He did the only thing he could think of to show her exactly what he wanted from her, the same thing he had ached for since the last time she had been in his arms.
He pulled her into the house, yanked her against him and lowered his mouth to hers.
* * *
THE KISS CAME out of nowhere. One moment they were talking about her senior citizen yoga class, the next she was pressed against the console table in her foyer with her arms wrapped around him while he kissed her with a fierce hunger that stole her breath away.
She wasn’t about to complain—not when she was exactly where she wanted to be at last. She kissed him back, loving the taste of him, mint and chocolate, and the security she always felt in his arms.
On some level, she recognized they couldn’t keep this up. The timing couldn’t have been worse, with the children out in the car.
She didn’t want to let go, though. She wanted this amazing heat to go on forever, to strip away all these layers between them and tug him down onto the sofa just steps away, where they could be closer...
Through the heat and the hormones, she was aware of something else, something deeper—a terrifying thread of tenderness that seemed to be twisting and curling around her heart. It would be entirely too easy to fall hard for him.
It might already be too late.
She froze for only a moment but it was enough, apparently, for him to come to his senses. He slid his mouth away and gazed down at her, eyes still blazing with desire.
A muscle flexed in his jaw. “You asked about my motives,” he said, his voice gruff. “How’s that for motive?”
“K-kissing me?” Her voice wobbled just a bit on the words.
“For starters. It’s all I can think about when I’m around you. I keep telling myself I need to stay away from you, then I do crazy things like take you to the Lights on the Lake Festival and invite your yoga class over for hot chocolate and cookies.”
He stepped away and shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat. “You make me lose control and I hate it. I’ve come too far, fought too hard to gain mastery over myself, my actions, trying to become someone I can maybe one day respect again. Then I only have to touch you and I completely lose my head. Case in point, I spent all evening telling myself all the reasons why kissing you again is a lousy idea, yet here we are.”
She blinked at that. He had been thinking about kissing her all evening while they were watching the boat parade and sharing peppermint cotton candy and walking through the fair? At least she knew she wasn’t the only one.
“Why is kissing me such a lousy idea?” she had to ask.
He frowned, looking fiercely dangerous in her foyer. “You know as well as I do this thing between us can’t go anywhere except a few stolen kisses. The well-respected town doctor and the surly alcoholic ex-con. You couldn’t find a worse mismatch!”
His continued emphasis on their different paths was beginning to annoy her. She refused to face the pain caused by his assertion that anything between them was doomed, at least for now.
“Why do you define yourself wholly by your past? Why don’t you call yourself the surly single father horse trainer? That seems more accurate to the man you are today.”
A little corner of his mouth twitched, as if he wanted to smile at her description and she pushed her point.
“I also have to take exception that you always seem to bring up only one dimension of my existence. Yes, I’m a physician. Yes, I hope my patients respect and like me. But I’m so much more than that.”
She faced him, aware her hands were still trembling. “I’m a woman with foibles and quirks and needs and desires. I’m a good friend and a loving sister. I eat too much ice cream and don’t like to do sit-ups and I watch trashy TV sometimes when I’m stressed. I love to read popular fiction and play Spider Solitaire and learn new things.”
I’m a cancer survivor.
She didn’t say the words, even though they defined her just as much as her occupation did.
“My point is, we are all complicated beasts but you seem to only see yourself through one filter—who you once were and the mistakes you once made. That seems a pretty narrow focus and I don’t think it’s healthy. And you can trust me on that. Apparently I’m a well-respected doctor.”
She couldn’t tell if her words resonated with him. He gazed at her for a moment, then sighed. “I’d better go. The kids are alone in the car. I shouldn’t have left them this long. Thank you for coming with us tonight. Jaz and Ty had a great time and so did I. I guess I’ll probably see you Monday.”
“Good night.”
She closed the door after him, then moved to the big picture window in the living room of her parents’ house. In the dark solitude of the room, she watched him back out of the driveway, then turn toward Evergreen Springs, his headlights illuminating the light snowflakes drifting down.
She was coming to care for him and his children entirely too much. It would be entirely too easy to fall in love with Cole Barrett. She didn’t know if she had ever met anyone who so desperately needed a little tenderness and gentleness in his life. He deserved someone to love him, to help heal the scars of his past.
That someone couldn’t be her, Devin reminded herself.
She knew all about fixing battered bodies but she couldn’t simply waltz in and fix everything that was broken in Cole Barrett’s life.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“OH, MY OLD KNEES can’t wait for this,” Hazel Brewer declared as the truck bounced on a snowy rut in the road.
“Neither can my bad hip,” her sister, Eppie, said. “After last week’s soak, I felt better than I have in years. Even Ronald commented that I was skipping around the house all weekend like a spring chicken, didn’t you, Ronald?”
“Yep.”
Ronald Brewer was a man of few words, which made Devin adore him even more.
Devin drove her old pickup truck carefully up the plowed drive toward the Evergreen Springs ranch house, apprehension fluttering inside her.
