Taming a Dark Horse

“Yes, I did. But I didn’t have any idea you’d be asking something like this. I don’t even know your cousin! And I’d practically be living with the man!”

“You would be living with him,” Victoria corrected. “He can’t be left alone. He can’t use his hands in any way. Not yet. So you can imagine how much care he’s going to need.”

“Yes, I can imagine.” Nevada felt awful for Linc Ketchum. Even though she’d never met the man, she understood the pain and suffering he must be going through. She’d attended to many burn patients over her years of nursing and she understood the care he would need. But she didn’t really want to leave her home for two or three weeks. And living with a man? Well, she’d always been adventurous but that was taking it a bit too far.

“But I really don’t think I’m the nurse you need.”

“You’re exactly the nurse Linc needs. These injuries haven’t just disabled him physically, they’ve tugged him down emotionally. Normally, Linc is a gentle, easygoing man. Everyone admires and loves him. But this morning he actually cussed at Ross. He needs to get his mind off the fire and off his confinement. If anyone can do that, you can.”

Nevada let out an incredulous laugh. “How? By playing dominos or poker with the man? Victoria, I don’t know anything about him. I wouldn’t even know how to talk to him.”

Smiling, Victoria said, “You? Not know how to talk to a man? Come on, my dear, that sort of thing comes to you naturally.”

“That’s another thing. I have a life here in town. How could I go out on dates if I’m stuck on the T Bar K? You know that I have boyfriends. They won’t understand.”

“If that’s the case, you don’t need them.”

A long sigh slipped past Nevada’s lips. She’d tried, but she could see there was no talking Victoria out of this. “You really mean this, don’t you?”

“Nevada. I can’t think of anyone better,” she said with a soft voice. “No one else would suit Linc. He’s a man who needs gentle care.”

Nevada studied Victoria’s face and could easily see the signs of worry etching her eyes and mouth. “You love your cousin very much, don’t you?”

Victoria nodded. “I always have. Linc is special—to all of us. He’s like our brother. And yet he’s always wanted to remain independent. I don’t know why. But he’s a strong, compassionate man and it makes me want to sob when I see him like he is now.”

Feeling her eyes grow misty, Nevada walked around the desk and place a hand on Victoria’s slender shoulder. “Don’t worry. You should know I’ll take on the job. I can’t say no to you even when I want to.”

Victoria looked up at her gratefully. “Don’t do this just for me, Nevada. Do it for Linc. Okay?”

Uneasiness rippled through Nevada and made her hesitate. But only for a moment and then she smiled. “All right. I’ll do this for Linc.”

Chapter Two

He was sitting on the porch of his father’s old house when a little white sports car covered with the red dust of T Bar K land pulled to a stop a few feet from the rail fence that enclosed the house and yard, a yard which was little more than a patch of raw mountain land filled with boulders, pine trees and sagebrush.

Rising slowly from his chair, Linc ambled toward the fence as his squinted eyes tried to make out the person behind the dusty windshield. And as he waited for the nurse to climb out of the vehicle he told himself it didn’t matter what sort of person this woman was just so long as she stayed out of his hair as much as possible.

The door to the car finally swung open and Linc caught the glimpse of jeans-clad legs and long, raven-black hair being blown by the evening breeze.

He watched her catch her flyaway hair with a brown hand as she turned to greet him.

“Hello,” she called cheerfully. “I guess you must be Linc.”

Dear God, what had Victoria done to him, he wondered. This woman wasn’t a nurse. She couldn’t be. She was very young and looked more like a sexy siren than a caregiver. Her petite body had more curves than the mountain road leading up to the house and her face was full of dimples, sparkling brown eyes and lips the color of a ripe cherry. This was not the sort of woman he needed sleeping across the hall from him.

“That would be me,” he replied, while wondering how he could tell her to go home and still be polite about it.

She walked up to him and smiled. “I’d offer you my hand. But since you can’t take it, I’ll just say I’m glad to be here.”

Topping her jeans was a red jersey shirt that had slipped down on one shoulder. On her small feet were wedge sandals tall enough to break her ankles. Linc couldn’t prevent his gaze from climbing up from her painted toenails to the top of her head and back down again. “Where did Victoria find you?” he asked rudely.

