“Jean Brashear’s knack for storytelling shines in a poignant romance about two people traveling different paths to the same destination, to heal, to comfort and to love.”
~RTBookclub
Discover the second book in New York Times bestselling contemporary Texas romance author Jean Brashear’s TEXAS HEROES: Lone Star Lovers series about three brothers, this one where a Texas horseman and warrior holds the power to heal both a fragile doctor’s body and her wounded heart.
Brilliant and driven cardiac surgeon Diana Morgan’s whole life centers around her career, now threatened by an injury that may prove insurmountable. She is desperate enough to accept a forced sabbatical to the Davis Mountains of West Texas, where she meets Rafael Sandoval, a former Special Forces medic who understands exactly how it feels to have the life you planned taken from you. After losing his men and nearly losing his life, Rafe has returned home and found a measure of peace combining his Western medical training with the curanderismo or folk healing traditions of his Latino heritage.
Diana desperately needs the healing Rafe is dedicated to providing, but his hard-won peace is threatened by the growing attachment neither welcomes. Too many people in his valley count on him for the only medical help available for many miles, and too many lives back in her world—one he once wanted with everything in him—will be lost if she cannot regain her skills. But healing her means losing her, for she can’t stay in his world…and he can’t leave.
Lone Star Lovers
Texas Heartthrob
Texas Healer
Texas Protector
Texas Deception
Texas Lost
Texas Wanderer
Texas Bodyguard
Texas Rescue
Texas Healer
Texas Heroes: Lone Star Lovers Book 2
(Texas Heroes 20)
Jean Brashear
Copyright © 2016 Jean Brashear
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Table of Contents
Cover
About Texas Healer
Title Page
Copyright Page
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Epilogue
Excerpt from Texas Protector
Books by Jean Brashear
About the Author
Connect With Jean
Prologue
Dallas
“Dr. Morgan, that was amazing.” The intern’s eyes shone. “It’s true what they say—you’re the best.”
“Thanks.” Diana Morgan stripped off her mask and cap, casting the eager young man a faint, tired smile. The adrenaline that had kept her going for too much of the fourteen-hour surgery had vanished, leaving her legs rubbery in its wake. She still had to talk to the family, and right now all she wanted to do was slide to the floor and sleep around the clock.
“If people could see what we see, they’d take better care of themselves,” the intern muttered. Then he beamed again. “I’ve decided. I’m going into cardio for sure. I want to be like you and save lives.”
Feeling less like a hero than ten miles of bad road at the moment, still she hesitated to dampen his enthusiasm by saying so.
Before she could answer, the door swung wide, and Judd Carter stood in the opening. “Miracle Morgan strikes again, I hear.” He shot a look at the intern and leaned closer to Diana, speaking low. “It must get crowded in the surgical suite, making room for you and that halo.”
Diana had learned not to expect any better from the man who’d come to Mercy Hospital anticipating that they’d all fall down on their knees and worship his greatness. She’d worked hard to become the best, and she’d refused to concede her position to him and his Harvard degree.
His response had been to try seduction. His blond hair and blue eyes had had the nursing staff panting, but Diana hadn’t been interested. Still wasn’t. No man would turn her into the clinging creature her mother had been. No wonder Diana’s father had left.
Of course, he’d left her, too.
“It was a team effort. Excuse me, Judd.” She pushed her way past where he blocked the door. “I have to speak with the family.”
“Ah, yes—to take your bow. By all means, Queen Diana.”
She knew what the staff called her, but only he did it to her face. What name they gave her didn’t matter as long as they did the work. She didn’t demand any more of others than she did of herself.
You didn’t become the best by doing things halfway.
Refusing to rise to the bait, she gave him her back, focusing, instead, on what she’d say to the loved ones of a man who’d died twice on the table.
Eighteen hours later, the rest of the weekend was all hers. She turned off the two-lane blacktop road ten miles south of Dallas and drove between the thick cedar posts that signaled the boundaries of the farm where she boarded her horse. Winter still clasped the dry, pale-beige grass to its bosom, but the air was crisp, the sky an endless baby blue dotted with cotton-puff clouds.
Nothing beat a good long ride to work out the tension of a week like this one. Yesterday’s procedure had had enough drama, even for her.
But she was much in demand and loved her work. She just needed some exercise—she’d had to miss her run yesterday and overslept this morning.
Rolling her neck, she winced. A massage wouldn’t hurt, either.
She finished saddling Star King and vaulted onto his back, needing the release of the wind through her hair, the tang of cedar spicing the earthy richness of country air. “Okay, big boy—you’re ready to run and so am I.”
Diana smiled as his powerful muscles burst into action. They rode in tune like lovers. The week slipped away, her energy rebounding. Laughing out loud for the joy of the freedom this magnificent horse gave her, she closed her eyes for a split second to savor it.
