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  And had he really been sneaking out at night just to sit on the dock and think about his dad?

  Dane had trusted in the system, and in a teenager, once before, and had been proven dangerously wrong. Were his instincts faulty with this one, as well? Was Austin right?

  “Cheyenne, do you ever pray for your patients?”

  She didn’t reply.

  Again, he glanced at her. She was staring out the window into the darkness. She shook her head.

  “I’ve read some good articles about the positive results of prayer with medical cases. Have you seen anything like that in your medical journals?”

  “Plenty,” she said. “But trust me, you don’t want me praying for Blaze. The only time I cried out to God, He took my sister.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  By the time Dane and Cheyenne reached the Saint John’s trauma center at two o’clock Thursday morning, the ER physician had done an initial exam on Blaze, called a cardiologist and was waiting for the radiologist to read the X rays before they could clear the cervical collar.

  Cheyenne heard Blaze’s laughter as she walked beside Dane down the hallway toward his exam room after speaking with the doctor who had treated him.

  Dane released a breath of relief. “It doesn’t sound as if this ordeal has dampened his spirits.”

  They entered the room and found Blaze teasing the nurse who was rechecking his vitals.

  “I don’t know what they brought me here for,” he said as she stuck a tympanic thermometer in his ear. “I’m healthy as a Missouri mule. Shoot, I grab bare electrical wires every day for exercise. Can’t you take this collar off and let me breathe for a couple of minutes?”

  “You’ll have to ask the doctor about that.” The nurse jotted down her numbers. “But if you try to lower these rails again, I’ll tie you to them.” She gave Blaze a quick grin, then rolled her eyes at Cheyenne and Dane as she walked from the room.

  Blaze’s grin widened when Cheyenne and Dane stepped into his field of vision. “You came.” He tried to turn his head and look toward the door. “Listen, you’ve got to get me out of here before my mother gets here. They warned me she was coming about five minutes ago, and here they’ve got me trussed up like a roped calf.”

  For emphasis he raised his right hand about six inches from the bed, then dropped it back down. He was connected to two IV lines, a blood pressure cuff, a pulse oximetry probe, and a myriad of wires hooked to the monitor.

  “Don’t they know you’ve already been electrocuted once tonight?” Dane asked.

  “Seems like everybody in the hospital knows about that. I told the X-ray tech I was white before the accident.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t show them that weird cross-eyed thing you do,” Cheyenne said, “or they’ll be hauling you off for more tests.”

  “Nope, I’m trying hard as I can to get them to let me go before my mother gets here.”

  “When will she arrive?” Dane asked.

  “Said she was leaving when she called. How long’s it take to get here from Siloam Springs?”

  “Maybe a couple of hours,” Dane said.

  Blaze closed his eyes and moaned theatrically.

  “At least she’s coming,” Dane said.

  Blaze opened his eyes and scowled.

  “Back to normal, I see,” Dane said as he touched the youth’s bare shoulder. “Driving everybody crazy.”

  “At least they took you off that long spine board,” Cheyenne said. “I know that was uncomfortable.”

  “Uncomfortable!” Blaze said. “Can’t you doctors come up with something better than that?”

  “We’re working on it.”

  “And when can I get rid of this stupid thing around my neck?” He raised his left arm and pointed at the Philadelphia cervical collar. “I keep expecting it to squeeze tight like the blood pressure cuff, and pop my head right off my body.”

  Cheyenne glanced at Dane and grinned. “You’ll just have to curb your imagination until they clear you.”

  “But the ER doc’s already seen my films. He doesn’t think anything’s broken.”

  “Then he’s waiting for the radiologist to clear you.”

  “But—”

  “Blaze,” Dane said, “how soon are they going to get you to your room? I told the doctor you’d like one on the top floor, right by the window.”

  Blaze gave him a toothy, sarcastic grin. “If I could survive that crazy helicopter ride, I can survive anything.”

