Dancing in the Moonlight

He was quite certain she had no idea her impact in his life had been so profound.

If not for her, he wasn’t sure he would even have become a doctor. Though sometimes it seemed his decision to pursue medicine had been blooming inside him all his life, he could pinpoint three incidences that had cemented it.

Oddly enough, all three of them involved Maggie in some way.

Though the Rancho de la Luna was next door, he hadn’t noticed Maggie much through most of his youth. Why should he? She was three years younger, the same age as Seth, and a girl to boot. A double whammy against her, as far as he’d been concerned.

Oh, he saw her every day, since she and the Dalton boys rode the same school bus and even shared a bus stop, a little covered shack out on the side of the road between their houses to protect them in inclement weather.

Her father constructed it, of course. It never would have occurred to Hank Dalton his sons might be cold waiting outside for the bus in the middle of a January blizzard.

Even if he thought of it, he probably wouldn’t have troubled himself to make things easier on his sons. Jake could almost hear him. A little snow never hurt anybody. What are you, a bunch of girls?

But Abel Cruz had been a far different kind of father. Kind and loving and crazy about his little girl. Jake could clearly remember feeling a tight knot of envy in his chest whenever he saw them together, at their easy, laughing relationship.

Maggie had been a constant presence in his life but one that didn’t make much of an impact on him until one cold day when he was probably eleven or twelve.

That morning Seth had been a little wheezy as they walked down the driveway to the bus. Jake hadn’t thought much about it, but while they were waiting for the bus, his wheezing had suddenly developed into a full-fledged asthma attack, a bad one.

Wade, the oldest, hadn’t been at the stop to take control of the situation that day since he’d been in the hospital in Idaho Falls having his appendix out, and Marjorie had stayed overnight with him.

Jake knew there was no one at the Cold Creek, and that he and Maggie would have to take care of Seth alone.

Looking back, he was ashamed when he remembered how frozen with helplessness and fear he’d felt for a few precious seconds. Maggie, no more than eight herself, took charge. She grabbed Seth’s inhaler from his backpack and set the medicine into the chamber.

“I’m going to get my mama. You stay and keep him calm,” he could remember her ordering in that bossy little voice. Her words jerked him out of his panic, and while she raced toward her house, he was able to focus on calming Seth down.

Seth had suffered asthma attacks since he was small, and Jake had seen plenty of them but he’d never been the one in charge before.

He remembered thinking as they sat there in the pale, early-morning sunlight how miraculous medicine could be. In front of his eyes, the inhaler did its work and his brother’s panicky gasps slowly changed to more regulated breathing.

A moment later, Viviana Cruz had come roaring down the driveway to their rescue in her big old station wagon and piled them all in to drive to Doc Whitaker’s clinic in town.

That had sparked the first fledgling fire inside him about becoming a doctor.

The second experience had been a year or so later. Maggie and Seth had still been friends of sorts, and the two of them had been tossing a baseball back and forth while they waited for the bus. Jake had been caught up in a book, as usual, and hadn’t been paying attention, but somehow Maggie had dived to catch it and landed wrong on her hand.

Her wrist was obviously broken, but she hadn’t cried, had only looked at Jake with trusting eyes while he tried to comfort her in a slow, soothing voice and carried her up the long driveway to the Luna ranch house, again to her mother.

The third incident was more difficult to think about, but he forced his mind to travel that uncomfortable road.

He had been fifteen, so Maggie and Seth would have been twelve. By then, Maggie had come to despise everything about the Daltons. They would wait for the bus at their shared stop in a tense, uncomfortable silence and she did her best to ignore them on the rides to and from Pine Gulch and school.

That afternoon seemed no different. He remembered the three of them climbing off the bus together and heading toward their respective driveways. He and Seth had only walked a short way up the gravel drive when he spotted a tractor in one of the fields still running and a figure crumpled on the ground beside it.

Seth must have hollered to Maggie, because the three of them managed to reach the tractor at about the same moment. Somehow Jake knew before he reached it who he would find there—the father he loved and hated with equal parts.

