Jan Hudson - The Cop

“Not many men can handle the demands of a doctor’s life—except maybe another doctor.”

“Or a cop,” Carrie said.

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation,” Kelly replied. “Trust me, there is absolutely no chance of a relationship between Cole and me. None. Zip. Nada.”

Carrie grinned. “But you have to admit he’s a hunk.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Li-ar,” Carrie singsonged.

Kelly only smiled, and they parted company.

Oh, she’d noticed that Cole Younger Outlaw was a hunk. Every female hormone in her body was on red alert. She glanced toward him and found him watching her.

He winked.

Good Lord, could he read her mind?

Dear Reader,

This is the last of three stories about the Outlaw brothers, The Sheriff, The Judge and now The Cop, all from a family traditionally named for famous outlaws and all in law enforcement and public service. When I was creating Cole Younger Outlaw’s story, I first considered setting it in Houston—logical, since the oldest son had been in HPD homicide for many years—but the colorful characters in the small town of Naconiche (NAK-uh-KNEE-chee) had grown on me. To prove that good things can come of terrible incidents, I brought Cole back to his hometown to recuperate from his serious injury…and to find a whole new life in the place of his roots.

Now, there’s no real town named Naconiche—and, no, it’s not patterned after Nacogdoches, the historical small town where I lived for many years—but there is a Naconiche Creek in East Texas, and I liked the sound of the Indian word. The Outlaws’ hometown is a composite of many places in the heart of the Piney Woods where my ancestors lived when Texas was still a republic.

Naconiche and the Twilight Inn seem to be magical places, and with one gorgeous redhead thrown into the mix, the cynical and battle-scarred cop is about to be turned every which way but loose. I had fun writing about the sassy Dr. Kelly Martin and the tough Cole Outlaw, and I can promise that you’re in for lots of love and laughter! Join me and see if I’m not right.

Visit me at www.eclectics.com/JanHudson.

Jan Hudson

The Cop

Jan Hudson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Karen Solem, Agent Extraordinaire

And with special thanks to Sherry Wallace,

Hospice of Deep East Texas

and Greg Sowell,

Nacogdoches Police Department

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue

“Pull off your pants and lie down,” she repeated.

Cole Younger Outlaw turned from the bedroom window, and his eyes swept her with a slow, clothes-stripping scrutiny that sucked the air from her lungs. One corner of his mouth twitched upward. “Tell you what, Red,” he said in a low rumble that sent an acre of goose bumps racing over her skin. “I’ll pull off my pants if you’ll pull off yours.”

For a nanosecond she actually considered taking him up on the offer. He was without a doubt the most…phenomenal man she’d ever encountered. Even in ragged sweats and with several days’ growth of dark beard, sex appeal oozed from his pores and wafted across the room like nitrous oxide. Hard. Dangerous. Survival instincts would have sent a lesser woman screaming from the room, which, she was sure, was what he intended.

She was made of sterner stuff.

“That’s not an option, Mr. Outlaw. And please don’t call me Red. My name is Kelly Martin. Dr. Kelly Martin.”

His dark brows lifted a tad, and he gave her another slow perusal. “You sure don’t look like any doctor I’ve seen lately.” He flashed a full-fledged grin, and her knees almost buckled. “The offer still holds.”

“Look, Mr. Outlaw—”

“Call me Cole, darlin’.”

She ignored the “darlin”’ part. “Look, Cole, I have an office full of patients waiting, and I don’t have time for games. Dr. Ware is in surgery all day, and I’m here as a favor to your mother. She and your dad are worried sick about you, and so are your brothers. You’ve holed up in this room and refused to go to physical therapy. You won’t cooperate with anybody who’s trying to help you. You haven’t—”

“Put a sock in it, Red.” He scowled and turned back to the window which was festooned with a bright holiday swag.

Kelly was torn between clobbering him with her medical bag and stalking from the room. Instead she tossed the bag and her jacket on the bed and walked closer to him. “Exactly what is your problem?”

“My problem?” He glared at her with storm-cloud gray eyes. “Besides losing a chunk of lung, getting my hip and leg shot all to hell and being a cripple the rest of my life, you mean?”

She waited only two beats before she shot him a cheeky grin. “Yeah, besides that, flatfoot.”

He ducked his head, but not before Kelly saw a hint of a smile. When he looked up a few seconds later, he was scowling again. “I’m not a flatfoot. I’m a cop. Was a cop.”

“You can be a cop again—if you’ll go to therapy.”

“Sorry, Red, it won’t wash. There’s no way in hell I can work homicide again, and I’m not cut out for being a desk jockey. You got a cigarette on you?”

Kelly patted all her pockets. “Nope. Fresh out.” She fished a small sucker from her purple lab coat. “This is the best I can do.” When he reached for it, she popped it back into her pocket. “The examination comes first. Take off your pants.”

“Don’t try to play games with me, Red,” he growled. “I eat little gals like you for lunch.”

Kelly burst into laughter. His scowl only deepened. “Try it,” she said, then deepened her voice to add in her best Dirty Harry imitation, “Make…my…day.”

She thought the corner of his mouth twitched upward again, but she couldn’t be sure because he suddenly hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his faded sweats and stripped them off. Next the shirt landed on the floor beside the pants, and he turned to her. “Examine away.”

Her woman’s breath caught for less than a heartbeat before the physician kicked in. “I see the incisions seem to be healing nicely. Let me get my gear.” She retrieved her bag from the bed and took out her stethoscope. Automatically she held the diaphragm in her fist and blew on the metal, warming it before she placed it on his chest. “Take a deep breath.”

After listening to his heart and lungs, she carefully checked the surgical sites and damage to his chest and back. The scar from the exit wound was more vicious than the one from the surgeon’s scalpel. She knew that things had been touch-and-go with him for several days after he was shot and that he had spent weeks in a Houston hospital before his folks had brought him back home with them to finish recuperating. Naconiche was a small town, and everybody had known about his gun battle with a murder suspect. Too, she shared an office suite with Noah Ware, the surgeon who was Cole’s local doctor.

When the time came to check his left hip and leg, Kelly pulled up a nearby straight chair and sat down to examine the places.

“Ugly looking mess, isn’t it?” Cole asked.

“I’ve seen much worse. I worked in Ben Taub ER in Houston for a year. I saw more gunshot wounds than most doctors see in a lifetime. Bet this hurt like a son of a gun,” she said as she gently probed the sites, which were now patched with pins. Kelly asked him to move and bend, then walk a few steps.