The Least Likely Groom

“Dance with me, Becka.”

Her heart clattered against her rib cage. “Too risky.”

“Okay, then. You asked for it.” Giving a quick yank, he unbalanced her, plunging her into his lap. His arms went around her, he snuggled her against his chest and grinned down into her face. “Gotcha.”

She struggled, but not nearly enough. While the sensible portion of her mind said get up and run, every other cell in her body refused to obey. Jett’s cologne drifted up from his cotton T-shirt. His firm thighs pressed against her trapped fingertips, and she could scarcely keep from stroking them.

“When you turn me loose you’re going to be very sorry,” she said with more authority than she felt.

“Then I guess I might as well enjoy this while I can,” he said as his blue eyes drifted over her face, coming to rest on her mouth.

“Don’t even think about it, cowboy.”

“Oh, I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and now I’m going to do something about it.”

Dear Reader,

When you’re stuffing the stockings this year remember that Silhouette Romance’s December lineup is the perfect complement to candy canes and chocolate! Remind your loved ones—and yourself—of the power of love.

Open your heart to magic with the third installment of IN A FAIRY TALE WORLD…, the miniseries where matchmaking gets a little help from an enchanted princess. In Her Frog Prince (SR #1746) Shirley Jump provides a rollicking good read with the antics of two opposites who couldn’t be more attracted!

Then meet a couple of heartbreaking cowboys from authors Linda Goodnight and Roxann Delaney. In The Least Likely Groom (SR #1747) Linda Goodnight brings us a risk-taking rodeo man who finds himself the recipient of lots of tender loving care—from one very special nurse! And Roxann Delaney pairs a beauty disguised as an ugly duckling with the man most likely to make her smolder, in The Truth About Plain Jane (SR #1748).

Last but not least, discover the explosive potential of close proximity as a big-city physician works side by side with a small-town beauty. Is it her wacky ideas that drive him crazy—or his sudden desire to make her his? Find out in Love Chronicles (SR #1749) by Lissa Manley.

Watch for more heartwarming titles in the coming year. You don’t want to miss a single one!

Happy reading!

Mavis C. Allen

Associate Senior Editor

The Least Likely Groom

Linda Goodnight

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Celeste, Missy and Alison,

the best daughters-in-law on the planet.

Books by Linda Goodnight

Silhouette Romance

For Her Child… #1569

Married in a Month #1682

Her Pregnant Agenda #1690

Saved by the Baby #1709

Rich Man, Poor Bride #1742

The Least Likely Groom #1747

LINDA GOODNIGHT

A romantic at heart, Linda Goodnight believes in the traditional values of family and home. Writing books enables her to share her certainty that, with faith and perseverance, love can last forever and happy endings really are possible.

A native of Oklahoma, Linda lives in the country with her husband, Gene, and Mugsy, an adorably obnoxious rat terrier. She and Gene have a blended family of six grown children. An elementary school teacher, she is also a licensed nurse. When time permits, Linda loves to read, watch football and rodeo, and indulge in chocolate. She also enjoys taking long, calorie-burning walks in the nearby woods. Readers can write to her at [e-mail].

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Chapter One

It had been a quiet summer Sunday in the small hospital of Rattlesnake, Texas…until a certain ornery cowboy appeared in the emergency room.

And now the misguided drunk-and-disorderly was singing at the top of his lungs.

From her spot at the nurses’ desk, Rebecka Washburn placed a hand over the telephone receiver and frowned down the long, white-tiled corridor toward the holding area where he lay sprawled on a gurney. She glimpsed one dusty cowboy boot and a muscled, jean-covered leg before a nurse’s assistant wheeled him into an exam room.

A tortured mangle of “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” and a rodeo song about bulls and blood and dust and mud echoed through the corridor.

“Do what you have to, Sid,” she said to the man on the other end of the line. “I’ll rake up the money somewhere.”

With a worried sigh she muttered her thanks to the town’s only auto mechanic and replaced the receiver. Where was she going to get that kind of money?

The singing maniac ripped into a third, even heartier, chorus of the children’s church song.

