from beneath his. "If we're going to Galveston, we should be going."

He came around and took her by the shoulders.

"What happened, Rennie?"

"Wesley will blame me for any delay," was her only answer.

"Did he rape you? Try?"

Angered by his tenacity, she flung off his hands. "God, you never give up!"

"Did he?"

"Isn't that what my father told the police?"

"Yes. And from what little I know of T. Dan Newton, lying would be the least of his sins. He'd lie to the police and smile while doing it. Now, what caused you to shoot Raymond Collier?"