Linda Lael - At Home in Stone Creek

The bills were piling up.

“Triple the usual rate,” she said.

Jack squinted, probably not understanding at first, then gave a raspy chuckle. “Okay,” he agreed. “Triple it is. Even though it is the off-season.”

Jeff and Tanner half dragged, half carried him toward the house.

Ashley hesitated on the snowy sidewalk.

First the cat.

Now Jack.

Evidently, it was her day to be dumped on.

“What happened to him?” Ashley whispered to Tanner, in the hallway outside the second-best room in the house, a small suite at the opposite end of the corridor from her own quarters. Jeff and Tanner had already put the patient to bed, fully dressed except for his boots, and Jeff had gone downstairs to make a call on his cell phone.

Jack, meanwhile, had sunk into an instant and all-consuming sleep—or into a coma. It was a crapshoot, guessing which.

Tanner looked grim; didn’t seem to notice that Mrs. Wiggins was busily climbing his right pant leg, her infinitesimal claws snagging the denim as she scaled his knee and started up his thigh with a deliberation that would have been funny under any other circumstances.

“All I know is,” Tanner replied, “I got a call from Jack this afternoon, just as Livie and I were leaving the clinic after her checkup. He said he was a little under the weather and wanted to know if I’d meet him at the airstrip and bring him here.” He paused, cupped the kitten in one hand, raised the little creature to nose level, and peered quizzically into its mismatched eyes before lowering it gently to the floor. Straightening from a crouch, he added, “I offered to put him up at our place, but he insisted on coming to yours.”

“You might have called me,” Ashley fretted, still keeping her voice down. “Given me some warning, at least.”

“Check your voice mail,” Tanner countered, sounding mildly exasperated. “I left at least four messages.”

“I was out,” Ashley said, defensive, “buying kitty litter and kibble. Because your wife decided I needed a cat.”

Tanner grinned at the mention of Olivia, and something eased in him, gentling the expression in his eyes. “If you’d carry a cell phone, like any normal human being, you’d have been up to speed, situationwise.” He paused, with a mischievous twinkle. “You might even have had time to bake a welcome-back-Jack cake.”

“As if,” Ashley breathed, but as rattled as she was over having Jack McCall land in the middle of her life like the flaming chunks of a latter-day Hindenburg, there was something else she needed to know. “What did the doctor say? About Olivia, I mean?”

Tanner sighed. “She’s a couple of weeks overdue—Dr. Pentland wants to induce labor tomorrow morning.”

Worry made Ashley peevish. “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.