Cowboy's Caress

She thanked Evie Lee when she took the crutches from her and was all too aware of Evie Lee’s father keeping his hands at the ready to catch her again when she turned and made her way to the front door on them.

“It isn’t locked,” she informed him when they’d reached it and he seemed to be waiting for her to produce a key. “No reason to lock doors in Elk Creek. It isn’t a high-crime area, so nobody bothers for the most part.”

“Nice,” he commented as he opened the old-fashioned screen and then the heavy oak panel with the leaded glass oval in its center.

Carly hobbled through ahead of him, stopping in the entryway at the foot of the stairs that led to the upper level. “We’re all too tired for the tour, so I’ll just give you directions, if that’s okay.”

“Fine.”

“The master bedroom is the first one at the top of the steps. I thought Evie Lee might like the one beside it. That was my sister’s and it’s still all done up for a little girl. I got them both ready for you yesterday, so there’s clean sheets on the beds and empty drawers for your things. The bathroom is down the hall a ways, along with the linen closet and the other bedrooms. Down here, you can see the kitchen at the end of this hall. That’s the living room—” she nodded over her right shoulder toward the room they could see from where they all stood “—and the dining room is beyond it, connected to the kitchen. There’s another bathroom and the den that you get to from under the stairs.”

“All we really need for right now are beds.”

“Me, too. The cottage is just across the back patio. That’s where I’ll be if you need me,” she said, pivoting on the crutches to face that direction.

“Can I help you get there?” he asked.

“No. I’m fine. Really,” she insisted, adding, “Sleep well,” just before heading down the hall on her own.

She could feel him watching her the whole way, and she was glad when she finally got far enough into the kitchen to be out of his line of vision.

But somehow that didn’t take away the lingering sense of those eyes on her and the inexplicable feeling of heat that they’d caused.

All part of the weird side effects of a sleepless night, she told herself.

But still she hoped she hadn’t made a mistake in keeping her agreement to let Bax McDermot move in before she’d actually moved out.

Because sleep-deprived or not, something inside her was sitting up and taking notice of too many things about the man.

And that didn’t have any place at all in her plans.

Chapter Two

For a split second when Bax first woke up he thought he was back in the days of his residency when it wasn’t unusual to work a twenty-four-hour shift and catch forty winks in any empty bed he could find, at any time of day he could manage it.

Then he remembered that he was long past that particular portion of his life and he searched his memory until he recalled that he was in Elk Creek, Wyoming, in the bed in one of the rooms in the house he’d rented.

Carly Winters’s house.

A wave of satisfaction washed through him.

He was just so damn glad to be out of the city.

He was a small-town boy at heart. Always had been. Except that the small town he’d grown up in had been in Texas rather than in Wyoming.

It had been exciting to leave that small town and go to medical school, exciting to practice medicine in the hub of that same university since then. But he’d had a change of heart over the past couple of years. A change of heart that had made him want all he’d left behind. For himself. And for Evie Lee. Especially for Evie Lee.

He felt as if his daughter had gotten short shrift in the parent department so far in her young life. His wife had died on the delivery table, leaving Evie Lee semiorphaned right from the get-go. And Bax knew he hadn’t been the best of dads since then.

He’d thrown himself into his work to escape a grief that had seemed unbearable any other way, building up one of the largest medical practices in Denver. That had meant sixty- and seventy-hour workweeks, being on call most nights and weekends, and generally putting fatherhood second.

It had meant leaving Evie Lee in the care of a string of live-in nannies. Not all of whom had treated her well.

He wasn’t proud of any of that.

But he was going to rectify it.

Here and now, he thought as he opened his eyes to glance at the clock on the bedside table.

Three o’clock on a Sunday afternoon and a new life had begun for both him and Evie Lee. He’d make sure of it.

Bax yawned, stretched, then clasped his hands behind his head and had a look around the room that had been predesignated his.

The bed was a fair-size four-poster. At the foot of it was a television on a stand against the facing wall. A tall, five-drawer dresser was to the right of the bed. And a door that no doubt led to a closet was to the left.

