Page 35 of Point of Mercy

“No, I suppose you’re not. But what were you thinking, Heather? Why fall for a rodeo rider when you could have had any boy in town including…” Her voice drifted off. “I guess I’m beginning to sound like a broken record, aren’t I? Well…we’ll just have to change that. After all, nothing matters but Adam’s health, and if Turner’s willing to do what he can to save my grandson, then I’ll just have to quit bad-mouthing him.”

Heather chuckled. “Do you think that’s possible?”

“I don’t know. But I’ve accepted Jackson. Ineverthought that would happen.”

“Neither did I.”

“And he and Rachelle are getting married.” She stacked two glasses in the cupboard and wiped her hands. “You know, I was wrong about Jackson—the whole town was wrong about him. Maybe I’ll be wrong about Turner, too.”

“You are, Mom,” Heather said with more conviction than she felt.

“I hope so. For everyone’s sake. I hope so.” She hung her dish towel on a rack. “Now tell me, what happens if Turner’s tissue doesn’t match Adam’s?”

“Don’t even think that way.”

“But it’s a possibility.”

A good one,Heather thought to herself.What Adam needs is a sister or brother… Oh, God, not this again!

“He’s not in any immediate danger,” Heather heard herself say as she repeated the pediatrician’s prognosis. “His remission could last for years. If so, he won’t need a transplant.”

“But if he does?” Ellen persisted.

“Then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Heather replied, while she tried to tamp down thoughts of a sibling for her son.

Ellen’s brow was drawn into a worried frown. “We’ll have to talk to your father and anyone else in the family—any blood relation—who might be able to help the boy.”

“Turner will be the most likely donor,” Heather said, and tried to still the beating of her heart. She thought of facing him again and her insides went cold. There was still the attraction; she’d felt it in the barn. Now she had to decide how she would deal with him. Would she keep him at arm’s length or try to seduce him?

Chapter Seven

Turner was waitingfor her. Seated in a worn-out old rocking chair on the front porch, a bottle of beer caught between his hands, he watched as she parked her Mercedes near the barn. “It’s now or never,” she told herself as she climbed out of the car and slung her purse over her shoulder. She’d changed into a pair of white slacks and a wine-colored T-shirt, pulled her hair back into a ponytail and left her jewelry in her makeup bag back at the cottage.

The evening air was heavy, weighted with the coming night. Insects droned and lavender clouds shifted across the darkening sky. Twilight. A summer evening and she was alone with Turner. Just as she had been six long years before. But now they had a son—a son with an illness that could be fatal. Oh, God, why?

“I thought maybe you’d chicken out,” he said, the old chair creaking as he stood.

“Not me.” She forced a smile she didn’t feel and realized just how isolated they were. No bunkhouse full of ranch hands, no attic rooms with kitchen help, no guests dancing or laughing or playing cards in the dining hall, no Zeke, no Mazie. Just Turner and the windswept hills that were Badlands Ranch.

Her heart drummed loudly and she only hoped that he couldn’t hear its erratic beat over the sigh of the wind.

“You didn’t have to show up,” he said, finishing his beer and setting the empty bottle on the rail of the porch. As he walked down the stairs, she noticed his limp, barely visible, but evidence of the pain his body had endured for a life he loved. “I would have gone through with the tests, anyway.”

“I figured I owed you this much,” she said, trying not to observe his freshly shaven jaw, or his slate-colored eyes, or the loose-jointed way he sauntered across the hard earth. Or his limp. The reminder of the life he led. In jeans and a faded shirt, with a backdrop of a run-down ranch house and acres of grassland, he was, without exception, the sexiest man she’d ever seen. That was the problem. What they’d shared had been sex—in its young, passionate, raw form. Naively she’d thought she’d loved him, that he’d loved her, but all that had been between them was a hunger as driven as the winds that blow hot through the California valleys in August. Even now, as she tried to seem relaxed, she felt that tension between them, the tug of something wild and wanton in her heart, the hot breath of desire tickling the back of her neck.

“Tell me about Adam,” he said. “Where is he now?”

“He’s with the babysitter, Mrs. Rassmussen. She lives two houses down from mine.”

“How sick is he?”

Her heart twisted. “He’s in remission. It could last indefinitely, but then again…” She shook her head and bit on her lower lip. “Adam’s pediatrician’s name is Richard Thurmon—he’s the best in San Francisco. I’ve told him about you and all you have to do is call him.He can tell you anything you want to know.”

“I will.”

They stood in awkward silence and Turner stared at her, sizing her up, as if he still didn’t believe her. “I tried to call Zeke today.”

“To check my story.”

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