Only By Your Touch (38 page)

“Do I have this right?” Chloe mused aloud. “This rabbit came to you, thinking you could help her?”

He nodded.

Chloe let that hang there for a moment. Then she said, “You really shouldn’t disappoint a lady. We get so testy when a man doesn’t deliver.”

Ben’s mouth twitched. He rubbed his palms over his knees, a picture of indecision. He reminded Chloe of someone trying to work up the courage to jump off the high dive. His hands trembled as he laid them over the tiny rabbit. Chloe saw the bunny’s pom-pom
tail wiggle. Then her nose twitched. Ben sat back on his heel.

“Well?” Chloe said. “Aren’t you going to do it?”

“I already did.”

Chloe looked back at the rabbit. It just lay there, looking dazed. “Well. Hmm. Maybe you’re rusty.”

“I’m not rusty. She’s drugged.” He reached down to remove the blood-soaked dressing, revealing a swath of shaved, pink skin. “I can’t replace the fur. It’ll just have to grow back.”

Chloe stared hard at the shaved place. There was no sign of a wound. “Dear God, it worked.”

Ben tossed back his dark head and barked with laughter. “Of course it worked.” Then he grabbed her up into his arms. She felt the wetness of his tears trickling down the side of her neck. His big body was taut, and with each breath, he shuddered as if a dozen emotions, too long suppressed, were being released. It hurt, knowing that he wept. He was a strong man, and she knew that the tears didn’t come easily. Each time she felt him shudder, she ached for him.

All Chloe knew to do was hold on to Ben with all her might. She couldn’t understand him completely, but she looked forward to a lifetime of trying. After several wonderful minutes of just holding each other, she pushed to her feet and went to the badger’s cage. “What his problem?”

“He was shot in the leg. He’ll be ready to go in another week or so.”

“Can’t you let him go now?”

Ben scratched beside his nose. “I could, I guess. But I—”

“Then do it.” Chloe opened the cage. “Come on, Ben. Fix him.”

He walked over, searched her upturned gaze, and grinned. Kneeling beside her, he laid a hand over the
badger’s bandaged leg. The badger got an odd look on his face. When Ben removed the bandage, the surprised animal sprang to his feet and walked in circles, as if to test his healed limb.

Next came the fawn, then two raccoons. Chloe had never had so much fun. She was seeing miracles happen. When they came to the coyote’s cage, Ben shook his head. “This one’s tricky, Chloe. There’s a bullet lodged next to his spine. He’s partially paralyzed. There could be permanent nerve damage.”

“Oh, no.” She reached inside the cage to touch the animal’s shaggy fur. “Poor baby. If he’s got nerve damage, you can’t help him, can you?”

“No.” Ben crouched beside her. “I can’t replace what’s gone. I learned that long ago. I’m hoping his body will eventually form hard tissue around the slug, preventing it from pressing on the spine. It depends where the lead is lodged. I don’t have an X-ray machine to see. I can only guess—and hope.”

Chloe saw the sadness in his expression. She laid her hand on his arm. “Hey,” she whispered. “You win some, and you lose some in any endeavor. Stay focused on the successes. When you’re powerless to heal with your gift, all you can do is fall back on your medical knowledge and do the best you can. Either way, this coyote is lucky to have you in his corner.”

Some of the pain left his eyes. Finally he nodded. “That’s true. He’d already be dead if I hadn’t found him. At least this way, he’s got a chance.”

“My money’s on you,” Chloe said. “I’ll bet he walks again.”

“I hope so.”

The next cage held yet another animal that Ben couldn’t completely heal, a small rabbit with a missing front foot. “The bullet blew off his toes, and gangrene set in,” he explained. “When I found him, he was so
far gone that surgery was the only option. I can heal the stump, but I can’t replace what’s missing. I don’t know how well he’ll be able to navigate.”

“I think he’ll do okay,” Chloe assured him. “They push off with their hind legs. It may take him a while to perfect his balance, but he’ll get there.”

Ben hesitated. “If he’s slow, he’ll be easy prey.”

Chloe swallowed and nodded. “Yes, but what happens to him after you’ve done all you can is out of your hands, Ben. It’s that way with all of them, isn’t it? Even whole and healthy, they may meet with a bad end once they leave your care.”

