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  “But I’m a grieving family member! Susan was my sister, and the impact of her death hit me so hard I’ve been forced to take a leave.”

  “Yes, I agree that will put an interesting spin on the situation.”

  Cheyenne felt her skin tingle with anger. Stay calm. He’s doing his job. “Interesting? Excuse me, but we’re talking about the death of my sister.”

  The attorney leaned forward totally in control of the conversation with her now, as Larry Strong sat taking notes. “I understand that, Dr. Allison, believe me, I do. But in order to handle this nasty situation successfully, we can’t allow our emotions to control us. We have to look at some very cold, hard facts, weigh them against each other and decide what to do about them, keeping in mind that the other side will be playing on the emotions of many people in order to damage you and your testimony in any way they can legally do so. You must keep a cool head.”

  “I can do that.”

  “You aren’t doing it today. I realize you’ve had little time to prepare for this emotionally, but you’re a doctor. You’ve learned how to distance yourself from your emotions when you’re treating your patients. You need to do the same thing with this case.”

  This case was all about her sister’s death. How was she supposed to distance herself from that? And yet she knew she had to.

  “We’ll try to emphasize your relationship with the deceased, of course, every chance we get,” Ed said, “but the plaintiff in this case is Kirk Warden, and his attorneys will attempt to draw the jury’s sympathy toward the bereaved widower. If they are able to use your leave of absence against you in court—perhaps to imply you might have been incompetent on the day you treated your sister, as well—”

  “But that isn’t fair. I’m not incompetent, I’m—”

  “Please, Dr. Allison, I understand that. They will, too, but they will turn it against you in every way they can. Unfortunately Warden’s attorneys have some finely honed abilities.”

  “Kirk plays golf with several attorneys on Friday mornings,” Cheyenne said. “He’s been a plaintiff once before in a malpractice case. He’s highly litigious.”

  “I gathered that,” Ed said. “You know, of course, not to discuss the situation with anyone besides your attorneys and Larry. In particular, don’t discuss it with the husband of the deceased, or his attorneys.”

  “Please, would you refer to my sister as Susan?”

  “Yes, of course. I’m sorry, Dr.—”

  “And please call me Cheyenne. Look, Ed, I’ve read the records. I may be blinded by my emotions right now, but they can’t possibly believe I made any mistakes during the resuscitation efforts. As my director pointed out to me, I resorted to extreme measures to save her, and I left nothing out.”

  “I think you’re right,” Ed said. “Our focus for now, until both sides have had more time for discovery, will be the medication you gave Mrs. Warden during her first visit to the Emergency Department, earlier in the day.”

  Cheyenne had expected that. “You’re concerned that she wasn’t advised properly about the risks of operating a motor vehicle under the effects of the drug.”

  “I believe that will be Mr. Warden’s chief focus. As you can see, his attorneys have already engaged the services of an expert witness.”

  “I documented my advisory on the medical record. I also warned her repeatedly, as did the nurse, Ardis Dunaway.”

  “I believe the plaintiff will try to prove you didn’t warn her often enough, or take the necessary measures to keep her from driving,” Ed said.

  “But that isn’t true.”

  “It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. What matters is whether or not the plaintiff’s attorneys and their paid medical expert can convince the jury to doubt you, and your integrity, in any way. That’s their job. For instance, the records show Mr. Warden wasn’t called the first time Mrs. Warden was brought in.”

  “I offered to call him, but Susan asked me not to. Ordinarily I would have called a family member to come and pick her up, but as her sister, I called a taxi to take her home. As a doctor I emphasized her need to not drive under the influence of the drug. Susan said she had an appointment with a client that afternoon, but the client was a neighbor, so Susan could walk there.”

  There was a knock at the door, and Lisa opened it and stuck her head inside. “Excuse me, Larry, the lunch you ordered is here.”

  “Good, thanks. Let them bring it on in.” He looked at Ed and Cheyenne. “This promises to be a lengthy session. We’ll need something to keep us going. Cheyenne, your director told me you love Kansas City barbecue, so I’ve taken the liberty of ordering some ribs. Comfort food. I think we could all use it today.”

  If only food could be a comfort. Cheyenne felt sick. She had been told that being sued for malpractice was a brutal experience, but she’d never realized how devastating it could be. The petition she received from the sheriff had been worded in a way that implied she was totally incompetent, and it struck at the very core of her life.

  She looked up as a setting was placed before her, complete with a bib to deflect sauce. Her sister was dead, and she was being held responsible.

  As she reached for her plate, she decided to ask for more time off. Right now, this whole city felt like hostile territory.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was about an hour before sunset when Cheyenne crested the hill on the quarter-mile driveway to home. She saw a welcome scene as the car coasted down the rocky track. Red and Bertie worked in her garden, while Dane trimmed the hedge around her yard.

  Had they somehow sensed her desperate need for friendly faces? From what she’d learned today, everything she had done for Susan the day of her death was open to question, and she could count on being grilled about every word, every action. Kirk and his attorneys were cashing in on Susan’s death—apparently that was more important than justice.

