Summer Rose (12 page)

She snuggled closer. “Hunter?”

“Hmm?”

He’d been so quiet, for a moment she’d thought he’d fallen asleep. The hand that had been smoothing the skin of her bare shoulder had stopped moving, and his breath had slowed to a leisurely pace.

“We need to talk.”

She waited for a reply.

“Hmm. Wha’ about?” The fog of impending sleep cloaked his voice. He snuggled deeper into the pillow, his face buried in her hair.

Taking a deep breath, she chewed on her bottom lip, searching for the words, then released it and swallowed hard. She pulled from his embrace and propped herself up on one bent arm. Unable to look at him, her gaze dropped to the blankets barely covering their nude bodies. Her nerveless fingers toyed with the hem of the blanket. Bending her head forward, she used the long, unbound tresses of her hair as a temporary place of refuge while she gathered her nerve.

Seconds stretched out into minutes. A knot of dread began to form in her belly as she finally blurted out the words she’d been working so hard to form. “I’m pregnant . . . with twins.”

Rose stared out the open office door at Sadie as she limped around the exercise pen with Davy beside her monitoring every step she took. The summer sun glistening off the boy’s shock of unruly black hair took a backseat to his grin. Sadie’s leg was getting better every day, thanks to Davy’s devotion to the animal. Unfortunately, the better Sadie got, the sooner Davy would lose his friend to the wolf preserve.

But Rose’s mind wasn’t really on the wolf or Davy or the view. Instead, it kept replaying the night before. She couldn’t believe that Hunter had slept through her confession about being pregnant. It had taken all she had to tell him, and he never heard her. For a long time, she’d laid beside him thinking about how she would have to summon up her courage again in the morning. But she was saved that stress. The next morning, Hunter was gone.

He came into the office late and mumbled a quick
Good Morning
in her direction, then disappeared into the back. Since then, he’d been acting strange. Not distant or angry or regretful. Just . . . evasive. Effectively keeping himself busy with his patients and not making eye contact with her whenever he was forced to come into the office.

Confusion fogged Rose’s mind. Was he embarrassed? Did he regret making love last night? Had it been a one-night stand for him? She couldn’t tell. One thing she did conclude, he did not want to talk about it, and he had been going out of his way to avoid a situation that would enable a conversation. And if he didn’t want to talk, how could she tell him about the babies without tackling him and sitting on his chest to make him listen?

“She’ll be fine, Ida. Just make sure when you give her a marrowbone that the hole isn’t big enough for her to get her lower jaw through.”

Hunter led Ida Simmons and her Golden Retriever, Lulu, out of the backroom. Mrs. Simmons looked more shook-up than Lulu, who had come in with a marrowbone trapped on her lower jaw behind her canine teeth. The dog had been quite docile, but Mrs. Simmons had been hysterical. It had taken Hunter a half an hour to calm the owner before he could begin to remove the bone.

“Thank you so much, Dr. Mackenzie.” She held her hand up as if to block her next words from the dog’s hearing. “Between you and me, I think Lulu has seen her last marrowbone.” Then she put her hand over her heart. “I just couldn’t take another episode like this.” She paid her bill and led Lulu from the building.

Hunter didn’t have another patient for an hour, so Rose turned to him, determined to talk to him at last. She opened her mouth to speak, and the phone rang. Seemed she just couldn’t catch a break.

Sighing, she picked up the receiver. “Paws and Claws Clinic. How may I help you?” Pause. “Yes, Mr. . . . I’ll tell Dr. . . . You need to calm down, sir.” She threw Hunter a pleading look.

He took the phone from her. “This is Dr. Mackenzie.” He listened for a moment. “Is she standing?” Another pause. “All right. Stay calm. Keep her on her feet, and I’ll be there in a few minutes. You understand, Fred? Do not let her lay down.” He hung up the phone and began stripping his lab coat off as he hurried into the backroom. A few moments later he emerged carrying his bag. “Cancel my appointments for the rest of the day. Fred Tyson’s mare has colic. I’m not sure how long I’ll be.” And he was gone.

Rose stared helplessly at the empty doorway and listened to the roar of Hunter’s truck as it careened out of the driveway.

