Rough Diamonds: Wyoming Tough\Diamond in the Rough (22 page)

“A moon is a moon,” he said doggedly.

“That’s your story and you’re sticking to it,” she agreed.

He stared down at her with conflict eating him alive. “You’re nineteen, Sassy,” he said finally. “I’m thirty-one.”

She blinked. “Is that supposed to mean something?”

“It means you’re years too young for me. And not only in age.”

She raised her eyebrows. “It isn’t exactly easy to get
experience when you’re living in a tiny town and supporting a family.”

He ground his teeth. “That isn’t the point…”

She held up a hand. “You had too much coffee today and the caffeine caused you to leap on unsuspecting women.”

He glowered. “I did not drink too much coffee.”

“Then it must be either my exceptional beauty or my overwhelming charm,” she decided. She waited, arms folded, for him to come up with an alternate theory.

He pulled his hat low over his eyes. “It’s been a long, dry spell.”

“Well, if that isn’t the nicest compliment I ever had,” she muttered. “You were lonely and I was the only eligible woman handy!”

“You were,” he shot back.

“A likely story! There’s Mrs. Harmon, who lives a mile down the road.”

“Mrs. Harmon?”

“Yes. Her husband has been dead fifteen years. She’s fifty, but she wears tight skirts and a lot of makeup and in dim light, she isn’t half bad.”

He glowered even more. “I am not that desperate.”

“You just said you were.”

“I did not!”

“Making passes at nineteen-year-old girls,” she scoffed. “I never!”

He threw up his hands. “It wasn’t a pass!”

She pursed her lips and gave him a sarcastic look.

He shrugged. “Maybe it was a small pass.” He stuck his hands in his pockets. “I have a conscience. You’d wear on it.”

So that was why he’d pushed her away in the store, before he left town. Her heart lifted. He didn’t find her unattractive. He just thought she was too young.

“I’ll be twenty next month,” she told him.

It didn’t help. “I’ll be thirty-two in two months.”

“Well, for a month we’ll be almost the same age,” she said pertly.

He laughed shortly. “Twelve years is a lot, at your age.”

“In the great scheme of things, it isn’t,” she pointed out.

He didn’t answer her.

“Thanks for stopping by to check on my mother,” she said. “It was kind.”

He lifted a shoulder. “I wanted to see if the soldier was hot for you.”

“Excuse me?!”

“He didn’t even kiss you good night,” he said.

“That’s because he’s in love with his best friend’s girl.”

His expression brightened. “He is?”

“I’m somebody to talk about her with,” she told him. “Which is why I don’t get out much, unless a man wants to tell me about his love life and ask for advice.” She studied him. “I don’t guess you’ve got relationship problems?”

“In fact, I do. I’m trying not to have one with an inappropriate woman,” he said, tongue-in-cheek.

That took a minute to register. She laughed. “Oh. I see.”

He moved closer and toyed with a strand of her short hair. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to take you out once in a while. Nothing serious,” he added firmly. “I am not in the market for a mistress.”

“Good thing,” she returned, “because I have no intention of becoming one.”

He grinned. “Now, that’s encouraging. I’m glad to know that you have enough willpower to keep us on the straight and narrow.”

“I have my mother,” she replied, “who would shoot you in the foot with a rusty gun if she even thought you were leading me into a life of sin. She’s very religious. She raised me to be that way.”

“In her condition,” he said solemnly, “I’m not surprised that she’s religious. She’s a courageous soul.”

“I love her a lot,” she confessed. “I wish I could do more to help her.”

“Loving her is probably what helps her the most,” he said. He bent and brushed a soft kiss against her mouth. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She smiled. “Okay.”

He started to walk down the steps, paused, and turned back to her. “You’re sure it’s not serious with the soldier?”

She smiled more broadly. “Very sure.”

He cocked his hat at a jaunty angle and grinned at her. “Okay.”

