“Don’t change the subject, girlie. That Douglas would marry you in a minute if you’d give him the least bit of encouragement.”
She kept her voice light. “I’m not in love with Douglas.”
“Pshaw.” Harlan’s face was drawn with fatigue, but his spirit was as cantankerous as ever. “What do young.folks know about that? Time was when two people—”
“Did I tell you Charlie came by with the ‘dozer bid?” Sarah Ann interrupted. “If we get those damaged orchards cleared, we can replant right away.”
“Damn hurricanes. Always causing trouble,” he grumbled, sidetracked for the moment. “What about the roof on the tractor shed?”
“That’s next on the list.” She mentally counted all the other things that needed doing, too. The thought of climbing a ladder and hammering tin filled her with dread, but she’d do what she had to do. She always did. Keeping her tone cheerful, she added, “Oh, and we got next season’s contracts from the farmers co-op.”
“Those orange-eating buzzards! Until some other outfit puts in a new processing plant and gives them some competition, they’ll try to steal us blind.”
“I can handle it, Gramps.”
“No, dad-blame it, you can’t!” In the blink of an eye, Harlan worked himself into a state, harping back over ground they’d covered time and again. “And I won’t be around to tend to things for you.”
“Don’t say that, Gramps.” She tried vainly to keep the distress out of her voice. “You’re going to get well and come home very soon.”
“Time to face facts, girlie.” He wheezed painfully, and his gnarled, work-worn hands made restless circles across the white sheets. “Looks like I’ve run out of aces. Damnation, but I thought you’d be settled with a good man and a passel of babies by now. If you and Douglas—”
“Forget about him.”
He slapped a shaky fist against the bed rail, his voice quivering with both anger and physical weakness. “If you aren’t going to marry the boy, then I’m going to take him up on his offer.”
“What offer?”
“To buy the whole place, lock, stock and barrel.”
Shock widened her eyes. “What!”
Harlan nodded. “He said he’d be glad to help out, and that’ll give you a nest egg. If you’re set on being an old maid, the least I can do is leave you the money to go back to college and finish out that teacher’s degree.”
“I don’t want that. And I can’t believe you’d sacrifice everything we’ve built for this crazy notion!”
“Crazy, am I?” Mounting agitation mottled his pallid skin, and his chest heaved. “Pass me that there phone, and I’ll show you what’s what!”
The look on his face alarmed her, as did the racking cough that shook his wiry frame.
“That’s all right, Gramps. Let’s talk calmly about it, okay?” She tried to placate him with a smile and reached for the plastic pitcher and glass on the bedside table. “Here, have some water.”
“Hand me the dad-blamed phone!” He shoved the water glass aside, slopping icy liquid down the front of Sarah Ann’s shirt. “I’m gonna see you’re taken care of one way or t’other.”
“Gramps, please—”
He scrabbled for the receiver, swinging IV tubing and coughing harshly. Someone knocked on the door. Nearly frantic with concern now, Sarah Ann rushed to admit the nurse.
Her hands froze on the door handle, and her mouth dropped open. She took in cowboy boots, long jeanclad legs and a white T-shirt stretched over broad shoulders. A pair of aviator sunglasses were hooked to the crew neck.
“What do you want?”
Gabe Thornton’s jaw worked at that hostile demand, but his manner was diffident, even deferential. “Miss Dempsey. I hate to bother you here, but if you could spare a moment, I’d like a word.”
“About what?” Fingers clutching the edge of the door, she cast an anxious glance over her shoulder, unnerved by Gramps’s continued hacking.
Gabe’s tawny gaze touched her, focused briefly on the damp knit clinging to her bosom, then hastily moved on. “My partners and I are very interested in that frontage property.”
Her teeth snapped together. “You’ve got your nerve. Go away.”
“If you’ll just hear me out—”
“Sarah…”
At Gramps’s strangled call, she forgot Gabe and rushed back to the bedside. Her grandfather’s pallor had turned a dull bluish tint. “Oh, my God—Gramps!”
Helplessness and fear paralyzed her, but then Gabe Thornton was beside her, taking in the situation, moving quickly, efficiently, lifting Harlan to a more upright position as easily as if he were a child and stuffing pillows behind his back.
“Take it easy, old-timer.” Gabe’s husky drawl was reassuringly matter-of-fact and held nothing of Sarah Ann’s panic. Balancing Harlan with one brawny arm, he slapped the call button on the wall, spoke quietly at the nurse’s buzz. “Respiratory distress. Get in here. Now.”
To Sarah Ann’s infinite gratitude, the imperative in his tone had a pair of nurses bursting through the door within seconds. Gabe transferred the patient to their capable ministrations. Terrified, Sarah Ann watched them work in a flurry of IV injections, blood pressure cuffs and oxygen tubing. Gabe took her elbow and gently tugged her out of the way.
“He’ll be all right,” he murmured.
She couldn’t answer and was only vaguely aware that she’d clenched a fist into Gabe’s shirt and was holding on to that anchor for dear life. He humored her, allowing the liberty, placing an arm across her back so that she was halfsupported against the bulk of his chest. She didn’t question the arrangement, merely soaked up the strength that seemed to emanate from him along with the warm scent of his skin, a mixture of male musk and soap.
Although it seemed an eternity, within just a few minutes Harlan’s breathing was less labored.
“That’s a lot better, isn’t it, Mr. Dempsey?” the head nurse asked cheerfully. Fifty and stout, Lillian Cannon was no-nonsense, performing her duties and directing her younger companion with absolute control and competency. Over the bed she caught Sarah Ann’s eye and mouthed, “He’s okay now.”
Sarah Ann slumped with relief, bowing her head and resting it for the briefest of seconds against Gabe’s chest. Her heart cried out with the sure foreknowledge of grief to come. “Okay” for now, she thought. But for how much longer?
She had the fleeting sensation of sympathetic fingers stroking her hair. Before she could decide if she was mistaken, embarrassment slammed into her. Cheeks heating, she tried to pull away, too chagrined to even look at Gabe. He let her retreat a bit, but only to guide her with a hand in the small of her back to her grandfather’s bedside. Gramps watched them approach, his blue eyes tired over the clear plastic oxygen mask covering his nose.
“You rest now, Mr. Dempsey,” Lillian said, patting his hand. Then, to Sarah Ann, “Do you know what broughtthis on?”
Guiltily, she swallowed hard and nodded. “A difference of opinion.”
The head nurse gave her a stern look, the kind that said disturbing seriously ill patients in this manner was beneath contempt. “Dr. Stephens said we’ve got to avoid this kind of upset at any cost, you know that.”
“Yes.”
“As long as we understand each other. At any cost.”
Nodding,