Unspeakable (24 page)

"You ready to see some action?"

"Yeah, Carl."

"We'd better get up early in the morning, give ourselves plenty of time. We don't want to get there too early and draw attention to ourselves. But we can't be late."

"Can't be late."

"I hope Cecil knows what the hell he's doing. If he's screwed this up, I'll kill him, and I don't care if he is my big brother." He nudged Myron to draw his attention away from the freshly bleeding elbow. The colorless, unblinking eyes focused on him but registered little. "Just remember one thing, Myron."

"What, Carl?"

"If there's any discussion, any argument, about how things are supposed to go down, you do what I say. You got that?"

"Yeah, Carl. Do what I say."

" Me, Myron."

"Me."

"Goddamn..." Carl threw himself onto the uncomfortable cot and stared up at the spider-infested ceiling. His accomplices were a hopeless retard and a brother who periodically came down with a bad case of cowardice. He hoped to God Cecil had been cured of that. For Cecil's sake he hoped that. Because if the shit came down on them, Cecil was on his own this time. Carl was not taking another rap for him. No way.

Cecil had better not do anything stupid, or...

Well, he had just better not.

CHAPTER TWENTY–FOUR

I
t amazed Anna that a critically ill patient would be assigned to CCU. How could anyone hope to recover in such a busy place? If the noise were comparable to the bright lighting and the level of activity, it must be a very loud environment indeed.

Nurses and other medical personnel bustled about. Several were speaking into the telephones at the central desk. A janitor was mopping the floor while another was emptying wastebaskets. All were dodging an excessively large woman delivering food trays from off a metal cart, which she maneuvered like a tank.

When Anna entered Delray's private enclosure, a nurse was checking the IV drip. He was awake. The nurse made a notation on his chart, then withdrew, leaving them alone. Anna moved to his bedside and signed, " I'm so glad you're better. "

"Not so you'd notice." His eyes roved over the paraphernalia that was feeding him, monitoring his heartbeat and respiration, emptying his bladder, pumping oxygen into his nostrils, doing for him what he couldn't do for himself.

" The doctor says you're much better. You look better than you did this morning when I washere. " He registered surprise. " You were asleep, so I didn't disturb you. Were the tests too bad? "

"Bad enough."

That's all he said and Anna didn't pressure him to elaborate, knowing that he didn't mind the discomfort as much as he resented the helplessness. The worst part of his heart condition was that it was humiliating, making him self-conscious and weak.

Besides, the doctor had already briefed her. "Mr. Corbett is doing as well as can be expected after such a severe heart attack," he told her. The angiogram and sonogram had borne out the original diagnosis. Furthermore, Delray's heart had been damaged by this and previous attacks that had gone unnoticed, probably mistaken for indigestion or heartburn. "A good portion of his heart is infarcted. It can't be healed."

On the upside, he was encouraged by Delray's response to the blood pressure medication. He was in good health otherwise and exceptionally strong for a man his age. The doctor had concluded by saying that he was guardedly optimistic.

"How's David?" Delray asked her now.

She told him that his grandson was being tended by Marjorie Baker in the waiting room, and that he was coloring a picture for his grandpa, which she would bring him on her next visit.

"I'll look forward to seeing that. Everything all right at the ranch?" She assured him that all was well. She did not tell him about Cecil Herbold's visit to the house. Any mention of his stepsons caused him distress. In his present condition, that kind of upset could be deadly.

Besides, Cecil had already left town. His reason for coming was still unknown, but local police had assured her that he had been followed until he was well out of the county.

"Sawyer seeing to everything properly?"

" Yes. "

Delray idly scratched his jaw. "You know I didn't trust him at first." He paused as though waiting for her to disagree or comment. When she didn't, he continued. "I mean, when you think about it, how can you trust a guy who shows up out of nowhere? He seemed harmless. Likable enough. But something was out of kilter. For a while, I thought he might have had something to do with killing those cows."

" But not now? "

"No, not now. Why would he kill my cows but save my life? And he did, you know. He saved my life, Anna."

Jack had worked tirelessly to restore and then to maintain Delray's heartbeat and respiration until the paramedics arrived. With total focus, he had continued pumping on Delray's chest until sweat had dripped off his nose and trickled over his bare chest and streamed down his arms. Even when Anna offered to relieve him, he wouldn't stop. He had done it with an intent and purpose beyond saving Delray's life. It had been as though Jack's life depended on keeping Delray alive.

"If harming me was what he was after, he could have let me die. But still," Delray said, his brows drawing together, "I feel like there's something about him that I'm overlooking. Something I'm missing. But what could it be?"

It could be that Jack had a connection to Cecil Herbold just as Delray did. Different, certainly. But just as solid.

Jack had recognized Herbold immediately. That she knew. He might have known him through the media attention he and Carl had been receiving, but he had known him. He had been alert, wary and cautious, the way an animal is when it senses danger. And this attitude had been instantaneous, before Herbold introduced himself, not after.

"What do you think of him, Anna?"

Because her opinions of Jack Sawyer were conflicted, she lied. " I don't think anything of him. " Then she compounded the lie. " I haven't been around him that much. " She had spent all night not more than an arm's length from Jack Sawyer. She had known when he was truly asleep, and when he had been faking it, as she had sometimes feigned sleep. Why had she played that silly game of 'possum?

Because it was easier to pretend that he wasn't there than it was to pretend that she didn't get a little quivery when he was. It was a self-defense tactic. She didn't want to get hurt or to make a fool of herself.

