by Susan Stoker
Melanie chewed her lip, tried to stop herself from asking, but the words flew out. “And you and Lucy, ah, started dating again?”
“Sort of,” he replied vaguely, but she didn’t press because every muscle in his big body was rigid with tension. He’d tell her when he got ready to tell her. If he didn’t, it wasn’t really her business.
She searched her brain for a topic that might keep him talking, but wouldn’t cause stress. The one that dawned sent a wave of heat through her. “I never knew you were into ag and the cowboy thing,” she said with a laugh, then thought about it and decided what the hell did she have to lose by admitting it? “But I have to say, that hat does things for you, that does things to me.”
He pushed his hat up on his forehead, tilted his head to give her a sexy sideways glance and a grin spread over his face. “That’s the only reason I decided on ranching—because I heard you were in Texas and figured you must like cowboys. I wanted to be in pole position when you finally came home.”
“Bullshit,” Melanie said with a country-girl snort that surprised her.
“Yeah, I found plenty of that in my new career and it comes in handy when trying to charm beautiful women.” He glanced at her, wiggled his eyebrows then threw his head back and his laughter tripped over every nerve in her body.
Brock Cooper didn’t need bullshit to do that—he’d never had a problem charming women. She knew that, because even a jaded sixteen-year-old nerdy bookworm had fallen hard for him without receiving the panty-melting smile. He’d reserved those smiles and winks for members of the beautiful girls’ club, to which she definitely didn’t belong back then.
That should give her pause now that he was turning those charms on her just because she’d changed her outward appearance. A man that shallow should be avoided, because beauty faded as Lucy Morris could attest. In his defense, though, as masculine as he was back then, even though he lived in a man’s body, he wasn’t a man yet.
Her eyes floated across the cab to the side of his beard-shadowed face. Brock Cooper was definitely a man now, she thought and a shiver racked her.
Come to the ranch with me and I’ll show you what they were about.
Melanie knew as sure as the sun would come up tomorrow, she would never be able to resist this man. Time and distance hadn’t changed the magnetic pull she felt toward him one darned bit. First love bit hard, left a permanent mark on a girl, and this man would always have his teeth in her. And she wanted to feel their sting on every inch of her body. Feeling suddenly flushed, Melanie rolled down the window more and leaned her face outside.
Oh, God what underwear did she have on? She gulped in the fresh air, but it didn’t cool her insides or do a thing to calm her nervousness. Brady won’t be there to interrupt us.
Melanie sat back in the seat and closed her eyes, gritted her teeth.
“You okay?” Brock asked, as he swung the truck into his driveway.
Her breaths came short and shallow and her head spun, as she opened her eyes to look at him. They landed instead on a bag of gooey-looking candy melted in a Ziplock bag on the dashboard.
“You like gummy bears?” she asked with a hysterical laugh.
Brock glanced at her, then back at the candy and his jaw tightened. “No, but Brady eats the hell out of them. I told Lucy to limit him because they’re not good for his teeth, but he always has a bag with him.”
Red dye. Sugar. Gelatin.
With no label, Melanie would have to research the ingredients in gummy bears, she thought, reaching for the bag. She also needed to get a list of what Brady normally ate because a food allergy was not out of the realm of possibilities.
Brock’s eyes burned the side of her face.
Juvenile Diabetes?
Melanie wondered if Brady had ever been tested. Did it run in Lucy or Brock’s family? If he hadn’t been involved in Brady’s doctor’s visits in all likelihood, he didn’t have a clue.
There were so many possibilities for diagnoses here, it was mind-boggling. She could be researching for years and still not have anything conclusive. That thought cut through the sensual fog clouding her brain. They didn’t have years, if Brady’s condition was progressing as fast as Brock said it was. Melanie had under six weeks leave left to consider all those possibilities too. With each day that passed, the pressure would ratchet up, so she needed to focus on finding answers for Brock and Brady, not her suddenly revived desire for him.
But maybe if she focused now, she would have a week or two left with nothing but Brock Cooper and his hot kisses before she had to go back—or at least she hoped so.
It sucked being a responsible adult sometimes—sucked more to be a physician who cared more about her patient’s welfare than her own needs. Taking a deep breath as he pulled to a stop in front of the small wooden ranch house, she opened the door.
“We’ve only got a few hours, so let’s get busy getting those medical records ordered.”
Chapter Ten
‡
“Good Lord, Brock,” Melanie said in a breathless whisper, when he stopped at the kitchen table with two more boxes in his arms. “We’ve emptied two boxes already—Brady has only been alive six years. I don’t think my mother has this many medical bills.”
“Try paying them,” he replied darkly, as he set them down and wiped his hands on his jeans. “I pay through the nose for good insurance, but it only covers seventy percent of those bills after the deductible.” The corner of his mouth kicked up tightening his face, but Brock wasn’t smiling inside. The hole he’d dug for himself, the hole Lucy had dug, should be just about deep enough to bury him soon.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, shaking her head.
