Her Forever Cowboy

by Marie Ferrarella

  And then Alisha Cordell had come into town.

  Where the hell had all that come from? It wasn’t like him to drift off like that. Especially with someone waiting on him. Lady Doc was obviously waiting for him to answer her—after all, he’d been the one to engage her, not vice versa.

  “I’ve got a drink right here,” Brett told her, reaching beneath the counter for a bottle he had set aside just for her, in case he could interest her in having a social drink before retreating to her apartment.

  The saloon was fairly dim, but there was enough light coming through to filter through the bottle, casting a rainbow of lights.

  Alisha eyed the bottle suspiciously. “That’s not going to knock me for a loop, is it?” she asked the bartender.

  “No loops involved,” Brett guaranteed. He crossed his heart for good measure. “It’s just going to loosen all those clenched—muscles of yours,” he finally concluded with a knowing smile that, despite her best efforts, immediately undulated beneath Alisha’s skin and worked its way throughout her entire being in approximately sixty seconds flat. “Ultimately allowing you to relax,” he told her.

  “Fine, I’ll take it to go,” she said in all seriousness.

  Brett shook his head. They were relatively lax in Forever, but there were some rules they had to follow. “Sorry, it has to stay down here. It won’t take you long to finish the drink,” he promised. “It’s not all that potent.”

  The drink he served her was pink and foamy, fizzing and sprinkling the skin on her hand as he poured. “What do you call it?” she asked.

  “How about the Lady Doc Special?” Brett suggested, trying the name out for size. “Seltzer, strawberry liqueur and a dash of valerian root and chamomile to help you relax. The locals swear by it.”

  The man had an endless bag of tricks, she thought. “Works for me,” she told him. Had she just said that in her head—or out loud? At this point, Alisha really couldn’t be all that sure.

  Picking up the glass, she tentatively sampled it. It was fruity and smooth and very light on her tongue. She liked it instantly.

  “It’s good,” she said in surprise.

  “I thought you might like it,” he said with satisfaction.

  The next moment, as he watched, the object of his interest downed the drink he’d concocted rather faster than he’d thought she would. But as he’d just told her, there was nothing harmful in the drink, just some flavored soda water and a few natural herbs.

  The herbs were a natural relaxant that would allow her to get the sleep she so desperately needed. He didn’t want the noise from the bar, muted though it was by the time it reached the apartment, to keep her awake, even for a little while.

  “Thank you,” she said, putting the glass down on the bar. As an afterthought, she told him, “Put the drink on my tab.”

  Then, with measured, deliberate steps, Alisha made her way to the rear of the building, the staircase being her goal.

  She counted the stairs as she went up each one, a rather hypnotic alternative, in this case, to counting sheep. Her eyes threatened to shut on her before she reached the landing. Alisha found she had to struggle with them to keep them open.

  Finally reaching her door, she unlocked it, went inside and carefully relocked it again. Three steps inside the apartment had her standing in front of the door behind which her bed resided.

  With one swift, calculated movement, she pulled open the door, moving quickly to the side in order not to have the bed come down on top of her.

  The bed crashed down.

  A second later, she crashed down on it.

  She was asleep the moment her face touched the squashed pillow.

  Chapter Eight

  Alisha had always considered herself to be a light sleeper.

  She was easily roused by any undue noises, and she had managed to also train her subconscious to wake her if she had to be on call by a certain time. This ability, to wake up within a couple of minutes of the time that she needed to be up, came in handy when she’d been an intern, then a resident at Faith Memorial Hospital.

  But uncharacteristically, for the first time in a very long time, these past seven hours she’d slept like a dead person. It was a deep sleep where she heard nothing, dreamed nothing, almost as if she had fallen into some sort of suspended animation.

  Ultimately what had woken her up was the smell of coffee.

  At first, she thought she was finally dreaming. But if that was the case, the aroma would have faded once she was awake.

  It didn’t. It only grew stronger.

  Sitting up and focusing, Alisha half expected to see a coffeepot on that combination appliance thingy that Brett had pointed out to her when he’d initially shown her the apartment.

  But there was no pot of coffee on the stove, no coffeemaker going through its paces on the minuscule counter, either.

  Was the smell of coffee coming from downstairs? She didn’t recall Brett saying anything about coffee brewing at Murphy’s.

  Still sitting there, now fully awake, Alisha stretched, trying to pull her thoughts together and put them in their proper perspective.

  Then it actually hit her. She’d slept through the night.

  The entire night.

  Since she never did that, she could only attribute it to the drink that Brett had given her with the natural sedative. But she didn’t feel groggy. If anything, she felt refreshed.

  And really craving that coffee she smelled.

  Alisha swung her legs off the bed at the same time that she realized she hadn’t changed last night but had fallen asleep still dressed in her clothes.

  Glancing down, she saw how wrinkled they all were. “Nice fashion statement, ’Lish,” she upbraided herself out loud.

