Tempted by the Soldier

by Patricia Potter

  Down, boy. He knew nothing about her. He had a pile of troubles at the moment. Plus, he wouldn’t be staying long. Just long enough to chart out a future.

  But in that moment immediately after the cow had stepped on him and she’d knelt next to him, their eyes had clashed, challenging each other. It had made him feel alive for the first time since the car accident. Call it sexual attraction, awareness, or whatever, something was there, at least for him.

  “I don’t need a doctor,” he said. “I’ve seen enough injuries to know this doesn’t even count as a pinprick.”

  “Then you didn’t need my shoulder?”

  She had him there. His foot hurt like hell, but he probably could have walked on his own. He just hadn’t been able to resist the offer. “It helped,” he said, somewhat lamely.

  A small smile started on her lips, then faded. “We are going. So far my track record in seeing you safely to Covenant Falls is near zero.”

  Was she being adamant because of this Josh? She’d made it clear she valued the opinion of his benefactor more than his. It was rather a blow to his pride, but then except for that one extraordinary moment on the ground, she’d been stilted since they’d met. It was as if she knew something about him, something she didn’t particularly like. The reason he’d left the army? That he failed his buddies for a dumb stunt?

  At least he hadn’t had a blackout during the afternoon. He didn’t know what triggered them. The doctor suggested tension, anxiety, but they occurred at other times, as well. The only warning was a god-awful headache.

  “I really am sorry,” she said, breaking into his thoughts. “I shouldn’t have asked you to help. You haven’t much experience with animals, have you?”

  He shrugged. “It felt good to be doing something useful, even holding two legs of a reluctant cow.” He stayed silent for a moment, then said, “Tell me about Josh Manning. All I know is he’s a vet, not to be confused with your kind of vet.”

  “He’s a good guy. He’s one of about three people whose opinion I respect.”

  Clint raised an eyebrow. “That’s not very many.”

  “I’ve been here only five years,” she said with a trace of a grin. It was the first time she’d lowered her guard with him. He knew about that. He had his own walls and recognized them in others.

  “Just what does he want? Why is he doing this?”

  “Josh inherited the cabin from a fallen friend, a fellow soldier, and rehabbed it. It was a mess when he arrived. Time and partying kids had pretty well destroyed it. He worked like hell to fix it, and he doesn’t want it to fall into disrepair again.”

  “Couldn’t he rent it?”

  “Covenant Falls isn’t exactly on the tourism map,” Stephanie said. “Josh and his wife hope to change that, but in the meantime, he wants someone to use it, and who better than a vet.”

  “And the town?” Clint asked. “I looked it up. It’s pretty small.”

  “It is. And quite elderly on the whole. A little over three thousand people spread over a large space. Most have lived there all their lives.”

  “Where are you from?”

  Her lips tightened. “Pennsylvania. Once upon a time.”

  “What brought you here?”

  “What brought you to the army?”

  A deflection. Interesting. But then everything about her was interesting. Contradictory. There was a standoffishness, a message that said “hands off,” yet she had been very easy with the rancher. And his being stomped on by a heifer had apparently broken through some kind of barrier. She wasn’t a bundle of warmth, but she was communicative. Progress.

  He shrugged. “I wanted to fly. The army was the fastest and cheapest way to do that.”

  “Risky, though.”

  “Not if you know what you’re doing.”

  “What did you fly?”

  “Choppers. Black Hawks mostly.”

  “How long?”

  “Seventeen years.”

  He waited for the next question. Why had he left? It didn’t come, which either meant she wasn’t interested or she already knew. He tried to tamp his growing interest in her. He couldn’t even get from point A to point B without help. It was galling. He leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. His foot throbbed, but it was a minor annoyance. It was the emptiness ahead that was agonizing.

  * * *

  WHY HAD SHE asked so many questions? It only invited more conversation and questions of his own.

  Still, curiosity tickled her. She glanced at him. His eyes were closed. Resting? Dang it, but he was...

  Remember your first reaction. That smile. The compliment. Remember Mark’s smile.

  Still, it was her fault he was injured. She’d needed him, true, but she and Hardy could have handled the cow alone. It would have taken longer, been riskier. She hadn’t truly given Clint a choice, though, knowing full well she had challenged him. She’d known he would take it, having judged in the first few minutes of their meeting that he couldn’t ignore a challenge. However, she hadn’t expected him to get stomped on and, when he had been, to laugh.

  Her passenger stirred as she slowed and she wondered whether he had been feigning sleep. Either way, it was fine with her. As soon as she delivered him, even if not totally intact, to Josh, the happier she would be. He was...disturbing. She pushed aside any notion of being attracted to him. She was just...worried about that foot. She had made conversation to keep his mind from it. Didn’t mean anything.

  As she pulled in front of the doctor’s office, she noticed Josh’s Jeep. He had probably decided to see for himself how much damage had been done. It never ceased to amaze her how he had gone from being the angry loner to one of the town’s best liked citizens. Her friend, Eve, was much better at magic than she’d ever been.

  Clint straightened up and blinked at her. He glanced around at Main Street, and the two-story building flanked by businesses. A sign proclaimed it the “Covenant Falls Medical Clinic.” Josh Manning leaned against a wall.

