Walk Away Joe (12 page)

 
“Come on,” he said gruffly as he stuffed the phone back in the saddlebag.

 
The urgency in his voice set her instantly on edge. She rose quickly to her feet. Fumbling with the clasp of her bra, then stuffing her shirt into her jeans, she zipped up. “What’s wrong?”

 
Leading Poco, he snagged Jezebel’s reins and walked toward her. “That was Tag. Lana’s got a problem.”

 
Her heart lurched. “With the baby?”

 
He shook his head. “Don’t know. But it sounds like maybe it could be. Tag says she’s bleeding and her back is hurting her real bad.”

 
Sara was in the saddle before he got the last word out, kneeing Jezebel into a ground-swallowing run with Tucker fast on her heels.

∙ ∙ ∙

Sara baled off the mare as they skidded to a stop in front of Tag and Lana’s little bungalow. Tag, with a fussing Cody on his hip, met her at the door. His eyes were wild; his hair looked as if it had been raked by punishing fingers.

 
“Is she in bed?” she asked.
 

 
When he nodded, she laid a calming hand on his arm. “That’s good. Now what’s going on?”

 
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. She...she’s bleeding and...and she’s feeling real rough.”

 
“It’s okay,” she said with a soothing smile, then touched a consoling hand to baby Cody’s cheek to settle him.

 
Just then, Tucker came rushing in the door.

 
“Take care of them,” she said over her shoulder as she headed for the bedroom.

 
“She’s scared,” Tag said, stopping her, sounding scared himself.

 
“I know. We’ll take care of her, all right? You just keep yourself together.” With a final look toward Tucker, she left them, as silent as stone, behind her.

∙ ∙ ∙

“Hey there,” she said softly when she walked into the bedroom.

 
Lana turned a tear-stained face on the pillow. Her huge dark eyes were misty with fear, and her mouth was twisted with the fatigue of worry and pain.

 
“Not feeling so hot?” Sara asked as she eased a hip onto the bed. She touched a hand to Lana’s forehead, then checked her pulse.

 
Lana shook her head as fresh tears began to trickle down her cheeks. “I... think I’m losing the baby,” she said in a raw whisper.

 
“We can’t know that,” Sara assured her. Turning down the covers with steady, gentle hands, she tested the tension of Lana’s abdominal muscles. Relieved when she felt no undue stress, she smoothed the covers back in place. “Tell me what’s happening. Tag says you’re bleeding?”
 

Lana nodded. “When I go to the bathroom. And it bums.”

“What else?”

“My back. It...hurts like...like it did when I went into labor with Cody. I’m almost three months along, Sara. I don’t want to lose the baby.”

“Shush, now.” Sara took both of Lana’s hands in hers as fresh tears welled up in the younger woman’s eyes. “We’re not going to let you lose the baby. In fact, I don’t think the baby has anything to do with your problem. Honey... have you ever had a urinary tract infection?”
 

 
Lana sniffled, then frowned. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, you need to see a doctor to make sure, but what you’re telling me sounds more like a UT than early labor.”

“But it hurts so much.” Even through the pain and worry, a glimmer of hope flickered in Lana’s eyes.

“You’re darned right it hurts. And if it is a UT, a little sulfur will take care of it in no time at all. Some cranberry juice might help in the meantime. Do you have any?”

“Yes. I buy it for Cody.”

“Well, Cody’s mom is going to get a little of it right now.” Smiling, she rose from the bed. “I’ll get the juice, and then we’ll call your doctor and tell him what’s going on. Okay?”

Lana nodded shakily. “Do you...do you really think the baby’s okay?”

“Is there anything else you’re not telling me?”

She shook her head.

Sara smiled. “Then, yeah, I think the baby’s okay. And you will be, too. Real soon. Now you sit tight, and I’ll be right back.”

 
Three Lambert men met her at the bedroom door, one with sad, soulful eyes and his thumb in his mouth and two with scowls as black as thunderclouds.

“Well?” the brothers asked in unison.

“Well,” she said with a thoughtful calm as she ushered them away from the door. “I think she’s got herself a raging urinary tract infection.”