  Dragging her hand through her hair, she thought for a minute and actually debated marching downstairs to use the shower. Brett had told her she could do that, but she would have felt a great deal better about showering in the men’s room if she had some kind of a lock for the bathroom door, a lock that belonged exclusively to her. She felt very uneasy contemplating using the one that Brett had installed on the door downstairs. What if someone suddenly materialized with a key and walked in on her while she was taking a shower?

  The people she’d interacted with at the clinic so far all seemed rather nice, and she was fairly certain that her privacy was safe with them, but she was a long way from knowing all the people in and around Forever, and she had never been one to leave things to chance—especially not when it came to something as personal as taking a shower privately.

  Alisha was still debating her next move when she heard a knock on the door.

  “It’s me, Lady Doc. Brett,” he said, identifying himself in case she didn’t recognize his voice. “You decent?”

  “Yes, I’m decent,” she told him. “And wrinkled,” Alisha murmured under her breath, frowning down at her clothing.

  “Can I come in?” he asked.

  She glanced over toward the door. Since he wasn’t trying the doorknob, that meant he didn’t have a copy of the key he’d given her.

  Either that, or he was just trying to give her a false sense of security so he could come in on her unannounced when she least expected it. He seemed nice, she admitted, even though he was a great deal sexier than she was comfortable with, but he hadn’t fully earned her trust yet. She needed more than just nice and certainly a lot more than just sexy before she could give someone her trust.

  She sighed. She was dressed, so having him come into the room didn’t matter to her one way or another. “Sure,” she told him. “Come on in.”

  She waited. Several beats passed, and he still hadn’t come in.

  “Are you coming in or not?” she asked.

  “You’re going to have to open the door for me,”
he answered. “I had Clarence come in and change the locks the way you requested, remember?”

  She remembered talking to Brett about it, but she hadn’t realized that he had gone ahead and called in the handyman.

  Sliding off the bed, Alisha crossed the half dozen steps it took to reach the door. With each step that brought her closer, the scent of coffee only seemed to get stronger.

  When she flipped the lock and finally opened the door to her apartment, she saw why. Brett was carrying a tray in his hands. A tray with a large tumbler of coffee and a bright blue plate with breakfast on it. Eggs, bacon and white toast.

  “I thought you might like breakfast to get you started your first morning here,” he told her.

  Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten for a while, but she refrained from reaching for the tray. Had he made that here?

  “Dan told me that you and Miss Joan have this arrangement where she doesn’t serve liquor, and you don’t serve food.”

  “I don’t serve food,” he acknowledged, placing the tray on the small table.

  Like the rats enticed by the Pied Piper’s flute, she followed the food to the table. “Then what’s this?” she asked, gesturing at the contents on the tray.

  “That’s my bringing food to a friend,” he pointed out. “There’s nothing in that agreement that says I can’t cook food for me and mine.”

  Unable to keep herself in check much longer, Alisha removed the plate from the tray, putting it on the table and the tray on the floor.

  “And I fall into that category?” she asked. Alisha didn’t know if she found that concept confining—or rather comforting and nice.

  “You fall under ‘miscellaneous’ for now,” he corrected. “I live a few doors down from here,” he explained as he watched her sit down at the table. “I like to cook breakfast, and I figured you might be hungry since you didn’t have any dinner.”

  “How would you know that?” she asked, surprised—but not as surprised as she would have been two weeks ago. People in this town seemed to know things about one another, things that people in a much larger city didn’t bother knowing—or finding out.

  Brett took no affront at her tone. He’d probably be spooked, too, coming in from the big city where no one trusted anyone else. “You’d be surprised how fast word gets around in a small town like Forever. Not too many secrets here.”

  “I wouldn’t think whether or not I ate dinner the night before would be something that would fall under the heading of secrets. Personally, I just think it’s too trivial a fact for anyone to take any note of.”

  Brett laughed. She probably had a point. “There’s also not all that much to do in a town this size. You wouldn’t believe what passes for entertainment around here.

  “Anyway,” he said, changing the subject back to what he was originally saying, “I was making breakfast for myself, Finn and Liam, and I thought maybe you’d like to have some, too.”

  At this point, her senses all but being assaulted by the tempting smell of the food that Brett had prepared and brought in with him, she was far too hungry to pretend she wasn’t.

  Murmuring her thanks, she made short work of what was on the plate, and she washed it down with the coffee he’d brought.

  The first long sip had her eyes all but widening to their full capacity—and then some.

  “Wow, I could have really used your coffee when I was an intern.” Eighteen-hour shifts would have been a snap with this black brew running through her veins, she thought.

  “Too strong?” he questioned.

  She laughed shortly. Boy, was that an understatement.

  “Too strong is too weak a term for what’s in here. Who taught you how to make coffee, someone in the asphalt business?” she asked wryly.

  “My dad,” he told her. “He used to work two jobs, going from one to the other and getting very little sleep at all.” He nodded at her coffee. “He’d drink that to keep him going.”

