Heart of Stone

“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.”

Keely came back with the medical bag and handed it to Bentley. She was holding his old raincoat, as well.

“I hate raincoats,” he began angrily.

She just held it up. He grimaced, but he slid his long arms into it and pulled it up. “Worrywart,” he muttered.

“You got pneumonia the last time you went out into a cold rain,” she reminded him.

He turned and smiled down at her; actually, it was more of a faint turning up of one side of his mouth. Bentley Rydel never smiled. “Go home,” he said.

She shook her head. “I won’t leave Bailey until I’m sure he’s out from under the anesthesia,” she said, and she didn’t look at Boone. “Besides, you’re sure to have at least one emergency call waiting for you when you get back.”

“I don’t pay you enough for all this overtime,” he pointed out.

She shrugged. “So I’ll never get rich.” She grinned.

He sighed. “Okay. I’m on my cell phone, if you need me.”

“Drive carefully.”

He made a face at her. But his expression was staid and impassive as he nodded to the Sinclairs on his way out.

Boone was glaring at Keely. She averted her eyes and went back to Bailey’s cage to check on him.

“We should go,” Winnie told her brother. “See you later, Keely.”

Keely nodded. She didn’t look at them.

Boone hesitated uncharacteristically, but he didn’t speak. He took Winnie’s arm and led her out the door.

“You couldn’t even say thanks to Keely for saving Bailey’s life?” she chided as they paused beside their respective vehicles.

He looked down at her coldly in the misty rain. “I could sue her for bringing Bailey here without permission.”

Winnie was shocked. “She saved his life!”

He avoided her gaze. “That’s beside the point. Let’s go. We’re getting wet.”

“What about your concert?” Winnie asked, and there was a faint bite in her tone.

“It’s not over. I’m going back.”

She wanted to say that his ex-fiancée wasn’t going to be pleased that he’d deserted her, even for a few minutes. But she didn’t say it. He was obviously out of humor, and it was never wise to push him.

Keely stayed with Bailey until he came to and Bentley returned from his call. There was a new emergency, a woman whose champion English springer spaniel was whelping and one of the puppies wouldn’t emerge. Once again, they had to do an emergency surgery to save mother and child.

It was two in the morning before they finished and Keely cleaned up. “Now go home,” Bentley said gently.

“I’ll have to.” She laughed. “I can’t keep my eyes open.”

“No matter what Boone Sinclair says,” he told her, “you did the right thing.” He glanced at Bailey, who was now sleeping peacefully thanks to a painkiller. “I think he’ll do.”

She smiled. Even though Boone had been a pain in the neck, he did love the old dog. She was glad that he wouldn’t have to give up his companion just yet.

She went home, tiptoeing past her mother’s room, and went to bed.

The next day, she worked until noon and then went home to do all the housework that her mother never bothered with. She finished just in time to start supper. By then, her mother was finishing the second whiskey highball and her best friend, Carly, had shown up for supper. Keely, who’d prepared enough just for her mother and herself, had to add potatoes and carrots to her stew to stretch it out. The grocery budget was meager. It took second place to the liquor budget.

It was the same every Saturday night that she was home, Keely thought miserably, hiding her discomfort while she served up a light supper in the dining room. Her mother, Ella, already drunk, was making fun of Keely’s conservative clothing while her best friend, Carly, added her own sarcastic comments to the mix. Both women were in their forties, and highly unconventional. Carly was no beauty, but Ella was. Ella had a lovely face and a good figure, and she used both to good advantage. A list of her past lovers, despite her substance abuse problem, would fill a small notebook. The mischief she caused was one of her favorite sources of amusement. Next to ridiculing Keely, that was. She and Carly considered virtue obsolete. No man, they emphasized, wanted an innocent woman these days. Virginity was a liability to a single woman.

“All you need is a man, Keely.” Carly Blair giggled, hoisting a potent Turkish cigarette to her too-red lips. “A few nights in the sack with an experienced man would take that prudish pout out of your lips.”

“You need to wear makeup,” her mother added, in between sips of her third whiskey highball. “And buy some clothes that don’t look like they came out of a mission thrift shop.”

Keely would have reminded them that she worked with animals in a veterinary clinic, not in an exclusive boutique, and that men were thin on the ground. But it only amused them more if she fought back. She’d learned to keep her head down when she was under fire.

The beef stew she’d had cooking all day in her Crock-Pot was fragrant and thick. She’d made yeast rolls to go with it, and a simple pound cake for dessert. Her efforts were unappreciated. The women hardly noticed what they were eating as they gossiped about a woman they knew in town who was having an affair. Their comments were earthy and embarrassing to Keely.

They knew that, of course; it was why they did it. What the two women didn’t know was that Keely couldn’t sustain a relationship with a boyfriend, much less a lover. She had a secret that she’d never shared with anyone except the doctor who had treated her. It would keep her alone for the rest of her life. She’d made sure that her mother didn’t know what she was hiding. The older woman was bitter and miserable and she loved making a victim of her daughter. Keely’s secret would have been more fodder for her attacks. So Keely kept a good distance between herself and her coldhearted parent.

