Heiress (70 page)

"No!"

"I'll carry him," she told MacCrea. Alex clung to her, winding his legs tightly around her middle as she walked back to the car with MacCrea. She continued to hold him once they were inside, cuddling him in her arms like a baby.

"I'll drop you off at your car," MacCrea said.

"No. I'm coming with you." She'd made up her mind about that at the creek. "There are a few things I want to say to Rachel."

"Abbie." His tone was disapproving.

She didn't need to hear any more than that. "I'm going." Nothing and no one was going to stop her, not even MacCrea.

A half-dozen sweaty men, exhausted by their search for the missing boy in the full heat of the day, hunkered together in the shade of a surviving ancient oak, guzzling water from the jugs brought by the house staff and silently shaking their heads in answer to the questions put to them by both Lane and Rachel. Few even looked up when MacCrea drove in with Abbie and Alex.

Abbie struggled out of the passenger side, with Alex still in her arms. At first no one noticed her, their attention all on MacCrea, who was nearest them. As she came around the front of the car, Rachel saw the boy in her arms.

"Alex! You've found him!" Relief flooded her expression as she broke into a run. "Oh, Alex, where have you been? We've been so worried about you."

"He was over at the farm," Abbie answered as Alex tightened his arms around her.

At the sound of her voice, Rachel finally noticed Abbie. Immediately she stopped, wary and suspicious. "Why are you carrying him? Give me my son."

As she tried to take him from her, Alex cried out and hung on to Abbie more fiercely. "No! I want to stay with you."

"What have you done to him?" Rachel glared.

"It's not what I've done, but what you've done to him," Abbie answered as Lane joined them, his sunburned face still showing the mental and physical stress of the search, his shirt drenched with perspiration.

"Is he all right?" he asked worriedly.

"He isn't hurt, if that's what you mean," Abbie replied. Alex didn't resist when Lane reached to take him from her. Abbie willingly handed him over to Lane, but Alex continued to hide his face from Rachel. "You should know that he's been sneaking over to play with my daughter for several months. I probably should have tried to put a stop to it, but I didn't want our children to become involved in our personal conflict."

"You. You're the one who's turned my son against me," Rachel accused. "I should have known you'd do something like this. All my life, everyone's always loved you. Dean—everyone. You've always had everything. Now you're trying to steal my son. I never knew how much I hated you until right now. Get out of here before I have you thrown out!"

"I don't blame you for hating me. I probably deserve it. But I'm not leaving until I've said what I came here to say."

"I'm not interested in listening to anything you have to tell me." She started to turn away, but Abbie caught her arm, checking the movement.

"You have to listen. . . for Alex's sake," she insisted. "He thinks that you don't want him—that you don't love him. You can't let him go on believing that. I grew up thinking my father didn't really love me. So did you. Can't you remember how much that hurt? That's what Alex is feeling now."

"He's never cared about me," she replied stiffly. "It's always been Lane."

"And you resented that, didn't you? Don't you know that Alex picked up on that? Children are very sensitive. But they're still just children. You can't expect them to understand your hurt feelings, when they haven't even learned how to cope with their own. He wants you to love him, and he thinks there's something wrong with him because you don't."

Rachel tried to shut out the things Abbie was saying. Each was a barb, pricking and tearing at her. But none of them was true. They couldn't be. "You don't know what you're talking about," she protested.

"Don't I?" Abbie replied sadly. "Look at us, Rachel. Look at how bitterness and envy have twisted our lives. When I think of all the things I've said, the things I've done, the way I felt. And I blamed you for everything. We're sisters. What turned us into enemies? Why are we always competing against each other? It can't be for Daddy's love. He's gone. But if he could see us now. . . Rachel, you have to know that this isn't the way he wanted us to be."

"Stop it!" Rachel pressed her hands over her ears, but she succeeded in only partially muffling Abbie's voice.

"Maybe he did love us both. It's taken me a long time to realize that. You need to believe that, too. Maybe you and I will never be sisters in the true sense of the word, but can't we at least stop this fighting?"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

Abbie looked at her silently for a long moment. "Just love your son, Rachel," she said finally, emotionally drained. "And let him know it, the way Daddy should have."