He nodded and laid his hand over the rabbit’s mangled leg. Moments later, Chloe laughed joyously when the rabbit hopped away, managing quite nicely with only three sound feet. “There, you see? He’s going to be fine.”

As the healed animals filed, one after another, from the cave, Chloe went outside to watch them disappear into the woods. It was almost dark, that blue-gray time of evening right before all trace of sunlight blinked out. Perhaps that was it. She only knew that Ben had a bluish, electrical aura around him when he emerged from the cave behind Old One, much like the glow she’d seen hovering around him that very first night.

She hugged her waist and stared at him, not in fear, but in awe. “The night you came by my house to tell me about Rowdy, you’d healed him only a while before, hadn’t you?”

He nodded.

“It does something. There’s a nimbus of light around you.”

He looked down at himself, then at her. “I was afraid you’d notice it last night when we were making love.” He slapped at his jeans, as if the aura could be brushed away. “I don’t know what causes it, just that
it happens when I use my power.” He looked a little sheepish. “I can’t seem to stop myself with you. It happens whenever I touch you, whether I want it to or not.”

Chloe grinned. “I’ve noticed. It happened the very first time we met. In the feed store, remember, when you caught me from falling? It wasn’t as pronounced as it is now, but I felt it.”

“Really?” He frowned thoughtfully, and then he grinned. “When I was very small, my grandfather used to tell me that one day I’d meet the woman who was to be my destiny. Maybe something within me recognized you long before I began to accept it with my mind.”

“Maybe so.”

She walked toward him. When she drew close, he caught her up in his arms. The contact sent those wonderful little jolts through her, and Chloe joyously embraced the possibility that it would always be this way. It was a lovely thought.

Later that night, after Chloe had tucked Jeremy into bed, and Nan, too, had turned in, Chloe and Ben sat together on the deck to gaze at the starlit sky. Hands linked, they were both slightly tipsy from two glasses of wine.

“Problem,” he whispered. “I don’t think Jeremy’s old enough to handle the truth about me, Chloe.”

She smiled dreamily. “How old were you, four? He’s old enough. If you’re worried that he’ll tell someone, don’t be. He’s very good at keeping secrets. He’s never breathed a word to anyone about Methuselah.”

Ben sighed. “I just thought—I don’t know. It seems a lot to explain to a child.”

“Actually, Ben, it’s a lot to explain to an adult. Jeremy still believes in Santa Claus.”

“Point taken.” He hauled in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “I can heal the animals in front of him, then?”

“Yes. Just explain to him that it’s a special gift, and he can tell no one.”

“I feel like I’ve been let out of jail. Free, Chloe. I can’t describe how wonderful it feels, and I have you to thank for it.”

“You are, without question, the most incredible man I’ve ever known.” She slipped him a teasing look. In the lamplight that came from inside, his face looked too beautiful to be real. “I want to make love again while you’re still shimmering.”

He chuckled. “The next time I feel a shimmer coming on, I’ll let you know.”

“You’re shimmering right now.”

He drew her hand to his mouth and sent tingles shooting clear up her arm.

“Come with me,” he whispered. “Let me make you feel that way everywhere.”

“Everywhere?”

“Yeah, absolutely everywhere.”

Chloe jumped up from her chair. Standing, Ben laughed, swept her up into his arms, and carried her off into the woods. En route, he introduced her to an owl. Chloe had never studied an owl in the wild. She laughed when the bird blinked its eerie golden eyes and said, “Who-who, who-who?”

“Chloe-Chloe,” she replied. “Ben-Ben.”

He jostled her in his arms and kept walking until he found a grassy spot beneath a towering Ponderosa pine, where he proceeded to make good on his promise to make her tingle everywhere. Occasionally Chloe surfaced enough from the mindless pleasure to dimly notice her surroundings. She wasn’t surprised to see an antlered buck standing over them, its horns
gleaming like silver branches in the moonlight. Later, she was equally unsurprised to glimpse a raccoon sitting beside them, watching the goings-on with curious, beady eyes, as if he were about to take notes.

It was magical, and afterwards, all parts of Chloe were still humming when Ben gathered her into his arms. “How do you do that?” she asked.

“Do what?”

“Make certain parts of me vibrate that way?”

“I have no idea, but I’m glad you like it.” He reared up on an elbow, bent his dark head, and took her bare nipple into his mouth. The shock took Chloe’s breath. “Like that, you mean?”

