Christmas Star (Contemporary, Romance) (17 page)

“You love
who?
“ Clay demanded belligerently.

“Vanessa, of course, you fool. Who do you think? Isn’t that what this display of muscle is all about?” One dark eyebrow rose. “I’ve never known you to drink in the morning, but I swear...” Harrison’s words trailed into merest suggestion.

Clay’s heart thudded against his breastbone. Its tempo escalated with new hope. Still afraid he had it wrong, he turned away from his brother’s handsome face. “What about Starr?”

“What
about
Starr? Where is she?” Harrison frowned as he dug out a handkerchief and touched his bloodied lip. “I picked up her preliminary lab reports. The team at the university worked all night and still couldn’t make heads or tails of them. Dammit, we’re counting on that girl to get us some answers.”

Clay’s broad back was set toward Harrison like a brick wall. “Since when do you give a damn about sheep, big bro?”

“Since now. And why are you so nosy?”

Clay said nothing, forcing his brother to make another appeal.

“I hate it when you clam up. You did that as a kid, too. I know you’re pissed off, Clay, but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna spend all day guessing why.”

“Starr.” Clay spat her name through clenched teeth. A strangled tightness in his lungs threatened to suffocate him. His hands, the knuckles scratched from his brother’s hard jaw, were balled at his sides. Avoiding Harrison’s eyes, he snarled, “Just where does your mistress fit in—if you love Vanessa so much?” Spinning, Clay turned on his brother like a cornered animal. “Tell me, Harris,” he said stiffly. “Is it just power and sex, or somewhere in that rotten heart do you care for her, too?”

Harrison McLeod stared, mouth open and slack. The jaw his brother had socked flexed as the words sank in. Then his face slowly turned beet red and he began to stutter. “Y-you think that I... Y-you think St-Starr...we... My God, Clay, how could you?”

Reaching out, Clay caught the front of Harrison’s suit with one hand. His tie and vest bunched beneath a florid chin. “Well, for one thing, you
let
me think it. Are you telling me Starr Lederman is
not
your mistress?”

To his credit, Harrison remained calm. He met the murderous glare in Clay’s eyes without flinching. “She isn’t and never has been. And I’m plenty steamed you’d believe that of me, Clay. Although I guess I could’ve made it clearer....”

“Well, I’ll be damned. But since it’s come up, I’m not too happy you didn’t trust me with Van, either.”

Harrison tried to straighten his tie, then gave up and rubbed his cheek again. “You almost broke my jaw. Tell me, what I was supposed to think, with the two of you thick as peanut butter and honey?”

“I never did one thing that wasn’t brotherly. But I saw you in that fancy restaurant with Starr...and kissing her in front of the condo.”

“That was just a friendly peck. But you and Van...”

“We’re family,” Clay finished, looking affronted.

“I’ll be. Seems like we’ve got things to iron out, Clay. Let’s go someplace and talk this through before we see either of the ladies.”

Clay grunted approval. He jerked his head toward the barn.

Much later, he sat amid the tack contemplating Harrison’s explanation. Feeling decidedly freer—but also like a fool—he savored the sweet smell of hay. Breaking off a piece, he chewed it thoughtfully.

Harrison had gone up to the house to plead his case with Vanessa. He’d asked for an hour alone with his wife.

Clay, on the other hand, was suddenly beset by an urgent need to see Starr. To see her and apologize from the bottom of his heart for not believing her.

He wanted to talk to her
now.
Calling Hank on his mobile phone, Clay asked the foreman to have one of the hands round up the old bull. Then before he could change his mind, he saddled a big bay gelding and cantered toward the trailhead.

S
TARR FORCED
her attention to the task at hand. Not for the first time since leaving the corral did she long for the surefooted sorrel with the blaze face. For this trek, she’d chosen a pinto mare with fire in her eye, but trim lines. It was a mistake. The pinto shied at the slightest provocation, making it nearly impossible to scan the rocky crevasses. At least controlling this horse had the advantage of keeping Starr’s mind off Clay McLeod.

