Stories of family and romance beneath the Big Sky!

Was Maddie so desperate that she’d started thinking Noah Martin was interesting?

Good grief, she thought in abject self-disgust. She could have men by the droves, if she wasn’t always so picky. She insolently lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes right back at Noah. “Thanks for the wrap, Doc. But it looked to me as though you enjoyed opening my robe just a little too much.”

Noah was thunderstruck. Jumping up, he gathered his things and strode angrily over to his medical bag.

Maddie’s heart sank. She’d gone too far. “I…I…” she stammered.

Noah swung around, his face furious and his eyes glowing like live embers. “I won’t demean myself by even attempting to deny your charge.”

Maddie, who rarely cried, suddenly felt tears drizzling down her cheeks. “I…feel like I’ve lost touch with everything that has been real and good in my life.”

Noah walked over to Maddie. He cradled her head in his hands and tenderly pressed his lips to hers. He felt her startled reaction, but in the next instant she was kissing him back….

Marked for Marriage

Jackie Merritt

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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JACKIE MERRITT

is still writing, just not with the speed and constancy of years past. She and her husband are living in southern Nevada again, falling back on old habits of loving the long, warm or slightly cool winters and trying almost desperately to head north for the months of July and August, when the fiery sun bakes people and cacti alike. She has written dozens of novels for Silhouette Books.

Contents

Prologue

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

Prologue

Dr. Noah Martin, internal specialist and surgeon extraordinaire, pulled his dark-green SUV to a stop directly in front of Mark Kincaid’s home. Instead of immediately getting out of his vehicle, Noah left the engine and heater running—the outside temperature on this early-February day was hovering in the low twenties. He frowned uneasily at the house, as though the attractive structure—blue-gray siding, red brick trim—contained something ominous. In truth, the only thing it contained—beyond furnishings and personal possessions belonging to Mark and his bride, Darcy—was a young woman named Maddie who happened to be Mark’s sister.

Noah’s promise to look in on Maddie while Mark and Darcy were on their honeymoon weighed about ten thousand pounds, and at the moment Noah would give almost anything to have stumbled upon some reason for not doing this favor for Mark. It would have to be something feasible, of course. Noah didn’t have a trainload of friends, mostly due to his loner personality and disdain for the human race in general, but he and Mark had hit it off from their first meeting, unusual for Noah.

Truth was, Mark Kincaid was the closest thing Noah had to a real friend in this little backwater town of Whitehorn, Montana, to which he’d moved to escape the ghosts of a love gone sour. He had learned, of course, that changing one’s residence did not eradicate memory—a painful lesson in the implacability of human emotion. There were moments when the image of beautiful, sophisticated Felicia, his former fiancée and the love of his life, was so real in his mind that it seemed as though he could reach out a hand and touch her. The utter foolishness of that sort of mind game never failed to anger him, and there were many, many days when he did his job without smiling even once.

Not that he would take Felicia back if she suddenly appeared in Whitehorn and pleaded with him to mend their broken relationship. She’d left him flat, announcing with her regal chin high in the air in a symbolic effort to look down on him—ridiculous when she was five foot five and he was six feet tall—that she was tired of playing second fiddle to his medical career. It was over for her, and nothing he’d said had altered her decision.

The whole thing—giving a woman everything he had to give, rushing to comply with her slightest whim, worrying that he loved her far more than she loved him, and on and on ad infinitum until the breakup—had created a brand-new Noah Martin. As a snake sheds its skin, Noah shed all ties to the past—or so he’d believed when he traded San Francisco for a small town in Montana.

He’d found out differently, and while he did his best to combat bitterness, it was an undeniable part of his personality. He angered easily, resented trivial slights that he wouldn’t even have noticed before meeting Felicia and ultimately falling under her spell. And perhaps most unfortunate of all, his former commendable bedside manner had vanished, and other than the medical side of his relationship with patients, he really didn’t like them.

Now, on this raw February afternoon, staring broodingly at the front of Mark’s house he again regretted a promise he couldn’t get out of keeping. It didn’t alleviate Noah’s bad mood to realize that the main reason he’d agreed to this annoying interruption in his regular routine was Mark’s worried comments about Maddie having had some kind of accident during a rodeo. The details had slid through Noah’s mind, but the gist of the conversation had been that he and Darcy could not leave on their scheduled honeymoon without someone dependable keeping an eye on Maddie.

“I’ll tell you now,” Mark had said, “Maddie’s a handful. But I think you just might be the one person around who can handle her.”

Noah narrowed his eyes and wondered exactly what “handling Maddie Kincaid” would entail. He sure as hell didn’t need another woman enforcing her will over his. In fact, since the charade with Felicia, he’d made it a point to stay completely away from the opposite sex. Except in a professional setting, of course.

Thinking that Mark was going to owe him big-time for this, Noah turned off the ignition and got out. The outside cold, made more penetrating by a gusting north wind, turned his breath to freezing fog. There was a thin layer of snow on the ground—frozen into tiny ice pellets, Noah was certain—and every step he took made a uniquely wintry crunching sound. He walked to the front door and rang the bell. No one came to the door, nor could Noah hear any movement from inside.

Frowning, he left the small front porch and walked around the house to the side door. From there he could see a long white trailer and a strikingly handsome white one-ton pickup truck residing in the extra parking space Mark had behind his garage. The truck sparked Noah’s interest. It had chrome running boards and tail pipes, chrome rooftop lights, and probably every other conceivable add-on, Noah decided. It was an obviously costly vehicle, and when he gave the trailer another look, he thought the same about it. Apparently Mark’s sister was not here because of a lack of funds, but then no one had said she was. She was here to recuperate from an accident. A rodeo accident, Noah thought, puzzling about something that he probably should already know, given Mark’s concern for his baby sister.

Certain that he’d get the lowdown from Maddie Kincaid herself, he knocked. After a few seconds he knocked again, and then again. Muttering several choice curse words under his breath about “some women’s lack of consideration for a man’s time,” he impatiently yanked off his glove and dug through his pockets for the key Mark had given him.

Unlocking the door, he stepped into the house—more precisely, into the messiest kitchen he’d ever seen. “Good Lord,” he mumbled. Mark and Darcy had only been gone one day and Maddie had done this much damage? How injured could she be? There were pans covered with dregs of food on the stove and counters, dirty dishes and cutlery in the sink and on the counters, and empty soup cans spilling out of a full trash container.

One thing wasn’t in the kitchen—Maddie Kincaid. Shaking his head disgustedly at the unwashed dishes scattered around the room, Noah went looking for her. He spotted a lump under a big soft comforter on the sofa in the living room and decided that he’d found her.

Maddie had awakened just enough to know that someone was in the house. Groggy from the pain pills she’d been taking as prescribed, she nonetheless felt suddenly frightened. Mark and Darcy had left for their honeymoon. Had that happened this morning? Yesterday morning? Well, whatever morning it had been, they weren’t back already. And the doors were locked! Mark had locked everything up nice and tight before his and Darcy’s departure, and Maddie had had no cause to unlock anything.

With her heart pounding hard enough to hear, Maddie moved the comforter a fraction so she could at least get a glimpse of the intruder. She’d been sleeping with the soft down-filled blanket over her head, because she hadn’t been really warm since she’d arrived, even with the gas furnace going full blast. She’d actually forgotten how cold February could get in Montana, which was odd when she’d grown up with blustery north winds and temperatures that could bring tears to the eyes of the most stalwart—and warmly dressed—outdoorsman. But apparently she’d spent too many winters in the southern states to expect instant acclimation.

Peering through the tiny gap she’d created within the folds of the comforter encapsulating her, Maddie saw a man. A tall man with broad shoulders in winter garb, who appeared to be looking in her direction, although she couldn’t be sure that he realized the bulky comforter contained a person. If she didn’t move again—maybe he hadn’t seen her cautiously create the viewing gap she was looking through—would he eventually go away without harming her?

Dear God, why had he broken into this particular house? Did he know that Mark and Darcy had gone away and was planning to take everything they owned in their absence? Even if he wasn’t aware that she was staying there and, in fact, lying on the sofa and watching him this very second, could she do nothing and let him steal Mark and Darcy blind? What she should do was to leap up, grab a poker from the stand by the fireplace and whack him over his thieving head.

She could see herself doing it, maybe even knocking him silly without the poker. She could leap up, whirl around and kick him in the chin, do another whirl and give him a good one in the chest with her heel. Another kick to the groin should just about finish him off.

It was pure fantasy. She was in no condition to do a super-heroine leap off the sofa, let alone any dramatic whirls and high kicks. As for using the poker for a weapon, it was too far away. This villainous cretin certainly wasn’t going to stand still and wait for her to limp over to the fireplace, for Pete’s sake.

Moving just her eyes, Maddie searched for something closer with which to defend her honor—and possibly her life—along with her brother’s possessions. The paperweight on the end table would have to do, she decided, and sucking in a big breath for courage, she threw back the comforter, stumbled to her feet and lunged for the paperweight.

Noah could hardly believe his eyes. A tiny little woman wearing what looked to be a set of her brother’s two-piece long johns and huge woolen stockings was assuming an attack position, with her weapon being a paperweight! Her short, light-brown hair was spiky, totally disarrayed, and the right side of her face was every color of the rainbow, obviously in varying stages of the healing process. A soft cast was on her right hand and halfway up her forearm, and besides all of that, the paperweight she was threatening him with in her left hand was one with artificial snow in it. The “snow” kept swirling within the globe because Maddie—she must be Maddie—was so unsteady on her feet that her hand couldn’t stop her weapon from wavering.

Maddie Kincaid was truly the most hilarious sight Noah had ever seen, and he started laughing. He laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks. He laughed so hard that he could just barely stand erect and so he fell into an overstuffed chair. He laughed until his sides ached, and all the while Maddie stood there weaving back and forth trying very hard to look vicious and dangerous, which kept feeding Noah’s laughter.

Finally Maddie merely looked disgusted, which was exactly how she felt. What kind of lunatic moron was this guy? Breaking into a house and then laughing himself sick because there was someone home to defend it and he’d believed it to be vacant had to indicate some sort of mental problem. He probably belonged in a padded cell! Somehow she needed to get to one of the phones in the house and call the police, but…but…to Maddie’s chagrin, she started blacking out.