“No, not exactly. Try it again.”

He leaned down to send another thrill coursing through her.

“That still isn’t exactly it.”

He laughed and treated her to a long, slow draw that curled her toes. “Like that?”

“You’re getting there,” she whispered, and didn’t protest when he tried again.

Chloe gave herself up to the magic of it all, trusting him, surrendering all that she was to him, needing him in a way she had never dreamed she might need anyone.

“God, Chloe, I love you,” he whispered as he plunged into her. “I love you so much.”

T
he following morning at ten, Hattie called to ask if Chloe could come into the shop and finish making out the weekly supply order. It had to be ready by noon, when the driver stopped in to deliver last week’s order, and Hattie’s husband, Bill, was sick. Hattie wanted to go home, check his blood sugar, and confer with his physician by telephone. The sub who was replacing Chloe had never ordered merchandise.

“I can come in and work the rest of the day if you like,” Chloe assured her boss. “I’m feeling much better, and it’s really not a problem.”

“No,” Hattie said firmly. “After what happened, you need this time off. I just need an hour, dear, and I feel bad enough asking you for that.”

“I’ll drive you,” Ben said when Chloe got off the phone.

Chloe pulled off her apron and pushed at her hair. “Ben, this is silly. You can’t drive me back and forth every time I go to town.”

“I’ll drive you,” he said stubbornly.

“But, Ben, I—”

He cut her short with a blast of his blue eyes. “You are not—I repeat,
not
—going anywhere alone while that bastard is still running loose.”

“He may be running loose for fifty years!” she pointed out.

“Then I’ll let you drive half the time to keep up your driving skills.”

Chloe giggled at the absurd picture of Ben, gray and palsied, still driving her everywhere because of Bobby Lee Schuck. He smiled, too. “Humor me,” he whispered.

“Why do I get this feeling you’re going to be an autocratic husband?”

He bent to steal a quick kiss. “I’m Shoshone. What do you expect, a pussycat?” He deepened the kiss, making her head spin. Between nibbles, he said, “The only lip I want from you is this kind.”

Chloe placed a hand on his shoulder. “You’re dreaming. You’ll either learn your place, or we’ll quarrel ceaselessly. As for today, a compromise is in order. If you insist on driving me to town, you can make the trip worthwhile by taking me and Jeremy out for lunch when I’m done at the shop.”

“Deal.”

While Chloe dashed off to change into something more presentable, Ben made a sandwich and sliced some fruit for his mother’s midday meal. By the time Chloe emerged, he was ready to go.

While Chloe made out the order at the shop, Ben and Jeremy worked in the back room, straightening and dusting shelves. Chloe managed to finish filling out the order for pickup at noon, and Hattie, beaming with happiness, returned at fifteen minutes past.

“His blood sugar is perfect,” she told Chloe. “The long-acting insulin is working marvelously. I think he just ate something that disagreed with him.”

Chloe was relieved to hear it.

“Out of here!” Hattie said, waving Chloe away. “Spend the rest of the day with—” She saw Ben
coming from the back, and her eyes warmed with approval. “I was going to say with your son, but it would seem you now have another handsome fellow in your life.”

“Yes, another handsome fellow,” Chloe agreed.

“You’ve made a wise choice. You won’t find a better man than Ben Longtree.” The older woman stepped around the counter to hug Jeremy and pat Ben’s arm. “Out of here, all of you. It’s a beautiful, sunny day. Go find something fun to do.”

Ben took them to lunch at the pizza parlor, which served wonderful deli sandwiches. Fascinated by the host of video games in the billiard room, Jeremy sat with them only long enough to grab quick bites of food and beg for more quarters.

“This is amazingly good,” Chloe said as she sank her teeth into her vegetarian sub. “You really don’t miss meat once you give it up.”

Ben gave her a lazy look that transmitted unspoken messages. “You don’t have to become a vegetarian to make me happy, Chloe. You have other, very pleasing features.”

“Do I?” She grinned. “Like what?”

Ben was about to reply when they heard the screech of brakes outside. Chloe’s heart caught, and she hurried over to the window to look out. “Oh, no,” she told Ben when she saw a black-and-white border collie lying in a heap at the edge of the road. “Someone’s dog has been run over.”

