Montana Daddy. Charlotte Maclay

“I can sleep on one of the examining tables until I can get around on my own.”

      “You’d probably fall off, Grandma, and break something else. Besides, I’ll be examining patients on those tables.”

      Rory started. “You’re going to examine patients?”

      She glanced at him, then looked away. “I’m a nurse practitioner. The whole idea of me coming here during Grandma’s recovery is so she can see patients, as needed. I’ll be doing exams under her supervision.”

      Surprise and disappointment combined to make Rory blurt out, “You didn’t go to med school?” He’d been so darn sure, so confident she’d go the limit. Nothing would stand in the way of her goal of becoming a pediatrician.

      She bristled, her spine straightening until she was her full five feet five inches tall, the top of her head barely coming to his chin. “Some of us have responsibilities, Mr. Oakes. We can’t always do what we want to do.”

      Justine snorted. “He’s not ‘mister.’ He’s got a piece of paper that says he’s a doctor, though I sure as hell wouldn’t want him to treat me for a case of rabies.”

      Kristi looked up at him, a mixture of sadness and admiration in her eyes. “Grandma mentioned a couple of years ago that you’d graduated,” she whispered.

      “By the skin of my teeth and pretty well near the bottom of my class, but yeah, I got my license.”

      A sheen of tears suddenly blurred Kristi’s vision, and she had to look away. She was so proud of Rory and so angry that he had achieved what he’d set out to accomplish when she hadn’t quite made the grade.

      Her own fault, she reminded herself. A premed student should have been more careful about birth control. A dumb mistake, one that had cost her a medical school education and her dream of becoming a doctor. She’d opted for fewer years of training, switching her goal to nursing so she could be home more with her baby.

      In all fairness, that same mistake had been her greatest blessing and biggest joy—her son. She’d give her life to protect Adam from harm. Which is why she’d left him home with her mother while she helped Doc Justine. She had no idea how Rory would react to learning at this late date that he had a son, and she didn’t intend to risk having Adam hurt.

      Nor was she eager to race into the uncertain world of a custody battle across state lines. She had a friend in Spokane whose divorce left her flying her two young children to Arizona three times a year to be with their father. Her girlfriend spent the entire time the children were gone worrying about them.

      Turning to resume wrestling with the mattress, Kristi ignored a twinge of conscience. Despite the fact Rory hadn’t returned her phone calls, and had apparently found another woman at college almost before Kristi had gotten back home, he did have a right to know about his son.

      She would tell him. But not right now.

      Squeezing partway up the stairs, Rory grabbed the opposite side of the mattress. “Where do you want the bed set up?”

      “The living room,” Kristi said.

      “No way,” Justine insisted, her hearing in far better condition than her ankle. “Everybody who comes in will gawk at me like I’m some sort of a freak. Plant me in the second exam room. We can only handle one patient at a time, not that I ever have more than that, anyway.”

      Kristi risked a glance in Rory’s direction and was snared by the intensity of his dark-eyed gaze. She swallowed hard.

      “It’s her medical practice,” she said. “Her house.”

      “Darn tooting it is,” Justine shouted, “so there’s no sense to argue.”

      He hefted the mattress easily. “Lead the way, Nurse Kerrigan.” He took a step, then halted. “Are you still Kerrigan? Or did you get—”

      “She’s still available, young man, if that’s what you’re asking. Not that she’d tumble for somebody who pokes needles in cows for a living.”

      Heat raced to Kristi’s cheeks. “Grandma, if you don’t behave yourself, I’m getting in my car and going back to Spokane right now.”

      “No, you won’t. You’re too much of a pushover to leave your old granny on her own. You wouldn’t be able to sleep nights if you did.”

      God help her, Justine was right about that. There was little Kristi could refuse her grandmother. She owed Grandma her life…and her son’s. It had been Justine’s quick work the night of Adam’s birth that had saved him.

      Sighing, Kristi pointed to the clinic door. “If you can carry the mattress in there, I’ll bring the box springs.”

      “Should I get my video camera to record your encore stair descent?”

      She was tempted to stick out her tongue at him, but his boyish grin was far too endearing. She remembered how frugal he’d been with his smiles when they’d first met, making each one precious to her and a major accomplishment. With every smile he’d sent in her direction, she’d floated on a sensual cloud of happiness for hours.

      “Why don’t you let me handle moving the bed while you give the doc something to knock her out?” Rory suggested mildly.

      “I heard that! You can’t get rid of me that easily. And don’t think I don’t know what you two young people are up to. I watch TV, you know.”

      Kristi stifled a laugh. Impossible was quickly becoming an understatement.

      “I’ll get the bedding,” she said, and headed up the stairs.

      With Rory’s help it didn’t take long to set up the bed in the exam room. Even so Kristi fumbled with the sheets and blankets, intensely aware of a subtle undercurrent of intimacy in their task. Which was ridiculous. They were making a bed but it wasn’t their bed.

      As a nurse she’d made up thousands of beds.

      But never with a lean-hipped, broad-shouldered, hunky man of Native American descent, a man who had been the subject of her fantasies for more hours than she cared to admit. So much so that she hadn’t been able to develop a relationship with any other man. No one had compared to her memories of Rory.

      Maybe hospitals would have more success recruiting nurses if they came equipped with men who looked like Rory. When she got back home, she’d drop a note in the suggestion box. Probably get a bonus for the idea, she thought, fighting off a bout of hysteria.

      How in the name of heaven was she going to survive two weeks in Grass Valley with Rory showing up on the doorstep every few hours? She was going to have to start an epidemic of mad cow disease to keep him occupied and out of her hair.

      Getting over him—putting the past behind her—was what she needed to do if she was ever going to move on with her life. That meant she had to face him and somehow find the courage to tell him the truth.

      Not an easy ambition to achieve.

      She watched as he smoothed the blanket over the sheets. He did have the nicest hands, long tapered fingers and a broad palm. Gentle hands, she remembered. Hands capable of arousing her to heights she’d only imagined.

      “Eric’s calling an emergency meeting tonight at seven. He’d like you to come.”

      …hands that stroked and caressed…

      Her head snapped up. “What?”

      “Eric. My brother. He’s the sheriff now. There’s a big storm coming, and he’s organizing us to do what we’d do anyway without being told. Which is to help out anybody who gets into trouble because of the weather.”

      She blinked, trying to replace the sensual images that had filled her head with something more prosaic like the weather. “Why does he want me there?”

      “In Doc Justine’s absence, you’re the designated emergency medical coordinator,