Kitabı oku: «Not Just a Cowboy»

For Barbara Tohm,

my very own fairy godmother

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

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

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Patricia Cargill was not going to marry Quinn MacDowell, after all.

What a dreadful inconvenience.

She’d invested nearly a year of her life to cultivating their friendship, a pleasant relationship between a man and a woman evenly matched in temperament, in attractiveness, in income. Just when Patricia had thought the time was right for a smooth transition to the logical next step, Quinn had fallen head over heels in love with a woman he’d only known for a few weeks.

A year’s planning, a year’s investment of Patricia’s time and effort, gone in a matter of days.

She tapped her pen impatiently against the clipboard in her hand. She didn’t sigh, she didn’t stoop her shoulders in defeat, and she most certainly didn’t cry. Patricia was a Cargill, of the Austin Cargills, and she would weather her personal storm.

Later.

Right now, she was helping an entire town weather the aftermath of a different kind of storm, the kind that made national news as it made landfall on the coast of Texas. The kind of storm that could peel the roof off a hospital, leaving a town in need of the medical assistance that the Texas Rescue and Relief organization could provide. The kind of storm that let Patricia drop all the social niceties expected of an heiress while she assumed her role as the personnel director for a mobile hospital.

Her hospital was built of white tents, powered by generators, and staffed by all the physicians, nurses, and technicians Patricia had spent the past year recruiting. During Austin dinner parties and Lake Travis sailing weekends, over posh Longhorn football tailgates and stale hospital cafeteria buffets, Patricia had secured their promises to volunteer with Texas Rescue in time of disaster. That time was now.

“Patricia, there you are.”

She turned to see one of her recruits hurrying toward her, a private-practice physician who’d never been in the field with Texas Rescue before. A rookie.

The woman was in her early thirties, a primary care physician named Mary Hodge. Her green scrubs could have been worn by anyone at the hospital, but she also wore a white doctor’s coat, one she’d brought with her from Austin. She’d already wasted Patricia’s time yesterday, tracking her down like this in order to insist that her coat be dry cleaned if she was expected to stay the week. Patricia had coolly informed her no laundry service would be pressing that white coat. This Texan beach town had been hit by a hurricane less than two days ago. It was difficult enough to have essential laundry, like scrubs and bed linens, cleaned in these conditions. Locating an operational dry-cleaning establishment would not become an item on Patricia’s to-do list.

Dr. Hodge crossed the broiling black top of the parking lot where Texas Rescue had set up the mobile hospital. Whatever she wanted from Patricia, it was bound to be as inane as the dry cleaning. Patricia wasn’t going to hustle over to hear it, but neither would she pretend she hadn’t heard Hodge call her name. The rookie was her responsibility.

Patricia stayed standing, comfortable enough despite the late afternoon heat. Knowing she’d spend long days standing on hard blacktop, Patricia always wore her rubber-soled Docksides when Texas Rescue went on a mission. Between those and the navy polo shirt she wore that bore the Texas Rescue logo, she could have boarded a yacht as easily as run a field hospital, but no one ever mistook her for a lady of leisure. Not while she was with Texas Rescue.

As she waited in the June heat, Patricia checked her clipboard—her old-school, paper-powered clipboard. It was the only kind guaranteed to work when electric lines were down. If Texas Rescue was on the scene, it was a sure bet that electricity had been cut off by a hurricane or tornado, a fire or flood. Her clipboard had a waterproof, hard plastic cover that repelled the rain.

She flipped the cover open. First item: X-ray needs admin clerk for night shift.

There were only two shifts in this mobile hospital, days and nights. Patricia tended to work most of both, but she made sure her staff got the rest their volunteer contracts specified. She jotted her solution next to the problem: assign Kim Wells. Patricia had kept her personal assistant longer during this deployment than usual, but as always, Patricia would now work alone so that some other department wouldn’t be shorthanded.

Second item: Additional ECG machine in tent E4.

That was for Quinn, the cardiologist she wouldn’t be marrying. She’d make a call and have one brought down from Austin with the next incoming physician. She could have managed Quinn’s personal life just as efficiently, making her an excellent choice for his wife, but that concept wouldn’t appeal to the man now that he was in love.

