“Not too full yet,” Holly replied.
Alisha stopped walking and took a second look at the young woman. She didn’t look ill, but she certainly looked uncomfortable. “Something wrong, Holly?”
“There’re a lot of things wrong, starting with having to live in a town that could pass itself off as an inkblot.”
The voice came from behind her. Alisha froze the second she heard it.
It can’t be, her mind cried. It just couldn’t be who she thought it was.
Please don’t let it be him.
Because she refused to behave like a coward, Alisha squared her shoulders and her resolve as she forced herself to turn around.
Her heart sank.
A second later, her anger kicked in.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded, her eyes narrowing into slits.
Pierce’s smile reminded her of the Cheshire cat—it was cold and without an ounce of humanity to it.
“What’s the matter, Alisha? Aren’t you happy to see me?” he asked her.
Ever the egoist, she thought.
Wearing a freshly pressed three-piece dove-gray suit custom made for him by some trendy designer house, Pierce was far too dapper for his surroundings. She’d never seen anyone so out-of-place-looking in her life, and that included her during her first week here.
Since there were several other people in the waiting room, she didn’t want to cause a scene. But neither did she want to sequester herself with him because that would somehow lead to allowing the man to believe he had the upper hand.
So she remained where she was as she bluntly answered his question. “No, I’m not happy to see you.”
She saw anger flash across his brow before he said with deliberate, measured cadence, “Even though I’ve come to rescue you?”
“News flash—I don’t need rescuing,” she informed him tersely.
His laugh was dismissive, rude and condescending. “Oh, c’mon. You can’t mean that. Living out here in this godforsaken place? Are you that far gone that you think you actually belong here?” he asked incredulously.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Holly picking up the phone and calling someone. The sheriff? she guessed. She wanted to handle this on her own, but it wasn’t a bad idea to have a plan B if this turned ugly, she decided.
“The person who doesn’t belong here is you,” she informed him coldly. “Now, please leave.”
Pierce shifted his weight, a sure sign of his growing impatience. “Can we go somewhere and talk privately?” It was more of a demand than a request.
A demand Alisha chose to ignore. “No,” she said flatly. “Whatever you came to say, say it and then please leave.”
Pierce glared at her, and for a moment, she was certain he was going to turn on his well-heeled shoe and storm out. But then, looking as if he was waging some sort of internal battle with himself, he said, “I came to tell you I was wrong. That I made a mistake and that I’m—I’m sorry.” He all but spat out the last words, clearly not happy about having to say them in front of an audience of what he viewed as his inferiors. “If you give me another chance, I promise that I’ll more than make it up to you.”
She was well aware of the way he made things up when he was guilty of transgressions, and she didn’t doubt for a moment that there would be more of them.
“I don’t need more jewelry, Pierce.” Her eyes locked with his. She was not about to back down. “And I certainly don’t need more lies.”
“I did a lot of soul-searching these last few months,” Pierce began again, clearly seeking to wear her down and obviously fully convinced that he could.
She thought she was going to choke. “Soul-searching?” she echoed, stunned. “I wasn’t aware that you had one.”
His mouth turned ugly, but he caught himself at the last minute. “Okay, I deserve that. I deserve a lot worse,” he conceded. “But I’ve changed, and all I want is a chance to prove it to you.”
A pig had more of a chance of changing into a shining Boeing 797, Alisha thought, than he had of changing his ways.
“What’s the matter, Pierce? Did you find out your grandmother put in a clause in her will that says you have to be married to someone your parents approve of before you can get the rest of your inheritance?”
She’d meant it as a flippant remark, but she saw something flicker in his eyes before they went completely flat. She stared at him in wonder.
“That’s it, isn’t it? For some reason, in order to get your hands on the rest of that money, you need a suitable match. Well, I’m sorry, Pierce, but breaking up with you was the second smartest thing I ever did.”
“What’s the first?” Nathan McLane, in for his post-op checkup, asked. The man, who had the place of honor as her favorite patient since he was responsible for everything else changing for her, leaned forward in his chair in order to hear her answer.
“Coming to Forever,” she told Nathan.
“Shut up. This doesn’t concern you,” Pierce snapped at Nathan, his very stance threatening the man with physical harm if he said another word.
Nathan didn’t only because someone else did.
“Wrong. Anything that concerns Alisha concerns not only him, but all of us,” the deep male voice declared firmly.
Relieved and surprised, Alisha turned around to see that Brett had walked into the clinic. His very gait challenged the stranger in their midst.
Alisha still had to ask, “What are you doing here?”
He nodded toward the nurse, who finally relaxed now that he was here. “Holly thought you might need reinforcements.”
“What she needs,” Pierce informed him disdainfully, “is someone her own intellectual equal.” His eyes swept over him contemptuously. “Not some dumb cowboy.” Turning from Brett, he addressed Alisha. “Look, I messed up and I’m man enough to say it. Now, stop playing hard to get and let’s get your things and get out of this two-bit rattrap. You don’t belong here.”
