The Cowboy Falls for the Veterinarian: Western Romance (Miller Brothers of Texas Book 3)

by Natalie Dean

  “You know it,” she said, words still muffled around her food. Normally she would never talk with her mouth full, but the levity seemed right in the moment. She liked seeing Sterling smile. A real smile. Not any of his manufactured—but still devastatingly effective—smiles that he was used to whipping out to charm people.

  “Careful, you might make a gentleman blush.”

  “Oh yeah? Well I’ll be real careful if I see a gentleman around.”

  He pressed his hand to his chest, giving her an affronted look. “You wound me, madam!”

  “Mademoiselle, technically. And if you want to go to the hospital for that, then you’re just going to have to call an ambulance. I’m tapped out, I’m afraid.”

  “The cheek,” he huffed, although she could see his grin trying to peek out of his act.

  He took a giant bite of his sandwich, and the two of them happily sat in the quiet while they chewed. Elizabeth couldn’t remember the last time that she’d had so much fun bantering with someone. She wasn’t sure if it was the head injury or that she was just so exhausted that she couldn’t hold her normal guard up, but either way it was nice. Really, really nice.

  “This day turned out different than I expected,” she said. “I thought you were going to fire me.”

  Sterling swallowed. “What’s this about firing you?”

  “I’ve been expecting you to fire me any day now,” she said, pointing what was left of her sandwich at him.

  “Why would I do that? Don’t you know this is all a plot to emotionally indebt you to me so that you never leave, and you just stick around here forever, improving all of our animals’ lives until they have perfect existences?”

  She snorted at that. “Like that is even believable.”

  A strange sort of look crossed over his handsome features, but then he was gently chuckling too. “I guess maybe it’s not so believable with the way it seems like you view me.”

  Oh, she didn’t like that look. She didn’t like that look at all.

  Reaching out, she gently laid her hand over his. They had never touched so much in such a small amount of time, never even talked so much, but she wanted to comfort him. Despite their differences, she didn’t like seeing him in pain.

  “I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me, and everything you’re doing for your animals. You could have just turned me away. You didn’t have to do any of that.”

  Despite her hope that her words would make him feel better, he seemed to grow more uncomfortable. “You shouldn’t have had to correct so much stuff in the first place.”

  “Maybe not. But I’ve found that it’s not so much the mistakes we make that define us, but how we choose to correct them. If we choose to correct them at all.”

  There it was, the slightest of smiles sliding in to replace his dubious expression. “That’s a pretty thing to say.”

  “It’s a true thing to say.”

  He nodded, and they finished the last of their sandwiches. She was surprised when he placed their dirty plates on the counter, but at her concerned look, he shrugged and said something about their cleaning staff.

  Right, the Millers were so rich that they hired people to do their basic housekeeping for them. How did they not run around bored all of the time? If she didn’t have to work to survive, didn’t have to tidy her place and run errands, she would have far too much free time on her hands.

  But of course, she didn’t say any of that as he led her up a flight of stairs and then down a long hall and around another corner. It almost reminded her of being in some sort of very strangely arranged hotel. Although the place was clearly carefully and meticulously decorated with many expensive things, there wasn’t any soul to it. No life. It was a manicured landscape of wealth, but she knew nothing else about the family it was supposed to contain. Certainly, their whole personalities couldn’t just be that they had money. Sterling was a character for sure.

  “So which of your brother’s space am I crashing?”

  “Simon. He’s finishing up his last year of college right now. You’ll definitely get a chance to meet him before we finish everything you want to do with the pigs.”

  “And maybe your other animals,” she added hopefully.

  “We’ll see.”

  Not the answer she had been hoping for, but certainly one that she had been expecting. Oh well. She didn’t have much time to pout about that, however, as she heard the gentle mewling of kittens.

  “Is this me?” she asked, pointing to the cracked door the noise was coming from.

  “Yup. One of his guest bedrooms. It’s a little spartan, but it’s quiet, and he always insisted on an obscene number of pillows so you should be comfy. Say hi to the cats for me. I’m pretty sure Mom’s already in love with all of them.”

  It was all just so much. She felt like she was nearly overwhelmed with all of it. From their house to him saving her, to the way his eyes flashed when he was joking with her and how easily he kept up with her banter. He was so much more than she’d allowed herself to believe, and she was beginning to wonder why she had judged him so harshly.

  She didn’t know what came over her, but before she knew it, she was standing on her tiptoes and pressing a soft kiss to the man’s cheek. It was nothing, a chaste little peck, and yet her senses felt even more overloaded than they were before. His masculine scent filled her nose and the rough stubble of his face scratched at her sensitive skin, but somehow not in a bad way. She lingered perhaps a beat longer than she should have before stepping back.

  “Thank you for being there for me,” she murmured sheepishly before retreating into the room. But as she closed the door, she couldn’t bring herself to regret her rash action. She just wanted him to know that, despite her prickliness, he had a friend in her.

  It was the least she could do for someone who had saved her life.

  15

  Sterling

  Sterling was floating.

  Or at least it felt like he was floating.

