Wink of an Eye (19 page)

She jerked to a stop, then got out, her face lit up with the most beautiful smile I'd ever seen. She was wearing a pale yellow skirt that fell just inches below the tops of her thighs, and a sleeveless white top. She'd complained earlier about having to have lunch with her mother at the country club. She didn't like the country club women and liked their daughters even less. “Thought you might need some water,” she said, carrying a large thermos.

I grabbed her arm and pulled her to me, kissing the inside of her neck. She smelled like honeysuckle. “I've got all I need right here.”

“Mmm,” she moaned, then dropped the thermos, wrapped her arms around my neck, and drove her tongue deep into my waiting mouth. She hiked her leg up and wrapped it around my thigh, pressing herself against me.

I pulled back slightly and smiled. “Careful … I don't want to get you dirty.” I was sweaty, dirty, and reeked of manure.

“Mmm … down and dirty … I like the sound of that.” She kissed me again playfully, then pulled away and took my hand. She led me over to a stack of hay bales, then lifted herself up and sat on the top bale. She pulled me to her. “Guess what,” she said, grinning ear to ear.

“What?”

“I talked to Daddy last night and he's going to tell Sam to start letting you go to the auctions with him.”

Well, I supposed the good news was she didn't tell me she was pregnant. Going to the auctions with the ranch foreman was just slightly below hearing I was going to be a daddy in the list of things I didn't want to hear.

I swallowed hard and didn't say anything.

“Aren't you happy? It'll get you out of the barn a few days a month.”

“Claire … I don't know anything about … I mean, they're horses and cows.” I could tell the difference between a stallion and a gelding, a steer and a bull, but other than that … all I knew was they were big, could kill you with a kick, and crapped a lot. And the fact was, I didn't care to know more.

She chuckled, but it had an uneasiness to it. “You'll learn. By next summer, you could be the K-Bar's junior foreman and chief buyer.”

She said it like it was really something to look forward to. We'd had this conversation since we were in junior high and she still just didn't get it. I slowly pulled away and walked to the edge of the barn. It was starting to rain. Big, fat drops splattered against the brown dirt, creating miniature mud puddles. Thunder rolled in over the mountains to the west like angry ocean waves. Bolts of lightning zigzagged across the sky. I watched the storm for a moment, wondering what one would look like over the Pacific.

“Gypsy…” She was beside me now. I could feel her breath on the back of my neck. “You could be a junior foreman before you're twenty. That's pretty rare.”

I closed my eyes. “Claire … I don't want to be a junior foreman. I don't want to be a foreman.” I turned around and looked at her. “You've known that since we were thirteen years old.”

Her chest rose and fell with each deep breath as she calculated her next move. I knew her too well. “Okay … if you're happy here in the barn, I'll just tell Daddy—”

“Claire—I'm not happy
here in the barn.
I'm not happy in this
town.
Haven't you ever wondered about what's on the other side of that fence?”

Her eyes widened and she looked at me like, honestly, the thought had never crossed her mind. “But what's wrong with the life we have here?”

I sighed heavily. “It's your life, Claire. It's not our life.”

“Well, what do you want to do? Do you want to go to college? Maybe Daddy can give you the money—”

“I'm not goin' to ask your daddy for money!”

“Gypsy—you're being unreasonable.” Her voice was getting louder, competing with the thunder.

“Unreasonable? What good would going to college do if shoveling horse shit's the only job around? Even with a college degree, I'd have to go somewhere else to find a decent job.”

“But you don't have to go anywhere else. There's plenty of other jobs you could do here on the ranch.”

God! She could be so frustrating! I stormed away from her and stood outside in the rain, hoping it would cool my rising temper.

“I just don't understand what it is you're looking for,” she said, arms flaying in the air.

“Claire,” I yelled, “I can't stay in this town another day. I don't want to be one of those old men in the diner talking about the things they wished they'd done.”

“What is it you want to do?” She'd stepped outside, too, standing a few feet from me, the rain clinging to her lashes.