The whole room was painted a serene shade of beige, with the woodworking all stained oak. Crisp tieback white curtains bordered the two large windows on either side of the television, with scalloped shades pulled down to the sills of both.

The room was comfortable. Functional. Charmingly old-fashioned.

He liked it.

And he wondered if this had been Carly Winters’s own room.

Probably not, he decided. It didn’t smell the way she did.

Not that it smelled anything but clean. But he sort of wished it had that faintly lingering scent of honey and almonds that he’d caught a whiff of when he’d carried her to the porch. It was a nice smell.

A nice smell to go with a nice-looking lady, he thought.

Sure, she’d shown the wear and tear of a long night in an emergency room. But despite that, she was still a head-turner.

Besides smelling great, her hair was so smooth and silky and shiny, it had made him want to yank that pencil out of it and watch the tresses drift like layers of silk down around her face.

A face that glowed with flawless, satiny skin.

She had a rosebud of a mouth that was pink and perfect and much too appealing even without lipstick. She also had a cute, perky nose that was dotted with only a few pale freckles he wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been so close.

Artfully arched eyebrows and long, thick lashes accentuated stunning, unusual eyes, too. Brown eyes, but shot through with golden streaks that made them the color of topaz. Sparkling topaz.

Her body hadn’t been anything to ignore, either. She was on the small side, weighing next to nothing when he’d lifted her. But petite stature or not, when she’d put her arm around his shoulder to help bear some of the burden, he’d felt a more than adequate breast press enticingly into his shoulder.

Oh yeah, it was all nice. Very nice…

And strange that he should remember everything about her so vividly.

Particularly when the other woman he’d met that morning was just a vague blur in his mind. He wasn’t even sure he’d recognize the other woman again if he met her on the street, and for the life of him he couldn’t recall her name.

Yet every detail of Carly Winters was right there in his mind’s eye.

Making him stare up at the ceiling with a smile on his face…

Cut it out, he told himself.

But that was easier said than done.

In fact, it was damn difficult to get her out of his thoughts, he discovered when he tried.

Maybe it was just that he was in her house, in a room that might have been hers. In a bed she might have slept in…

The idea of that stirred even more uninvited responses inside him, and he wondered where the hell it was all coming from.

But wherever this reaction was coming from, he put a concerted effort into chasing it away, reminding himself that he hadn’t moved to Elk Creek to think…or feel…things like he was thinking and feeling at that moment. It just wasn’t in his game plan.

He’d come to the small town to concentrate on practicing medicine and to raise his daughter hands-on, full-time, which was why it had been so important to live a stone’s throw from where he worked. And he wasn’t interested in trying to add a woman to the picture. He’d already made that mistake once, and he wasn’t going to make it again.

But not even the reminder of his second marriage, which was the worst thing he’d ever done in his life and in Evie Lee’s, not even his determination to conquer those thoughts of Carly helped to get the image of her out of his head. Or stopped those stirred-up feelings that went with them.

“Must be the house,” he muttered, convincing himself that the place was somehow infused with the essence of her, and that was why he couldn’t stop thinking about her, remembering how she’d looked, smelled, felt in his arms.

But as soon as she was gone and he and Evie Lee had settled in and taken over the place, all that would be different. The house would be theirs and Carly Winters would only be a faint memory.

He was sure of it.

He just wondered how long it would take for her to be well enough to leave.

And that was when he realized he hadn’t even asked what was wrong with her or what kind of an accident she’d had.

“Some good doctor you are,” he chastised himself.

But he was a good doctor. Ordinarily. In fact, he’d been named Doctor of the Year for the past four years running. Yet meeting Carly Winters had thrown him off-kilter.

Oh yeah, something very strange was going on, all right.

But strange or not, topaz eyes or not, honey-scented hair or not, it didn’t matter. Before long Carly Winters would be gone and he was going to be the best damn doctor Elk Creek had ever had. And, more importantly, the best damn dad Evie Lee could possibly have.

