The Doctor's Cowboy. Trish Milburn

her dad and brother dismounted, Owen took the reins of both horses and led them toward the barn. Her dad turned toward the house.

      “Find any breaks in the fencing?” she asked when he came close enough to hear her.

      “For now, everything is fine. Until they catch these bastards, we’re going to have to keep a close eye on the whole spread.”

      “I saw Simon Teague in town yesterday,” she said, speaking of the local sheriff. “He said they had something similar happen up in Runnels County a few months ago. He’s been talking with the sheriff up there, but they never caught the people.”

      Her father shook his head. “If they were stealing the cattle, it would almost make sense. But this is just pure meanness.”

      “Simon said they’re doing all the extra patrols they can.”

      “But there’s no way he can be everywhere at once, not with what few men he has at his disposal.”

      “Maybe they’ll get lucky.”

      Her dad grunted as if he weren’t holding out much hope for that. After a moment, he seemed to set aside worries of the fence cutters and looked at her. “Hear you’ve made a new friend in that bull rider laid up at the hospital.”

      Well, hell. She guessed it was too much to hope that word wouldn’t get out about her spending extra time with Wyatt. She shrugged as if it were no big deal. “Sort of stinks for him to be stuck in a hospital bed with no family or friends to keep him company. Doesn’t even have a roommate at the moment.”

      A sad little smile stretched her dad’s mouth. “You’re so like your mother, lending aid and comfort to anyone who needs it.”

      “It’s my job.”

      “It’s more than that, always has been since you were a little girl befriending every kid at school who didn’t have friends.” He paused for a moment. “I wish your mom could see what a good woman you’ve grown up to be.”

      Chloe pressed her lips together and blinked a couple of times against sudden tears. One would think that after all this time, talking about her mom wouldn’t make her want to cry. But at times, it felt as if she’d just talked to her mom, been held in her arms, only the day before.

      Perhaps sensing how close her emotions were to the surface, maybe even feeling choked up himself, her dad climbed the steps beside her, patting her on the shoulder as he passed by.

      Roscoe padded over and flopped down beside her, resting his head on her leg as if he knew she needed some comfort. She ran her hand over his head and down his back. He looked up at her with those big brown eyes, and her heart went gooey soft with love. Roscoe might be a dog, but he and Cletus were a part of the family.

      “I see your sad puppy eyes, you adorable rascal.”

      “I don’t envy the man who ends up falling for you,” Owen said as he sauntered toward her. “He’ll never beat out ol’ Roscoe here.”

      Chloe scratched between Roscoe’s ears again. He enjoyed that more than anything. “What’s not to love? He adores me, doesn’t talk back, isn’t demanding.”

      Owen leaned against the edge of the porch, and she could tell he wanted to say something else.

      “What is it?”

      “Thought you should know that scuttlebutt around town is that you’re Verona Charles’s next project.”

      She sighed and stared out toward the road. “That woman needs to find her own man and maybe she’d stop poking around in everyone else’s love lives.”

      “You’ve got a love life?”

      Chloe snarled at him. “Be careful. I’ll sic Roscoe on you.”

      Owen laughed. “I’m shaking.”

      “Go on, Roscoe. Get him. Use his arm as a chew toy.”

      “I think you could wrap my arm in bacon and these two still wouldn’t rouse themselves to attack.”

      As if to prove his point, Roscoe let out a doggy sigh and closed his eyes as if about to take a nap while using her leg as a pillow.

      Chloe shook her head at the dog. “Well, I guess I have to look elsewhere for my knight in shining armor.”

      “From what I hear, you already have. Maybe silver spurs instead of shining armor.”

      Chloe narrowed her eyes at her little brother. “Owen Brody, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stop believing town gossip.”

      Owen whistled. “Hit a nerve, did I?”

      “Owen,” she said, warning in her voice.

      He held up his hands. “Okay, okay. I’m backing off.”

      Chloe continued to sit outside after her brother followed their father inside. If people were already pairing up her and Wyatt based on her just trying to be friendly, how long before Wyatt got wind of it? And when he did, how was she supposed to face him without letting it show that she didn’t mind as much as she should?

      * * *

      WYATT WATCHED THE minutes tick by on the clock, wondering when Chloe would be by to do her hospital rounds. If the other riders could see him now, laid up like an invalid and with nothing to look forward to beyond a visit from a doctor, no doubt they’d think him pathetic. Even the single guys on the circuit had someone—a girlfriend, brother, sister, best friend...parents. Most of the time, his lack of family didn’t bother him. It was just the way things were. He had friends, but they were out on the circuit somewhere, heading to the next event and another batch of points.

      He heard Chloe’s voice from somewhere nearby, and his pulse jumped. Chances were if he’d met her in any other situation, he wouldn’t be so fixated on her. Yes, she was pretty, but it wasn’t as if she were the first pretty woman he’d ever seen. She was more like a lifeline to sanity than anything else, one he’d been denied the past two days.

      Forty-eight hours of mind-destroying boredom. He’d read every one of the magazines she’d brought him cover to cover, even the Cosmopolitan, a fact he would never admit to anyone. That was boredom. In the wee hours when he couldn’t sleep anymore, he’d finished the last puzzle in the crossword book, and he’d only had to cheat a handful of times.

      But if Chloe was just a way to keep from being bored, why did he get more excited to see her than anyone else who traipsed into his room? Sure, he talked to everyone from the nurses to the gal who mopped the floors. But Chloe, for some reason, was different. Maybe it was nothing more than hers was the first face he’d seen when he’d awakened in the emergency room.

      He really needed to stop being so damn philosophical.

      “So, I hear you’ve been contrary the past couple of days,” Chloe said as she breezed into his room with a scolding expression on her face.

      “I deny that accusation.”

      “So you haven’t been pestering the nurses to let you get up and saunter around the hospital?”

      “I thought doctors liked to get patients up and out of bed as soon as possible.”

      “As soon as possible. We’d prefer not to risk undoing the work we’ve done. Trust me, you don’t want to reinjure yourself. I’m sure it hurt enough the first time around.”

      “Fine,” he said, unable to hide his frustration. “Then the least you can do is to play that game of Scrabble with me.” He gestured toward the board on the rolling table that belonged to the still-empty second bed, where he’d already played the word wander for twenty points.

      “Where did that come from?”

      “Your friend Sophie.”

      Chloe rolled her eyes. “Of course it did.”

      What