She watched him walk out to his vehicle, climb in, and drive away. She waved, but she noticed that he didn’t look back. For some reason, that bothered her.

John spent a rough night remembering how sweet Sassy was to kiss. He’d been fighting the attraction for weeks now, and he was losing. She was too young for him. He knew it. But on the other hand, she was independent. She was strong. She was used to responsibility. She’d had years of being the head of her family, the breadwinner. She might be young, but she was more mature than most women her age.

He could see how much care she took for her mother and her mother’s little ward. She never shirked her duties, and she worked hard for her paycheck.

The bottom line was that he was far too attracted to her to walk away. He was taking a chance. But he’d taken chances before in his life, with women who were much inferior to this little firecracker. It wouldn’t hurt to go slow and see where the path led. After all, he could walk away whenever he liked, he told himself.

The big problem was going to be the distance between them socially. Sassy didn’t know that he came from great wealth, that his parents were related to most of the royal houses of Europe, that he and his brother had built a world-famous ranch that bred equally famous breeding bulls. He was used to five-star hotels and restaurants, stretch limousines in every city he visited. He traveled first-class. He was worldly and sophisticated. Sassy was much more used to small town life. She wouldn’t understand his world. Probably, she wouldn’t be able to adjust to it.

But he was creating hurdles that didn’t exist yet. It wasn’t as if he was in love with her and aching to rush her to the altar, he told himself. He was going to take her out a few times. Maybe kiss her once in a while. It was nothing he couldn’t handle. She’d just be companionship while he was getting this new ranching enterprise off the ground. When he had to leave, he’d tell her the truth.

It sounded simple. It was simple, he assured himself. She was just another girl, another casual relationship. He was going to enjoy it while it lasted.

He went to sleep, finally, having resolved all the problems in his mind.

The next day, he went back to the feed store with another list, this one of household goods that he was going to need. He was looking forward to seeing Sassy again. The memory of that kiss had prompted some unusually spicy dreams about her.

But when he got there, he found Buck Mannheim handling the counter and looking worried.

He waited while the older man finished a sale. The customer left and John approached the counter.

“Where’s Sassy?” he asked.

Buck looked concerned. “She phoned me at home. Her mother had a bad turn. They had to send an ambulance for her and take her up to Billings to the nearest hospital. Sassy was crying…”

He was talking to thin air. John was already out the door.

He found Sassy and little Selene in the emergency waiting room, huddled together and upset.

He walked into the room and they both ran to him, to be scooped up and held close, comforted.

He felt odd. It was the first time he could remember being important to anyone outside his own family circle. He felt needed.

His arms contracted around them. “Tell me what happened,” he asked at Sassy’s ear.

She drew away a little, wiping at her eyes with the hem of her blouse. It was obvious that she hadn’t slept. “She knocked over her water carafe, or I wouldn’t even have known anything was wrong. I ran in to see what had happened and I found her gasping for breath. It was so bad that I just ran to the phone and called Dr. Bates. He sent for the ambulance and called the oncologist on
staff here. They’ve been with her for two hours. Nobody’s told me anything.”

He eased them down into chairs. “Stay here,” he said softly. “I’ll find out what’s going on.”

She was doubtful that a cowboy, even a foreman, would be able to elicit more information than the patient’s own family, but she smiled. “Thanks.”

He turned and walked down the hall.

J
OHN
had money and power, and he knew how to use both. Within two minutes, he’d been ushered into the office of the hospital administrator. He explained who he was, why he was there, and asked for information. Even in Billings, the Callister empire was known. Five minutes later, he was speaking to the physician in charge of Sassy’s mother’s case. He accepted responsibility for the bill and asked if anything more could be done than was being done.

“Sadly, yes,” the physician said curtly. “We’re bound by the family’s financial constraints. Mrs. Peale does have insurance, but she told us that they simply could not afford anything other than symptomatic relief for her. If she would consent, Mrs. Peale could have surgery to remove the cancerous lung and then radiation and chemotherapy to insure her recovery. In fact, she’d have a very good prognosis…”

“If money’s all that’s holding things up, I’ll gladly be responsible for the bill. I don’t care how much it is. So what are you waiting for?” John asked.