If there was anything Patricia had learned as the daughter of the infamous Daddy Cargill, it was that men needed managing. Since Patricia genuinely liked Quinn, she hoped the woman he married would be a good manager, but she doubted it. Fortunately for Quinn, he didn’t need much direction. Cool-headed and logical—at least around Patricia—he would have been a piece of cake for her to manage after living with Daddy Cargill.

Third: Set up additional shade for waiting area.

The head of Austin’s Texas Rescue operations, Karen Weaver, was supposed to be responsible for the physical layout of the hospital as well as equipment like the ECG machine, but Karen wasn’t the most efficient or knowledgeable director to have ever served at the helm of Texas Rescue. Waiting for Karen to figure out how to get things done was hard on the medical staff and the patients. Patricia would find someone to get another tent off the truck and pitch it outside the treatment tents.

“Patricia.” Mary Hodge, sweating and frowning, stopped a few feet away and put her hands on her hips.

“Dr. Hodge.” Patricia kept her eyes on her to-do list as she returned the curt greeting. The woman had earned her title; Patricia would use it no matter how little she thought of the doctor’s lousy work ethic.

“Listen, I can’t stay until Friday, after all. Something’s come up.”

“Is that right?” Patricia very deliberately tucked the clipboard under her arm, then lifted her chin and gave Dr. Hodge her full attention. “Explain.”

Dr. Hodge frowned immediately. Doctors, as a species, gave orders. They didn’t take commands well. Patricia knew when to be gracious, and she knew how to persuade someone powerful that her idea was their idea. But Patricia was also a Cargill, a descendant of pioneers who’d made millions on deals sealed with handshakes, and that meant she didn’t give a damn about tact when a person was about to welch on a deal. Dr. Hodge was trying to do just that.

The doctor raised her chin, as well, clearly unused to having her authority challenged. “I have a prior commitment.” Unspoken, her tone said, And that’s all you need to know.

Patricia kept her voice cool and her countenance cooler. “Your contract specifies ninety-six hours of service. I haven’t got any extra physicians to take your place if you leave.”

“I’m needed back at West Central.”

Patricia had recruited as many physicians as she could from West Central Texas Hospital. The hospital had been founded by Quinn MacDowell’s father, and his brother Braden served as CEO. She knew the hospital well. It had just been one more item on the list of reasons why Quinn had been her best candidate for marriage.

Her familiarity with West Central gave her an advantage right now. “West Central is perfectly aware that you are here until Friday. If you went back this evening, people might wonder why you returned ahead of schedule.”

The woman started to object. Patricia held up a hand in a calming gesture. It was time to pretend to be tactful, at least. “You have a prior commitment, of course, but some people could jump to the conclusion that you just didn’t like the inconvenience of working at a natural disaster site. Wouldn’t that be a terrible reputation to have in a hospital where so many doctors somehow find the time to volunteer with Texas Rescue? I do hope you’ll be able to reschedule your commitment, just to avoid any damage to your professional reputation.”

The threat was delivered in Patricia’s most gracious tone of voice. Dr. Hodge bit out something about rescheduling her other commitment at great inconvenience to herself. “But I’m out of here Friday morning.”

“After ten, yes.” Patricia set Dr. Hodge’s departure time as she unflinchingly met the woman’s glare.

Dr. Hodge stalked away, back toward the high-tech, inflatable white surgical tent where she was supposed to be stitching the deep cuts and patching up the kinds of wounds that were common when locals started digging through rubble for their belongings. Patricia didn’t care if Hodge was angry; that was Hodge’s personal problem, not Patricia’s.

No, her personal problem had nothing to do with this field hospital, and everything to do with her plans for the future. Every moment that Texas Rescue didn’t demand her attention, she found her mind circling futilely around the central problem of her life: How am I going to save the Cargill fortune from my own father?

The radio in her hand squawked for her attention. Thankfully. Patricia raised it to her mouth and pressed the side button. “Go ahead.”

“This is Mike in pharmacy. We’re going through the sublingual nitro fast.”

Of course they were. After any natural disaster, the number of chest pain cases reported in the population increased. It was one of the reasons she’d recruited Quinn to Texas Rescue; she’d needed a cardiologist to sort the everyday angina from the heart attacks. The initial treatment for both conditions was a nitroglycerin tablet. The pharmacists she’d recruited always kept their nitro well stocked, but a new pharmacy tech had freely dispensed a month’s worth to each patient instead of a week’s worth, and the hospital had nearly run out before anyone had noticed.

