by Diana Palmer
“Don’t be like that,” Winnie said, her voice gentle. “I won’t tell. Ever. Honest.”
Keely relaxed. She drew in a breath, watching the creek bubble over rocks. “It doesn’t hurt anything, what I feel. He’ll never know. And it helps me to understand what it might be like to love a man—even if that love is never returned. It’s a taste of something I can never have, that’s all.”
Winnie frowned. “What do you mean? Of course you’ll be loved one day! Keely, you’re only nineteen. Your whole life is ahead of you!”
Keely looked at her friend, and her dark eyes were soft and sad. “Not that way, it isn’t. I won’t ever marry.”
“But one day...”
She shook her head. “No.”
Winnie bit her lower lip. “When you’re a little older, it might be different,” she began. “Keely, you’re nineteen. Boone is thirty. That’s a big age difference, and he thinks about things like that. His fiancée was only a year younger than he was. He said that people should never marry unless they’re the same age.”
“Why?”
Winnie sighed. “I’ve never talked about it much, but our mother was twelve years younger than Dad. He died a broken man because she ran away with his younger brother. He always said he made a major mistake by marrying someone from another generation. It was just too many years between them. They had nothing in common.”
Keely felt heartsick for the family. “Is your mother still alive?”
She bit her lip. “We...don’t know,” she said. “We’ve never tried to find her or our uncle. They married, after the divorce, and moved to Montana. Neither one of them ever tried to contact us again.”
“That’s so sad.”
“It made Boone bitter. Well, that and then his fiancée cutting out on him. He doesn’t have a high opinion of women.”
“You can’t blame him, really,” Keely had to admit. She patted her horse’s neck. “It’s sad, isn’t it, that we’re both too young for the men we care about?”
“Only in their minds,” Winnie returned. “But we can always change their opinions. We just have to find an angle. One that works.”
Keely laughed. “Doesn’t that sound easy?”
Winnie grimaced. “Not really.” She tugged on the reins, backing her horse out of the creek. Keely followed suit. “Let’s talk about something more cheerful,” Winnie said on the way back to the ranch. “Are you coming to the big charity dance?”
Keely shook her head. “I’d like to, even without a date, but both my junior bosses are going, and so is our senior tech. I have to be on call.”
“That’s awful!”
“It’s fair, though. I was off last year.”
“I remember. Last year you stayed home.”
Keely studied the pommel as the leather squeaked under the steady motion of the horse’s body. “Nobody asked me to go with them.”
“You don’t encourage men,” Winnie pointed out.
Keely smiled sadly. “What for?” she asked. “Any man who asked me would have been second best. I don’t want to get involved with anyone.”
Winnie had always been curious about Keely’s odd private life. She wondered what had happened to the other woman to leave her so alone. “It’s just a dance,” she pointed out. “You don’t have to agree to marry the man when he takes you home.”
Keely burst out laughing. “You’re terrible!” she choked.
“Just pointing out an obvious fact,” came the amused reply.
“Anyway, I’ll be working. You go and have enough fun for both of us.”
“Any man who took me would be second choice, too,” she reminded her friend. “The difference is, I want to go so I can rub my date in Kilraven’s face.”
“He won’t go,” Keely murmured.
“What makes you think so?”
“Just a guess. He keeps to himself. He reminds me of Cash Grier, the way he was before he married Tippy Moore. Grier was a bona fide woman hater. I think Kilraven is, too.”
Winnie hesitated. “I wonder.”
Keely didn’t follow up on the remark. She felt sorry for Winnie. She felt sorry for herself, too. Men were such a headache....
She came back to the present in time to see Boone coming out of the examination room with Bailey on a leash. He walked right past Keely without looking at her or saying a word to her. She stared after him with her heart breaking right inside her chest. Then she turned and went back to work, putting on a happy face for the benefit of her coworkers.