She wasn’t sure she was ready to see Cole again after that sizzling kiss and these tender feelings that seemed to be growing inside her.
“I’ve been looking forward to this all weekend,” Barbara Serrano declared. “Besides the festival craziness on Saturday, we’ve had Christmas parties booked at the restaurant every night for three weeks. I just want to find a quiet corner somewhere, close my eyes and tune the world out.”
Devin could relate to that. She had a couple of emergencies with patients in her practice and had been back and forth to the hospital all day Sunday, and then it seemed half her patients decided to catch various colds and flus over the weekend. She hadn’t had a moment to breathe all day long.
“I’m so disappointed this will be our only other time to soak in the hot spring,” Eppie said. “Are you sure we can’t make this a regular thing, Devin?”
“Yes,” Hazel agreed. “Surely you could work your womanly wiles on that handsome hunk of rancher and get him to change his mind.”
Devin made a noncommittal sound. She wasn’t sure she’d ever had womanly wiles and if she did, they weren’t very much in evidence these days. She wasn’t sure she could persuade him of anything.
“I’m sorry, ladies. Cole has made it clear he doesn’t want big crowds and craziness at the hot spring. He allowed us to come a few times only as a special favor to me. As I mentioned, he has been very gracious to invite us to the house afterward for cookies and hot cocoa. I’m afraid we will have to be content with that.”
Under other circumstances, she might have tried to convince him to let them use the hot spring on a regular basis but that didn’t seem the best idea right now, given how awkwardly they had left things between them after the festival.
Her truck passed the house and she tried not to be too obviou
s, looking around to see if she could catch a glimpse of Cole like some kind of girl in junior high school riding her bicycle past the house of the cutest boy in school.
The snowman and his little friend stood sentinel out front, still with the pinecone eyes and stick arms. They had now been joined by a snow blob on four distinct legs. It took her a moment to figure out by the rope around it and another one dangling from one of the snowman’s hands that the blob was supposed to be a dog of some sort, with a collar and a leash.
No doubt that was Ty’s work, with perhaps a little help from his sister.
Her truck climbed the hill, engine growling in four-wheel drive, with Archie Peralta following closely in his big Chevy Suburban containing several more people from their yoga class.
Finally the road plateaued and a moment later the little hut beside the hot spring came into view, smoke curling out of the chimney again.
Cole had obviously come up earlier. With everything else he had to do at the ranch, he still made sure the road was plowed and a fire set in the warming hut.
What a dear, kindhearted, impossibly stubborn man. How was she supposed to protect her heart from him?
Cole’s pickup truck was parked in front of the warming hut and the heart in question seemed to give a sharp little kick—until she saw a woman behind the wheel and recognized Letty.
Of course. When she had spoken with the housekeeper earlier in the day during her five-minute lunch break, Letty had told her she would be driving up with the children and would meet them at the warming hut. She must have taken Cole’s big pickup truck that had better traction and four-wheel drive, rather than her own smaller and lighter SUV.
“Here we are,” Devin said brightly, doing her best to ignore the disappointment seeping through her like water trickling toward the Hell’s Fury.
She pulled up behind the truck and started helping her patients out of the pickup and SUV, since well-seasoned joints sometimes had a tough time with the greater heights of bigger vehicles. While she was helping Eppie out of the backseat of her king cab, Ty bounded over to her.
“Hi, Dr. Devin. Hi! We get to go soak in the water with you.”
“Hi, kiddo. I’m so glad! Hi, Jazmyn.”
His sister looked as if she wasn’t in a very good mood. She didn’t respond, just gave a heavy, put-upon sigh.
“Everything okay?”
“I wanted to wear my pink bikini swimsuit but Letty made me wear the blue one-piece. She said it might be a little warmer but I don’t care. I don’t like it. I’d rather wear the pink one.”
“You’ll probably be glad once you take off your sweats.” Devin smiled, trying to distract her. “Are you ready to soak?”
“I am!” Ty exclaimed. “I remember that we can’t get water in our mouths or put our heads under the water.”
“Absolutely right. This isn’t like a swimming pool or a bathtub and you don’t want to swallow the water. Sometimes there are bad bugs that can make you sick. Just stick close to me or Letty and we’ll watch out for you.”
She was helping Eppie ease into the warm, healing waters when yet another vehicle pulled up behind Archie’s, this one a smaller SUV. A moment later, she gave a mental groan as she watched a familiar figure walk toward them wearing swim trunks and carrying a towel.
“Who’s that?” Eppie asked.
“You know who that is,” her sister said. “That’s Stanford Barrett. Iris’s son.”
“He’s our grandpa. Only, we’re not supposed to talk to him,” Ty announced. “He has a supercute dog named Buster.”
“Hey, Stan,” Archie said with a smile. “Good to see you.”
“Mind if I crash the party?” Stan asked. “Archie told me the other day you were coming and a soak sounded like just the thing on a December Monday afternoon.
What was she supposed to do here? She glanced at the children and then back at him. “You know I don’t mind,” Devin answered. “But then, it’s not my opinion that matters, is it?”
