Stripped Bare Read online

  Mom would say the house had good bones. It certainly had plenty of space. Bedrooms and Eldon’s office filled a second story, with only Eldon to occupy them.

  This was the house Eldon grew up in, and from what everyone around town said, he hadn’t changed a thing since. They said—and I didn’t hold much with what “they” said—he hadn’t let his bride spend a dime on upgrades. But that saintly woman—again, a “they said” sentiment—had passed away so many years ago I had only a vague recollection of her. The house had the musty basement smell old houses are prone to. Tonight, a faint odor of burned meat and gunpowder lingered in the air.

  I shivered and stayed close to the front door. I wrenched my arm free from Milo’s grasp and decided I’d give him three seconds. “What about Ted?”

  Milo clicked the front door against the rising wind. “Not sure.”

  My heart bounced to my stomach floor. Two seconds down. “How bad is it?”

  Milo sucked on his teeth. “He was shot from the front. Bullet went into his midsection but there wasn’t an exit wound. He was unconscious.”

  Two seconds more than I was willing to give. “I’ve got to go!” I lunged for the door.

  Milo leaned against the front door so I couldn’t leave. “He was breathing, and the EMTs’ll git him stable. Nothing you can do, for right now.”

  I fidgeted like a horse in the starting gate. Even if I shoved him, I’d probably not be able to do more than jiggle his belly.

  “Just listen to me a sec. You’re gonna have to tell Carly that her granddad is gone. Sooner the better, before somebody spills the news first.”

  His words smacked me upside the head. Of course. Carly. She’d already lost her mother, my oldest sister, Glenda. When her father died, Eldon’s son, a couple of years after that, it had nearly broken her. Would she hold up after she learned her granddad was murdered? With her mother and father dead and a stepmother like Roxy, I was the closest thing to a parent she had. Poor girl.

  “I don’t know where Carly is.” I blurted it out before thinking.

  He narrowed his eyes. “Aren’t you her guardian?”

  My fingers closed on the doorknob.

  He frowned. “Seems a girl like that might bear a little closer watching.”

  I’d been accused of negligence in the matter of my niece twice in the course of an hour. I focused on the door, thoughtless words dribbling from my mouth. “She’s much better these days.”

  Milo let out a harrumph. “She’s gotta know about her granddad.”

  Some of Milo’s concern seeped deeper into me. “He’s really dead? Who shot him? Why?”

  Milo’s frown deepened. “Don’t know. Gonna find out.” Milo wheezed as if he couldn’t get enough air past his big belly. “I couldn’t make heads nor tails out of all Roxy’s wailing.”

  “When Ted wakes up…” He would wake up. He’d be okay. I gulped down the doubts. No sense getting worked up until I knew his condition. “When he comes to, he can tell you what happened. Whoever shot Eldon must have shot Ted.”

  Milo’s graying eyebrows drew together. “Maybe.”

  “I’ve got to go.” I put a hand on his tree trunk of an arm to urge him away from the door.

  He hesitated, and the look in his hazel eyes softened. “I’ve known you since you was no bigger’n a bug. You’re a good and honest one, that’s for sure.”

  What was that about? Did he think Ted was going to die?

  “I’d haul you to Broken Butte, but I got to secure the scene. You gonna be all right?”

  I swallowed hard. An hour-plus drive to Broken Butte to worry that I might be greeted with the grim news that I was a widow? I nodded and he stepped out of the way.

  I jumped down the rickety porch steps and raced for the Ranchero.

  Milo pushed outside and raised his voice against the wind. “Get hold of Carly.”

  3

  I managed to stay on the dirt road out from the Bar J, but the highway felt like a belt of frozen black snot. I needed to tell Carly about Eldon. I needed to be with Ted. No way to split me in two.

  With one hand gripping the wheel, and praying I didn’t end up ass over teacup in the barrow ditch, I felt for my phone in the console, then the passenger seat. Despite the freezing temperatures and the iffy quality of Elvis’s heat, sweat trickled down from my armpits and dampened my flannel shirt. A smell of wet manure from my boots mingled with the musty fragrance of Elvis’s heater.