  “Keep him going?” she echoed. “Drinking this, it’s a wonder the man managed to close his eyes. Ever,” she emphasized. Even so, she consumed half of its contents before she set the tumbler back on the tray. Alisha sighed, feeling rather full. “What do I owe you for this?” she asked.

  His expression was unreadable. He had the ability to turn that off and on at will, she realized, feeling just a touch frustrated because she couldn’t tell what was on his mind when he assumed that expression.

  “Did I tell you I was charging you for breakfast?” he asked.

  “No,” Alisha began, but got no further in her response.

  “Then you don’t owe me anything,” he concluded. “By the way, I got you a lock,” he told her, placing the item on the corner of her tray, then putting down the accompanying keys. He saw her look up at him quizzically. “The lock’s for when you take your shower in the downstairs men’s room.” She glanced over toward where the hole in the wall had been and discovered that it was covered by a makeshift drape hammered, not hung, into place. “It’s going to take Finn a few more days to finish your bathroom,” he explained, an unvoiced apology implied in his tone. “After he’s done, you won’t have to worry at all about someone walking in on you at an inopportune time.”

  She laughed. He was being thoughtful, and she really wanted to believe it was on the level. But she’d been fooled by a good-looking guy acting thoughtful at the outset of their relationship—big-time. She didn’t want to be the fool again.

  “With you second-guessing all my needs,” she said with a touch of sarcasm in her voice, “you make it hard to leave Forever.”

  “That is the general idea, Lady Doc,” he told her in a moment of honesty.

  “Oh?” Did he mean that on a personal level, or was he speaking for the town?

  “We don’t want you to leave.”

  Never one to show all his cards, Brett resorted to using the all-inclusive pronoun, but what he was really referring to was himself. He was beginning to realize that he didn’t want Alisha to leave. At least, he silently insisted, not yet. Not until he decided just how attracted he was to this woman and where that attraction would lead him—if it went anywhere at all.

  Picking up the tray from the floor, he slid the plate and tumbler onto it. “Well, I’ll let you get to your day. I’ve got to get to mine,” he told her, and then, for no apparent reason he could think of, he added, “I told my brothers I was taking them to inspect my new property this morning.”

  “You bought some property?” There was obviously more to this man than was evident at first glance. Was he a businessman with his eye on expansion? Or was he referring to a strip of land somewhere, purchased to satisfy the inner cowboy within him, something she was beginning to suspect existed within almost every male in Forever?

  “No,” he said, wanting to set her straight. “Seems I inherited this chunk of land.”

  Now that she looked more closely at him, Brett didn’t seem to be too happy about coming into the property. That meant that he’d been affected by the passing of whoever had left him the land. Sympathy flooded through her before she could think to stop it.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “Did someone close to you die recently?”

  Since her voice was full of sympathy, it caused Brett to wonder just how many times she had dealt with that very same question, or been in a position to offer condolences to a friend or family member of a patient who hadn’t been able to survive whatever had brought them to the hospital in the first place. She looked as if she actually was sincerely sorry.

  “He died recently,” Brett replied, “but he really wasn’t close to me.”

  She watched him, puzzled. His answer didn’t make any sense to her. “Then why did he leave you his property?”

  Brett moved his shoulders in a vague, dismissive shrug. “Because I
was nice to him and not too many people, it seems, were.”

  There was more to it than that, Alisha judged. People didn’t write wills if the disposal of their possessions didn’t matter to them. Whoever had left the property to Brett had a definite connection to the bartender.

  “Funny, you don’t look like a Boy Scout,” she quipped.

  The sly curve of his mouth was back. That moment of vulnerability she’d glimpsed was gone. “That’s ’cause I’m not.”

  No, Alisha decided, studying him, Murphy was probably the complete antithesis to a Boy Scout unless she’d totally missed her guess. But there was something there, beneath the charm and the smooth talk. He had his walls, and she had hers. Walls came in all sorts of different configurations.

  But at bottom, that was his business, not hers, she reminded herself.

  “Thanks again for breakfast,” she told him as he walked across the threshold.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Brett turned around for a moment to say something else, but she had already closed the door. He heard the lock flip into place. His mouth curved at the corners. It was going to take a lot to win this one over, he mused, going back down the stairs with his tray.

  He’d always liked a good challenge.

  * * *

  THE DRIVE TO the property that Earl Robertson had left to him was a relatively short one. The ranch was located just at the edge of Forever. Olivia had come by yesterday to give him the deed, which she’d had transferred to his name.

  It was official. The ranch was now his.

  Brett brought his car to a stop before the gate. It, like the fence on either side of it, was all but falling apart. Weather and termites had been at it relentlessly over the past few years.

  After getting out, he pushed the gate open, then looked over his shoulder at the two occupants still in the car. Finn, as always, rode shotgun. Liam, all but in his own world, most likely writing another song in his head, Brett assumed, was in the back.

  “Well, don’t just sit there—come on out,” he told his brothers.