  “Actually,” Cheyenne said, “I hate to spoil your fun, but they’ll put you in ICU, and those are usually on a lower floor. I think they’ll keep you here for a few days.”

  “Days? I’m going to be in here for days?”

  “You had cardiac arrest secondary to electrocution, plus you have a bleeding disorder. They take those things seriously.”

  “Think of all that great hospital food,” Dane said. “Yum.”

  “How many days?” Blaze asked.

  “We’ll have to ask your doctors about that,” Cheyenne said.

  Blaze lost his smile. “Doctors? More than one?”

  “A cardiologist, a neurologist, an ICU intensivist, a heme-onc specialist—”

  “Hold it, what’s heme-onc?”

  “A specialist who deals with blood disorders.”

  “They’re going to turn me into a pincushion, aren’t they?”

  “It won’t be that bad,” she said.

  Blaze moaned again. “When I get my hands on the person who did this—”

  “The person who did what?” Dane asked.

  “Set the fire.” He blinked up at Dane. “Come on, you know bad wiring didn’t cause that, not the way you always keep up the repairs. None of us smokes, because you’d kill us if we tried.” He paused. “Besides, I saw somebody running away, along the edge of the woods down below the barn, when I first came out of the house. You were right behind me, didn’t you see anything?”

  Dane took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “No, I didn’t, Blaze.”

  “Well, I did. Somebody set that fire, and it sure wasn’t me.”

  Dane didn’t say anything.

  Blaze’s thick brows met in the middle, eyes narrowing as he looked at Dane. “You can’t be thinking my mother’s right about that arson thing. Can you?”

  “I thought she changed her mind about that,” Cheyenne said.

  Blaze continued to watch Dane. “Can you?”

  “Blaze, I—”

  “You know me. You know I wouldn’t do that kind of thing anyway, but with animals in the barn? Come on, Dane.”

  “We have more important things to focus on now,” Dane said. “The rest we can deal with—”

  “Wait a minute,” Blaze said, “That’s why Austin Barlow was talking about those pigs not being in the barn with their mama. He thought…you thought—”

  “I didn’t think anything,” Dane said.

  “I saw something,” Cheyenne said. “Down by the dock, when I was rowing across the lake. I didn’t pay much attention because I was too occupied with the boat and trying to pull ashore, but someone was paddling a canoe, just a few yards out, along the shore.”

  “And I saw someone running down that way,” Blaze said. “Dane, you’ve got to tell the sheriff, because somebody started that fire, and like I said—” he emphasized his words slowly “—it—was—not—me.”

  “I’ll tell him as soon as we get back home, but right now, your health is most important.”

  There was a knock at the door, and the doctor entered. They discovered what they already knew—Blaze would be in the hospital for a while. The good news was they had a room ready for him, and he was getting the cervical collar off.

  “Thanks, Doc,” Blaze said as the man turned to leave the room. “Life just doesn’t get any better than this.”

  The next morning, after sleeping late, Cheyenne drove to see if Red and Bertie would want to visit Blaze. No one answered the door at the house, so she went down
to the milking shed.

  The door stood open, with Bertie inside, wearing an apron over her clothes, milking a goat who stood up on a three-foot-tall wooden stand. The doe had her head half-buried in a grain trough.

  “Bertie?” Cheyenne said softly, not wishing to disturb the animal. The doe continued eating.

  Bertie looked around and smiled. “Oh, good, you’re the person I most wanted to see this morning.” She continued shooting milk into the bucket below the goat’s udder with expert aim. “I’ve already gotten three phone calls from people who wanted to tell me all about the fire last night. You’re a town hero. To hear some tell it, you pert-near saved the ranch.”

  “Wow. It didn’t take long for that story to get distorted beyond recognition.” Cheyenne settled onto a plastic chair in the corner, a comfortable distance from the goat. “I called the hospital from my car phone this morning. Blaze is doing very well.”

  “That’s what I hear. He’s as tough as Princess, here.” Bertie nodded toward the goat. “Now, tell me about last night. What really happened?”