“No. But I reckon I own a quarter share of the hot spring, so you can’t really keep me out of it, right?” he answered.
He took any decision out of her hands by stringing his towel in the lower branches of a cottonwood hanging over the water and slipping into the warm, steamy waters.
“Ahhh. Now, this is heaven.”
“Grandpa. Hi.” Ty beamed at him. So much for not talking to the man.
Stan gave him a perfunctory wave, though she sensed he would like to do more. Devin was relieved when he moved to the far side of the thirty-foot-wide pool and struck up a conversation with Paul.
He remained distanced from the larger group there the entire time they soaked and seemed to be trying his best to stay away from the children, as their father had asked. She could only be grateful that he hadn’t put her in an even more difficult position.
While they soaked, Ty jabbered about Santa coming that week and how he had only two more days of school and about the project he was making for his father. Jazmyn seemed to share his excitement at the approaching holidays but she also seemed to be trying hard not to show it.
Mindful of safety, they let the children soak for only thirty minutes or so before Letty ushered them into the changing hut.
She was talking to Barbara, Eppie and Hazel about their upcoming plans for Christmas when she spotted a horse trotting up the hill toward them. Cole sat loose and comfortable in the saddle, wearing a shearling coat and a black cowboy hat.
She wanted to sink down into the water and disappear, or at least find a convenient snowbank to hide her suddenly flaming face, as he dismounted with fluid grace.
“How’s the water today?” he asked.
“Perfect,” Eppie answered, her lined face glowing and her eyes bright. “Are you sure we can’t talk you into letting us move up here permanently so we can soak the winter away?”
He gave one of his rare, genuine smiles. “I’m glad you’re enjoying it.”
“Devin here tells us this is our last time to soak. We may have to do some serious negotiating to see if we can convince you to change your mind and let us come up here again,” Barbara Serrano said. “Maybe we could work out a trade in free meals from the diner.”
“Devin just needs to try harder to persuade you. Surely she can come up with something you might want,” Hazel said with a suggestive little sideways look that Devin seriously hoped Cole didn’t notice.
“Now, ladies, we talked about this,” Devin said, her face hot with mortification as she tried to ignore the sudden remembered heat of being in his arms that made the 108-degree water seem tepid. “Cole generously allowed us use of his hot spring, even when it has traditionally been closed to the public. We can’t be greedy and push him for more than he wants to offer.”
Before the women could wind up for the argument she could see brewing on their wrinkled expressions, the children came out of the changing hut with Letty drying their hair.
“Hi, Dad,” Ty chirped, skipping over to him and petting the horse’s mane. “We soaked in the water and it was super fun and we didn’t put our faces in at all, because it’s gross.”
“Is that right?”
“Yep. And even though Grandpa is here, we didn’t talk to him at all,” Ty assured him.
Cole jerked his head up from his son, craned his neck around and found his father through the curling steam coming off the water on the far side of the natural soaking pool. The polite friendliness on his features melted away into the familiar frustrated anger at the sight of him.
His father waved away steam. “Hey, son.”
In an effort to defuse the situation, Devin tried for distraction. “Now that the kids are out, let’s take turns changing in the hut Cole has been kind enough to warm for us. Ladies first.”
The women grumbled a bit but started mak
ing their way toward the rock steps. Devin moved forward to help Eppie with her bad hip but Cole beat her to it. He offered a strong hand to her and gave her support while she maneuvered the steps.
“Why, thank you,” Eppie said with a girlish giggle that made Devin smile. The two elderly sisters were notorious flirts.
“You’re welcome.”
“Are we still having hot cocoa at your place?” Hazel asked. “Devin mentioned it earlier.”
“I guess that’s the plan.”
“Oh, good. We brought our famous almond shortcake bars to share.”
“Sounds delicious,” he answered. “Here, watch your step. Take my arm and I’ll help you get to the hut so you don’t slip.”
“Your nice coat will get all wet, though,” Hazel said.
“I don’t mind. I’d rather have a wet coat than see one of you lovely ladies get hurt.”
Why did he have to be so sweet? It made it so very difficult for her to resist him, even though she knew she had no choice.
Hazel and Eppie seemed to be dragging out the short walk to the warming hut, the rascals, so they could continue holding on to a big, strong man. By the time they made it to the door, she and Barbara were nearly there.
“I was going to see if you needed help but it looks like you made it,” he said. His gaze shifted down her body then back up so quickly it would have been funny, if her nipples weren’t swollen and hard from the contrast of warm water to mercilessly cold air.
“We’re good,” she mumbled, certain her face must be fiery red by now. “Come on, ladies. Let’s hurry so the men can change.”
* * *
OH, HE HAD it bad.
Cole couldn’t seem to stop staring at Devin, all warm and pink and delicious. She wore a green one-piece swimming suit that molded to her lithe form and made the spit dry up in his mouth.
Had everybody noticed him staring? He wasn’t sure but the older women seemed to give him knowing looks before they slipped into the hut, and Devin seemed unusually flustered.
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