Читать книгу Unexpected Daughter - Suzanne Cox - Страница 10

“WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL me Brijette Dupre worked in this clinic?”

His uncle leaned away from his desk. “Why don’t you sit down, Cade?”

Cade walked across the small office and dropped into a chair.

The older man sighed. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure what existed between the two of you all those years ago. I knew you didn’t part…happily. I figured you might not come if you knew she worked here. I hoped once the two of you met again, you could get past your differences.”

Realizing his lungs might burst from holding his breath, Cade let the air slip between his teeth in a soft hiss. He’d made an idiot of himself in front of his uncle. Uncle Arthur knew he and Brijette had been more than friends, but if Cade acted like a scorned lover, everyone would think he still had feelings for her.

“I’m concerned she’ll practice her brand of medicine in this clinic on patients I’m responsible for.”

“What brand of medicine do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean—all those voodoo, hoodoo remedies. I know her grandmother taught her that stuff.”

“She does know the old customs, but she’s a licensed nurse practitioner and that’s what she does here.” Doc paused for a moment, his brows knitting together. “Brijette’s completely ethical and would never jeopardize a patient’s health.”

Cade twisted in his seat. “Well…I’m not sure if I trust her.”

His uncle smiled. “You’ll see she’s completely trustworthy. Remember she was only seventeen when you were here before. Whatever happened, just keep that in mind. You’ve both done some maturing since then.”

He nodded, unwilling to say what he was really thinking, which was that certain people never changed. Instead he moved on to another topic of concern.

“If I’m going to run this clinic, she’s not going to be off on Thursdays. I’ll need her here.”

Doc sat forward, crossing his arms on the desktop. “No, she won’t go for that. Besides, she’s not off on Thursday. She has a makeshift clinic in one of the small communities near the river, taking care of patients who can’t make the trip here to see a doctor.”

“She’ll have to postpone it until you’re able to work again.”

His uncle straightened, his features hardening. “No, Cade. I’ve worked this clinic by myself and you can, too. If it’s too much for you, I’ll postpone my surgery until I find another doctor to help while I’m away.”

If he’d wanted a reason to leave, he had one now. He could say it was too much work and take off to Dallas immediately. He studied the slightly pasty complexion of the man in front of him. He actually owed his uncle more than a few months’ work at his clinic. The man had taught him about life, and not the high-society life his mother had so wanted him to adhere to.

Cade had spent his first twenty or so years learning how to live with the country-club set from his mother and father. When he’d come to Cypress Landing, he’d seen how much his uncle cared for his patients and the community in general. People truly respected the man, and not because he had money. Uncle Arthur didn’t have a multi-million dollar business. Cade had never known another doctor who really helped people like his uncle did, and it had inspired him. He’d begun to see a different kind of life than what he’d always known with his parents.

After everything had gotten so ugly, he’d decided he’d been mistaken about what life in Cypress Landing would be. So he’d gone to work in Dallas at the ritzy clinic and found that unreliable and untrustworthy people weren’t confined to one geographical location. He’d been happy here, at least for a while. He could do this. Besides, half his boxes were unpacked and he’d made one friend already, if you could call the little blond trespasser his friend. He needed more time away from Dallas, to get that nasty taste out of his mouth. No, he’d stay here and deal with Brijette Dupre. How hard could it be?

ANYONE WHO PASSED HER in the aisle of the small pharmacy would have thought she was in the throes of debating what type of lotion best suited her. She hadn’t really looked at the bottles lined meticulously on the shelf, even though she did intend to buy one. Instead she kept seeing the image of Cade unwavering in her mind. His blond hair still hung long across his forehead, shoved slightly to one side to show off his green eyes. On the outside Cade hadn’t changed much at all; she wondered if he was still the same on the inside.