The blunt question lifted Victoria’s delicate black brows. “Well, not out of a hole if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m her nurse. I figured you knew that. Haven’t you ever been to Victoria’s clinic?”

He shook his head while hating the fact that she was making him feel downright stupid. “I don’t ever need to be doctored.” He frowned as his gaze focused on his bandaged hands. “At least, not until the fire.”

“Well, you must be very lucky,” Nevada said while her eyes took in the sight of Victoria’s cousin.

He practically glowered at her and lifted the thick white bandages directly in front of her face.

“Lucky? You call this lucky?”

Unaffected by his sarcasm, she nodded. “If you’ve lived all these years without needing a doctor’s care, you’re a very fortunate man, Linc Ketchum. And as for those—” she inclined her head toward his burns, “better your hands than your whole body being toasted.”

She was right and he knew it, but that didn’t make him feel any better. Still, he thanked God that he’d gotten out of the fire before it had consumed him.

“Yeah,” he said, then walking around her, he peered into the car’s back seat. It was piled with enough luggage to fill two closets. His jaw tightened. “It looks like you’ve come to stay.”

Turning slightly toward him, Nevada frowned. “Of course I’ve come to stay. You need someone here with you at all times.”

He drew in a bracing breath then blew it out. “Well, I don’t want to sound rude, but I don’t think you’re gonna be that person.”

She whirled completely around to stare at him. “What?”

He shrugged as a sheepish expression stole over his lean face. Normally he went to great lengths to handle people gently, the same way he handled his horses. But this firebrand standing in front of him was scratching his hackles in the wrong direction.

“I said I don’t think you’re the right person to stay with me.”

Nevada’s eyes narrowed as her hands came to rest on either side of her waist. “You don’t, huh? Well, just what sort of person would you like to have staying with you?” she asked in a voice that dripped sweetness.

“None! Damn it. I can get along without anybody’s help. And I have no idea why Victoria sent you up here! I don’t even believe you’re a nurse!”

Nevada folded her arms against her breasts. This outburst from her patient wasn’t too big a surprise. Victoria had already warned her that since the fire Linc had been on a rampage. And she’d heard a long time ago that the man was a recluse. She’d asked Victoria about the hearsay and the doctor had confirmed it as true, saying she couldn’t remember the last time Linc Ketchum had ever stepped foot off the T Bar K. Poor man, Nevada thought. He really needed her help.

“Why not?” she asked simply.

He stepped closer and it was then that Nevada allowed herself to really look at him. When she’d first driven up, she’d gotten the impression of long legs, muscles and shoulders broad enough to carry her weight twice over. Now she could study his face close up and as far as she was concerned it was a work of pure art.

A Roman nose, square jaw and chin, and dark-green eyes set beneath a pair of black brows. At the moment he was wearing a cowboy hat the color of creamed coffee, but she could see the hair next to it was slightly darker and curled against his head in a touch-me-please way. Victoria had told her that Linc was thirty-eight and all Nevada could think at the moment was what a hunk of a man Linc Ketchum had grown into in those thirty-eight years.

“Because you don’t look like a nurse. Or sound like one, either,” he answered.

Nevada couldn’t help but laugh. “Really? I guess you must be an expert on nurses?”

He grimaced. “No. But—”

Nevada stepped forward and put her hand on his shoulder. It was warm, rock-hard and caused her skin to sizzle.

“Listen, Linc. Victoria tried to find a nurse other than me. She couldn’t. No one was willing to come all the way out here and stay for two weeks.”

“That’s not surprising,” Linc muttered. “If a woman has to go without electricity for one hour, she thinks she’s been traumatized.”

“Hmm. Is that so? I had to go without electricity for two days last winter. Ice did something to the lines going to my apartment. But you know, I made it okay. Didn’t feel a bit traumatized.”

Glowering, he looked away from her. “I guess you’re trying to say that I should be grateful that you were willing to take care of me?”

