The Rancher's Unexpected Family

by Helen Lacey

  “My head.”

  “Anywhere else?”

  “No.”

  “Any pain in your neck? Your shoulders? Your back or arms?”

  “No.”

  “I’m going to pinch you a little bit—tell me if you can feel it.”

  He did, pinching different spots on her arms and legs. She could feel it so she told him so.

  Then he said, “Can you raise your legs? One at a time?”

  She did that, feeling satin around them. The wedding dress. From the wedding that hadn’t been. Because she’d run away from it...

  “Okay, very carefully, I want you to try to move your head—can you do that?”

  She could do that, too.

  “Any pain with that? Any tingling in your shoulders, arms or legs?”

  “No.”

  “Good. I’m going to unwrap your neck but I’m going to do it slowly, if you feel anything out of the ordinary, you tell me right away, okay?”

  He came closer to unwrap his coat and her vision cleared more so she could take a better look at him.

  He had dark hair the color of a double espresso—short on the sides, longer on top—and a handsome face even at that odd angle.

  In spite of it she could still tell that his nose was slightly long and flat across the bridge but worked well with the sharp lines of a great bone structure—high cheekbones and a strong jawline and chin.

  All refined and tougher versions of what she remembered of the young Conor...

  Why did he keep coming to mind?

  “Nothing? No pain—shooting or otherwise?” the man asked.

  “No,” she said softly as she went on assessing his face and finding more and more that reminded her of the boy she’d loved.

  And learned to wish she hadn’t...

  Those full lips.

  Those thick eyebrows, the same dark brown as his hair.

  Even his ears...

  Conor had had really nice ears...

  Then her neck was free and he raised his eyes to her face.

  And that was when she knew for sure.

  No one she’d ever met except the Madison siblings had eyes like that. Bluer than blue, with silver streaks in them.

  “Oh my God!” she said in alarm.

  “What? Pain? Numbness?” he asked with more urgency.

  “You’re Conor Madison,” she accused.

  He relaxed and nodded. “Hi, Maicy,” he said calmly.

  “I get it—I’ve died and gone to hell,” she muttered.

  As much as she’d wanted to escape her own wedding today, she wanted to get away from Conor even more. So she started to sit up.

  “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” He held her down by the shoulders. “I don’t want you moving at all yet, let alone like that!”

  “And we know that what you want is all that counts.”

  He didn’t address that. He only said, “It’s important that I make sure you don’t aggravate any injuries. So please, just let me check you out?”

  “I guess that means you did become a doctor?” she said, curious but trying to hide it.

  “I did. So let me do my job,” he reiterated.

  Begrudgingly, she conceded to that, doing some checking out of her own as he continued his examination.

  Conor Madison. How, on this day of all days, could she open her eyes and find herself with him?

  Maybe she was hallucinating. That would be so much better...

  But if she was hallucinating, wouldn’t she see him as the boy he’d been when they were last together rather than this solid, muscular, all-grown-up version of him?

  The man who was fully developed—broad of chest and shoulders, with biceps that filled and tested the sleeves of the gray sweatshirt he had on.

  He’d aged from youthful good looks into a striking handsomeness.

  That aggravated Maicy all the more...

  “Shouldn’t you be wearing a uniform?” she asked with some impudence.

  “I’m on leave,” he answered curtly as he took her pulse.

  His voice was the same. It had been deep then and it was deep now. But now it held more confidence, more certainty, more authority, as he told her what to do.

  “I’m fine,” she insisted when his examination seemed finished.

  “You aren’t completely fine,” he said. “You were in a car accident, you have a gash in your head and were unconscious for some amount of time. If I had you in a hospital I’d send you for X-rays and a CT scan. But since we aren’t in a hospital—”

  “Where are we?” she said.

  “The Dale family’s hunting cabin.”

  “Rickie Dale?” She hadn’t thought of him in years.

  “Right—glad to see that you seem to be firing on all burners. That’s a good sign when there’s the potential for a brain injury.”

  “And how is it that I’m here with you?” she asked derisively, thinking that she’d answered enough of his questions and followed enough of his instructions to have earned some reciprocity.

  “I was headed for Northbridge when the storm hit, and I knew I wouldn’t make it. I called Rickie and asked if I could use the place now, to wait out this weather. I came across your car on my way here.”

  “My car...” Maicy said. “Did I wreck it?”

  “You were nose-first in a ditch.”

  Maicy closed her eyes again, overwhelmed for a moment by all this day had brought with it.

  “Hey! You aren’t passing out on me again, are you?” Conor said in a louder voice.

  She opened her eyes. “No,” she said, hating that there was gloom in her own tone for him to hear. “It’s just been a bad day,” she added, hoping he’d leave it at that.

  No such luck.

  “Yeah, I’d say so... Were you on your way to your wedding or coming from it?”

  “Neither.” She just wasn’t sure how to qualify it. “I got to the church but left before the wedding happened.”

  “Without a coat?”

  “I took my coat—it’s in the back seat with my suitcase. I just didn’t put it on. I was in a hurry.”

  He didn’t push it. Instead he said, “Do you feel like you can sit up?”

  “Sure,” she answered, not revealing that she felt unsteady and drained because she didn’t want him to know there was any weakness in her at all. Not now or ever again.

  “I want you to take it slow,” he told her. “Let me help you, and tell me immediately if you feel any hint of pain or tingling or numbness.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she clipped out.

  He helped her sit up, and she made it there without saying anything, containing the groan that almost escaped when her head throbbed with the movement. Her expression must have shown her pain, though, because he said, “There’s some pain reliever in the first-aid kit but I don’t want to give you that until I know that the bleeding is under control. Can you stand to wait?”

  “Yes.” And even if she hadn’t been able to, she wouldn’t have told him. “Now can I get off this floor?”

  “Give it a minute. Let’s see what sitting here does first.”

  Maicy sighed, feeling impatient. Methodical and cautious. That was Conor Madison. To a fault.

  And she had faulted him for it. With good reason.

  Glancing down, Maicy noticed her dress.

  “Oh, I’m a mess...” she lamented. And it had been such a beautiful dress—white satin, scooped neck with cowl-like draping to the hem that ended at her ankles in front and gracefully expanded into a short train in back. Now it was wrinkled, soiled and stained with blood.

  “Actually, you look pretty damn good...” Conor said. She might have been flattered if she’d been willing to accept a comp
liment from the likes of him.

  But as it was she ignored the remark and announced once more, “I feel fine. Now can I get up?”

  “How’s the dizziness?”

  “Good. Gone,” she lied. “I’m sure I can drive. All I have to do is get to my car and back it out of the ditch and—”

  He looked at her as if she was crazy. “In the first place,” he said, “you’re not fine—you’re doing well, but you are not unscathed. You’re nowhere near ready to go outside into the snow without shoes or a coat, much less to hike a mile to your car—because that’s where it is, at the end of the drive up to this cabin. It’s not drivable even if you could get to it—it’s going to need a tow truck. