Mystic Cowboy(91)

The sight of him tried its hardest to take her breath away. In the amber glow of light, he was hot. Unfairly hot. It wasn’t right of him to look so damn good, all proud and noble and intelligent and caring and out-and-out sexy on her porch. Getting her all worked up for nothing didn’t do anyone any good anymore.

“What are you doing here?” Excellent. Bitchy. Well, maybe that beat swooning or confused babbling. She could at least pull off bitchy. She went with it. He didn’t have a right to look that good on her porch. He’d walked away, remember? He’d walked right out the door. Waiting for her on her porch—like he always did on Friday nights before they went camping—that was just being cruel.

“Waiting for you to wake up.” His eyes didn’t leave the sunset as he sipped at his tea.

She supposed she should count her lucky stars he was waiting outside. “Why?”

“Wanted to make sure you were okay.” Finally, he looked at her—all of her. His eyes started at her bare feet and worked their way over her jeans, then the T-shirt, to her insane mop of hair. Her nipples tightened under his gaze, and she wished she’d taken the time to put on a damn bra. Finally, he settled on her face, and a slow grin took hold of his mouth.

She knew that look. He liked what he saw, and he wanted to see some more. She tried to cross her arms over her pointy chest and just missed dumping tea down her front. “Well, as you can see, I’m fine.” Which was patently not true, but to hell with him.

“Sure are,” he drawled with another once-over.

Okay, it was now officially past the time that she took control of this situation and got to the bottom of all this. “What happened? How long have I been asleep? How did I get home? Is everyone okay? Why didn’t I go to work today?”

The grin faded away. “I didn’t think you’d remember all of it.”

“Well, start talking.” Keeping one hand over her traitorous breasts, she took a sip of her tea. The sweet warmth rolled down into her stomach, so she took a bigger sip. Her brain already felt perkier. He did make good tea. “What’s going on?”

“Everyone’s fine. You were at work today, until just after eight thirty this morning, when you passed out after I got off the phone with the lab. I brought you home, got you cleaned up and tucked in, and went back to help Clarence. The kids are all fine,” he repeated with more insistence this time.

She hadn’t dreamed it—any of it. Well, maybe just the Alice in Wonderland part. “You got me cleaned up?” That sounded bad. That sounded like being naked—in the shower—with him. That sounded like he’d put her in a T-shirt—and nothing else.

Damn this man. All of him. Even the parts that took care of her.

“Trust me, you needed a good scrubbing, but you weren’t exactly up to it yourself. Don’t worry. I already took care of your clothes. Clarence washed them for you at the clinic.”

A good scrubbing. And he took care of her clothes? She hadn’t been wearing any panties. What the hell else had he been taking care of? She was positive she was blushing as brightly as the sunset, but she refused to care. “All the kids are fine?” Yes. That’s right. She was much more concerned about her smallest patients right now than the fact that her nipples were trying to break through the T-shirt.

“Clarence sent most of them home. Nelly’s still there.” She opened her mouth, but he cut her off with a wave of his hand. “Jesse’s pulling the night shift again.”

She slammed her mug down onto the railing. “I’ve got to go. What the hell am I doing standing around looking at you? I’ve got to get to work.” She tried to hurry back into the cabin, but something held her back.

Not something—someone. Rebel had grabbed hold of the arm that wasn’t acting as a nipple shield.

“Madeline, relax. She’s fine. Everyone’s fine. You did the right thing.”

“But I should—”

“No, you should stay here, eat dinner and get a little more rest. What was it Clarence said?” He went through the motions of scratching his head like he was really thinking about it, but as far as Madeline was concerned, he was doing a shitty job of humoring her. “Oh, yeah. You’re on call. Jesse’s got your number if the smallest thing gets out of hand.”

She tried to jerk out of his hand, but he was having none of it. “But—but—but—”

“No buts. We called Tim, who brought in this CSI guy from the state troopers. He collected the samples and marked all the evidence and took it to be processed. The trooper said they were gonna get a warrant for the rancher’s property too. The law is taking this seriously, Madeline, and that’s because of you. You got those test results back in three days. The CSI guy was impressed at how organized everything was. You did your job better than anyone else could have.”