He could still remember the grim horror of finding Hank on the ground not moving or breathing, his harsh face frozen in a contortion of pain and his clawed fingers still curled against his chest.

This time, Jake quickly took charge. He sent Seth to the house to call for an ambulance, then he rapidly did an assessment with the limited knowledge of first aid he’d picked up in Boy Scouts.

“I know CPR,” he remembered Maggie offering quietly, her dark eyes huge and frightened. “I learned it for a babysitting class.”

For the next fifteen minutes the two of them worked feverishly together, Jake doing chest compressions and Maggie doing mouth-to-mouth. Only later did he have time to wonder about what kind of character strength it must have taken a young girl to work so frantically to save the life of a man she despised.

Those long moments before the volunteer ambulance crew arrived at the ranch would live forever in his memory. After the paramedics took over, he had stood back, shaky and exhausted.

He had known somehow, even as the paramedics continued compressions on his father while they loaded him into the ambulance, that Hank wouldn’t make it.

He remembered standing there feeling numb, drained, as they watched, when he felt a slight touch and looked down to find Maggie had slipped her small, soft hand in his. Despite her own shock, despite her fury at his father and her anger at his family, despite everything, she had reached out to comfort him when he needed it.

He had found it profoundly moving at the time.

He still did.

Maybe that was the moment he lost a little of his heart to her. For all the good it would ever do him. She wanted nothing more to do with him or his family, and he couldn’t really blame her.

He sighed as he hit the main road and headed down toward town. Near the western boundary of the Luna, he spotted a saddled horse standing out in a field, reins trailing. Maybe because he’d been thinking of his father’s heart attack, the sight left him wary, and he slowed his Durango and pulled over.

What would a saddled horse be doing out here alone? He wondered, then he looked closer and realized it wasn’t alone—Maggie sat on a fallen log near the creek, her left leg outstretched.

Even from the road he could see the pain in her posture. It took him half a second to cut his engine, climb out and head out across the field.

Chapter Three

He had always considered himself the most even-tempered of men. He didn’t get overly excited at sporting events, he had never struck another creature in anger, he could handle even the most dramatic medical emergencies that walked or were carried through his clinic doors with calm control.

But as Jake raced across the rutted, uneven ground toward Magdalena Cruz and her horse, he could feel the hot spike of his temper.

As he neared her, he caught an even better view of her. He ground his teeth with frustration mingled with a deep and poignant sadness for what she had endured.

She had her prosthesis off and the leg of her jeans rolled up, and even from a dozen feet away he could see her amputation site was a raw, mottled red.

As he neared, he saw her shoulders go back, her chin lift, as if she were bracing herself for battle. Good. He wasn’t about to disappoint her.

“Didn’t the Army teach you anything about common sense?” he snapped.

She glared at him, and he thought for sure his heart would crack apart as he watched her try to quickly yank the leg of her jeans down to cover her injury.

“You’re trespassing, Dalton. Last I checked this was still Rancho de la Luna land.”

“And last I checked, someone just a few days out of extensive rehab ought to have the good sense not to overdo things.”

She grabbed her prosthesis as if she wanted to shove it on again—or at least fling it in his face—but he grabbed hold of it before she could try either of those things.

“Stop. You’re only going to aggravate the site again.”

Every instinct itched to reach and take a look at her leg but he knew he had to respect her boundaries, just as he knew she wouldn’t welcome his efforts to look out for her.

“How long have you had this prosthesis?” he asked.

She clamped her teeth together as if she wasn’t going to answer him, but she finally looked away and mumbled. “A few weeks.”

“Didn’t your prosthetist warn you it would take longer than that to adjust to it?” he asked. “You can’t run a damn marathon the day after you stick it on.”

“I wasn’t trying to run a marathon,” she retorted hotly. “I was only checking the fence line. We had a couple cows get out last night and we’re trying to figure out where they made a break for it.”