Determined to muzzle her unwanted serenader before he disrupted the other twenty patients on her wing, Becka pushed the nagging worry about her on-its-last-legs car into the background and padded on soft-soled shoes toward the E.R.

As charge nurse for the day shift, keeping everything running smoothly and under tight control was her responsibility. Control was what she did best. Every chart was neatly updated and in its proper slot, every medication carefully accounted for, and every patient given the best care a small-town hospital could manage. That included quieting down any and all drunks that passed through the doors.

“‘He’s got the little bitty babies in his hands,’” the man sang.

Irresponsible drunks. Didn’t they understand, as she did, that even a few beers at the wrong time could be deadly? For the past three years she’d had to live with the horror of learning that the hard way, and every time a drunk showed up in her E.R., the memory returned in full force.

Face set in a stiff, professional mask, she pushed the pneumatic door open. A swoosh of cool, antiseptic air wafted out.

“Would you please stop that caterwauling before you send someone into cardiac arrest?”

A vaguely familiar cowboy was propped on the exam table. His hat was askew. His black western shirt was filthy, and a wide abrasion marred his high, handsome cheekbone.

Becka clenched her teeth. So he was not only drunk and disorderly, he’d been fighting, too.

Hushed by her sharp command, the cowboy looking momentarily abashed. Then his glazed gaze roamed over her and a wicked little grin split his face.

“Well, lookie here, Jackson,” he said to the tall, silent cowboy standing beside him. “It’s the queen of the rodeo.”

The man called Jackson removed his white Resistol and grinned, too. “I don’t think so, Jett. Looks more like a little, mad redheaded nurse to me.”

“A nurse? What’s a nurse doing out here at the rodeo?” Mr. drunk-and-disorderly wobbled up from the gurney, his muscles rippling, his crystal-blue eyes showing alarm. The process knocked his black hat to the floor. “Did somebody get hurt?”

Becka captured his flailing arm and reseated him. Rock-hard muscle swelled beneath her fingers before the singing cowpoke collapsed wearily onto the pillow. With a moan he grabbed his head with both hands.

“I can’t make my head be still,” he mumbled.

“This is not a rodeo arena, cowboy, and it’s no wonder your head is spinning. How much have you had to drink today?”

Both men turned curious faces toward her. Her patient looked more stupefied than curious.

“Have we been drinking, Jackson?” he asked, frowning.

“Nope.”

“Didn’t think so.” His head wobbled crazily from side to side. “We haven’t done that in a while, have we?”

“Nope.”

“Then what’s she so mad about?”

“I don’t think she likes your singing.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” Becka huffed in exasperation. No doubt this wasn’t his first visit to a hospital, and common sense said the E.R. was serious business. But when had any drunk shown common sense?

“If he hasn’t been fighting, why is he here?”

“A bull didn’t take too kindly to his showboating.”

“A bull?” Becka came to full alert, her irritation washed away in a sea of guilty concern. “He’s been in a rodeo accident?”

“Why else would we be in an emergency room on Sunday evening?”

“Good heavens.”

Guilt sliced through her with the strength of a bone saw. She was a good nurse. A compassionate, go-the-extra-mile nurse, but this time she’d allowed painful personal memories to interfere with her job. Instead of recognizing an obvious concussion, she had jumped to the conclusion that he’d been drinking.

Would that awful day from her past ever stop haunting her?

Hustling to the blood-pressure monitor hanging on the wall, Becka pulled it down and wrapped the length of cloth around the man’s well-developed biceps. Her patient had the typical body of a professional rider, athletic and strong enough to stay on a writhing bull, but not overly large. He had what she would term the perfect body—if she were interested in such things, that is.

“Tell me exactly what happened,” she said to the tall cowboy called Jackson.

The injured man lay back, quiet for the moment, his eyes closed. A crooked little bump atop his nose suggested this wasn’t his first rodeo injury, though his was still an incredibly attractive face, the kind of good-looking hunk of cowboy that had women lining up. She’d seen him somewhere before, she was certain. A woman didn’t forget a face like that.

“He took a head butt from the back. Got his bell rung.”

Becka filed that away. A two-thousand-pound bull could pack a real wallop. “And?”