  Dane gave her a welcoming grin that engaged his whole face as he walked across the yard toward her car. “Red and Bertie are planting more vegetables,” he told her when she got out of the vehicle. “I guess you know they’ll be forever sorry about the goat attack.”

  Cheyenne closed the car door, too weary from the drive and the meeting to reply. Her interrogatories lay on the passenger seat of her car. She was tempted to bury them out in the barn lot, or maybe burn them on the front lawn. She was expected to share all vital information about herself with an enemy who could then take that information and figure out a way to use it against her in court—or sell it on the street corner to anyone interested in stealing her professional identity.

  Dane walked with her to the front porch, where she slumped on the top step. “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll be fine.” She’d endured the rigors of medical school, internship, residency, just so her career could be ruined by one vindictive person. “Lawsuits are just another fact of a doctor’s life. So is death.”

  He sat down beside her. “Rough day?”

  She nodded. “I feel as if I’ve been stabbed in the back. Instead of taking out the knife and suturing the wound, people are telling me it needs to stay there until a group of people who know nothing about me, and nothing about my job, decide whether to plunge the knife even deeper. Of course, before that happens, someone may just decide to break off the handle and leave the blade in place.”

  “They’re talking about settling out of court?”

  She nodded. “It’s like admitting I did something I didn’t do.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  For a moment she was tempted to rest her head on his shoulder and release the tears that had been building all afternoon. Before Susan died, Cheyenne hadn’t cried easily. Now it seemed practically anything could move her to tears.

  “The hospital’s attorneys seem to feel my sister’s widower actually has a case against me.” She had explained the whole thing to Dane after the sheriff had served her last Friday. “It looks like I’m going to have a big legal battle on
my hands unless I can find some way to make my ex-brother-in-law back off, and here I am spouting when I’ve been told not to talk about the case.”

  She got up to go inside. Dane followed. From the living room she caught a glimpse of her bedroom, with a bedspread and curtains in pink and cream. Something about the colors soothed her. The kitchen, however, was the room that matched the soft mint-green stains on the tennis shoes and T-shirt she had discarded two days ago. The house still smelled of paint and turpentine. She decided she loved that strong smell. She needed the distraction of the work she was doing on the house right now.

  She led the way into the kitchen, reached into the freezer section of the refrigerator and took out the cake Bertie had given her two weeks ago. “Have a seat and rescue me, will you? I need some major help getting this down.”

  “Say, is that black-walnut cake?”

  “Bertie’s specialty. I can’t eat it all by myself.” Or any of it.

  Dane reached into the cabinet and took out two glasses. He poured some goat milk from the refrigerator.

  A few moments later, after the cake had some time to thaw, Cheyenne drew comfort from the domestic act of cutting the cake, setting out dishes and silverware, feeling her cat’s sudden presence at her feet. “There’s pie, too, if you want some.” Please.

  “You don’t have to beg too hard. Bertie’s black-walnut desserts are my favorite.” He accepted the overly generous piece of cake.

  She was apparently the only person in the county who couldn’t stand the smell or taste of black walnuts.

  She joined him at the table, picking up her glass. She’d learned she loved goat’s milk, goat cheese, gooseberry pie and practically every other food offering from the Meyer farm, unless it contained black walnuts. The elderly couple were generous with their gifts to her, and generous with their time. She had never realized how much she would appreciate that.

  “So, how can you make the plaintiff back off?” Dane asked.

  “I don’t think I can.” She didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “Tell me, do Red and Bertie make a habit of adopting complete strangers?”

  He gave her a brief glance, and his expression showed that he understood. “No, they don’t have anything to do with the vacationers.” He chuckled. “Red fumes constantly in the summertime because the visitors take over his choice fishing places. The island is one of his favorite spots. He likes to row over there and sit on the rocks of the cliffs, soaking in the sunshine to keep his bones from stiffening up. He’s been taking Blaze with him lately.”

  “Red and Blaze,” Cheyenne murmured. “What a combination.”

  “Red gets a kick out of their nicknames. The two of them have been friends ever since Blaze came here.”

  “Bertie told me about losing their little boy,” Cheyenne said. “Maybe Blaze is easing a little of their loss after all these years.”

  “Could be. He definitely needs a mother, and Bertie’s good at mothering the whole town.”

  “Is Blaze’s own mother that bad?”

  Dane grimaced and glanced down at the half-eaten cake. “I think in her own way she loves him.” He cleared his throat and looked up at Cheyenne. “She’s a difficult person to get along with, and she and Blaze have a dysfunctional relationship. She and Blaze’s father were divorced when Blaze was a child. Blaze lived with his father, and only saw his mother sporadically.”

  “Her decision or Blaze’s?”

  “I believe it was mutual. After his father died, I think she tried, but Blaze has a learning disability, and she didn’t seem to be able to deal with it.”

  “A learning disability?”

  “He’s dyslexic.”

  “So? Big deal. I’m dyslexic and it didn’t stop me, just slowed me down a little.”

  He put his fork down. “You’re dyslexic?”

  “That’s right. I had a lot of trouble learning to read when I was a kid, but my parents didn’t pawn me onto the foster system because they couldn’t deal with it. Is there any hope for Blaze and his mother to reconcile?”