  “Okay, but first, where’s Red?”

  “I’ve got him tied to the bed again.”

  “He isn’t feeling well?”

  “Not the best, but you know Red, more stubborn than that buck that attacked you.”

  “I have my medical kit in the car. I’ll check him if you want me to.”

  “I’ll let you do that in a little bit, if you want. I reckon you’re the only doctor he’ll sit still for.”

  The goat Bertie was milking raised her head from the trough at last. She looked at Cheyenne as if she might have more grain for her.

  “Bertie, that goat doesn’t have any ears,” Cheyenne said.

  “Oh, she’s got ears, alright, she just doesn’t have the flaps. She can hear Red from practically across the lake, ain’t that right, Princess?” She patted the animal on the back. “She took up with Red right after she was born, following him around the place like a puppy. Half the time she even sneaked into the house with him.”

  Chuckling softly, Bertie urged Princess off the stanchion. “Off you go, girl. Red won’t be out to play today. I don’t know what you’re going to do when he’s gone.”

  “Bertie—you think he’s that bad?” Cheyenne asked.

  “Who’s to know? He won’t leave the house except to fish or go to church or get groceries at Dane’s store. You couldn’t drag him to a clinic.” Her voice faltered.

  She covered the milk and carried it to a stainless-steel table at the other end of the long room. “Princess wouldn’t never let me kiss Red when she was around. She’d throw a fit, stomping and shaking her head.” Her voice faltered again. “Guess I’d do the same if somebody was trying to steal my man.”

  “Are you okay, Bertie?” Cheyenne asked.

  “Oh, don’t worry about me, I’m just shook up about the fire and worried about Red. Can’t believe anybody’d do something like that, especially around here. It’s just plain meanness. So what happened last night?”

  Cheyenne told her about it, including the ride with Dane to Springfield.

  “Lizzie Barlow can’t believe I knew you was a doctor all this time and didn’t tell her,” Bertie said. “The gossipy old thing. You know what she told me? She said, ‘I guess you know it was that black kid with the mop-head hairdo what started the whole thing.’”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I told her, ‘Lizzie Barlow, if you’re talking about Gavin Farmer, you’re shooting up the wrong tree with me. He ain’t even got no mop-head hairdo anymore, and he didn’t light no fire.’ And then Lizzie said, ‘That ain’t the way Austin sees it.’ I tell you, that Austin’s got a chip on his shoulder all the way to his backbone.”

  “Maybe he does, but he was right there helping us last night. He was the one who called for the helicopter.”

  “Of course he was. You wouldn’t expect to see a decent person just stand there and let Blaze die. The big blowhard does have a tender spot inside him. Somewhere.”

  Cheyenne suppressed a smile. “What else have people been saying?”

  “Cook called me and wanted to know if you was open for business,” Bertie continued. “He said he’d’ve asked you last night, but you was a little busy.”

  “Speaking of which, I’ll go check on Red now. I’m driving up to Springfield to see Blaze in a few minutes—do you want to ride with me?”

  “Guess not, what with Red so poorly. Tell you what, though, I’ve got some of Blaze’s favorite cookies in the freezer if you want to take them up when you go.”

  “He would love that.”

  Cheyenne gave Red another checkup with her trusty stethoscope and blood-pressure kit. His bp was still elevated, though it had been several weeks since his cellulitis. That concerned her.

  When she listened to his chest, she heard an S-3 gallop rhythm. Had she heard that last time she checked him?

  She straightened and placed the scope around her neck. “Red, I know you aren’t feeling well, but I’d like to drive you into Kimberling City to the urgent care center. I’m afraid there’s something going on with your heart.”

  He lay back on his pillows—three of them, which Bertie had given him in the night because he “just couldn’t get comfortable” lying flat.

  “What would they do for me there that you can’t do for me here?”

  “They could run tests on you to see how your heart’s working, and if you’ve had a heart attack.”

  “Then what?” he asked.

  “They can do all kinds of things these days.”

