* * * * *
The next morning Elise stood watching the Tanner brothers working together with several other rodeo personnel to ready the trucks. The break was over and the rodeo would be back on the road for another few weeks…well, minus May.
Nan told her Cade had fired her the night before and that May had cleared out her things that very night.
The warm sun beat down on her, burning off the dampness from the day before. The smell of fresh hay rushed toward her as she took a long, deep breath. Within a few hours the heat would suck the moisture right out of the air around her and the ground underneath her feet. Her whole body ached from yesterday morning’s drenching and the long afternoon and night with Colt. Elise closed her eyes and lifted her face toward the bright light, enjoying the warmth that came with the early morning sun and the temporary cooler weather the storm left in its wake.
The sound of a car driving down the long, gravel driveway drew her attention. When a woman with salt and pepper hair emerged from her station wagon, Elise smiled and ran over to the car.
Hugging the petite woman tight, she could barely contain her excitement, “Aunt Marie, I hope your vacation was a blast.” Pulling back, she continued, “I can’t begin to thank you for the Lonestar. I’ve had the best time working on the website, getting to know the members of the ranch, learning the ropes of running a rodeo ranch,” she babbled on in her enthusiasm.
Her aunt kissed her cheek, then leaned back smiling. “I’m thrilled to see you so happy. I knew you needed this, sweetie.” She glanced over to Colt and his brothers and finished, “Just as much as I knew they needed you.”
Elise replied with a laugh, “Oh, I think the Tanner boys are pretty self-sufficient.” Shrugging she continued, “I’ve just done what I could to help out.”
Marie’s gaze stayed locked on the men, a general fondness reflected in her expression. “They’re good men.”
Elise followed her gaze and smiled at the good-natured ribbing going on between the brothers. Mace had thrown some hay on his brothers and with their shirts removed and sweat glistening on their upper bodies, the hay stuck all over them. Cade now had Mace in a headlock and he looked at Colt, his serious gaze taking on a devilish gleam, “I think he deserves a dunk in the water trough, bro. What do ya say?”
Colt scowled at his brothers as he brushed off the hay, then crossed his arms. Elise expected him to berate them, but instead he surprised her as he walked around behind Cade.
Grabbing Mace’s legs, he said, “Nah, let’s throw him in the mucked hay from this morning’s stable cleanin’. Might make ‘im smell a little better.”
As Colt and Cade carried a struggling, cussing Mace toward the back of the barn, Elise nodded in agreement. “I can’t believe how different they each are.”
Marie nodded. “Yeah, their mother leaving when they were still growing up really left a mark on each of them.” She tilted her head and finished, “They’ve each handled the loss in their own way.”
Elise jerked her gaze back to Marie. “What? I assumed their mother had died abruptly and folks just didn’t want to talk about her.”
Hooking her arm in Elise’s, Marie walked her over to the fence. “No,
Sha
ron left their dad when the oldest was just a teenager. She’d grown tired of the ranching life and missed her socialite days, I suppose,” she paused and sighed before continuing, “She went home to her family, back to Washington, D.C. Broke Gil’s heart and left the boys with their own issues to deal with.” She nodded to the men. “For obvious reasons, Colt doesn’t trust many women. Cade? Well, he lives a nomad’s life, never really settling, and Mace appears to have taken the opposite approach from Colt,” she paused and laughed. “He loves
all
women.”
Elise’s stomach tensed at Marie’s assessment of Colt. It all made sense now…why Colt had called her “Princess”, why he avoided any type of deeper emotional connection with her. That’s what May had started to say to her the other day before Cade interrupted her—that with her father’s money, her privileged upbringing, Colt must’ve seen her as the same type of person as his mother. She’d come to know Colt pretty well…he’d never let himself go through what his father had.
Her chest constricted at the thought while her heart broke for all the Tanner men, especially for Colt’s father. What a devastating way to lose the one person you expected to spend the rest of your life with.
“I had no idea, Aunt Marie. Thank you for telling me. A lot of things, little comments here and there, make sense to me now.”
Marie turned twinkling green eyes her way, her grin causing deeper wrinkles to form on her attractive face. “Been giving you a hard time, have they?”
Elise snorted. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
Marie hugged her tight and whispered in her ear, “That’s my girl.”
She turned and walked toward the main ranch house, calling over her shoulder, “I’m going to catch up with Nan. Let’s have lunch together later.”