  For perhaps the hundredth time, his hand went to his cheek right where Elizabeth’s soft and full lips had pressed themselves two nights earlier. Of course, he couldn’t feel anything different there, that wasn’t possible, and yet he still felt like he could feel the burning outline of her mouth.

  Which, naturally, was absolutely absurd. It was just a kiss on the cheek. Chaste. Innocent. More salacious things happened in the Sunday comics. And yet he was floating, nonetheless.

  It had been three days since he’d seen her last, and as he readied in the morning, he found he was itching to talk to her again. He’d been in such a panic driving her to the hospital that he’d been practically outside of himself, not thinking about anything but getting her to safety. But once the doctors told her that she would be fine, that she just needed a few days rest and general monitoring—as well as another check up on that leg in a week or two—he finally found himself able to think. To breathe. To answer the question of why seeing the woman laid out on the ground had scared him down to his core.

  But what he hadn’t expected was for her to be so fun, so witty afterward. He expected her to revert to her somewhat callous, coldly professional treatment of him. But instead she was warm, and snarky, and he suddenly felt much more engaged than he had in a long time.

  And then she’d kissed him… and even thought it was just an innocent kiss on the cheek, it was like his world turned upside down.

  He shook his head, trying to make himself focus as he washed his face in the mirror. But his thoughts went to how he’d told her to go home for the weekend and take Monday off. He’d wanted to spend more time with her, to bind her up in blankets and make sure that nothing hurt her ever again, but he knew that wasn’t his place. Sure, she had kissed him on the cheek, but she’d done that out of gratitude, a kind gesture from someone who had been through a lot. It didn’t mean that he had any sort of right to her.

  But he had paid for her car to be cleaned out starting in the early morning, and she only ha
d to wait around about an hour after she had woken up, claiming she never usually slept in so late. But then she was driving home, and he was left to soak in all of his racing thoughts.

  He was glad that she had refused to accept his offer to give her the whole week off—paid, of course. She said that she would go crazy from the boredom, but secretly he couldn’t help but be a bit selfishly pleased.

  His phone beeped at him, reminding him that he’d been in the bathroom for more than ten minutes and was about to run late if he wanted to catch Elizabeth before she plunged into her work. He knew that he was spending a lot of extra time getting ready, but… well… he wanted to make a good impression.

  Which, again, was not like him.

  Nevertheless, he finished getting ready and headed out, checking his reflection in his rearview mirror about twice on the drive over to the pens. When he got there, he was surprised to see no Elizabeth, but his twin was there instead. When he slid out of his truck, Silas gave him a knowing look.

  Which, naturally, Sterling chose to ignore. Whatever his twin was thinking was wrong. Even if their twin thing made it so neither of them were ever usually wrong at all when it came to what the other was thinking.

  He made the conscious choice to walk past his older twin, but when he went inside, he was surprised to see his mother was standing there right next to Elizabeth, both of them talking and laughing, looking like they were having a great conversation.

  …what?

  Sterling looked at his phone, making sure he hadn’t accidentally set his alarms for much later than he thought, but nope, it was about fifteen minutes before she was supposed to start working. Why was everyone around? Obviously, Silas had driven Mom to see the pens, but the question was why?

  Wondering if he was in some sort of strange dream, he approached the two women cautiously. But Mom just put her hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder, squeezing in that comforting way that only a mom could do.

  “I don’t know what’s suddenly happened to have so many lovely young women in my life at once, but I love it! You are a gem, aren’t you?”

  Elizabeth’s dark cheeks colored slightly with her blush, and if that wasn’t just a right pretty sight. “I don’t know about that, ma’am, but thank you.”

  “Don’t try to play it off, I’m an excellent judge of character. You should come see my garden at the manor! I bet you would love it.” Of course, his Mom would jump at the chance to show someone else her pride and joy—besides her chickens. She’d even roped Teddy into helping her more often than not with the planting, upkeep and everything else that went into growing prize-winning vegetables.

  “I bet I would. How about I swing by at my afternoon break?”

  “Of course! Now, I suppose I should get started on my day. I have quite the to-do list. I’ll see you later, Miss Brown.”

  “That sounds great, Mrs. Miller.”

  His mom nodded then practically skipped to Sterling. Granted it wasn’t an actual skip, but there was certainly plenty of bounce to her step as she crossed the barn floor. She stood on tiptoe, kissing Sterling’s other cheek. Goodness, was there something in the air?

  “Hello, son. Good to see you up and at ’em. You’ve been so busy lately!”

  “You know me,” he said weakly. “Trying to stay occupied.”

  “Right, right. Maybe you could swing by with Miss Brown during the afternoon. Wouldn’t hurt you to spend more time with your poor old mother, right?”

  Where was that coming from? “Of course, Mom. Whatever you say.”

  She nodded then trundled out, no doubt to race off in her pink go-kart that Teddy had decorated even more. Sterling was pretty sure that his Mom took pleasure in making each of her sons drive her around in her pastel Barbie dream-kart.

  Sterling waited until she was gone before he turned to Elizabeth. “Whatever she told you, I assure you that it was an absolute lie.”