* * *
KEELY HATED BOONE’S ex-fiancée on sight. Misty Harris’s father ran a private detective agency in San Antonio, and she was wealthy. She was pretty, she was very intelligent and she looked down on other women. Boone, Winnie had told Keely, liked a woman with a good mind and an independent spirit. She also thought that the woman probably was good in bed, which made Keely uncomfortable.
The woman had a poisonous tongue, and she didn’t like Keely. It was obvious when she arrived for a date with Boone the next Friday night and found Keely sitting in the living room with Winnie.
“No dates?” she chided the other women, looking sleek in a black cocktail dress with her long black hair flowing over her shoulders. Her deep blue eyes were twinkling with malicious amusement. “Too bad. Boone’s taking me to the Desperado concert. He’s going to introduce me to the lead singer. We’ve had tickets for two months. It’s going to be a great evening!”
“I love Desperado,” Winnie had to agree.
“I wouldn’t miss this concert for anything,” the brunette purred.
There was a noise at the side door, scratching and howling.
“Oh, it’s that dog,” the brunette muttered. “He’s filthy. For God’s sake, Winnie, you aren’t going to let him in? The Persian rugs are priceless! He’ll get mud all over them!”
“Bailey is a member of the family,” Winnie said icily as she opened the door and pulled a towel from a shelf nearby. “Hello, old fellow!” she greeted the old German shepherd. “Did you get wet?”
She started toweling him dry and wiping his paws. He was panting and whining. His tongue was purple. He shuddered. His stomach was swollen.
With a practiced eye, Keely observed him. Something was wrong. She got up and joined Winnie at the sliding glass door, going down on one knee. Her hands touched the dog’s distended belly.
She clenched her teeth. “He’s got bloat,” she told Winnie.
“What was that?” Boone asked, taking the steps two at a time.
Keely looked up at him, trying not to betray her pleasure at just the sight of him. “Bailey’s got bloat. He needs to be seen by a vet right now.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Boone shot back. “Dogs don’t get bloat.”
“Big dogs do,” Keely said urgently. “You must have seen the condition in cattle at one time or another. Here. Feel!”
She grabbed his hand and carried it to the dog’s belly.
He felt it and scowled.
“Look at the color of his tongue,” Keely persisted. “He isn’t getting enough oxygen. If you don’t get him to the vet soon, he’ll be dead.”
“Oh, that’s ridiculous,” the brunette spat. “He’s just eaten too much. Put him in his kennel. He’ll be fine by morning.”
“He’ll be dead,” Keely repeated flatly.
“Listen, you, I’m not missing that concert for a stupid old dog with an upset stomach!” the brunette raged. “You’re just trying to get Boone to notice you by telling him something’s wrong with that dog! He knows what a crush you have on him. This is a pathetic act!”
Boone looked at Keely, who was pale and sick at heart to have her innermost secret spoken aloud for Boone to hear.
He ran his hand over Bailey’s stomach one last time. “It’s not bloat,” he pronounced. “He’s just had too much to eat and he’s got gas.” He got to his feet, patting the old dog on the head, smiling. “You’ll be fine, won’t you, old man?”
Keely glared at him. Th
e dog was still panting and now he was whimpering loudly.
“He’s not your dog,” Boone shot at her. “Misty’s right. This is a bid for attention, just like old Bailey whining so that I’ll pet him. But it won’t work. I’m taking Misty to the concert.”
Keely was so infuriated that she wouldn’t even look at him. Bailey was dying.
“Let’s go,” Boone told Misty.
He didn’t speak to Keely again, or to Winnie. He and his date walked back to the garage. Minutes later, his car roared out down the driveway.
“What are we going to do?” Winnie asked, because she believed her best friend.
“We can let him die or take him to the vet,” Keely said curtly.
“Who’s driving?” was all the other woman asked.
* * *
THE OLDEST OF the three vets, Bentley Rydel, and the owner of the clinic, was on call. He was the best surgeon of the group. At thirty-two, he was the only unmarried one. People said it was because he was so antagonistic that no woman could get near him. It was probably the truth.