A jackrabbit darted.
Star King shied.
Diana shifted her weight to counteract his momentum—
Too little, too late. She lost her grip on the reins, sailed through the air. Slammed to the ground on her right side.
Pain exploded in her arm.
Then…only darkness.
Chapter One
Davis Mountains, West Texas
In the room warm with candlelight, fragrant with soothing lavender and pungent rosemary, the child slid into Rafael Sandoval’s waiting hands. “Milagro,” he murmured in Spanish. That hands once honed to kill should now bring forth life still humbled him.
His grandmother’s hand settled on his shoulder. Always, her touch brought warmth and comfort. “Each child a miracle,” she agreed. “Every time.”
There had been many of them for her, Rafe knew. She had delivered every child born in this valley for over sixty years now. He rose to his feet. “A little girl,” he said to the exhausted mothe
r and the father, whose face outshone the sun. “Un tesoro.” A treasure. A lucky child to be so wanted.
Supported by the husband seated behind her, the mother reached for her baby, tears rolling down her cheeks. She touched every finger, every toe.
“They’re all there,” Rafe teased. “I counted.”
The father looked up from his new family. “Rafe…la señora…” He shook his head. “It is not possible to tell you—”
Rafe clapped one hand on the man’s shoulder, clearing his throat. “Care for them well. That’s thanks enough.”
His grandmother stepped forward. “Drink this,” she urged the new mother. “A decoction of basil, honey and nutmeg. It will help expel the placenta.”
Rafe moved past her to examine the baby girl. Strong responses, breathing clear, everything normal. “She looks good, little mother.” He smiled. “You’ve done well.”
The next few minutes were busy ones as they waited for the umbilical cord to cease pulsing so it could be cut, cleansed the child and returned her safe to the arms of her mother. His grandmother hung back, letting him do most of it, though he would have to deliver many, many more children before his was the smooth ballet of her movements. Curandera for the entire valley, she was the only health care for many miles around. She healed the sick, brought forth life and comforted the dying, but her strength was waning in her eighty-third year.
At last they were done. “Abuelita,” he said to his grandmother. “Let’s sit down.” He knew better than to suggest that only she take a rest, though energy rolled through him in waves.
The grateful father brought them iced tea and conversed with them under the lone tree in his front yard. He kept glancing back toward the house, and finally Rafe laughed. “Go on,” he urged. “Be with them. We’ll leave in a few minutes. I’ll come by to check on them tomorrow unless you need me earlier.”
Rafe’s gaze lingered as the young man left. Had he ever thought he’d reach almost forty without holding his own child in his arms? Too many years spent living on the edge, too busy reveling in danger and adrenaline to even consider settling down. Then, with stunning swiftness, he’d been fighting to live. To walk again.
“Is your hip hurting you, m’ijo?” his grandmother asked. “Kneeling is hard.”
He shrugged. “The payoff is worth it.”
“You bring them hope. They know they will be cared for when I am gone.”
Dread sliced deep. “I’m not you, Abuelita. I don’t have your gift.”
“Look at me,” she ordered, dark eyes flashing. “You are wrong. It is your destiny. These are your people. You are a curandero, whether you believe it or not. Our way came down from the Aztecs. It has been in your blood for centuries. We are healers, made so to help others learn to live in harmony with self and nature. A wounded soul is as deadly as torn flesh. You know this—” She touched a finger to his heart. “In here, you feel the truth.”
“I’ve been gone a long time. I’m a medic, nothing more.”
She sank against her chair, her eyes filled with sorrow. “You give yourself too little credit. Your powers will outstrip mine.” She sighed. “I understand that it is hard. You fight the battle of those born into two worlds.”
“Belonging in neither,” he added.
“Rafael Cameron Sandoval, your mother does not deserve that. She made certain you never had to choose. She opposed her own family after my son’s death, refusing to make you or your brother turn your back on your father’s people.”
Rafe thought of his slender, blond, blue-eyed mother and smiled. She and this tiny woman beside him looked nothing alike but shared a ferocity far beyond the size of either.
“You’re right. Alex and I did that all by ourselves.” The knowledge still shamed him.
“Ah, m’ijo,” she sighed. “You have fought too many battles. Let go. Your path is no longer war. Be at peace. Know that within you is all you need, all these people need.”
He loved this woman more than his life. Always, always she had been there. Always she brought comfort and calm. “I watch. I listen and try to learn. As to the rest—” He spread his fingers, shrugging. “Let’s hope your faith remains stronger than my doubts. Now—” He shot her a smile and rose. “Let me escort you home before I do one last check on the cabin of our new guest.”
She clasped his face between the bony hands that had helped so many. “You will not disappoint these people who need you, Rafe. Of this I am sure. It is why you came here to finish healing. You were called. This is where you belong.”
