MM02 - Until Morning Comes Read Free

dinner.”
    Her parents turned at the same time. Colter braced himself for the moment of recognition, but the old man merely smiled at him.
    “Is he taking you to the prom, Jo Beth?” Silas asked.
    Sara patted his hand. “Now, Silas. Jo Beth is too old for proms. Remember?”
    Colter smiled at Jo Beth. “Are you?”
    “If you're asking my age, I don't mind admitting to twenty-nine, but not a year more.” She unslung her camera and placed it on the top of a claw-footed oak sideboard. “This is Dr. Colter Gray. He's camping near here. I found him in the...”
    “In the desert.” Colter walked forward and bent gallantly over Sara McGill's hand. She was tall and slim, her hair still showing that it had once been blond. Jo Beth might have her father's feistiness, but she certainly had her mother's looks. “I hope my being here doesn't inconvenience you, Mrs. McGill.”
    “Not at all. We welcome company out here in the desert,” Sara said.
    Colter shook Silas's hand. The old man peered at him closely. “Say, haven't I seen you somewhere before?”
    “I don't think so.”
    “Why don't you two wash up while Silas and I set the table.” Sara held herself tall as she walked across the braided rug toward the dining room. In the door she turned to her husband and called, “Silas. Are you coming?”
    “It's Silas this and Silas that.... Silas come and Silas go.” He left his rocking chair, muttering all the way to the door.
    Jo Beth smiled at Colter. “He didn't remember a thing. You're safe here.”
    His gaze raked over her. “I'm not too sure about that.”
    Shivers crawled up her spine, and she couldn't blame them on indigestion.
    “I can guarantee it,” she said.
    “I've found that life has very few guarantees.”
    They assessed each other again, two wary wildcats, and then they washed up and joined her parents at the dinner table. Jo Beth discovered that Colter Gray Wolf was very adept at keeping dinner-table conversation interesting and lively. She guessed he'd had lots of practice at that sort of thing out in San Francisco. She also noticed that he was patient and extraordinarily compassionate when her father ventured off into one of his fantasies.
    While her parents were in the kitchen getting dessert, she leaned closer to him.
    “You have quite a bedside manner, Dr. Gray.”
    “That's what all the women say to me.”
    “And a sense of humor, too, I might add.”
    “In my profession, it helps.”
    “I can understand that—dealing with hundreds of sick people. It's hard enough dealing with only one. It breaks my heart to see Dad this way.” Instinctively her hand balled into a fist.
    Colter covered her hand, which lay on the white tablecloth, and gently unclenched her fingers, one by one.
    “He's not in pain, Jo Beth. He's not even aware that his words and actions are inappropriate and sometimes foolish. In your perception, he is a prisoner of his failing mind, but to him, everything seems normal. That's a compensation of our Father Creator.”
    “Other doctors have told me that, but none so beautifully as you. Thank you.”
    “It's the least I can do. After all, if you hadn't come along, I'd probably have spent the rest of my natural life in that outdoor privy.”
    Her smile was his reward, and almost his downfall. When she smiled she looked like a mischievous angel. He didn't need any blond angels in his life right now. It was already complicated enough.
    “Who wants cherry pie?”
    Colter would be forever grateful to Sara McGill for chosing that moment to come through the door. If she hadn't, he might have done something rash, such as run his fingers through Jo Beth's hair to see if it was as silky as it looked.
    Silas was not far behind Sara. “You wouldn't believe the trouble I had getting those cherries. Why, I had to take my twelve-gauge gun and shoot the derned tree into submission. And while I was out killing cherries, I ran upon this Indian by the creek....” He stopped speaking in