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Rancher's Redemption

Год написания книги
2018
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When they reached Doc Mason’s clinic in Esperanza, Clay helped her out of his truck and into the wheelchair a nurse brought out. He parked the wheelchair in the waiting room and walked up to the desk to check her in.

Tamara was grousing to herself about take-charge Clay’s latest crusade when the clinic door opened and a familiar blond-haired man walked in from the street. He slipped off his sunglasses and headed straight for the front desk.

“Billy? Billy Akers?” Tamara asked.

Her longtime family friend and former neighbor turned, and when he spotted Tamara, his face lit with an effusive grin. “Well, I’ll be! Tamara the Brat! How are you?”

She smiled at his use of the nickname he and her older brother had given her growing up. Billy, who still had the build of a linebacker from his high-school days, hurried over to her and bent to give her a hug.

Tamara held up a hand to stop him. “Oh, uh…don’t squeeze.” She winced and pointed to her midriff. “Possibly broken ribs.”

Scrunching his freckled nose, Billy made an appropriately sympathetic face. “Yikes. What happened?”

She waved his question off. “Long story. Gosh, it’s good to see you. It’s been years. How are your parents?”

Billy’s face fell. “Well…not so good. Mama’s been diagnosed with ALS…Lou Gehrig’s disease.”

“Oh, no!” Grief for the woman who’d been like a second mother to her and her brother plucked Tamara’s heart.

“Seeing her suffering has been hard. Especially on Dad.”

Tamara took Billy’s hand in hers and squeezed it. “I can imagine. Oh, Billy, please give her my best. Tell her I’ll be praying for her.”

“I will.” He hitched a thumb toward the front desk. “In fact, I’m here to refill one of her prescriptions.” When he spotted Clay at the counter, a speculative gleam sparked in Billy’s eyes. “Are you here with Clay? Does this mean you two are—” He wagged a finger from Clay to Tamara.

She shook her head. “No, nothing like that.”

When she saw her denial hadn’t satisfied his curiosity, she tried to work out the simplest explanation that would stave off the rumormongers. “I was on his property when I fell, and his house was the closest help.”

“Why were you on his property? I thought you lived in San Antonio now.”

“I do. I—” She sighed, then gave him a watered-down version of the truth. Knowing this town, word had probably already spread about the Taurus being found at the Bar None. “So I was looking around his south pasture and…boom, fell in a sinkhole. Thus the possibly broken ribs.”

A bit of the color leeched from Billy’s face. “You fell in a hole?”

She flashed a chagrined smile. “Klutzy me.”

Clay strolled over and stuck out his hand toward Billy. “How ya doing, Akers?”

Billy shook hands with Clay. “I’m…uh, fine. You?”

“Good.” Her ex shifted his gaze to her. “They’re ready for you.”

Billy excused himself, promising to give her regards to his parents and offering well wishes for Tamara’s speedy recovery.

As Clay rolled her to the exam room, Tamara grinned. “That’s a small town for you. Can’t go anywhere without running into a neighbor or a lady from church or your parents’ bowling partners.”

“Which is why we always drove away from town for our dates in high school.”

“Dates? You mean when we went parking.” She wished she could recall the words as soon as she said them. No point reminding Clay of the car windows they’d steamed…or the first time they’d made love.

“Yeah. That’s what I meant.” His voice had a thick seductive rasp that told her those memories still affected him. Her pulse stuttered. Maybe he hadn’t totally wiped her from his life after all.

Doc Mason’s nurse, Ellen Hamilton, stuck her head into the hall from an exam room a couple doors down. “Right in here, Ms. Brown.” After Clay wheeled Tamara into the exam room, the petite gray-haired woman laid out a sheet and a paper gown. “Would you like help changing out of your clothes, honey?”

Tamara tried to push herself out of the wheelchair and fiery needles stabbed her chest. She muffled a moan. Instantly Clay tucked his arms under hers, lifting her and helping her to the exam table.

Tamara glanced to the nurse. “Yeah. I think I’ll need help.”

“Fine.” Ellen turned to Clay, her expression patient.

Unmindful of the nurse’s stare, Clay took Tamara’s foot in his hand and unlaced her shoe. After sliding it from her foot, he moved to the next shoe.

Tamara was so stunned at his presumptuousness that she could only gawk. When he gave her foot a soft rub, her breath snagged in a hiss of surprise.

Foot massages after a full day tending the ranch had been one of Tamara’s greatest pleasures when they were married, a relaxation treat that often led to full body contact, clothes shed, lusty appetites sated.

Clay’s eyes locked with hers, and he grimaced. “Sorry. I was trying to be gentle.”

She started to tell him the gasp hadn’t been one of pain, but the nurse cleared her throat.

“I meant that I’d help her change.” Now her expression was challenging. She lifted a sculpted eyebrow and tipped her head toward the door.

Her ex-husband wasn’t stupid and wasn’t easily cowed. He straightened his spine and set his jaw in a manner that Tamara knew well. He had no intention of backing down.

Tamara almost laughed at the standoff, until she realized that Clay thought he still had a right to be in the exam room with her, that it was natural for him to help her change into the hospital gown. A warm swirl of nostalgia flowed through Tamara followed closely by a shot of irritation.

Clay had lost any claim to such marital intimacies when he signed their divorce papers without blinking, without so much as a tremble of his hand. She, on the other hand, had been shaking so badly she barely recognized the signature she’d scratched as hers.

And now he wanted those privileges of familiarity back? She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Would you please step outside, Mr. Colton?” Ellen Hamilton asked.

A muscle in Clay’s jaw twitched. He raised his chin, his eyes determined.

“Clay.” His name squeezed past the lump of regret that clogged her throat.

He snapped his rich coffee gaze to hers, and the stubborn glint faded, replaced by a wounded expression, a chagrined acceptance that plucked at her heart. He hid it well. Someone who didn’t know Clay and his take-no-prisoners attitude, his stubborn cowboy pride, would have missed it. But Clay had been her husband, half the blood and breath that made her whole. An ache wholly unrelated to her injuries pulsed through her chest.

He ducked his chin in a quick jerky nod of understanding and concession that broke Tamara’s heart. “I’ll be in the waiting room when you’re ready to go.”

He left without a backward glance, and the room seemed infinitely colder and more lifeless with him gone.

A moment later, a lean man in his late forties with thinning dark hair stepped into the room and shook Tamara’s hand. “Ms. Brown, I’m Frank O’Neal, Dr. Mason’s fill-in. I hear you took a nasty tumble.”

“You heard right.”

The doctor flashed a polite smile. “Well, let’s see about getting you all fixed up.”
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