Victoria Pade - Cowboy's Caress

Carly took the fastest shower of her life. Not an easy task when she had to do it standing on one foot like a flamingo lawn ornament. But there was absolutely, positively no way she was going to come face-to-face with Bax McDermot for the third time without being presentable.

With that in mind—actually with Bax in mind—she gelled her hair to give it body and let it air dry while she slipped into a pair of flowing rayon overalls in a red- and cream-colored batik print over a tight-fitting short-sleeve T-shirt.

She applied just enough blush to give her high cheekbones a healthy glow, mascara enough to accentuate every single eyelash and a pale gloss that guaranteed kissable lips.

Of course that kissable part didn’t matter, she assured herself, ignoring a second eruption of those stomach flutters at the thought.

By then her hair was dry, so she brushed it and pulled it to the top of her head in an elastic scrunchee and let the slight bit of natural wave on the ends have its way.

A scant splash of perfume was the final touch. Even though she knew there was no call for it, she couldn’t resist. She just rejected any thought that her desire to smell sweet and sexy and alluring had anything to do with the new town doctor.

She was in the midst of stashing the perfume bottle back in her carry-on bag when the knock on the cottage door came.

She took one quick look at herself in the full-length mirror on the bathroom door, approved of the improvement, and called “Come in,” in a voice she hardly recognized because it sounded so giddy and unlike her.

Bax only poked his handsome head through the door. “Are you ready for us?”

“Sure,” she answered after clearing her throat, this time sounding as calm as if she hadn’t just hopped around the place like a rabbit in fast-forward mode.

“You look ready,” he said, stepping inside and giving her the once-over as he did. Then he dimpled up with an appreciative smile that made her crazed hop worth it.

At least it would have if she’d been admitting to herself that she cared.

Behind him came Evie Lee, closing the door and turning to Carly, too. “Daddy wouldn’t put a pencil in my hair,” the little girl complained rather than saying hello.

Carly didn’t mind the omission. She was grateful for the distraction from Bax’s dimples and lowered her gaze to the child.

Evie Lee’s hair no longer stood up or was matted on one side. It was combed smooth all over, but merely left to fall loosely around her thin shoulders.

“Could you put the pencil in it now and maybe another time we could use a barrette?” Evie Lee persisted.

Carly looked to Bax for permission. “Do you mind?”

He rolled his eyes, shook his head and answered so slowly it was clear he’d been exasperated with the subject before ever getting to the cottage. “If she wants a pencil in her hair and you’re willing to put a pencil in her hair, then be my guest and put a pencil in her hair.”

“I’m willing,” Carly said with a laugh at his controlled loss of patience.

Since she was near the table and chairs where her suitcases were, she pulled the free chair out from under the table and sat on it.

Both the pencil Carly had used in her own hair earlier and her brush were close at hand so she motioned Evie Lee to stand in front of her.

Evie Lee came on a twirl of delight, stopping with her back to Carly.

It took only a few swipes of the brush to pull the silky tendrils off the child’s neck. Then Carly twisted Evie Lee’s hair into a loose knot at the crown and stuck the writing implement through it.

“There you go,” Carly said when she’d finished.

Evie Lee ran for the same mirror Carly had used moments before to check her own appearance and preened before it.

“Oh, that’s so cute!” the little girl said.

Carly laughed again, enjoying Evie Lee’s enthusiasm.

“What do you say?” Bax prompted his daughter.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” the child gushed.

Bax sighed out another breath as if he were glad to have that over with and said, “Okay, now for more important things than pencils as hair doohickeys.”

That drew Carly’s attention back to him.

Until that moment she hadn’t noticed he’d brought with him a black medical bag much like the one her father had carried. He set it on the floor by her feet, then hunkered down on his heels in front of her. Opening the bag, he took a fresh bandage from it as Carly hiked up her pant leg just to mid-calf, exposing an ankle swollen to triple normal size and turned a variegated shade of midnight-and-blueberry blue.

“You did a number on this, didn’t you?” Bax observed, studying the results of her fall. “So, what was your diagnosis?”

“Sprained ankle with torn ligaments and strained tendons. But no broken bones,” Carly recited.

“How did it happen?” he asked, still surveying it with only his eyes.

Carly explained the chain of events that had landed her sprawled on the floor at her going-away party.

“Well, at least you can say it happened in an attempt to do a good deed,” Bax said when she’d finished the story, barely suppressing a laugh at her recounting. “Let’s get it wrapped again for you. It’ll feel better.”

And with that he cupped her heel in the palm of his hand and raised it to rest on the thick, hard ledge of his thigh.

There wasn’t anything the slightest bit unprofessional or improper or out of the ordinary about what he did. Yet that was all it took for the whole array of sensations to kick in again, adding streaks of lightning to the list as they shot from her ankle all the way up her leg when he began to wrap the bandage expertly around her foot.

No doubt about it, having him touch her was not a good idea.

She didn’t know how hands that big could be so warm and gentle when they looked as if they belonged on the reins of a horse instead. But gentle they were. Exquisitely, enticingly gentle.

And worse than all the sensations going through her again was the intense desire to feel the touch of those hands on other places. Much more intimate places…

He was explaining to her how to wrap the bandage, but she only realized it belatedly. When she did, she yanked her thoughts out of the instant reverie his touch had elicited and tried to concentrate so she could perform this task for herself.

“We can soak this a couple of times a day and keep it elevated as much as possible,” he was saying. “But mainly with an injury like this you just have to wait it out.”

“Too bad. I’d do just about anything to speed up the healing process,” she heard herself say all the while she was thinking, Anything to speed up the healing process and get me out of town and away from everything being near you does to me.

He didn’t seem aware of the internal turmoil he was causing with his ministrations, though, which was one thing to be grateful for, Carly thought. Still, it would have been nice to be able to turn off the turmoil altogether.

When he’d finished with the bandage, her ankle was wrapped perfectly. He lowered her heel to the floor much the way he’d raised it to his thigh before and Carly suffered pangs of disappointment that the whole thing was over even as she silently screamed at herself to stop the insanity that seemed to overcome her every time she was around this guy.

Bax closed the bag and took it with him as he stood. “Done,” he announced.

Carly only wished her response to him was done, too.

But even though it wasn’t, she pretended it was, got to her good foot and hopped to where her crutches waited against the wall not far away.

“Thanks,” she said, not sounding genuinely grateful and regretting the flippancy in her tone. After all, it wasn’t his fault she’d turned into a sack of mush over him. He didn’t even know what was going on with her. So, feeling guilty, she added, “I really appreciate this.”