  His lids closed slowly over blue eyes that seemed to have lost the vitality that had been there when Cheyenne first arrived in Hideaway. “I’m eighty-five or eighty-seven years old. Nothing works like it used to.”

  “But we have drugs and procedures that can help your heart work better.”

  “I’m not going to no hospital, and nobody’s cutting on me. If it’s my time to go, I don’t want no drugs or machines interfering with God’s plan.”

  She nodded. “Okay, Red, I’ll respect that.” She repacked her kit. “Will you have Bertie contact me if you start to feel worse?”

  He opened his eyes briefly and smiled. “We’ll see.”

  As soon as Dane stepped into ICU at eleven Thursday morning, he could see Blaze wasn’t alone. His mother, Dora Adcock, stood beside his bed. She was a voluptuous woman with skin as dark as Blaze’s and thick black hair halfway to her waist. She wore a pair of figure-flattering jeans and a bright purple tank top.

  Blaze did not look happy.

  Her gaze swept over Dane as soon as he entered the room. “So here’s the man who runs the ranch where my son nearly died last night.” Her voice was deep and mellow.

  “I didn’t nearly die,” Blaze snapped. “I’m fine.”

  Her gaze remained on Dane. “Did you find out how it happened?”

  “I just spoke with the sheriff, and he didn’t know what caused the fire,” Dane said. “It’s still being investigated.”

  Her gaze faltered. She glanced at her son, then looked away. “So Gavin tells me he flunked the written driver’s test on Monday.”

  “You don’t have to change the subject,” Blaze said. “I didn’t set the barn on fire, just like I didn’t set your house on fire.”

  “Right, so it was just all a big coincidence.” Her sarcasm carried a bite.

  “He’ll ace the test next time,” Dane said, hoping desperately to derail the line of this conversation. “We have someone working with him, and she says he’s getting along very well.”

  The woman’s expressive eyebrows rose with disbelief, and Dane found himself wondering why she had bothered to come.

  “Dane?” Blaze said. “One of my fifteen doctors wants to talk to you. He told me they were going to keep me in ICU until tomorrow morning, then they’ll watch me for a day or so in the step-down unit, then onto the floor before they send me home. Oh, you’ll be disappointed to hear the food’s good
.”

  Dane grinned at him. “Enjoy it while you can.”

  “By the way, Dane, my mother wants me to move back home with her.”

  Dane saw the flash of surprise on Dora’s face, and the wicked gleam in her son’s. He had a feeling Blaze wouldn’t be leaving the ranch anytime soon.

  He hoped.

  Cheyenne took her time as she walked along the hallway toward ICU. The activity of the hospital no longer tightened her gut with tension as it had for so long after Susan’s death. That was a good thing, since next month’s schedule included her name for thirteen shifts.

  As she turned a corner in the corridor, however, a depressing realization struck her. This place held no attraction for her. For the first time in her life, she had no desire to step behind those sacred boundaries where patients waited for someone to give them some miracle cure that would stop their suffering.

  She knew, better than most, that there was no miracle cure. Red seemed to understand that, and even more important, he seemed to accept it.

  She couldn’t help thinking about her conversation with Red. He wanted to die at home, surrounded by his life, not by white-coated strangers who only wanted to delay the inevitable. Sure, they meant well, with all their rules and so-called standards, but she had learned that, in the end, it often became less about an issue of compassion, and more about an issue of following the rules and covering the bases to keep from getting sued.

  There were always rules. For instance, if Red was brought into the ER unconscious, standard of care would require Cheyenne to do everything she could to keep him alive unless Bertie was there to relay his wishes, or unless there was a signed DNR sheet.

  The rules were beginning to chafe….

  “Cheyenne?” someone called from behind her.

  She stopped and turned to find Dane coming toward her, accompanied by a beautiful woman who looked a lot like Blaze. His mother, obviously, since Blaze had never mentioned a sister. She hadn’t arrived by the time Cheyenne and Dane had left in the wee morning hours.