um, long are you in town for your visit?” she asked, needing something to fill the moment. She hoped he was leaving the next day.
Instead of answering, he cranked up the bike and the engine burst to life. He glanced her way and his eyes glinted in the moonlight. “Depends on a few things, but I might be here for a few weeks.”
A few weeks! “That long?” she squeaked the words out. Thankfully they were drowned out by the roar of the motorcycle.
Or so she thought.
“Yeah,” Cole said with a grin. “That long. Now hang on. It’s time to get you home so you can get some rest.”
Like that’s going to happen. She was wide-awake; her arms were wrapped around Cole Turner—the handsome nomad.
The rolling stone. From what she knew of him he would never be happy unless he was roaming the country. She’d never be satisfied until she was settled and had a family, so this infatuation was ridiculous. Sleep. She needed it! If she wasn’t so tired she wouldn’t be engaging in this weird assortment of thoughts.
A very long time ago she hadn’t thought she wanted a family, either, but…things changed. She sighed and tried again to quiet her mind.
“You okay back there?” Cole called over his shoulder a few miles down the road. His words were almost lost in the night as the air rushed over them. She gave up and settled closer to him, nodding her helmeted head against his shoulder. Weariness sank over her as they rode and thankfully overcame most of her wayward thoughts.
He didn’t try to talk to her over the drone of the engine, blessedly. He made sure she hadn’t fallen asleep every once in a while but other than that he left her alone. She had to admit that he might have been right about her not having any business driving herself.
“That’s it,” she said almost an hour later when her clinic’s small lighted sign came into view on the outskirts of Ranger. “My apartment is out back.” She pointed out the drive around the far side of the metal building and then past the holding pens.
“You live back here by yourself?”
The censure in his voice was unmistakable and it sent her an immediate reality check. “It’s small, but it worked for me,” she said when the little apartment that had been built onto the back of the barn area came into view. She didn’t tell him that soon it would no longer be her home.
“No one has ever tried to bother you back here?” He turned the engine off.
Susan wasted no time getting off the machine and removing the helmet—she didn’t plan on giving him the chance to do it for her. “No, they haven’t,” she said, holding out her hand. “Thanks for everything. Now may I have my keys.”
He got off the bike and dug her keys out of his pocket. But instead of handing the keys to her he began taking her truck key from the ring. “What are you doing?”
“I’m taking this. As soon as it’s daylight—in about three hours—I’ll crawl up under it and make sure you didn’t tear anything up while you were plowing up turf. If everything checks out, I’ll have your truck here by seven or eight. You won’t be doing calls before then I hope.”
She didn’t like him taking control like this. But since she could tell there was no sense arguing, she didn’t. She was too tired. She took the rest of the keys from him. “Eight will be fine. Thank you,” she managed, though her jaw ached from clenching it.
He smiled and she could practically hear him thinking “checkmate.”
Maybe not, though, she thought a few minutes later as she closed the door to her apartment and listened to the motorcycle purr its way back toward the pavement. The man was used to sweeping into emergency situations and taking charge. That was what he did for a living—helped in rescues, then remodeled and rebuilt after hurricanes and other disasters. So maybe there wasn’t anything personal about how he was treating her.
Maybe. But as she took a quick shower and then fell into her bed—basically passing out from exhaustion—she knew she wasn’t buying that notion by a long shot. Cole had pretty much made it clear that he thought she was an irresponsible fool for letting herself get so tired. He’d been doing his civic duty by keeping “the fool woman” off the streets—that was pretty personal. Of course, nearly running him down was, too.
“I’m just sayin’ it’s a fine thang you came along when ya did last night,” Applegate Thornton said, his voice booming in the early morning quiet.
Cole had just crawled out from under the truck when the older man and his buddy, Stanley Orr, pulled up in their trucks, one behind the other. They’d wasted no time trotting down the incline to see what was going on with the lame truck. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to see the two old friends out and about so early, since they always met at Sam’s diner for coffee at sunup then played checkers all morning. Today they’d be late; Susan’s mishap was of more interest to them than today’s checkers game.
The seventysomething older men had been great friends of his grandfather and Cole always enjoyed seeing them on his quick trips through town. Now, he wiped his hands on his work rag and nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’m not disagreeing with you. I’m glad I was out here when I was or else Susan would still have been sitting here when you fellas drove up this morning.
“What I’m wondering is what in the world everyone is thinking when they call that woman out on the road at all hours of the night? There are other vets to call, you know.” He planned to let everyone know he was unhappy about that situation and there was no better place to start than with these two. Talk about a grapevine. It didn’t get any quicker than them when it came to spreading information.
Instead of answering him they looked at each other and raised their bushy brows. “Am I missing something here?” Cole asked. “You can bet I’m having a talk with my brother when I get back to the house.” Oh, yeah, Seth was about to get a royal chewing out for letting Susan leave the ranch when clearly she was ready to drop. He’d told Cole once that she needed help, so why didn’t she have it?
Stanley, affable, slightly plump and balding looked perplexed. “You ain’t been around Susan much, have ya?”
Applegate, taller and thin as a fence post, wore his signature frown as he grunted. “Obviously.”
Both men wore hearing aids and still their words cracked like thunder, even App’s grunt stirred up the cattle milling in the pastures behind the barbed wire.
“So what does that mean?” Cole asked.
Applegate grunted again. “It means that Susan does what she wants. That gal is all-fired determined to be accepted on a man’s terms. If any of us was ta tell her she ought’n ta be out that late—or worse, if we had livestock that needed tending and we didn’t call her—” He whistled long and slow, while wagging his head.
“That’s right,” Stanley continued. “She’d let us have it with both barrels.”
“After what I saw last night, I can believe that.”
“Yup, I’m shor you did. That little gal kin be real hard-nosed when it comes to her job,” Applegate said. “She don’t take kindly ta bein’ treated like a lady. And she’s real good at what she does.”
“Ain’t