“What does that mean?” Tag asked anxiously.

“It means she’s hurting like the devil but we can take care of it.”

“And the baby?”

“The baby’s okay.”

Tag let out a deep draft of pent-up breath and threw a look of relief over Cody’s head to his brother.

“So what do we do?” Tucker asked, ready to help with whatever was necessary.

Sara was all too glad to swing into action. Tag got the juice while Sara and Lana talked to Lana’s obstetrician, who concurred with Sara’s assessment. With instructions to Sara to monitor Lana closely in case it was a problem with her pregnancy, he phoned a prescription to the closest pharmacy and set up an appointment for Lana to come to the office tomorrow morning to follow up.

Tucker climbed into the truck and raced at speeds Sara didn’t even want to think about to pick up the prescription and bring it back.

Three hours later, with a quart of cranberry juice down her and her first dose of sulfur already easing the discomfort, Lana was sitting up in bed. Tag had lost that haggard look as he sat in a rocker by the bed, little Cody sound asleep in his arms.

From the doorway, Sara observed the three of them with a warm, contented feeling before she slipped out of the house and down to the barns, where Tucker had gone to take care of the horses.

“Everything all right?” he asked when he spotted her walking toward Poco’s stall.

She nodded, tucking her hands in her hip pockets. “Yeah. She’s doing fine. So is Tag... finally,” she added with a grin.

One comer of his mouth tipped up. “Not much in a crisis, is he?”

“He loves her,” she said simply.

He sliced her a long, considering look before turning back to the stall. “Yeah. He does.”

“These two okay?” she asked, referring to Jezebel and Poco, even though she was more worried about the look in Tucker’s eyes. The one that said he was having second thoughts. Then the one that came on its heels and told her he’d decided this afternoon was a mistake and he’d been a fool for letting things go as far as they had.

“No worse for the wear,” he said finally. “The exercise did more good than harm.”

“And what about our exercise?” she asked, taking a chance that he wouldn’t close off from her completely. Hoping against hope that he’d let what had begun between them play itself out. “We didn’t finish our... workout.”

He turned to face her then. When he saw her mischievous smile, his killer grin slipped reluctantly into place, along with an exasperated I-don’t-know-what-to-do-about- you-but-I’m-helpless-to-resist surrender that turned her heart to mush and her legs to pudding.

“Has that mouth of yours ever gotten you into trouble?”

Her smile broadened to sexy and smug and as full of hell as his stalking gait as he closed the distance between them.

“Not lately,” she said, holding his gaze. “But I’m holding out hope that it will.”

He stopped a deep breath away from her, devouring her with his eyes, touching her with his smile. “Oh, it will, darlin’. Bank on it.”

“Promises, promises.”

“You want promises?” His blue eyes glittered darkly as he moved that final step to meet her. Bracketing her waist with his broad hands, he backed her up against the wall of a stall. “I’ll make you a promise. We’re going to finish our
workout
just as soon as I can arrange it.”

She draped her arms around his neck, all eager anticipation and anxious lover. “No time like the present, I always say.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Now you’ve done it.”

She only smiled.

“Tonight,” he insisted, though she could see he thought her idea had merit. “After supper. In my bed.” His expression darkened with passion and promise. “Work for you?”

She let out a frustrated breath. “Patience has never been my strong suit.”

His eyes, though soft, lost their laughter. He touched a hand to her cheek. “I think you’re wrong. I think patience is one of your very strongest suits. You were terrific with Lana. The poor kid was scared to death.”

She shrugged. “Just doing my...” Her voice trailed off as realization hit and she let the thought play itself out. It surprised her when it did. “Just doing my job,” she finished, amazed at how well the notion fit.

She
had
been doing her job. With empathy and compassion. With skill and conviction. And it had felt good. For the first time in a very long while, she’d experienced that exhilarating blend of caring and control that had drawn her to her profession in the first place.

“Is she really going to be okay?” she heard Tucker ask through thoughts that had stalled and settled and felt fairly comfortable where they’d landed.