Patricia had recruited that pharmacy tech, too. She accepted that the shortage was therefore partly her fault. Even if it hadn’t been, Patricia would’ve been the one to fix it.

She pressed the talk button on her radio again. “You’ll need to make what you’ve got last for several more hours. I’m going to have to reach quite a bit farther out of town to source more.”

She’d find more, though. Failure is not an option was the kind of cheesy line Patricia would never be caught saying, but it fit the mission of Texas Rescue.

Patricia started through the white tents toward the one that housed her administrative office. The Texas Rescue field hospital had been set up in the parking lot of the multi-story community hospital. The missing roof of the town’s hospital had rendered it useless, and the building now stood empty. Its shadow was welcome, though, to offset the Gulf Coast’s June heat. She noticed the Texas Rescue firefighters had moved their red truck into the shade, too, as they used their axes to clear debris from the town’s toppled ambulances. The fire truck’s powerful motor turned a winch, metal cables strained, and an ambulance was hauled back into its upright position.

There was a beauty to the simple solution. The ambulance had been on its side; the ambulance was now upright. If only her world could work that way...but Daddy Cargill had tangled the family fortune badly, and Patricia needed more than a simple winch to set her life back on track.

The shade of the damaged building couldn’t be doing much to help the firefighters as they worked in their protective gear. Patricia barely tolerated the steamy heat by wearing knee-length linen shorts and by keeping her hair smoothed into a neat bun, off her neck and out of her face. There hadn’t been a cloud in the sky all day, however, and the heat was winning. Thank goodness the administration’s tent had a generator-run air cooler.

Unlike the surgical tents, her “office” was the more traditional type of structure, a large square tent of white fabric pitched so the parking lot served as the hard but mud-free floor. Before pushing through the weighted fabric flap that served as her tent’s door, Patricia caught sight of Quinn at the far side of the parking lot. Tall, dark and familiar, her friend stood by a green Volkswagon Bug, very close to the redheaded woman who’d stolen his heart—an apparently romantic heart Patricia hadn’t suspected Quinn possessed.

Her name was Diana. Patricia knew Diana’s forty-eight hour volunteer commitment was over, and her career in Austin required her return. Quinn was committed to staying the week without her.

Patricia watched them say goodbye. Quinn cupped Diana’s face in his hands, murmured words only she would ever hear and then he kissed her.

Like the worst voyeur, Patricia couldn’t turn away. It wasn’t the sensuality of the kiss that held her gaze, although Quinn was a handsome man, and the way he pulled Diana into him as he kissed her was undeniably physical. No, there was more than just sex in that kiss. There was an intensity in the kiss, a link between the man and woman, a connection Patricia could practically see even as Diana got behind the wheel of her tiny car and drove away.

The intensity in Quinn’s gaze as he watched Diana leave made Patricia want to shiver in the June heat.

It was too much. She didn’t want that. Ever.

Nitroglycerin.

With renewed focus, she pushed aside the fabric flap and entered her temporary office, grateful for the cooler air inside. The generator that powered their computers also ran the air cooler and a spare fan. The tent was spacious, housing neat rows of simple folding chairs and collapsible tables. It was the nerve center for the paperwork that made a hospital run, from patients’ documents to volunteer’s contracts.

Her administrative team, all wearing Texas Rescue shirts, kept working as Patricia headed for the card table that served as her desk. Only a few nodded at her. The rest seemed almost unnaturally busy.

She didn’t take their lack of acknowledgment personally. She was the boss. They were trying to look too busy for her to question their workload.

She was grateful, actually, to slip into the metal folding chair without making any small talk. She placed her clipboard and radio to the right of her waiting laptop, opened its lid, and waited for the computer to boot up—none of which took her mind off that kiss between Quinn and Diana.

The kind of desire she’d just witnessed had been different than the kind she was generally exposed to. Her father was on his third wife and his millionth mistress. He was all about the pet names, the slap-and-tickle, the almost juvenile quest for sex. Quinn had been looking at the woman he loved in a totally different way. Like she was important—no, crucial. Like she was his world.

