The Ranch (38 page)

“Yes, I would, so don't you dare leave the clinic.”

“I won't, but otherwise I'd be there tonight. Besides, I miss you. You've already been gone too long,” he complained.

“Sam, how can you be so crazy? How can you do this to yourself?”

“Because you don't get choices about things like this in life. You fall in love with the people you fall in love with. Sorry if it's inconvenient, sorry if you're sick. I could fall in love with some awful woman tomorrow and have her fall under a train. At least you and I know the score here. We have some time, maybe a lot, maybe a little. I'm willing to take what we can get. What about you? Are you going to waste this?”

“You'd have to be so careful.” She was still trying to discourage him, but he wouldn't listen. He was absolutely sure of what he wanted from her.

“Being careful is a small price to pay, isn't it? It's worth it. God, I miss you so much, Zoe. I just want to hold you, and make you happy.”

“Will you work with me? Full-time, I mean, or even part-time?” That was almost as important to her, maybe more so. She had a responsibility to a lot of people, even more than to herself as far as she was concerned. And she needed Sam to help her. But he was more than willing.

“I'll work with you night and day if you want,” he said, and then thought better of it. “Actually, I'll do the night and day stuff, you do a little less, please. And let's take some time for us. I don't want you wearing yourself out anymore. Let's take good care of you. All right? Just like we tell the patients. And you'd better listen to me. In your case, I'm the doctor.”

“Yes, sir,” she smiled, and wiped her eyes again. It had been an emotional morning. She had told her two best friends and Sam, and none of them had let her down, on the contrary, they were three extraordinary human beings. And then Sam startled her yet again.

“Let's get married,” he said, and she couldn't believe what she was hearing. He was truly insane, but she loved him for it. She was smiling broadly when she answered.

“You're certifiable. I won't let you do that.” She was horrified but deeply touched that he would offer.

“I would have wanted to marry you whether you had AIDS or not.” And he meant it.

“But I do, and you don't need to do that to yourself,” she said sadly.

“What if this were one of your patients? I know you. You'd tell them to do whatever made them happy and seemed right to them.”

“How do you know this is right?” she asked gently.

“Because I love you,” he said, praying she'd hear him.

“I love you too,” she said cautiously, “but let's not rush into this, let's take it slowly.” He liked what she was saying, because it meant she thought she had some time to make decisions, and that meant she was optimistic, which was important. But he really did want to marry her. But he knew he might convince her more easily in person.

“I'm awfully glad I called you today,” he said happily. “I got advice about a patient, a job, full-time preferably, and possibly a wife. This was a very fruitful conversation,” he said, and she laughed.

“I can't believe I left a lunatic like you in charge of my clinic.”

“Neither can I. But your patients love me. Think how happy they'll be when we're Dr. and Dr. Warner.”

“I have to take your name too?” She was laughing. She really did love him. She had been so fond of him for so long, but she had never allowed her feelings for him to move forward. She had been too busy taking care of her patients to let herself be anything more than a doctor, and mother,

“You can call yourself anything you like if you marry me,” Sam told her magnanimously. “I'm very openminded.”

“You're crazy,” and then she grew serious for a moment, although they were both in good spirits. “Thank you, Sam… I think you're wonderful,” she said honestly, “and I really do love you,” she said softly. “It scared me before how much I liked you, but I was determined not to get you into a mess like this. And you walked yourself right into it. You can still change your mind if you want.”

“I'm here forever,” he said calmly.

“I wish I were,” she said sadly.

“You might be. If I have anything to do with it, you will.”

“At least my work will be… and the clinic… and Jade… and you… and my friends…”

“If you ask me, it sounds like a lot to stick around for.”

“I'll do everything I can, Sam. I promise.”

“Good. Then get a lot of rest while you're there and come back healthy, and check yourself into the hospital if the diarrhea doesn't stop.”

“It has,” she said, and that reassured him.

“Drink a lot of fluids.”

“I know. I'm a doctor. Don't worry. I'll be good. I swear.”