  Clouds blocked out the scant moon, and the dash lights didn’t do much to help me locate the phone. I leaned way to the right to snatch it off the passenger side floor, which made me steer across the centerline. After all that, I held it up and pushed speed dial with my thumb.

  Robert answered on the second ring. Only fifteen months older than me, we’d grown up as close as twins. We might be the only sane ones in the Fox clan, but that was giving me a lot of credit.

  “Kate.” Robert’s voice hung heavy with sleep.

  “Sorry to wake you up, but I need your help.” The back wheels slid to the left and I tossed the phone aside to use both hands to steady Elvis. He was never any good on snow and ice. When I fished the phone from the seat, Robert sounded fully awake.

  “What’s going on? Where are you?”

  Trying to ignore my overactive heartbeat, I explained the situation as I knew it.

  “Do you want us to come down to the hospital?” The squeak of a closet door told me he was already reaching for a shirt. Sarah, his wife and my best friend, mumbled something in the background.

  Yes. “No. I don’t know how Ted is or what’s going on. I’ve got about fifty head in the calving lot. If I don’t get home by morning, can you check on them and throw them some hay?”

  “I’ll go out there first thing. Who’s with Carly?”

  My wipers swiped at flakes, smearing moisture along the windshield. “Well. Um.”

  He paused. “You don’t know where she is?”

  I didn’t need more judgment on that score. “I tried calling but she’s not answering her phone.”

  “Does she know about Eldon?”

  “I don’t know. If she’s home when you get there, tell her Ted was shot, but don’t tell her anything else. And don’t let her answer her phone or the house phone. I’ll tell her about Eldon.”

  “Okay. You sure you don’t want us to come to the hospital? Dahlia is bound to be a handful.”

  Ah, Dahlia. Ted’s mother. Much as I’d like a posse with me, I’d wait to rally reinforcements until I needed them. “I’ll call Ted’s folks when I know more.”

  We signed off and I put all my energy into arriving in Broken Butte without killing myself in the storm. I blinked away tears at the thought of Ted in all his tall, broad-shouldered good looks, bending down to give me a teasing kiss.

  From the moment Ted had noticed me, I’d never believed my good fortune. He was a Hodgekiss legend, my older sister’s age, and the hero of every little girl’s fantasy. Okay, maybe not every girl, but certainly mine.

  He was my first crush, as true and impossible as my younger sister’s love for Justin Bieber. Of course, I’d grown out of it, but when I’d returned home with my shiny BA and no clue what to do with my life, he’d appeared as if by magic and literally became my dream come true.

  He’d better be all right. That’s all.

  An hour later, Elvis’s brakes squealed as I stopped under the covered driveway in front of the emergency room entrance. Bright lights glared through the glass automatic doors. Elvis obliged me by not sticking the driver’s door this time. I jumped out and flew for the hospital. The darn doors took their time sliding open, and I was tempted to crash through them. My boots clacking on the linoleum sounded like a parade in the empty corridor.

  “Hello!”

  I took the first turn to the right. Somebody had to be moving or making noise somewhere in this damned hospital.

  I loped down a corridor. The Broken Butte Community Hospital was a two-hundred-bed facility.
How hard could it be to find the single emergency case?

  I returned the way I’d come, hit the emergency entrance, and sprinted the opposite way from my first try, skidding around another corner. If I’d stepped on a rattler, I wouldn’t have gasped any louder.

  Ted’s loving mother, Dahlia, stood cradled in her husband, Sid’s, arms. They guarded a set of closed metal double doors. Midsob, Dahlia buried her face in Sid’s broad chest. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

  Déjà Roxy.

  Sid’s face held the resigned expression he usually wore when dealing with Dahlia. He noticed me and raised his eyebrows in greeting.

  A small window centered in each of the swinging doors revealed an empty hallway. On a normal day I’d retreat. The less time I spend around Dahlia, the better for everyone. But this wasn’t a church fund-raiser or a baby shower.

  Sid’s eyes opened in alarm as I strode toward the doors. “Is Ted in there?” I asked.

  Dahlia jerked away from Sid as if stuck with a hot poker. She glared at me.