She took offense at his dismissal of the town. “Where I don’t belong is with you,” Alisha retorted icily.
Rather than curse at her and withdraw, Pierce grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her to him. “I said, stop playing hard to get, and let’s go. You can make me suffer for my past sins when I get you home, if that makes you happy.”
The next second, Pierce found himself being yanked up by the back of his suit jacket and spun around. “How about I make you suffer, instead?” Brett countered. “And Dr. Cordell’s not hard to get. For you, buddy, the lady’s impossible to get.”
Rather than answer him, Pierce doubled up his fist, threw his entire weight behind it and took a swing at Brett.
Brett saw the punch coming a mile away and skillfully sidestepped it. For a split second, he debated his next move—was he going to be magnanimous or was he going to give this pompous ass what he deserved?
The next minute, he made up his mind and muttered, “Oh, the hell with it.” He punched Pierce squarely on the jaw, sending the man sprawling down on the floor, howling in pain and cursing a blue streak. Brett grabbed him by his shirtfront and said, “Now, you listen to me and you listen well. If I ever find you coming back and bothering this woman again, if I hear that you’re even thinking about bothering her again, there will be more things on your body that hurt than just your jaw. And I’m talking permanent pain. Are we clear on that?” he asked, shouting the question into his face.
Still holding his jaw, Pierce pulled away. He looked accusingly at Alisha. “You can’t be serious. Him? You’re picking him over me?” There was no way to measure how completely stunned he was over her choice.
“I’d pick him seven days a week over you,” Alisha fired back. “Without even trying, he’s ten times the man you will ever be. Now, get out of my clinic and out of my town,�
�� she ordered. “I have patients to see.”
“You’ll be sorry for this!” Pierce shouted at her.
“Only if I ever see your smug face again,” she replied.
“You heard the lady,” Brett said, taking hold of Pierce and escorting him out the door. “Leave!”
Brett remained standing there like a sentry, watching as Alisha’s former fiancé got into his vehicle and drove away. He stood there for several minutes in case Pierce did a U-turn and came back in.
“He’s gone,” he told her.
His declaration was met with a smattering of applause that swelled and grew until everyone in the waiting room, as well as Holly, was on their feet, clapping with feeling.
Brett was concerned with only one person in that gathering. He crossed to Alisha, then held his hand up before her first patient of the day, Nathan, rose to follow her into the back of the clinic.
“Before she gets started, I’d like a minute to have a word with Lady Doc here,” Brett said.
Nathan sank back down in his chair. “I’ve waited this long. I can wait a little longer,” he told Brett philosophically.
“Thanks.” Brett nodded at him just before he secured Alisha’s hand in his and hurried into the back of the clinic with her.
He went into the first exam room he came to and closed the door. While living in Forever was a lot like living in a fishbowl, this he wanted to keep between him and her until such time as he was ready for it to be made public.
“Did you mean what you said out there?” he asked Alisha.
“Probably,” she allowed cautiously. “I said a lot of things out there. Which part are you asking about?”
She knew damn well what he was asking her. With a sigh, he spelled it out for her. “The part where you said you’d pick me over him.”
He had to ask? she thought, surprised. “Of course I meant it. Pierce is a weasel and you’re—not,” she concluded, not wanting to flatter him too much and make him feel as if she was crowding him.
“And that’s it?” he asked skeptically. “Nothing more?”
She hesitated, then asked, “Such as?”
It took effort for him to curb his impatience. “Such as you were his fiancée.”
“Okay...” she replied slowly. She wasn’t following him at all. “Brett, where’s this going?”
How could he make it clearer than that? he wanted to know. “I’d like to have equal time. I’d like to have more than equal time,” he emphasized.
The last thing she wanted to do was jump to the wrong conclusion and possibly ruin everything. So she shook her head and said—or began to say, “I don’t—”
Okay, okay, he’d put his cards on the table. “I want you to be my fiancée— Oh, hell,” he cried in frustration. “I want you to be my wife.”
She blinked, feeling as though her head was short-circuiting, and she was hearing things. “Wait, you’re going too fast,” she protested.
“I can say it slower,” he offered, then proceeded to do just that, saying the same words except repeating them in slow motion.
“No,” she laughed, putting her hand over his mouth to stop him from going on. “I mean this is moving too fast. You haven’t even said ‘I love you’—”
He remedied that immediately. “I love you.”
She shot him an impatient glare. “Like you mean it,” she stipulated.
“Like I mean it,” he parroted obligingly.
She had a distinct urge to punch him but refrained. “Damn it, Brett, this isn’t funny.”
Before she could say anything further, he caught her in his arms and held her to him. “No, it’s not funny. It’s very, very serious. Do you think I would have just asked you to be my wife if it wasn’t?”