She looked suddenly pale, Noah saw and, recognizing the signs of an impending faint, he stopped laughing and made a dive for this oddball little woman. The paperweight dropped from her lifeless hand and thudded on the carpet. Noah got to her before she ended up next to the little globe and swung her up into his arms to lay her back on the sofa.

She couldn’t weigh much more than a hundred pounds, he decided while tucking the comforter around her shoulders. Then he gently shook her and said, “Maddie? Come on, wake up. You only fainted.”

Her eyelids fluttered open, and she found herself looking into the dark blue eyes of…of… She couldn’t give him a label, though heaven knew she was scared to death of the many horrible things he might be. Actually he didn’t look like an ax murderer or even a burglar—he was very good-looking, in fact—but then how many truly sinister people had she met in her twenty-three years?

Then something clicked in her brain and she asked nervously, “Did you, uh, say my name?”

“Yes. You’re Maddie, Mark Kincaid’s kid sister. I’m Noah Martin. Mark asked me to keep an eye on you while he and Darcy honeymoon in Europe.”

“You’re a babysitter? My babysitter? No way, buster! And get your butt off of this sofa! In fact, get your butt out of this house!”

Noah stood up. He understood now why Mark had described his sister as a “handful.” What he didn’t quite comprehend was why Mark thought he was the one person in Whitehorn who could deal with her!

Chapter One

Ten Days Earlier

Maddie Kincaid loved the rodeo atmosphere. Sitting on her horse, Fanchon, because they would be performing in the barrel racing event in a few minutes, Maddie basked in the noise from the stands, the sounds of the horses and bulls in the holding pens and the mixture of odors, from hot popcorn to the sweat of nervous animals. Even Fanchon, or Fanny, as the mare was more commonly called, evidenced excitement.

With her gloved hand Maddie stroked Fanny’s neck and murmured, “Hold on, girl. We’re up next. Stay calm.”

Her touch always soothed the beautiful gray quarter horse mare, and Maddie let her gaze drift around to the men and women in jeans, boots and big hats awaiting their events. She could hear snatches of conversations and recognized the same thrill of competition in their voices that she felt in the pit of her stomach.

A roar went up in the stands, and Maddie heard over the loudspeaker that Janie Weston had knocked over a barrel during her race, which meant that if Maddie made a good ride, she would again win the trophy and the purse. Barrel racing was Maddie’s specialty, and she could fill a small room with trophies, if she had a room. But her home was a long trailer that she pulled with a one-ton pickup truck. And so whenever she was in Austin, Texas, as she was now, she would go to her rented storage space and unload the trophies that she’d picked up since her last visit.

Maddie never let herself get overly confident, nor did she ever even think hallelujah when her toughest competitor knocked herself out of the race. It could happen so easily, and it had happened to Maddie a time or two. Besides, rodeo contestants were, for the most part, good sports and great people. Maddie knew a lot of them by name, especially those that followed the rodeo circuit, as she did.

Janie rode from the arena with a downcast expression, but when Maddie’s name was announced as the next contestant, she sent Maddie a thumbs-up.

Maddie acknowledged Janie’s courtesy with a smile and a nod and urged Fanny forward. At the starting post, she again touched Fanny and spoke quietly. In seconds the blare of the starting horn put both Fanchon and Maddie into action. At lightning speed Fanny circled the first barrel and then the second. Every movement made by Fanny and Maddie was smooth and necessary. Maddie’s mind was totally focused on her race against the clock, and she barely heard the crowd now.

Then something happened. Fanchon took a sudden nose dive and Maddie went flying. She landed hard on her right side and blacked out.

The crowd fell silent, and the announcer didn’t have to shout to be heard. “Folks, Miss Maddie Kincaid ran into a bit of trouble. As you can see, the medics are putting her on a stretcher. They’ll see to it that Maddie is well cared for. I’ll keep y’all posted.”

The rodeo continued, but Maddie knew nothing for a good ten minutes. When she came to she was in an ambulance with a wailing siren, lying on her back with an IV needle in her arm and an attendant watching her vital signs.

“Fanchon,” she said weakly.

“Your horse? She’s fine. Not even a scratch.”

“Are you sure?”

“Very sure.”

Maddie closed her eyes. She couldn’t find a spot on her body that didn’t hurt and finally whispered, “Pain.”

“Yes, I know,” the attendant said. “There’s a mild sedative in your IV drip, but we can’t give you anything stronger until you’re checked for concussion. Try to relax.”

The rest of Maddie’s trip to the hospital was spent in “trying to relax.” But her body hurt like hell and her mind was clouded just enough to make sudden, clear thoughts jump out at her—especially any thought pertaining to Fanny. After all, when the man in the white suit didn’t know if she had a concussion or not, would he tell her the truth if Fanny had been seriously injured in their fall?

Being transported from ambulance to emergency room was fast and little more than a blur for Maddie. Then began the tests—a battery of them—and finally a pain shot that did some good. She went out like a light and woke up hours later in a hospital gown and bed. Her brain was fuzzy, and she was thirsty enough to drink water from a horse trough—right along with the animals.

It seemed like a simple matter to get the tall glass of water she could see on the stand next to the bed, but when she tried to raise her right arm, it refused to cooperate. She finally lifted it high enough to see the thick blue fabric encasing her hand and lower arm. She knew what it was—a soft cast. She’d broken something. Not her wrist, because that would be in a hard cast. She’d seen many casts and bandages during her rodeo career. Banged-up cowboys and cowgirls were not a rarity, but this was Maddie’s first accident that had put her in a hospital bed.

She rang for the nurse, and in a minute or so one came in. “You’re awake. Good. What do you need, hon?”

“Some water, which I can’t seem to reach for myself, and maybe a rundown on what else is broken besides my arm.”

The nurse held the glass so Maddie could suck water through the straw. “Your arm’s not broken, hon, it’s a couple of little bones in your hand. You have no other fractures, but your entire right side is badly bruised.”

“I feel…awful,” Maddie said in a whispery unsteady voice.

The nurse checked her watch. “You’re due for another pain shot. I’ll get it.” She hurried out and returned almost at once with a syringe. “You have to turn a bit so I can reach your hip.”

Turning even a “bit” was unbelievably painful for Maddie. In comparison, the sting of the needle was nothing.

“Your doctor will be in to see you sometime this evening,” she said before leaving.

Maddie was already drifting off again, only alert enough to be glad about the doctor. She had questions, or she’d had questions when the nurse had talked so briefly about her injuries. Maybe she would remember them when the doctor appeared this evening. She hoped so.

As it turned out, the doctor showed up around four-thirty that afternoon. “I’m Dr. Upton,” he said while reading the notations on what Maddie supposed was her chart. Finished with that he sat on the one chair near her bed. “How’re you feeling?”

“I hurt,” she said bluntly, if with very little force behind the two words. Along with varying degrees of pain from her head to her legs, she felt horribly weak, but had to find out everything she could about her injuries.

Dr. Upton nodded. “I don’t doubt it. You took quite a spill, young woman. It’s somewhat of a miracle that all you broke were two small bones in one hand. It’s the hand you landed on, of course. Your abrasions were caused from being dragged through the dirt.”

“Dragged? By what?”

“By your horse.”

“Fanchon is a gentle mare and would never drag me!”

The doctor smiled indulgently. “Sorry, Maddie,” he said gently, “but that’s exactly what happened.”

“Then she was afraid.”

“Possibly. Undoubtedly,” he added. “She was falling, as well. Fear is only natural in that instance.”

“Where is she? Do you know?”

“I knew that would be your first question once you were lucid, so I made some phone calls to find out. Fanchon is stabled at the rodeo grounds. She’s fine and so will you be in time.”

“In time?” Maddie repeated suspiciously. “How much time?” She should be on the road right now, heading for Abilene and the next major rodeo on the circuit calendar.

“I’d say at least a month.” Dr. Upton got to his feet and began writing on the chart. “Even small bones take time to knit, Maddie, and I believe you’ll require some physical therapy on that hand once the healing process reaches a certain stage. Now, I’d like you to stay here through tomorrow night, so we can keep an eye out for infection. If all goes well, I’ll release you the following morning.”

“Infection? In my hand?”

“Maddie, your right side is one huge abrasion from your forehead to midcalf. We had to pick minute pieces of gravel out of your skin with medical tweezers. There are antibiotics in your IV and antibiotic salve under the dressings on the worst of your injuries. You’ve also been given a rabies shot because of incurring open wounds around horses. Infection is a very real threat and…” He saw the horror in Maddie’s eyes. “You haven’t looked in a mirror yet? You’ve been up.”

“I have?”

“Twice, according to the nurses’ notes on the chart. To use the bathroom, Maddie. You don’t remember?”

“No.”

“Well, your pain medication is quite powerful. I’m going to keep you on it tonight and then change it to a less potent drug in the morning. A nurse will be in later to check your dressings. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Maddie was in shock. She could handle a broken hand, but abrasions from her forehead to the middle of her calf? That, of course, was where her leg started being protected by her sturdy riding boot. “My God,” she whispered. Was she going to be disfigured?

Maddie clenched her good fist and told herself differently. Dr. Upton hadn’t even hinted at disfigurement, and she was not going to lie in this bed and imagine the worst.

But she was going to be laid up and useless for a month. “No!” she whispered. A whole month of doing nothing? She’d go nuts!

A dinner tray was brought in then, and Maddie looked at the cup of bouillon, the small bowl of green gelatin and another cup containing hot water for tea with very little interest. In the first place she wasn’t hungry, and if she were, it wouldn’t be for bouillon.

If she were a weepy type of woman, she’d lie there and bawl.

But she wasn’t a crybaby, she was a doer, and she was not going to be an invalid for four miserable weeks, she simply wasn’t!

The few times Maddie woke up in the night, she worried about her horse. When she came wide awake at six, she figured out that her pain medication must have been reduced during the night, because her head was clearer than it had been since the accident. Instantly, although in severe physical discomfort, she again worried about Fanny. Was a responsible person feeding her? Making sure she had fresh water? Taking her outside for exercise?

Barrel racing demanded total unity between horse and rider, and Maddie had no doubt that Fanchon was the deciding factor in her success in the arena. Without Fanny, Maddie knew she would be just another rodeo hopeful. Along with loving Fanny with all her heart, the quarter horse was extremely valuable monetarily, and what if someone should steal her from the rodeo grounds?

Maddie shuddered. She had to get out of this hospital today. Dr. Upton had said that if all went well he would release her tomorrow morning. That wasn’t good enough for Maddie. She was not going to lie here all day and worry.