The big guy shrugged. “And he toppled over like a hundred-pound feed sack.”

Wincing at the unpleasant image, Becka pumped the sphygmomanometer bulb, listened for the familiar thump-thump while watching the needle dance rhythmically down to zero. His pressure was okay.

She reached for his pulse. Deeply ingrained calluses and the more recent red stripes of rope burn crossed the palm of his leatherlike hands.

She pursed her lips in disapproval. Like every rodeo cowboy she’d ever met he had no sense at all. Living on the edge, throwing caution to the wind, endangering himself and those around him.

“How long was he unconscious?”

“Unconscious? Me?” The cowboy on the table opened bleary eyes and struggled up on his elbows. “Never fainted in my—” He melted onto the pillow like hot wax.

The man called Jackson grimaced and shook his head. “Out like a light.”

Someone pecked at the door. Then without waiting, an admissions clerk entered. She thrust some papers toward the tall cowboy hovering over the gurney. “Are you the patient’s next of kin?”

“No ma’am. Jett is my traveling partner. We look after each other. But his brother lives around here if we need him.”

“Becka,” the woman asked. “Can he still sign the E.R. papers? Or do we need to wait on Mr. Garrett to wake up?”

“Garrett? Jett Garrett?” Memory flooding back, Becka turned toward the unconscious patient. “I remember him.”

No wonder he’d looked familiar. He and her husband had played some rodeos together when she and Chris first started dating five years ago. Even Chris, as fearless as he was, marveled at Jett’s reckless daredevil attitude.

“He’s Colt Garrett’s little brother. The wild and crazy one.” The man was renowned for his careless, throw-caution-to-the-wind antics.

Jackson grinned. “One and the same. He and Colt own the Garrett Ranch outside of town. You know them?”

Reluctant to reveal just how she remembered Jett, Becka settled for the easy answer. “In a town of 6500 people, everyone knows everyone else, at least by name. Colt’s wife, Kati, takes care of my son in her day care.”

“‘Do, Lord, oh, do, Lord…’” Jett’s head wobbled back and forth on the pillow as he started singing in that deep baritone again. “‘Where the buffalo roam and the bulls and blood and dust and mud…’”

His partner laughed out loud.

“You gotta admit, ma’am, he’s pretty funny.”

Becka suppressed a smile. “Does he always sing—and I use the word loosely—when he’s injured?”

“Sings in his sleep, too. But never like this.”

Becka ran experienced fingers through the dark wavy hair covering Jett’s skull, searching for bumps or wounds. Finding none, she made the notation on the chart and reached for the telephone hanging on the wall next to the door. After a moment she hung up and turned toward the two men.

“Dr. Clayton will be here in a few minutes, but he said to go ahead and admit Jett for observation. Can’t be too careful with a concussion—which he clearly has.”

“Nope.” Jett sat up as quickly as a jack-in-the-box, steadied himself with a hand on either side of the table, and shook his head. After two shakes his eyes crossed. “I appreciate the invite, but I can’t stay.”

Becka saw what he was about to do, but couldn’t move fast enough to stop him from pushing off the table. He crumpled like a paper sack. The only thing that kept him from slamming onto the hard tile was the fast reflexes of his oversize friend.

“Whoa, there, partner.” Jackson gripped his arms and hoisted up as Becka rushed to roll a wheelchair beneath him. “I think you better do what this little nurse tells you to.”

Head lolling crazily, Jett gripped it with both hands and steadied the wobbling. “Nope, sorry, can’t do it. I promised Melissa…”

For once in her career Becka was actually glad to see a patient pass out. Jett and his women were legend, and she really didn’t care to hear about the latest flame.

While lifting his feet onto the wheelchair’s foot support, she saw what she’d missed before.

“Good grief.” Dropping to her knees beside the chair, she yanked a pair of bandage scissors from her uniform pocket.

“What?” Jackson squatted beside her.

“No wonder he passed out when his feet touched the floor.”

