Forever a Hero--A Western Romance Novel Page 2

  “Thanks,” she said. “For everything.”

  Mace acknowledged her words with a slight inclination of his head, keeping his eyes on the road. Several minutes passed before he broke the silence. “What happened back there?”

  “I’m not sure,” she replied, and her voice was slow, sleepy. “One minute, I was cruising along, looking for the turnoff to the resort. The next, I was hydroplaning. Maybe I blew a tire or something.”

  “You were speeding,” he commented blandly.

  She frowned. “Are you going to lecture me on road safety? Because I’m really not up for that just now.”

  He grinned. “Unfamiliar roads, heavy rain—”

  “I was in a hurry.”

  “To do what?”

  “To get to my hotel. As I said, I was ready for this day to be over.”

  The outskirts of Mustang Creek were in sight by then; the small regional hospital was on the far side of town, about ten minutes away. He wasn’t given to cop fantasies, but at that moment he wished for a light bar and a siren.

  “Another few seconds and your life might have been over.”

  “Thanks for that,” she retorted with a new briskness Mace found reassuring, despite the tartness of her tone. “I might not have figured that out on my own—how I could’ve been killed, I mean.”

  Keep her talking, he thought. If she’s pissed off, oh, well. At least she’s awake.

  Although she’d been slouching before, she suddenly sat bolt upright, making patting motions with her hands. “My purse,” she said, her voice fretful. “It’s still in the car.”

  Mace was always astonished by how dependent women were on their handbags, as if the things were a necessary part of their anatomy rather than an obvious burden. Something else to keep track of. “It isn’t going anywhere,” he said quietly and with a note of prudent caution.

  Her eyes were big with alarm when she turned to look at him, and patches of pink pulsed impatiently in her cheeks. “My entire life is in that bag!” she cried. “And it’s a Michael Kors, too.”

  A purse with a name, he thought, but he wasn’t stupid enough to offer up the quip when she was clearly riled. Keeping her awake was one thing; causing her to blow a brain-gasket was another.

  “I’ll make sure you get it back.”

  “Suppose it’s underwater? My phone—my wallet—do you know how much a designer bag costs? And what about my laptop? My clothes?”

  “I guess that’s a possibility,” Mace observed casually, “given the laws of gravity and everything.”

  “How can you be so calm?” she asked, fuming. Then she answered her own question. “I’ll tell you how. It isn’t your purse!”

  “You have me there,” he admitted, not unsympathetically. “I don’t own one, as it happens. Reckon if I did, though, I’d keep that fact to myself.”

  Her cheeks flared brighter, but a giggle escaped. “This is serious,” she said.

  Mace shook his head. “No, ma’am,” he said, navigating the familiar streets of his hometown. “Car wrecks are serious. Concussions and busted spleens are serious. But a bag named Michael winding up in a creek? Not so much.”

  “I should call the car rental company,” she said, apparently not one for segues.

  Mace got his cell from his shirt pocket and handed it over. “If that’ll make you feel better, have at it,” he said.

  She took the phone, then simply stared down at the screen, blinking. “I don’t know their number. The contract is in the glove compartment, possibly submerged.”

  “Plenty of time to get in touch with them,” Mace said. They were almost through Mustang Creek; the turn for the hospital would be coming up in a minute or so. “Might be a good idea to call your family, however.” When she didn’t answer right away, he offered suggestions—with an agenda. “Your folks? Husband? Boyfriend?”

  She huffed out a frustrated breath. “My parents are on a cruise through the Greek Islands,” she said. He caught the sidelong look she threw his way, although he was still gazing straight ahead, slowing for the turnoff. “And I don’t have a husband or a boyfriend, for your information.” A few seconds passed. “Do you?”

  He laughed, swinging onto the paved stretch leading to the hospital. “Do I have a husband or a boyfriend?”

  She worked up a good glare, but it fizzled into a wobbly smile before they reached the parking lot near the entrance to the emergency room. “I was joking,” she said.

