“And you’re just telling me this now?”
“As I said,” Tanner replied, “get a cell phone.”
Before Ashley could come up with a reply, the front door banged open downstairs, and a youthful female voice called her name, sounding alarmed.
Ashley went to the upstairs railing, leaned a little, and saw Tanner’s daughter, Sophie, standing in the living room, her face upturned and so pale that her freckles stood out, even from that distance. Sixteen-year-old Carly, blond and blue-eyed like her sister, Meg, appeared beside her.
“There’s an ambulance outside,” Sophie said. “What’s happening?”
Tanner started down the stairs. “Everything’s all right,” he told the frightened girl.
Carly glanced from Tanner to Ashley, descending behind him. “We meant to get here sooner, to set up your computer,” Carly said, “but Mr. Gilvine kept the whole Drama Club after school to rehearse the second act of the new play.”
“How come there’s an ambulance outside,” Sophie persisted, gazing up at her father’s face, “if nobody’s sick?”
“I didn’t say nobody was sick,” Tanner told her quietly, setting his hands on her shoulders. “Jack’s upstairs, resting.”
Sophie’s panic rose a notch. “Uncle Jack is sick? What’s wrong with him?”
That’s what I’d like to know, Ashley thought.
“From the symptoms, I’d guess it’s some kind of toxin.”
Sophie tried to go around Tanner, clearly intending to race up the stairs. “I want to see him!”
Tanner stopped her. “Not now, sweetie,” he said, his tone at once gruff and gentle. “He’s asleep.”
“Do you still want us to set up your computer?” Carly asked Ashley.
Ashley summoned up a smile and shook her head. “Another time,” she said. “You must be tired, after a whole day of school and then play practice on top of that. How about some supper?”
“Mr. Gilvine ordered pizza for the whole cast,” Carly answered, touching her flat stomach and puffing out her cheeks to indicate that she was stuffed. “I already called home, and Brad said he’d come in from the ranch and get us as soon as we had your system up and running.”
“It can wait,” Ashley reiterated, glancing at Tanner.
“I’ll drop you off on the way home,” he told Carly, one hand still resting on Sophie’s shoulder. “My truck’s parked at the fire station. Jeff can give us a lift over there.”
Having lost her mother when she was very young, Sophie had insecurities Ashley could well identify with. The girl adored Olivia, and looked forward to the birth of a brother or sister. Tanner probably wanted to break the news about Livie’s induction later, with just the three of them present.
“Call me,” Ashley ordered, her throat thick with concern for her sister and the child, as Tanner steered the girls toward the front door.
Tanner merely arched an eyebrow at that.
Jeff stepped out of the study, just tucking away his cell phone. “I’m in big trouble with Lucy,” he said. “Forgot to let her know I’d be late. She made a soufflé and it fell.”
“Uh-oh,” Tanner commiserated.
“We get to ride in an ambulance?” Sophie asked, cheered.
“Awesome,” Carly said.
And then they were gone.
Ashley raised her eyes to the ceiling. Recalled that Jack McCall was up there, sprawled on one of her guest beds, buried under half a dozen quilts. Just how sick was he? Would he want to eat, and if so, what?
After some internal debate, she decided on homemade chicken soup.
That was the cure for everything, wasn’t it? Everything, that is, except a broken heart.
Jack McCall awakened to find something furry standing on his face.
Fortunately, he was too weak to flail, or he’d have sent what his brain finally registered as a kitten flying before he realized he wasn’t back in a South American jail, fighting off rats willing to settle for part of his hide when the rations ran low.
The animal stared directly into his face with one blue eye and one green one, purring as though it had a motor inside its hairy little chest.
He blinked, decided the thing was probably some kind of mutant.
“Another victim of renegade genetics,” he said.
“Meooooow,” the cat replied, perhaps indignant.
The door across the room opened, and Ashley elbowed her way in, carrying a loaded tray. Whatever was on it smelled like heaven distilled to its essence, or was that the scent of her skin and that amazing hair of hers?
“Mrs. Wiggins,” she said, “get down.”
“Mrs.?” Jack replied, trying to raise himself on his pillows and failing. This was a fortunate thing for the cat, who was trying to nest in his hair by then. “Isn’t she a little young to be married?”
“Yuk-yuk,” Ashley said, with an edge.
Jack sighed inwardly. All was not forgiven, then, he concluded.
Mrs. Wiggins climbed down over his right cheek and curled up on his chest. He could have sworn he felt some kind of warm energy flowing through the kitten, as though it were a conduit between the world around him and another, better one.
Crap. He was really losing it.
“Are you hungry?” Ashley asked, as though he were any ordinary guest.
A gnawing in the pit of Jack’s stomach told him he was—for the first time since he’d come down with the mysterious plague. “Yeah,” he ground out, further weakened by the sight of Ashley. Even in jeans and the flannel shirt he’d left behind, with her light hair springing from its normally tidy braid, she looked like a goddess. “I think I am.”
She approached the bed—cautiously, it seemed to Jack, and little wonder, after some of the acrobatics they’d managed in the one down the hall before he left—and set the tray down on the nightstand.
“Can you feed yourself?” she asked, keeping her distance. Her tone was formal, almost prim.
Jack gave an inelegant snort at that, then realized, to his mortification, that he probably couldn’t. Earlier, he’d made it to the adjoining bathroom and back, but the effort had exhausted him. “Yes,” he fibbed.
She tilted her head to one side, skeptical. A smile flittered around her mouth, but didn’t come in for a landing. “Your eyes widen a little when you lie,” she commented.
He