He helped Keely get Bailey into the X-ray room and onto the table. She held him while the X-rays were taken, petting him and talking soothingly to him. For a man who resembled nothing more than a human pit viper with other members of his own species, he was the soul of compassion with animals.
He and Winnie were back in ten minutes with the X-rays. He looked somber as he showed them the proof that Bailey’s stomach had turned over. “It’s a complicated and expensive procedure, and I can’t promise you that it will succeed. If I don’t operate, the necrosis will spread and he’ll die. He may die anyway. You have to make a decision.”
“He’s my brother’s dog,” Winnie said uneasily, petting the whimpering old animal.
“Your brother will have to give consent.”
“He won’t,” Keely said miserably. “He doesn’t think it’s bloat.”
Bentley’s eyebrows arched. “And what veterinary school did he graduate from?”
Winnie’s phone playing the theme from Star Wars interrupted the conversation. She answered it nervously. She’d recognized Boone’s number on the caller ID screen.
“It’s Boone!” she whispered with her hand over the phone. She grimaced. “Hello?” she said hesitantly.
“Where the hell is my dog?” he demanded.
Winnie took a deep breath. “Boone, we brought Bailey here to the vet...”
“We? Keely’s mixed up in this, isn’t she?” he demanded, outraged.
The vet, seeing Winnie’s pained expression, held out his hand for the phone. Winnie gave it to him gladly.
“This animal,” the vet began firmly, “has a severe case of bloat. I can show you on the X-rays where necrosis of tissue has already begun. If I don’t operate, he will be dead in an hour. The decision is yours, but I urge you to make it quickly.”
Boone hesitated. “Will he live?”
“I can’t promise you that,” Bentley said curtly. “He should have been brought in when the symptoms first presented. The delay has complicated the procedure. This conversation,” he added acidly, “is another delay.”
The curse was audible two feet from the cell phone. “Do it,” Boone said. “I’ll give you permission. My sister can be your witness. Do what you can. Please.”
“Certainly I will.” He handed the phone to Winnie. “Keely, we need to prep him for surgery.”
“Yes, sir.” Keely was smiling. Her boss was a great negotiator. Now, at least Bailey had a chance, no thanks to the heartless woman who’d have sacrificed his life for a concert ticket.
* * *
THE OPERATION TOOK two hours. Keely stood gowned beside the vet, administering anesthetic to the dog and checking his vital signs constantly. There was only a small amount of dead tissue, luckily, and she watched Bentley’s skillful hands cut it away efficiently.
“What was the delay?” he asked her.
She clenched her teeth. “Concert tickets for Desperado. Boone’s date didn’t want to miss it.”
“So she decided that Bailey should die.”
She grimaced. “I’m not sure she was being deliberately coldhearted.”
“You’d be surprised at how many people consider animals inanimate objects with no feelings. Old-timers come in sometimes and tell me in all seriousness that no animal feels pain.”
“Baloney,” she muttered.
He laughed shortly. “My opinion exactly.”
“How’s he doing?” she asked.
He nodded as he worked. “All right. There are no complications to worry about. I operated on Tom Walker’s Shiloh shepherd for this about two months ago, remember, and he had a tumor the size of my fist. We lost him despite the timely intervention.”
“We aren’t going to lose Bailey?” she asked worriedly.
“Not a chance. He’s old, but he’s a fighter.”
She smiled. Even if Boone gave her hell, it would be worth it. She was fond of the old dog, too, even if Boone felt she was using his pet. It made her furious that Boone believed that heartless brunette. Keely wasn’t stupid enough to think that such a play would work on a man with a head like a steel block. Boone wouldn’t care if she was Helen of Troy, he’d walk right by her without looking. She knew better than to try to chase him. She was amazed that he didn’t realize that.
“Done,” Bentley announced finally when the last suture was in place. Keely took away the anesthetic and waited while the vet examined the old dog. “I think he’ll do, but don’t quote me. We’ll know in the morning.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll carry him in for you,” he volunteered, because the dog was very heavy and Keely had problems carrying weight.