  “I laughed, didn’t I?” Mace parked the truck, shut off the engine, then came around to her side to open the door and help her down. This time, she let him, and as soon as her feet touched the ground, she swayed and put a hand to her forehead.

  Mace slipped an arm around her waist, supporting her. Once again, he considered carrying her; once again, he dismissed the idea as too risky.

  “I’m just a little dizzy,” she murmured as they entered the well-lit reception area. “No big deal.”

  Ellie Simmons was behind the desk, and she stood immediately. She and Mace had gone to school together.

  “I don’t have my ID or my insurance card,” said the woman whose name Mace suddenly realized he didn’t know.

  “She was in an accident,” he told Ellie, relieved by his friend’s affable competence. “South of town.”

  Ellie rounded the long desk and conjured up a wheelchair, eased the patient into the seat. “What about you, Mace?” she asked. “You hurting anywhere?”

  Mace shoved a hand through his wet hair. Wet as he and his companion were, he figured they might have passed for shipwreck survivors if there’d been an ocean within a thousand miles. “I just happened along,” he said.

  “I do have insurance,” the wheelchair occupant piped up.

  “We’ll get to the paperwork in good time,” Ellie said, already wheeling the new arrival away from Mace toward an examination room. She bent her head, addressing the patient. “What’s your name, honey?”

  The passenger hesitated long enough to prompt an exchange of glances between Ellie and Mace. Ellie raised an eyebrow at him in silent question.

  Mace shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “Kelly,” the woman in the wheelchair said in the tone of someone experiencing a revelation. “Kelly Wright.”

  “Well, Kelly Wright,” Ellie said as they disappeared into the ER, “you’re in luck. Dr. Draper is on duty tonight, and she’s the best.”

  Mace watched until they were gone, suppressing an urge to follow, ask a lot of questions, make damn sure Sheila Draper ran all the right tests.

  Whatever the right tests happened to be.

  Since Ms. Wright still had his cell, he went to the pay phone, a near relic in this day and age, dug in his jeans pocket for coins and called his friend Spence Hogan, Mustang Creek’s chief of police.

  Spence took a while getting to the phone. When he did, he spoke in his usual brusque manner. “Hey, Mace,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  Mace explained, none too succinctly.

  “Sam Helgeson called it in five minutes ago,” Spence said. “I’ve already got a squad car and a wrecker on the way.” He paused. “You okay, buddy?”

  “I’m fine,” Mace said. Where had he heard that before?

  “You sure? You sound pretty jumpy to me.”

  Mace gave a long sigh. “I’m sure,” he said.

  “Hold on a second,” Spence muttered. “Deputy Brenner’s on the radio. He’s at the scene.”

  Mace waited. He heard some back-and-forth on Spence’s end, although he couldn’t make out what was said. He was too busy wondering what was going on with Kelly Wright back there in the exam room and, at the same time, rifling through his mental files, which—when it came to women, were considerable—in search of a connection.

  He came up dry.

  He’d probably known half a dozen Kellys in his time, gone to school with a few of them, dated one or two on the rodeo circuit, but the name Wright didn’t ring a single bell.

  Spence came ba
ck on the line. “You said there was only one woman in the car before it went over the bank, right? No other passengers?”

  “Just her,” Mace replied. “Doc Draper’s checking her out now.”

  Spence released an audible breath.

  “What?” Mace prompted, worried by Spence’s hesitation.

  “According to my deputy,” Spence said, “he and the tow truck driver were taking some personal items out of the car when they smelled gas. They hightailed it uphill with whatever they’d managed to gather, and it’s a good thing, because the rig burst into flames and then blew sky-high. Fire department’s on the way, to make sure it doesn’t spread. Thank God for this rain.”

  Mace squeezed his eyes shut, opened them again. “Christ,” he breathed, the blaze as vivid in his mind as if he’d witnessed it. He thought how close he’d come to stopping by his favorite bar for a beer after his afternoon meeting with the guy who maintained his website, how he’d have lingered there awhile, shooting the shit with friends and neighbors, maybe playing a round or two of pool. If he hadn’t remembered that Harry, the family’s longtime cook and housekeeper, was serving her legendary sloppy joes for supper that night, if he’d thought there’d be leftovers once his two older brothers, Slater and Drake, ate their fill—

  If.