As Hunter drove,
he thought about the night before and the implications of what he’d foolishly done. No way in heaven or on earth did he regret making love to Rose. The whole experience had been . . . incredible, earthmoving. Never in his life had he felt more fulfilled, more content, more alive. But—

But? What’s your problem, Mackenzie?

He’d slept with his employee. That’s the problem. To add to that, he had no idea what to do about it. He didn’t want the entanglements of a relationship. He didn’t even want a relationship. But making love to Rose was like letting an alcoholic take one drink and then telling him he couldn’t have anymore. All he’d been able to think about since he left her that morning had been the next time. But there couldn’t be a next time.

Rose wasn’t the kind of woman a man played with then discarded. She was the forever type, the type that wanted little houses with white picket fences, rose gardens and tire swings. And Hunter just wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment or the responsibilities that went along with it. That meant never again letting this happen with Rose.

Just the thought of never holding Rose again twisted Hunter’s heart in his chest. He slammed his fist on the steering wheel and relished the pain that shot through his hand. Anything was better than the agony of what he knew he had to do about Rose.

Pleased that she’d at least managed
to accomplish one of her goals for the day, Rose hung up the phone, jotted down the time and date of her appointment with the obstetrician in Charleston and then tore the sheet off and stuffed it in her purse. She’d been putting that off for far too long, and as a nurse, she knew that seeing a doctor on a regular basis while she was pregnant was critical to the babies’ well-being.

No sooner had she hung up the phone than the problems facing her about telling Hunter assaulted her again. Not wanting to think about that right now, she pushed it to the back of her mind. However, it kept creeping back into her consciousness anyway.

Only one thing to do—find something to keep her busy, something that would occupy her time and her mind to the exclusion of all else. She thumbed through the file folders on her desk, but saw nothing needing her attention. They were all for patients that would be coming in tomorrow, so she’d only have to get them out again if she filed them.

As if heaven-sent, the door burst open and there, in the doorway, stood Davy Collins, hair askew, smears of dirt across his T-shirt and jeans, but his normally brilliant smile was missing.

“Hey, Miss Rose.”

Happy for the distraction, Rose smiled at the boy. “Hey, Davy. What can I do for you?”

He lowered his gaze to his scuffed sneakers and shuffled his feet, a sure sign that something was troubling him.

Rising from her desk, Rose moved around it and guided Davy to one of the plastic chairs, then sat beside him. “Davy? What’s the problem?” When he wasn’t forthcoming, she squeezed his shoulder lightly. “Come on. You can tell me. We’re buddies, right?”

He raised his gaze to meet hers and said sheepishly, “My mom told me I shouldn’t bug you about it.”

“About what?”

“About . . . well, about if you found a way to convince my dad not to close the doc’s place.” He gestured toward the animal compound buildings across the parking lot, his primary reason for asking obviously being Sadie.

Going to her desk, Rose retrieved the legal pad where she’d been making notes off and on all morning. She returned to her seat beside Davy. “As a matter of fact, I have an idea, and you gave it to me.”

His eyes opened wide. “I did? Me?”

“Yup. And I spoke to Doc, and he’s all for it. We’re going to invite the town out here so they can see for themselves that the animals are harmless. We’re gonna have an open house. Now, I need you to help come up with some ideas to make the day fun, but educational.”

“All right!” Davy’s eyes sparkled and that glowing smile had returned. The energy that normally kept his young body in perpetual motion burst forth. “Well, food’s always a good idea. You know, like hot dogs and stuff.”

Rose chuckled. Little boys and their stomachs. An inseparable combination of priorities. “Okay. I’ll see if Granny Hawks can help us out in that department.” She jotted Granny Hawks’ name next to the word
FOOD
that she’d printed in bold, capital letters to assure Davy of its importance on the list. “What else?”

His eyebrows furrowed in deep thought, almost meeting in the middle of his forehead. “Let me see . . .” He sat up straight. “I know. We need a petting place where people can feed the animals and pet them, and so the townsfolk can really see that the animals won’t hurt them.”

She’d thought of that as well, but she was unsure if actually putting the townspeople in the pens with the animals was a good idea. Rose didn’t reply for a moment. Davy had a rapport with all the animals that went beyond explanation, but strangers were another thing altogether.