Rachel turned and ran, her vision blurred by tears. It was a lie—a trick. It had to be.

As Rachel disappeared from sight near the barn, Abbie felt MacCrea's hand on her shoulder. "You tried."

She glanced at Lane, and the boy in his arms. She hesitated. "I'm sorry for creating a scene."

"Don't be," Lane said gently. "A lot of it needed to be said."

Just then, a clatter of hooves came from the barn. A second later Rachel burst into view, riding her dark gray mare. For an instant, Abbie stared in shock. "She only has a halter and lead rope on that mare."

"Somebody, quick! Go after her!" Lane ordered.

Sobbing, blinded by tears, Rachel twined her fingers through Simoon's dark mane, holding on to it as well as the cotton lead rope. Digging her heels into the mare's sides, she urged her faster, needing to outrun the thoughts pounding in her head.

"It isn't true. She can't be right," she kept sobbing over and over. But the drumming in her temples didn't stop as they raced headlong across the pasture, swerving around the towering pecans that loomed in their path and scattering the mares and colts that grazed among them. All the while she kept trying to convince herself that Abbie had said all those things just to confuse her. Dean couldn't have loved them both.

"Daddy." She buried her face in the whipping mane.

She didn't see the white board fence coming up, but she vaguely felt the bunching of the mare's hindquarters and the stiffening brace of the front legs as Simoon tried to get her hindlegs under her and slow down.

At the last second, the mare came to a jerking, sliding stop just short of the fence, unseating Rachel and pitching her forward onto the mare's neck. Simoon reared, twisting to turn away from the fence. Rachel felt herself falling and grasped at the one thing still in her hand: the lead rope. But the pull of her whole weight on it twisted the mare's head around, throwing her off balance. As Rachel hit the ground, the gray mare fell on top of her. Rachel felt first the jarring impact with the hard earth, then the crushing weight of the gray body pressing down on her, then pain. . . pain everywhere, intense and excruciating. She whimpered her father's name once, then let the blessed blackness consume her.

Severe internal injuries and bleeding was the diagnosis. They operated to stop the bleeding and make what repairs they could, but her prognosis was uncertain. Lane refused to leave the private suite in the hospital's intensive-care unit. Special accommodations were arranged to let him sleep in the same room. But Lane slept little during the three days Rachel lay unconscious. Most of the time he spent by her bed, staring at her deathly pale face, the tubes sticking out from her nose, arms, and body, and the wires running to the monitors, their beeps and blips constantly assuring him that she was still alive when his own eyes doubted it. He'd never been a praying man in the past, but he'd become one as he watched over her, willing her to come back to him.

Her eyelids fluttered. Lane wondered if he had imagined it. When it happened again, he held his breath and gazed at her intently. A moment later, she tried to open her eyes. After the second try, she succeeded. Lane immediately summoned the nurse on duty and leaned closer to the bed.

"Rachel. Can you hear me?"

She appeared to focus on him with difficulty. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. He clutched her hand in both of his and called to her again.

"Lane?" Her voice was softer than a whisper.

"Yes, darling. I'm here." He leaned closer, tears springing into his eyes.

"I. . . knew you. . . would be." The breathy words seemed to require great effort.

The nurse came in and he was forced to move aside. Several times that day, she'd drifted in and out of consciousness. Lane regarded it as a hopeful sign. The specialists he'd hired admitted that the next forty-eight hours were critical.

Abbie shortened her stride to match Ben's slower pace as they crossed the parking lot to the hospital entrance.

"She's got to be all right, Ben." She'd said that over and over the last three days, every time she came to the hospital to see Rachel. But she'd received no encouragement until Lane had phoned the house tonight. "If only I'd let MacCrea take Alex back alone," Abbie said ruefully.

"Do not play this 'if only' game in your head." Ben's lined and craggy face was grim with disapproval. "There is nowhere for it to stop. 'If only' you had not gone there must be followed by 'if only' Alex had not run away, then 'if only' you had not allowed him to play with Eden. Eventually it must become 'if only' Eden had not been born, 'if only' your father had not died. No one can say where the blame truly belongs."