She wondered often what had become of her father. She’d loved him very much, and she’d thought that he loved her. But he hadn’t been the same since he’d lost his game park. He’d turned to alcohol and then drugs to numb the pain and disappointment. He’d had no way to support himself, much less an adolescent daughter. He’d had to leave her with her mother. She’d done her best to make him let her stay, offering to get a job after school, anything! But he’d said that she needed security while she was growing up, and he could no longer provide it. Her mother wasn’t such a bad person, he’d said. Keely knew better, but she couldn’t change her father’s mind, so she rationalized that he’d probably forgotten what a cruel woman Ella could be. Besides that, she was terrified of his new friends; especially one of them, who’d slapped her around.

Ella owned land that she’d inherited, along with a sizable amount of money from her late parents. She’d loaned her husband the money for his game park to get him out of her life, Ella said. She’d quickly gone through the money she’d inherited, spending it on luxurious vacations, fancy cars and a mansion while Keely was living in meager circumstances with her father. But her mother’s wealth or lack of it was no concern to Keely. As soon as she was settled comfortably in her job, she was going to get another part-time job so that she could afford to move into a boardinghouse. She’d had all she could take of living here.

Her father had just left her on Ella’s front porch, crying and still pleading to go with him. Ella hadn’t been happy to find the adolescent back in her life, but she took her in, at least. At the age of thirteen, Keely had settled down slowly with the mother she barely remembered from childhood, who proceeded to make her life a misery.

“Boone Sinclair is dating that ex-fiancée of his who threw him over when he got out of the Army,” Carly Blair drawled, with a quick glance at Keely.

“Is he?” Ella looked at Keely, too. “Have you seen her?” she asked, because she knew that her daughter was friendly with Clark and Winnie Sinclair. “What does the woman look like?”

“She’s very pretty,” Keely replied calmly between bites of stew. “Long black hair and dark blue eyes.”

“Very pretty.” Ella laughed. “Nothing like you, Keely, right? You look like your father. I wanted a beautiful little girl who looked like me.” She wrinkled her nose. “What a disappointment you turned out to be.”

“We can’t all be beautiful, Mother,” Keely replied. “I’d rather be smart.”

“If you were smart, you’d go to college and get a better job,” Ella retorted. “Working as a technician for a veterinarian,” she added haughtily. “What a vulgar sort of job.”

“The senior veterinarian where Keely works is very good-looking,” Carly interrupted, shifting in her chair. She chuckled. “I tried to get him to take me out, but he gave me an icy glare and went back into his office.” She shrugged. “I guess he’s got a girlfriend somewhere.”

Keely was surprised at the remark. Carly was in her mid-forties and Bentley Rydel was only thirty-two years old. Bentley had mentioned, only once, that he couldn’t stand Carly. He probably didn’t like Keely’s mother, either, but he was too polite to say so. Not that they had pets that would need his services. Ella hated animals.

“Keely’s boss is a cold fish, like Boone Sinclair,” Ella said. She leaned back in her chair and studied her daughter with a cold expression. “You’ll never get anywhere with that man, you know,” she added in a slow drawl. “He may take his ex-fiancée around with him, but he’s no passionate lover.”

“How would you know?” Keely returned, stung by the comment and the way her mother aimed it at her.

Ella smiled mockingly. “Because I tried to seduce him myself, on more than one occasion,” she said, enjoying the look of horror on her daughter’s face. “He’s ice-cold. He doesn’t respond normally to women, not even when they come on to him physically. No matter what people say about his hot relationship with his ex-fiancée, I can assure you that he isn’t all that responsive to women.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t like older women,” Keely muttered icily, her eyes sparkling with temper as she pictured her mother using her wiles on Boone.

A cruel look passed over Ella’s face. “Well, he certainly doesn’t like you,” she retorted with deliberate sarcasm. “I told him you’re hot for your veterinarian boss and sleeping with him on the side.”

Keely was horrified. “What!” she burst out. “But, why?”

Ella laughed at her expression. “I wanted to see what he’d say,” she mused. “It was a disappointment. He didn’t react at all. So I asked him if he hadn’t noticed what a nice figure you’ve got, even if you aren’t pretty, and he said he didn’t feel attracted to children.”

Children. Keely was nineteen. That wasn’t childish. She didn’t think of herself as a child. But Boone did…

“Then I said that you might look like a child, but you knew what to do with a man, and he just walked away,” Ella continued. She saw Keely’s stricken expression. “So I suppose your little fantasy of love isn’t going to be fulfilled.” Her face took on a wicked cast. “I did mention in the course of conversation, before he left so rudely, that you had a crush on him and he could probably cut you out with your boss if he tried. He said that you were the last woman on earth he’d want.”