Her hand felt as though it was vibrating on his shoulder and she pulled it away, hoping it would put an end to the odd sensation. “Well, you don’t have to go so far as to be grateful. Just civil will be enough for me.”

His head twisted back around and Nevada felt something jerk in her chest as his dark-green gaze landed on her face. “You’re doing this for Victoria’s sake, aren’t you?” he asked, then quickly added, “No. Don’t answer that. I already know that you are.”

“Well, well. You not only think you’re an expert on nurses, you also think you’re a mind reader. You must have many talents, Mr. Ketchum.”

Ignoring her sarcasm, he said, “See, you’re not even bothering to deny it.”

Nevada smiled at him. “Why should I bother? You seem to know the answer already.”

He heaved out a heavy breath. “Well, I guess that part of it doesn’t matter. I just don’t like feeling beholden to anybody.”

Nevada’s expression turned serious. “Look, Linc, I’m here because I chose to be here. I’m a nurse and when it all boils down, I can’t turn away from someone who needs my help. No matter who they’re related to. Now if you don’t mind, I need to unload my things from the car.”

She stepped around him and jerked the car door open. Linc watched with helpless frustration as she pulled out several pieces of luggage and piled them on the ground. Normally, he would never allow a female to lift anything heavier than a plate of food in his presence. But as it was he was so incapacitated he couldn’t even pick up her handbag.

“If you need help with that I can call someone up from the main house,” he finally offered.

She glanced his way. “Thank you. But they’re not a problem for me to carry.”

He watched her shove one of the bags beneath her armpit and pick up two more with her hands. How the hell was he going to deal with this woman for two weeks or more, he wondered. She’d already managed to make him feel like a helpless idiot. Moreover, she was just too damn sexy.

“I—uh—I’d help if I could,” he felt compelled to say.

She started moving toward the house and he fell in beside her.

“I know that,” she said. “Don’t apologize for your condition. You can’t help it. Just try to get well as quickly as you can.”

The two of them crossed the rough ground of the yard and climbed onto the porch. There Nevada turned to look at the view. The house was facing south and some distance over on the next mountain ridge she could spot the top of the main ranch house. Between here and there was nothing but forested mountains.

“This is beautiful,” she said with quiet awe.

Linc looked at her, faintly surprised by the sincerity in her voice. “Yeah, but give yourself a few days and you’ll be screaming to see town again.”

She flashed him a glance. “How could you predict that? You don’t even know me.”

“Women can’t stand the isolation.”

Obviously Linc Ketchum wasn’t just down on being incapacitated, he was also down on women for some reason that Nevada would very much like to know.

“Excuse me, but Victoria lived her whole life on this ranch until she went to med school and married Jess.”

He waved away her words. “Victoria is different. She’s a ranch girl, a cowgirl.”

Nevada wanted to ask him what he thought she was, but she didn’t bother. Now wasn’t the time to try to dig into him. If she was going to be able to make it through the next two or three weeks, she needed to keep peace with the man.

“Well, don’t worry about me getting cabin fever. I’m sure you’ll keep me entertained,” she said, then turning to the door, she opened it and stepped inside.

Linc quickly followed her into the small foyer and then into the long living room until she stopped abruptly and stared all around her.

“Oh! This is lovely. This looks almost like the big ranch house. Only smaller.”

The room had off-white walls and a high ceiling crossed with heavy oak beams stained a deep brown. The floor was covered with a shiny brown-and-beige tile and a good portion of the north wall was built of plate glass. The landscape past the window was breathtaking and framed the peaks of the distant San Juan Mountains, which, in spite of it being midsummer, still hung on to their caps of snow.

“You sound surprised,” Linc said as he watched her drop her bags and walk slowly around the room. “What were you expecting?”

She shot him a frank glance. “Nothing like this. Victoria told me this was just a small ranch house that they leased to any of the ranch hands who had a family and were in need of housing.”

“She told you right.”

“Goodness! This is so—beautiful!” Continuing her walk around the room, she inspected the leather furniture, the Western photos and paintings on the walls and the wagon wheel that dropped from the center beam in the ceiling. The wooden wheel was circled with lights that were fashioned in the shape of old-time lanterns.

