Protector. Diana Palmer

medical school. What a future physicians can look forward to now!”

      “I’ve read about some of it. You’re right. It is amazing.” He was feeling suddenly sleepy.

      “Get some rest,” Coltrain said. “We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

      Hayes nodded. “Thanks, Copper,” he said, using Coltrain’s nickname.

      “My pleasure.”

      Seconds later, he was asleep.

      * * *

      The next morning, everything was suddenly bustling. The nurses got him bathed, if you could call a tub bath bathed, and ready to check out by eleven o’clock.

      Coltrain came by with the prescriptions and releases. “Now if you have any trouble, any trouble at all, you call me. I don’t care what time it is. Any redness, inflammation, that sort of thing.”

      Hayes nodded. “Red streaks running up my arm...” he teased.

      Coltrain made a face. “Gangrene isn’t likely.”

      “Well, you never know,” Hayes chuckled.

      “I’m glad to see you feeling better.”

      “Thanks for helping to get me that way.”

      “That’s my job,” Coltrain replied with a smile. He glanced toward the door. “Come on in,” he said.

      Minette Raynor came into the room. She was tall and willowy, with a curtain of pale gold hair that fell almost to her waist in back, neatly combed and clean. Her eyes were almost black and she had freckles just across the bridge of her nose. Hayes recalled that her mother had been redheaded. Perhaps the freckles were inherited. She had pert little breasts and long, elegant fingers. Didn’t she play piano at church? He couldn’t remember. He hadn’t been in a church in a very long time.

      “I’m here to drive you home,” Minette told Hayes quietly. She didn’t smile.

      Hayes nodded and looked uncomfortable.

      “We’ll get him dressed and a nurse will bring him down to the front door in a wheelchair.”

      “I can walk,” Hayes snapped.

      “It’s hospital policy,” Coltrain shot back. “You’ll do it.”

      Hayes glowered at him, but he didn’t speak.

      Minette didn’t speak, either, but she was thinking about the next couple of weeks with pure anguish. She’d felt sorry for Hayes. He had nobody, really, not even cousins who would have taken care of him. There was MacCreedy, but that would be a total disaster. His sweet Mrs. Mallard, who did his housework three days a week, was out of town because her sister was ill. So Minette had offered him room and board until he was healed up.

      She was having second thoughts. He looked at her with angry dark eyes that wished her anywhere but here.

      “I’ll just wait outside,” Minette said after a minute, one hand on her purse.

      “He won’t be long,” Coltrain promised.

      She left and went down to the waiting room.

      “This is a bad idea,” Hayes gritted as he started to get out of bed and had to hesitate because his head was swimming.

      “Don’t fall.” Coltrain helped him up. “You can stay another day or two...”

      “I’m fine,” Hayes muttered. “Just fine.”

      Coltrain sighed. “All right. If you’re sure.”

      Hayes wasn’t sure, but he wanted out of the hospital. Even Minette Raynor’s company was preferable to another day of gelatin and forced baths.

      He got into the clothes he’d been wearing when he was shot, grimacing at the blood on the shoulder of his shirt.

      “I should have had somebody get fresh clothing for you. Zack Tallman would have brought it over if we’d asked,” Coltrain said apologetically.

      “It’s no big deal. I’ll ask Zack to get them for me,” Hayes said, hesitating. “I guess Minette’s afraid of reptiles, too?”

      “I’ve never asked,” Coltrain replied.

      Hayes sighed. “He’s like a lizardly cow,” he said irritably. “Everybody’s scared of him because of the way he looks, but he’s a vegetarian. He wouldn’t eat meat.”

      “He looks scary,” Coltrain reminded him.

      “I suppose so. Me and my dinosaur.” That tickled Hayes, and he laughed. “Right. Me and my dinosaur.”

      * * *

      Once he was dressed, a nurse came in with a wheelchair. Hayes got into it with rare docility and she put his few possessions in his lap, explaining the prescriptions and the care instruction sheets she handed him on the way out the door.

      “Don’t forget, physical therapy on Monday, Wednesday and Friday,” she added. “It’s very important.”

      “Important.” Hayes nodded. He was already plotting ways to get out of it. But he didn’t tell her that.

      * * *

      Minette was waiting at the door with her big SUV. It was black with lots of chrome and the wood on the dash was a bright yellow. The seats were tan. It had a CD player and an iPod attachment and automatic everything. There was an entertainment system built in so that the kids could watch DVDs in the backseat. In fact, it was very much like Hayes’s personal car, a new Lincoln. He drove a big pickup truck to work. The Lincoln was for his rare nights out in San Antonio at the opera or the ballet. He’d been missing those because of work pressure. Maybe he’d get to see The Nutcracker next month, at least. It was almost Thanksgiving already.

      He noticed the signature trademark on the steering wheel and chuckled. The SUV was a Lincoln. No wonder the dash instruments looked so familiar.

      He was strapped in, grimacing because the seat belt hurt.

      “Sorry,” Minette said gently, fumbling with the belt to make it less confining.

      “It’s all right,” Hayes said through his teeth.

      She closed the door, got in under the wheel and pulled out of the hospital parking lot. Hayes was tense at first. He didn’t like being a passenger. But Minette was a good driver. She got him home quickly to the big beautiful white Victorian house that had belonged to her family for three generations. It was surrounded by fenced pastures and a horse grazed, a palomino, all by itself.

      “You’ve got a palomino,” he mused. “I have several of my own.”

      “Yes, I know.” She flushed a little. She’d seen his and loved the breed. “But, actually, I have six of them. That’s Archibald.”

      His pale, thick eyebrows rose. “Archibald?”

      She flushed a little. “It’s a long story.”

      “I can’t wait to hear it.”

      Chapter 2

      In another pasture, Hayes noted milling cattle, some of which were black-baldies, a cross between Black Angus and Herefords. Most mixed-breed cattle were popular in beef herds. The Raynor place was a ranch.

      Along with the ranch, when her stepmother and stepfather died just a few months apart, she inherited two siblings, Julie and Shane. They weren’t actually related to her, but they were hers as surely as if they’d been blood siblings. She loved them dearly.

      The children were school-age now. Julie was in kindergarten and Shane was in grammar school. Minette seemed to take that responsibility very seriously. No one ever heard her complain about the kids being a burden. Of course, they also kept her single, Hayes mused. Most men didn’t want a ready-made family to support.

      Minette’s