  “There’s always hope. I have to be careful that I don’t allow my own prejudices to affect the way I handle the situation.”

  “How’s that?”

  “For instance, I feel Blaze receives more attention from us at the ranch, and from Red and Bertie, than he could ever hope to receive from his mother. I also believe he fills a need in Red and Bertie’s lives.”

  Blue nudged Cheyenne’s leg for attention, and she pulled him up into her lap, taking comfort from the warmth and softness of his furry little body, the racket of his purr. “Bertie told me their son died forty years ago. It was a long wait to fill the need.”

  “Did Bertie mention the possibility that if there had been medical help closer to Hideaway, their son might not have died?” Dane asked.

  “Medical care isn’t miracle care,” she said. “Odds are, that long ago, if he didn’t make it to the hospital alive, he wouldn’t have lived even if there’d been a doctor right here in town.”

  “What about now?” Dane finished his cake and nudged his plate aside. “As an experienced emergency physician with the right equipment, would you have been able to—”

  “Don’t even ask, because there’s no answer. Besides, I have a job, and it’s in Columbia.”

  “People change jobs all the time.”

  “Not if they’re happy where they are.”

  “And are you?” he asked.

  “This isn’t a good time to ask that question.”

  A soft breeze puffed the new, muted magenta lace curtains away from the kitchen windows. With the breeze came the scent of sweet clover and honeysuckle. Cheyenne breathed deeply. The trees were all green and beautiful, in their full spring array. Walnut, hickory, birch, sassafras, all grew close around the house.

  She had to admit she was enjoying this place, in spite of the goats and the bullies and the sick people who could, conceivably, cost her her medical license if she was caught treating them.

  “Cheyenne!” came Bertie’s excited shout through the open window. “You’d better get out here quick. Red’s fixing to ruin a perfectly good tree.”

  “Don’t you know those things are dangerous?” Red’s voice drifted past his wife’s from somewhere around the side of the house.

  Cheyenne looked at Dane as they got up from the table. “Now paradise has dangerous trees?”

  He shrugged, apparently mystified. “Let’s go see what he’s up to. Just remember he’s a superstitious old cuss, but please don’t laugh at him. It hurts his feelings.”

  She followed him out the back door. “I gather you know this from personal experience.”

  “That’s right.”

  They reached the west side of the house to find Red leaning on his hoe, his wrinkled face etched with worry. “You’ll be cursed if you let this rotten old tree live.” He touched a small cedar tree with the hoe blade. “Ought to let me cut it down for you.”

  “Oh, Red,” Bertie yelled. “Cheyenne doesn’t want to hear our old hill wives’ tales. She’s a sophisticated city girl.”

  “The curse’ll get pretty girls as fast as ugly girls!” he shouted back at his wife, shaking his finger at her. “I seen it happen. You let a cedar tree grow high enough in your front yard to shadow a grave, and someone in the house’ll die. Mark my words!”

  “Then we don’t have anything to worry about,” Cheyenne said. “I’m not going to be here long enough for that to happen.”

  The sudden silence concerned her.

  “What’d she say?” Red shouted to his wife.

  “Said she’s leaving, and it’s all your fault for cutting down her trees.”

  “Bertie!” Cheyenne said. She turned to Dane helplessly.

  “Red, this isn’t Cheyenne’s place,” Dane said. “She can’t give you permission to cut down a tree.”

  “I pulled out the weeds in that garden, didn’t I? It’s the same thing,” Red grumbled. “Even worse! Most weeds don’t put curses
on people.”

  Curses? Where on earth had he gotten such a crazy idea? “Dane,” Cheyenne said softly, “you’re the agriculture guy. What would it hurt to let him cut down a sapling?”

  “It isn’t as if cedars are indigenous to this area. If it makes him feel better, I don’t think it’s going to hurt the future of Hideaway’s ecological health. Just remember, don’t laugh at him.”

  She sighed. “Fine, Red, cut it down.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I said cut it down!”

  Red’s scowl immediately transformed to a pleased grin. He picked up his hoe, nodded to his wife and raised the hoe high in the air.

  Dane followed Cheyenne back to the house, admiring the glimmer of blue-black highlights in her hair as the sunlight touched it. He found himself more and more intrigued by this woman—and attracted, not only by her appearance, but her actions, her character.

  “Cheyenne, are you still leaving at the end of May?”

  She strolled ahead of him in silence.

  “Cheyenne?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  That could be a good thing.

  “Initially, I’d planned to take two months,” she said. “But I spoke with my director today, and he told me my shifts for June can easily be covered. After that they’ll have access to cheap labor.”

  “Cheap?”

  “Residents. They’re always looking for opportunities to moonlight, because they get paid very little during residency training.”

  Good, then she wasn’t leaving right away, after all. Which meant she might still be persuaded that Hideaway could be a decent place to make a living. To make a home.

  “Since you’re going to be here awhile, would you be interested in spending some one-on-one time with Blaze? He’s been talking about getting his driver’s license recently, but he can’t get a license if he can’t read. He needs tutoring.”

  “Does he agree?”

  Dane chuckled. “Yes, but you can imagine how reluctantly. The problem is, there isn’t a summer school around close.”