“I’m thinking of going to give blood at the hospital twice a week or something. I heard there was an opening for a garbage truck driver down at public works. They finish before I have to be at the office, so maybe—”
“Maybe you need to just stop this circus!” she shouted, launching up to her feet to glare at him. “You look like you haven’t slept in weeks, your eyes have fifty pound bags under them. You’re a young man, but you’re working yourself to death instead of saying enough is enough!”
That was easy for her to say. She had a career that paid well, and probably plenty of money in the bank if that Mercedes she drove was any indication. If Brock slowed down, the bill collectors would throw him in that grave and Lucy would happily shovel dirt over him.
Right now he was holding off the reaper by sending small partial payments to all of them.
“It’s not that easy, and you’re right I haven’t slept well in weeks,” Brock replied. Months, if he counted the nights he’d spent at Lucy’s with Brady. “I know I look like ten miles of bad road, but I guess it’ll be twenty more before I get a break the way things are piling up.”
Brock shoved a hand through his hair. Unless he sold the ranch and moved to an apartment in town. That would probably pay about a third of the bills, and he wouldn’t have the mortgage note or feed bills. But he also wouldn’t have the meager income from the cattle he managed to sell. If he could afford seed and fertilizer he’d plant a crop, because he had a tractor and fifty damned acres, but he couldn’t. The most he’d managed was a small garden he’d tilled on the far side of the house which provided fresh produce for him and a few neighbors.
Maybe he should just sell the tractor…it was old, but dependable. Or maybe he could sell one of his horses, and he’d thought about it, but thirty-five hundred bucks would be a drop in the bucket. He was saving that drop for when he really got desperate.
Desperation would come when the people he owed money to refused to accept his token payments anymore and demanded payment in full.
“Tell Lucy to apply for that job on the trash truck!” Melanie shouted, her frustration evident, but certainly not more than his own. “What, is she too good to work like the rest of us?”
“No, our agreement was that she would stay home with Brady until he starte
d school, and I’d pay enough support for her to do that. But then he got sick, and he needed her. He’s missed so much school, it’s likely he’ll fail first grade. He just skated by in Kindergarten because it was a half-day program.” That made Brock feel like a failure too. He was a failure.
“Agreements change, Brock—and you need some relief. You’re trying to do the right thing by your son, but his mother isn’t helping.”
Melanie began pacing with her fists balled at her sides, and watching her, Brock could almost imagine he saw steam rising from her dark hair.
“Does diabetes run in your family?” she asked suddenly, as she made a turn to start another circuit.
“No, and it doesn’t run in Lucy’s that I know of,” he answered, his mind spinning at her change of direction.
“Good, one thing down, but he should still be tested to rule it out. He might have been tested, but we’ll have to go through those other two boxes to make sure.” She stopped and spun to look at him. “Where are your damned parents and why aren’t they here helping you?” she demanded.
“I haven’t told them what’s going on with Brady. They knew about him being in the hospital with pneumonia and came up to see him, but I didn’t want to worry them. Daddy’s not been well…he had a heart attack right after they got back to Atlanta.”
“What about Mayor and Mrs. Morris? Why aren’t they helping?” she asked, her perfectly arched eyebrows knotting together.
“Well, let’s just say they were less than happy when Lucy told them she was pregnant and I wasn’t marrying her. Mr. Morris only gave me the sheriff’s job when Sheriff Jones retired because he said I needed to be able to support his grandson. They haven’t had much to do with Brady since he was born. He’s an embarrassment to them, and so is their daughter.” He huffed a breath. “They don’t come out and say that of course, and they do help some. But just when it suits them most of the time.”
Brock was surprised when Melanie left the track she’d been pacing to walk to him. He was shocked, but thrilled, when she slid her arms around his waist and hugged him. “I’ve never been much of a hugger, but you need one,” she mumbled into his chest, squeezing him. “No wonder you’re so damned tired.”
His insides melted, as his arms drifted around her back and he held her closer. “I can sleep when I’m dead,” Brock said with a laugh, and she squeezed him tighter. “Or when Brady turns eighteen.”
“That’s no life, Brock. By the time he turns eighteen, you’ll probably be dead,” Melanie said, leaning back to look up into his eyes. “You deserve better and I’m here to help you now, but you need to get some rest. You can’t help Brady if you’re sick too.”
He looked at the clock on the wall by the telephone and sighed as he released her and pushed her away.
“No, it’s four o’clock, so what I need to do is go out to the barn to feed before I have to take you home. When I get back here, I’m going to go through those other boxes and finish out our list so I can make calls tomorrow.”
At the thought, a wave of tiredness washed through him in a powerful surge that almost took out his knees.
“Well, I’m going to help you feed and do whatever else you need to do, then you are going to help me get my mother and aunt to bingo because that would be easier done in your SUV than my car. After we drop them off, we’re coming back here and you are going to take a nap while I go through those two boxes and finish that list,” she informed, pointing at the boxes.
“You sure are bossy these days. They teach you that in med school?” Brock asked with a tired laugh, but he was damned glad to have someone tell him what to do right now, because his brain was in neutral.
She lifted her chin a notch and put her hands on her jean-clad hips. “Don’t waste your breath arguing—I aced that class in school too.”