Anger and shock, that’s what she’d seen on Cade’s face. Doc Arthur hadn’t told him she’d be in the clinic even though he’d told her a few weeks ago his nephew was coming. Had he been afraid Cade would be a no-show if he knew she’d be around? Did the old man know everything that had happened years ago? She hoped not. He didn’t act as if he knew a thing, but he could know the whole story and be faking it for her benefit. He might have even realized the truth. That idea made the cold sweat pop up on the nape of her neck again. Doc was like family to her. He wouldn’t betray her, even though Cade was his real family, would he?

“Brijette.” The voice of the pharmacist at the back counter brought her mind into the present.

Thankful to be able to stop herself from that line of thinking, she grabbed the nearest bottle of lotion and hurried to the rear of the store where Elliot Arneaux, the pharmacist and owner, bagged several bottles of pills for the elderly Mrs. White. The lady waved at Brijette when she left, and Elliot motioned for her to come behind the counter.

“What’s wrong, Elliot?” She leaned her hip against the cabinet.

“I won’t keep you long, but I wanted to show you this.” He held a piece of paper in front of her.

It was a prescription written from one of the clinic’s pads with her signature at the bottom. On closer inspection, however, she saw that it wasn’t her signature but a fair likeness. A sick feeling started to grow in the pit of her stomach.

“Elliot, this is for OxyContin. You know I don’t write scripts for narcotics like that. DocWheeler writes those.”

The pharmacist frowned. “I thought so, but I figured with Doc Arthur sick, you might have done it without thinking. I didn’t know the guy who brought it in. I told him I’d have to check with the clinic before I could fill it. He wandered around the store, like he was waiting for me to call, and the next thing I knew he was gone.”

Brijette passed him the prescription, trying to keep her fingers from shaking. “You’ll have to report this.”

“I’m going to. I wanted to talk to you first.”

“Thanks. This could get me in trouble if it’s happening in other towns. You guys do monitor these narcotic scripts, right?”

“Yeah, we report excessive narcotic prescriptions from individual doctors. But we’re small, and I know most of the people who come in here. In some other town this would’ve been filled without a question.”

The sick feeling in her stomach began to spread. She didn’t need another problem to add to her list. A prescription with her name on it that she didn’t write definitely fell in the territory of trouble, especially when it was for a narcotic with a very nice street value. Brijette decided she’d have to talk with Matthew Wright as soon as possible. If this had been happening in other pharmacies, the sheriff of Cypress Landing would know, and if he didn’t, he’d check with the city police. Noticing the time on her watch, she hurried to the front to make her purchases. It was late and she still had to pick up Dylan.

GRAVEL CRUNCHED under her tires as Brijette began the quarter mile trip off the highway to her house. The small white clapboard was like a hundred others in the area. Most had been part of a larger plantation at one time or another. She and Dylan had lived in different phases of remodeling for the past three years, while they turned the once ragged place into a comfortable home for the two of them. The blue Tahoe bumped hard in a rut in the drive and Brijette made a mental note to borrow the neighbor’s tractor and box blade to grade the road this week.

“Isn’t that Mr. Robert’s truck?”

Brijette glanced toward Dylan, who she’d just picked up from Norma’s, then she spotted the dual-wheeled truck parked in front of her house. That was convenient. She wouldn’t have to go to Robert Hathorn’s house to ask permission to borrow his tractor, she could ask him now—although the reason he was here would likely cause her to go to his house anyway, or at least to his barn.

Shoving the SUV into Park, she lowered the window. Dylan hadn’t even bothered to undo her seat belt. “That crazy horse of yours get loose again?”

The older man stuck his upper body through the window of his truck and banged his hand on the door. “I don’t know how he did it. Jumped the fence this time, I guess. Think you could help me find him?”

“Sure, I can help you. How long has he been gone?”

“Maybe two hours. I put him in the field and went to town. When I came home, he was gone.”

Brijette waved to him before raising her window to follow the man to his house, not far from Norma’s.

Beside her, Dylan sat straighter. “He should get rid of that horse. He runs away all the time.”

She could see the light in her daughter’s eyes. Despite her complaining, Dylan was obviously excited to have a change in what must have been a boring day for her. The girl reminded Brijette of herself when she was younger. When her grandmother used to take her into the woods to trail an animal, or frequently a person, her senses would be firing, trying to decipher every nuance of her surroundings.