The fact that she was so taken with the house both surprised and pleased Linc. He hadn’t expected such a reaction from her. To look at her, she seemed like the modern-apartment type.

“I’m sure it seems dated and stuffy to you.”

“Not at all,” she said as she headed toward an opening that looked as though it would lead to the kitchen area.

Linc followed her into the kitchen to a pine table and benches located near another wide window. From here Nevada could look down upon the ranch. From this angle, looking left, she could see a meadow filled with black Angus cattle and the sparkling ribbon that was the Animas River.

“Where do you live?” Linc wanted to know.

She glanced away from the window and over to him. He was standing only a couple of feet away from her and she picked up the faint masculine scent of his body. An inward shiver raced through her as she looked at him, and she hoped the reaction wasn’t showing on her face. The last thing she needed was for this man to think she was attracted to him.

Which she wasn’t. She couldn’t be. He was a patient. “In Aztec. In an apartment.” She grinned wryly. “My kitchen view is of an alleyway. The only good thing about it is that I get to see an assortment of stray cats hunting through the garbage cans.”

“Hmmph. I’ll bet you’re the kind of woman who pours feed out for them.”

She laughed guiltily. “Well, I am soft-hearted when it comes to animals,” she admitted. “And I’d never let one go hungry for any reason.”

“You like animals?” he asked.

Once again he sounded surprised and Nevada wondered where he’d formed his opinions about women.

“Very much. In fact when I first started college I had plans to become a veterinarian. But then a close friend of mine became seriously ill and I decided that maybe I was meant to help people get well.”

“Did you help your friend?”

Shaking her head, Nevada turned away from him. He didn’t need to see any sort of sadness or woe on her face. Not now. Linc Ketchum needed to see bright skies ahead and she was determined to show them to him. “No. She died. And that only reinforced my resolve to stay in medicine.” Turning she smiled at him. “But that’s in the past. And right now I think I’d better go carry in the rest of my things and get settled in.”

She turned and walked out of the kitchen and Linc found himself wanting to follow her, talk to her, if for no other reason than to hear her voice. Which didn’t make one iota of sense to him.

Linc didn’t talk to women just for the sake of making conversation. Sure there were women who came to the T Bar K looking to buy a horse or colt or have a mare bred by one of the ranch’s champion stallions. And Linc didn’t have any problems dealing with them. But as far as his personal life went, he’d always made it a policy to steer clear of women.

It wasn’t that he disliked the opposite sex. To Linc, women were pretty much like the horses he tended. Most of them were very beautiful, but they were also high-strung and unpredictable. If he ever let his guard down around one, even the sweet-natured ones, he was taking a big risk of getting hurt, and hurt badly. So he stayed alert and safe around his horses and the women he happened to come in contact with.

The front door opened and closed for a second time and he realized Nevada had already returned to the house. He quickly left the kitchen and walked out to the living room to see her hefting three more bags.

“If you’ll show me where I’ll be sleeping, I’ll get these things out of the way,” she told him.

As he walked across the long room to join her, he thought about having her sleep in the small upstairs bedroom. The farther he could put her away from him, the better he’d feel. And the room did have a pretty view and a nice set of oak bedroom furniture. But it would be mean of him to make her climb the stairs with all those things. So he motioned for her to follow him down a long wide hall that was covered with more tile.

Halfway down the corridor, he motioned to their left. “There’s two rooms here that are pretty much the same. Take your pick. It doesn’t matter to me,” he lied.

Her gaze went from one door to the other, then across the hall to where two more doors were located. “Where is your room?” she asked.

Frowning, he asked, “Is that really important?”

She made a face of disbelief. “You are my patient. I need to be as close as possible. It will make things easier for me and you both.”

“I don’t need help getting to bed.”

Dropping the bags, she turned a disgusted look on him. “Really? You can unbutton your jeans and shirt? You can pull back the covers?”

Dear Lord, he was going crazy. Of course he couldn’t do those things. But how in hell could he let this woman undress him? To have her pretty brown hands touching him in such a way would be downright decadent.