“Well, that’s a great idea, but I think we need to speak to Doc Mackenzie about it first, just to make sure it’s okay with him.” Nevertheless, she scribbled
petting zoo
down on her notepad. Then an idea occurred to her. “How about we find someone with a camera, and they can take pictures of the people with the different animals?”

Davy almost flew out of his chair. “Yeah. Neat idea. My mom has a camera, and I bet she’d take pictures for us. Then I can get a picture of me and Sadie together.”

The ideas continued to fly back and forth between them for the next hour. Some were keepers and some were discarded for lack of practicality or for some other reason. Soon, they had filled a whole page in Rose’s legal pad with possible things they could do at the open house. If she could pull this off, the townspeople would have to accept that the animals weren’t dangerous, and George wouldn’t have a leg to stand on to close Hunter’s refuge down.

Dusk had begun to settle
over the valley by the time Hunter returned to the office. Because of the mountains on either side of the little town nestled between them, the days were shorter in Carson than most places in the summer. But the sunsets over the peaks were spectacular, picture-postcard quality.

Hunter’s day had been long and exhausting. By the time he’d gotten the mare straightened out and out of danger, supper time had come and gone. His very bones ached with the need for some kicked-back-feet-up time. The one thing that would have made it nicer would have been someone to share it with. His gaze moved upward to the windows over the garage.

The lights from Rose’s apartment spilled out over the yard. For a time, he stood beside his truck looking up and wishing he dared go up there, share a cup of coffee with her and tell her about his day with the colicky mare. But that was not an option, not after last night.

He sighed and slammed the truck door, then unlocked the office and went inside to leave his bag. But he only got as far as Rose’s desk when he collapsed, mostly out of sheer exhaustion, but somewhat out of regret that his life had suddenly turned lonely.

Sighing, he leaned against the chair back, then rolled his head to his left to stare out the window at the star-studded night sky. Immediately, Rose’s scent, hidden in the chair’s fabric, accosted him.

The smell brought last night to mind, vivid and all too real. The feel of her soft skin, the sweep of her silken hair against his flesh, the warmth of her breath on his lips.

Groaning, he sat up straight and buried his face in his hands. God help him, he wished the memories gone. He wished them consigned to the back of his mind along with those from the time when he’d been plunged into temporary parenthood.

Immediately, as if opening the door to tuck away last night’s memories, others escaped. The long-ago memories of the days he’d had to be father and mother to Janice and Kenny slipped through the opening and accosted him as they hadn’t in a very long time. As if it were only yesterday, the memories charged at him like an out-of-control freight train . . . and he was standing helpless in the middle of the tracks.

Hunter remembered sitting
in the sheriff’s office waiting for Kenny’s release after Ben Ainsely had picked up him and some friends on Halloween night. It seems that Kenny and several other boys had decided it would be fun if they disassembled Sam Watkins’ outhouse and reassembled it on the roof of his barn. Then there was the time Janice stayed out with her boyfriend three hours past curfew. Flat tire, she’d told him. Working three jobs to keep food in their bellies and a roof over their heads. Getting the news that he hadn’t won that coveted scholarship to vet school and would have to pay for it out of his pocket with money he didn’t have. Then working two jobs and trying to keep his grades up even though he was bone-tired most of the time.

By the time Janice and Kenny went to college, Hunter had had all he could take of parental fun and games. He’d been free for the first time in years, and he planned on never getting himself into that situation again. Now, here he was, falling for a woman who wouldn’t and shouldn’t settle for anything less than a gold band and a family.

Hunter rubbed at his throbbing temples. What he needed were a couple of aspirin, some hot food and a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow, he’d worry about getting things straight with Rose and making sure she hadn’t put any more meaning into last night than a night of lovemaking between two consenting adults. Nothing more.

Hunter locked the door and turned toward his house. The light in the window above the garage clicked off. He stood in the parking lot staring at the darkened window, his common sense telling him to let it go, his heart yearning to be up there with her.

Shoulders slumped and chin on his chest, he slowly made his way toward his house.

The sound of a truck coming up the driveway stopped his plodding progress and instantly shoved his troubles to the back of his mind.