he should be paying attention to her. She didn’t need words to make herself clear.
Absently, he reached up to scratch behind her ears. “No need to worry, Valkyrie. You’re my best girl.”
Rusty punched Jordan in his shoulder.
Jordan welcomed the pain to bring him back to himself.
“That’s your problem, cuz. You’ve got women driving all the way out from who knows where to find you and you’d rather keep company with your horse.” Rusty gave him a serious stare. “Get thrown. Get back on. That’s what we do.”
“Or wise up and learn I don’t have to prove anything to anybody.” With conviction, Jordan repeated his earlier statement, knowing neither he nor Rusty were talking about anything close to bull riding.
Rusty jostled him. “I’ll say this about that city girl you brought us a few years ago. She tried. She really tried. You must have been doing something right for her to stay so long.”
“What I was doing right was being a doctor. She was really impressed with that.”
He ignored the worried look in Rusty’s eyes and forced a grin to lighten the moment as he answered, “When she found out the only store within a fifty-mile radius was a combination feed store/hardware store/ boot shop with a smattering of jeans, hats and pearl button shirts to choose from, she quickly become disillusioned with small-town living.”
Forcing those smiles was getting harder and harder.
“That was it? The lack of fancy department stores?” Rusty wasn’t the first to try to pry out more information.
But a gentleman didn’t kiss and tell. Jordan might not have a lot left going for him, but he was determined to keep his dignity.
He gave a self-deprecating shrug. “She loved boutiques more than me. I’ve learned to live with it.”
“And you’ve had plenty of offers of companionship from the buckle bunnies to sooth any man’s ego.”
Jordan had to admit he’d taken advantage of enough of those offers that his ego should be well soothed.
But afterglow didn’t last much past sunrise, did it?
He stole a quick glance at the woman in the stands. Should he recognize her?
“Old history.” He leaned into Valkyrie, taking comfort in how the mare supported his weight. “I’ve grown up a bit since then.”
As his shoulder throbbed where Rusty had punched him, he felt much older than his years.
Between the physical exertion he’d been doing to try to exhaust himself enough to sleep and the tossing and turning he’d done once he finally forced himself into bed, his bones hurt to the marrow.
Add that to his clinic schedule that had him working over sixty hours a week and he was starting to feel trapped in a dark tunnel as the light of the freight train bore toward him faster and faster.
What were the odds of finding a nurse practitioner who could take some of his load from him?
Over the loud speaker, the announcer called Rusty to the gate.
Jordan squared his shoulders. “Good luck.”
“I don’t need luck. Just a bull that wants to buck. Skill will take care of the rest.” Rusty gave him a cocky grin then strutted toward the gates.
He watched his younger cousin with envy. What would it be like to feel alive again? To feel the blood rush through his veins? To feel his heart beat fast and his mind flash with lightning-quick thoughts? To feel a connection with another human being?
Although he tried to stop himself, he couldn’t stop from glancing over at the woman staring intensely at him as if she were looking inside his head.
What did she see?
He pulled the brim of his hat lower and turned away, determined to ignore the feeling of being evaluated.
DESERÉ TOOK HER time studying Dr. Jordan Hart. Under cover of this crowd, there was no way he would notice a single pair of eyes trained on him. That she kept thinking he was glancing in her direction was purely her imagination as she never caught his eye, even though she tried.
He stood at least six feet one or two. His cowboy hat and boots made him look even taller. With his hat pulled low, she couldn’t make out the color of his eyes or hair, but thought they might both be dark brown.
He was rangy with a stringy kind of muscle that would make his movements graceful.
As he shifted his weight, the chaps he wore emphasized his package. Modestly, she tried to look away, but her raging hormones wouldn’t let her.
Something about being pregnant had kicked her libido into high gear. Whether it was because she no longer needed to worry about an accidental pregnancy or a release of hormones gone wild, or something else entirely, she couldn’t tell for sure. She just knew that she was noticing men even more than she had during her intensely boy-crazy teenage years.
And she didn’t want just sex. She wanted to be touched, petted, protected.
How many nights had she gone to sleep lately, pretending that her fantasy lover lay next to her, that he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close, his big hand over her slightly softening belly?
Keeping this baby she carried hadn’t been the original plan. But, then, the plan hadn’t been for her sister to die, either.
Deseré pushed down her grief and straightened her spine. She was a survivor. Always had been. And always would be—especially now with her son to care for.
Her son.
Get a grip, Deseré. That’s what her sister would have told her if she were here. We do what we have to do to survive.
That’s what her sister had told her ten years ago as Deseré, acting as maid of honor, had arranged her sister’s wedding veil so Celeste could walk down the aisle into the arms of the rich and powerful neurosurgeon who would provide for them both.
Deseré had thought that being a surrogate for Celeste would make up for some of the sacrifices her older sister had made for her. And it had, until Celeste had run a red light while talking on the phone and had crashed into an oncoming eighteen-wheeler.
Even though Deseré knew it was too early, she imagined baby James moving deep inside her.
She would do more than survive. She would build a happy, healthy life for her son and for herself.
In the indigo sky, the first star appeared opposite the fading sunset. Feeling foolish, she made a wish. A miracle. Just a little one. Just a chance to prove myself, okay?
A feeling of be careful what you ask for washed through her.
She shook it