“I don't know … but there's got to be something more. There's got to be.” The rain was coming down harder now, soaking through my clothes. “Come with me … one year … that's all I ask. We'll travel, we'll sleep under the stars, we'll see what's out there. If we can't find something better out there, we'll come back. One year, Claire … that's all I'm asking.”

“No!” She screamed and covered her ears with her hands, shaking her head back and forth.

I grabbed her hands and pulled them away from her ears. She was going to listen to me whether she wanted to or not. “We can do it, Claire. I've got money saved. I can work odd jobs when that runs out. We can go to San Francisco, Seattle, Las Vegas. I'll even take you to Montana. Wouldn't you like to see Montana, Claire?”

She jerked away from me and took off running, away from our own private storm and into nature's fury. I took off after her and finally caught her nearly a hundred yards from the barn. The ground was rain slick and muddy and I scrabbled to keep upright as I hooked one arm around her waist. “Are you fucking crazy?” I screamed. “You're going to get killed out here!”

She fought to get free and despite every attempt to not fall, I went down, taking her down underneath me. She was sobbing and gasping for air as she grabbed my face between her muddy hands. “Please don't leave me, Gypsy. Please don't go.”

I'd never loved her more. Or hated her more. My mouth found hers in a fury of passion. I jerked her skirt up as she tore open my jeans. We came together at the same time in an explosion of ecstasy, the rain washing over us, the storm at its peak.

*   *   *

At first I thought it was a bird chirping. The high-pitched
beep beep beep
droned on for what seemed like hours. I forced my eyes open to get a look at the source of the annoying sound, wishing I had the Glock with me. If I had, whatever was making the noise would be history.

Then my mother came into a blurred view as she moved around the end of the bed and twiddled with one of the machines I was apparently hooked to. The beeping stopped. “His antibiotic's out,” she said, poking her head out the door of the room.

The whole left side of the room was glass, giving a front-row view of a massive nurses' station on the other side of the glass wall. Mom turned and padded quietly back toward the bed, then froze as she caught sight of me watching her. “Well, glory be. Welcome back to the world,” she said, her lips parting into a broad smile.

A nurse in pink scrubs came in carrying a replacement bag. “He's awake,” she said, smiling almost as broadly as my mother. “I'll let Dr. Merrick know.”

As she replaced the bag, Mom moved around to the other side of the bed and scooted a chair closer. “How's your pain? On a scale of one to ten.”

I wasn't feeling much of anything other than an incredibly heavy head. I tried to say “not bad” but all that came out was a dry, raspy whisper. On second thought, on a scale of one to ten, my throat was pushing a twelve. “My throat…” I whispered.

“That's from the ventilator.”

“I'll get him some ice chips,” the nurse said. She replaced the bag, then did a quick check of the array of monitors. “Need anything else?”

I shook my head slightly. Everything was still hazy at the moment, but I was certain given an hour, I could rattle off a list.

“Well, I'm Laurie. I'll be your CCU nurse tonight and if you need anything, just press the button on the side of the bed rail. But I think you're in pretty good hands. She hasn't left your bedside.” She winked at my mother. She then pulled a heavy curtain across the windowed wall before she left.

“CCU?” I said, painfully, then forced myself to swallow.

“Critical Care Unit. You've been in a drug-induced coma for three days. They just removed the ventilator yesterday and started weaning you off the drugs this morning.”

I nodded, afraid to try and say anything more. Laurie came back in the room with a small Styrofoam cup of ice chips and handed it to my mother. Mom scooped out a tiny bite with the plastic spoon and placed it carefully in my mouth. “You gave us quite a scare.”

I held the ice in my mouth until it melted, then slowly swallowed. The cold actually felt good going down. I opened my mouth for more like a newborn bird.

“What happened?” I managed to squeak out after the third round of ice chips.

“You had a reaction to the shot of Dilaudid they gave you in the ER. You stopped breathing, then went into respiratory failure, then full cardiac arrest.”

Wow. They shoved a tube down my throat and used the paddles. Fuck the advance directive.