And so, when breakfast was delivered—solid food this morning—Maddie forced every bite of a bowl of sticky oatmeal down her throat and drank her glass of orange juice like a good little girl. When a nurse asked how she was feeling—it had been a long time since her last pain shot—Maddie lied and said, “Much, much better, thank you.”

The nurse unhooked her IV and then brought in some pills. Maddie asked what they were and the nurse replied, “The blue one is an antibiotic, the white one is for pain.”

“I’m only going to take the antibiotic,” Maddie said with a hopeful little smile. “Is that all right? If I was in pain…but I’m not…and…”

The nurse frowned. “No pain at all?”

“Very mild discomfort. Not nearly enough to knock myself out with pain medication, and even if the pill isn’t that strong, I really detest that fuzzy-headed feeling I get from sedatives.”

“Well…all right, but you are to ring at once if you start hurting.”

“Oh, I will.”

The charade was more difficult when bath time rolled around. “I can do it myself, really,” Maddie told the young woman who came in to give her a bed bath. The woman finally believed her and left, and Maddie soon learned how inept she was with her left hand. She hurt so badly that she nearly rang for that pill a dozen times. Gritting her teeth throughout the ordeal, she bathed herself and struggled into a fresh nightgown. Exhausted and not daring to show it, she waited for the young nurse to return and check her abrasions.

This time Maddie asked for a mirror, which was brought to her. “Oh, my God,” she whispered when she saw the right side of her face.

“It looks worse than it is because it was painted with red antiseptic,” the young nurse told her. “It’s all up and down your right side. See?”

Maggie saw all right, and her heart felt heavy as lead. “Will…it wear off?”

“Of course it will. When you’re strong enough to take showers, it will disappear in a few days. You’re healing nicely, Maddie. My orders for this morning are to apply antibiotic cream to your abrasions but to leave them uncovered.”

“There’s no sign of infection, then?”

“None at all.” The young nurse was finishing up. “Dr. Upton will be in to see you, probably within the hour.” She left the room.

Maddie closed her eyes. Weepy type of woman or not, she truly felt like bawling. She looked like a character in a horror movie!

Even terribly uncomfortable she dozed. She opened her eyes when Dr. Upton said, “No pain medication today, Maddie?”

“Hello,” she said with as much normalcy as she could muster. “Should I take a drug I don’t need?”

“No, you shouldn’t, but I have to question why you don’t need it.” He checked her chart for another minute or so, then set it down on the foot of the bed and bent over her. “Look at the far corner of the room,” he instructed and then beamed light into her eyes with what appeared to Maddie as a slender little flashlight.

“What’s that for?” she asked.

“Just a precaution. I’m glad to see that there’s still no sign of concussion. You were very fortunate, young woman.”

He’d said that before, Maddie thought somewhat resentfully. Would he think himself fortunate if it were he lying in this bed with more bruises than a map had roads, hurting something awful and not daring to show it because he had to convince a doctor that he was well enough to get out of here today, instead of tomorrow?

He was writing on the chart, and she knew it was a forerunner to his leaving. Panic assailed her, but before she could ask for an early release, he said, “You’re doing remarkably well. Keep this up and you’ll be going home in the morning.”

She cleared her throat. “Dr. Upton, I’d like to go home today.”

He looked at her sharply from under a dubiously arched eyebrow. “I would say that’s pushing it, Maddie.”

“I feel fine, and I have responsibilities.”

“We all do, but an accident such as yours really puts everything else on hold. Or, it should. You haven’t had a lot of visitors. Don’t you have family or friends living in the vicinity?”

“I’m from Montana, and my friends go where the rodeos take them. Doctor, I’ve been completely self-sufficient for years, and I’m perfectly capable of applying antibiotic creams or salves to my scrapes and bruises, and taking pills on a timed schedule. I can’t just lie here and wish for a miracle. I want to go home today. Right now, in fact, or as soon as I can be checked out. Please release me, Dr. Upton. Please.”

The doctor studied her chart. “Well, your vitals have been stable for more than twenty-four hours,” he murmured, and appeared to be thinking for several moments. Then his gaze lifted. “How would you get home? Is there someone you could call to come and pick you up? I don’t want you driving today, Maddie.”

Her pulse quickened because he hadn’t immediately refused her request. “I would call a taxi,” she said honestly. “I don’t have a vehicle here if I wanted to drive home, which I don’t.”

“Okay, tell you what. Let me see you get out of bed and walk around. I’ll release you today if I see that you are truly mobile.”

Maddie gulped, but she forced herself to sit up, shove her sheet aside and then cautiously slide off the bed to put her feet on the floor. There were hospital slippers down there somewhere, but she was afraid that if she bent over to look for them she might pass out. So she held the back of her gown shut with her left hand and took a barefoot stroll around the room, fighting nausea and dizziness every step of the way.

“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” Dr. Upton declared. “It will take about two hours to check you out. You’ll be taking prescriptions for antibiotics and painkillers with you. Get them filled right here in the hospital pharmacy or on your way home, whichever you prefer. I’d like to see you in my office in a week. Call for an appointment and tell the receptionist to fit you in. I’ll try to remember to tell her your name and to expect your call.”

“Thank you,” Maddie said with her very last ounce of strength. She was so glad that Dr. Upton left right away that she could have cheered. Instead, she stumbled to the bed and groaned under her breath while struggling to get herself back on it. Finally prone and covered with the sheet again, with her heart beating overly fast from the exertion, she shut her eyes and suffered in silence.

But the pain didn’t matter. She was going to be free to check on Fanny in a matter of hours. For that privilege she could stand anything.

Maddie had managed to relax some when a nurse came in and stated cheerfully, “So, you’re leaving us already.” The woman took Maddie’s wrist and checked her pulse.

“Yes, I’ll be leaving as soon as…” It hit her suddenly and hard enough to make her groan.

“You’re in pain again?” the nurse asked with a concerned expression.

“No, I just realized that I have nothing here…no money, no credit cards, not my insurance card. How can I check out without my insurance information?”

“Aren’t those things in your purse?”

“That’s exactly where they are, but my purse is in my trailer.” Maddie really did feel like bawling then. This brick wall she didn’t need!

“Maddie, your purse is in the closet with your clothes. Don’t you remember? A very nice young woman brought your purse…she said that you’d probably need it…and it was put with your other things.”

Maddie’s head swam in a concerted effort to figure out who the “nice young woman” was. For one thing, her purse was—or had been—in her locked trailer and she was the only one with a key. She took nothing with her to a contest, which was fairly common practice amongst rodeo contestants. Even loose change in a pocket could cause injury during a fall, so everyone pretty much did his or her thing with empty pockets.

Given the circumstances she could only conclude that what had been delivered by visitors she had absolutely no recollection of seeing was something other than her purse.

But she was curious about it, all the same. “Would you mind getting it for me?”

“Wouldn’t mind at all.” The nurse went to the closet and returned with…Maddie’s purse!

“How…who…for goodness sake,” she sputtered. “It is my purse, but how did someone go into my trailer to get it?”

“Wouldn’t know, honey. See you later.” The nurse departed.

Maddie opened her purse and saw, with relief, her wallet. She also saw a rosy pink piece of paper, which she knew for a fact hadn’t been in there the last time she’d looked. She took it out and unfolded it. It was a handwritten note and Maddie quickly read it.

Maddie,

I’m terribly sorry about your accident. Most of us in rodeo are not happy to win by default, which is what happened today. This is one trophy for which I feel no pride. At any rate, after they took you away in the ambulance I got to worrying about you being so alone in Austin. It also occurred to me that you didn’t have anything important with you, such as your wallet. So here it is.

I’m sure you’re wondering by now how I got into your trailer to get your purse. Don’t worry, I didn’t break in. It was only logical that you would have a door key hidden on or near the trailer, so I went hunting for it. Obviously I found it or you wouldn’t be reading this note but it took me a while.

I’m off to Abilene and then Laredo—you have the schedule—and since I feel certain that you’ll hit the circuit as soon as you’re able, we’ll be seeing each other again. I hope it will be very soon.

Janie Weston

Maddie almost couldn’t believe what she’d just read. It was so nice of Janie to go out of her way like this that Maddie was truly stunned. While she and Janie were friendly to each other, they’d never really been buddies. Frowning slightly, Maddie couldn’t elude the fact that she had very few close friends. In fact, she was hard-pressed to come up with even one. It was the lifestyle, the endless traveling, the moving on to one rodeo while a person who might have become a good friend went in another direction to the rodeo of her or his choice. For that same reason and the fact that followers of rodeo usually hung out in groups, it had been ages since Maddie had done more than drink a beer or have a dance with a man.

Sighing heavily, Maddie took out her wallet and flipped it open. The very first thing she saw was the snapshot of her brother. “Mark,” she whispered, and studied the handsome features of her older brother. With their parents gone, Mark was all she had. Oh, there were plenty of Kincaids living in the Whitehorn, Montana area, but none of them meant to her what Mark did.

Loneliness suddenly beset her. She needed to talk to Mark. Maybe she needed to hear him say something sympathetic, something kind and loving that would bring tears to her eyes and joy to her heart.

No, she didn’t want sympathy, not even from Mark. But she really would like to talk to him, and years ago he’d made her promise that if she was ever ill or injured she would let him know. He didn’t entirely approve of her unsettled lifestyle, and no doubt she’d get a brotherly lecture on the dangers inherent in her chosen career. But he’d be sweet, too, once she told him about the accident.

There was a telephone on the bedstand, and she tried not to jostle her sore and aching body while reaching for it. She needed a pain pill badly and knew that she should have taken the one offered by the nurse this morning, even though her own sheer bravado had convinced everyone that she was ready to go home. Truth was, if she knew for a fact that Fanny was being properly cared for, she would gladly stay in this bed for another night.

After dialing Mark’s home and getting no answer, Maddie looked up his work number in the little address book she carried in her purse. Mark was a detective for the Whitehorn police department, and Maddie doubted that he’d be sitting at a desk hoping the phone would ring. To her surprise—which was accompanied by a sudden attack of nerves—the man who answered her call asked for her name and then told her to hang on a minute. Raising his voice, he said, “Hey, Mark, your sister’s on line three.”

Almost at once Mark’s voice was in Maddie’s ear. “Hey, this is a nice surprise. Where’re you calling from?”

“Austin, Texas. How are you?”

“Couldn’t be better.”