Brijette had learned more about the woods and the land when she was young than many people would ever know. Some people said she had a special gift, or “the sight,” because she could follow a trail so easily and so well. Brijette considered her ability more akin to having very good intuition—at least, that’s what she liked to label the feeling she got when she was on a hard track. She’d moved away from here to go to college where she’d discovered organized search-and-rescue groups and she’d begun adding professional training to her home-taught knowledge. Now she was a member of Cypress Landing’s volunteer search and rescue team, which often meant local people came calling for her help when they needed to find lost pets—and high-dollar horses, of course. But the lessons she’d learned from her grandmother were important ones that she wanted her own daughter to appreciate, lessons that couldn’t be bought with money.

When they came to a stop at Robert Hathorn’s house, Dylan leaped from the truck and bounced on her toes.

“Ready?”

She nearly laughed at the girl, who took off toward the wooden fence. “Don’t step in front of the gate, Dylan. There’ll be enough tracks there already. We don’t need to add more.”

Dylan paused to glance at her. Brijette didn’t have to be close enough to see her to know that she was rolling her eyes. “I know that, Mom.”

All three of them stopped at the edge of the gate. Robert waited behind them while she and Dylan squatted to get a closer look at the ground. Over time the grass had been worn away, leaving only dirt, which was helpful for her.

She tapped Dylan’s shoulder. “Let’s take a walk around.”

Dylan straightened and they started a slow march along the perimeter of the fence that surrounded the pasture. Brijette knelt several times to study the grass or a weed that was bent at an unnatural angle. When they’d made it all the way around, they checked inside the pasture area and finally returned to where Robert waited patiently. Dylan stuck her hands into her pockets. Brijette knew her daughter was glad she didn’t have to tell Robert the bad news.

“That stallion is worth a lot of money, isn’t he?”

Robert frowned at her, pushing back his red hat to scratch his forehead. “Of course he is. He’s one of the top quarter horses around here. I get several thousand dollars stud fee and I could easily sell him for four or five times that. Why?”

“The horse didn’t jump the fence, and he certainly didn’t open this gate and close it by himself. He was stolen. See this—” Brijette motioned for him to come closer, then pointed “—these aren’t your boot tracks. Someone came here, went in the pasture and got the horse. They circled him around and shut the gate, which was really stupid, because if they’d left it open you’d have been more likely to think he’d gotten away on his own.” She took a breath, caught a glimpse of Robert’s wide eyes and stopped. He must have been more attached to that horse than she’d thought.

She put a hand on his arm. “Why don’t you go call the sheriff? Dylan and I will follow the trail to see where it goes. They probably put him in a trailer, farther away from here. I’ll take my cell phone and call you when I find where.”

Robert started toward his truck. He stumbled once and Brijette wondered if she should check on him. But he righted himself.

Turning toward the field, she saw Dylan nearly at the woods. “Come on, Mom. They went this way. That’s Mr. Robert’s favorite horse and he paid a whole bunch of money for him.”

Whoever had taken the horse had also taken the path of least resistance in their escape. The trail led straight to a worn path that followed the creek along Robert’s property. In a few minutes they passed Norma’s yard. Dylan raced ahead of her, and she was satisfied to let the girl lead the hunt herself. However, Dylan picked up the pace considerably and, before she realized it, her daughter was out of sight. Brijette increased her speed. She wasn’t afraid Dylan would get hurt in these woods, but she didn’t want her to stumble onto a horse thief.

Farther ahead, she heard Dylan’s voice shouting. The words brought her to a dead stop. Pure fear sent her into an instant run, ignoring the thin tree limbs that slapped her face and body. Her daughter was saying the name “Cade” and another voice answered—a deeper one.