“Well, I can manage somehow. There’s no need—”

“Look, Linc Ketchum, this is no time to be bashful or modest. I’m a nurse. I know all about men’s anatomies. Helping you out of your jeans won’t turn me three shades of red or make me want to attack you with lust in my eyes.”

She was so cute and sassy and reasonable that it made him furious. But he tried his best to bite it all back and behave as the cool cowboy he’d always believed himself to be.

“Miss Ortiz, you’ve just relieved all my worries,” he said curtly.

She studied his face, the faint grin on her lips coming and going along with the dimples in her cheeks. Linc forced himself to stay put even though her nearness was affecting him the way the scent of a wild deer excites a docile horse.

“I’m glad we got all that straight,” she said. “It would be awkward if we rubbed each other the wrong way right from the start.”

As far as Linc was concerned it would be awkward if they rubbed each other any way. But then he couldn’t rub her even if he wanted to. Not with hands that resembled two white clubs.

Trying not to look petulant, he jerked his head toward the door behind him. “That’s my room. So this one—” he motioned to the door behind her shoulder. “Would be the closest to mine.”

“Okay.”

She turned and opened the door and Linc felt compelled to follow her into the bedroom.

“Oh! This is lovely, too. Goodness, Victoria must have sent an army of maids up here. Everything looks so beautiful and it smells like wood polish.”

She walked over and trailed her fingers over the fat carved end post of the bed. Linc was surprised that she was so impressed with the house and its furnishings. He expected that as a nurse she made a very nice salary. Victoria wanted the best in her clinic, and he knew she would be willing to pay far more than hospital wages to this woman. But apparently she wasn’t used to expensive surroundings.

“Then I take it that the room is okay with you?” he asked.

She glanced around the room which had a small alcove that held a desk, chair and a graceful floor lamp.

“It’s more than okay. It’s just great,” she murmured as she ran fingers along the silky comforter on the bed. Turning to him, she smiled. “I’ve never lived anywhere this nice before. I’m not going to know how to feel,” she said, then laughing, she bounced on the edge of the mattress. “No broken springs or sags in the middle.”

“I’m sure your apartment is very nice,” he said as he stood watching her playful antics and wondering how it must feel to be that young and carefree. It had been so long, years and years, since he’d raced over the ranch yard with Ross and Seth and yelled at the top of his lungs with the pure joy of being alive and happy.

Seeing the sober look on his face took away some of the pleasure Nevada was feeling and the smile faded from her face. “It is nice for what I can afford. It takes a lot of money for rent and everything else that goes with making a living. Especially when you’re trying to save, too.”

Linc suddenly felt a little ashamed of himself. He’d never had to worry about money. His father had left him a fairly large inheritance and since then he’d earned plenty by managing the horse-breeding program for the ranch. In fact, money was something Linc rarely thought about. His home was on the ranch and he didn’t want for many material things. But apparently Nevada didn’t have it so easy.

“What are you saving for?”

She appeared surprised that he asked the question and frankly, he’d surprised himself. It was none of his business what she did with herself or her money. But something seemed to have happened to his common sense since Nevada Ortiz stepped out of her dusty little car.

She shrugged. “Oh, well, you know, the normal things. Mainly the future. For a family.”

His brows slowly lifted as he watched her wavy black hair slide over one pert little breast. “You have someone you’re planning to make a family with?”

Laughing softly, she rose from the mattress. “Goodness no! I have plenty of boyfriends, but none of them are husband material.”

His frown was tinged with disgust. “If they’re not husband material, then what are they?”

“Well, I’m sure you have girlfriends. It’s the same thing. They’re just companions, guys that I enjoy doing things with.”

Linc wanted to kick himself for suddenly feeling so disillusioned. Just what was he expecting from this woman? he asked himself. She was young and beautiful. No doubt she had plenty of men friends she enjoyed herself with. To her they were probably nothing more than toys.

Ignoring the part about the girlfriends, he said, “If that’s the case, then what do you call husband material?”

Pursing her lips with displeasure she shook her head. “I’m not really thinking about that now. I’m only twenty-five. I’m not ready to settle down. In fact, I’m not sure that I ever want to get married.”

“You just said you wanted a family,” he reminded her.