Keely wanted to sink through the floor. Some of Boone’s antagonistic behavior began to make sense. Her mother was feeding him lies about Keely, and he was swallowing them whole. She wondered how long Ella had been doing it, and if it was revenge because Boone wouldn’t touch her. Maybe she saw Keely as a rival and wanted to make sure there was no chance that Boone would weaken toward her daughter. Either way, it was devastating to the younger woman. She left the rest of her food untouched. She couldn’t choke down another bite.

“You might get somewhere with him if you stopped dressing out of thrift shops and wore a little makeup,” Ella chided.

“On my salary, all I can afford are clothes from thrift shops,” Keely said.

There was a hot silence. “Is that a dig at me?” Ella demanded, eyes flashing. “Because I give you a roof over your head and food to eat,” she added curtly. “You only have to do a little cooking and housework from time to time to earn your keep. That’s more than fair. I’m not obligated to dress you, as well!”

“I never said you were, Mother,” Keely replied.

“Don’t call me ‘Mother’!” Ella shot back, weaving a little in her chair. “I never wanted you in the first place. Your father was hot to have a son. He was disappointed when you turned out to be a girl, and I refused to get pregnant again. It ruined my waistline! It took me years to get my figure back!

“I wanted to give you up for adoption when you were eleven and your father divorced me, but he said he’d take you if I’d loan him enough money to open that game park. So I loaned him the money—which he never repaid, by the way—and he took you off my hands. He didn’t want you, either, Keely,” she added with a drunken smile. “Nobody wanted you. And nobody wants you now.”

“Ella,” Carly interrupted uneasily, “that’s harsh.” Keely’s face was as white as flour.

Ella blinked, as if she wasn’t quite aware of what she was saying. She stared blankly at Carly. “What’s harsh?”

Carly winced as Keely got to her feet and began clearing the table without saying a word.

She carried empty plates into the kitchen, trying desperately not to let the women see her cry. Behind her, she heard murmuring, which grew louder, and then her mother’s voice arguing. She went out into the cold night air in her shirtsleeves, tears pouring down her cheeks. She wrapped her arms around herself and walked to the front yard, stopping at the railing that looked out over Comanche Wells, at the rolling pastureland and little oasis of deciduous trees that shaded the fenced land where purebred cattle grazed. It was a beautiful sight, with the air crisp and the moon shining on the leaves on the big oak tree that stood in the front yard, making it look as if the leaves had been painted silver. But Keely was blind to the beauty of it. She was sick to her stomach.

She heard the phone ring in the house, but she ignored it. First Boone’s fierce antagonism and the argument over Bailey and the ex-fiancée’s taunts the night before, and then her mother’s horrible assertions tonight. It was the worst two days of Keely’s recent life. She didn’t want to go back in. She wanted to stay out in the cold until she froze to death and the pain stopped.

“Keely?” Carly called from the back door. “It’s Clark Sinclair. He wants to speak to you.”

Keely hesitated for a moment. She turned and went back inside without meeting Carly’s eyes or looking toward the dining room where her mother sat finishing her drink.

She picked up the phone and said “Hello?” in a subdued tone.

“The old girl’s giving you hell, is she?” Clark mused. “How about going out? I know it’s late notice, but I just got in from Jacksonville and I want to talk to somebody. Winnie’s working late at dispatch, and God knows where Boone’s off to. How about it?”

“Oh, I’d really like that,” Keely said fervently.

“Need an escape plan, do we? I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“I’ll be ready. I’ll wait for you on the front porch.”

“God, it must be bad over there tonight!” he exclaimed. “I’ll hurry, so you don’t catch cold.” He hung up. So did Keely.

“Got a date?” Ella drawled, coming to the doorway in a zigzag with her highball glass still in her hands. It was empty now. “Who’s taking you someplace?”

Keely didn’t answer her. She went down the hall to her room and closed and locked the door behind her.

“I told you it was a mistake to tell her that,” Carly said plaintively. “You’ll be sorry tomorrow when you sober up.”

“Mistake to tell her what?” Ella muttered. “I need another drink.”

“No. You need to go to bed and sleep it off. Come on.” Carly led her down the hall to her own bedroom, pushed her inside and closed the door behind them. “How could you tell her that, Ella?” she asked softly as she helped her friend down onto the big double bed with its expensive pink comforter.

“I don’t care,” Ella said defiantly. “She’s in my way. I don’t want her here. I never did.”

“She does all the housework and all the cooking,” Carly said in one of her rare moments of compassion. “She works all day and sometimes half the night for her boss, and then she comes home and works like a housekeeper. You don’t appreciate how much she does for you.”

“I could hire somebody to do all that.” Ella waved the idea away.

“Could you afford to pay them?” Carly retorted.

Ella frowned. She was hard put just to pay utilities and buy groceries. But she didn’t reply.