“Marriage agrees with you then.” Mark could still measure his marriage to Darcy Montague in weeks, and Maddie was extremely happy that he’d fallen head over heels for a woman who seemed so perfect for him.

“More than I ever thought possible. So, what’s up with you?”

“Uh, I had a little accident,” Maddie stammered, suddenly very uncertain about the wisdom of this call. “In the arena.”

The tenor of Mark’s voice instantly changed, from that of a glad-you-called-just-to-say-hi brother to that of the protector he’d been to his baby sister all her life. Mark was thirty, seven years older than Maddie, and from the day of her birth he’d watched over her. That protective side of him was undoubtedly the reason he didn’t like her driving her truck all over the country, pulling her trailer and happily heading for the next rodeo.

“How little is ‘little’?” he asked suspiciously.

“Um…no major bone breaks…just a couple of tiny bones in my right hand.”

“And that’s all?”

“No,” she said weakly. “I’m pretty badly bruised. The doctor wants me to take it easy and to stay away from rodeo for a month, which is rather extreme, I believe, and—”

“And nothing! Maddie, you do exactly as that doctor says, do you hear me? In fact, if you have to take it easy for a whole month, I want you to come home and do your recuperating in Darcy’s and my guest room.”

“Well, of course,” Maddie drawled. “That’s exactly what newlyweds need, to share their little love nest with the groom’s sister. Mark—”

“Stop right there! You’re at least fifteen hundred miles away and alone. Damn it, Maddie, if it were the other way around and it was me laid up and alone, you’d be here so fast my head would spin. Hey, I just thought of something. Are you calling on your cell phone from your trailer? We’ve got a really clear connection, which doesn’t usually happen when you call on your cell.”

Maddie rolled her eyes. Mark was a natural born detective. She should have known he’d recognize the difference between her cellular calls and this one. She’d had no intention of telling him everything, but now she had no choice.

“I’m not using my cellular phone,” she said quietly. “I’m…calling from the hospital.”

“You’re in the hospital! Maddie, you said a ‘little’ accident. What really happened?”

After a heavy sigh, Maddie related the fall she and Fanny had taken. “I have no idea what caused it, but there it is. Apparently Fanny wasn’t injured, but the medics took me to the hospital. I can’t be too bad off because I’m being discharged sometime today. That’s the whole truth.”

“Except for what the doctor told you to do.”

“Mark, I can’t do nothing for a whole month!”

“You could if you were under my roof. Look, why don’t you put Fanny in a good stable, leave your truck and trailer in a safe place—I’m sure a city the size of Austin has rental spaces available for RVs and such—and fly home? I hate the thought of you limping around that little trailer you live in and trying to fix yourself something to eat. With one hand yet. And surely you’re not thinking of taking care of Fanny yourself. Maddie, it’s just not sensible for you to stay in Texas.”

He was making sense, and Maddie’s resolve to take care of herself was weakening. But fly to Montana and leave Fanny in Texas? No way, Maddie thought, and avoided that topic entirely by asking, “Mark, are you sure Darcy wouldn’t mind? You have to think of her first now, you know.”

“I know Darcy wouldn’t mind. She’s a very special lady, Maddie. So, have I convinced you? Are you coming home?”

“I…guess so.”

“Great! Phone me with your flight schedule.”

“It’ll probably be a few days before you hear from me. It will take, uh, some time to do everything here that will need, uh, doing before I can leave.” She wasn’t exactly lying to the brother she adored, she told herself. She simply wasn’t telling him everything she was thinking and planning.

“That’s fine. Just call when you know something.”

“Bye, Mark.”

“Bye, Maddie. Take care.”

Maddie hung up and, completely done in, she closed her eyes and wished with all her heart that she would fall asleep in spite of the pain racking her body.

She really shouldn’t have phoned Mark, she thought hazily, because now she had to go home to Montana, and she was not going by herself. She wouldn’t leave Fanny behind for all the oil in Texas, which Mark would have thought of if he hadn’t immediately started worrying about Maddie’s condition instead of looking at the whole picture.

“The hits just keep on coming,” Maddie whispered while wondering how on earth she was going to manage to drive fifteen hundred miles when she could just barely move without pain medication, which she certainly couldn’t take and then do any driving.

Chapter Two

Checking out of the hospital took hours, most of that time spent in waiting. Maddie waited for someone from administration to do the paperwork, then waited for her prescriptions to be filled by the hospital pharmacy. Her final wait was for a nurse to come to her room to instruct her on home care of her abrasions.

By then Maddie was hurting so much that when a runner delivered her prescriptions in the middle of the nurse’s instructions, Maddie immediately tried to get a pain pill from its container. She couldn’t use her right hand, of course, and she simply wasn’t adept with her left, especially when it was trembling from the burning, stinging pain raging all along her right side.

The nurse took the bottle from her, opened it and shook out one pill into Maddie’s outstretched hand. “Let me tell you something about pain,” the woman said while Maddie swallowed the pill with a drink of water.

“You refused pain medication much too soon and you are suffering unnecessarily. I know many people do not like some of the side effects of painkillers, but believe me, Maddie, it’s far better for you to rest and recover than to spend your time gritting your teeth in a futile attempt to will yourself well. Take these as prescribed, properly tend to your scrapes and abrasions, drink at least eight glasses of water a day to keep your system flushed and, while you must do some walking to keep your muscles toned and supple, you also should rest as much as possible. Finally, of course, be sure to make that appointment with Dr. Upton.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Maddie said softly. She was only going to follow some of this pleasant woman’s advice, and she truly hated deceiving her. But she had no choice. It wasn’t as though she was going home to a family that would cook her food and pamper her, after all; she was all she had in Texas. When she got hungry, she’d have to order in or cook. Thank God for cell phones, she thought, because it would be her one connection with the world beyond her trailer, once she got there.

In truth, she couldn’t even pamper herself when she got home. At least, she couldn’t until she checked on Fanny. Maddie didn’t dare let herself wonder if she could manage to do what needed doing because there simply was no one to do it for her. She had to take care of Fanny, and she had to take care of herself. Last but far from least, she had to drive fifteen hundred miles.

Thinking of that long, long drive caused Maddie’s breath to stop in her throat, but only for a second. The pain pill was beginning to work its magic, and along with the sharp edges of her physical anguish floating away, she felt light-headed and much less stressed. She listened to the nurse repeat instructions about applying antibiotic ointment to her abrasions—apparently a crucial step in the healing process—and then talk about tub baths versus showers, and how Maddie mustn’t let her soft cast get wet whichever way she bathed.

By the time the woman left, Maddie was pain-free and woozy. She closed her eyes and dozed off thinking of Montana and home. It was where she truly wanted to be, and it would happen. She would make it happen, the same way she had made everything else that was good and productive in her life happen since she’d been old enough to understand that a teenage marriage, babies and tying herself to Whitehorn, Montana, would, at the very least, stifle the best part of her. At fifteen she’d won her first rodeo-queen crown and barrel-racing trophy. It had been a small local event, but it had been big for her, big enough that she’d felt refreshingly reborn, and the new Maddie Kincaid was determined to make a splash in the world of rodeo. Shortly after that contest she had acquired Fanny, and all of her spare time had gone into working with the young mare. Now, years later and drifting off with loving thoughts of Fanny, Maddie decided, without too much concern, that Mark might yell at her for driving home instead of flying, but Fanny went where she did, and in the end he would be glad to see her.

She was sleeping soundly when a cheerful young male aide with a wheelchair sailed into the room and said, “Wake up, princess. It’s time to move out.”

Maddie opened her eyes. “Wha-what?”

The young man grinned. “Don’t you want to go home?”

“Yes…yes, of course. But my clothes…I haven’t gotten dressed.”

“You are one of the privileged few who get to go home in a hospital gown, robe and slippers.” The young man sobered some. “Your clothes were pretty much ruined in the accident, Maddie, but even if they weren’t, you couldn’t be pulling close-fitting garments over your—” he grinned again and said “—ouchies.”

Maddie appreciated his sense of humor and smiled. “You’re right. My ouchies would scream bloody murder if I put on something tight.”

The aide went to the closet and took out a bag. “Everything you had on is in this bag.”

“Great. I’m sure my boots are still all right.”

“Probably are.” A nurse came in and helped Maddie into the robe and slippers she would wear home. Together then, they assisted Maddie from the bed to the wheelchair. The aide carried two bags while he pushed the chair, the one with Maddie’s clothes and another containing her prescriptions, and she held her purse on her lap with her uninjured left hand.

The upbeat young man told jokes and talked incessantly during the trip from Maddie’s room to the hospital’s front door. A taxi was waiting, and in about one minute Maddie found herself on the backseat of the cab with her baggage beside her and saying “Thanks” and “Goodbye” to the aide.

“Where to, miss?” the driver asked.

Maddie told him the rodeo grounds, which was where both her trailer and truck were parked, although in different locations. “One more problem to deal with,” she said under her breath, which was the God’s truth. Certainly she couldn’t have the taxi driver drop her off at the site of her truck, because she could just barely focus her eyes and didn’t dare attempt to drive it anywhere.

Then there was Fanny, who Maddie absolutely had to see with her own eyes the minute she got to the rodeo grounds. The stables were about a mile from where her trailer was parked—another problem. She tried to work it out systematically, attempting to picture the triangle of trailer, truck and stables in her brain, which seemed to be stuffed with cotton candy and thus wasn’t working very well.

She was lucid enough, however, when they arrived at the rodeo grounds, to realize that she couldn’t wander around in a nightgown and bathrobe. Not with hundreds of vehicles parked in the lot and the huge reader board above the whole affair stating in bold letters that there was a meet of the Young Equestrians of Texas going on.

Another hit, damn it! “My trailer is way over there to the right,” she said to the driver. “It’s over thirty feet long and white. Do you see it?”

“Yeah, I see it,” he told her, and turned the cab in that direction.

Then, quite unexpectedly, a surge of relief relaxed Maddie’s tension, because even with her stuffy brain she suddenly knew how to proceed. When the cab stopped next to her trailer, she laid out her plan for the driver. He agreed, and she got out—moving slower than molasses, she thought, feeling impatience with her own infirmities—unlocked the door of her trailer and managed to climb the two steps to get inside.

It was far from a mansion, but it felt good to Maddie to be in her own special little place, and she wished that all she had to do right now were to crawl into her familiar and comfortable bed. Instead she entered the tiny bedroom, shed her hospital clothes as fast as she could manage and then stood before her closet and wondered what to put on. A dozen pair of jeans hung neatly on hangers, her favored apparel, but she also had some slacks and skirts.

