Cox, Suzanne - Unexpected Daughter Read online

  “What are you doing here?” He tried not to wad the patient’s chart in his hand.

  She stepped into the room, shutting the door behind her. Green scrubs skimmed over more curves than he remembered, but her silky hair remained jet-black. He wondered, when she let it loose from the tight knot, if it would flow halfway to her waist like it used to. The skin on his chest tingled at the memory of the midnight strands washing across his body, and his hand rubbed the tingling spot automatically, as if the silken pieces had actually touched him.

  “I work here.” She passed in front of him to stand next to the patient while he tried to drag his mind to the present, to remember the truth about her.

  “You can’t.”

  She glanced at him, then began pulling at the tape on the dressing he’d applied only minutes ago. “I can and I do. But don’t you think we should discuss this later?”

  Cade hated to admit she made good sense. He stood by while she examined the wound, wanting to tell her she had no business coming in here undermining his authority. She’d likely recommend a hoodoo magic mud potion for the guy and in a few weeks they’d be sending him to a surgeon to have the leg removed.

  “I recommended hyperbaric treatments. I believe they have the equipment for that in Baton Rouge.” He waited patiently for her to argue and possibly offer to say a few words over the leg. She’d always had a way with what she called swamp medicine. He called it mumbo jumbo.

  “I’m afraid Dr. Wheeler is right.”

  “But why can’t I use that red stuff you gave me before?”

  “I don’t think that will work. This is much worse than what you had before. I’ll see that Emma schedules transportation for you when she makes the appointment.”

  The old man and his wife nodded while Brijette taped the dressing in place. Cade followed her so closely he nearly bumped into her when she stopped in the hall.

  “I appreciate you not offering some other treatment to my patient.”

  She shrugged. “You ordered what was appropriate.”

  “Well, thank you very much, considering that I am the doctor here.”

  “And I’m the nurse practitioner. I happened to have seen that patient several times before. He doesn’t take care of himself like he should. But I guess you didn’t see much of that where you came from.”

  He frowned. “So what was the red stuff you gave him before? A potion you whipped up from the eye of a lizard and some swamp root?”

  A cool mask settled on her face. He didn’t make a habit of belittling people’s backgrounds, but she had made him this way, showed him what really mattered to her. So what did he care if he hurt her feelings?

  “Actually, it was a new wound medication we’ve just gotten in. I’ve used it occasionally with good results.”

  He hadn’t expected her to answer, and when she did he realized not only did he sound like a complete ass, but they’d drawn a crowd. Two patients from other rooms waited in the hall, watching them. Emma, the receptionist, peered around the corner and a blond girl he’d never seen before appeared near the back door with a plastic box in her arms. She was wearing scrubs, so maybe she worked here, too.

  Rather than respond, especially since there wasn’t much he could say, he strode to Emma’s desk and dropped the man’s chart on the counter.

  “Schedule hyperbaric treatments for him—it’s in the chart.” He glanced toward Brijette. “And transportation.”

  Whatever “transportation” meant. He hoped Emma knew what to do. He didn’t wait for an answer, but left the desk and stomped to his uncle’s office. On the way, he pulled the prescription pad from his pocket. How he’d overlooked her name on it all morning, he’d never know. Maybe his brain had been selectively blocking everything about Brijette Dupre from his mind, including her name printed right in front of him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL me Brijette Dupre worked in this clinic?”

  His uncle leaned away from his desk. “Why don’t you sit down, Cade?”

  Cade walked across the small office and dropped into a chair.

  The older man sighed. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure what existed between the two of you all those years ago. I knew you didn’t part…happily. I figured you might not come if you knew she worked here. I hoped once the two of you met again, you could get past your differences.”

  Realizing his lungs might burst from holding his breath, Cade let the air slip between his teeth in a soft hiss. He’d made an idiot of himself in front of his uncle. Uncle Arthur knew he and Brijette had been more than friends, but if Cade acted like a scorned lover, everyone would think he still had feelings for her.