  Most likely, the Wright woman—Kelly—would’ve been trapped, unable to push open the driver’s door, with the rig on a slant like that. She would have gone over the cliff along with her car and, if by some miracle she’d survived the rollovers without losing consciousness, burned to death.

  He swore under his breath.

  “Reckon this makes you a hero,” Spence put in, gravely wry.

  “I was there, that’s all,” Mace said. “Right time, right place. You would have done the same thing if you’d been there, and so would just about everybody else around here.”

  “Just about everybody,” Spence noted with a very slight emphasis on the middle word.

  Mace made no comment. Every town had its lightweights, and Mustang Creek was no exception, but that was beside the point. All that mattered now was that the Wright woman hadn’t gone rolling down that hillside with the car. She’d walked away, still breathing, possibly in need of some patching up, but alive.

  A shudder went through Mace, reminding him that his clothes were soaked through, clinging to his hide, clammy and cold. He was hungry, he was tired to the marrow of his bones and he was damn grateful that fate, so often fickle, had dealt Kelly Wright a decent hand.

  “Mace?” Spence asked. “You still with me?”

  “I’m here,” he replied.

  “I’m guessing there isn’t a whole lot more you can do tonight. Might be best if you go on home.”

  “Soon as I know Kelly’s all right, I’ll do just that. She’ll probably need a ride to the resort. That’s where she’s staying.”

  “Fair enough,” Spence agreed diplomatically. “I’m thinking the lady will be admitted for observation, though, and the kind of tests they’ll want to run can take hours. You really want to cool your heels in the waiting room for that long?”

  Mace sighed. “She’s from out of town. Seems like somebody ought to hang around until they decide whether to keep her overnight or turn her loose.”

  “Fine,” Spence conceded. “We’ll do what we can on our end.”

  Mace found himself nodding, then realized his friend couldn’t see him. “Her name’s Kelly Wright, and the car was a rental, but she couldn’t say which company she used. That’s about all I can tell you, as of now.”

  “Not to worry,” Spence said. “Mustang Creek PD works in mysterious ways its wonders to perform. Ask Ms. Wright to call me when she feels up to it, will you? There’ll be some paperwork, of course.”

  “I’ll do that,” Mace answered. Goodbyes were exchanged, and the call ended.

  Mace was pacing the floor when a young couple hurried through the main doors, looking anxious. The man carried a toddler, bundled in a blanket and whimpering.

  Ellie appeared immediately, her smile wide and white and reassuring. She greeted the new arrivals, handed the woman a clipboard and led the trio to an exam room.

  When she returned to the reception area, she returned Mace’s cell phone. “Kelly asked me to give you this.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “Any news?”

  Ellie shook her head. “Not yet,” she said, gently noncommittal. “Want some coffee?”

  “No, thanks.” He was hyped up enough, he figured, without a caffeine buzz.

  “How’s your night going?” he asked. He wasn’t a talker under normal circumstances, but the waiting was driving him crazy.

  “Better than yours, I’d say,” Ellie replied with an understanding smile. By then, she was back at her station behind the reception desk. “So far, business has been pretty slow. Which, of course, is a good thing.”

  Mace realized he was fresh out of sparkling conversation. He sat down in an orange plastic chair, opened an outdated copy of Field & Stream, read one paragraph of an article about trout fishing in Montana and gave up.

  Another hour passed, during which an elderly woman was brought in with respiratory problems, and the young couple returned with a prescription and their child, now sound asleep, head resting on the man’s shoulder. Mace nodded in greeting, and the man nodded back.

  Soon afterward, Sheila Draper came out, spotted Mace and smiled as she approached. She was a good-looking redhead with a figure that did great things for the blue scrubs she was wearing.

  “Hey, Doc,” Mace said. Sheila had grown up on a neighboring ranch, and the two families were longtime friends.