And that was that.

Except that even as he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the mattress his first thought was whether Carly was up and about yet.

And if their paths might cross again anytime soon…

Carly might have slept longer if not for the quiet humming that was coming from beside her bed.

There was no real tune to it and it was terribly off-key, so she knew from the start that it wasn’t coming from the clock radio on the nightstand. And since no one had any reason to be in the cottage at all, let alone while she slept, the sound brought her abruptly awake.

Her eyes opened to the sight of the youngest of her new tenants sitting patiently on the dated, barrel-backed chair that was against the wall to the left of the bed, facing it.

Evie Lee was dressed just as she’d been when Carly had first seen her on the porch—short pink overalls and a white T-shirt dotted with rosebuds. But her wavy blond hair was matted and standing up on one side as if that were the side she’d slept on and hadn’t bothered to brush or comb since getting up.

If Carly had to bet on it, she’d wager that Evie Lee had woken up and come exploring without her father’s knowledge. He was probably still asleep. Or at least thought his daughter was.

“Hi,” the little girl said when she saw Carly’s eyes open.

“Hi.”

“I got tired of sleepin’ and I came to visit you. Is that okay?”

“You can visit me any time at all,” Carly answered.

Evie Lee glanced around. “I like this place. It’s like a big playhouse.”

That was true enough. The cottage was one large room—with the exception of a separate bathroom. Only the furniture divided the open space into sections. A double bed, the antique oak nightstand and the visitor’s chair Evie Lee was occupying made up the bedroom. A round, pedestaled café table with two cane-backed chairs and a wet bar were the dining area. A pale-blue plaid love seat, matching overstuffed chair and a television comprised the living room, although the TV was positioned so that it could be seen from anywhere in the room.

The cottage had a history as a guest house and also as a sometimes hospital room where her father had put up patients he’d wanted to keep a close eye on.

It was pleasant and airy, though, with off-white walls of painted paneling and ruffled curtains on the windows to give it a homey atmosphere.

“I don’t remember your name,” the little girl said bluntly.

“Carly.”

“Is that what I can call you, or do I have to call you Miss or something like at school?”

“You can call me Carly.”

“You can call me Evie Lee Lewis.”

“Thank you,” Carly said with a smile, sitting up in bed and bracing her back against the headboard. “Have you been to school yet?” she asked the little girl.

“I went to kindergarten before the summer and when the summer is over and it’s schooltime again I’ll be in the first grade. You go all day long in that grade. I hope I like it. I hope it’s not too much stressful. Alisha had a lot of stressfuls and then she’d go to bed and I wouldn’t want to have to go to first grade and then have to go to bed.”

“Alisha?” Carly repeated, her interest sparked at the mention of a woman’s name.

“Alisha was my sort-of mom for a while but she didn’t like me. She liked my daddy. But she didn’t like me. She said I was a bad kid and that I was a stressful and a pest and a pain-in-the—”

“Where did she go?”

“Away. My daddy sent her away because she locked me in the closet because I was naughty one day and I put on her shoes and messed up some of her lipsticks.”

The thought of putting this little girl or any other child in a closet raised Carly’s hackles. “Sounds like your daddy did the right thing by sending her away.”

“He was really mad.”

“Good for him. He should have been.”

“How did you hurt yourself?”

“I fell and sprained my ankle.”

“I got a bad scratch on my elbow. See?” Evie Lee displayed the underside of her elbow. “I got it on Mikey Stravoni’s slide and then I got a scab but I picked at it till it comed off and then it bleeded all over the place and my daddy said ‘I told you not to pick off that scab’ because he’s a doctor.”

Carly laughed at the lowered-voice imitation, enjoying the child who looked so much like her father that staring at her conjured flashes of the man himself in Carly’s mind’s eye. Flashes that left her with more eagerness to see him again than she wanted to acknowledge.

“Does your ankle hurt?” Evie Lee asked.

“A little.”

“Sometimes if you pinch yourself really hard somewhere else you’ll forget about it.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Could I play with your crutches when you don’t need ’em?”