Brock didn’t want to argue, because it felt too damned good to finally have someone to talk to—to unload on was more like it, and he didn’t want her to go home either. It wasn’t fair to do that to Melanie, but she didn’t seem to mind, and it definitely made him feel better to have someone in his corner for a change. His eyes skimmed down her deliciously curvy body to her small feet, which were shod in gold sandals.
“You can’t go out to the barn in sandals unless you want to lose those cute little toes.”
She looked down at her feet and frowned. “My toes look like little stumps anyway—they are not cute.”
Brock tipped her chin up with his finger and their eyes met. “Every damned thing about you is cute, Melanie Fox, and kind and generous and caring,” he said, with affection and gratitude overwhelming him as he bent to press his mouth to hers. Heat zinged through his body at her breathy whimper, it flamed when she pushed up on those cute little toes for more, but Brock pulled away—because this wasn’t about sex. “Thank you for helping me. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to repay you.”
“I don’t want your money, Brock.” I just want you, popped into Melanie’s head, tried to attach itself to the end of her sentence and she froze.
“That’s a very good thing,” he replied with a deep, throaty laugh that rumbled through her. “Because I don’t have any, but I do have a few tomatoes I could barter if you’re interested.”
When Brock put his arm around her shoulders and turned her toward the door, Melanie sighed as warmth spread through her body.
“I also have a pair of muck boots I bought for Brady that are three sizes too big for him which should fit you. I grabbed them from a sale rack at the hardware store a few months ago because I knew he’d eventually grow into them. That must’ve been fate at work.”
Something was at work here between them, and if that was fate, scientist or not, she would be thanking the stars like her mother.
You’re back here for a purpose that has nothing to do with me and you won’t be going anywhere.
A shiver snaked down her spine, and Melanie stiffened it as she followed Brock to the kitchen door where he jerked his hat off the peg and tamped it down on his head.
“Wait here,” he said as he opened the door and they walked onto the porch.
He turned right and strode to the end of the porch where he opened a door, went inside and reemerged with a pair of black rubber boots in his hands. With a smile he grabbed her arm and led her to the swing on the other end and forced her to sit. Kneeling at her feet, he set the boots down and lifted her right foot to remove her sandal. Self-conscious, she curled her stumpy toes into the pad of her foot when he inspected it.
“I think Brady’s feet might be bigger than yours,” he said with a laugh, as he stroked the pad of her foot with his thumb until her toes unfurled. When her foot relaxed, he kept rubbing and electricity zipped up the inside seam of her jeans to zap the frenzied bundle of nerves at the top of her thighs and a tremor rocked her.
“Probably because he’s going to be tall like you,” she replied, her voice huskier than normal as his thumb swept lightly over her instep. Who knew her damned feet were so sensitive, that they were an erogenous zone?
He looked up at her with eyes filled with pride and what looked to be relief. “You think so?” he asked with a grin, and that stupid dimple appeared.
Melanie had to fight the urge to launch herself against him and have her way with him on the porch floor in broad daylight. Daylight which was swiftly fading, and he had chores to do.
“Let’s get the chores done, because if Mom is late to bingo, I know I won’t hear the end of it. I promised her,” she said.
Brock sighed as he dropped her foot, quickly removed her other sandal without the foot massage and shoved the bulky boots onto her feet. He was right, the boots were about a size too large, but she thought she could walk in them.
She pushed up to stand, and when he grabbed her hand, it was Melanie’s turn to sigh as he led her into the yard and toward the big barn in the distance. Peace settled into her bones as the fresh air swept through her. That was followed by giddy elation when he dropped her hand to
put his arm around her shoulders and pull her into his side for a squeeze.
Why in the hell did this feel so right?
This isn’t what she’d worked her ass off for eight years to accomplish—no twelve now. She needed to remind herself of that before she let herself get lost in this fantasy with Brock Cooper, because that’s all it was. She was here temporarily, and if that included sex with him she was definitely on board with that—but she wasn’t on board with falling in love and staying here.
She had too many commitments in Texas to stay, and he had too many here to leave.
Melanie needed to remember that and protect herself, so she didn’t get attached to the only man on earth with the power to break her heart.
Chapter Eleven
‡
Melanie shut the back door of the SUV and turned to grab the handles of the wheelchair, but Brock was there first. He’d been first to help her mother into the backseat, and first to help her out too. She’d never dated or been around him much, so she had no idea if these gentlemanly tendencies of his were a new thing or if they’d been there all along. It wouldn’t surprise her if she’d just missed them because she’d been so blinded by his good looks back then.
The good looks were much more important to a horny sixteen-year-old than the good manners. Looks were important to a horny thirty-year old too, but now that she had more experience with men, she’d come to appreciate those rarer qualities too. They upped Brock Cooper’s already off-the-charts sex appeal in her eyes a hundred times, if that was possible.
He was also a hard worker, a kind and caring man, a good father—he had the body of an elite athlete and was a master with his lips. Add in those pretty manners, a cowboy hat, tight jeans and dusty boots and Brock Cooper was the perfectly imperfect hero in every romance novel she’d ever secretly read as a teenager while imagining his face.