  “Hey, yourself,” Sheila responded. She carried an electronic tablet but didn’t consult it, and there was a twinkle in her bright green eyes. “You can rest easy, Sir Galahad,” she said. “Kelly isn’t seriously injured, just shaken up and a little dehydrated. I’m admitting her overnight, for observation and the appropriate fluids.”

  Something unclenched inside Mace. He heaved a deep sigh. And even as the question took shape in his mind, he wondered why he needed to ask it. He’d done what he could for Kelly, and he knew she was in good hands, had been from the moment he’d brought her in.

  He asked, anyway. “Could I see her?”

  Sheila shook her head regretfully, touched his arm. “Not tonight, Mace. I gave Kelly a sedative, and she’s on her way upstairs. I’m guessing she’ll be zonked before she gets to her room.” The rest went without saying—Kelly needed sleep, not visitors.

  He nodded again, sighed again.

  Then he thanked Sheila, said goodbye to Ellie and left for home.

  *

  MACE CARSON DIDN’T remember her. Not quite, anyway.

  That was okay for now, Kelly decided, rummy from the sedative she’d been given minutes before. She remembered well enough for both of them.

  She closed her eyes against the bright overhead lights and the dizziness as she was wheeled, lying on a gurney, into an elevator, then down a long hallway. She flashed back, momentarily, to another hospital, another night, over a decade before.

  The recollection made her want to curl into a fetal ball, but the medication and the IV needle lodged in her arm rendered any such movement impossible. Too much effort.

  Another memory flooded her mind, soothed her. Mace had been with her that other time, too. He’d accompanied her to the hospital, holding her hand. He’d told her everything would be all right, that she was safe now, that nobody was going to hurt her. He’d promised to be there when the police came to question her, and he was as good as his word when she was discharged the following morning. He’d driven her to the police station, sat with her while two SVU detectives questioned her about the events of the night before, when, walking to her dorm, she’d been assaulted and nearly raped.

  Mace, a student at the same California college, had heard the scuffle, hauled the man off Kelly and restrained him until the police arrived.

  How could Mace have forgotten
all that? Perhaps he made a habit of saving people. Did it happen so often that one incident blended into the next until it was all a blur?

  She giggled at the thought.

  Tomorrow, or maybe the next day, she would see Mace again. If he still didn’t recall their first meeting, she’d just have to refresh his memory, though that wasn’t her first priority.

  She’d come to Mustang Creek to do business with the man, after all, not to renew their old—and brief—acquaintance. Great Grapes International, the company she worked for, wanted to establish a partnership with Mountain Winery, something they’d done successfully with other vintners.

  Big of them, Kelly thought. As far as she could tell, the board members had zero doubt that everything would go their way; their confidence bordered on outright arrogance, in her opinion. She didn’t know much about Mace Carson as a person, after one dramatic encounter and a few brief meetings during her attacker’s trial, but recent online research had filled in a lot of gaps.

  Carson wasn’t likely to be swayed by the money GGI was prepared to offer, as the Carsons were among the wealthiest families in Wyoming. Mace’s company appeared to be a labor of love, rather than a source of income; the winery was debt-free, and the net profits went to various charities.

  Kelly had explained these things to upper management, of course, or tried to, anyway. And she had gotten exactly nowhere.

  Failure wasn’t an option, her boss, Dina, had informed her cheerfully. If GGI had a motto, it would be Rah-rah-rah.

  Thinking about it, Kelly sighed. She knew the power of a positive mind-set, especially after years of company-sponsored “you can do this!” seminars, ranging from standard motivational talks and “trust exercises,” like depending on someone to catch her when she fell backward, to trekking barefoot over beds of red-hot coals.

  She’d done all those things and, yes, it was true—the experience of walking on burning embers did cast a new light on what was possible.

  It was also true, however, that no amount of positivity or fearlessness or persistence was going to sway someone who didn’t want to be swayed. Mace Carson, she was all but certain, fell into this category. He liked his independence far too much…