Mom pretended to brush the hair off my forehead, but I think she just needed to touch me. “Father Sean O'Reilly gave you last rites. And we gave Rhonda valium.” She laughed.

I held back a chuckle myself, envisioning the chaos I knew my kid sister could cause. And then I remembered the reason for the chaos. Panicked, I grabbed the sheet and jerked it away from my leg, fully expecting to see nothing but a bandaged nub. But my leg was there, and my foot was there, and five swollen toes were all still there. I dropped my head back on the pillow and fought off the urge to cry. I was not going to cry in front of my mother.

A doctor in a white lab coat came in, winked at my mother, then poked around on my leg. He was old enough to be experienced, and still young enough to be up on current medical procedures. “I'm Dr. Merrick. It's nice to see you awake. You're a lucky man, Mr. Moran.”

“My foot…”

“Your foot's going to be fine. The envenomation was quite minimal given the severity of the toxin. You're going to have two nice, rather large fang scars, but other than that, give it a few weeks and you won't even know you were bit. The pain should be controllable now with a pain reliever.”

I nodded, relieved. “I've never been in so much pain in my life.”

“It's understandable. Rattlesnake bites are incredibly painful to begin with but in your case, you're both fortunate and unfortunate. Fortunately, for your foot and ankle, the toxin went straight to your nervous system. I can say without a doubt, it saved your foot. Probably your whole leg. On the flip side, because of the neurotoxin, you suffered some serious pain, and had some pretty severe complications. Inducing a coma was the only way to control the pain. It gave your body time to settle back down into its own rhythm.”

“They gave you eleven vials of antivenin,” Mom added. “They had to fly some in from Dallas because we used all we had. You do have insurance, don't you? That stuff's a thousand dollars a bottle.”

I would have choked but my throat was too sore.

“Rhonda was talking about maybe doing a fund-raiser—”

“Whoa!” I really did choke. After I caught my breath, I set my mother straight. “No one's doing any kind of fund-raiser. I have insurance. Very good insurance.” Considering the fact I was self-employed and in what the insurance agency liked to call a somewhat “dangerous” occupation, it was rather expensive, too.

Dr. Merrick smiled, probably relaxing now that he knew he was going to get paid. “I'm sure we can work all that out later,” he said. “Right now, I want you to stay in CCU tonight, then we'll see how you're doing tomorrow. If all goes well, we'll move you to a regular room for a day or two, then send you home. You may be on crutches a few weeks, depending on the swelling.”

I nodded but was not real happy with the idea of staying in the hospital another couple of days nor hobbling around on crutches. I guess, given the alternative, I still had my foot and Father Sean O'Reilly's services were no longer needed, so I wasn't going to complain. As long as this thing didn't drag on too long. I had a job to get back to. Whether I was getting paid for it or not. I wondered if this qualified for workmen's compensation?

Dr. Merrick excused himself, saying he'd check back in the morning. My mother watched him leave, then, once sure he was gone, leaned in closer to me. “I think I can get him to reduce his bill.” She winked at me.

“Mom—really … I have insurance. Quit worrying about the bill.”

She shrugged. “I'm just saying … neurologists don't come cheap. If I can get his services for free, what's the harm?”

I glared at her suspiciously. I knew of professional courtesy, but there were always limits. She smiled a wicked smile. “He's asked me out a couple times.”

Oh my God. My mother was going to prostitute herself to pay my hospital bill. “Mom, really … I have
damn
good insurance.”

She patted my hand. “You don't worry about a thing. I'm goin' to run down to the ER for a little while and get a couple hours in.”

I forced a smile and slowly nodded. My head was starting to hurt. I didn't know if it was from the snake bite, the coma, the thought of my sister planning a spaghetti dinner fund-raiser, or my mother doing it with my doctor.

The sooner I could get out of here, the sooner life could return to normal. Whatever that was. I had no idea where my cell phone was but there were calls I needed to make. I didn't know whose wrath at getting stood up was going to be worse: Sophia's or Claire's. At least I knew what to expect from Claire. Sophia was still a mystery.