That kind of desire would be demanding. Unpleasantly so. Burdensome, to have a man need her so completely. It would only get in the way of what Patricia wanted in life.

She didn’t want the perpetual adolescence of a man like her father, but neither did she want the intensity of a soul mate. No, she just wanted a husband who would be an asset, who would efficiently partner her as she achieved her goals in life. A man who would slide as seamlessly into her world as one of her beloved sailboats glided through water, barely disturbing the surface.

“Coming through!”

A fireman crashed through the tent’s door, dragging another firefighter behind him. He pulled off his friend’s helmet and tossed it on the ground as he yelled “Water!”

No one moved. Lined up in their matching polo shirts, Patricia’s entire workforce froze with their fingers over their keyboards.

The next second, Patricia was on her feet, coming around her table toward the men. Clearly, the second guy was overheated and on the verge of passing out.

“There’s cool air here,” she said, stepping out of the way as she pointed toward the side of the tent where the blower was located.

The first man, a giant in his helmet and bulky uniform, hauled his stumbling buddy past her. He dropped to one knee as he lowered the man to the asphalt in front of the cooler, then took his own helmet off and set it lightly on the ground. He let his head drop as he took one long, deep breath. His black hair was soaked through and his own skin was flushed from heat, but then his one-second break was apparently over, and he was back in motion.

To Patricia, the two men were a heap of reflective tape, canvas straps, rubber boots, and flashlights tucked into more straps and pockets on their bulky, beige uniforms. It took her a moment to make out what the first man was doing. He’d zeroed in on the toggles that held his friend’s coat shut.

His friend fumbled at his own chest with clunky, gloved hands. “S’my coat.” His words were slurred. “I get it.”

“Yeah, sure.” The black-haired fireman pushed his buddy’s hands out of the way and kept unfastening.

Patricia knelt beside him, ignoring the rough asphalt on her bare knees, and tugged off the overheated man’s gloves. “Do you want me to radio the ER? We’ve got a back board in here that we could use as a stretcher.” She turned to speak over her shoulder to the nearest person. “Bring me my walkie-talkie.”

“He’ll be fine once he’s cooled off.” The black-haired man tugged the heavy coat all the way off his friend, then let the man lie flat on his back in front of the cooler. “You’re feeling better already, Zach, right? Zach?”

He slapped the man’s cheek lightly with the back of his gloved hand. By now, Patricia’s team had gathered around. She took her walkie-talkie from her staff member, and the black-haired firefighter took one of the bottles of water that were being held out. He dumped it over Zach’s hair. The water puddled onto the asphalt beneath him.

Zach pushed his arm away, still clumsy in his movements. “Stop it, jackass.” His words were less slurred, a good sign, even if he spoke less like an admin clerk and more like a...well, like a fireman.

The black-haired man turned to Patricia. Their eyes met, and after a second’s pause, he winked. “Told you. He’s feeling better already.”

Patricia kept looking at his impossibly handsome, cheerfully confident face and forgot whatever it was she’d been about to say. He had blue eyes—not just any blue, but the exact shade that reminded her of sailing on blue water, under blue sky.

He shook off his own gloves in one sharp movement, then shrugged out of his own coat. As he bent to stuff his coat under his friend’s head, Patricia bent, too, but there was nothing for her to do as he efficiently lifted his friend’s head with one hand and shoved his coat in place. She straightened up, sitting back on her heels and brushing the grit off her knees, but she stayed next to him, ready to help, watching as he worked.

As the muscles in his shoulders moved, his red suspenders crisscrossed over the black T-shirt he wore. A brief glance down the man’s back showed that those suspenders were necessary; his torso was lean and trim, while the canvas firefighter pants were loose and baggy. The stereotypical red straps weren’t just designed to make women swoon....

She looked away quickly when he finished his makeshift pillow and straightened, too.

Propping his left forearm on his bended knee, he extended his right toward her in a handshake.

“Thank you for your help, ma’am.” His voice was as deep as he was large. Deep, with a Texas twang. “My name’s Luke Waterson. Pleased to meet you.”

He had cowboy manners even when he was under stress, introducing himself like this. She had to hand that to him as she placed her hand in his. His skin was warm and dry as she returned his handshake in a businesslike manner. He was still a giant of a man without his fireman’s coat, broad-chested with shoulder and arm muscles that were clearly defined under his T-shirt, but he returned her shake without a trace of the bone-crushing grip many men used.