“Something loose,” Maddie mumbled, and reached for a long, flowered skirt. But then she spied something better—a cream-colored cotton dress that flowed softly from shoulder seams to hem line.

Getting dressed wasn’t easy, but she finally was ready to leave again. Taking only her purse, she carefully exited her trailer and got back into the cab.

“Thanks,” she said to the driver. “My truck is parked near the stadium, the second row, middle section, I believe. I’ll direct you.”

They found her truck amongst the many parked vehicles without too much trouble, but Maddie made no attempt to get out. All she’d wanted was to make sure it was still there, and it was. She was satisfied.

“You’ve got some things on the windshield,” the cab driver told her. “Held down by the windshield wiper. Want me to get ’em.”

“Would you please?”

The driver returned with two pieces of paper, one warning her to remove her vehicle at once and the other threatening a fine and impoundment if she didn’t comply with the first notice.

She sighed heavily and told the driver where to find the stables. Once there, he asked if she’d like him to help her find her horse.

“You’re a kind man,” she replied. “Yes, I would appreciate your help very much. Thank you.”

As they slowly walked to the stables, with her hanging on to his arm, he asked how she’d gotten so banged up.

“My horse and I took a fall in the arena. I have no idea how it happened, but I hit the ground pretty hard. I’m just thankful that my horse wasn’t injured.”

“I have a couple of daughters about your age…and three other kids…and we’re all riders. I think every one of us has taken a spill at one time or another, but none of us was ever hurt as bad as you.”

“It could’ve been worse,” Maddie said with a little smile at the cabby. “A lot worse.”

“You’re taking it well.”

“I’m not one to sit around and mope over something I can’t do anything about.”

“Looks that way, all right. You’ve got spunk, little lady.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I do have spunk, but probably no more than most of us who are so drawn and loyal to rodeo. You don’t last very long in this field without spunk.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

They were finally inside one of the long stock barns. Maddie’s strength had been fading during the walk, and she knew she was on the verge of collapsing. “There’s a bench. Let me sit for just a minute.”

“You sit right there and let me find your horse. What’s its name.”

“Fanny. Fanchon, actually, but I call her Fanny. What’s your name? I truly appreciate your help.”

“I’m Joe. Now, you stay here and rest. I’m sure I won’t be long.”

Maddie leaned her spinning head back against the wood wall and closed her eyes. She needed to be in bed, and she would be, just as soon as she made sure Fanny was all right.

Joe, the dear man, was back in minutes. “Okay, Fanny is in the next barn, stall twenty-two. Can you make it that far?”

“I have to make it. There’s no way I can really rest until I see her.” Maddie got to her feet and gladly took Joe’s arm again. Not everything is a “hit,” she thought, realizing that her taxi driver could have been some grump who wouldn’t help another person to save his soul.

The second they entered the other barn Maddie heard Fanny whinny. “She knows I’m here,” Maddie told her companion. And then, at long last, she was hugging Fanny’s neck and wishing she’d brought some apples or carrots with her. The mare was visibly happy to see her mistress. Maddie believed it, anyway, whether it was true or not, and she told Fanny in quiet words that she was relieved to find her in good shape and that she would be back tomorrow.

“Okay, we can leave now,” she said to Joe.

They returned to the cab, and Joe took her back to her trailer. Maddie paid the fare, tipped him very well and expressed her heartfelt thanks. He did one last thing for her. He assisted her from the cab to the door of her trailer.

Again Maddie climbed the two stairs that had never been a problem and now seemed to be a mile high, and went inside. Taking off her clothes, she donned the hospital gown again, as it was handy and she really didn’t care what she wore to bed, as long as it wasn’t tight. After checking the timing of her prescribed doses for each of her medications, she swallowed another pain pill, pulled back the blankets on her bed and crawled in.

It felt like pure heaven to her aching body, and she went out like a light.

Sometime in the night she began dreaming about her childhood, about her brother, Mark, the parents she remembered to this day with an ache in her heart and Aunt June. Dear, sweet Aunt June, who had really been a great-aunt and had been the person who had insisted that thirteen-year-old Maddie come and live with her when her parents had been killed in a car crash. Mark had been twenty, and he’d stayed in his parents’ home to sell it, along with other things they’d left their children. When everything had been accomplished about a year later, he had half of all proceeds put into the Whitehorn bank in Maddie’s name.

Aunt June had been on Maddie’s mother’s side of the family, and some of the Kincaids, her father’s family, had offered their homes to Maddie at the time of the tragic accident. But Aunt June Howard hadn’t merely offered. She’d talked long and hard to Mark about letting Maddie come and live with her because the child would be alone far too much if she remained in the family home with Mark, who, after all, was a man with a job and a life of his own. When he finally agreed—albeit reluctantly—that it would be best for Maddie to live with Aunt June, she had packed Maddie’s things and taken her home with her.

Aunt June had been a plump, short lady, with graying hair and green eyes, the same color eyes that both Mark and Maddie had been blessed with, and she had loved her niece and nephew as though they’d been her own offspring. Widowed young, June Howard had not had kids of her own. She had never remarried and had explained to Maddie when she’d asked why not one time that there just wasn’t another man on the planet who could replace the one true love of her life.

“And remember this, my sweet girl, if you truly fall in love, and I’m speaking of the real thing here, the kind of love that brings two people so closely together that they start thinking as one, don’t let go of it. You’ll know if and when it happens. You’ll feel it in here.” Aunt June had gently tapped Maddie’s chest. “In your heart, darlin’, in your heart,” she’d added when Maddie had looked rather perplexed.

Mark had visited his baby sister—and Aunt June, of course—often, and one evening when he dropped by he had quietly and a little sadly told Maddie that he was leaving Whitehorn. “I’m not making enough money to even buy a decent car, Maddie. Someday you’ll understand why I have to go.”

She had answered, “I understand now, Mark.”

He’d studied her gamine face with its smattering of freckles and her big solemn green eyes, and then pulled her into a big bear hug. “You really do, don’t you?” he’d said emotionally.

It was true. She had always adored her big brother. Mark was handsome and bright and deserved better than he had in Whitehorn. And when she grew up, she was going to do something else, too. That feeling was in her bones, a deeply embedded part of herself, and it surfaced in all of its glory when, at age fifteen, she won that first rodeo contest using a borrowed horse.

Once she bought Fanny and dedicated herself to training her very own horse, Maddie couldn’t be stopped. Aunt June didn’t quite approve of a young woman being so involved with rodeo, but Maddie’s happiness came first for June Howard, and besides, she hadn’t been feeling well for some time and had become quite involved with doctors and medical tests. Her diagnosis, finally, had been congenital heart failure with severe complications, which, she’d been told, would gradually take its toll.

She deteriorated more rapidly after age sixty-three, and Maddie had taken over more and more of the household duties as time passed. To Maddie’s intense sorrow, dear Aunt June passed away at age sixty-five. Maddie was eighteen and had just recently graduated from high school. Mark came for the funeral, stayed with Maddie for a few days and then returned to New York City and his job as a detective with the NYC police department. He’d wanted Maddie to go with him, but she hadn’t even been able to imagine herself living in the East. She was Western through and through, a country girl at heart, and while she would greatly miss her beloved aunt, Maddie wasn’t even slightly afraid to face the future by herself.

That had been the real beginning of her rodeo career, which through the years had only grown more and more exciting. Of course, she’d never been injured before.

Trying almost desperately to keep the sweetly soothing dream from escaping her awakening mind, Maddie finally opened her eyes. In amazement, she realized that she felt wonderful. Obviously she’d slept through the night—a fabulous night of sound sleep and lovely, heartwarming dreams—because bright morning sunshine was streaming through the tiny openings of her window blinds.

That “wonderful” feeling, however, lasted only until Maddie tried to get up. Falling back to her pillow, Maddie groaned. Every ache and pain was firmly in place; no way was she going to recover this quickly.

But even while feeling despondent over her present physical limitations, something important occurred to her. The pain medication must have completely worn off during the night because her mind was clear and rational. She would be able to drive now!

And so a plan to transport herself and Fanny from Texas to Montana took shape. She would use over-the-counter pain medication during the day, which would certainly help enough to enable her to get around. She would drive until she grew tired—maybe only a few hours a day, maybe much more—then when she went to bed at night she would take a prescription pain pill.

Satisfied with her idea, which seemed sane and sensible, Maddie cautiously got out of bed and began the day.

The trip was long and hard and at times seemed never ending. Maddie phoned Mark twice in the first few days of the journey and, to her relief, got his voice mail each time. She left brief messages about seeing him soon, but never mentioned that she was driving instead of flying. She had flown to Montana only recently to attend Mark and Darcy’s wedding, so it wasn’t as though Fanny hadn’t ever been left behind. But this was a completely different situation. Maddie felt pretty certain that she would be in Montana for a month, and she knew that she wouldn’t relax for a second if Fanny was so far away from her for so long a time.

So each morning she got out of her warm and comfortable bed, bathed, tended her wounds as instructed, ate breakfast, took her antibiotic pill along with an over-the-counter pain medication, and then limped outside to feed and water Fanny before leading her back into the trailer for that day’s drive.

Maddie’s trailer was a marvelous unit for people like her. The back one-third was your basic horse trailer, but the front two-thirds was like a tiny apartment, cozy and convenient. It was long and heavy and required a powerful truck to pull it, which accounted for the big costly truck Maddie drove—and loved.

At any rate, she had all the comforts of home wherever she went. And so did Fanny.

Since she was heading north in February, though, Maddie ran into some really foul weather. There was no way to avoid it and still end up in Montana, and so she took the shortest route, which at least cut down on her mileage. Every day seemed a little colder than the one before, and Maddie had a hard time finding things in her closet that were both warm and loosely fitted. Finally she stopped in a town in Colorado and bought some lined pants and jackets in a large size. Since she wore a size six, her new suits hung on her. But they were warm and didn’t cling to her sore right side.

The biggest inconvenience was her useless right hand, even though she was getting better at using her left. Also, she had started noticing something that struck her as strange. Her left knee had developed a throbbing ache, which made no sense to Maddie when all of her injuries had been to the right side of her body. She would, of course, see a doctor in Whitehorn as soon as was feasible after arriving there.

