A Taste of Heaven (37 page)

“I'm just checking to see if you'd made
cookies again, sweetheart.”

“Libby, could you sew this button back on
before I lose it?”

“Did you call me? I was down at the barn and
I thought I heard your voice.”

One noon, Joe pulled her aside and teased,
"Ty is just about useless—I can't give him a job to do that he'll
stick with. I never seen a man so lovesick in my life.”

For her part, Libby could hardly look at
Tyler without smiling and blushing. Between their nights of
heart-stopping passion, and the affectionate, laughing
companionship of their days, she was left almost breathless. Now
and then she'd notice the crew watching them with good-natured
amusement, but if anyone suspected that they were doing more at
night than sleeping chastely in their own beds, no hint of it was
dropped.

On an evening a week before the wedding,
Libby and Tyler sat on the front porch after supper, watching the
sunset. He had his feet propped up on the porch railing, and a
drink on his knee. Libby sat next to him, mending a rip in one of
his shirts. This quiet peace and contentment seemed like a miracle
to her after the winter she'd endured. Even when she'd envisioned a
life with Wesley, her imagination had not shown her a picture as
mellow as this.

Across the yard by the bunkhouse, Noah
Bradley was showing off some tricky roping maneuvers to Joe,
Hickory Cooper, and Kansas Bob Wegner. Tyler watched them, shading
his eyes against the low-angled sun.

“Dr. Franklin stopped by today while you and
Joe were out on the east range,” she said.

Tyler turned his head to look at her. He
didn't think he'd had more than two brief conversations with Alex
Franklin in the four years that the doctor had lived in Heavenly.
“Yeah? What the hell did he want?”

She shrugged, snipping a length of thread
from a spool. The fire of the sun turned her hair and lashes to
gold. “Nothing special. He looked at Jim's arm. Then he stopped by
the house to say he'll be at the wedding if no emergency comes
up—he said there's really too much work for one doctor. He seems
like a very nice man.”

Tyler grunted noncommittally and returned his
attention to Noah's roping. Sure, nice man—let him deal with the
heartache of losing patients, he told himself.

“Tyler?”

“Have you ever thought you might practice
medicine again?”

His breath stopped in his chest “Libby—”

She leaned forward in her chair. “Don't get
angry. I'm just curious.”

He looked at her delicate, pretty face and
sighed. How could he explain it to her—the
nightmares . . . waking up in cold sweats that
in his dreams had been rivers of
blood . . . listening to frigid winter winds
that had echoed through his brain like a woman screaming. Even now,
sometimes he heard it. What could he say about the cold hand that
closed around his heart whenever he thought of watching helplessly
while another patient died? How could he make her understand any of
it? He barely understood it himself.

“I'm not angry, honey.” He drained the glass
in his hand. “Once, there was nothing more important to me than
being a doctor. Taking care of the land and the stock, taking care
of people—those things were so interwoven, I couldn't have told you
where one ended and the next began. But all of that changed when
Jenna died. I'm not a doctor anymore, and I'm glad for that.” He
dragged his feet off the railing and stood up. “I think I'll wander
down there and show Noah a thing or two about that hooly-ann throw
he's trying to make. His loop isn't big enough.”

Libby watched him as he crossed the yard. He
might look more like a cowboy than a doctor—the way he walked, the
lift of his head. And he might claim to prefer it that way.

But Libby wasn't so sure. He was still trying
to outrun the demons that haunted him.

*~*~*

“You boys try to stay clear of that bob wire
fence of Lat Egan's,” Joe warned at breakfast the next morning.
“His vigilantes have nailed signs to the posts with skulls and
crossbones, and 3-7-77 painted underneath. I heard in town
yesterday that one of his men took a shot at the J Bar J crew after
those boys wouldn't let 'em inspect their cattle for a brand. The
way things are right now, it wouldn't take much to get a range war
goin'.”

Tyler looked up from the coffee Libby was
pouring for him at the stove. It had taken all the willpower he had
to make himself get out of bed today. The temptation to lie in the
linen sheets with her in his arms had been almost impossible to
resist. Hearing Joe's words made him wish he'd given in to it and
pulled the quilt over their heads—trouble was brewing on the
plains. He could feel it.

