The Doctor's Cowboy

“Huh. I thought he might be a goner after what that bull did to him.”

Chloe didn’t want to encourage her brother to share any gory details so she turned to the Crock-Pot and started dishing up bowls of roast.

While her family ate dinner, as they had countless times before, Chloe found it hard to pay attention to what her dad and brothers were saying. She kept thinking about how close Wyatt had come to dying. She might not know him beyond a few minutes of conversation, but the idea that his life might have been snuffed out the night before bothered her. Really bothered her.

Of course it did. She was a doctor, charged with saving lives.

Even the lives of ridiculously good-looking cowboys.

“Earth to Chloe,” Owen said as he waved a hand in front of her face.

“What? Sorry.”

“How are things in la-la land?”

She swatted his hand away. “I’m just tired. Didn’t sleep well last night.”

Normally, sleeping like a log wasn’t a problem, especially on days when she worked a twelve-hour shift. But for some reason, she’d woken up several times the night before. She’d gotten the sense she’d been dreaming a lot, but she couldn’t remember about what. Now she wondered if it might have been about a certain injured bull rider.

“I think I’m going to turn in early if someone else can handle the dishes.”

“Go on,” Garrett said. “I’ll get them.”

She gave him a tired smile. “Thanks.”

“Good, because I got a hot date,” Owen said as he scooted away from the table.

“You always have a hot date,” Garrett said.

“You should try it sometime, big brother.”

Not really in the mood to talk about her brothers’ dating lives or lack thereof, Chloe headed to the bathroom. After a quick shower to wash away the day, she trudged into her bedroom and climbed into bed. But despite the fact that she really was tired, sleep seemed far away as she stared out the window at the sliver of moon.

The tug of loneliness made a reappearance, as it had several times recently. It didn’t make much sense considering she was around people all day long and still lived at home with her family. When she’d first started feeling as if something was missing a couple of weeks earlier, she’d wondered if for some reason she’d started missing her mother again. Honestly, she missed her mom every day if she thought about it, despite the fact it’d been more than twenty years since her death.

But as she thought about that loss now, it didn’t seem to match the empty spot that had opened up inside Chloe. Not knowing how to tackle the unfamiliar and unwanted feeling proved frustrating. She was the type of person who saw a problem or obstacle and faced it head-on. But how did you do that if you couldn’t identify the culprit?

She listened to the movements of her dad and brother downstairs, and it hit her that they were every bit as alone as she was. Only Owen had an active love life, but even he showed no signs of getting serious with anyone.

Chloe laid the back of her hand against her forehead and searched for the moment when she’d first noticed the emptiness. She realized after several minutes that it had been shortly after her friend Linnea had announced her engagement and started planning her dream wedding. Is that what Chloe wanted—the big wedding, the happily ever after?

Of course she did. So did most women. But it had always been a “someday” sort of thing. It seemed as if someday were catching up with her, but getting married and having a family of her own wasn’t as simple as it sounded, either. You couldn’t just go shopping for a husband like you could a new car. Not to mention that her schedule was always crazy busy between working at the clinic and hospital and helping out her family.

Still, she couldn’t dispel that line of thought as she tried to force herself to go to sleep. Her mind began to manufacture scenes as she started to drift, scenes of her with her own house, a big yard where two small children laughed and played. She looked toward a barn in the distance, saw someone walk out of it and head toward her. Her heart leaped and the excitement of anticipation rushed through her. As the man drew closer, the thought that he was her husband, the love of her life, settled comfortably within her.

When he came near enough for her to see his face, she smiled. Wyatt didn’t stop until he pulled her into his arms and kissed her with so much passion that she knew in the deepest part of her heart that she was the luckiest woman in the world.

Chapter Three (#ulink_772162f8-f4d7-59b9-8374-030624402149)

Wyatt flipped through the channels on the TV for what had to be the tenth time. Still nothing remotely interesting. He was beginning to look forward to a nurse coming to check his vitals just so he’d have something to do.

As if the cosmos had heard his plea, someone walked into his room. Fate had taken pity on him because it was pretty Dr. Brody. She glanced at the TV, where he’d paused on some sort of infomercial for jewelry cleaner, and smiled.

“Got a lot of silver you need to clean?”

He flicked off the TV. “Daytime TV is garbage.”

“Yeah, sorry we don’t have any decent movie channels.”

“Is it possible to die of boredom?”

She lifted his chart from the end of the bed. “Afraid not, though I’m sure it feels that way.” She made a couple of notations on the chart before returning it to its previous spot.

“So, I think I’ve figured out your name.”

“That so?” Dr. Brody walked around to the side of his bed and checked the fluids in his IV bags.

“Yeah. You look like a Carly.”

“Swing and a miss.”

“Christa.”

“Nope.”

When he started to guess again, she shook her head. “Only two guesses a day.”

He lifted a brow. “Just how long do you think I’m going to be in here?”

“That’s partly up to Dr. Pierce.” She pointed toward the IV bags. “But we’ll start gradually lowering the dosage on these as well as the painkiller.”

“So what do I get when I guess your name?”

A hint of a smile tugged at the edge of her mouth. “The satisfaction of a mystery solved.”

He laughed a little, and damn if it didn’t hurt his middle. “You must have gone to the medical school where they teach doctors to have an actual personality.”

“Oh, this is all me, there way before med school.”

“Naturally quick with comebacks, huh?”

“That’s what happens when you grow up with brothers. Couldn’t beat them up, couldn’t outrun them, but I could win in a smart-mouth contest any day.”

She shifted as if leaving already, and he caught himself just before he reached out and grabbed her arm. “Seriously, when can I get out of this place?”

Her light demeanor fell away. “You sustained significant injuries. If that horn had cut a little deeper, you might not be talking to me right now. You’d at the very best be feeling a lot worse. So you need to give your body time to repair itself.”

“That’s not a definite answer.”