“Two days back in town and you think you have to take over! Tell me why Guillermo couldn’t handle this job.”

She slanted him a dark look. “Tell me again why it’s any of your business.”

“Maggie.”

She sighed. “Guillermo can’t check the fence because he no longer works for the Luna.”

He blinked at this completely unexpected piece of information. “Since when?”

“Since he and my mother apparently had a falling out. Whether she fired him or he quit, I’m not exactly sure. Maybe both.”

Jake knew Guillermo Cruz had taken over running his brother’s ranch for Viviana after Abel’s death. As far as he could tell, the man was hardworking and devoted to the ranch. He knew Wade had nothing but respect for him and his older brother didn’t give his approval lightly.

“Anyway, he doesn’t work here now. It’s just Mama and me until she hires someone.”

He couldn’t take any more. Despite knowing the reaction he would get, he reached out and put a hand on the prosthesis she was trying to jam onto her obviously irritated residual leg, unable to bear watching her torture herself further.

“You don’t have to try to hide anything from me.”

“I wasn’t!” she exclaimed, though color crept up her high cheekbones.

“I’m a physician, remember? Will you please let me take a look to see what’s going on with your leg?”

“It’s just a little irritated,” she said firmly. “Nothing for you to be concerned about.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “Here are your choices. You either let me look at it or I’m packing you over my shoulder and driving you to the E.R. in Idaho Falls so someone there can examine you.”

She glared at him, her stance fully combative. “Try it, Dalton. I dare you.”

This bickering wasn’t accomplishing anything. He moderated his tone and tried for a conciliatory approach. “Don’t you think it’s foolish to put yourself through this kind of pain if you don’t have to? How quickly do you think you can get in to see a specialist at the VA? A week? Two? I’m here right now, offering to check things out. No appointment necessary.”

Her glare sharpened to a razor point, but just when he thought she would impale him on the sharp points of her temper, she drew a deep breath, her gaze focused somewhere far away from him, then slowly pulled the prosthesis away.

Despite his assurance that she didn’t have to hide anything from him, he found himself filled with an odd trepidation as he turned for his first real look at her amputation.

Despite the obvious irritation, her stump looked as if it had been formed well at Walter Reed, with a nice rounded shape that would make fitting a prosthesis much easier. Scar tissue from various surgeries puckered in spots but overall he was impressed with the work that had been done at the Army’s premier amputee care center.

She gave him possibly ninety seconds to examine her before she jerked away and pulled her jeans down again.

“Are you happy now?”

Despite her dusky skin, her cheeks burned with color and she looked as if she wished him to perdition.

“No,” he said bluntly. “If you were my patient, I’d recommend you put your leg up, rent a bunch of DVDs with your mother and just take it easy for a few days enjoying some time with Viv.”

“Too bad for you, I’m not your patient.”

He stood again. “And you won’t take my advice?”

She was silent for a moment and he had maybe five seconds to hope she might actually overcome her stubbornness and consider his suggestion, then she shook her head. “I can’t. My mother needs help. She can’t run Rancho de la Luna by herself.”

“Didn’t you say she was looking to hire help?”

“Sure. And I’m certain whole hordes of competent stockmen are just sitting around down at the feedlot shooting the breeze and waiting for somebody to come along and hire them.”

In the late-afternoon sunlight, she looked slight and fragile, with the pale, vaguely washed-out look of someone who had been inside too long.

All of his healer urges were crying out for him to scoop her off that log and take her home so he could care for her.

“Someone out there has to be available. What about some college kid looking for a summer job?”

“Maybe. But it’s going to take time to find someone. What do you suggest we do in the meantime? Just let the work pile up? I don’t know how things work at the Cold Creek, but Mama hasn’t quite figured out how to make the Luna run itself.”

His mind raced through possibilities—everything from seeing if Wade would loan one of the Cold Creek ranch hands to going down to the feed store himself to see if he might be able to shake any potential ranch managers out of the woodwork.