  I placed my palm on the cool metal panel of one door.

  Dahlia’s voice sounded hard as ice on a water trough in January. “You can’t go in there. They’re operating.” She crumpled into Sid’s chest. “On my baby.”

  “Where’s a nurse or doctor or anyone?” I pressed my nose to the window to view the deserted hallway.

  Dahlia managed to speak through her tears. “If they won’t allow his own mother beyond those doors, then you can’t go.”

  It was times like these I hated my diminutive, five-foot-five stature. With a good four inches on me, Dahlia always seemed to have the regal advantage.

  Drawing up my shoulders made me feel courageous, like a Komodo dragons. “He’s my husband and I need to know what’s happening.”

  Sid, a giant in his own right at six foot three, put his arm around Dahlia’s shoulders. “Let’s all calm down.”

  Dahlia shrugged it off. “My baby is in there fighting for his life. I’m as calm as I can be.”

  “How did you get here so fast?” I always suspected Dahlia of chipping Ted, so she’d be in constant contact.

  Dahlia stepped away from Sid. “Roxy called us.”

  Thank you, Roxy. “Where is she?” Maybe she could tell me something about Ted’s condition.

  Dahlia shifted her eyes to the window in the door and her voice grew husky. “They took her someplace so she could wash off the blood.” She gulped a sob. “Ted’s blood.”

  A quick punch to Dahlia’s nose would go a long way to relieving my frustration. I didn’t use that approach often, not since eighth grade, when I’d sliced my knuckles on Diane’s—another older sister—braces.

  I might be edging that close to my limit now. I made for the door again.

  Dahlia threw herself in front of me. “You will not interfere!” She stood in front of the double doors, arms wide, chest stuck out.

  I fought to keep calm. “I’m his wife. I’m going in.”

  Sid took a step in retreat.

  Dahlia thrust her chin out and flared her nostrils. She all but said “Over my dead body.”

  That was it. I’d be polite and respectful up to a point, but I was beyond that now. I reached up, slammed my hand onto her shoulder, and shoved. If I could manhandle thousand-pound cows and wrangle razor-hooved horses, Dahlia Conner wouldn’t stop me.

  Though Dahlia stumbled to the side, she recovered before I pushed through the doors. She latched onto my barn coat and jerked me back, just far enough that, when the door swung open, it caught me in the chin.

  A middle-aged woman in lavender scrubs, her graying hair cut short and highlighting her triple chins, stood with arms akimbo. She sniffed. “Kate Fox. What would your father say if I told him you were causing a stink in public like this?”

  “Aunt Tutti. Thank God.” I wanted to hug her, right after I corrected her that my last name had been Conner since I’d married Ted, eight years ago. “I need to see Ted.”

  Aunt Tutti heaved her sizable bosom in a show of authority. “Ted’s out of surgery. They went ahead and took him to ICU. Doc Kennedy’ll meet you there.”

  “He’s already out? Is he okay? I want to talk to the surgeon.” I’m pretty sure that’s what I asked, but my mouth was moving much slower than my racing brain.

  Aunt Tutti patted my arm. “The EMTs did a good job and the bullet was easy to get to. The surgeon said he’s heading back to North Platte tonight, since he won’t be able to go back to sleep. Believe me, you’re better off talking to Doc Kennedy. This guy thinks he’s gooder than God.”

  I planted a quick kiss on Aunt Tutti’s cheek and whirled around to face a choice of directions. There was no sign of Dahlia and Sid.

  Aunt Tutti pointed to the corridor on the right and I galloped down the hallway.

  I took a few turns, remembering the hospital layout. Unfortunately, I’d been to the ICU waiting room before. I finally approached another set of double doors. I burst through them, not waiting for Dahlia or anyone else to stand in my way.

  A circular nurses’ station took up the center of the open area, with three curtained rooms off to the right. Sid stood midway between the nurses’ station and one of the rooms.

  Dahlia and Roxy huddled together, their arms around each other. As far as I knew, there was no shared genetics between them, but they looked and acted so similar it made me wonder.