“Sounds good,” Elise replied as she rubbed her sore neck. Good Lord, just what had she and Colt done last night to make her neck hurt so?
* * * * *
Elise spent the first part of her morning straightening her office. Someone had gone through her filing cabinet, leaving her files in shambles. Upon checking Colt’s office and finding it in similar shape, Elise knew it had to have been May because May’s employee folder was the only one missing from Colt’s Lonestar personnel files. Good riddance was all Elise had to say!
She spent the rest of the morning working on the new storefront for the website. When she had a skeleton framework completed, she sat back and rolled her shoulders, then rubbed her aching neck. Sitting and staring at the computer, working so intensely caused a headache to form right behind her temples. Man, she didn’t need a migraine right now. She’d only had one once in her life and that was plenty as far as she was concerned.
She looked up when her aunt entered her office, saying in a cheery voice, “I know it’s almost 1:00 p.m. I lost track of time chatting with Nan. Are you still up for lunch, dear?”
Elise glanced at her backup watch—she still needed to get her grandmother’s repaired—surprised to discover how late it was. Pushing back her chair, she started to stand, saying, “I’m sorry, Aunt Marie, but I’m not feeling so well. I think I’m getting a migraine. I need to go lay…”
She didn’t get to finish her sentence as a thousand black and white lights blocked her vision and her knees started to give out from underneath her. Leaning forward, she quickly put her hands on the desk to steady herself.
“Elise!” she heard her aunt cry out her name as the entire room spun and then went black.
* * * * *
“Colt, Mace, anyone!”
Colt heard someone’s voice shouting as soon as he entered the office. He picked up his pace, his heart racing at the alarm in the woman’s tone coming from the direction of Elise’s office.
Marie was leaning across the desk, trying desperately to hold onto Elise’s arms to keep her from falling to the floor. Elise was slumped over her desk, her eyes closed, her face very pale.
Colt’s heart jerked in his chest at the scary sight. He took swift strides around the backside of the desk and pulled Elise up into his arms. In a tone sounding much calmer than he felt, he asked, “What happened, Marie?”
Marie brushed Elise’s hair off her forehead as he passed her and walked into the hall.
“I don’t know,” she responded, following behind him. “She asked me to have lunch with her earlier, so once I’d visited with Nan for a while, I came on over. She mentioned not feeling well, something about a migraine, and when she started to stand up, she suddenly looked very pale. Then she fainted.”
Colt stopped at the entryway to the office at the same time Mabel returned from lunch. Upon seeing Elise in his arms, she hovered around him too. “Lord, Colt, what happened to Elise?”
As Marie touched her niece’s cheek, a concerned expression on her face, Colt’s entire body tensed and his heart raced at the idea of something happening to Elise. When Elise stirred in his arms, he quickly said to Marie, “Call Doc Hanks. Tell him to meet us at the hospital—”
Elise lifted her head from his shoulder and moaned out, “No…hospital. Migraine. Just take me home.”
Colt wanted to make sure Elise was okay no matter what she said. He changed his request. “Tell Doc to meet me at my house.”
“She’ll stay with me,” Marie quickly said.
Colt met her steady gaze, his expression resolute. “Marie, your niece and I—” he broke off, took a calming breath then finished in a determined tone. “She’s coming home with me.”
Marie looked into his eyes for a long moment, assessing him before she nodded in agreement.
As he turned to walk out of the office, Mabel had already picked up the phone.
When they’d been in the car for a few minutes, Elise put her hands to her head, moaning. Colt put a reassuring hand on her thigh and squeezed gently; his fingers on the steering wheel turned white, he gripped it so hard in his worry for her.
“I’m here, Lise,” he said in a low tone, while glancing back at the road. His stomach clenched at the sounds of pain she made.
“Stop the car,” she mumbled.
As soon as his foot hit the brake, she had the door open and was leaning out throwing up.
Colt felt like someone had kicked him in the gut at the sight. Total helplessness rolled over him as he rubbed her back until she finally stopped retching. When the dry heaves came, she pulled the door shut saying in a pained voice, “I think I’ll make it home now.”
Elise kept her eyes shut the entire trip. Once he arrived at his home and turned the engine off, she opened her eyes briefly while he lifted her out of the car.
“Go figure it’d take me feeling like death warmed over for you to bring me to your house,” she croaked as she closed her eyes once more and laid her head against his neck.