The physician smiled. “You’ll speak to the financial officer?”

“Immediately,” he replied.

“Then I’ll speak to the patient.”

“They don’t know who I am,” John told him. “That’s the only condition, that you don’t tell them. They think I’m the foreman of a ranch.”

The older man frowned. “Is there a reason?”

“Originally, it was to insure that costs didn’t escalate locally because the name was known,” he said. “But by then, it was too late to change things. They’re my friends,” he added. “I don’t want them to look at me differently.”

“You think they would?”

“People see fame and money and power. They don’t see people. Not at first.”

The other man nodded. “I think I understand. I’ll get the process underway. It’s a very kind thing you’re doing,” he added. “Mrs. Peale would have died. Very soon, too.”

“I know that. She’s a good person.”

“And very important to her little family, from what I’ve seen.”

“Yes.”

He clapped John on the shoulder. “We’ll do everything possible.”

“Thanks.”

When he wrapped up things in the financial office, he strolled back down to the emergency room. Sassy was pacing the floor. Selene had curled up into a chair with her cheek pillowed on her arm. She was sound asleep.

Sassy met him, her eyes wide and fascinated. “What did you
do?”
she exclaimed. “They’re going to operate on Mama! The doctor says they can save her life, that
she can have radiation and chemotherapy, that there’s a grant for poor people…she can live!”

Her voice broke into tears. John pulled her close and rocked her in his strong, warm arms, his mouth against her temple. “It’s all right, honey,” he said softly. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m just so happy,” she choked at his chest. “So happy! I never knew there were such things as grants for this sort of thing, or I’d have done anything to find one! I thought…I thought we’d have to watch her die…”

“Never while there was a breath in my body,” he whispered. His arms contracted. A wave of feeling rippled through him. He’d helped people in various ways all his life, but it was the first time he’d been able to make this sort of difference for someone he cared about. He’d grown fond of Mrs. Peale. But he’d thought that her case was hopeless. He thanked God that the emergency had forced Sassy to bring her mother here. What a wonderful near-tragedy. A link in a chain that would lead to a better life for all three of them.

She drew back, wiping her eyes again and laughing. “Sorry. I seem to spend my life crying. I’m just so grateful. What did you do?” she asked again.

He grinned. “I just asked wasn’t there something they could figure out to do to help her. The doctor said he’d check, and he came up with the grant.”

She shook her head. “It happened so fast. They’ve got some crackerjack surgeon who’s teaching new techniques in cancer intervention here, and he’s the one they’re getting to operate on Mama. What’s more, they’re going to do it tomorrow. They already asked her, and she just almost jumped out of the bed she was so excited.” She wiped away more tears. “We brought
her up here to die,” she explained. “And it was the most wonderful, scary experience we ever had. She’s going to live, maybe long enough to see Selene graduate from college!”

He smiled down at her. “You know, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that’s not the case. Feel better?”

She nodded. Her eyes adored him. “Thank you.”

He chuckled. “Glad I could help.” He glanced down at Selene, who was radiant. “Hear that? You’ll have to go to college.”

She grinned. “I want to be a doctor, now.”

“There are scholarships that will help that dream come true, at the right time,” he assured her.

Sassy pulled the young girl close. “We’ll find lots,” she promised.

“Thank you for helping save our mama,” Selene told John solemnly. “We love her very much.”

“She loves you very much,” John replied. “That must be pretty nice, at your age.”

He was saying something without saying it.

Sassy sent Selene to the vending machines for apple juice. While she was gone, Sassy turned to John. “What was your mother like when you were little?”

His face hardened. “I didn’t have a mother when I was little,” he replied curtly. “My brother and I were raised by our uncle.”