Striking first had always been her policy with people, especially men. She had developed it to protect herself against randy young men who had wanted to experience the novelty of sleeping with a deaf girl.

The pattern had been set during adolescence. A boy would flirt with her, ask her out, then expect sexual favors in return for his charitable attention. Unable to handle the rejection, the boys boasted of conquests that never took place. As they topped one another's stories, the myths about her grew. So, although there was no basis for it, her bad reputation had thrived. Who was going to believe the silent protestations of a deaf girl? Not the boys hopeful to cash in on the sexual bonanza they'd heard so much locker-room talk about. Not the girls who scorned her as a slut but were secretly jealous of her desirability among their male classmates.

Her parents had urged her to date the boys who called. They desperately wished for her life to be as normal as possible. It seemed reasonable to them that she would have boys calling, and they looked upon that as a positive sign that she was just like any other teenage girl. They didn't know the real reason for the calls, and Anna hadn't had the heart to disillusion them about her popularity.

It hadn't taken long for her heartache to turn to hate. She assumed a bitchy attitude that staved off friendships with men and women alike. It had almost frightened away Dean Corbett. Believing him to be no different from the rest, she had initially declined his invitations. But he persisted until she accepted a date. He seemed to expect nothing in return except the promise of another. They saw each other nearly every night for months before he worked up enough courage to caress her breast, and then he had stammered a request for permission. Perhaps that was when she knew she loved him.

He proposed marriage immediately after the first time they made love. She teasingly told him that he need not go that far, that she had every intention of sleeping with him again whether he married her or not. He had assured her that it wasn't just sex he was after. He wanted Anna to be his partner for life.

Unfortunately, his life had been all too short. After he died, her chances to meet men had been greatly reduced. She was a hearing-impaired widow, with a young child, who lived with her father-in-law, on a ranch miles from town. Singly, any of those circumstances would have sent eligible bachelors scuttling for cover. The combination of them was a death knell for any social life or romance.

The nasty gossip about her and Delray was another repellent. She caught the speculative glances of people whenever they were out in public together. On those rare occasions, she kept her head high and her expression cool and remote, as she had learned to do early in her life to ward off pity and cruel curiosity.

The gossip regarding her relationship with her father-in-law generated the interest of some men, but they were throwbacks to the presumptive high school boys. The most current being Emory Lomax.

For all her negative experiences, she still had a positive outlook on love, romance, and sex. Dean had been dead a long time now, but she could remember what it had felt like to be in love. The anticipation. The shortness of breath and accelerated heartbeat. The tightness in her throat. The quickening in her belly and itchy achiness in her breasts.

The recollections were quite vivid, actually.

She'd been experiencing them recently. Every time she was near Jack Sawyer. She had doubted that she would ever be attracted to a man again, but she certainly hadn't expected to feel giddy and flushed in the presence of a drifter with mud on his boots and too much hard living in his face, a man riddled with contradictions.

Jack was very good with David. She could find no fault with his manners. He worked hard. But something about him didn't mesh, and, as with Delray, it frightened her. Especially if it involved the Herbolds.

She wasn't ready to panic and flee, as Jack had suggested. But she would breathe easier when Carl Herbold was once again in custody, and she knew the reason—if indeed there was one—

behind Jack's timely arrival.

As for Cecil... why had he come to the ranch today?

Delray tapped her hand to get her attention, and she shook off her discomfiting thoughts. "What's wrong, Anna?"

Forming the sign for s beneath her chin, she then flicked it outward into the 5 sign.

"Don't tell me nothing. You were a million miles away. I know—"

" I'm worried. I want you to get well. "

"I'll try, Anna," he said. "But if I don't—" She began signing, but he reached up and forestalled her. "In case this kills me, there are some things we need to talk about." Anna hoped he wasn't going to make any professions that both of them would later regret. She was relieved when he began talking about business matters. "Don't use David's college fund for anything else. No matter how difficult things get or how much pressure that Lomax character puts on you, keep that savings account for David intact."

She promised she would and urged him not to be troubled about any of that. " Please rest now. " He frowned. "There'll be plenty of time for me to rest after I've said what I need to say." Looking into her face, he said, "Anna... Anna."

She read her name on his lips, and knew that he was speaking it from his heart. It made her nervous, but she couldn't stop him from saying what he felt he must.

"I was wrong to make such a fuss when Dean first told me he wanted to marry you. I apologize for that."

She wanted to laugh with relief. " Delray, that's long past. We moved past that years ago. "

"I know, but I still want to apologize. It was wrong of me to protest your marriage. You were good for Dean. And good for me. Especially after he died."

She smiled her understanding.

"I hate leaving you to fend for yourself. I'm leaving you and David with a mess on your hands."

" You're not leaving. And nothing matters except that you get well and come home. "

"It matters, Anna. It matters a hell of a lot if I don't get well." Tears came to her eyes. " You must get well, Delray. Otherwise I will have disappointed Dean.Because when he died, I promised him that I would look after you. I don't want to break thatpromise. "

He reached for her hand again and, this time, pressed it against his chest. He rarely touched her. He even went out of his way to avoid touching her. So a gesture as personal as this was unprecedented and proved how important this was to him. He didn't even use sign, because it would have meant releasing her hand. She read the words coming from his lips.

"You haven't failed, Anna. You've kept your promise, at great cost to yourself. No, I know that for fact," he said when she tried to withdraw her hand and sign an argument. "Living with me all these years hasn't been easy for you. Or... Or much fun, I guess. I've been selfish." She shook her head no.