slow, dangerous smile spread across his no-way-should-he-be-so-handsome face and his eyes lit with mischief. “You did a joke. Sleep agrees with you, Miss Worth.”
She laughed. “I guess it does. But don’t go rubbing it in or I’ll have to hurt you,” she said, before she thought about what a bad idea it was. And it was. She glanced away, toward her truck, taking a breath to settle the strumming of her heart. “Thanks for bringing my truck back.” She headed inside the clinic before she got herself into trouble. The scrape of his boots on the wooden porch said he was following her. “I’m assuming you aren’t still holding it hostage and you’re actually going to hand the keys over to me.”
His low rumble of laughter had her moving faster to get inside and behind the counter. She needed a barrier between them—she’d enjoyed watching him with Mrs. Abernathy and Catherine Elizabeth a little too much. The man was a charmer.
And bossy, she reminded herself.
And a rover with no concept of responsibility…not a man for her.
“Truck’s all yours,” he said, leaning a hip against the counter. “It checked out good. No undercarriage damage at all. Just a whole herd of dirt clods. The only bad working part it had last night was a worn-out driver who needs to take better care of herself.”
And here we go again! “I was tired,” she snapped, letting the pencil she’d picked up fall to the desk. “It happens. Can we drop that?” Of course her anger was welcome because it helped put that much-needed barrier back up.
He cocked a brow and his gaze dropped to the pencil she’d just dropped. He picked it up, then as he studied her, balanced it on his upper lip as a schoolboy might do. Sigh. The man looked entirely too cute…and was probably well aware of it. She tapped her boot.
“Well,” she snapped again, “are you going to drop it?”
“Nope,” he said, causing the pencil to fall. He caught it without looking. “Not unless you admit that you should have taken your safety into consideration. That sleep you got last night did you a world of good, didn’t it?”
She’d slept like a rock for four hours, but boy, she hated admitting it to him. “If you must know,” she huffed, “Mrs. A. had to knock on my door and wake me up this morning.”
“All right! Hit me with five,” he whooped and held up his palm. “That’s good.”
She ignored the invitation. “I don’t like oversleeping.”
He wiggled his fingers. “C’mon. Hit me with some love.”
Huh? “No! Would you stop?”
He shook his head, reached across the counter and wrapped his fingers around her wrist. His touch was gentle and as the slightly rough pads of his fingers slid across her skin she shivered. Startled by his actions and her reaction she started to pull away, but he held firm and laid her palm against his.
“There, that wasn’t so hard,” he said. “You need to loosen up, Susan Worth.”
Tugging free of his grasp, she hoped she wasn’t pink and that she didn’t look as shaken as she felt. “You need to mind your own business,” she ordered.
He slapped his hand to his chest. “Wow, what a blow. And after all I’ve done for you.”
“Look,” she offered, needing to get him gone. The sooner he was out of her hair the better off she’d be. “I’ve got a couple more patients to see this morning and then I’m heading out to Clint Matlock’s ranch for the rest of the afternoon. I could give you a ride back, but not before then. Unless, of course, you’ve already arranged a ride.” Something told her she wouldn’t be so lucky.
“Thanks. I’ll wait for you. Unless you need me to hoist more obese dogs into cars—I hope all your clients aren’t that large.”
Despite herself, a smile tugged at her lips. “I’ve given up trying to get Catherine Elizabeth on a diet. Mrs. A. has no one else to cook for, and from what I understand, Herman loved to eat. So she can’t help but spoil poor Catherine Elizabeth.”
Cole did a biceps curl, flexing his muscle for her. “She liked my guns. How about you? I mean, since you have agreed to marry me, what do you think?”
She grunted. “I think you need to go sit down and read a magazine.”
“Yup. Just as I thought. You are sidestepping the question because you agree with Mrs. A.”
Oh, she agreed—the man had some muscles. Probably from all that construction work he did. But she wasn’t about to tell him.
She was relieved when the sound of a motor drew her to glance out the window at the truck pulling up outside. She sent up a silent word of thanks that she could get to work and hopefully get her head straightened out…because it was playing in dangerous waters at the moment. She was moving to Mule Hollow for more reasons than her work. She was moving there with the intention of making room in her life for a husband. That meant flirting with inappropriate men, like Cole, was out of the question.
Now, she thought as she met Cole’s watchful stare, if only God would suddenly zap the handsome rover back to wherever it was he’d been before he’d ridden into town last night, she’d be one happy gal.
A man like Cole was not hard to read. He had no plans to settle down; it was all about his job—a job he loved. The ranch he owned with his two brothers had started out as a stagecoach stop—Cole’s roots ran six generations deep and yet of the Turner men, including a first cousin who had also been a groomsman in Seth’s wedding, Seth was the only one who’d actually stayed true to those roots by keeping the ranch going.
Susan wanted a family. Her mind was focused on that, and yet she still had to keep her business running. Her dad had cared so much about her having a career, wanting his little girl to be able to take care of herself. She’d done that, but now she had to find a way of balancing family with her work. She knew that meant she had to find a man who would complement her life. So even looking at a rover like Cole was out of the question.
She walked around the edge of the counter and forced herself not to make a wide arc around him. Instead she stopped beside him and glanced at his “guns.” “Actually, Mrs. A. has a great point. But in reality it’ll take a bunch more than that to interest me.”
The door opened and she hurried to usher the prancing pack of toy poodles into the exam room. The owner was so flustered trying to hang on to four leashes at once that she didn’t even give Cole a glance. Susan, however, paused to note Cole had taken the first seat in the small waiting area.
“Whatever you say, but I’m here,” he said, flexing his muscle for her. “If you need me, you just call.”
She shook her head and closed the door with a resounding thud. She needed Cole Turner the way she needed a hole in the head!
Chapter Four
“So what’s up, brother?”
Cole opened his eyes and found his brother Seth leaning against the door, grinning.
“Thought I’d swing by and welcome you home, since I heard through the grapevine you’d arrived.”
After
