The Doctor's Cowboy Read online

  When they stepped inside the living room of her home, something felt off about it. He couldn’t figure out how he could possibly know that, and there was nothing obviously wrong with the comfortable-looking space. But something just felt...wrong. Even so, he was grateful to be somewhere that didn’t look and feel institutional, like the inside of a bottle of disinfectant.

  “I think you’ve had just about enough excitement for one day,” Chloe said when she closed the door behind him, leaving everyone else outside.

  He wanted to argue but couldn’t. The pain was increasing by the moment, and he didn’t want to embarrass himself by pushing too hard. “I could use a pain pill.”

  “And a nap.”

  “A nap? That sounds like something kindergartners do.”

  “Some sleep, rest, z’s, whatever you want to call it. You want to get better, and sometimes what your body needs to heal is sleep.”

  Not allowing him time to respond even if he could think of something to say, she turned and headed for a hallway that likely led to the bedrooms. With a grunt he hoped she didn’t hear, he followed her. When he stepped into the bedroom, he knew it was her room. It wasn’t that it was pink and frilly, but the framed pictures of wildflowers lining one wall didn’t seem like something her dad or brothers would have in their rooms. Neither was the white wooden desk and chair angled in one corner, or the floor-to-ceiling bookcase crammed with what looked like a collection of medical thrillers, thick textbooks and titles about Texas.

  “This is your room,” he said.

  “Observant.”

  “Shouldn’t I be in the guest room?”

  “Don’t have one, not once my brothers got old enough that sharing a room was decidedly uncool. Plus, they didn’t think it was fair that I had my own room just because I was the only girl.”

  “I can’t take your room. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

  She propped one hand on her hip. “You’re going to fight me every step of the way, aren’t you?”

  “Not fighting. I don’t need all this room, just somewhere to sleep at night.”

  Chloe turned more fully toward him. “You want to get better as quickly as you can, right?”

  “Yes.” He doubted anything could be more obvious.

  “Then you need to rest whenever your body says it needs rest. And for that, you need your own space. I’m gone most of every day anyway, and busy doing other stuff even when I’m home.”

  He wanted to argue further, but it was useless. And the longer he balked at the sleeping arrangements, the longer it was going to take to get that pain pill, the one he didn’t want but needed. He was beginning to feel as if his gut were ripping open again.

  Not verbally admitting defeat, he nonetheless walked over to the bed that was covered with a light green comforter and sat on the side. “At least the bed isn’t covered in flowers.”

  Chloe laughed. “Yes, because they might attack you and you’d lose macho points.” She shook her head. “Guys are weird.”

  “Guys? No, girls are definitely the weirder of the two sexes.”

  “I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree. Now lie back and let me check your dressings. I want to make sure you haven’t popped any stitches with all your gallivanting around today.”

  Before doing as she instructed, he shoved off his boots. As he lay back on the soft bed—heaven compared to that torture device at the hospital—he couldn’t help the moan of pain.

  “You overdid it today,” Chloe said as she lifted his shirt as if it were no big deal and pulled off the bandages.

  “Not the first time I’ve done something stupid. Won’t be the last.”

  “Admitting stupidity is always the first step.”

  He laughed, which made his injuries hurt more but was worth it because it made her smile, too. Here, without the hospital as the backdrop, Chloe Brody was even prettier. He had to fight the urge to lift his hand and run his fingers over her cheek to see if it were as soft as it looked.

  “I suppose I should tell you my name since you’re staying at my house.” She applied some sort of medicine to his incisions, probably antibiotic cream.

  “Chloe,” he said.

  She glanced up at him. “Good guess.”

  He smiled.

  “Wait. Someone told you, didn’t they?”

  “I might have asked.”

  Her eyes narrowed a fraction. “When?”

  “Several days ago.”

  “But you’ve been guessing the wrong names.”

  “I had to make sure you came back every day.”

  The look of surprise on her face made him want to frame her face with his hands and kiss her. But that was a very bad idea. Injured or not, he was pretty sure her dad and brothers would frown on him accosting her in her own bedroom.

  For the first time since they’d met, she seemed flustered and didn’t have a snappy comeback as she finished applying new bandages. “Your pain meds are in the car. Be back in a minute.”

  As she started to step away, without thinking he reached out and grabbed her hand. “Thanks.”

  He wasn’t sure if he was thanking her for the medicine, for giving him an alternative to the hospital, or simply for caring more about him than most people in his life ever had. It didn’t matter why he said it. He just knew he needed to.

  She didn’t ask what he meant, only nodded before walking out of the room.

  * * *

  EVEN THOUGH SHE’D taken half a day off from work, Chloe was exhausted by the time she put dinner on the table that night. Since an unusually cool rain had moved in midafternoon, she’d gone with chicken and dumplings.

  She hated to bother Wyatt since he’d evidently given in to the rest she’d insisted he needed. But to get better, he also needed to eat. She’d taken a few steps toward the hall when she heard a door open. At the same moment, the back door also swung open, and her dad and brothers filed into the mudroom. One glance at their boots told her that the room would live up to its name tonight.