“Yes,” she assured him, pleased by her self-discovery and promising herself that later, when she was alone, she would analyze what it all meant. “She’s going to be fine. The trip to the doctor tomorrow is a necessary precaution, and she’ll feel better, too, after getting reassurance from him.

“In the meantime,” she added, turning all her concentration back on him, “I could use a little reassurance of my own.”

She lifted her face to his, her eyes flirty and flashing with the heat of remembered passion. “Tonight is a long ways away.’ ’

He sucked in a tortured breath. “And getting longer when you look at me like that.”

“And touch you like this?” she suggested, unlacing her hands from around his neck and trailing them in a slow, seductive glide down his chest to the waist of his jeans.

“And touch me like that,” he whispered on an indrawn breath, then stopped her wandering hands. “Sara…I’ve got chores to do.”

It came out as half plea, half groan. His desperation brought a smile to her lips and a gentle tug to her heart.

“Me too,” she said, conceding. “Hope you don’t mind, but I’m the new chef for tonight.”

That closed, cautious look slipped back into place. “You don’t have to do that,” he said with a scowl. “I can throw something together.”

“I want to do it. For Lana,” she added, reading his mind. Lord, the man was transparent. Playing at love was one thing. But the thought of her playing at setting up house had brought that trapped look to his eyes again.

“Relax, cowboy. I know the parameters, okay? I want to do this for Lana. She needs to know she’s not letting anyone down. I can take her to the doctor tomorrow, too. That way, she won’t fuss about Tag missing the workouts. And I’ll feel better knowing I’m with her, just in case she runs into any trouble on the way there.”

He backed away from her, concern darkening his eyes again. “You think there’s a chance of that?”

She shook her head. “No. But
she
does. This way, her mind will rest a little easier.”

He considered her for a long moment, his scowl turning so grim she began to feel uneasy. “Seems it’s starting to look like we might not be able to manage around here without you.”

He might have meant it as a compliment. It came out sounding like a concern. Poor baby, he was really having trouble with this. Much as he appreciated her help, he didn’t like the idea that they might be coming to rely on
her. Reliance implied necessity. Necessity implied commitment—maybe even permanence.

It was dangerous for both of them to be thinking along those lines. Still, she liked the way the notion fit. She liked even more that he was thinking of it—even if it upset him.

Wise up, Stewart, she warned herself as she left him, detouring to check on Lana before heading for the house to start supper. Tucker was determined to be what he wanted people to think he was. A man who lived for the moment. A man who never committed to tomorrow. A man who wasn’t capable of giving more than surface pleasure to a woman who wanted it to sink in to the root.

And she, like a fool, was close to betting her heart that she was the woman who could prove him wrong.

7

………

A
WEEK AGO, TUCKER HAD SWORN
he wasn’t going to have anything to do with her. Now he wasn’t sure he was going to make it through supper, let alone manage to wait until dark.

She sat at a right angle to him at the supper table. Not close enough to touch, too close to ignore. He couldn’t help but watch her. The longer he did, the deeper he sank.

With a beguiling tilt of her head, the soft hint of a secret smile, even the subtle flutter and drift of her thick web of lashes, she covertly enticed and flirted and fired his imagination to a fever pitch.

Lord, the woman did things to his head. Things that he’d never have believed he’d be susceptible to. Things that angered him and amused him and split his thoughts in ten different directions. There was a lot to be said for divide- and-conquer tactics, and the longer he sat here watching her, the more he suspected she knew exactly what a tease she was.

She was working him over but good. Her sweet seduction didn’t appear practiced. Instead, it seemed guilelessly natural.

Whatever it was, it was effective... a potent assault on his senses and his powers of control.

Fortunately, Tag was so wrapped up in worrying over Lana, and Lana was so intent in convincing both Cody and Tag that she was all right, that Tucker’s dilemma didn’t register with them—until a warm, bare foot, hidden under the table, slipped up his leg, wedged itself between his thighs and nestled cozily against his fly.

Her sneak attack caught him completely off guard. His entire body went on sexual alert with a jolt so strong it damn near knocked him out of his chair.

He choked on a mouthful of pasta salad.