Colt’s stomach twisted in guilt at her words. She couldn’t be feeling too bad if she could crack a sarcastic joke, right?
“Anything you want, sweetheart,” he murmured against her temple, ready to give her the world just to make her better again.
“Now he tells me,” came her muffled reply against his chest as he entered his house and climbed the stairs to his bedroom.
As he laid her on his bed and pulled off her boots, Elise threw her arm over her eyes and rasped, “No light, please.”
Colt shut the bedroom door, then quickly walked over and pulled the drapes closed on the one window in the room, dousing it in semi-darkness.
Slowly making his way back toward the bed, he sat down beside her and reached for her hand. Giving it a gentle squeeze he started to ask, “Elise, are you sure it’s a migr—”
“No talking…peace…quiet,” she whispered, her voice sounding hoarse.
“I need to know for sure what’s wrong—” The doorbell rang downstairs, interrupting his question.
Colt left the room and jogged downstairs. Opening the door, he shook the man’s hand standing outside.
“Thanks for coming, Doc,” he said in a gruff voice. He glanced upstairs. “She’s upstairs. Do what you can for her. She means a great deal to me.”
The doctor nodded his gray head and as he proceeded up the stairs, Marie stepped inside.
Her appearance startled Colt. He’d been so focused on getting Elise help he hadn’t even seen Marie standing there.
“Sorry, Marie.” He gave her a tired smile. “I didn’t see you there.”
She nodded her understanding. “I told the doc to draw some blood to make sure she doesn’t have something else going on that should be treated at a hospital.”
Colt nodded his understanding, thankful Marie had thought ahead. Right now his brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders. He’d do whatever it took to make Elise well.
“Have a seat,” he said, then dropped onto his hunter green sofa and ran his hands over his face.
As she settled into a matching chair and propped her feet on the ottoman, Marie asked, “Has she been around anyone who was sick lately?”
Colt shook his head. “No. We worked pretty hard yesterday and she was soaked to the bone for a good couple of hours during the storm, but no one I can think of.”
They sat in silence for a good ten minutes. The longer the time went on, the more his stomach knotted in worry. Just when he was about to get up and go check on the Doc and Elise, the older man closed the bedroom door and pulled off his stethoscope as he walked down the stairs.
He nodded to Marie first. “I took a vial of blood and will run the limited tests I can to make sure things appear normal.”
Glancing at Colt he continued, “I’ve given her some painkiller and I’ll leave you a couple of samples if she needs more when she wakes up. She’ll be out a few hours with what I gave her. If she needs more beyond that, she needs to come see me in my office and we can talk options before I fill out a prescription.”
Colt took the samples from him and put them in his pocket as he followed the doctor outside. Once the older man climbed in his car, Colt closed the door, leaned on the frame and put his hand through the open window to shake the doc’s hand. “Thanks for coming, Joe, I appreciate it.”
Before the man could withdraw his hand, Colt held firm. “Can you give her doctor’s orders to stay in bed for a couple of days for me?”
“I can’t really do that if all she has in a migraine.” He grinned, then winked. “But somehow I’ll bet if you worked hard at it, you could convince her to stay in bed for a couple of days.” Looking back toward the house he continued, “Elise seems like a fine young woman.”
Colt nodded. “She is.”
As he turned the key in the ignition, he called out over the rumbling of his car engine, “Take good care of her, Colt.”
While Doc drove his utility vehicle down the long drive and the taillights disappeared as he went over a hill, Colt contemplated the possibility of something happening to Elise.
He’d kept his distance so he’d be prepared when she decided to leave, but the very idea of something happening to her made his stomach clench in fear and left a deep ache in his heart.
When Colt went back inside, he asked Marie, “Would you mind hanging out while I go and collect some things for Elise from her apartment?”
She raised a perfectly arched eyebrow and asked, “Colt Tanner, just how close
are
you and my niece?”
He pulled his hat off the table, set it on his head, and replied in a serious tone, “About as close as two people can get, Marie.”
A wide grin crossed her face as she said, “Well then, best you get your butt over to her apartment, young man. It’s high time you started livin’ life instead of just existing in it.”
Thankful for what appeared to be Marie’s approval, but knowing the inner turmoil he still fought within himself, Colt resisted the urge to wince at her comment as he headed out the door.