“Oh, you don’t have to apologize,” she assured him urgently. “I know men sometimes say things they don’t mean when they, well, you know.” She flushed. He seemed really regretful about what he’d said. She only wanted to ease the embarrassment. “I’m not ready to get married, anyway,” she lied. “So it’s fine. Really.”
He didn’t look reassured. In fact, he looked puzzled and then almost offended. He put his own seat belt back on, put the truck in gear and drove up to her porch.
He cut off the engine. “I’ll walk you inside,” he said quietly. “I want to make sure Carson’s here.”
“Okay.”
They moved into the house in silence, not touching, not speaking. Merissa was concerned. He must be terribly embarrassed to have blurted out such a compromising proposal. He had been vague about the future, but he’d never said anything about marriage. She was crazy about him, and he seemed to have feelings for her. But it was one thing to feel passion for someone, quite another to consider spending the rest of your life with her. She wanted Tank to be sure. And she wanted a proposal that came when he wasn’t out of his mind with desire.
So she didn’t say anything about their former conversation.
“I’m home,” Merissa called.
Clara came out of the kitchen. “So I see. Hello, Dalton,” she greeted with a smile.
He nodded, but he didn’t smile. “I just wanted to make sure everything was okay,” he told the women. “I’ll check back tomorrow. Have a good night.”
He left without even looking at Merissa.
“What happened?” Clara asked worriedly.
Merissa drew in a breath. “I’m not sure. And I can’t talk about it right now,” she added gently. “I’m sorry.”
Clara hugged her. “Have a nice cup of hot chocolate while I peel potatoes for supper. Carson’s outside working on some project of his. He won’t tell me what it is.”
“Is he near the house?” Merissa asked, curious.
“Not really,” her mother said. “He was going to start putting up surveillance devices at the boundaries of the property. Why?”
“I just wondered.” She had an uneasy feeling, but she didn’t want to put it into words. She drew in a long breath and rubbed her temple.
“Not another headache?” her mother asked worriedly.
“No,” she said. “Well, not yet, anyway.”
“You do know where you left your prescription medicine?”
“Of course,” Merissa said, and smiled wanly. “It’s in my bedside table, where I always keep it.” She cocked her head. “You think I’ll get one, don’t you?”
Her mother was noncommittal. “You look worried and Dalton looked, I don’t know, upset.”
Merissa averted her eyes. “We had a little...misunderstanding.”
Clara patted her shoulder affectionately. “It’s early days yet,” she said gently. “You don’t really know each other. Time will take care of that.”
Merissa shrugged. “I hope so.”
“Things are usually a little rocky at first. But he’s very fond of you. He doesn’t make any secret of it.”
Merissa nodded. She glanced at her mother. Clara had made her a cup of hot chocolate. She put it in front of her at the table. She poured potatoes into a big bowl, got a knife and sat down to peel them.
“It takes time for people to grow together and trust one another,” she told Merissa. “He’s been alone for a long time.”
“He’s very rich,” Merissa said through her teeth.
“And you think he’ll consider you a gold digger—is that a proper modern word?” Clara laughed. “You’re the least mercenary person I’ve ever known.”
“Still, it’s a very different lifestyle than ours.”
“He’s a rancher. He loves animals. He loves the land. He’s like us. So are his brothers and their wives.”
Merissa made a face. She sipped the hot chocolate and sighed with pure contentment. “Nobody makes this like you do.”
“Thank you, dear.” She was quiet.
“You’re thinking about my father, aren’t you?” she asked.
Clara nodded. “I loved him once,” she said. “It was a horrible way to die, a horrible thing to do, to bring him back here and sacrifice him.” She lifted her eyes to her daughter’s. “He was evil. But even a dog shouldn’t die like that.”
“I know.” Merissa stared into the hot chocolate. “That man should die like that. The one who sent my father back here, who’s trying to kill Dalton.”
Clara’s knife was still. “You should never wish such things on anyone,” she said in her soft voice.
“I know,” Merissa replied. “It’s unnecessary. I’ve seen his death. It’s...more horrible than you could even imagine.” She shivered.
“Let’s talk about something more pleasant.”
“I hear that some fabulously wealthy man is putting together a manned mission to Mars and he wants volunteers,” Merissa said with a grin. “All I need is a spacesuit...”
“You can’t go.”
“Why not?”
Clara laughed. “You have a very nice future ahead of you, right here in Wyoming. And no, I won’t tell you what it is.”
Merissa grimaced. “Well, it doesn’t contain Dalton, I’m sure of that. He almost left a trail of fire behind him getting out of the driveway.”
Clara didn’t say a word. She just smiled.
IT WAS ALMOST inevitable; the migraine. It came on an hour or two after Merissa’s odd conversation with Tank.
She was sitting in the living room with her mother, watching the news, when she began to feel the effects.
She rubbed her temple with obvious pain. It was like a knife in her right eye. When she opened it again, her field of vision in that eye looked like the static on a television station that was temporarily off the air.
“Oh, dear,” she said, feeling nausea rise.
“You’d better take something while you still can,” Clara said worriedly.
“I’ll do it right now.”
She went quickly to her room, picked up the bottle that contained the capsules that she took for her headaches. She should have noticed that they weren’t in the drawer where she’d put them. They were sitting on the table under the lamp. But she was hurting too badly to pay attention.
She shook one capsule out into her hand and popped it into her mouth, swallowing some water to get it down. The prescription was for two, but she hoped she’d taken it early enough to prevent the headache from developing.
While she sipped water from the plastic bottle on the same table as the pills, she glanced at the window curiously. The blinds were askew. She straightened them before she moved back to the bed and slid down onto it. Clara brought her a wet washcloth and put it over her eyes. “Just lie still, honey,” she told the younger woman. “It will pass soon. Can I get you anything?”
“No, I’ll...be fine. I just took one capsule. Maybe it will be enough. Turn off the light and close the curtains, will you?” she whispered.
“At once.”
She did, and tiptoed out, closing the door behind her.
THE PHONE RANG at the Kirk ranch. Mallory picked it up. “Hello?”
There was a hysterical barrage of words from Clara. As he listened, Mallory’s face grew quickly somber.
“Yes, I’ll tell him. Is Carson with you?”