“I love you.” It was odd. It was so totally unexpected. He was so happy suddenly. She loved him. She had AIDS, it was terrible news, and yet in some crazy way he was happy, and so was Zoe. She was still smiling when Mary Stuart and Tanya came in later after lunch to check her.

“What happened to you?” Tanya asked suspiciously. “You look like the cat that swallowed the canary.”

“I talked to Sam. He's going to come to work at the clinic full-time.”

“Wow, that's terrific,” Mary Stuart said enthusiastically, she knew what a relief that was for Zoe.

“No, no, wait… she's lying,” Tanya said, narrowing her eyes and looking at their old buddy. “There's more, and she's not telling.”

“No, there's not.” But she was laughing as she said it. It was a far cry from the intensity and sorrow of the morning.

“What else did he say?” Zoe was grinning from ear to ear as she tried to avoid Tanya's question.

“Nothing. I told him,” she hesitated, looking more serious suddenly, “that I was positive.” She hated to say the words, and then she looked at her friends with wide eyes filled with disbelief, still unable to believe what he had said to her at lunchtime.

“What did he say to you?” Mary Stuart asked gently, and Zoe turned to her with a broad smile of amazement.

“He asked me to marry him. Can you believe that?” The other women's jaws dropped, and they looked at her in delighted disbelief, but it was Tanya who spoke first.

“Let's get you healthy so you can go home to this guy, before someone else grabs him. He sounds terrific.”

“He really is.” Zoe had no idea what she was going to do yet. But she was going to be with him, and work with him, and let herself experience everything that life offered her, and if he really wanted to marry her, then maybe she would. But whether or not she married him, she knew she loved him, and that was the most important thing.

“Well, I'll be damned,” Mary Stuart said, enormously impressed by Dr. Sam Warner.

The three of them talked about it for a little while, and then Mary Stuart and Tanya went out for the afternoon, since Zoe seemed to be doing so much better. Hartley and Mary Stuart went for a hike that afternoon, and talked about a number of things, especially Zoe and a man who was brave enough to marry a woman he loved and knew was dying. They both thought it was an extraordinary gesture, and they loved him for it.

And Tanya went out riding with Gordon. They were lucky that day. No one else in her party wanted to ride, Hartley was on the hike with Mary Stuart, and the doctors from Chicago had gone fishing that afternoon, so they were actually alone, without even planning it. Gordon took her to a waterfall in the mountains, on horseback, and they dismounted for a while, and lay in the tall grass among the wildflowers while he held her and they kissed, and it took a superhuman effort not to let it go any further, but they wanted to move as slowly as they could, despite the limited time they had. They already felt as though they were on an express train. But it was the most beautiful afternoon of her life, as she lay looking up at him, and then he lay next to her, and they looked at the mountains. They walked for a while, hand in hand, leading their horses, talking about their childhoods, and they talked about Zoe too, and Sam's remarkable love for her. They were brave people in a hard world. And in her own way, Tanya was too. She had come a long way in her life, and now suddenly, there was someone solid and warm and kind beside her. It frightened her a little bit to think of what the press would make of it, and she tried to warn him of the damage they could do, the hurt they could inflict, but he didn't seem to care, and he told Tanya to look around them.

“As long as we have this, how can you care about all that? It is so unimportant. We're all that matters, and what we are to each other.”

“And if we don't have this anymore?” she asked, looking around her, and thinking of going back to California.

“We will,” he said quietly, “we have to. As long as we have something here, a place we can come to, to get sane again, maybe the rest of that insanity won't matter.” It was an interesting idea, and she liked it. Maybe he was right, and she should buy a place in Wyoming. She could certainly afford it. She could even sell the house in Malibu. It was huge, and she almost never went there.

“I feel as though I'm standing on the edge of a whole new life,” she said, as they stood on a bluff, looking out over the valley. They could see buffalo, and elk, and cattie, and horses. It was an amazing sight, and she could see easily why he loved it.

“You are standing on the edge of a new life,” he said calmly, and then he turned her toward him again, put his arms around her, and kissed her.