She was shocked. “Were your parents still alive?”

“Yes. But they didn’t want us.”

“How horrible!”

He averted his eyes. “We had a rough upbringing. Until our uncle took us in, we were in—” he started to say boarding school, but that was a dead giveaway “—in a bad
situation at home,” he amended. “Our uncle took us with him and we grew up without a mother’s influence.”

“You still don’t have anything to do with her? Or your father?”

“We started seeing them again last year,” he said after a minute. “It’s been hard. We built up resentments and barriers. But we’re all working on it. Years too late,” he added on a cold laugh.

“I’m sorry,” she told him. “Mama’s been there for me all my life. She’s kissed my cuts and bruises, loved me, fought battles for me…I don’t know what I would have done without her.”

He drew in a long breath and looked down into warm green eyes. “I would have loved having a mother like her,” he said honestly. “She’s the most optimistic person I ever knew. In her condition, that says a lot.”

“I thought we’d be planning her funeral when we came in here,” Sassy said, still shell-shocked.

He touched her soft cheek gently. “I can understand that.”

“How did you know where we were?” she asked suddenly.

“I went into the feed store with a list and found Buck holding down the fort,” he said. “He said you were up here.”

“And you came right away,” she said, amazed.

He put both big hands on her small waist and held her in front of him. His blue eyes were solemn. “I never planned to get mixed up with you,” he told her honestly. “Or your family. But I seem to be part of it.”

She smiled. “Yes. You are a part of our family.”

His hands contracted. “I just want to make the point that my interest isn’t brotherly,” he added.

The look in his eyes made her heartbeat accelerate. “Really?”

He smiled. “Really.”

She felt as if she could fly. The expression on her face made him wish that they were in a more private place. He looked down to her full mouth and contemplated something shocking and potentially embarrassing.

Before he could act on what was certainly a crazy impulse, the doctor who’d admitted Mrs. Peale came walking up to them with a taller, darker man. He introduced himself and his companion.

“Miss Peale, this is Dr. Barton Crowley,” he told Sassy. “He’s going to operate on your mother first thing in the morning.”

Sassy shook his hand warmly. “I’m so glad to meet you. We’re just overwhelmed. We thought we’d brought Mama up here to die. It’s a miracle! We never even knew there were grants for surgery!”

John shot a warning look at the doctor and the surgeon, who nodded curtly. The hospital administrator had already told them about the financial arrangements.

“We can always find a way to handle critical situations here,” the doctor said with a smile. He nodded toward Dr. Crowley. “He’s been teaching us new surgical techniques. It really was a miracle that he was here when you arrived. He works at Johns Hopkins, you see,” he added.

Sassy didn’t know what that meant.

John leaned down. “It’s one of the more famous hospitals back East,” he told her.

She laughed nervously. “Sorry,” she told Dr. Crowley, who smiled. “I don’t get out much.”

“She works at our local feed store,” John told them, beaming down at her. “She’s the family’s only support. She takes care of her mother and their six-year-old ward as well. She’s quite a girl.”

“Stop that,” Sassy muttered shyly. “I’m not some paragon of virtue. I love my family.”

His eyebrows arched and his eyes twinkled. “All of it?” he asked amusedly.

She flushed when she recalled naming him part of the family. She forced her attention back to the surgeon. “You really think you can help Mama? Our local doctor said the cancer was very advanced.”

“It is, but preliminary tests indicate that it’s confined to one lobe of her lung. If we can excise it, then follow up with chemotherapy and radiation, there’s a good chance that we can at least prolong her life. We might save it altogether.”

“Please do whatever you can,” Sassy pleaded gently. “She means so much to us.”

“She was very excited when I spoke with her,” Dr. Crowley said with a smile. “She was concerned about her daughters, she told me, much more than with her own condition. A most unique lady.”

“Yes, she is,” Sassy agreed. “She’s always putting other people’s needs in front of her own. She raised me with hardly any help at all, and it was rough.”