“What does that mean?” Rory asked, loading
his own coffee with three spoonfuls of sugar. “What's 3-7-77?”

“I ain't seen it around here for years now,
but it stands for three feet wide, seven feet long, and
seventy-seven inches deep." Joe leaned back against the wall,
popping half a biscuit into his mouth.

Possum chuckled a bit nervously. "Sounds like
the measurements for a grave."

“That's exactly what it means,” Tyler put in.
He propped his foot on Libby's low stool and leaned his forearm on
his knee. “It's a death threat. What is going on over at the One
Pine? I haven't heard about rustlers in the area. Lat has water
holes over there, but we've all got water.” He was about to suggest
that Lattimer Egan had lost his mind altogether, but he didn't, not
in front of Rory. Rory never saw his father, but respecting the
ties of blood, Tyler tried not to say too many disparaging things
about him when the boy was around.

Joe shook his head. “Honest to God, Tyler, I
don't know. I just don't want any of our people getting shot.”

“We might have to take this up with the
sheriff and some of the other ranchers around here. We've managed
to avoid a range war all these years—I sure as hell don't want to
see one start now.”

“Me, either.” Joe put his cup down on the
table then, and put on his hat. “All right, we got a lot to do, and
the sun's up. Let's get going.” He reviewed the assigned jobs for
the day, then grinned at Tyler and Libby. “If you decide to join us
and earn your supper, Mr. Hollins, we'll be doin' a little brandin'
down by the creek. Your fancy ropin' ability would be
appreciated.”

Tyler felt his face grow warm, but he just
laughed. “I'll be along in a minute.”

At the tables, last gulps of coffee were
downed and Noah grabbed a biscuit to take with him. After a moment
of pounding boot heels and jingling spurs, the lovers were left
alone.

Libby gave him a puzzled, worried look.
“Tyler, a range war?”

He opened his arms to her and enfolded her in
his embrace, resting his chin on the top of her head. Her softness
against his chest and the scent of her hair made him think again
about sneaking back upstairs with her and closing the door. Closing
out trouble, dosing out the rest of the world.

“Don't worry,” he murmured to her. “I’m
beginning to believe that Lat is crazy, but we're safe. Nothing can
happen to us here. He's just a bitter, mean bastard whose own life
is so miserable that he wants everyone else to be miserable,
too.”

She backed up and gave him a meaningful look.
He nodded ruefully and kissed her. “Yeah, maybe that could have
happened to me. But I was saved by an angel.”

That afternoon, after making sure that Tyler
was at the corral, Libby went upstairs to her room to put some
finishing touches on her wedding gown. She'd been certain to work
on it only up here, and only when he was out of the house. Her
dress might not be white, but that was no reason for the groom to
see it a week before the ceremony.

Lifting it from the hooks in her closet, she
was glad that the gown had come together so beautifully. The high
neck and huge gigot sleeves made her already small waist tinier
still, and the bodice came to a point on her abdomen over a
circular skirt that fitted smoothly over her hips. In a way, she
was glad that this dress was lavender—it would be a shame that a
garment so lovely could be worn only once. Tyler had said that they
might be able to get away for a trip to Helena before fall roundup.
She smiled as she imagined wearing this gown to supper in a hotel
dining room, with her handsome young husband sitting across the
table from her.

Pulling a chair to the open window, she
settled in a square of mild June sun, looking out now and then at
the sea of grass that rippled in the breeze. Though she was not
likely to forget the previous winter, she'd come to love this place
in a way that she had never foreseen. The expanse of land and sky,
the songs of red-winged blackbirds and finches, the riot of
wildflowers—it was a place of wild contrasts. Just like the men it
bred: tough and tender, peaceful and violent. She'd seen Tyler rope
a calf and wrestle it to the ground for branding, and at night, had
felt his hands caress her with infinite, wondering gentleness.

Just as she took the first stitch to attach a
hook and eye on the gown's collar, she heard a thud downstairs,
like the front door had banged open.

“Hollins! Where are you?” a man's voice
bellowed. Filled with fury and panic, it seemed to shake the very
rafters.

Libby jerked upright in her chair.

“Hollins!”