  She cut the engine. “That’s Josh. He can help you inside.”

  “I would rather you did,” he said. “I’m becoming accustomed to your shoulder.”

  She had to smile. His quirky, self-deprecating sense of humor was appealing. “I expect Josh will be more help than I was.”

  He gave her a long steady look. No smile. Just a glance that seemed to see right through her. Then he nodded. “I appreciate the ride, ma’am.”

  She knew that “ma’am” was a common address to women by soldiers. It also distanced them. Huh. He hadn’t been resting at all. He opened the passenger door as she stepped out of the van. Josh approached them, introduced himself to Clint and offered his arm. Josh nodded to her, and she mouthed “Sorry.” They headed inside and she fought the urge to go with them. She overcame it and hurried to her office down the street. Guilt and confusion swamped her. She should have stayed with him.

  She went inside the reception area, and her golden retriever, Sherry, frantically wagged her tail in welcome. Stephanie leaned down and gave her dog a big hug. “Missed you,” she said.

  “She hasn’t moved from the window since you left,” Beth, her vet tech, said. “What is the new guy like?”

  “Pleasant enough.” And because she knew everyone in town would shortly know what happened at the ranch, she told Beth about Clint and the cow.

  “By one of Hardy’s? I hope he didn’t hurt him.”

  “She. A heifer, but a rather large one. But it’s just a minor wound, I think. Josh is with him now at Doc’s office.”

  “Oh my,” Beth said. “Is he anything like Josh?”

  “No, not at all. Were there any calls?”

  Beth got the message and didn’t ask any more questions. “Some appointments for tomorrow, Wednesday. Annual shots and physicals. Thurday a
nd Friday are pretty booked up, too. Mr. Crane called about this weekend’s search-and-rescue training program.”

  “Thanks.” She looked at her watch. Nearly six. “Why don’t you go home? I have a few things to do here.”

  Beth nodded, then obviously couldn’t restrain herself from asking one more question. “The new guy...is he married?”

  “I’m pretty sure he isn’t.”

  “Good-looking?”

  “Some might think so.”

  “Maybe I should take him a casserole.”

  Stephanie sighed. Beth was nineteen and pretty. She was smart and liked both people and animals, and they liked her, which were great qualities for a vet tech. But Beth had made no secret that her life goal was marriage and a houseful of kids.

  She, on the other hand, was never, ever going to marry again. She was a terrible judge of character, at least in the husband department, and now she treasured her independence. Never again would she lose control of her own life.

  “I would give him a few days,” she said, refraining from saying Beth was too young for their newest resident. Or maybe not. What did she know about the man’s tastes?

  She waited until Beth left, then checked on two dogs that were boarding at the clinic. She completed some paperwork and ordered more medicine. She couldn’t concentrate. She shouldn’t have just left Clint with the doctor, no matter how...disconcerted he made her.

  The tune from The Music Man popped into her head.

  Something about trouble coming to River City.

  Or maybe Covenant Falls.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “NOTHING’S BROKEN,” CLINT insisted to the elderly doctor.

  “You a doctor?” the man asked.

  “No, but...”

  “I’ll get my supper a whole lot quicker if you just answer my questions. Leave it to Stephanie to come in after hours,” he groused.

  “You know you’re her biggest fan,” Josh Manning said. “She certainly helps your bottom line.”

  Doc Bradley muttered something Clint couldn’t hear, but he didn’t think it was gratitude. An older woman in scrubs decorated with tiny smiling elephants wheeled him into a treatment room where the doctor examined Clint’s foot. “I want an X-ray,” he said when he finished. “Janie, my nurse, will take you.”

  Ten minutes later, the doctor came into the dark, tiny X-ray room and studied the film. Then he wheeled Clint into a third room. It was small, made smaller by the bookcase full of books and a large file cabinet. Several diplomas decorated the wall, along with a painting of a waterfall.

  Doc Bradley pulled a chair next to Clint. “No break, but it’s badly bruised and going to be even more painful tomorrow. Probably worse the next day. Are you taking any medications?”

  Clint handed him the pills he always kept near him. The doctor looked at the bottle, then asked, “Do you have your medical records with you?”

  “They’re in my duffel and that’s in Stephanie’s truck, but basically I was injured in a car accident. Mild traumatic brain injury, they told me. I have blackouts, usually preceded by headaches.”

  “Bad ones, I take it.”

  Clint nodded.

  “As strong and frequent now as they were just after the injury?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Any other injuries?

  “Nothing of any importance.”

  “Why don’t you let me decide that,” Doc Bradley said.

  “Two bullet wounds. Neither hit anything major. Some broken bones after a chopper crash. My knees took a beating at the same time I had the brain injury.”

  The doctor nodded and took a paper from the desk. “If you want me to be your doctor—and since I’m the only one in town you don’t have much choice—you can sign that paper giving me permission to obtain your records from your former doctor.”

  Clint liked him. No nonsense. Not much bedside manner. He approved. “I do, at least, as long as I’m going to be here. Not sure how long that will be.” He scrawled his signature.