Chapter 17

On Friday morning, Zoe was still asleep when Tanya tiptoed in to look at her, but she seemed peaceful, she'd eaten well the night before, and Mary Stuart agreed when she came in that Zoe's color was better.

They were just going out to ride, when she got up, and wandered into the living room in her nightgown, and they were pleased to see that they'd been right. She looked a great deal better.

“How do you feel?” Mary Stuart asked solicitously. They were both so worried about her.

“Like a new woman,” Zoe said, almost sorry she told them. She wondered if she shouldn't have said she had AIDS, but the cat was out of the bag now, and it meant a lot to her to have them support her. “I'm sorry I was so much trouble yesterday.” Tanya wanted to tell her how sorry she was that Zoe had pricked her finger the year before, and contracted AIDS, but she didn't.

“Don't be silly.” Their eyes met and held and they each knew what the other was thinking. There was real love there, and compassion and caring. They were the kind of friends that came along once in a lifetime. “We want you to take care of yourself. Stay in bed today, get lots of rest. I'll come back at lunchtime to see if you need anything,” Tanya said as she put an arm around her. She was surprised to realize that under the flannel nightgown, Zoe was incredibly frail, even more so than she looked. There was barely any meat on her.

“Do you want us to stay with you?” Mary Stuart asked generously, and Zoe told her that she didn't.

“I just want you two to have a good time. You both deserve it.’ I They'd all been through rough times in different ways, death, divorce, all the trauma of which life was made and that challenged one's very survival.

“We all deserve a good time,” Mary Stuart said, “so do you.”

“I just want to get back to work,” she said, she was beginning to feel really guilty for being so lazy, and a second week away seemed absolutely sinful. But she knew she needed to recover from the little episode she'd just been through.

“Be a good girl and be lazy.” Tanya wagged a finger at her, and a few minutes later she and Mary Stuart left for breakfast.

Hartley inquired about their friend, and they sat and talked quietly about her over breakfast. They thought she was very brave, and Tanya was grateful that Sam was being so supportive.

“He must be quite a man,” Hartley said admiringly when Mary Stuart told him of Sam's reaction when Zoe told him. They still hadn't said she had AIDS and they didn't plan to. He thought she had cancer.

“She might recover,” he said hopefully, but it was obvious that he thought it was unlikely and so did they. “I knew another couple who did something like that, got married in the face of a terminal prognosis. They were the most remarkable people I ever met, and probably the happiest, and I think she lived a lot longer because of it. He just refused to let her go, she fought valiantly, and I think their love added years to her life. I've never forgotten them. I don't think he ever remarried when she died, he wrote a book about it, about her, and it was the most touching thing I've ever read, I cried from beginning to end, but I can't tell you how I admired him. He loved her more than any man could love a woman.” There were tears in Mary Stuart's eyes as she listened, and she wished that more than anything for Zoe.

Sam called Zoe that afternoon, and they talked for a long time. He wanted her to promise him, seriously, that they'd get married, and she was still accusing him of being crazy.

“You can't propose to me,” she said, touched and flattered and moved to tears by what he was saying, “you don't even know me.”

“I've known you for over twenty-two years, I've worked with you off and on for five. I've probably been in love with you for the last twenty, and if we both were too dumb to see it then that's not my problem. You're so busy taking care of everyone else all the time, Zoe, you don't even see what's happening right next to you. I want to be there for you,” he said, and his voice was warm and gruff and sexy when he said it.

“You already are there for me, Sam,” she said softly, He was amazing.

“I'll be here for you as long as you want me. Besides, we haven't even had our first date yet.”

“I know. You haven't even tasted my lasagne.” There were so many things for them to do, so many things to discover about each other.

“I'm a great cook. What's your favorite kind of food?” He didn't know things like that about her, and he wanted to know them all now. He wanted to spoil her, and be there for her, and take care of her. He wanted to make history, and have her recover. But if she didn't, he'd be there for her too, until the bitter end. He knew now, to his very soul, that it was his destiny, and nothing she could have said to him would dissuade him or change that.