Rafe helped her rise, knowing only that what he could bring to the people of this valley he had once been so eager to leave, he would gladly give.
But far from sure it would be enough.
Your progress has stalled out, Diana. You refuse to see it, but you’re risking everything. I’m going to insist that you take a month off from therapy. Her occupational therapist’s voice reverberated inside her head as the miles rolled past the car window.
She didn’t have time to take a month off. She had patients who needed her. Her partners couldn’t handle the increased workload. She should be back in the surgical suite, back where she knew who she was. She was the best. She’d worked hard for it, she couldn’t be a—
Cripple.
Will I ever do surgery again? she’d asked Don Henderson.
No soft-soaping, right? Don had stared at her for a long time. I can’t tell you yet. You can definitely regain the use of the hand, but the kind of fine motor skills needed for cardiac surgery? It could go either way.
No. Unacceptable. For a surgeon who operated on hearts, nothing less than total restoration of her dexterity would do. Already, four months had gone by. Don said it could take months longer.
Her patients didn’t have months. Colin Langdon had a new child, a life to live. Martha Powers wanted to see her youngest grandchild graduate. The children Diana treated pro bono needed her talents.
Judd Carter wouldn’t care enough. He wouldn’t take on the cases that didn’t serve his ambition. Her patients would be so worried, and she was—
Helpless. Damn it. Only barely did she check the urge to bang on the car window as she looked out at the mountains that had emerged after endless miles of nothing but cactus and dirt.
Once she’d have marveled, filled with energy for exploring. Right now she only wanted to be someone else. Somewhere else than some godforsaken rustic cabin that hospital administrator Sam Calvert had leased, hoping to buy his rainmaker some peace.
His rainmaker didn’t want to be here. She wanted escape. Wanted to hit the road and jam down on the accelerator, to drive far and fast and outrun the wreckage her life had become in the wake of her accident.
“Ma’am, are you all right back there?” The driver looked concerned.
Diana glanced down at the hand lying in her lap, the brace on her wrist. Work, damn you. Get well. Please.
But aloud she only said, “Yes. I’m fine.”
And returned to staring at the landscape to which she’d been exiled. She’d traveled the corridors from Dallas to Houston to Austin a lot, had been to San Antonio many times. Far West Texas had never been a part of the state she’d cared to visit, assuming it to be barren and arid.
Much of it was exactly that—a monochromatic vista, endless acres of dirt dotted by plants as much gray as green.
But the sky felt…enormous. As though she could breathe fresh air deep into her lungs. It was almost overpowering, this huge blue bowl of sky, punctuated here and there by pale traces of cloud.
Now they were winding into mountains unlike any she’d seen. Not grand like the Rockies, not blanketed with thick forest. These trees were scattered, casting fine, lacy shadows on the ground. The greens grew more vivid, but still there was so much…sky.
Diana recalled that the MacDonald Observatory was located here because the skies were clear of the artificial blaze by which man ignored circadian rhythms and led a dual existence.
She saw fe
w signs that man existed at all. For a moment she let herself imagine racing Star King over the flat ground they’d covered. Climbing these slopes, discovering what was around the next bend.
This was an odd, ancient place. The past still lived here, she thought.
But she was a city girl, accustomed to the rich, endlessly fascinating world of man’s innovations. She loved art galleries and experimental theater and fine dining.
Somehow, though, she had to survive a month in this place. Had to prove to Sam Calvert and Don Henderson that she’d rested enough so that they’d let her get back to work.
While the parade of patients in need of her care marched through her heart in jackboots, Diana leaned her head back against the seat and wondered how she’d ever survive exile in this harsh and foreign land.
Rafe heard the car tires as he tightened the pipes under the sink one last time. He heard a woman’s voice speaking in quick, authoritative tones. A man answered, then steps sounded on the porch.
Rising to his feet, Rafe wiped his hands on a rag from his tool chest, walked to the door and opened it just as a slender blonde reached for the knob.
Annoyance flitted across her forehead. “I was told this was my cabin.”
She was one of those too-thin, driven women, he thought. Shaggy cap of hair, no makeup. Always in a hurry to get there, unable to enjoy the journey. “If you’re Diana Morgan, you’re right.”
Green eyes sharpened. “And who might you be?”
Rafe grinned. “I might be anyone.”
She cast a glance at the grease on his hands, then her brow cleared. “Ah. They said there was a caretaker. That must be you.” She turned to the driver. “Just leave my bags there. Mr.—?” She glanced back.
“Sandoval. Rafe Sandoval.”
One quick nod. “Mr. Sandoval can take them inside for me. Here—” She handed several bills to the driver.
A decent tipper, it seemed. Even if she no doubt considered the driver invisible.
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