A mile beyond the ranger’s cabin, Starr edged her mount toward a fork in the trail leading to Tahquitz Peak. Her breath floated mistily on frosty air and clung in puffs about the mare’s ears. The terrain was beautiful. Hypnotic. Snow lay in deep drifts along the trail’s edge. Ice crystals caught flickering sun rays and caused the skittish horse to whicker and snort.

Another thousand feet, and the trail slicked over. Less than a mile more and a thick fog settled around them. By now, the pinto was jumping at shadows. Her unsteady hooves slipped on patches of ice.

Yet Starr continued to climb. Her interest was aroused by ever-increasing signs of sheep. She paused frequently to scan the rock-strewn hills with powerful binoculars and took scant notice of the intense cold seeping through her clothes.

Before long, spitting flakes of snow slapped at her cheeks. They melted as they came in contact with her skin. Warmed by the pinto’s body heat, Starr ignored the murky sky and pushed on toward a rocky promontory where she thought she’d glimpsed movement.

Pines bent from years of winter winds huddled like gnomes in sheaths of white. So focused was she on the prospect of finding answers that Starr missed the storm warnings.

Rounding a sharp bend, she reined to a halt. At the pinto’s feet lay the snowy carcass of a bighorn. The nervous mare danced circles around the fallen animal.

Quickly Starr dismounted. She swept a thin coat of ice from the frozen body and bit her lip worriedly. Like the ram she’d found yesterday, this ewe was a near-perfect specimen.

Starr sat back on her haunches, one hand gripping the reins as she studied the ewe. The moan of the wind was broken only by the sharp clang of her mare’s hooves on the frozen trail.

Farther up the mountain, a slight movement caught her eye. Horrified, Starr watched the staggering progression of a smaller ewe down a snow-studded crest. Without warning, the animal stumbled and fell from the ledge

Starr held her breath, willing the sheep to rise. When there was no other movement, she sprang to her feet. Swiftly she tied the pinto’s reins to a tree branch, grabbed her test kit from the saddlebag and headed for the downed sheep.

The distance had looked short, but the rugged terrain was deceiving. And the air was thinner at this higher elevation.

Her breathing was already labored. When Starr stepped on a slick rock, her feet slid out from under her and she landed hard on her backside. For just an instant it brought tears to her eyes. At last she got to her feet again and rubbed her hip ruefully. Afterward she paid closer attention to where she walked.

The ewe was still breathing, and Starr tried to help the animal up. The ewe died in her arms. Tears froze to Starr’s cheeks as she held the animal for a moment. Then she dutifully drew blood, watching the inside of the vial bead with steam.

The swiftness with which this illness struck worried her. At this rate the whole herd could be lost before spring lambing.

It was in the midst of a hasty prayer that Starr caught the muffled sound of a swift stream. That surprised her, as she hadn’t seen any sign of a river. She stood. There was abundant evidence that sheep had broken through ice and snow for feeding. Stooping to inspect a patch of green, she pulled off her gloves, scraped—and blundered across another carcass. A much smaller animal. A squirrel. Was this carrier of death a tick or a flea? she wondered.

Though Starr’s hands had been outside her gloves only minutes, her fingers were numb. She stamped her feet restlessly and tucked her hands beneath her arms to warm them faster. The silence in this graveyard made her edgy. But there was so much to do—samples of the grass and twigs to take. Stagnant water if there was any.

It was well past noon when she finished. Starr supposed she should eat. It was just that finding so many dead animals was unsettling.

As she carried her samples back to the pinto, she saw the merrily bubbling stream. If it fed into a lake, that’d need testing, too. Swift water cleansed itself tumbling over its granite bed.

Starr carefully packed the samples in a saddlebag. She should head back now; maybe she’d catch the incoming courier. If she was lucky, blood gasses from the first samples might have already cleared up this mystery.

Her stomach growled as she reached for the pinto’s reins. Maybe she should eat one of those sandwiches. At the very least, the horse deserved the apple she’d tucked in.

The peanut butter was awful—stick-to-the-gums dry. It was amazing how kids ate so much of the stuff. Thank goodness for that stream.

