hardly keep my eyes open.”
Before he left the room, she studied his huge silhouette in the doorway, broad shoulders, long torso, big in every way, a man’s man. Fine-looking man. Yet he’d been gentle with Flora. Was it totally wrong to find your new employer sexy? Yet she couldn’t deny she did.
“May I ask you a question?” It had been bothering her since she’d noticed the identical scars on his forehead when she’d first met him, and to be honest she needed something to get her mind off how attracted she was to him.
He turned. The epitome of patience… and gentleman cowboy… sexy.
“Did you have a broken neck?”
The hallway light cut across his profile. He scrunched up his face, obviously surprised by her comment. “Another astute observation, Dr. Silva. I take it my halo-brace scars tipped you off?”
She nodded, trying not to look smug, though definitely feeling it.
“When I was fifteen I was riding a bucking bronco, got bucked off and fractured C1-C2. I was fortunate not to have a spinal-cord injury, as you can obviously tell.” He held out his arms, palms up, looking over his own body.
“No need for fusion?”
“Three months wearing that brace did the trick. It also changed my life goal of becoming a rodeo star.” He smiled and deep vertical grooves cut through his cheeks. Yeah, that was sexy, too.
But his confession made her laugh outright. “A rodeo star?”
“You’re looking at Cattleman Bluff’s former junior rodeo bucking-bronco champion.” He said the mouthful with an amused twinkle in his eyes, as if the title might have carried some clout around here at one time.
But rodeo stars were as foreign as extraterrestrials to a girl from Boston. “I’d say I was impressed, if I had a clue what that meant.” If this was her idea of flirting, she wasn’t doing a very good job.
His closed-lip smile widened slowly, finally revealing a fine line of teeth, and the effect, combined with the lingering glint in his eyes, sent a shiver through her. Oh, man, this could be bad. Dr. Montgomery is gorgeous.
She swallowed. “I’m sure you were a regular star around these parts.” She tried out her version of cowboy talk, her accent no doubt falling far short of the mark. These pahts. Come to think of it, she could imagine him in dungarees and a torso-hugging cowboy shirt. And what she’d give to see the man wearing a cowboy hat.
“Easy come, easy go,” he said.
“Sounds pretty ouchy to me.”
“That, too. I guess you can say I’m a doctor today because of that accident.”
“Weird how life goes sometimes, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” He gave her statement some thought. “Well, I hope you both get a good night’s sleep.”
“Thank you.” She imagined sympathy in his eyes, and, though she didn’t want his pity, she appreciated his caring on some level. These days she didn’t have anyone in her corner, with the exception of Dr. Rivers, and he was far away.
“I also want you to know that, if it hadn’t been for you, my father might have been a hell of a lot worse off. You haven’t even begun to work in the clinic, and you’ve already impressed me.”
He’d paid her a compliment, and this from a man who didn’t seem to do heartfelt. It made her beam. “Thanks. I hardly know your dad, but I like him. He’s got a lot of spunk.”
“Yeah. He’s probably too stubborn to die, but the thought of dealing with his aphasia, well, let’s just say, we’ll all be miserable. I’m hoping his symptoms will resolve quickly.”
“Me, too.”
“Well, like I said, thanks to your fast thinking. Good night.” With that he turned and headed in the opposite direction from her bedroom wing. She watched him for a while, thinking that for a big man he moved with grace, and she definitely liked his style.
Flora had fallen asleep. Lizzie rose gently, hoping not to wake her, and started toward her room. It had been a crazy first-day meeting at the Montgomery ranch. How was she supposed to know there was a wedding going on? And a stroke? Sure was one hell of a way to break the ice with the family, though.
Cole seemed more city slicker than rancher, but thanks to his taking the time to talk with her she’d gotten a glimpse of his inner cowboy, which had probably shaped the man he’d become. The thing that really mixed her up, though, was she really, really liked what she’d seen.
COLE WAS TOO keyed-up to sleep. Worries about his father had peaked a few hours back when he’d been assured by the attending physician that Tiberius Montgomery was stable. He’d sat by his father’s hospital bedside and watched him sleep for an hour or so after that, then decided, as the doctor had said, that it would be okay to go home. He thought about going to his own apartment in Laramie to sleep and be nearby, but decided to head back out to the ranch because of Elisabete.
The last thing he’d expected was to step in on a tired and frazzled woman walking the floors of the living room doing her best to calm a wailing baby. Her nearly black hair had been set free from the earlier braid, and thick tendrils had covered her shoulders. The contrast with her creamy skin had been unnerving. Then in the kitchen he’d noticed the tiny sexy mole above her upper lip, and had nearly fallen off his chair, which wouldn’t have been a good thing considering he’d been holding her baby.
She had the potential to be an incredibly beautiful woman, yet did little to enhance it, and still had managed to make him sit up and take notice. When was the last time that had happened? Maybe that was the special factor about naturally attractive women: sometimes they didn’t know it, and that made them all the more appealing. Or maybe it was just her youth.
Not a good thing for their situation, and, he had to be honest, with her fresh out of medical school, he’d be doing a lot of teaching at the clinic.
He sat on his bed, scrubbed a hand over his face, tired to the core, yet restless just the same, and accepted the fact that peace of mind wasn’t in his immediate future. He had a father to rehab, a new-to-him medical clinic to run, a diamond-in-the-rough doctor to train, not to mention an innocent baby who deserved a good start in life to look after. And why should he feel even partly responsible for that, too? Because any decent man understood innocence deserved protection.
He shook his head, then lay back on his pillow. And to think all he’d expected to do when he came home was run his brother’s medical clinic and keep up with his father’s accounting books. Simple, right? He laughed wryly to himself. Since when had life ever played out the way he’d expected?
Good thing he intended to spend the entire day Sunday working the ranch with a couple of Jack’s cowhands, then in the afternoon he’d go to the hospital to check in on his father. It would give Lizzie and Gretchen time to bond with the baby, and hard work had always been the best way Cole knew to run away when his personal life got out of control.
Hell,