Chloe could almost feel the tension that radiated from Ben standing behind her. She gave Jeremy a handful of quarters to keep him entertained, and then she and Ben went to see how badly the animal was hurt. They heard the dog’s cries of pain long before they reached the crowd that had gathered around it.

“My poor Sylvester,” a woman cried. “The clasp on
his leash broke, and he shot right out in front of that truck, after a cat!”

“I’m sorry, lady,” a man said. “I tried to miss him. It happened so fast.”

Ben and Chloe pushed through the milling bodies to see a plump, middle-aged woman standing some three feet from the dog. Every time the woman started to approach, she was forced back by a flurry of snapping teeth.

Chloe saw Ben start forward. She grabbed his arm. There were too many people watching. He didn’t dare help the animal.

“Does anyone have a gun?” some man asked.

In a place like Jack Pine, that was like asking a deer if it had fleas. Practically everyone in town had a rifle rack in his truck. “My seven magnum should do the job,” a burly onlooker replied.

“No!” the woman cried. “I’ll take him to the vet. If he can’t be helped, I’ll have him put down there.”

“Lady, he’s in agony,” the first man said. “We can’t pick him up and take him to the vet. He’ll bite one of us.”

Ben gave Chloe a long look. She searched his beautiful eyes, and knew without his saying a word that he couldn’t stand there and do nothing. Given that she’d argued so passionately in favor of using his gift, Chloe refrained from discouraging him now. She loosened her hold on his arm and let him step forward. Even with his black hair cut short, he looked purely Shoshone now that he was once again wearing the headband, sash, and canvas moccasins.

En route to the dog, he touched the weeping woman’s shoulder. “I’m a vet,” he told her. “Let me see what I can do.”

Chloe knew what Ben could do. Her fear was that he might forget himself and do too much before
watchful eyes. She pushed forward, making a show of grappling with her purse. “Thank God I have some of that anesthesia stuff!”

Ben threw her a bewildered look. Taking care to keep her hand curled over the canister, Chloe plucked one of Jeremy’s asthma inhalers from her purse and handed it to Ben. “It only seems smart to be prepared for an emergency. You don’t always have your bag with you.”

The confusion cleared from Ben’s eyes. His lips twitched as he took the canister Chloe held out to him. “Smart thinking. A dose of this will put him out like a light.”

“Stand back, everyone.” Chloe turned to face the crowd, positioning herself to give Ben all the privacy she possibly could. “Mr. Longtree is a vet. The situation is under control.”

Ben spoke softly to the dog. Just the sound of his voice seemed to calm the animal. He was about to crouch down when a man in the crowd yelled, “Take your spells and incantations back up to your ridge, Longtree! We want no part of your sorcery here in Jack Pine. We’re all God-fearing folks.”

Outrage filled Chloe. Before she considered the possible consequences, she cried, “Do you see any charms or magic wands? Ben Longtree isn’t a sorcerer. He’s just a very caring man who has a wonderful way with animals.”

The dog quieted as Ben crouched beside it. Chloe saw people’s gazes shift curiously from her to the man behind her. She turned to see Ben lightly running his hand down the dog’s body. It appeared to her that he’d forgotten all about the canister in his other hand.

“Hurry, Ben,” she cried. “Give him a dose of that stuff to ease his pain!”

Ben glanced up with a frown. Then he did as she asked, emitting one blast of mist near the dog’s nose. Chloe just hoped asthma medication wouldn’t cause an adverse reaction in a canine.

Almost instantly, all the tension slipped from the dog’s body. To the unknowing observer, it appeared that the medicinal mist had sedated the poor animal. Only Chloe and Ben knew differently. Ben handed Chloe the canister, and she quickly dropped it back in her purse.

“Stand back!” a deep voice commanded.

Chloe jerked around to see Bobby Lee Schuck, in full deputy regalia, shouldering his way through the crowd, his police-issue revolver in his hand.

“Get out of the way, Longtree!” he ordered.

“No!” the grief-stricken dog owner cried. She threw herself in front of Bobby Lee. “This man’s a vet. He may be able to do something.”

“The dog’s back is broken, lady.” Bobby Lee shoved the woman aside. “You’re not thinking straight!”

“No, no!” the woman shrieked, stepping back into the line of fire. “Don’t you dare pull that trigger.”