“Sure, but they’ll be awfully big for you.”

“You have pretty eyes.”

“So do you.”

“I have pretty hair, too,” Evie Lee said matter-of-factly. “Will you show me how to put a pencil in it?”

“I will if you want me to. But we could probably put something prettier than a pencil in it.”

“Okay,” Evie Lee said with enthusiasm, her pale eyebrows taking flight with the anticipation. “My daddy is no good at hair combing. He says he could do surgery better. Do you have any l’il kids?”

“I’m afraid not. I’m not married.”

“Me, neither. My daddy isn’t neither, too. Are there any l’il kids around here to play with?”

Carly eased herself to the edge of the bed, letting both feet dangle over the side to test how her ankle felt when it wasn’t propped up. It hurt more, but it wasn’t unbearable.

“There’s a little girl up the street,” she answered.

“How old is she?”

“I think she’s six.”

“That’s good. That’s how old I am—six. I just turned it and I got Angel Barbie for my birthday because she’s the prettiest one.”

“You’ll have to show her to me.”

“I could go get her now.”

“I think we’ll have to do that later. My sister is at the medical building where your daddy will be working. She just had a baby last night and I want to go over and see how she is.”

“What kind of baby?”

“A boy.”

“Can I come with you?”

Carly laughed again, not minding the little girl’s chattiness or persistence. “It’s okay with me if it’s okay with your dad. But we can’t go without checking with him first.”

Evie Lee hopped out of the chair. “I’ll go ask him right now.”

“I want to clean up and then I’ll come across to the house to check with him.”

“I’ll clean up, too,” Evie Lee said as if she liked the idea.

The child ran for the door, opened it and turned back to Carly. “See ya.”

“See ya,” Carly answered.

And out went Evie Lee.

Since Carly wasn’t too sure whether or not the little girl might return within minutes—alone or with her father—she wasted no time getting to her crutches and heading for the bathroom.

But on the way she realized she was wearing only her slip, that the dress she’d had on the night before was tossed over the back of the love seat, and that she hadn’t brought any of her things with her from the house.

That meant she couldn’t take the fast shower she had in mind or so much as run a comb through her hair or brush her teeth or fix her face or change her clothes.

It also meant that if Bax McDermot was up and about, she was going to have to meet him looking even worse than she had the first time.

Not a proposition she relished.

But what was she going to do? She was in the cottage and everything she needed was in the house. She didn’t have any choice.

Her only hope was that he was still asleep and she could slip in and out before he woke up.

With that in mind, she put her dress back on over her slip and made her way out of the cottage.

The cottage was separated from the main house by only an eight-foot, brick-paved breezeway. The breezeway was covered on top but open on either side so it could be used as a patio in good weather. There was a cedar wood bench seat along one side, but Carly had left the rest of the patio furniture—chairs and small tables—in the garage so far this season. Minus the clutter of it, she maneuvered herself and the crutches across the breezeway without impediment.

When she reached the back door, she peeked in the window that filled the top half of it and spotted Evie Lee alone in the kitchen, standing on a ladder-backed chair to get herself a glass of water.

Carly knocked on the door to draw the child’s attention and then opened it enough to poke her head in. “Is your dad around?”

“He’s in the shower so I didn’t ask him yet about going with you. But he’ll be out in a little bit.”

Carly didn’t want to think about Bax being in her shower. Naked in her shower…

“I need to get up to my room. All my things are still in it.”

Evie Lee jumped down from the chair as if it were a tall cliff. “Okay. Come on.”

Carly pushed the door open wide with the end of one crutch and got herself through it. But as she did, it occurred to her that if she didn’t let the new doctor know she was coming inside, she was liable to bump into him accidentally. As he left the bathroom after his shower. Maybe not dressed…

And while that possibility erupted some wild goose bumps on the surface of her skin, she knew she couldn’t let it happen.

“I think it might be a good idea for you to go up and warn him I’m here.”

