Trish Milburn - The Doctor's Cowboy

She listened to the movements of her dad and brother downstairs, and it hit her that they were every bit as alone as she was. Only Owen had an active love life, but even he showed no signs of getting serious with anyone.

Chloe laid the back of her hand against her forehead and searched for the moment when she’d first noticed the emptiness. She realized after several minutes that it had been shortly after her friend Linnea had announced her engagement and started planning her dream wedding. Is that what Chloe wanted—the big wedding, the happily ever after?

Of course she did. So did most women. But it had always been a “someday” sort of thing. It seemed as if someday were catching up with her, but getting married and having a family of her own wasn’t as simple as it sounded, either. You couldn’t just go shopping for a husband like you could a new car. Not to mention that her schedule was always crazy busy between working at the clinic and hospital and helping out her family.

Still, she couldn’t dispel that line of thought as she tried to force herself to go to sleep. Her mind began to manufacture scenes as she started to drift, scenes of her with her own house, a big yard where two small children laughed and played. She looked toward a barn in the distance, saw someone walk out of it and head toward her. Her heart leaped and the excitement of anticipation rushed through her. As the man drew closer, the thought that he was her husband, the love of her life, settled comfortably within her.

When he came near enough for her to see his face, she smiled. Wyatt didn’t stop until he pulled her into his arms and kissed her with so much passion that she knew in the deepest part of her heart that she was the luckiest woman in the world.

Chapter Three

Wyatt flipped through the channels on the TV for what had to be the tenth time. Still nothing remotely interesting. He was beginning to look forward to a nurse coming to check his vitals just so he’d have something to do.

As if the cosmos had heard his plea, someone walked into his room. Fate had taken pity on him because it was pretty Dr. Brody. She glanced at the TV, where he’d paused on some sort of infomercial for jewelry cleaner, and smiled.

“Got a lot of silver you need to clean?”

He flicked off the TV. “Daytime TV is garbage.”

“Yeah, sorry we don’t have any decent movie channels.”

“Is it possible to die of boredom?”

She lifted his chart from the end of the bed. “Afraid not, though I’m sure it feels that way.” She made a couple of notations on the chart before returning it to its previous spot.

“So, I think I’ve figured out your name.”

“That so?” Dr. Brody walked around to the side of his bed and checked the fluids in his IV bags.

“Yeah. You look like a Carly.”

“Swing and a miss.”

“Christa.”

“Nope.”

When he started to guess again, she shook her head. “Only two guesses a day.”

He lifted a brow. “Just how long do you think I’m going to be in here?”

“That’s partly up to Dr. Pierce.” She pointed toward the IV bags. “But we’ll start gradually lowering the dosage on these as well as the painkiller.”

“So what do I get when I guess your name?”

A hint of a smile tugged at the edge of her mouth. “The satisfaction of a mystery solved.”

He laughed a little, and damn if it didn’t hurt his middle. “You must have gone to the medical school where they teach doctors to have an actual personality.”

“Oh, this is all me, there way before med school.”

“Naturally quick with comebacks, huh?”

“That’s what happens when you grow up with brothers. Couldn’t beat them up, couldn’t outrun them, but I could win in a smart-mouth contest any day.”

She shifted as if leaving already, and he caught himself just before he reached out and grabbed her arm. “Seriously, when can I get out of this place?”

Her light demeanor fell away. “You sustained significant injuries. If that horn had cut a little deeper, you might not be talking to me right now. You’d at the very best be feeling a lot worse. So you need to give your body time to repair itself.”

“That’s not a definite answer.”

“Because I don’t know a definite answer. It depends on how quickly and how well your injuries begin to heal.”

Frustration welled up within him. He was not good at lying around doing nothing, especially when he was pretty sure he’d exhausted his limited health-care coverage by the time he rolled out of surgery.

“Is there anyone we can call to let them know you’re here?” she asked. “Having visitors would make the days go by more quickly.”

He shook his head. Even if he were back in Wyoming, there wasn’t anyone close enough that he’d be able to call them up and have them sit in a hospital with him.

“Tell you what. I’m done with my rounds in a few minutes. I’ll bring you some magazines, maybe a crossword puzzle book. That will help pass the time until something decent comes on TV tonight.”

“Any chance I can at least go sit outside?”

He had to give her credit. She looked genuinely sorry when she shook her head. “Not yet.”

He was going to go stark-raving mad.

“I know it stinks. But I’ll be back with some issues of Woman’s Day before you know it.”

“You are evil,” he said, at least thankful that she was personable and he had her brief visits to look forward to.

“Who, me? I’m an angel.” She pretended to buff an invisible halo before laughing a little and heading for the door. “Hang in there, cowboy.”

She knew his name, but there was something about the way she called him “cowboy” that he liked. Still, part of him enjoyed imagining her saying his name right before he kissed those pink lips. Yeah, he’d been daydreaming about his doctor. That’s what happened when you were full of stitches, unable to get out of bed and had way too many hours of staring at the wall. Not to mention not having been on a date in a while.

Wyatt was pretty sure the minutes slowed after she left. He stared out the narrow window, but the view of the empty helipad lost his interest pretty quickly. He closed his eyes and tried to think of every possible female name that started with a C . He wanted to know the doc’s name, but he sure didn’t want to stay in the hospital long enough to guess it. Maybe he’d get lucky tomorrow. He settled on the two most likely choices then was left with nothing to do again. He finally resorted to turning on the TV and found an older-than-dirt action movie. It wasn’t a great film, but it was better than resorting to counting the divots in the ceiling tiles.

He was beginning to wonder how the movie even got made when Dr. Brody returned, the promised magazines in hand. He muted the TV as she placed the magazines on the rolling table and pushed it close so he could reach it.

“I behaved,” she said as he sifted through the stack of magazines. One about hunting and fishing, another about cars, Sports Illustrated and... “Mostly.”

He laughed at the copy of Cosmopolitan . “Maybe it’ll help me figure out how women’s minds work.”

“You mean you don’t think you know that already?”

“There’s not a man alive who’s figured that out.”

“Maybe you all just aren’t observant enough.”

Wyatt shook his head, not going down that road filled with land mines. “Thanks for the magazines.”

She reached into her coat pocket, pulled out a candy bar and set it beside the magazines and the crossword puzzle book. “Figured this might come in handy, too.”

“You were in my head.”

“No, I just see what passes for dessert here.”