  “I’m concerned she’ll practice her brand of medicine in this clinic on patients I’m responsible for.”

  “What brand of medicine do you mean?”

  “You know exactly what I mean—all those voodoo, hoodoo remedies. I know her grandmother taught her that stuff.”

  “She does know the old customs, but she’s a licensed nurse practitioner and that’s what she does here.” Doc paused for a moment, his brows knitting together. “Brijette’s completely ethical and would never jeopardize a patient’s health.”

  Cade twisted in his seat. “Well…I’m not sure if I trust her.”

  His uncle smiled. “You’ll see she’s completely trustworthy. Remember she was only seventeen when you were here before. Whatever happened, just keep that in mind. You’ve both done some maturing since then.”

  He nodded, unwilling to say what he was really thinking, which was that certain people never changed. Instead he moved on to another topic of concern.

  “If I’m going to run this clinic, she’s not going to be off on Thursdays. I’ll need her here.”

  Doc sat forward, crossing his arms on the desktop. “No, she won’t go for that. Besides, she’s not off on Thursday. She has a makeshift clinic in one of the small communities near the river, taking care of patients who can’t make the trip here to see a doctor.”

  “She’ll have to postpone it until you’re able to work again.”

  His uncle straightened, his features hardening. “No, Cade. I’ve worked this clinic by myself and you can, too. If it’s too much for you, I’ll postpone my surgery until I find another doctor to help while I’m away.”

  If he’d wanted a reason to leave, he had one now. He could say it was too much work and take off to Dallas immediately. He studied the slightly pasty complexion of the man in front of him. He actually owed his uncle more than a few months’ work at his clinic. The man had taught him about life, and not the high-society life his mother had so wanted him to adhere to.

  Cade had spent his first twenty or so years learning how to live with the country-club set from his mother and father. When he’d come to Cypress Landing, he’d seen how much his uncle cared for his patients and the community in general. People truly respected the man, and not because he had money. Uncle Arthur didn’t have a multi-million dollar business. Cade had never known another doctor who really helped people like his uncle did, and it had inspired him. He’d begun to see a different kind of life than what he’d always known with his parents.

  After everything had gotten so ugly, he’d decided he’d been mistaken about what life in Cypress Landing would be. So he’d gone to work in Dallas at the ritzy clinic and found that unreliable and untrustworthy people weren’t confined to one geographical location. He’d been happy here, at least for a while. He could do this. Besides, half his boxes were unpacked and he’d made one friend already, if you could call the little blond trespasser his friend. He needed more time away from Dallas, to get that nasty taste out of his mouth. No, he’d stay here and deal with Brijette Dupre. How hard could it be?

  ANYONE WHO PASSED HER in the aisle of the small pharmacy would have thought she was in the throes of debating what type of lotion best suited her. She hadn’t really looked at the bottles lined meticulously on the shelf, even though she did intend to buy one. Instead she kept
seeing the image of Cade unwavering in her mind. His blond hair still hung long across his forehead, shoved slightly to one side to show off his green eyes. On the outside Cade hadn’t changed much at all; she wondered if he was still the same on the inside.

  Anger and shock, that’s what she’d seen on Cade’s face. Doc Arthur hadn’t told him she’d be in the clinic even though he’d told her a few weeks ago his nephew was coming. Had he been afraid Cade would be a no-show if he knew she’d be around? Did the old man know everything that had happened years ago? She hoped not. He didn’t act as if he knew a thing, but he could know the whole story and be faking it for her benefit. He might have even realized the truth. That idea made the cold sweat pop up on the nape of her neck again. Doc was like family to her. He wouldn’t betray her, even though Cade was his real family, would he?

  “Brijette.” The voice of the pharmacist at the back counter brought her mind into the present.

