Lucy and The Lieutenant

“Can I talk to you?”

Lucy looked up from her tea. Brant stood beside the small table. “Oh...sure.”

He pulled out the chair opposite. “Can I get you anything? More coffee?”

“Tea,” she corrected and shook her head. “And I’m good. What can I do for you?”

It sounded so perfunctory...when inside she was churning. He looked so good in jeans and a black shirt and leather jacket. His brown hair was long, too, as it had been in high school, curling over his collar a little—a big change from the regulation military crew cut she was used to seeing when he came back to town in between tours. There was a small scar on his left temple and another under his chin, and she wondered how he’d gotten them. War wounds? Perhaps they were old football injuries or from school-yard antics? Or when he used to work horses with his brother? He’d always looked good in the saddle. She had spent hours pretending to have her nose in a book while she’d watched him ride from the sidelines. At twelve she’d had stars in her eyes. At twenty-seven she felt almost as foolish.

She took a breath and stared at him. “So...what is it?”

“My uncle is seventy-three years old, and I know he has health issues and might not have a lot of time left. I also know that he trusts you.”

“And?” she prompted.

He shrugged one shoulder. “And I was thinking that once he gets to the hospital in Rapid City there will be a whole lot of people there who he doesn’t trust poking and prodding and making judgment calls and decisions about him.”

Lucy stilled. “And?” she prompted again.

“And he’d probably prefer it if you were around to see to things.”

She eyed him shrewdly. “He would?”

His other shoulder moved. “Okay... I would.”

“You want me to go to the hospital with him?”

“Well...yes.”

“I’m not on staff there,” she explained, increasingly conscious of his intense gaze. “I couldn’t interfere with his treatment or be part of his appointments with specialists.”

“I know that,” Brant replied softly, his attention unwavering. “But you could be there to explain things...you know, to make sense of things.”

Lucy drank some tea and then placed the paper cup on the table. “With you?”

He shrugged again. “Sure.”

“Won’t that go against your determination to avoid me and my wicked plans to ensnare you with my white picket fence?”

His eyes darkened. She was teasing him. And Brant Parker clearly didn’t like to be teased.

“This is about my uncle,” he replied, his jaw clenching. “Not us.”

The silly romantic in her wanted to swoon at the way he said the word us. But she didn’t.

“I do have the day off tomorrow,” she said, thinking she was asking for a whole lot of complications by agreeing to his request. But she did genuinely care about Joe Parker.

“So...yes?” he asked.

Lucy nodded slowly. “Sure. I’ll arrange for the ambulance to leave here around nine in the morning and we can follow in my car.”

“I’ll drive. We’ll take my truck.”

Lucy gave in to the laughter she felt. “Boy, you’re predictable. Clearly my little Honda isn’t macho enough.”

“I need to get some building supplies from Rapid City,” he shot back, unmoving. “I don’t think the footrest for the bar that I’m having made will fit in your little Honda, Dr. Monero. Besides the fact that your car is unreliable.”

“I had my car towed and the battery replaced yesterday, so it’s as good as new.” Her cheeks colored. “And I thought we agreed you were going to call me Lucy?”

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Did we? Okay, Lucy, I’ll pick you up around nine.”

* * *

His uncle looked much better the following day, but Brant was still pleased he was going to be assessed in Rapid City. He was also pleased that Lucy Monero had agreed to go with him. He knew it was a big favor to ask. But she’d agreed, even when she had every reason not to. He’d acted like a stupid jerk the night she’d broken down outside the tavern.

He waited in the foyer while his uncle was being prepped for the trip in the ambulance, and Lucy sidled up beside him around two minutes past nine. She looked effortlessly pretty in jeans, heeled boots, a bright red sweater that clung to her curves and a fluffy white jacket. Her hair was down, flowing over her shoulders in a way that immediately got his attention.

“You’re late,” he said, grinning fractionally.

“I’ve been here for ages,” she replied and crossed her arms, swinging her tote so hard it hit him on the behind. “Oh, sorry,” she said breathlessly and then smiled. “The ambulance is about to leave, so we should get going.”

Brant rattled his keys. “Okay.”

It was cold out, but at least the snow had stopped falling and the roads were being cleared.

“Once you’ve finished renovating the Loose Moose,” she said when they reached his truck and he opened the creaky passenger door, “you might want to consider giving this old girl an overhaul.”

Brant waited until she was inside and grabbed the door. “Are you dissing my ride?”

She laughed. “Absolutely.”

He shut the door and walked around the front. “That’s cruel,” he said once he slid in behind the wheel and started the engine. “I’ve had this truck since I was sixteen.”

“I know,” she said, and fiddled with the Saint Christopher magnet stuck on the dash. “You bought it off Mitch Culhane for two hundred bucks.”