  Garrett was the first one to come into the kitchen, and his gaze immediately scanned his surroundings, as if he thought Wyatt might have slit her throat or something. “Our guest conked out already?”

  “He’s been sleeping all afternoon, but I just heard him get up.”

  Garrett walked to the sink to wash his hands then turned to look at her as he dried them on a towel. “Do you think this is a good idea?”

  Chloe heard another door close, followed by the sound of running water. “I’m just doing my job.”

  “I’m pretty sure most doctors don’t bring their patients home, especially when they barely know them. You sure there’s nothing else going on?”

  She stopped filling bowls with dumplings and turned halfway to look at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “He’s a decent-looking guy, and you’re single.”

  She laughed. “You think I’ve got a thing for him?”

  “Do you?”

  A hot denial was on her lips, but she found she couldn’t say the words. “Like you said, I barely know him.” Which wasn’t exactly a denial of attraction, but she hoped her brother didn’t realize that.

  When Owen walked past her toward the table, he was wearing a grin so full of mischief that Chloe wanted to throttle him. She remembered his teasing about Wyatt a few days before and realized she’d given him more ammunition for his theory.

  Thankfully, she was saved from more teasing when Wyatt eased his way into the kitchen.

  “Evening,” her father said to him. “You’re looking better than you were earlier.”

  “Amazing what sleep in a real bed and a couple pain pills can do.”

  As Chloe carried the final two bowls to the table, it hit her that Wyatt had nowhere to sit. That f
act seemed to occur to her dad and brothers at the same time, and they all went quiet and still. Before Wyatt could ask what was wrong, she directed him to the chair she normally sat in.

  “Be right back.” She didn’t make eye contact with anyone as she walked into the pantry and grabbed one of the extra chairs, but not the one her mother used to sit in. Even though they’d used it since her mother’s death when they had enough company for a meal to warrant it, most of the time the reminder of her absence was kept out of sight. She paused long enough to rub her fingertips along the back of her mother’s chair, a match for all the others except for the dent in the top slat of the back where her mom had dropped a hot casserole dish. Though memories of her mom could still make her sad, this time she smiled.

  Not wanting to leave the guys in awkward silence, she grabbed the other chair and walked back into the kitchen. Her dad and Garrett were at their normal spots at the opposite ends of the table, and damn if Owen wasn’t already parked in his chair, firmly planted in the middle of the table opposite Wyatt. A hint of a smile tugged at the edges of his mouth.

  Before she could tell Owen to move his butt, Wyatt scooted his chair to the side, giving her room to place hers next to his. Pretending that nothing was awkward about the situation, she slid into her spot.

  She hadn’t considered that having Wyatt at the table might put a damper on their normal routine, but suddenly she grasped for something to say.

  “So, Wyatt, I hear you’re from Wyoming,” her dad said. “I’ve been up that way once. Got a friend who has a spread up near the Big Horns. Pretty country.”

  “Yes, sir, it is. Awful cold in the winter, though.”

  Her dad chuckled. “It is that.”

  Chloe breathed a little easier as the conversation flowed into a back-and-forth about the ranch, Wyatt’s year so far on the circuit and the latest news about the fence cutters.

  “They’re not taking any of the cattle?” Wyatt asked.

  “No,” her dad said. “Just doing it for pure meanness.”

  Chloe relaxed as the meal progressed. Wyatt’s presence didn’t seem like that big of a change, at least not until they both reached for a piece of bread at the same moment and their hands bumped. Chloe jerked hers back at the buzzy awareness that flared to life between them, which made no sense because she’d already seen him half-naked and thought nothing of it.

  Okay, so that wasn’t entirely true. She’d seen a lot of men’s bare chests since becoming a doctor, most of which became a blur as soon as the patient was gone. But Wyatt Kelley’s well-cut muscles were still there in her brain, inhabiting way too much real estate for her peace of mind.

  She refused to let herself look at him, and instead reached for a napkin as if that were what she’d been after all along. By instinct, she also knew not to meet Owen’s gaze across the table.

  “So, Wyatt,” Owen said. “How did Chloe convince you to come home with her?”

  This time she did look up, shooting mental daggers at her brother. Owen just looked amused.

  “Got tired of arguing.” Wyatt glanced at her in the same moment she caved and looked at him. He smiled a little, and it made him impossibly sexier than he’d already been.

  Yeah, she admitted it. Wyatt Kelley was sexy, the epitome of the American-cowboy fantasy. She’d grown up around lots of cowboys, but even she got sucked into the fantasy now and then. Like right now as they probably stared at each other for way too long, considering her dad and brothers were in the same room.

  She forced herself to casually look away. “So, Owen, which unfortunate girl gets the pleasure of your company tonight?”

  “I’m taking a night off. Figured things might be pretty interesting around here with company.”

  Chloe turned toward Wyatt. “Owen’s bucket list includes dating every girl in the county and all the surrounding ones.”

  “And trying every profession under the sun,” Garrett added, earning himself a kick under the table.