  Ted and Roxy had made a perfect couple in high school, all shiny and beautiful. Ted told me they broke up because he couldn’t handle Roxy’s drama, but Dahlia obviously preferred Roxy over me. They both inhabited the high-drama zone.

  Like Dahlia, Roxy was tall and slender. I’d never seen either one without impeccable makeup and hair fluffed, curled, and sprayed. And sprayed. Even now, they both wore crisp jeans, heeled boots, and fancy blouses. No bloodstains marred Roxy’s appearance. I hurried toward them in my old barn coat over faded flannel, work-weary jeans, and boots I’d worn tromping through the calving lot. With the combination of a long day of physical labor and manure-caked boots, I might overpower their perfume. But I doubted it.

  I squinted through the window into the darkened hospital room full of blinking machines. My breath caught in my chest as my sight narrowed to Ted’s pale face lying motionless on the pillow. I wanted to yank out the tube taped to his cheek and shoved down his throat. A scruff of dark whiskers dotted his chin, as it always did by the end of the day. An IV attached to his arm dripped clear liquid, and a bank of monitors flashed numbers and graphs behind the bed.

  Without conscious thought, my boots carried me toward the door to his room.

  “Don’t,” Roxy said, somehow finding the ability to speak despite her trauma. “They said we can’t go in.”

  That must be true or Dahlia would have taken her place next to his bed.

  I planted my open palm on the window. The cold glass was no substitute for my husband’s warm skin.

  The squeak of rubber soles made me turn as Doc Kennedy approached. He moved as if a lightning rod ran straight down his back, and his white hair stuck out as if it had been struck. He’d delivered both me and Ted, all of my eight brothers and sisters, and a collection of nieces and nephews. When we had a baby, I figured he’d deliver that, too.

  Doc Kennedy nodded to me and shifted his gaze to glare briefly at Roxy and Dahlia. “We don’t know much right now.”

  With each beat my heart grew heavier. It would pop through my chest any moment.

  “The bullet entered close to the L2 vertebra. We were able to extract it. Because the shock wave from the bullet caused swelling, we won’t know if there is nerve damage until later. I can’t give you a definite prognosis.”

  “Oh God, oh God, oh God.” The chorus to my side ratcheted up.

  I clamped my back teeth for a second to get control. “You mean he might not make it?”

  Doc Kennedy shook his head. “Oh, no. He’s not in danger of dying. The uncertainty is whether he’ll walk again.”

  Ther
e was more, of course. But my ears dammed up and kept the words from entering my brain. Ted might not walk again. How would I break that to him?

  After telling me that Ted probably wouldn’t wake up for another twenty-four hours, Doc Kennedy ushered us from the ICU to a nearby waiting room. He suggested we go home and get some rest. Instead, I prowled the waiting room for the next three hours, anxious for Aunt Tutti to pop in every hour and allow me five minutes to stand outside Ted’s window and look at him, sending healing and love with every breath.

  Aunt Tutti even allowed Dahlia and Roxy one visit each. They telegraphed their resentment of my special treatment with heated glares whenever I returned to the waiting room. I ignored them, for the most part.

  Eventually, weeping and gnashing of feminine teeth drove me from the room. Sid leaned against the wall just to the right side of the door. He buried his chin in his chest and stared at the waxed linoleum floor.

  I picked a spot next to him, nearly touching his arm. “He’s strong. It’ll be okay.”

  “Yep.” He sniffed. “If he doesn’t walk, he’s going to need you by his side.”

  I was sure Sid didn’t think I’d leave Ted at any sign of trouble. He knew me better than that. “Ted’s going to be fine. Even if he’s not, we’ll face it together.”

  From far down the hall the heavy clump of boots on industrial hospital tile made slow progress toward us. It reminded me of the campfire story where the monster trudges up the stairs, saying, “Give me back my bloody arm.”

  Sid and I both stared down the hall, waiting for doom. We weren’t disappointed when Milo Ferguson came into view. His pace didn’t alter as he made his way to us.

  He nodded at Sid. “Any word on Ted’s condition?”

  Sid’s head hung low as a hound’s on a hot August afternoon. “He’s in ICU.”