“It’s all right. He’s always in the shower for a looong time. Come on,” Evie Lee encouraged with a flapping wave of her hand, shooting off ahead of Carly.

Carly didn’t seem to have a choice but to follow, wishing the whole way that she could just send Evie Lee to get what she needed.

But most everything was packed and Carly had closed the suitcases to make sure she could. Evie Lee was too small to deal with what it would involve to get into them.

The stairs to the upper level presented a problem and after several attempts with the crutches, Carly conceded that she needed help.

Since Evie Lee was already on the landing at the top, Carly said, “I’m going to need you to carry the crutches up for me. But why don’t you let your dad know I’m coming first.”

Evie Lee shrugged and did her little-girl-happy-dance until she was out of sight.

Carly heard her holler through the door to her father that Carly was there, but no answer came in response.

“He can’t hear me,” Evie Lee said a moment later, at the top of the steps again. “It’ll be all right. I told you, he’ll be in there for a really, really long time.”

The prospect of standing there waiting for that really, really long time was not appealing. Especially when the alternative was that Carly could get in and out of her room without seeing him at all.

“Okay. Come and get the crutches for me, then.”

The child obliged and while Evie Lee dragged them up in front of Carly, Carly used the banister to aid in hopping one step at a time on her good foot.

It was noisy and awkward and Carly kept up a silent chant of Please don’t let him come out of the bathroom, Please don’t let him come out of the bathroom, the whole way.

When both she and Evie Lee had finally made it to the top and Carly was on the crutches again, she realized that sometime during the trip the shower water had stopped running. Not a good sign.

Before she moved from that spot at the top of the stairs, she said, “It sounds like your dad is out of the shower. Knock on the bathroom door and yell in again to let him know I’m out here.”

“Okay,” the child agreed as if she just didn’t understand what the big deal was.

But Evie Lee barely made it to the door when it opened before she had the chance to do or say anything. And out stepped Bax.

It was obvious he was fresh from the shower. His short hair was still damp and all he had on was a pair of faded blue jeans that rode low on his hips. His feet were bare and so was his entire upper body—broad shoulders, big biceps, muscled pectorals, flat belly and all.

And an even worse case of goose bumps sprang to the surface of Carly’s skin than the mere thought of the same scenario had caused.

“Whoops,” Evie Lee said at the look of surprise on her father’s face. “I was just comin’ to tell you Carly was out here.”

“I’m sorry,” Carly was quick to say. Once she could drag her eyes off his chest. “I didn’t bring any of my stuff with me to the cottage, and I was trying to get to my room for it now. Evie Lee knocked before and called in to you, but you must not have been able to hear her.”

And didn’t Carly just want to crawl into a hole rather than face him looking the way she did!

Bax recovered himself and granted her a smile that made her suddenly feel wobbly on the crutches. “No problem. Do you want to use the bathroom up here?”

Hot, steamy air was wafting out into the hallway, smelling like a far more manly soap than she’d ever used. The idea of stepping into that was too arousing to entertain.

“No, I’d rather just take my things down to the cottage.”

“How did you plan to do that?” he asked reasonably.

Only then did it occur to her that he was right. How was she going to manage suitcases and crutches, too?

“I guess I hadn’t thought it through,” she admitted.

“I don’t mind if you want to use the bathroom up here, but if you’d rather not I can carry your things down to the cottage for you.”

She didn’t know how he could be so calm and collected when she felt like a blithering idiot.

But then, he wasn’t looking at the magnificent specimen she was looking at. He was looking at her, dressed in the same rumpled sundress she’d gone to her going-away party in, her face unwashed in more hours than she wanted to think about and her hair straggling around her ears, weeping for a comb.

“It would be great if you could bring my suitcases down to the cottage,” she said when she found her voice. “There’s a full bathroom down there. In fact, it’s better equipped for someone incapacitated because my dad sometimes had patients stay there. Well, not in the bathroom—I mean, he’d have patients stay in the cottage. But the bathroom has grab bars and a seat in the shower and—”

She stopped herself before she babbled anymore.