Bobby Lee grabbed her arm and flung her roughly out of his way. The poor woman tripped and would have fallen but for the quick actions of a man who caught her to his chest. The deputy never spared the woman another glance. He was focused on Ben and the dog, his blue eyes gleaming with an unholy light.

Ben pushed slowly to his feet, placing himself in front of the injured animal. “I think the dog may have a busted hip, Bobby Lee. The injury can be surgically repaired.”

“Get out of my way, you lunatic!”

“No, I’m sorry. I won’t let you shoot an animal when it’s not necessary.”

“I’m the law here. Get out of the goddamned way, I said.”

Ben just stood there. Bobby Lee aimed the gun at him. Chloe’s heart almost stopped. The hatred in Bobby Lee’s eyes chilled her.

Ben smiled coldly. “Go ahead. Do it. Some twenty people are watching. They’ll rack your ass and send you to prison. The way I see it, Jack Pine will be better off with you deleted from the picture.”

Bobby Lee trembled with rage. Chloe saw his hand tighten around the gun, and for an awful moment, she feared he might shoot. “You have no right to interfere with an officer of the law!”

Another man from the crowd stepped forward and moved to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Ben. “If the poor dog can be saved, I’ll be damned if I’ll stand aside and watch it be shot.”

Another person stepped forward. Then another. Chloe almost clapped and hooted when she saw Lucy Gant join the ranks. The wiry feed-store clerk leveled a finger at the deputy. “Go have yourself a cup of coffee and cool off, Bobby Lee. Ben Longtree’s a vet, and he’s got a license to practice. If he says this dog can be saved, you’re the one interfering where you’ve got no right. Law and medicine are two different bivouacs.”

“Shut up, Lucy!”

“I will not shut up,” the small woman shot back. “And you’ll mind your mouth, young man. Wearing that badge gives you no right to speak to me that way. I used to wipe your snotty nose.”

Faced with a half-dozen people bent on protecting the dog, Bobby Lee wheeled away, cursing with every step. Ben turned back to the injured animal. Curling a gentle hand over the dog’s hindquarters, he went
perfectly still. Chloe glimpsed a faint shimmer of blue light.

“I don’t think anything’s actually broken,” Ben said over his shoulder. He manipulated the dog’s hind legs. Then he flashed a smile at the animal’s owner. “His hip is just out of socket, ma’am.”

The woman pressed a hand over her heart and moved closer. “Oh, Mr. Longtree, do you really think that’s all it is? He was screaming so horribly!”

“You ever had your hip out of socket?”

“No.”

“Well, it’s extremely painful. You’d scream, too. Thanks to Chloe’s having that ether in her purse, he’s feeling nothing now.” Ben ran his hand over the dog’s hip again. “He’ll be out of pain for only a few more minutes. Do I have your permission to put his hip back in before he comes around?”

“Right here, you mean?”

Ben nodded. “There’s really nothing to it.”

“Oh, yes, please try.”

Ben curled a hand over the dog’s lower spine, grabbed its left rear leg, and appeared to be relocating the animal’s hip. “There. He should be as good as new when he wakes up.” He leaned around to lift the dog’s eyelids. “And just in the nick of time.”

The dog lifted its head and blinked.

“Oh, Sylvester,” the woman said with a sob of happiness. “Are you all better, dear heart?”

The border collie sprang to its feet with a furious wag of its tail. Instead of rushing to its owner, the animal went to Ben.

“Oh, would you just look?” the woman cried. “He knows you helped him, Dr. Longtree, and he’s saying thank you!”

“I’m bored,” Ben whispered in Chloe’s ear after Jeremy went down for his afternoon nap. “You’ve swept into my life like a windstorm. I’ve got no patients left to worry over. My house is clean. The laundry’s all done. What the hell is a man supposed to do with his time?”

Chloe batted her lashes, assuming an innocent expression. “Jeez, I don’t know. I’m too short to dust the top of that case clock. I guess you could do that.”

“No way. Let my ancestors rest in peace.”

She giggled as he caught her earlobe between his teeth and growled. “What have you got in mind to cure my problem?”

Chloe glanced around his arm to make sure Nan was focused on her crocheting. “Hmm,” she whispered. “I suppose I could take you to the bedroom and give you a body massage. Did I mention I took classes for a while to become a massage therapist?”