Brijette broke through the last of the bushes onto the thick carpeted grass of Cade’s yard. Or at least she guessed it was Cade’s. Robert Hathorn had been trying to sell the house, a piece of the family property his great-great-grandfather had built. It had been on the market for months since he’d had it remodeled. She’d never imagined Cade would be living here, but he could certainly afford such an extravagance. Lord knows he had the money.

On the patio, Cade Wheeler stood next to a smoking grill watching Dylan gesture wildly. Even from here Brijette could hear the rumbling of his laughter at her daughter’s antics. Dylan could be quite dramatic in a hilarious kind of way when she embarked on sharing a story, especially one that involved tracking. Brijette hurried toward them. She had to be careful now, for Dylan’s sake as well as her own.

She was almost on top of them when she heard Dylan say, “It’s my mom.” Cade turned toward her, and for the second time today the color drained from his face. She wondered how many of these shocks his heart could take.

Dylan was pulling at her, dragging her closer to him.

“Mom, this is Mr. Cade. I met him when I was fishing. He’s going to work with you. Have you met him yet?”

“What are you doing here?” The words came out with far more force and heat than Cade had intended, effectively stopping Dylan’s chatter. From the corner of his eye he could see that she had gotten very still. The little trespasser, his fishing partner, was Brijette Dupre’s daughter?

“I guess you did meet her at the clinic.” Dylan ground her toe against the patio concrete and Cade cringed slightly. It wasn’t the kid’s fault her mom was…well, what she was. A word that would adequately describe Brijette defied him.

“That’s right, Dylan, I work with Dr. Wheeler at the clinic. Now come on, we’ve got to finish tracking Mr. Robert’s horse.”

The girl tossed her mother a look that Cade wouldn’t have thought kids learned until they reached at least seventeen and believed they knew everything.

“Get real, Mom. You don’t think I dumped the trail like that, do you?” The girl snapped her fingers when she said the word “that” and Cade had to fight to keep from smiling. She pointed to the yard behind his garage. “The trail ended right there. A truck and trailer were parked where you couldn’t see them. Maybe Mr. Cade stole the horse.” She winked at him.

This time he couldn’t stop the smile. “Dylan, I told you it’s Cade, no ‘mister,’ all right? And no, I haven’t stolen a horse or even seen one.”

Brijette moved to the grassy area Dylan had pointed to. The young girl hurried over to her and motioned for Cade to follow. He obeyed without a second thought.

“See, Cade.” Dylan pointed to the grass, which he could now see had been flattened.

“Mr. Wheeler or Dr. Wheeler, Dylan,” Brijette interrupted, and Cade reminded himself to be angry, though with Brijette’s daughter around it was difficult. Oh, well, that was all it took. The fact that she was Brijette’s daughter immediately made him fume again.

“He told me to call him Cade.”

Brijette glared at him. “You haven’t seen anyone around today?”

He shook his head. “No, but I was at the clinic at eight this morning and didn’t get home until six.”

“Your house okay? Nothing missing, nobody broke in?”

“Everything’s exactly as I left it.”

“Probably thought the house was still empty.” This she mumbled more to herself than to him. She retrieved a small cell phone from the chest pocket of her scrubs and dialed a number while walking away from them. Cade hurried to the patio, remembering that he hadn’t even put his steak on the grill yet.

“I’ll tell my mom we’re eating supper with you as soon as she gets off the phone.”

Damn, he’d completely forgotten he’d given the invitation.

“Mom, Cade invited us to eat with him, okay?”

Brijette dropped the phone into her pocket, and at last he got to see her look shocked. “I’m sure you misunderstood Dr. Wheeler, Dylan.”

Dylan’s lips curved into a pout. “No, I didn’t. He said me and my mom should stay for supper. He said it right before you got here.”

“Hmm. I really don’t think we should impose on Dr. Wheeler. Come on, let’s go.” She focused her attention on him. “The sheriff will be around to check the area.”

Brijette began to stride across the yard toward the creek.

“But, Mom, he invited us and he’s new here. He needs to have company so he won’t have to eat all by himself.”

“Dylan, I told you once and I’m not going to say it again. And since when did you start whining?”

