Christmas Cowboy Duet

Given that state of mind, in a moment of weakness, Whitney answered him truthfully, “I don’t know yet.”

Turning so that he was facing her and the incline, he indicated his truck. “Why don’t you sit down in the cab of my truck while we wait for Mick to get here? Or, better yet, I could take you to the clinic in town if you want to be checked out.”

“Clinic?” she repeated with a slight bewildered frown. “You mean hospital, right?”

“No, I mean clinic,” he replied. “If you want a hospital, I could take you,” he said, then warned her, “but the closest one is approximately fifty miles away in Pine Ridge.”

He was kidding, right? Were the hospitals around here really that far apart?

“Fifty miles away?” Whitney echoed, utterly stunned. “What if there’s a medical emergency?” she asked.

Fortunately, they had that covered now—but it hadn’t always been that way. The residents of Forever had gone some thirty years between doctors until Dan Davenport had come to fill the vast vacancy.

“It would have to be a pretty big emergency to be something that Dr. Dan and Lady Doc couldn’t handle,” Liam told her.

Very gently, he tried to guide her over to his truck, but the petite woman firmly held her ground. She had to be stronger than she looked.

Dr. Dan. Lady Doc. She felt like Alice after the fictional character had slid down the rabbit hole. For a second, Whitney thought that the cowboy was putting her on, but there wasn’t even a hint of a smile curving his rather sensual mouth and not so much as a glimmer of humor in his eyes.

He was serious.

What kind of a place was this?

“So, do you want to go?” Liam prodded.

“Go? Go where?” Whitney asked. Her light eyebrows came together in what looked like an upside-down V.

“To the clinic,” Liam repeated patiently. If she couldn’t keep abreast of the conversation, maybe he should just take her to the clinic even if she didn’t want to go. He sincerely doubted that she could offer any real resistance if he decided to load her into his truck and drive into town. And it would be for her own good.

“No, I’m okay,” Whitney insisted. “A little rattled, but I’m okay,” she repeated with more conviction. “And I’ll be more okay when my car is taken down out of that tree.”

Looking over her shoulder to see if she had finally convinced him, she found that the cowboy had walked away from her. The next moment, he was back. He had a fleece-lined denim jacket in his hand that he then proceeded to drape over her shoulders.

“You look cold,” he explained when she looked at him warily. “And you’re already chilled. Thought this might help.”

Her natural inclination to argue subsided in the face of this new display of thoughtfulness. Besides, she had begun to feel a cold chill corkscrewing down along her spine. The jacket was soft and warm and given half a chance, she would have just curled up in it and gone to sleep. She was exhausted. The next moment, she was fighting that feeling.

Whitney smiled at the cowboy and said, “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” he responded, then extended his hand to her. “I’m Liam, by the way. Liam Murphy.”

Whitney slipped her hand into his, absently noting how strong it felt as she shook it. “Whitney Marlowe,” she responded.

Liam’s grin widened. “Pleased to meet you, Whitney Marlowe,” he said, then added, “Sorry the circumstances weren’t better.”

Whitney laughed softly to herself. “They could have been worse,” she told him. When he looked at her quizzically, she explained, “You might not have heard me in time and then I would have drowned.”

What she said was true, but he had learned a long time ago not to focus on the bad, only the good. “Not a pretty picture to dwell on,” he said.

“Nonetheless, I owe you my life.”

The grin on his face widened considerably. If she really felt that way, he could take it a step further. “You know, in some corners of the world, that would mean that your life is now mine.”

“Oh?” The single word was wrapped in wariness. “But this isn’t ‘some corner of the world.’ This is Texas,” she pointed out. “And people don’t own other people here anymore and haven’t for a very long time,” she added just in case he was getting any funny ideas.

He could almost feel her tension escalating. “Relax,” he soothed her in a calming voice that, judging by her expression, just irritated her more. “It’s just a saying. You sure you don’t want me taking you into town so you can get checked out at the clinic?”

“I’m sure,” she insisted as adamantly as she could, given the circumstances. Her throat felt as if she’d swallowed a frog wearing pointy stilettos that scraped across her throat with every word she uttered.

The noise she heard coming in the distance alerted her of the car mechanic’s impending arrival.

Whitney turned toward the sound and if she’d been expecting a large, souped-up-looking tow truck, she was sadly disappointed. Mick, the town mechanic who had been summoned to the scene, was driving a beat-up twenty-year-old truck that had definitely seen far better days.

Stopping his truck directly opposite Liam’s, Mick lumbered out. Thin, he still had the gait and stride of a man who had once been a great deal heavier than the shadow he cast now.

Mick took out his bandanna-like handkerchief and wiped his brow, then passed it over his graying, perpetual two-day-old stubble.

“What can I do you for, Little Murphy?” he asked Liam, tucking the bandanna back in his pocket.

Putting one hand on Mick’s sloping shoulder, Liam directed the man’s attention to the reason he had been called. “Lady got her car stuck in that tree.”

“And you want me to get it down,” Mick guessed. Taking off his cap, he scratched his bald head as he took a couple of steps closer to the tree.

“That’s the general idea,” Liam replied.

Mick nodded his head. “And a good one, too,” he commented seriously, “except for one thing.”

“What’s that?” Whitney asked, cutting in. She didn’t like being ignored and left out of the conversation. After all, it was her car up there.

“The thing of it is,” Mick told her honestly, “I don’t have anything I can use to get that car down.” He squinted, continuing to look at the car. “I could cut the tree down,” he offered. “That would get the car down, but I sure couldn’t guarantee its condition once it hit the ground again.” His brown eyes darted toward Liam. “You’re going to need something a lot more flexible than my old truck for this.”

“So what do I do?” Whitney asked. This was a nightmare. A genuine nightmare.

“Beats me,” Mick said in all honesty.

Liam suddenly had an idea. “Would a cherry picker work?”

Mick bit the inside of his cheek, a clear sign that he was thinking the question over. “It might,” he said. “But where are you gonna get one of those?”

“From Connie,” Liam replied, brightening up. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? he silently demanded. It seemed like the perfect solution to the problem.

“Who’s Connie?” Whitney asked, unwilling to be left on the sidelines again. She looked from Liam to the mechanic.

“Finn’s fiancée,” Liam answered, clearly excited about this new solution he’d just come up with. Taking out his cell phone again, he made another call.

Connie, Finn, Mick. It sounded like a cast of characters in a strange college revue, Whitney thought. How did any of this get her reunited with her car? she wondered impatiently.

Because the man who rescued her from a watery grave was on the phone, she glanced at the scruffy man in coveralls whom Liam had called to the scene first. “Who’s Finn?” she asked.