Brant laughed, thinking about how Grady had gone ballistic when he’d come home with the old truck that was blowing black smoke from the exhaust. The truck hadn’t really been worth a damn back then, but he’d fixed it up some over the years. “How do you know that?”

She shrugged. “I think Brooke told me. We’re friends, remember?”

He nodded. “I know that. She’s another fan of yours.”

“Another?”

“My mom,” he replied, smirking a little. “Patron Saint Lucia.”

Her eyes flashed. “How do you know my real name?” she asked as if it was something she didn’t like.

“I think Brooke told me,” he said then shrugged. “We’re family...remember?”

“Funny guy,” she quipped sweetly. “And I didn’t think the Parkers and Culhanes were friends.”

“Grady and I used to get into some scrapes with the Culhane brothers,” he admitted wryly. “But since we shared a mutual dislike of the O’Sullivans we were friends more often than not.”

“He still shouldn’t have sold you this crappy old truck,” she said. “You took Trudy Perkins to prom in it.”

That’s not all he’d done with Trudy on prom night, he thought, but he wasn’t about to say that to the woman beside him. Trudy had been the wildest girl in their grade back then. And she’d had him wrapped around her little finger. He’d been a typical teenage boy and at the time Trudy had been his every fantasy.

But he’d changed. He didn’t want that now. He wanted...well, he didn’t have a damned clue what he wanted. All he knew was that there was nothing crass or easy about Lucy. She was kind and innocent. The kind of girl his mother approved of. Hell, the kind of girl his mother kept pushing him toward.

“I wonder what happened to Trudy,” he said as he drove from the parking lot.

“She lives in Oregon. She married some rich banker and had three kids. I guess she could be divorced by now.”

Brant glanced sideways. “How do you know this stuff?”

She shrugged. “I’m a doctor. People tell me things.”

“Clearly.”

“Except you wouldn’t, right?” she said and leaned back in the seat. “You keep everything to yourself.”

“Not everything.”

“Everything,” she said again. “Say, if I asked you what you were doing talking with Parker enemy number one, Liam O’Sullivan, the other night, you’d shrug those broad shoulders of yours and say it was just business.”

“Well, it was.”

She laughed softly and the sound hit him in the solar plexus. “When everyone knows he’s trying to buy you out because he hates the idea of competition.”

“Everyone knows that, do they?”

“Sure. He told Kayla and Kayla told me.”

“Kayla?” he inquired. “That’s your friend with the supermodel looks?”

“The one in the same. Every man notices Kayla. She’s the original blonde bombshell.”

Brant made a small grunting sound. “I’ve always preferred brunettes myself.”

She glanced at him and then looked to the road ahead. “Could have fooled me.”

Brant bit back a smile. “It’s true.”

“Trudy was blond,” she said, frowning a little. “Remember?”

“She was brunette,” he replied. “Trudy dyed her hair.”

She snorted. “I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the only fake part.”

Brant wasn’t one to kiss and tell, but the disapproval in Lucy’s voice about the other woman’s surgically enhanced attributes made him smile. “You could be right.”

Lucy Monero had a habit of doing that. Whatever transpired between them, however much he desired her, wanted her, imagined kissing her, there was something else going on, too. Because he liked her. She was sweet and funny and good to be around. A balm for a weary soul. Something he could get used to, if he’d let himself. Not that he would.

“Incidentally,” he said, speaking without his usual reserve. “Don’t confuse my reluctance for disinterest.”

“You really do talk in riddles sometimes,” she said and then gave a soft laugh. “But I least I have you talking.”

She did. In fact, he’d done a whole lot more talking with Lucy than he had with anyone outside his mother and brother and Uncle Joe for the past six months. “Communicating is important to you, isn’t it?”

“People are important to me.”

“I guess they have to be, considering your profession. Is that why you chose to become a doctor?”

She didn’t answer and he glanced toward her and saw her gaze was downcast. She was thinking, remembering. Lost in some secret world of her own for a moment. She looked beautiful and just a little sad.

“No,” she said finally. “It was because of my mom.”

Brant could vaguely recall Katie Monero. She’d spoken with an Irish brogue and had taught dance lessons at the studio above the bakery in town. She’d married an Irish/Italian rancher who’d had no idea about cattle and horses, and who had died when Lucy was an adolescent. The crash that had taken her mother’s life a few years later was a tragic accident. Katie had lost control of her car while a seventeen-year-old Lucy had dozed beside her. Katie had been flung from the car and Lucy had survived with barely a scratch.

“Because of the accident? It wasn’t your fault, though.”

“No,” she said and sighed. “But my mom was alive for over ten minutes before the paramedics arrived. I didn’t know what to do. I went numb. If I had put pressure on the main wound she might have had a chance. But I didn’t know...and I vowed I’d never be in that position again. So I decided to go to medical school and become a doctor. I wanted to know that if I was ever in that position again that I would be able to do things differently.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.