A shiver of alarm rippled through her,
raising goose bumps all over her body. Jumping to her feet, she
threw the dress on her bed and ran out to the gallery to look down
over the railing. What she saw froze her heart. Lattimer Egan stood
in the parlor, as blood-smeared as a butcher. In his arms he
carried Rory, and struggled to keep from dropping the boy's
sagging, unconscious body. A slow, steady drip of blood ran from
Rory and puddled on the floor.

“Oh, my God,” Libby uttered. “Dear God in
heaven!” She ran through the gallery and hurried down the
stairs.

“Where's Hollins?” Egan demanded again. His
usually florid face was as pale as his son's.

With wide eyes she looked at Rory's lifeless
form and touched his cold face with a choking hand. “My God,” she
cried again. “Is he dead?”

“He needs a doctor and Franklin is gone to
the Wickersons' farm—hellfire, woman! Do something!”

Her heart thundered so hard in her ears, it
impaired her hearing. “T-take him into the kitchen and put him on
the table. I-I'll—” She turned and ran out the front door,
screaming as she went. “Tyler!”

Tyler was in the barn, hoisting feed sacks
with Kansas Bob, when he heard Libby's high, distant scream. The
absolute horror it carried raised every hair on his body. The
cowboy looked at him uneasily.

“Tyler!”

“Jesus Christ,” Kansas Bob murmured.

Tyler dropped the sack in his arms. It burst
on the hard-packed floor, spilling oats over his boots up to his
ankles. He turned to run outside, with Kansas Bob close behind.

They emerged from the barn and Libby plowed
straight into Tyler. He gripped her by the arms to keep her from
falling. Her hair hung wildly around her ashen face, and she was
out of breath. The terror he saw in her eyes scared the hell out of
him as little else ever had.

“What—what?” He couldn't seem to string his
words together.

“It's—it's Rory. His father—brought him—he's
hurt—bleeding a lot—”

Tyler felt as though a horse had kicked him
in the chest. He was suddenly as breathless as Libby. He turned to
Kansas Bob. “Get Joe and tell him to come up here. He's still down
at the creek. Th-then ride like hell to town and bring back Alex
Franklin.”

Libby put up her hand and shook her head.
“Egan already—looked for him. He's out on a call someplace—the
Wicker-somethings. I told him to put Rory on one of the kitchen
tables.”

Tyler tipped his head. “Shit! Well, go on and
find Joe anyway. Take the bay—she's saddled and tied up at the back
gate. Then ride for the Wickerson place and bring Franklin back
here.”

Kansas Bob took off at a dead run.

Tyler grabbed Libby's hand. “Come on,” he
said, and pulled her along toward the kitchen, past Egan's
wagon.

They trotted up to the porch and Tyler kicked
open the door. But when he saw Rory laid out on the table, a
blanket of silence fell over the rough-hewn room.

He slowly approached Rory, his heart pounding
double time against his breastbone. The first thing that struck him
was the smell of blood. It was strong in here. His visual field
narrowed—his peripheral vision, oddly, seemed lost. He knew that
Lattimer Egan hovered at the end of the table, but he couldn't see
him and he ignored him. At this moment in time, he saw only the
young man he'd come to think of as his own son. At fifteen, he'd
grown to about five-foot-ten, but lying there he seemed no bigger
than a child. His face was blue-white and misted with sweat. Tyler
put his fingertips to his throat and felt a pulse that was rapid
and thready. And he saw the right leg of his tan pants, saturated
with blood from thigh to ankle, and a gaping hole ripped in the
fabric at the inseam just above his knee. Beneath that was a large,
ugly wound. He touched Rory's clammy forehead, brushing his hair
out of the way.

Libby hung back to stay out of the way, her
arms wrapped around herself. She was too scared for tears, too
shaken to wonder how Rory had gotten hurt. Behind her she heard
hooves pounding in the yard. Turning, she saw Joe ride to the
porch. He jumped down from the saddle and trotted into the kitchen,
then skidded to a stop next to her, obviously stunned by the scene
in front of him.

“Jesus God.” The words rumbled like low
thunder carried on a breath.

“Did one of your men do this, Egan?” Tyler
asked, not taking his eyes from Rory. His voice was frighteningly,
deathly quiet.

Visibly shaken, Lat Egan dodged the question.
“I’ll handle my business, Hollins. You just patch up my son—or are
you going to stand there and watch him die like you did my
Jenna?”