Patricia knew some men just weren’t aware how strong their grip was, but others—including her father’s cronies—used the too-hard handshake as a form of intimidation. If this fireman had wanted to play that game, Patricia would have been ready.

But he didn’t hold her hand too long or too tightly. He let her go, but that grin deepened, lifting one corner of his mouth higher than the other as he kept those sailing-blue eyes on her.

Patricia looked away first. Not very Cargill of her, but then again, men didn’t often look at her the way this young fireman did. A bone-crushing handshake? No problem. She could handle that. But to be winked at and grinned at like she was...was...a college coed...

As if.

She’d never been that flirtatious and carefree, not even when she’d been a college co-ed. In college, she’d come home on weekends to make sure her father’s latest bed partner wasn’t robbing them blind. She’d gone over every expense and co-signed every one of her father’s checks before they were cashed.

Lord, college had been a decade ago. What was it about this fireman—this Luke Waterson—that made her think of being twenty-two instead of thirty-two?

He used his heavy helmet to fan Zach’s face, a move that made his well-defined bicep flex. Frankly, the man looked like a male stripper in a fireman’s costume. Maybe that explained her sudden coed feeling. When she’d been twenty-two, she’d been to enough bachelorette parties to last her a lifetime. If she’d seen one male review with imitation firemen dancing for money, then she’d seen them all.

Those brides had been divorced and planning their second weddings as everyone in her social circle approached their thirtieth birthdays together. Patricia had declined the second round of bachelorette weekends. Always the bridesmaid, happy to have escaped being the bride.

Until this year.

The real fireman used his forearm to swipe his forehead, the bulge of his bicep exactly at her eye level. Oh, this Luke was eye candy for women, all right. Muscular, physical—

There’s no reason to be so distracted. This is absurd.

She was head of personnel, and this man was wiping his brow because he was nearly as overheated as the unfortunate Zach-on-the-asphalt. If Patricia didn’t take care of Luke, she’d soon be short two firemen on her personnel roster.

She plucked one of the water bottles out of her nearest staff member’s hand. The young lady didn’t move, her gaze fastened upon Luke.

Annoyed with her staff for being as distracted as she’d let herself be, Patricia stood and looked around the circle of people. “Thank you. You can go back to work now.”

Her team scattered. Patricia felt more herself. It was good to be in charge. Good to have a job to do.

She handed Luke the bottle. “Drink this.”

He obeyed her, but that grin never quite left his face as he knelt on one knee before her, keeping his gaze on her face as he tilted his head back and let the cool water flow down his throat.

Look away, Patricia. Use your radio. Contact the fire chief and let him know where his men are. Look away.

But she didn’t. She watched the man drink his water, watched him pitch it effortlessly, accurately, into the nearest trash can, and watched him resume his casual position, one forearm on his knee. He reached down to press his fingers against his friend’s wrist once more.

“He’s fine,” Luke announced after a few seconds of counting heartbeats. “It’s easy to get light-headed out there. Nothing some shade and some water couldn’t fix.”

“Is there anything else I can get you?”

He touched the brim of an imaginary hat in a two-fingered salute. “Thank you for the water, ma’am. You never told me your name.”

“Patricia,” she said. She had to clear her throat delicately, for the briefest moment, and then, instead of describing herself the way she always did, as Patricia Cargill, she said something different. “I’m the personnel director.”

“Well, Patricia,” he said, and then he smiled, a flash of white teeth and an expression of genuine pleasure in his tanned face. His grin had only been a tease compared to this stunning smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

He meant it, she could tell. He’d checked her out, he found her attractive, and that smile was inviting her in, inviting her to smile, too, inviting her to enjoy a little getting-to-know you flirtation.

Patricia couldn’t smile back. She wasn’t like that. Flirting for fun was a luxury for people who didn’t have obligations. She’d never learned how to do it. She’d known only responsibility, even when she’d been twenty-two and men had been interested in her for more than her bank account and Cargill connections.

It almost hurt to look at Luke Waterson’s open smile, at the clear expression of approval and interest on his handsome face.

She preferred not to waste energy on useless emotions. And so, she nodded politely and she turned away.