  “Oh, so you’re telling me that you didn’t have night terrors as a child if you didn’t sleep with your favorite stuffed cowboy doll?”

  “Lies. Lies and slander.”

  “Uh-huh, I’m sure.” Elizabeth’s smile was saccharinely sweet and dripping with sarcasm, but he loved it. It made her features light up and his heart thunder in his chest. “And I’m sure you didn’t also cry when you found out Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny were all fake on the same day.”

  “You know what, that was a very traumatic time of my life.”

  She laughed, her full lips pulling away from her teeth as she laughed. It was such a difference from the gated-off, composed woman he was used to. The one that only spoke to him when necessary and never anything more than a few words at a time. It made her dark, almond eyes light up and her face open like the sun parting through dark clouds. He liked it. He liked it a lot. He didn’t know what he would give to make sure that she always wore such a happy expression, but it was a lot.

  Or maybe everything?

  No, it wouldn’t do any good to go overboard.

  “I’m sure. It’s a testament that you’re a functional adult, really.”

  “You know… I’m thinking we should try that whole after-negotiation meal thing over again,” he blurted without thinking, the words issuing faster than his brain could keep up.

  But she didn’t even blink. “You think so? I thought you said that we should wait a bit further into the pigpen development before we moved on to other animals.”

  That… that wasn’t what Sterling meant at all.

  He realized quickly that she thought he was just being friendly, just extending the banter between the two of him, but that suddenly wasn’t enough. Sterling had been lost for a long time. Listless with no real direction. But he was absolutely certain now that he wanted Elizabeth more than he had ever wanted anything else in his life.

  “No, I didn’t mean like—I’m not—” He took a breath, centering himself. “I meant as a date. A dinner, between you and me.”

  “A date?”

  Although she parroted his words, she didn’t say anything else, just stared at him with huge eyes. He found very quickly that he didn’t like that at all, and he felt panic start to rise in him. “Of course, you don’t—”

  “Is that appropriate considering that you’re my employer?”

  His stomach dropped at that, and he found himself quickly searching for an answer. “Well, technically it’s McLintoc Ranch, LLC, that’s your employer. I just happen to be related to the guy that owns the place.”

  “And the guy whose expense account my paycheck is coming from.”

  She… had a point there. He didn’t like it, but she had a point.

  “If that bothers you, I understand. I just thought—”

  “A dinner together would be nice.”

  What—did she…

  “As long as it’s not at that one place, and I’ll drive myself,” she added.

  He knew he was smiling way too broadly, but he couldn’t help it. “Sounds like a deal.”

  16

  Elizabeth

  Elizabeth pulled up to the nice restaurant that Sterling had given her the name of, and she couldn’t help but feel intimidated.

  Which, of course, was absolutely not like her at all. Nothing intimidated Elizabeth. She was determined, headstrong, and driven, or at least that was what she had been told by people who liked her. But even those that didn’t like her called her cocky or stubborn as some expletive or another. Point being, none of those words lent themselves to intimidated and yet that was exactly what she was.

  The restaurant was some sort of fancy Italian place that she couldn’t pronounce the name of. Apparently, she always pronounced everything with a Spanish accent, but it wasn’t her fault that she’d started those second language classes when she was in fourth grade and continued them until she graduated college.

  Okay… maybe it was a little her fault for taking Spanish as an elective four years straight, but whatever, at least she was fluent. It certainly helped her more t
han being able to pronounce fettucine or ricotta without an accent from below the border.

  Whatever, she was just grateful it wasn’t one of the few really high-end places from the rich side of the city, ones that needed a reservation and knowing someone on the inside to get in. If Sterling had suggested that, she might have just refused entirely.

  But apparently, he’d thought about it a little, and so she’d agreed.

  Sliding out of her car, she spotted Sterling already standing towards the front, the cut of his shoulders standing in sharp relief against the setting sun.

  It was like something out of a movie poster, illuminating him in a soft light that made him look even more attractive than he or anyone else had any right to. He was wearing a light blue button-up and dark slacks, his hair brushed back into gentle waves atop his head. He wasn’t quite wearing cowboy boots, but the cut of his shoes hinted at the same sort of feel.

  He really did look like a cowboy. She wondered what he looked like atop a horse; face flushed as he raced across the fields of his estate. Maybe she’d find a way to wander over to the stables and see exactly how he handled his mount.

  … or maybe she should try to get through the date first.

  “Hey there,” she said, approaching him with what she hoped was her usual, confident strut.

  “Hey there,” he said, looking at her almost too intensely. “You look…” He hesitated as if he was cutting off whatever he was going to say and replaced it with something else. “…nice.”

  “What a coincidence, nice is what I was going for,” she said with a chuckle, hoping that would ease him. He looked a bit nervous, for all his assured posture, and she understood how that felt.

  Which was why she hadn’t dressed to the nines. She was wearing a cute black pencil skirt her mother had picked out for her and a red, polka dot top with a ruffle. She’d taken the extra time to do her hair and makeup, which involved a long, seven-hour process that started the night previous. It was put together, it had a little flare, but it wasn’t a five-star-dining-experience kind of outfit.