The Men of Medicine Ridge - Diana Palmer [40]
Well, if her idea was to make him jealous, it had failed. He had nothing but contempt for her. Like Vivian, he didn’t want her in the house, in his life. He went downstairs to his study and immersed himself in paperwork, trying not to see that long leather couch where they’d lain together in the sweetest interlude of his life.
Maybe it was just as well. He couldn’t marry her. There were too many strikes against them. But he didn’t like the idea of her with that gambler. Or any other man…
He cursed his hateful memory and put the pencil down. Natalie ran like a golden thread through so much of his life. In recent years, she’d been involved in just about everything that went on at the ranch. She rode with him and Vivian, she came to parties, barbecues, cattle sales. She was always around. Now he wouldn’t see her come running up the steps, laughing in that unaffected way she had. She wouldn’t flirt with him, chide him, lecture him. He was going to be alone.
He got up and went to the liquor cabinet. He seldom drank, but he kept a bottle of aged Scotch whiskey for guests. He poured himself a shot and threw it down, enjoying the hot sting of it as it washed down his throat. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt so powerless. He looked at the bottle and carried it to the desk. As an afterthought, he locked the door.
Vivian couldn’t sleep. She got up and washed her face, careful of the broken objects she’d dashed against walls in her rage. She kept remembering Mack’s face when she’d told him about Natalie and Whit. She’d never seen such an expression.
It bothered her enough to go looking for him. He wasn’t in his room or anywhere upstairs. Walking slowly, because it was difficult to walk and breathe at the same time despite the antibiotic, she made it to the door of his study. She tried to open the door, but it was locked. Mack never locked the door.
She hesitated, but only for a moment. She combined the look on his face with his strange behavior and the way he’d held Natalie when they’d danced at the nightclub, and with trembling hands she went to the intercom panel and called the foreman.
“I want you to come up here right now,” she said after identifying herself. “Haven’t we got a man who does locksmithing part-time?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
“Bring him, too. And hurry!”
“Yes, ma’am!”
She sat down in the hall chair, biting her lip. It had been a lie that she’d seen Natalie and Whit together, but they both looked as if they’d been kissing. And Whit hadn’t denied it. But if Mack was in love with Natalie, which was becoming a disturbing possibility, she might have caused a disaster. Despite Glenna’s persistence, Mack had never behaved as if he couldn’t live without her. But the way he watched Natalie, the way he’d held her on the dance floor, the way his gaze followed her…oh, God, let those men hurry!
It seemed like an eternity before the doorbell sounded. She went as quickly as she could to answer it.
“I want you to unlock this door,” she told the man beside the foreman.
“Can’t you use the key?” he asked, clearly hesitant.
“I don’t have the key. Mack does, and he’s locked himself in there.” She wrapped her arms over her thick bathrobe. “Please,” she said in an uncharacteristic request for help. Gone was the autocratic manner. “There’s been some…some trouble. He’s in there. He won’t answer me.”
Without a word, the locksmith took out his leather packet of tools and went to work. In short order, he had the door unlocked.
“Wait,” she said when they started to open it. “Wait here. I’ll call you if I need you.” She didn’t want to expose her brother to gossip if there was no need.
She went inside and closed the door. The sight that met her eyes was staggering. It made her shiver with guilt. Mack was lying facedown on the desk, a nearly empty whiskey bottle overturned at his hand. Mack never drank to excess; the memory of his father’s alcoholism stopped him.
She