He knew she wouldn’t be crazy about either of those options but he had to do something. He couldn’t bear the idea of her working herself into the ground so soon after leaving the hospital.

“I can help you.”

While the creek rumbled over the rocks behind her and the wind danced in her hair, she stared at him for a full thirty seconds before she burst out laughing.

He decided it was worth being the butt of her amusement for the sheer wonder of watching her face lose the grim lines it usually wore.

“Why is that so funny?”

She laughed harder. “If you can’t figure it out, I’m not about to tell you. Here’s a suggestion for you, though, Dr. Dalton. Maybe you ought to take five seconds to think through your grand charitable gestures before you make them.”

“I don’t need to think it through. I want to help you.”

“And leave the good people of Pine Gulch to drive to Jackson or Idaho Falls for their medical care so you can diddle around planting our spring crop of alfalfa? That should go over well in town.”

“I have evenings and weekends mostly free and an afternoon or two here and there. I can help you when I’m not working at the clinic, at least with the major manual labor around here.”

She stopped laughing long enough to look at him more closely. Something in his expression must have convinced her he was serious because she gave him a baffled look.

“Surely you have something better to do with your free time.”

“Can’t think of a thing,” he said cheerfully, though Caroline’s lecture still rang in his ears.

Maggie shook her head. “That’s just sad, Doctor. But you’ll have to find something else to entertain you, because my answer is still no.”

“Just like that?”

He didn’t want to think about the disappointment settling in his gut—or the depressing realization that he was desperate for any excuse to spend more time with her.

If she had any idea his attraction for her had any part in his motive behind offering to help her and Viv, she would be chasing him off the Luna with a shotgun.

“Right. Just like that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work.”

She moved to put her prosthesis back on but he reached a hand to stop her, his mind racing to come up with a compromise she might consider. “What if we made a deal? Would that make accepting my help a little easier to swallow?”

She slid back against the log with a suspicious frown. “What kind of deal?”

“A day for a day. I’ll give you my Saturday to help with the manual labor.”

“And what do you want in exchange?”

“A fair trade. You give me a day in return.”

* * *

Why wouldn’t the man just leave?

Maggie drew a breath, trying to figure out this latest angle. What did he want from her? Hadn’t he humiliated her enough by insisting on looking at her ugly, raw-looking stump? The man seemed determined to push her as far as he could.

“Give you a day for what?” she asked warily.

“I’m in dire need of a translator. I open my clinic on Wednesdays for farm workers and their families. A fair number of them don’t have much English and my Spanish is limited at best. I’ve been looking for someone with a medical background to translate for me.”

“No.”

“Come on, Maggie. Who would be more perfect than a bilingual nurse practitioner?”

“Former nurse practitioner. I’m retired.”

His pupils widened. “Retired? Why would you want to do that, for heaven’s sake?”

She had a million reasons but the biggest was right there in front of her. Who the hell wanted a one-legged nurse? One who couldn’t stand for long periods of time, who was constantly haunted by phantom pain, who had lost all of her wonder and much of her respect for the medical establishment over the last five months?

No, she had put that world behind her.

In civilian life, she had loved being a nurse practitioner in a busy Scottsdale pediatric practice. She had admired the physicians she worked with, had loved the challenge and delight of treating children and even had many parents who preferred to have her, rather than the pediatricians, see and treat their children.

How could she go back to that world? She just didn’t have what it took anymore, physically or emotionally. It was part of her past, one more loss she was trying to accept.

She certainly didn’t need Jake’s accusatory tone laying a guilt trip on her for her choices. “I don’t recall making you my best friend here, Dalton,” she snapped. “My reasons are my own.”

More than anything, she wanted him to leave her alone, but she had no idea how to do that, other than riding off in a grand huff, something she wasn’t quite capable of right now.

“Whatever they are, one day translating for me is not going to bring you out of permanent retirement. These people need somebody like you who can translate the medical terminology into words they can understand. I do my best, but there are many times I know both me and my patients walk out of the exam room with more questions than answers.”