  “That’s what Josh told me when he first came here, and I think he’s here for good.”

  Clint shrugged. It was the second time he’d heard that, but then, he wasn’t Josh Manning.

  “In any event, I’m giving you an anti-inflammatory and some pain medication. Not as strong as the pills you have now. Stay off the foot as much as possible and use ice packs on it. I have a spare pair of crutches. You can bring them back when they’re not needed. I’m available at any time. Just ask Stephanie.” There was a humor in his voice that belied real annoyance.

  He wheeled Clint back into his office where Josh Manning waited. “I have free samples of both medications and I’ll be back with the crutches,” he said and disappeared into the examining room.

  Manning, who had been sitting on a chair in the reception area, stood.

  “It’s just a bruise,” Clint said. “No big deal.”

  “Bad enough,” Manning said. “I’m damned sorry about that. You probably want to run for the hills right now. I wanted to do that when I landed in Covenant Falls, even without being stomped by a cow.”

  Clint shrugged. “Don’t blame Stephanie. I offered to help. I chalk it down to a new experience. A close encounter of the bovine kind.”

  Manning grinned. “I was going to ask you to have supper with my family tonight, but now you probably just want to get to the cabin. There’s plenty of food there, although my invitation is still good. I have to warn you, though, it could be chaotic.”

  “Chaotic? That sounds about right today.”

  “Well there’s five dogs, one very curious and bright boy who will ask a million questions, and my wife, the mayor, who will try to convince you that Covenant Falls is heaven on earth.”

  “And is it?”

  “Depends on your viewpoint,” Manning said. “I’m sort of leaning in that direction after a rocky start.”

  Stephanie appeared then with a dog, a golden retriever, at her side. She also carried his duffel and his other shoe.

  “Sherry?” Clint asked, and the dog’s entire rear wriggled with delight at the sound of her name.

  Stephanie’s eyes widened. Perhaps she was surprised he had remembered her dog’s name. In truth, he recalled every word of conversation since she had met him at the bus stop. He stuck out his hand and Sherry sniffed it, then held out a paw.

  Clint took the paw and shook it. He’d always liked dogs, but at private schools it was a definite no-no, and in the service, he’d never felt it fair to have one.

  Stephanie tilted her head as Sherry stayed close to him. Had she expected the dog to dislike him? He’d obviously made a poor impression on her, and that puzzled him.

  “I brought your duffel,” she said. “Josh had planned to meet you and show you the cabin, and so I thought...he could drive you there.”

  So, she was dumping him. “I appreciate the ride. It certainly ranks among the most interesting I’ve ever had.”

  She gave him one of those rare smiles, but it disappeared almost immediately. “Interesting, huh? I’ll call you the next time I have to roll a cow.”

  “Do that,” he challenged.

  She turned him to Josh. “I leave him in your hands.”

  The doctor returned, holding a pair of crutches and two pill bottles and a business card. “Call me if you need anything.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” Stephanie said. “Send me the bill. Hardy said he would pay it.”

  She started for the door, Sherry at her side, then glanced over her shoulder, smiling. “Thanks for being a good sport. I really am sorry.” Before he could answer, she was out the door.

  Josh frowned, then picked up both the duffel and shoe. “Can you manage with the crutches?”

  “Sure.”

  �
��What about that dinner?”

  Suddenly, Clint was exhausted. His body ached. His mind was fuzzy. He hadn’t slept much in the past two days, and he knew lack of sleep often brought on the headaches. “Can I take a rain check?”

  “Sure. I’ll drive you to the cabin. My wife insisted on stocking it with food, including some chili that just needs heating. There’s also a roasted chicken, cold cuts and some sliced veggies. Eve was appalled at my eating habits when I first moved there.”

  “Sounds good. Better than good. Please thank her for me.”

  “I added a six pack of beer. Are you okay to drink it or...?”

  “If I’m not taking medicine for headaches, I’m fine. And I don’t take it unless I feel one coming on. One or two beers is okay.”

  Josh nodded. “My Jeep is just outside.”

  The ride to the cabin was short. Clint watched carefully as the Jeep continued down what appeared to be the main street.

  “That’s Maude’s on the corner,” Josh said. “Best steaks in town. Hell, best steaks in this half of Colorado, and Maude will adopt you if you give her a chance. The city hall is on the left. The police department is there, as well. This street runs into a park that backs the lake. There’s also a combination recreation center and library in the park. The cabin is on the far side of the lake. There’s some good fishing there.” He paused, then added. “You can walk to all of it when your foot is better. In the meantime, I’m a call away.”

  Clint wasn’t sure how to respond. He hated being dependent, but right now any place was better than the military hospital where he’d felt a fraud.

  Most patients had been wounded in battle; he was there because of a stupid whim. “I want to pay rent for however long I stay,” he said.

  Josh was silent as he turned down a road that bordered the lake, then pulled into a driveway shaded by pines. He parked, and Clint struggled to his feet with the crutches and hobbled toward his temporary residence. He had envisioned something small and rough, but this cabin was far more than that. Larger. More...picturesque. A wide screened porch stretched across the front.