“From what I see, young woman,” the surgeon replied, “she did a very good job.”

“Thanks,” she said, a little embarrassed.

“Well, we’ll get her into surgery first thing. When we
see the extent of the cancerous tissue, we’ll speak again. Try to get some rest.”

“We will.”

He and the doctor shook hands with John and walked back down the hall.

“I wish I’d packed a blanket or something,” Sassy mused, eyeing the straight, lightly padded chairs in the distant waiting room. “I can sleep sitting up, but it gets cold in hospitals.”

“Sitting up?” He didn’t understand.

“Listen, you know how we’re fixed,” she said. “We can’t afford a motel room. I always sleep in the waiting room when Mama’s in the hospital.” She nodded toward Selene, who was now asleep in the corner. “We both do it. Except Selene fits in these chairs a little better, because she’s so small.”

He was shocked. It was a firsthand look at how the rest of the world had to live. He hadn’t realized that Sassy would have to stay at the hospital.

“Don’t look like that,” she said. “You make me uncomfortable. I don’t mind being poor. I’ve got so many blessings that it’s hard to count them.”

“Blessings.” He frowned, as if he wondered what they could possibly be.

“I have a mother who sacrificed to raise me, who loves me with her whole heart. I have a little sort-of sister who thinks I’m Joan of Arc. I have a roof over my head, food to eat, and, thanks to you, a really good job with no harassment tied to it. I even have a vehicle that gets me to and from work most of the time.”

“I wouldn’t call that vehicle a blessing,” he observed.

“Neither would I, if I could afford that fancy truck
you drive,” she chided, grinning. “The point is, I have things that a lot of other people don’t. I’m happy,” she added, curious about his expression.

She had nothing. Literally nothing. But she could count her blessings as if they made her richer than a princess. He had everything, but his life was empty. All the wealth and power he commanded hadn’t made him happy. He was alone. He had Gil and his family, and his parents. But in a very personal sense, he was by himself.

“You’re thinking that you don’t really have a family of your own,” Sassy guessed from his glum expression. “But you do. You have me, and Mama, and Selene. We’re your family.” She hesitated, because he looked hunted. She flushed. “I know we’re not much to brag about…”

His arm shot out and pulled her to him. “Don’t run yourself down. I’ve never counted my friends by their bank books. Character is far more important.”

She relaxed. But only a little. He was very close, and her heart was racing.

“You suit me just the way you are,” he said gently. He bent and kissed her, tenderly, before he let her go and walked toward Selene.

“What are you doing?” she exclaimed when he lifted the sleeping child in his arms and started toward the exit.

“I’m taking baby sister here to a modest guest room for the night. You can come, too.”

She blinked. “John, I can’t afford—”

“If I hear that one more time,” he interrupted, “I’m going to say bad words. You don’t want me to say bad words in front of the child. Do you?”

She was asleep and wouldn’t hear them, but he
was making a point and being noble. She gave in, smiling. “Okay. But you have to dock my wages for it or I’ll stay here and Selene can just hear you spout bad words.”

He smiled over Selene’s head on his chest. “Okay, honey.”

The word brought a soft blush into Sassy’s cheeks and he chuckled softly. He led the way out the door to his truck.

John’s idea of a modest guest room was horrifying to Sassy when he stopped by the desk of Billings’s best hotel to check in Sassy and Selene.

The child stirred sleepily in John’s strong arms. She opened her eyes, yawning. “Mama?” she exclaimed, worried.

“She’s fine,” John assured her. “Go back to sleep, baby. Curl up in this chair until I get the formalities done, okay?” He placed her gently into a big, cushy armchair near the desk.

“Okay, John,” Selene said, smiling as she closed her eyes and nodded off again.

“You’d better stay with her while I do this,” John told Sassy, not wanting her to hear the clerk when he gave her his real name to pay for the room.

“Okay, John,” she echoed her little sister, with a grin.