Starr followed it to the spot where it ran swiftest. Kneeling on a flat rock, she made a cup with her hands and plunged them into the icy water. Laughing, she leaned back and drank it down. And Clay said she couldn’t take care of herself. No pioneer could have done better.

Before she took a second, long swig, her tongue recoiled from the taste. It was dreadful. Like a straight dose of artificial sweetener. Startled, she let the remainder of the water seep through her fingers. It puddled and froze on the fabric of her jeans.

The chemist in her tried to identify the fleeting taste, but she was unable to pinpoint it.

Ignoring the cold, she dipped a finger in the water and touched it to her tongue. Once more her taste buds rejected the cloying sweetness. Not sugar. Not honey. Nothing pleasant, even. Nevertheless it was a flavor she should recognize. Desperately she tried to pull something out of—what? An old textbook? A lecture? Finally she gave up and looked upstream to see if something had spilled.

Her fingers began to cramp from the cold, and she found it difficult to push them into gloves that had grown stiff.

A dull ache began to throb at the base of her skull. “Time for some real sugar,” she told the pinto. “We don’t want to suffer from hypoglycemia in this weather.” She pursed her chilled lips, remembering the almost acrid yet sweet taste. Hopefully the candy bar she’d stashed would take away the lingering unpleasantness.

Ten feet or so from the pinto, Starr was shaken by a sudden dizziness. She fell to her knees as a pain shot through her head. The taste returned, overpowering in its intensity.

Then, just as quickly, the incident passed, and she was able to scramble up. That was when she noticed her footprints were rapidly being covered by a layer of new snow.

When had that happened? Above and below her, the mountain offered zero visibility. A brisk wind whipped icy snowflakes in circular whirls. Starr felt as if she was standing in the center of a snowy paperweight turned upside down. It made her giddy enough to stop and catch her breath. She had the candy bar in hand when the second pain ripped through her head and immobilized her. Closing her eyes, she staggered back. When she opened them again, the spotted horse was almost hidden by the blowing snow.

Starr dropped the candy and reached for the mare. She almost had her when the animal reared and broke the frozen branch the reins were looped around. With a clatter of hooves, she disappeared down the trail.

Starr puckered her lips to whistle, but was driven to her knees when the saccharine taste washed through her in another sickening wave.

All around her the wind began to moan. Snow spiraled and snaked from four directions at once. A shining aura pulsed in the distance.

SeLi’s Christmas star? No. Starr sank against a large rock to study the light. Was this some phenomenon like the aurora borealis? The pain struck again, and she shut her eyes. An image of Barclay McLeod appeared behind her eyelids. Odd, she thought. Did the clarity of his smoldering blue gaze mean she was freezing to death?

A grim but hysterical laugh clawed its way through her lips. In a moment of lucidity, she got to her knees. Why was she sitting on a snowy mountain analyzing death?

For an instant Clay’s face faded and a clearer picture loomed. SeLi... The child beckoned in the impish way Starr had come to know so well. Too bad the pinto had run away. It was warmer now. The mare should have stayed. Had the wind fallen off?

Starr crawled for a while. She tried to catch snowflakes on her tongue. Wow! There was SeLi’s star. Almost close enough to touch. So pretty. So bright. Starr wanted it.

“SeLi. What do you want to tell me?” Starr pushed at the girl, but the image faded. A word appeared up out of nowhere. “Drixathyon.” It tumbled end over end through Starr’s aching head to form thickly on her lips.

She cradled her head, commanding the alternately pulsing and receding word to stop its incessant hammering inside her skull.

Laughter soared aloft on the heightened wind. Was it hers?

Suddenly stars exploded in her head like a burst of fireworks. “The taste—” Starr knew then what was killing the sheep.

She struggled to stand. Thought she had. But all at once discovered she was still on her hands and knees. God, she had to find the pinto and get down the mountain while there was still time. It was all so simple. Why hadn’t she realized it before?

Drixathyon!