“You don’t have to,” she began self-consciously.
His pale blue eyes were kind as they met hers. “You’ve had some sort of injury to your left shoulder. I don’t have to see it to know it’s there. It won’t let you bear weight.”
She grimaced. “I didn’t realize it was so obvious.”
“I won’t give you away,” he said with a smile. “But I won’t make you carry loads too heavy, either.”
“Thanks, boss,” she said, smiling back.
He shrugged. “You’re the hardest worker I’ve got.” He seemed self-conscious after he said that, and he made a big production of lifting Bailey, very carefully, to one of the recovery cages where he’d be kept and monitored until he came out from under the anesthetic.
“I can stay and watch him,” she began.
He shook his head. “I had a call on my cell phone while we were prepping Bailey,” he reminded her. “There’s a heifer calving over at Cy Parks’s place. She’s having a hard time. It’s one of his purebred herd and he wants me there to make sure the calf is born alive.”
“So you have to go out there.”
He nodded. “I’ll check on Bailey when I get back. It’s Friday night,” he added with a faint smile. “Usually we get emergency cases all night, you know.”
“Want me to stay and answer the phone?” she asked.
He studied her quizzically. “It’s Friday night,” he repeated. “Why don’t you have a date?”
She shrugged. “Men hate me. If you don’t believe that, just ask Boone Sinclair.”
He looked over her shoulder and his eyebrows lifted as a door opened. “Speak of the devil,” he said in a voice that didn’t carry over Winnie’s greeting to her brother.
CHAPTER TWO
BOONE STALKED INTO the room where Keely and Bentley were standing together beside the recovery cage, which contained Bailey. He didn’t look very belligerent now, and his concern for the old dog was evident as he knelt beside the cage and touched the head of the sleeping animal gently with his fingertips.
“Will he live?” he asked without looking up.
“We’ll know that in the morning,” Bentley said curtly. “He came through the surgery very well, and I didn’t find anything that would complicate his recovery. For an animal his
age, he’s in excellent shape.”
Boone stood up, facing the vet. “Thank you.”
“Thank Keely,” came the short reply. “She ignored your suggestion to leave the animal alone until morning. At which time,” the vet added with a glitter in his eyes, “you’d have found him dead.”
Boone’s own eyes flashed. “I thought he was trying to get attention. Like Keely,” he added with icy sarcasm.
Bentley’s eyebrows lifted. “Do you really think Keely needs to beg any man for attention?” he asked, as if the remark was incredible to him.
Boone stiffened. “Her social life is not my concern. I’m grateful to you for saving Bailey.”
“We’ll know how successful I was in the morning,” Bentley replied. “Keely, can you get my medical bag for me, please?”
“Yes, sir.” She left the room, glad for something that would take her out of Boone’s immediate presence.
Boone glanced again at the cage. “He and I have been through some hard times together,” he told the vet. “If I’d realized how dangerous his condition was, I’d never have left him.” He looked at Bentley. “I didn’t know that dogs got bloat.”
“Now you do,” the vet replied. “Most large dogs are at risk for it.”
“What causes it?”
Bentley shook his head. “We don’t know. There are half a dozen theories, but no definite answers.”
“What did you do?”
“I excised the dead tissue and tacked his stomach to his backbone,” Bentley replied quietly. “I’ll prescribe a special diet for him. For the next couple of days, of course, he’ll get fluids.”
“You’ll let me know?” Boone added slowly.
Bentley recognized the worry in those dark eyes. “Of course.”
Boone turned to Winnie. His eyes were accusing.
She grimaced. “Now, listen, Keely knows what she’s doing, whatever you think,” she began defensively. “I agreed with her and I’ll take full responsibility for bringing Bailey over here.”
“I’m not complaining,” he said. His stern expression lightened. He bent and brushed an affectionate kiss onto Winnie’s forehead. “Thanks.”
She smiled, relieved that he wasn’t angry. “I love old Bailey, too.”