There went her nerves, frog-leaping over one another. “I don’t know. Would you?”
“No, I wouldn’t,” he told her firmly. “And for the record, I’ve never asked another woman to marry me, and I suspect that I never will. So unless you want me to die alone, a shriveled-up old bachelor, you’ll tell me you’ll marry me.”
She wanted to scream her assent, but she held herself in check. She wanted to make sure the man wasn’t going to regret this in a few years. “And you’re sure you really want to marry me?”
His grin was from ear to ear. “Never been surer of anything in my whole life.”
She was quiet for a moment, taking stock of the situation. He held all the cards. And right now, she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I guess if I ever want to get out of this room and practice medicine again,” she told him, “I’d better say yes.”
It was done, settled, and he couldn’t have been happier. She was his. “I guess so.”
“Okay, then,” she said obligingly, then paused before uttering a heartfelt “Yes.”
Brett took her into his arms and said a split second before he kissed her, “Good answer.”
And she knew that it was.
* * * * *
Don’t miss Marie’s next romance,
DIAMOND IN THE RUFF,
available October 2014
from Harlequin Special Edition!
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE TEXAN’S TWINS by Pamela Britton
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Chapter One
Hole-lee Toledo—
Jet Baron slammed on the brakes, nearly clocking his chin on the steering wheel in the process.
Dust kicked up from his truck’s tires and wafted around the woman’s silhouette. A blonde woman—a drop-dead gorgeous woman—in a black dress stared at him curiously as he drifted to a stop.
She waved, mouthed hello, and all Jet could think was, all right, which one of his rodeo friends had set him up? They’d teased him mercilessly last night when he’d told them about the meeting this morning out in the middle of a field in Nowhere, Texas. Jet Baron, forced to work, they’d said. Not forced, he’d explained. More like...emotionally blackmailed.
This had to be his friends’ idea of a joke because there was no way this was J. C. Marks, their newly hired engineer at Baron Energies. Granted, he’d never met the man, but the point was, J.C. was a man.
“Ha, ha, ha,” he said as he slipped out of his truck, the words Baron Energies on the side—unlike her truck. “Very funny.”
The woman in the black dress stepped away from her vehicle and frowned.
“I beg your pardon?”
Eyes the same piercing blue of an Artic fox scanned first him and then his white truck. She had golden hair, the kind that glowed like pirate’s treasure and hung well past her shoulders, and a heart-shaped face complete with a tiny chin and nose. Her huge eyes were outlined with black; it made her appear even more doll-like. This was no engineer with a master’s degree in engineering. No way.
“You going to peel off your dress now? Or later?”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t worry. It’s not your fault. My friends didn’t know I was meeting a man. A project engineer, actually, and you don’t exactly look the part. Nice try, though.”
Her mouth hung open a bit, and it was a plump, juicy
-looking mouth, one that made him think of eating fruit for some strange reason.
“Let me guess. Jet Baron.”
“One and the same.” He gave her a welcoming smile, his gaze slowly sliding over her body. Damn. Wherever they’d found her, his buddies had outdone themselves. Hot didn’t begin to describe her. Damn hot. Holy-moly hot.
“Why am I not surprised?” she asked.
Her sarcasm startled him, as did the way she eyed him up and down, her gaze skating over his jeans and black shirt. So direct. So appraising. So...disappointed.
He straightened. “If you’re going to start stripping, you better do it now. I’m expecting the engineer at any moment.”
She had tipped her head sideways, her long hair falling in large curls over one shoulder. “You think I’m some kind of prank. An actress hired to, what? Pretend to have a meeting with you? Then strip out of my clothes?”
He’d started to get a funny feeling—like he’d walked into a room at the end of a joke. “Well, yeah.”
She took a step toward him, and he would be lying if he didn’t feel as if, somehow, the joke was on him.
“Tell me something—what makes you think the engineer in question is a man?”
“I was told that.”
“By whom?”
He couldn’t remember, but it didn’t matter.
When his sister had told him to meet with their newest engineer, she’d said Mr. Marks...hadn’t she?
“I don’t know who told me, just that I know he’s a man. All engineers in the oil industry are men, but if you want to pretend you’re part of the industry, have at it. Won’t matter once you take off your clothes.”
She took another step toward him. “Oh, but see? You’re wrong.” One more step. “There’s actually quite a few of us women in the business. I graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in geology.” Another step. “I interned for the USGS out of Menlo Park while getting that degree, then moved back to Texas to get my master’s in engineering. My father was a wildcatter, and it was from him that I learned the business, so let me reassure you, Mr. Baron, I can tell the difference between an injection hose and a drill pipe. I’ve worked on both drilling rigs and production platforms, but if you still insist only men can be engineers, perhaps we should call your sister Lizzie, the one who hired me.”
Her Forever Cowboy Page 18