  Thankful to be able to stop herself from that line of thinking, she grabbed the nearest bottle of lotion and hurried to the rear of the store where Elliot Arneaux, the pharmacist and owner, bagged several bottles of pills for the elderly Mrs. White. The lady waved at Brijette when she left, and Elliot motioned for her to come behind the counter.

  “What’s wrong, Elliot?” She leaned her hip against the cabinet.

  “I won’t keep you long, but I wanted to show you this.” He held a piece of paper in front of her.

  It was a prescription written from one of the clinic’s pads with her signature at the bottom. On closer inspection, however, she saw that it wasn’t her signature but a fair likeness. A sick feeling started to grow in the pit of her stomach.

  “Elliot, this is for OxyContin. You know I don’t write scripts for narcotics like that. DocWheeler writes those.”

  The pharmacist frowned. “I thought so, but I figured with Doc Arthur sick, you might have done it without thinking. I didn’t know the guy who brought it in. I told him I’d have to check with the clinic before I could fill it. He wandered around the store, like he was waiting for me to call, and the next thing I knew he was gone.”

  Brijette passed him the prescription, trying to keep her fingers from shaking. “You’ll have to report this.”

  “I’m going to. I wanted to talk to you first.”

  “Thanks. This could get me in trouble if it’s happening in other towns. You guys do monitor these narcotic scripts, right?”

  “Yeah, we report excessive narcotic prescriptions from individual doctors. But we’re small, and I know most of the people who come in here. In some other town this would’ve been filled without a question.”

  The sick feeling in her stomach began to spread. She didn’t need another problem to add to her list. A prescription with her name on it that she didn’t write definitely fell in the territory of trouble, especially when it was for a narcotic with a very nice street value. Brijette decided she’d have to talk with Matthew Wright as soon as possible. If this had been happening in other pharmacies, the sheriff of Cypress Landing would know, and if he didn’t, he’d check with the city police. Noticing the time on her watch, she hurried to the front to make her purchases. It was late and she still had to pick up Dylan.

  GRAVEL CRUNCHED under her tires as Brijette began the quarter mile trip off the highway to her house. The small white clapboard was like a hundred others in the area. Most had been part of a larger plantation at one time or another. She and Dylan had lived in different phases of remodeling for the past three years, while they turned the once ragged place into a comfortable home for the two of them. The blue Tahoe bumped hard in a rut in the drive and Brijette made a mental note to borrow the neighbor’s tractor and box blade to grade the road this week.

  “Isn’t that Mr. Robert’s truck?”

  Brijette glanced toward Dylan, who she’d just picked up from Norma’s, then she spotted the dual-wheeled truck parked in front of her house. That was convenient. She wouldn’t have to go to Robert Hathorn’s house to ask permission to borrow his tractor, she could ask him now—although the reason he was here would likely cause her to go to his house anyway, or at least to his barn.

  Shoving the SUV into Park, she lowered the window. Dylan hadn’t even bothered to undo her seat belt. “That crazy horse of yours get loose again?”

  The older man stuck his upper body through the window of his truck and banged his hand on the door. “I don’t know how he did it. Jumped the fence this time, I guess. Think you could help me find him?”

  “Sure, I can help you. How long has he been gone?”

  “Maybe two hours. I put him in the field and went to town. When I came home, he was gone.”

  Brijette waved to him before raising her window to follow the man to his house, not far from Norma’s.

  Beside her, Dylan sat straighter. “He should get rid of that horse. He runs away all the time.”

  She could see the light in her daughter’s eyes. Despite her complaining, Dylan was obviously excited to have a change in what must have been a boring day for her. The girl reminded Brijette of herself when she was younger. When her grandmother used to take her into the woods to trail an animal, or frequently a person, her senses would be firing, trying to decipher every nuance of her surroundings.