She felt like weeping with relief when she finally crossed the Wyoming-Montana border and knew that tomorrow she would make it to Whitehorn. The trip had been a terrible ordeal, far worse than she’d thought it would be. She looked and felt like hell, and if Mark got mad when he realized that she’d driven all those miles in her condition, she wouldn’t dare get sassy. If the shoe were on the other foot and it was he nearly killing himself as she was doing, she’d be mad, too.

As it turned out, Maddie overslept the next morning from sheer exhaustion and didn’t arrive in Whitehorn until after dark that evening, the very first time she’d driven after nightfall on this trip. But she had to get there today, even if it was late in the day. She honestly didn’t think that she could go on past today, not when she hurt so badly that she could hardly sit behind the wheel. Mark would take care of her, and God knew that she needed someone’s care.

Traversing the familiar streets of Whitehorn, Maddie felt tears in her eyes. She had made it; she was home.

She pulled her truck and trailer to a stop in front of Mark’s house, turned off the ignition and opened her door. She slowly—the same way she did everything these days—got out and then limped to the front door and rang the bell. From inside came the sound of her brother’s voice calling out, “I’ll get it, honey,” and Darcy responding, “Okay.”

The front porch light came on and the door opened. Maddie tried to smile, but the shocked expression on Mark’s face would not be erased by a sheepish, feeble smile from her.

“Maddie! Good God, you look half-dead!” he cried.

She felt three-quarters dead, to be honest, and now that she could quit gritting her teeth and forcing herself to keep going, her knees buckled. Mark grabbed her before she went all the way down, then swung her up into his arms and carried her inside.

Darcy gaped wide-eyed at her sister-in-law. “Mark, my goodness, what happened?”

“She drove that damn truck all the way from Texas, pulling her trailer no less,” Mark said grimly.

Darcy ran ahead of him to the guest bedroom and yanked back the blankets on the bed. Mark laid Maddie down, and Darcy pulled off Maddie’s shoes. Then they covered her up, clothes and all, and Maddie said weakly, “I’m sorry, guys.”

Mark glared at her. “Have you lost your ever-loving mind?”

Darcy intervened. “Mark, please. Maddie, what can we do? Are you hungry? Do you want to get undressed?”

“Fanny’s in the trailer,” she said in a shaky little voice. “It’s terribly cold here, and she needs shelter, food and water.”

“You’re more worried about a horse than yourself,” Mark said disgustedly. “Do you know what you look like? Darcy, I think we should take her to the emergency room at the hospital.”

“No…please…I’m just done in. Darcy, if I could have a bowl of hot soup and a few crackers, then I could take a pain pill.”

“You’ve got it,” Darcy said, and took her husband’s arm to lead him from the bedroom to the hall. “Take care of her horse, darling, and I’ll make her comfortable. She’s totally exhausted, poor little thing.”

“She should be turned over my knee,” Mark said.

“You know you don’t mean that.”

“I know. Darcy, she’s all beat to hell. She didn’t tell me how bad that fall really was.”

“Because she loves you and didn’t want you worrying.” Darcy kissed her husband’s cheek. “I’m going to heat her some soup, then I’ll do whatever she wants done after that.”

“You’re an angel.”

Maddie had heard nearly every word said by Mark and Darcy; he was angry, which Maddie had expected, and Darcy truly was an angel, which was a wonderful thing to have discovered about her still very new sister-in-law. Mark was a lucky man to have fallen in love with the right woman, Maddie thought, recalling Aunt June’s sincerely well-meant words about the wonders of true love.

Darcy came in with a tray bearing a large cup of soup, some soda crackers and a small pot of herbal tea. She helped Maddie sit up to eat, and when she was finished Darcy brought a glass of water so Maddie could take a pain pill from the bottle in the pocket of her jacket.

“If I take one of these without eating something first, my stomach rebels,” Maddie told her.

“I understand. Maddie, your pants and jacket are huge. You don’t want to sleep in them, do you?”

Maddie lay back and explained everything, including her reasons for driving instead of flying and her oversize clothing. After a while she managed a genuine if small smile. “The pill is starting to work. Darcy, I packed a little overnight bag with things like my toothbrush and nightgown, because I was pretty sure that I’d be staying in the house. The bag is on the bed in my trailer. I should have asked Mark to bring it in before he went out in the cold, but I simply didn’t think of it.”

“He’ll get it, Maddie.”

“It’s so great finally being here,” Maddie murmured drowsily. “I really needed to come home, Darcy. I hope you don’t mind.”

“You’re Mark’s only sister, and you will always be welcome, Maddie, under any circumstances. You’re going to fall asleep. Let’s get you undressed and into one of my flannel nightgowns. You can brush your teeth in the morning.”

“Yes…okay,” Maddie mumbled thickly.

It was later, after Darcy had helped her into a warm nightgown and then tucked her back into bed, and Maddie lay with her eyes closed, soaking up warmth and comfort that was really twofold, both physical and emotional, that she heard Mark ask, “How is she, honey?”

“Sleeping. Oh, Mark, you should see her undressed. Well, you saw her face, and that’s enough for you to imagine the rest. But nearly every inch of her right side is discolored from being scraped and bruised. How in heaven’s name did she drive all the way from Texas and take care of her horse and even herself with her right hand in a cast and the inevitable distress from such extensive bruises?”

“Darcy, when Maddie makes up her mind to something, she gets it done. She’s always been that way. You know, I think this is the first time she’s had to admit to needing someone’s help since Aunt June died.”

“Mark, we can’t leave her here alone while we honeymoon. It just wouldn’t be right.”

“I know,” Mark agreed, sounding deeply concerned. After a minute he added, “We won’t get a refund from the travel agent, you know. And all our plans are set, the flight and hotel reservations, everything.”

“I realize that,” Darcy agreed softly. “But we just can’t go off as though Maddie wasn’t here, darling.”

In the dreamlike twilight zone in which Maddie was floating, the voices seemed like soft warm breezes passing through the semidarkness of her room, sounding harmonious, lyrical and totally unattached to anything of substance. Nothing being said made much sense to her, and she finally fell into a benumbed sleep without pain, worry or discomfort of any kind.

In the morning, however, she remembered it all, every word, and whispered, “They haven’t taken their honeymoon yet. They have plans, wonderful plans, and my coming here in this condition ruined everything.”

Maddie pursed her lips. She was not going to be the cause of something so awful. She didn’t care if she herself ever had a honeymoon, but it was obviously very important to Mark and Darcy.

Well, she’d done it once before—in the hospital—and she could pretend to be much better off than she really was one more time. Her good acting had convinced Dr. Upton to release her a day early, and it was going to convince Mark and Darcy that she could get along just fine on her own. They were going on their honeymoon, as planned, whatever she had to do to prove that she did not need a caretaker!

Throwing back the blankets, Maddie got out of bed, pasted a bright, cheery smile on her face and left the bedroom to begin her charade.

Chapter Three

And thus, ten days after her accident Maddie found herself on her brother’s sofa in Whitehorn, Montana, hugging a comforter to herself and staring up at a man who didn’t look like a babysitter any more than he did a burglar. She tried to sensibly assimilate the situation. Had Mark really asked this…this weird stranger to keep an eye on her? And if so, had Mark told her that he’d arranged for someone to drop in on her from time to time and the information had slipped through the cracks of her less-than-alert brain?

She narrowed her eyes on Noah. “How did you get in?”

“Through a door. Isn’t that how you enter someone’s home?”

“An unlocked door?” she asked, concerned that Mark might have inadvertently missed locking one of the doors and she hadn’t been safe from intruders at all, which she, within the foggy reaches of her mind, had been counting on.

“Nope.” Noah produced the key. “With this.”

The sight of that key panicked her. “You have a key? You mean you can just walk into this house anytime you take the notion?”

Noah stood there looking down at her. She was probably cute as a cuddly little doll when she wasn’t black-and-blue, but it was hard for him—with his medical training and experience—to get past the blotchy bruises on her face. Even so, he still felt remnants of that incredible fit of laughter he’d enjoyed—yes, enjoyed—only minutes ago. He couldn’t remember when he’d let go and laughed so uninhibitedly, and it certainly was the last thing he might have expected from today’s begrudged duty. In a way he couldn’t quite define but still knew to be true, those moments of uncontrollable laughter had created a bond between him and Maddie Kincaid; she might not feel it, but he did, and some rusty, rather tarnished part of him cherished the sensation.

“I rang the front doorbell and knocked on the side door before using the key,” he said. “I promised Mark that I’d take care of you while he’s away, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” In his own mind Noah realized how he had just expanded his promise to keep an eye on Maddie into taking care of Maddie, which gave him a start.

But someone should be caring for her. She certainly didn’t appear strong enough to be doing everything for herself. Her weakened condition explained the messy kitchen, of course. What Noah could not comprehend was how Mark could have gone off and left his frail little sister alone in the house. Didn’t he realize how badly off Maddie really was?

Noah shed his winter scarf and jacket and laid them on the back of a chair, aware that Maddie Kincaid’s eyes had grown wary and suspicious.

“Don’t get paranoid just because I took off my jacket,” he told her. “It happens to be hot as Hades in here. What temperature do you have the furnace set on?” He looked around. “Where’s the thermostat?”

“It’s in the kitchen, but don’t you dare lower that dial!”

“Maddie, you can’t be cold. You’re dressed in thermal underwear…” He couldn’t help coughing out another laugh over the image that comment conjured up but he managed to stifle it before it got out of hand. After clearing his throat, he continued, “And you’re wrapped in a goose down comforter.”

“So?”

Noah frowned as the physician in him took over. “You really are cold? Are you having chills?”

“If I am it’s none of your affair,” Maddie retorted, hoping she sounded in keen command of her senses and authoritative. After all, what could she really do to defend herself against anything this guy might do? Regardless of her physical ineptitude, though, her mouth and don’t-tread-on-my-space attitude were working just fine, and she demanded haughtily, “What do you think you are, a doctor?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.” He approached the sofa and sat on the sturdy wood coffee table, which had been in the way when he’d carried Maddie back to her bed but was handy as all get-out now. “Let me take your pulse.”

Maddie was gawking at him with her mouth open. He was a doctor? Yeah, right. “Oh, like I should believe you?”

Noah reached into the back pocket of his jeans for his wallet, which he flipped open right in front of Maddie’s face so she could see his medical ID card. “What does that say?” he asked a bit smugly.