Quickly cutting Jett’s jean leg up the inner seam, she exposed the dark-muscled knee and thigh. The notion flickered through her head that he would be this rich tan color all over his body, a notion she squelched instantly. Jett needed her expertise, not her admiration, though heaven knew it was hard not to admire such an athletic, blatantly masculine body. Her husband’s body had been like this, all hard-cut muscle without an ounce of fat.

But even Chris’s perfect, athlete’s physique hadn’t been strong enough to stand up against the damage she’d unwittingly done it.

The familiar pain of guilt and loss twisted in her stomach. She glued her attention to Jett’s injury. She could help Jett. She couldn’t do a thing to help Chris. Not now. Not even then.

To her dismay, Jett’s knee looked more like a softball than a body part. Gently running expert fingers over the hot, misshapen flesh, Becka chastised herself for missing so obvious an injury. She hadn’t handled anything right today. Between the worry over her car, the nagging fear for her son’s safety, and these unwanted reminders of her dead husband, she wasn’t thinking straight at all.

“Oh, man,” Jackson murmured. “The bull must have stepped on him.”

“This had to hurt. Didn’t he complain?”

Jackson shrugged. “Cowboys believe if you’re still breathin’ you ain’t hurt.”

“Then why’d you bring him to the E.R.?”

A grin split the big man’s face. “I didn’t want him to quit breathin’.”

Becka shot him an exasperated look.

“The doctor will have to X-ray him and probably do a scan to say for certain, but I’ve seen this kind of injury before. He won’t ride on this knee for a while.”

“Jett won’t like that. He’s only a few rodeos away from the big show.”

“Excuse me?”

“Vegas. Jett’s never made it to the National Finals, but he has a shot this year. A few more rodeos, a few more points, and he’s eligible.”

Becka gave him a doubtful twitch of one eyebrow. “I don’t like to rain on anyone’s parade….”

“That bad, huh?”

“I’m afraid it could be.”

They both stared at the unconscious patient. One with sympathetic eyes. The other with thoughts that the idiot would be better off in traction than to risk his life on the back of a Brahma bull.

Jett awakened that evening with the mother of all headaches. Turning only his eyes because his brain undulated like the curves of a belly dancer, he spotted an overhead television, a bedside table and a wheelchair. He eased his eyelids down again, waited two beats and tried again. He could not be where he thought he was.

“A hospital?” He ran a thick tongue over dry lips. His mouth tasted like the floor of a rodeo arena.

From the corner Jackson unwound his big body from a miserable-looking plastic chair. “You awake?”

“Must be talking in my sleep. I can’t be in a hospital.”

“Rattlesnake Municipal. At least for tonight.”

A little quiver of relief shuddered through him. He was only here for the night. He must not be hurt too badly. Tomorrow he and Jacks would be back on the road. With a win in Odessa tomorrow night, he’d be one rodeo closer to the NFR.

“Did you bring me in here?”

“Yep. But Colt will be back in the morning to take you to Amarillo.”

“Colt?” Jett frowned. What did his brother have to do with anything? “Amarillo?” Jackson was talking in riddles. Maybe he’d been the one to get his head dinged. “We’re riding in Odessa tomorrow night, not Amarillo.”

The brown door swished open and the tiniest redheaded nurse Jett could imagine whipped into the room. If she hadn’t been wearing pink scrubs and a name badge that said, B. Washburn, RN, Jett would have sworn she was a little kid.

She bent over his knee, turning her backside in his direction.

Nope, he thought with an appreciative grin. This one’s definitely not a kid. He was in the midst of a rather nice perusal of her other petite but womanly assets when she laid an ice pack against his leg.

Pain, violent enough to be rated F5 in the tornado world, shot from his kneecap to his head and rattled around inside his brain long enough to make him forget his name.

He clamped down hard on the inside of his cheek to keep his big mouth from squealing like a stuck hog. He’d had pain before, didn’t really even mind pain that much since it was an expected part of his job, but this wasn’t regular pain. This was hot-metal-in-the-eye pain. Steel-toed-boot-in-the-groin pain. Hold-me-down-and-stomp-my-nose pain.

The little nurse looked up with sympathetic eyes. “Would you like me to ask Dr. Clayton if you can have something for the pain?”