  Brijette had learned more about the woods and the land when she was young than many people would ever know. Some people said she had a special gift, or “the sight,” because she could follow a trail so easily and so well. Brijette considered her ability more akin to having very good intuition—at least, that’s what she liked to label the feeling she got when she was on a hard track. She’d moved away from here to go to college where she’d discovered organized search-and-rescue groups and she’d begun adding professional training to her home-taught knowledge. Now she was a member of Cypress Landing’s volunteer search and rescue team, which often meant local people came calling for her help when they needed to find lost pets—and high-dollar horses, of course. But the lessons she’d learned from her grandmother were important ones that she wanted her own daughter to appreciate, lessons that couldn’t be bought with money.

  When they came to a stop at Robert Hathorn’s house, Dylan leaped from the truck and bounced on her toes.

  “Ready?”

  She nearly laughed at the girl, who took off toward the wooden fence. “Don’t step in front of the gate, Dylan. There’ll be enough tracks there already. We don’t need to add more.”

  Dylan paused to glance at her. Brijette didn’t have to be close enough to see her to know that she was rolling her eyes. “I know that, Mom.”

  All three of them stopped at the edge of the gate. Robert waited behind them while she and Dylan squatted to get a closer look at the ground. Over time the grass had been worn away, leaving only dirt, which was helpful for her.

  She tapped Dylan’s shoulder. “Let’s take a walk around.”

  Dylan straightened and they started a slow march along the perimeter of the fence that surrounded the pasture. Brijette knelt several times to study the grass or a weed that was bent at an unnatural angle. When they’d made it all the way around, they checked inside the pasture area and finally returned to where Robert waited patiently. Dylan stuck her hands into her pockets. Brijette knew her daughter was glad she didn’t have to tell Robert the bad news.

  “That stallion is worth a lot of money, isn’t he?”

  Robert frowned at her, pushing back his red hat to scratch his forehead. “Of course he is. He’s one of the top quarter horses around here. I get several thousand dollars stud fee and I could easily sell him for four or five times that. Why?”

  “The horse didn’t jump the fence, and he certainly didn’t open this gate and close it by himself. He was stolen. See this—” Brijette motioned for him to come closer, then pointed “—these aren’t your boot tracks. Someone came here, went in the pasture and got the horse. They circled him around and shut the gate, which was really stupid, because if they’d left it open you’d have bee
n more likely to think he’d gotten away on his own.” She took a breath, caught a glimpse of Robert’s wide eyes and stopped. He must have been more attached to that horse than she’d thought.

  She put a hand on his arm. “Why don’t you go call the sheriff? Dylan and I will follow the trail to see where it goes. They probably put him in a trailer, farther away from here. I’ll take my cell phone and call you when I find where.”

  Robert started toward his truck. He stumbled once and Brijette wondered if she should check on him. But he righted himself.

  Turning toward the field, she saw Dylan nearly at the woods. “Come on, Mom. They went this way. That’s Mr. Robert’s favorite horse and he paid a whole bunch of money for him.”

  Whoever had taken the horse had also taken the path of least resistance in their escape. The trail led straight to a worn path that followed the creek along Robert’s property. In a few minutes they passed Norma’s yard. Dylan raced ahead of her, and she was satisfied to let the girl lead the hunt herself. However, Dylan picked up the pace considerably and, before she realized it, her daughter was out of sight. Brijette increased her speed. She wasn’t afraid Dylan would get hurt in these woods, but she didn’t want her to stumble onto a horse thief.

  Farther ahead, she heard Dylan’s voice shouting. The words brought her to a dead stop. Pure fear sent her into an instant run, ignoring the thin tree limbs that slapped her face and body. Her daughter was saying the name “Cade” and another voice answered—a deeper one.

  Brijette broke through the last of the bushes onto the thick carpeted grass of Cade’s yard. Or at least she guessed it was Cade’s. Robert Hathorn had been trying to sell the house, a piece of the family property his great-great-grandfather had built. It had been on the market for months since he’d had it remodeled. She’d never imagined Cade would be living here, but he could certainly afford such an extravagance. Lord knows he had the money.