“I’m not interested,” she repeated firmly.

He opened his mouth, gearing up for more arguments, no doubt. After a moment he shrugged. “Your call, then.”

She stared at him, waiting for the other punch. Dalton men weren’t known for giving up a good fight and they rarely took pity on their opponents, either.

Jake only stood, brushing leaves and pine needles off the knees of his tan Dockers. “I’m sure you know the risks of wearing your prosthesis too long at a stretch if it’s causing that kind of irritation. If I were your doctor—which, as you said, too bad for me I’m not—I would advise you to leave it off for the rest of the day.”

“I can’t ride a horse without it.”

Exasperation flickered in his blue eyes. “I can give you a ride back to the ranch. We can walk the horse behind my Durango.”

She hated herself for the little flickers of temptation inside her urging her to accept his offer. The pain—or more accurately, the powerful need to find something to ease it—sometimes overwhelmed every ounce of common sense inside her.

She wanted so much to accept his offer of a ride rather than face that torturous horseback ride back to the ranch, but the very strength of her desire was also the reason she had to refuse.

“Thanks, but I think I’ll just wear it back to the house and then rest for a while after that.”

He studied her for a moment, then shook his head. “You could teach stubborn to a whole herd of mules, Lieutenant Cruz. Will you at least let me help you mount?”

She had no choice, really. At the barn she had used Viviana’s mounting block to climb into the saddle.

Even with the block, mounting had been a challenge, accomplished best in the privacy of her own barnyard where she didn’t have an audience to watch her clumsy efforts.

Here, she had nothing to help her—unless she could convince the horse to come to this fallen log and stand still out of the goodness of her heart while Maggie maneuvered into the saddle.

He reached a hand out. “Come on. It won’t kill you to say yes.”

To him, it might. She swallowed. “Yes. Okay. Thank you. Just a moment. I have to put the prosthesis back on or I won’t be able to dismount.”

“I can help you with that, too. I’ll just drive around to the barn and meet you there.”

Just leave, for heaven’s sake! “No. I’ll be fine.”

Ignoring the sharp stabs of pain, she pulled her stump sock back on, then the prosthesis over that. With no small amount of pride in the minor accomplishment, she forced herself to move casually toward the sweet little bay mare she liked to ride whenever she was home.

Jake met her at the horse’s side. Instead of simply giving her a boost into the saddle as she expected, he lifted her into his arms with what appeared to be no effort.

For just a moment he held her close. He smelled incredible, a strangely compelling mixture of fabric softener, clean male and some kind of ruggedly sexy aftershave that reminded her of standing in a high mountain forest after a summer storm.

She couldn’t believe how secure she felt to have strong male arms around her, even for a moment—even though those arms belonged to Jake Dalton.

Her heart pounded so hard she thought he must certainly be able to hear it, and she needed every iota of concentration to keep her features and her body language coolly composed so he wouldn’t sense her reaction was anything but casual.

He lifted her into the saddle and set her up, careful not to jostle her leg, then he stepped away.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“No problem. I’ll meet you at the barn to help you dismount.”

“That’s not necessary,” she assured him firmly. “My dad built a mounting block for my mother to help compensate for her lack of height. It works well for us cripples, too.”

His mouth tightened but before he could say anything, she dug her heels into the mare’s side and headed across the field without another word.

Her mother would have been furious at her for her rudeness. But Viviana wasn’t there—and anyway, her mother had always had a blind spot about the Daltons.

Because Marjorie was her best friend, she didn’t think the arrogant, manipulative males of the family could do any wrong.

Ten minutes later Maggie reached the barn. She wasn’t really surprised to find the most manipulative of those males standing by the mounting block, waiting to help her down.

He wore sunglasses against the late-afternoon sun, and they shielded his expression, but she didn’t need to see his eyes to be fairly sure he was annoyed that she’d ridden away from him so abruptly.

Too bad. She was annoyed with him, too.

“I told you I didn’t need help,” she muttered as she guided the mare alongside it.