She studied the photo on the card and then Noah’s face and realized with a sinking sensation that he was almost unbelievably handsome. He was, in fact, the kind of man that idiot women the world over—of which she was not one, thank you very much—chased after like a dog on the scent of a bone. This guy had thick black hair, eyebrows and lashes, vivid blue eyes, a sensual, kissable mouth if she’d ever seen one, and a strong masculine chin that announced a massive stubborn streak. With his height and build, he was one drop-dead package, which was unnerving for a woman whose few romantic relationships had been with your everyday, average-looking men.

But his stunning good looks and normally noble profession didn’t make him trustworthy, and she didn’t trust him. Why would she? Doctor or not, he had walked into this house without an invitation from her, which, in her estimation, was an invasion of privacy, whatever he might call it. Well, he was going to find out that she was no pansy, however he made his living. Instead of giving him the satisfaction of a straightforward answer to his irritating question about his ID, she drew her left hand from under the comforter and held it out. “So, go ahead and take my pulse, if that’s what turns you on.”

“Turns me on?” Noah chuckled. “You’re quite the little comic, aren’t you?” He took her wrist and counted pulse beats while looking at his watch. “Apparently you think so,” she said with heavy sarcasm. “You got positively hysterical when you first saw me.”

Noah tucked her hand and wrist back under the comforter. Her pulse was a little too fast; he needed a temperature and blood pressure check.

“You’d have gotten hysterical, too, if you could have seen yourself. What did you think you were going to do with that paperweight? Wait, I know, you thought you’d laugh me to death.”

“You’re so corny you should be ashamed to open your mouth and say one word.”

“Yep, that’s me, old cornball himself.” Noah stood up. “I want to take you to the hospital.”

Maddie scoffed. “Just try it and you’ll think you got hold of a wildcat, buster. Oh, excuse me, that’s Dr. Buster.”

“Maddie, I need to run some tests. You could have an infection.”

“Read my lips. I am not going to the hospital. Besides, I’m taking antibiotics so I do not have an infection.”

“Where are they? I want to see what it is that you’re taking.”

Maddie had to think a minute. “They’re probably on the kitchen table.”

Noah found them and returned. “Okay, these aren’t too bad, but you might need something stronger. Maddie, do you have a doctor in Whitehorn?”

“No…not yet.” She closed her eyes because she was getting very tired again. Being brave and courageous with very little strength as she’d been doing since “Dr. Buster” had intruded upon her rest was rapidly depleting her already low energy level.

“Go away,” she mumbled. “I need to sleep.”

Noah did go away; he headed for Mark’s bathrooms. Searching the medicine cabinets, he finally found what he was looking for—a thermometer. Dousing it in alcohol, which was also in the same cabinet, he hurried back to Maddie.

“Open your mouth,” he told her. “I’m going to take your temperature.”

“No, leave me alone,” she mumbled thickly.

“Maddie, open your mouth!” Noah worked the tip of the thermometer between her lips, and she finally stopped fighting him. In a couple of minutes he had his answer. Her temp was 101.6 degrees, not dangerously high but too high to ignore. He could force her to go to the hospital by calling an ambulance and giving her a knockout shot, but that seemed pretty drastic at this point. But to do anything at all for her, he needed his medical bag, some supplies and a different antibiotic.

“Maddie, listen to me. I’m going to leave for a few minutes. I won’t be long. You stay covered up and rest, all right?” He didn’t wait for a reply. Grabbing his jacket, he put it on as he strode through the house to the kitchen door and went outside. Using Mark’s key, he turned the inside dead bolt, giving Maddie the security she’d obviously thought she’d had all along. One of two things had happened, Noah reasoned: Mark hadn’t locked the door before leaving, which Noah couldn’t quite believe, as Mark Kincaid was a very dependable sort, or Maddie, for some reason, had unlocked it and then forgot to relock it. In her present state, she could do almost anything and then forget it. How in God’s name had Mark not noticed?

During the cross-town drive to the hospital, Noah thought about Maddie’s medications. Besides the antibiotic pills, she also had a bottle of painkillers, and Noah had to wonder exactly how much pain she was in. From the soft cast on her hand, her accident hadn’t caused too much damage as far as injured bones went, but then there were the discolored bruises and healing abrasions on her face to consider. Even so, were a few scrapes that were well on the way to full recovery causing enough pain for Maddie to be taking strong pain-blocking medication? He didn’t like her slurred words and the hard time she seemed to have focusing her eyes.

There was one other possibility, though. She could have further bruising—possibly quite severe—under her clothes. He would have to check that out when he got back to the house.

And then, just before reaching the physician’s parking area at the hospital, Noah finally let his thoughts go to that tingle deep in his belly that any man in his right mind would recognize. He hadn’t felt it in a very long time, and why he should feel it now because of a little bit of a woman with the attitude of a guard dog was a total mystery. In the first place Maddie Kincaid was not the type of female he’d ever been attracted to. When he’d been in the market for affaires d’amour he’d liked his women tall, long-legged and sophisticated. Maddie hardly fit the bill.

And yet that tingle was unmistakably present. Not that he would ever do anything about it. Along with his possessing a distinct distaste for the complications of a romantic liaison, Maddie was Mark’s sister. A man with any self-respect and dignity did not lure a friend’s sister into bed just to satisfy a ridiculous tingling in his system.

Besides, Maddie needed medical attention far more than she needed anything personal from him, or any other man.

Still puzzling over Mark and Darcy leaving Maddie alone as they’d done, Noah walked into the hospital. He was ready to leave again in about twenty minutes, this time with his medical bag. It was packed full of items he thought he might need in caring for Maddie, and he was going to care for her. He suspected she’d yell—or try to yell—and that her objections to his even being in the house might make a very long list, but he was not going to let her chase him off. Not only because he’d given his word to Mark to keep an eye on her, but because in his professional opinion Maddie needed more than just a casual now-and-again glance.

Even before actually leaving the hospital, Noah saw the falling snow through some windows. Setting down his bag, he took the gloves from his jacket pocket, pulled them on and then continued his trek to the outside door nearest the physician’s parking area. Outdoors it seemed to be a little warmer than it had earlier and the snow was not yet a heavy downfall. The flakes, which were small and feathery, fluttered to the earth from a pale-gray sky that appeared smooth and almost satiny.

Noah frowned over that upward view. He’d seen that deceptively innocent sky once before since moving to Montana, and it had buried the town in two-to five-foot snowdrifts before blowing itself out. He usually listened to morning radio while showering and dressing, and the snowstorm that had been predicted for several days now had obviously arrived.

Before he reached his vehicle, a powerful gust of wind blew snow in his face, which was one more sign that the encroaching storm might be a true blizzard. Once settled in his SUV with the engine running, Noah checked his bag to make sure he had his cell phone with him. It was a safety precaution that probably wasn’t necessary; electricity and telephone service weren’t always disrupted during a storm.

But he drove away from the hospital feeling better knowing that if the storm got really bad and he happened to get stuck or stranded somewhere he could always call for assistance.

By the time Noah got back to Mark’s house—a ten-minute drive in good weather, about twenty minutes this trip—he was positive that the storm had already turned meaner. If that was really the case, this storm could be one for the books, he thought as he pulled into Mark’s driveway. Carrying his medical bag, he kept his head down and quick-stepped to the house.

Inside he felt as though he’d just stepped into an oven. Setting his bag on a chair, he shed his outdoor gear and found the wall thermostat, which he turned down. Then he hurried to the living room to check on Maddie.

The small lump in the comforter looked as though it hadn’t budged at all in his absence, so Noah cautiously pulled back the top of the blanket to see Maddie’s face. She appeared to be in a deep sleep, but he had to make sure that a nurturing sleep was all that was happening with her. Gently touching her neck just below her jaw with the tips of his fingers, he felt her pulse and took note of the temperature and moisture of her skin. She wasn’t sweating, nor was her skin hot and feverish to the touch. He would let her sleep for the time being.

Carefully returning the blanket to its former position, Noah returned to the kitchen, rolling up the long sleeves of his shirt as he went. He knew he was a neat freak, but he couldn’t help despising dirty dishes. Of course, Maddie had an excuse, he reminded himself while stacking the dishwasher and then wiping down flat surfaces with a clean, slightly soapy dishcloth.

When the kitchen was cleaned and tidy, Noah took his bag and returned to the living room. This time he approached Maddie without caution. Taking out his blood pressure gauge and stethoscope, he sat on the coffee table again, pulled back the comforter and wrapped the pressure cuff around Maddie’s left arm.

Her eyes fluttered opened. “Wha-what’s going on? Oh, it’s you. What are you up to now?”

“I’m taking your blood pressure.”

“I would think a doctor would know enough to let a tired person sleep.”

“You can sleep all you want to after I check you out.”

“You’re not my doctor.”

“I am now. Stay silent for a minute, okay? I can’t hear myself think, let alone what’s going on in that puny little body of yours.”

“My body is not puny! God, talk about a revolting bedside manner.”

“Just shut the hell up!”

Maddie clamped her lips together. Good-looking or not, this guy—what had he said his name was?—was a total jerk, certainly not the kind of man she would ever give a second glance.

Noah removed the blood pressure cuff from her arm, then placed the little round sound receiver segment of the stethoscope on her chest.

“Hey!” Maddie slapped away the instrument. “Just stop it!”

Noah was fast losing patience, something that he wasn’t overloaded with, in any case. He gave his friend Mark’s mouthy little sister a look that was colder than the outside temperature and then asked with equal frostiness, “How many doctors do you know in Whitehorn who would make a house call? Either you let me examine you properly or I swear I’ll call an ambulance and put your butt in the hospital. It’s up to you. Take your pick.”

Maddie tried to scoff away her immediate misgivings with a snappy comeback but it came off pretty weak. “You wouldn’t dare,” she said, and actually felt a chill go up her spine from the icy expression in his eyes.

“Just try me.” He focused the icy glare onto her eyes.

She absolutely, positively would not look away first. “I’m not afraid of you, you know,” she said, realizing at the same time that she was getting angry. She knew that anger without the physical strength to back it up wasn’t very formidable, but common sense wasn’t controlling her at the moment. What ticked her off so much was that this…this cretin doctor thought he was.

Noah was in no mood for foolish bickering, and he spoke flatly, without a dram of warmth. “There’s no reason you should be afraid of me.” Then he added, sounding angry himself, “Good Lord, woman, don’t you know when someone’s trying to help you? What kind of doctors have you been seeing? What kind of people have you been associating with?”