Starr didn’t know she’d shouted until the word echoed back at her from the frozen ravine. Frowning, she forced her thoughts to be orderly. The first time she’d heard about the chemical, she’d been in her last year at Berkeley. The Sierra Club had objected to a new chemical that Calexco was using in offshore oil drilling. A chemical designed to reflect traces of high-density petroleum. The kicker was, sea life began showing up on shore—dead.

Bright pretty lights shimmered up ahead. Starr smiled. One of her favorite professors at Berkeley had had her class follow the case. Sierra Club members swore the chemical was lethal; Calexco said it was safe enough to feed a baby.

Wait. There, overhead, were three lights.
Three
Christmas stars?

Starr licked her lips and effected a sliding descent down a steep part of the trail. It was an old battle—environmentalists hampering a quest for oil, and oil conglomerates coldly uncaring about the future of the planet.

God, but her head felt like a bass drum. She huddled under a tree and willed the stars and the memories away. But the group’s experiment came back clearly—they’d drunk the water and not one student had suffered ill effects. Calexco claimed victory. Her class moved on to other things.

Starr frowned, and it hurt. She had to tell someone.
Harrison.
Wait. There was more. On another day, a warm, no, hot day. Part of the class had rowed out to a newly abandoned drilling site. That water had also looked clear. Harmless. It had tasted sweet—like the water today. They’d gotten awful headaches and hallucinations.

Starr closed her eyes and rested her head against a boulder. Who’d gotten really sick? She couldn’t remember. SeLi’s face appeared again in the shifting haze. Then Clay’s. “Help me,” she pleaded. He held out a hand but she couldn’t reach it. He left as her memory returned.

A retired chemist had theorized that if water and Drixathyon mixed, it altered the components and made it a hallucinogen. He thought the chemical might eventually dissipate. It could take weeks, he said. Or months. He wanted the chemical banned.

Millions of lights flickered around her head. Starr reached for them. SeLi got there first and swept them away. “No fair.” Starr laughed. SeLi begged someone behind her for help. Clay. Barclay McLeod? Yes. He knew these mountains. He cared about the sheep. But he didn’t like her.

Starr felt as giddy as a child. She giggled. “Shh. It’s a secret.” Someone didn’t want her to tell.

Harrison. Harrison didn’t want her to tell.

No. She must. The sheep were dying.

Starr called for Clay. Just a test. No echo this time, only stillness.

There was something else. Something important. The chemical
wasn’t
banned. Calexco moved down the coast. Like so many things, the issue of Drixathyon died a natural death. Like the sheep.

Starr’s head pounded furiously. She wanted to get up. She needed to get up. But she couldn’t. It was so cold. Maybe those sheep froze. Smiling, Starr reached for a rainbow that hovered above her. It glittered in the wind, but kept evading her grasp. Starr gave up chasing it. She was thirsty. Strange. She’d had that nice drink from the stream....

Oh, God!
She had to get back to the ranch. If she didn’t, who would learn the truth? Would some other chemist know to test the water?

A worse thought hit her. If she didn’t find the pinto soon, what would become of SeLi? Wanda Manning would win, after all.

“Oh, please no! Clay,” she cried softly. His image floated. He didn’t want her out in a storm. He would come. “Clay!” This time she screamed his name and heard it bounce away on the wind. Then she pitched forward, and her head struck a jagged rock.

The wind was cold, but the snow was soft. So soft....

* * *

C
LAY HEARD
her call. At least he thought he heard a shriek on the wind that sounded like his name. He listened closely for a repeat and heard nothing but the fury of an escalating blizzard.

Gripped by fear from the moment he’d hauled in the riderless pinto right after the storm broke, Clay worried that maybe he’d taken the wrong turn at the fork. Only a fool would navigate Tahquitz Pass in the face of this storm.

But he’d seen a dead ewe and footprints. Starr had come this way, he was sure. Had she gone back and turned at the fork and gotten lost?

Dear Lord, he couldn’t see a foot in front of him. He forged grimly on, leading the pinto mare.

His horse stumbled—over something lying on the trail. The gelding reared, nearly unseating Clay. With all his strength, he subdued the animal. It took him longer to fight the spooked pinto into submission.