tech handed the printout to Cheyenne, then disconnected the leads from Susan’s chest. “Want me to leave the machine in here, Dr. Allison?”
“Yes, we’ll do another test after the heart rate slows down and we get rid of the muscle-tremor artifact.” Cheyenne gave her sister a reassuring grin. “It looks good, but we need to find out what’s causing this.”
“I’ve never felt like this before, Chey. I’m sorry to be such a big baby, but it scared me.”
“You’re no baby. Are you sure the pain doesn’t radiate to your jaw or your arm? Nothing in your back?”
“My hands feel tingly.”
“Both of them?”
Susan flexed her fingers. “Yes.”
“That could be from hyperventilation.”
“Is this what they call a panic attack?”
“It could be.” Panic attack would have been Cheyenne’s diagnosis if this were anyone else. But Susan was not one to panic. So what had sent her heart into overdrive?
Susan inhaled deeply and closed her eyes, but they flicked open again when the outgoing EKG tech greeted the incoming radiology tech, who pushed a portable X-ray machine in front of him.
“Susan, we’re going to get a picture of your chest,” Cheyenne explained. “Just relax. You know I’ll take care of you.” She leaned over the bed and held her sister’s gaze.
Susan took another deep breath and lay back, the midnight strands of her shaggy-cut hair splaying across the pillow. She looked up at Cheyenne, dark eyes filled with trust.
Cheyenne squeezed her arm. “You want me to have the secretary call Kirk?”
“No!” Susan’s head raised from the pillow once more. “Please, I don’t want him to know about this.”
“It’s all right,” Cheyenne said. “I won’t call.” She stepped out of the room long enough for the tech to get the X ray of Susan’s heart—just in case. “It’s going to be okay,” she called reassuringly from the doorway.
What was the problem between Susan and her husband?
Chapter Two
Dane stood beside Clint at the far edge of the yard and watched Willy and Gavin walk toward the barn—Willy’s typically talking hands graced the air to emphasize whatever verbal point he was trying to make with Gavin.
What a contrast—the scrawny fourteen-year-old with closely cropped brown hair and glasses was nearly a head shorter and fifty pounds lighter than Gavin. Where Gavin had muscles, Willy had skin. Where Gavin had dreadlocks, Willy had—practically—skin.
“The dreadlocks will take some adjustment,” Dane said.
Clint chuckled. “For Blaze or for you?”
“For Hideaway. And I refuse to call him Blaze. It’s derogatory.”
“You’ve been living out here in the sticks too long, Dane. You need to get to the city more often.”
“No, thanks.”
“Still hiding out?”
“I’m not hiding from anything.” Dane used his “back off” voice as he nodded toward Gavin. “He’s already got two problems fitting in.”
“Do I want to hear this?”
“He’s a ‘ranch kid,’ and he’s got dark skin.”
“Hold it.” Clint made a show of covering his ears. “It isn’t politically correct for me to hear this.”
“You don’t like the term ranch kid?”
“You know what—”
“Deal with it. That’s the way it is here. When I came to Hideaway, I moved back twenty years in time—in some ways, more like fifty. Many of the natives have been here for two or three generations. They hate change. Many of them are still leery of me because I’m divorced with no children of my own. And it’s no coincidence that everyone within a ten-mile radius of Hideaway looks askance at Jason because he has a deeper tan than most of the natives.”
“Then move somewhere else. Take the kids with you. You can afford that.”
Dane shook his head. “I belong here.”
Clint snorted. “I suppose God told you that.”
Dane ignored his friend’s cynical tone. “We all have our place in life. I’ve found mine.” He watched with growing interest as Willy introduced Gavin Farmer to Gordy, the most cantankerous cow of the herd, through the barn lot fence. Gordy was short for Gordina—the name of a bossy woman he had admired in his church.
“A perfect place,” Clint murmured. “Taming wild teenagers to become model citizens? Putting up with Austin Barlow every time he wants to make you a target for one of his special vendettas?”
“I hate to admit this, but I’m enjoying the challenge of those vendettas. Austin isn’t invincible.” Dane gestured toward Gordy. The cow stood close to the fence, allowing Gavin to scratch her ear. “Would you look at that? I’ve never seen her do that before.”
“The kid has a way with animals. He worked with his father in his veterinarian practice.”
“I knew from the report his father was a vet, but it didn’t give much information about the mother,” Dane said. “Any insights there?”
“All I know is the parents were long estranged, and that she had her own demanding job. Wouldn’t even leave it long enough to collect her son when his father was killed in the wreck last year. Social services stepped in, suggested foster care, placed him and he ran away. His mother finally, reluctantly, agreed to take him, but three weeks after he moved in with her, their house burned down.”
“None of that’s in the report.”
“We don’t always put everything in those reports, because we don’t always have all the information we need.”
“So what does the kid’s mother do?”
“She’s a manager for a fast-food chain down in Arkansas. She does pretty well, seems efficient at her job, but when it came to Gavin, she couldn’t cope.”
“So she claimed Gavin deliberately set fire to their house?” Dane exclaimed. “Does she have any reason to believe that?”
“Only an episode when he accidentally set the living room on fire when he was a child.”
“Nothing since then?”
“Not on record.”
Dane gave him a quick look. “That isn’t reassuring.”
“He’s an innocent