“My friends and doctors are at least recognizable. I haven’t the foggiest notion of what or who you are.” Maddie was literally gritting her teeth. No one told her what to do, no one, and this…this pompous know-it-all wasn’t going to get away with it, either.

“You most certainly do know. I told you my name before and showed you my medical ID, as well.” He could see confusion in her eyes and added, “My name is Noah Martin…Dr. Noah Martin…and I’m Mark’s friend.”

“All right, you’re a doctor, but why should I believe you’re Mark’s friend?”

“Maybe because I have a key to his house?”

He was boxing her in, which only made Maddie angrier.

“There’s no way you could put me in the hospital without my permission,” she said daringly.

“Oh, but there is. If a person is mentally unbalanced because of fever or other symptoms of illness, I have every right to hospitalize her…or him.”

Maddie’s jaw dropped. “I am not mentally unbalanced, you…you retard!”

Noah glared right back at her. “You want me to think you’re a tough little nut, don’t you? Well, you’re not, and I don’t, and what’s more, you are going to get a medical exam today. Now, are you going to let me do what’s necessary or should I phone for an ambulance?”

She was livid, or as livid as she could be under the circumstances. Looking horrible and feeling almost as horrible all but destroyed her normal ability to hold her own in just about any situation. Maddie never looked for a fight—or even a mild disagreement—with anyone, but she’d been a self-sufficient grownup for too long to take orders that went against her grain. It really galled her when Noah Martin folded his arms across his chest and then sat there waiting for her to give in.

“I really hate you,” she said, meaning it heart and soul.

“No, you don’t. You just hate being told what to do.” Maddie couldn’t help being startled, and her wide-eyed expression made Noah grin. “You’ll get over it.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” she snapped. “And don’t you dare laugh at me one more time!”

Noah’s grin vanished. “Fine, I won’t laugh or even smile for the rest of this perfectly delightful day. So, what’s your decision about that examination?”

Maddie hadn’t missed the sarcasm in his voice when he’d called the day “perfectly delightful.” Oddly, the fact that he wasn’t enjoying this fiasco any more than she was made her feel a little less like throttling him, if she had the strength to throttle anything, that is.

“What kind of examination are you talking about?” she asked.

“Let me ask you a question before I answer that. Besides the injuries to your hand and face, were you hurt in any other way? Any other area of your body?”

“If you think for one minute that I’m undressing for you, think again! Now I’m on to your game, buster!”

“Oh, good Lord,” Noah muttered. “I don’t know what kind of accident caused all of this, but to have such screwy ideas you must have landed on your head. Listen to me. I couldn’t care less about seeing you undressed. I’m a doctor, and, speaking professionally, the human body, clothed or unclothed, does not affect me. What I know about your condition so far is just enough to warrant further examination. You’re taking painkillers and running a low-grade temperature. It’s possible that your blood pressure is elevated, but without prior records I can’t be positive of that. At any rate, I need to know…and see…the extent of your injuries, and if that means undressing, then you will undress. I brought a gown from the hospital to make an exam easier for both of us.”

Noah reached into his medical bag for the gown and laid it on the comforter. “Can you get up and change into this by yourself?”

Maddie had become stiff with fury. “This is not a doctor’s office! This is a house, my brother’s house!”

“It’s here or the hospital, Maddie. Take your pick.” Noah spoke quietly, impersonally, firmly. Even though patience had all but vanished from his system—not a new experience for him—he managed to convey professional concern to his patient, which he considered Maddie Kincaid to be at this point. Yes, that ludicrous tingle was still nudging his libido, but he’d go down in flames before doing anything about it.

She crooked her good left arm over her eyes so he wouldn’t see how degraded and defeated she felt.

“Maddie?”

He would phone for an ambulance, the wretch. She knew it as surely as she knew anything, and she was going to have to look him in the eye and admit defeat.

“I’m not getting up with you watching. Wait in the kitchen. I’ll change in the bathroom,” she said dully.

“You do have more injuries than what I can see on your face and hand, don’t you?” he asked quietly.

“Yes, damn you!”

Noah got to his feet. “I’ll wait in the kitchen.” He started to walk away, then stopped for one more thing. “I’d like you to be lying down for the exam. A bed would be better than this sofa.”

“I’m sure it would be much better,” she retorted with a venomous glare.

“Don’t get any silly ideas. This is strictly impersonal for me.”

“Are you married?”

“Uh, no. Why?”

“Because I’d feel better about this…this fiasco if you were!”

Noah was getting very close to giving up on Maddie Kincaid. Not that he’d drive off and just forget about her, but he could probably find another doctor among his peers that would take her case.

He considered doing exactly that, but only for a few moments. No way was Maddie Kincaid going to best him in this. Who was the doctor here, anyhow, certainly not her! Besides, it wasn’t merely an examination of all of her injuries that mattered to him. She mattered, and he could question why she did until doomsday and maybe never know the answer. But he wasn’t leaving her alone in a blizzard that he could hear growling and snarling outside, getting fiercer by the minute. He couldn’t see the storm, however, because the drapes and blinds on every window in the room were tightly closed, which suddenly annoyed the ever-loving hell out of him.

Going to a window he yanked open the drapes. The density of the blowing, swirling snow outside actually shocked him. He couldn’t see across the street. He couldn’t even see the big trees in Mark’s front yard! Craning his neck he tried to spot his SUV in the driveway and failed. All there was beyond the window glass was an angrily moving sea of white. This was the worst storm he’d ever seen, and it was scary, damned scary.

Cursing under his breath, Noah shut the drapes again and left the room, telling Maddie over his shoulder to get up and into that gown. He’d find whichever room she was waiting in, he told her, and added that he’d give her ten minutes before leaving the kitchen. “And put on the gown so that it opens in front.”

Maddie wanted to bawl. Better yet she’d like to scream Noah Martin’s ears off! “Big man,” she sneered, despising him for backing her into a corner the way he had. People rarely got around her deeply ingrained sense of self, and she had always taken pride in her strength and independence. Well, she wasn’t strong now, was she? Or independent?

Admitting weakness in the face of adversity nearly killed her, but there was little question that Dr. Noah Martin, first-class jerk and hometown yokel, was holding all the cards. When exactly had he descended upon poor unsuspecting Whitehorn? The town’s citizenry, as Maddie remembered it, was accustomed to kindly doctors, such as old Dr. Slater, who’d taken such good care of Aunt June.

Memories of June’s last years, especially her final months, gave Maddie a chill. For the first time ever she admitted possessing a fear of invalidism, of having to rely on others for the simplest task. She had taken very good care of Aunt June and had never resented a moment of the responsibility she’d undertaken, but by the same token she couldn’t bear the thought of herself being in Aunt June’s shoes.

And wasn’t she there right now, far sooner and at a much younger age than even her dread of the possibility had ever placed her? Noah Martin was treating her as though she was his responsibility, and she wasn’t, damn it, she wasn’t! Maddie gritted her teeth. Dr. Noah Martin was not going to examine her, and that was final! She’d playacted her way out of the hospital in Austin a day early and then convinced her brother and sister-in-law that she was doing just fine when she could just barely move without gasping out loud. But Mark and Darcy would not have gone on their honeymoon if she hadn’t convinced them, and she’d suffered in silence until they had finally walked out the door with their suitcases. How could she possibly have guessed that Mark would bring a strange doctor into the picture? One who’d gotten all concerned and determined to heal, damn his hide!

Obviously, she was going to have to endure another game of pretense, Maddie thought with a sigh of premeditated distress. What’s more, time was rushing by and she probably only had another few minutes before that nosy-Nellie friend of Mark’s came looking for her, expecting her to be in that awful gown and lying on a bed awaiting his examination.

“That’ll be the day,” Maddie mumbled, and pushed away the comforter. Gritting her teeth again because it hurt like hell to move, even though groggy from painkillers, she swung her feet to the floor, forced herself up and then hobbled her way to her bedroom. Shutting the door behind her, she immediately began undressing. Mark…or someone…she wasn’t clear on that point…had brought a lot of her clothes in from her trailer. She pulled on a long skirt and her biggest, baggiest sweater.

Her next stop was the bathroom, and she washed her face, applied moisturizer and makeup and then brushed her hair until it looked almost respectable. For good measure she gave herself a small squirt of cologne, then wasted no time in exiting the bathroom and heading for the kitchen.

Noah jumped a foot when she walked in. “What in God’s name are you doing?” he asked, sounding a lot like a bear with a thorn in its paw.

“Grump and complain all you wish,” she said in a saccharine tone that didn’t sound remotely genuine. “But I’m not getting into that gown, and you are not going to examine even one small part of me. Oh, I guess I wouldn’t mind if you checked my cast. Would that satisfy your craving to play doctor today?”

“You little idiot,” Noah said. His lips were thin and disapproving, and he looked as though he really did think of her as an idiot.

She frankly didn’t care what he thought. “Whether you like it or not, you are not going to be my doctor. I’ll check the phone book and make an appointment with one without your help.” Maddie suddenly saw the storm through the window above the sink. “Oh, my God!” she cried. “When did that start?”

“About an hour ago. It’s a serious storm, which isn’t nearly as crucial as your seeing a doctor today. So, if it’s not going to be me, I’m going to phone for that ambulance.”

Maddie turned toward him with blazing eyes. “You go right ahead and do that, and the second you’re off the phone, I’ll call the police department and file a complaint against you for home invasion and…and—” she lifted her chin in a defiant gesture “—and I might even include sexual harassment in that charge.”

“Which would be a damn lie,” Noah snarled. “Is that what you are, a liar?”

“Not usually, but your pushy attitude just might drive me to do a lot of things I wouldn’t ordinarily do. Now, let’s get to the bottom line, all right? I believe you’ve accomplished quite enough in this house for one day. Your uncooperative patient is out of bed and dressed. As any fool could see, if there were more than one in this kitchen with me, I’m fine and functioning under my own steam. In other words, I don’t want you hanging around any longer. Are you getting the message?”

Noah was just about to growl an appropriately nasty comeback when Maddie suddenly shrieked, “Fanny! My God, where’s Fanny?”

He thought she’d lost the last of her marbles, which he’d been suspecting were already dangerously low in quantity, especially when she hung over the sink to get her face closer to the icy window to see outside. “She’ll die in this,” Maddie moaned. “What did Mark do with her? Fanny, Fanny, where are you?”

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