  Chloe’s father sighed. “Wyatt, I’m sorry. I tried to teach these three manners. As you can see, it didn’t take so well.”

  Chloe and her brothers all protested at once, which was followed by a pause, then everyone at the table gave in to laughter.

  “I’m not sure about your dates,” Wyatt said to Owen. “But this is definitely more interesting than the nightlife at the hospital.”

  A snort escaped Chloe before she could catch it, which led to even more laughter from all around.

  Wyatt held up his hand and tried to hide a grimace. “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “Sucks to be you, man,” Owen said.

  Wyatt nodded. “Tell me about it.”

  After dinner, the guys headed for the living room. Wyatt lingered in the doorway as Chloe heard the TV click on.

  “You need any help?”

  “I’m good,” she said. “You should go get off your feet.”

  “I’ve been off my feet most of the day.”

  “Good.”

  He shook his head. “Stubborn” was all he said before following in the wake of her dad and brothers.

  But the way he said it, as if maybe he didn’t mind her stubbornness so much anymore, caused a flicker of happiness to come to life within her. She knew it wasn’t wise, but that knowledge didn’t seem to matter.

  * * *

  WYATT HATED HAVING his days and nights mixed up. After sleeping the day away, he found it difficult to sleep more than a few minutes at a time. Instead, he lay in Chloe’s bed, surrounded by her fresh, feminine scent, thinking about what it’d be like if she were beside him.

  She was not the kind of woman he tended to gravitate toward when he allowed himself to be with a woman at all. His encounters were usually one-time things with no strings attached. He wasn’t anywhere near as bad as some guys on the circuit, but even he liked a woman warming his bed now and again.

  But not Chloe. She was a good woman, caring, professional. Not to mention she lived with three guys who would likely have no problem finishing what Beelzebub started if he stepped out of line with her. Even though they hadn’t come right out and said it, he got the feeling they were protective of her. He wondered if that had anything to do with her mother not being in the picture. He had no idea where the older woman was, if she were even still alive, but he’d caught the strained moment the night before when Chloe had realized there weren’t enough chairs at the table.

  Still, despite knowing all the reasons why he shouldn’t, he found himself daydreaming about what it’d be like to pull Chloe close, to kiss her and find out if those pink lips tasted as sweet as they looked. He wondered whether she’d be interested in him if they knew each other better.

  Of course not, because if she knew everything about him, she’d likely want nothing to do with him. And he couldn’t blame her.

  Needing to think of anything other than something that could never be, he slowly lifted himself to the side of the bed and turned on the light. He took several moments to catch his breath.

  Another pain pill sounded good, but he’d seen too many people get hooked on drugs of various types to want to take them for long. Might as well start weaning himself off them now, no matter how much his stomach and side were trying to overload his pain receptors.

  After taking a few deep breaths, he stood and walked as quietly as he could toward the bookshelf. He scanned the backs of a few of the books before settling on one of the thrillers. By the time he made it back to the bed, he was reconsidering the pain-pill-avoidance thing. But all he had to do was think about his parents, and the urge to ever pop anything stronger than an aspirin in his mouth dissolved.

  He lay back with the book and tried to read, but his mind kept wandering to Chloe. Every time he scanned her bedroom, he spotted something that revealed a little more of who she was. Her nightstand held a pho
to of her with her brothers when they were younger, all astride horses and dressed as you’d expect ranch kids to be dressed. A trophy sat atop a filing cabinet, probably for something like best grade point average in a high school science class. One of those picture frames that held several snapshots hung above her desk alongside a wildflower calendar.

  Even though he knew he should keep his distance as much as he could while staying in her home, he couldn’t deny that a part of him wanted to get to know her better. He felt drawn to her, and he was pretty sure it was by more than her witty personality.

  At some point he fell asleep only to wake up just as dawn was barely peeking its head above the horizon. He heard movement in the distance and figured it was Chloe walking around the kitchen. Though he was tired, he didn’t feel as if he were going to fall back asleep anytime soon. With more than a few grunts and biting down on his lower lip, he got up and slipped on his jeans and shirt. He didn’t bother with his boots. They’d just make a bunch of noise anyway.

  He eased his way out of the room and down the hallway toward the kitchen. When he caught sight of Chloe, he paused and watched her make coffee. Gone was the professional, put-together look. Rather, she wore a T-shirt and pajama bottoms, her bare toes poking out from beneath the hem. If he’d thought her pretty before, she was downright sexy now, as if she’d just crawled from the bed next to him. If he didn’t think he’d be slapped into next week, he’d be willing to risk some pain from his injuries to press her against the kitchen counter and kiss her breathless.

  That image caused his jeans to grow uncomfortable. When he attempted to shift to a less abrasive position, she gasped. She raised her hand to her heart.

  “Scare a girl to death, won’t you?”

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to.”

  A bit of her physician’s persona slipped into place. “You’re up early. Are you okay?”

  “Fine. Sleep cycle is just messed up.”

  She nodded. “That happens a lot to people who are in the hospital.”

  He walked slowly into the room and positioned himself behind the island to hide his aroused state. “Have to say your bed is a lot more comfortable.”