Dylan didn’t move from where she’d positioned herself next to him. Brijette frowned at her from across the yard. Were those tears he saw in the girl’s eyes? He sighed and shuffled like a prisoner until he was in front of Brijette.

“I did invite Dylan and her mom for supper. It won’t take long to get two more steaks ready, so stay. Seeing as we’re going to be around each other a lot the next few months, we might as well get used to it.”

Brijette glanced past him to where Dylan awaited the verdict on the patio.

“You didn’t know I was her mother when you gave that invitation or you wouldn’t have done it. I don’t want her to think she can start whining and get her way.”

“You’re right. I wouldn’t have given the invitation if I’d known who her mother was. But I did give it, because I like Dylan. And I still do, despite who her mother is. She seems to be a good kid. Wonders never cease, do they?”

He spun on his heel. This round went to him. Brijette’s tight jawline and partially opened mouth gave him a slight feeling of satisfaction. He chose to ignore the other feelings seeing her again caused.

Stopping on the stairs to the patio, he looked back. One more thing he had to get straight. “Oh, and Brijette, my name is Cade, not Mr. Wheeler, not Mr. Cade and damn sure not Dr. Wheeler. People who know each other as intimately as you and I don’t usually use that kind of formality.”

THE THREE OF THEM finished their meal much faster than Dylan would probably have liked. When Cade offered them a ride to Mr. Robert’s to get their car, Dylan was thrilled, but Brijette would rather have crawled through the woods on her hands and knees than spend more time with him. He’d acted as though she’d said they were going to wade off into the swamp when Brijette told him they’d go through the woods back to their car. In the end it had been easier to agree than to try and explain her reluctance to Dylan.

Dylan wanted to sit up front by him, but he held open the back door and motioned for her to get in, forcing Brijette to take the passenger seat. Dylan asked him questions from the back seat during the ride. He didn’t seem to mind and Brijette was just thankful that she didn’t need to join in. When they stopped at Robert’s, the house was dark and his truck was gone.

“Do you think Mr. Robert is trying to find who took his horse, Mom?”

“He’s probably at the sheriff’s office. Now, thank Cade for the supper so we can go. It’s late.” She was desperate to extricate herself from this situation.

Dylan already had her seat belt off and she pushed herself between the front seats. “Thanks for the supper, Cade. We’ll have to do it again soon. Maybe you can come eat with us one night.”

Brijette pushed her into the back. “Dylan, good grief.”

Her daughter wasn’t the least perturbed by the reprimand. She was grinning herself silly in the back seat while Brijette was trying to decide if she could take a leave of absence from work. But there’d be no avoiding Cade. She had to work with him, but she didn’t want her daughter to be so awestruck by him. That could only lead to trouble. Brijette reached for the door, but Cade caught her arm. “Wait, Brijette. Dylan, go wait in the car. I need to talk to your mom about a patient and we have to do that in private.”

Dylan nodded and slid from her seat, kicking gravel all the way to their SUV. At least he’d made her mad in the end. She hoped Dylan would stay miffed at Cade for, oh, the next six months.

The lights from the dash glowed on Brijette’s skin and Cade had to tell himself twice to take his hand off her arm. Some things never changed and that shotgun-blast feeling he got from touching Brijette Dupre was one of them. He didn’t want to remember how her skin felt under his fingers, but he did. She faced him and he could feel his body leaning toward her, something about those dark eyes… He forced himself to straighten and put more distance between them. Thankfully, she spoke and that bewitching spell broke.

“Thanks for being so nice to Dylan. I’ll try to make sure she doesn’t worry you at your house.”

“Dylan doesn’t worry me, and I didn’t ask you to stay in this car so you could thank me.” At last he could get his brain on track and onto the most important question he’d ever asked.

“Right. Which patient did you want to discuss?”

“I don’t want to talk about a patient. I wanted to speak to you in private.”

She squirmed in her seat and he imagined she knew what was coming. “I want you to tell me who in the hell is the father of that child.”