“Pain?” he grunted, sucking in air through his teeth. “I don’t need anything for pain. What I need is my pants.”

She cast a sideways glance at Jackson who looked way too serious. And Jacks was not a serious kind of guy. All of a sudden, Jett had a real bad feeling.

“Did something terrible happen to my pants?”

Jackson laughed. “Yeah. She cut ’em off.”

“She did?” The dynamite blast in his leg had subsided a little. He managed a lascivious grin in the nurse’s direction. “And what did she do to me while I was helpless and naked?”

B. Washburn, RN, never even blushed. Guys must come on to someone as cute as she was all the time.

Was that what he was doing? Coming on to her?

Nah. He couldn’t afford to let himself get distracted right now with the NFR within reach. But she was cute.

Maybe later.

“So how am I going to get out of here without any pants?”

A cute little dip formed between Nurse Washburn’s eyes. “Don’t you remember talking to Dr. Clayton?”

That bad feeling came back, stronger this time. He cast a glance toward Jackson, who once more wore a troubled expression.

“’Fraid not. What’s up?”

“We’re sending you to Amarillo tomorrow to an orthopedic surgeon.”

“For a headache?” He refused to think about that teensy-weensy twinge in his knee.

“At the very least, you have a severed ACL that will require surgery.”

“How bad?” He looked to his partner for reassurance, but Jackson got that hang-dog look again.

Ignoring the incessant school of sharks ripping through his kneecap, he thought he’d better listen to Miss B. Washburn, RN, considering how he didn’t recall ever meeting Dr. Clayton. Or having an MRI for that matter.

What she had to say really put a kink in his good mood. He knew all about tears of the anterior cruciate ligament. Every athlete hated them because they sidelined a guy too long. But from the way B. Washburn, RN, told it, a regular ACL tear didn’t sound so bad. His, on the other hand, was way beyond torn. His knee was, as she so blatantly phrased it, “demolished.”

“So, when can I ride again?” He asked when she finished telling him that not only was his dream in jeopardy, but his career, as well.

“That will be for the orthopod to say after he’s done a scope.”

Orthopod? Was that a doctor from outer space?

He thought better of asking. And to tell the truth, if someone didn’t get the sharks off his leg, he was going to lose his sense of humor.

“But you’ll be off the circuit for at least a couple of months, maybe longer.”

“No way.” He struggled up to his elbows. “Get me some pants, Jacks. I can ride.”

To prove his point, he swung his right leg over the side of the bed, but the left one refused to follow.

B. Washburn, RN, caught him by the calf and pushed him gently, but efficiently back onto the bed. The eyes he’d thought of as honey-colored, now looked muddy with anger.

“Don’t be foolish, Mr. Garrett. It’s bad enough to put yourself in harm’s way by riding bulls, but refusing treatment for severe injury is totally irresponsible. It won’t heal and you won’t ride, maybe ever again if you make it any worse.”

He gazed down in amazement at her slender arms. “Hey, you’re pretty strong for a girl.”

She’d tossed him back onto the bed as easily as Sinsation had tossed him on his head. Dadgum ornery bull. “You must know judo or something.”

“Or something.” She favored him with a cheeky grin that sent a little spiral of interest curling through his belly. Darn if she wasn’t making him think of taking a couple days off to hang around Rattlesnake and find out just what that something was—among other things.

“Man, what’s the world coming to? I get stomped by a bull and body-slammed by a girl all in one day.” Moving had stirred the knee-eating sharks, and he was starting to feel grouchy again. “Are you gonna get my pants or do I have to call 911 and report a theft, as well as a kidnapping?”

B. Washburn, RN, pushed the phone toward him. He scowled at her. She stared back with those honey-colored eyes, as solemn and sympathetic as an undertaker. The real bad feeling settled in to stay. He got the unmistakable impression that he was about to take an unplanned vacation to Amarillo.

Chapter Two

Near the end of her shift Becka slid into a chair at the nurses’ desk to make final notations on the patients’ charts. As she leafed through Jett Garrett’s, she frowned.

Rolling her chair away from the desk, she called to the nurse standing inside the medication room directly behind her. “Mindy.”