The Cowboy and the Lady. Marie Ferrarella

would anyone stay in a place like this where their options were so limited? she couldn’t help wondering. It was a surprise to her that everyone didn’t just pick up and leave town the minute that they graduated high school. She knew she would have. The pace here felt as if it had been dipped in molasses on the coldest day in January.

      “We do, however,” Jackson told her after a beat, “have a medical clinic, and the doctors there are always looking for more help.”

      A medical clinic. She could work with that. “They might just have found it,” she told him with a relieved smile.

Chapter Four

      Jackson thought of Daniel Davenport and Alisha Cordell-Murphy, the two doctors who ran the clinic, and the overworked nurse at the desk, Holly Rodriguez. He’d had occasion to interact with all of them at one time or another. Not directly for himself, but he’d brought several of his friends from the reservation in to be treated there.

      The clinic was definitely a godsend, seeing as how not all that long ago there hadn’t been any doctor within fifty miles of Forever.

      However, godsend or not, the clinic was woefully understaffed. He wasn’t sure if Forever and its surrounding area was growing, or if the doctors had just become overwhelmed and slowed down. But it was clear that help was definitely needed.

      The doctors would be thrilled at the mere thought of getting even temporary help for a short respite. He knew that for certain, recalling what Dr. Davenport had said when it had been just him running the clinic with Holly’s help, and Dr. Cordell-Murphy—she’d been just Dr. Cordell at the time—had arrived in response to an open recruitment letter he’d sent to his old hospital in New York.

      “After you finish filling out the paperwork,” Jackson told the nurse, “I can have one of the boys take you to the clinic.”

      Debi paused for a moment. “Is it in town?” she asked.

      “Yes, ma’am, it is.”

      She winced at the word he’d used to address her. “Please, don’t call me ma’am,” she requested earnestly. “It makes me feel like I’m at least eighty years old.”

      “Just a sign of respect, nothing more,” he replied. “And just for the record, you’d be the youngest-looking eighty-year-old on the planet,” Jackson told her with a wink.

      Debi felt something in her stomach flutter in response to the wink. Whether the man knew it or not, that was an extremely sexy wink.

      Even so, she had no business reacting like that. She told herself that it was just because she hadn’t really eaten in more than twenty-four hours.

      This decision to drag her brother to a horse ranch almost fifteen hundred miles from home hadn’t been an easy one for her. Neither had driving all the way to Forever by herself.

      Ryan didn’t have a license, but he did, she’d discovered, know how to drive. That changed nothing. There was no way she would have allowed him behind the wheel, despite the volley of curses he’d sent her way. Had she given in—there were exceedingly long, lonely stretches of road with nothing in sight—she had no doubt that he would have driven them to who-knows-where while she caught a few much-needed winks.

      So she had loaded up on energy drinks and coffee and driven the entire distance by herself. Fast.

      That left her exhausted and yet wired at the same time.

      The thought of being in the car with someone who had been sent to The Healing Ranch to be reformed made her somewhat uncomfortable. She would have no idea what to expect—or what could happen. What if, like Ryan, her would-be guide would use the opportunity to try to escape from Forever and the ranch?

      “No need to take up anyone’s time,” she told Jackson. “I can get to the town on my own. But after we get all this paperwork squared away, I would like to see the bunkhouse, please.”

      “So you can see for yourself that it’s not some primitive dungeon?” Jackson guessed, deliberately exaggerating what she probably assumed about the conditions in the bunkhouse.

      Debi opened her mouth, then decided there was no point in trying to deny what he seemed to have already figured out. “Yes.”

      Her admission surprised him a little. But it also pleased him. She was brave enough not to try to divert or dress up the truth.

      “Sounds to me like Ryan has a good role model to look up to once we get him straightened out and back to tapping into his full potential,” Jackson observed.

      “I don’t know about that,” she said as she continued filling in the forms. “If I’m such a good role model, why did he get to the point that I had to bring him somewhere like this or risk losing him altogether?”

      Jackson had been doing this for a while now and it never ceased to amaze him how many different reasons there were for teens to act out. “It’s not always clear to us,” he told her. “Sometimes it takes a while to understand.”

      “So,” Debi observed wryly, “you’re a philosopher as well as a cowboy.”

      “A man wears a lot of hats in his lifetime,” was Jackson’s only reply.

      Working as quickly as she was able, Debi filled out all the forms and signed her name on the bottom of the last one. After she was finished, she gathered all the pages together, placing them in a small, neat pile. She felt exhausted and was running pretty close to empty, but the espresso coffee she had saved for last on her trip here was giving her a final shot in the arm.

      Pushing the pile of forms to one side, Debi took out her checkbook. Funds were growing dangerously low, thanks to John and the divorce he seemed to have processed at lightning speed. Bringing Ryan here was probably going to eat up every spare dime she had. That was one of the reasons she’d driven here instead of flying.

      “I assume you prefer being paid up front.” Turning to the next blank check, Debi asked, “What should I make it out for?”

      If the woman was taking a leave of absence to be near her brother while he was here and if she was looking for employment, that meant she was probably living close to hand to mouth.

      Jackson placed his hand over her checkbook, stopping her from beginning to date the check. “Why don’t you hold off on that until he’s been here a week?”

      “Why? Because you might decide he’s incorrigible and you’ll hand him back to me? Won’t you still want to get paid for ‘time served’ if that’s the case?”

      “Actually, I was thinking about you,” Jackson said simply. “I figured that you might decide you’re not happy with the program we have here and want to take your brother home.”

      She flushed, embarrassed for the conclusion she’d leaped to. Lately, she’d been too edgy, too quick to take offense where none was intended.

      “I’m sorry, I didn’t used to be this way,” she apologized. “The last six months have taken a toll on...on all of us,” she said, changing direction at the last minute. She’d meant to say that the past six months had taken a toll on her, but that sounded terribly selfish and self-centered to her own ear—even though arguing with John over Ryan had completely worn her down to a nub.

      “All?” Jackson questioned, his tone coaxing more information out of her.

      Debi obliged without even realizing it at first. “On Ryan, and me—and John.” She saw the unspoken question in Jackson’s eyes. “John is my ex.”

      “Oh.” The single word seemed to speak volumes—and yet, how could it? she thought. Maybe she was just getting punchy.

      She avoided Jackson’s eyes and got back to her initial apology. “I apologize if I sound abrupt.”

      “No apologies necessary,” Jackson