"I know." She sighed heavily. "But I still feel responsible for what happened."

"I remember well the day you learned that River Bend would have to be sold. You also went galloping through the pasture like a madwoman. If you had fallen, if you had been injured, would you have blamed Mr. Canfield? He was the one who told you. Would you have blamed your father? Rachel?" He stopped to pull the glass entrance door open, then held it for her.

"That was different." Abbie halted to protest the comparison.

"The outcome was different, Abbie. You were not hurt on your wild ride." For all the sternness in his voice, his expression was filled with gentleness and understanding. "Abbie, you are not responsible."

"Ben." Her throat was tight with her welling emotions. "'If only' Rachel had known someone like you when she was growing up."

"No more of that." He shook a finger at her, smiling warmly.

"Come on." Abbie hooked an arm around his waist. Walking together, they entered the hospital. The sterile atmosphere, the medicinal and antiseptic smells, and the muted bells, all combined to sober her. "I left word for MacCrea to meet us at the intensive-care nurse's station. I hope he got the message."

But he was waiting for them when they arrived. His dark glance swept over her in a quick inspection, a hint of relief in his expression. "I had visions of you racing through this traffic. If I had known Ben was with you, I wouldn't have worried so much."

"Have you seen Lane yet?"

"No. I just got here. Where's Eden and Alex?"

"Momma was at the house when Lane called. She's watching them." After learning the seriousness of Rachel's injuries, Abbie had persuaded Lane to let Alex stay with them rather than be looked after by servants, no matter how caring they were.

A nurse came to escort them to the private hospital suite. Lane emerged from the room as they walked up. Again, Abbie was struck by the change in him. Over the last three days, he seemed to have aged ten years, his face haggard and worn from the strain and lack of sleep. Even his hair looked whiter. The confidence, the strength that had been so much a part of him were no longer evident. Instead he looked vulnerable and frightened—and a little lost, like Alex had been.

"Abbie. Thank God, you're here," he said, grasping at her hand and clutching it tightly. "Rachel's been asking for you."

"How is she?"

But Lane just shook his head. Abbie didn't know how to interpret his answer, unsure whether he meant he didn't know or that Rachel's condition had changed. Hurriedly he ushered her into the suite, signaling to the guard outside that MacCrea and Ben were to be admitted as well.

He guided Abbie to the hospital bed, then reached down and took hold of Rachel's hand. "Rachel. It's Lane. Can you hear me?" There was a faint movement of her eyelids in response. "Abbie's here. Do you understand? Abbie."

As Rachel struggled to open her eyes, Lane shifted to let Abbie take his place at her side. Abbie stared at the pale image of herself in the hospital bed.

"Abbie. . . my almost-twin sister." Rachel's voice was so faint Abbie had to lean closer to catch the words.

"Yes. We are almost twins, aren't we?" She tried to smile at that, even as her eyes filled with tears. "You're going to make it, Rachel. I know you are."

"Abbie." There was a long pause as if Rachel was trying to gather her strength. "You. . . were right. . . the things you. . . said."

"I don't think you should try to talk any more." It hurt to see her like this and remember all the confrontations they'd had in the past, when they'd hissed and arched their backs like a cat startled by its reflection in a mirror.

Rachel smiled weakly. "Lane and Alex are. . . going to need you. And. . . let our children. . . grow up together. . . the way we should. . . have."

"I will." Tears spilled from her eyes. "But you shouldn't be talking this way, Rachel. You're going to be fine."

She closed her eyes briefly, almost displaying impatience with Abbie's protestation. "I love. . . my son. Make sure he. . . knows that."

"I will."

She glanced dully around. "Lane? Where is he?"

Blinking rapidly to control her tears, Abbie half turned to look at Lane. "She wants you." She stepped back to MacCrea, letting Lane take her place. She leaned against him, grateful for the comfort of the arm he wrapped around her. . . and for the fact that they loved each other.

"Darling." Lane stroked her cheek, his hand trembling. "I'm here. You rest now."

"I do love you," she whispered.

"I love you too." He started to cry, silently. "We're going to have a lot of time together. I promise you."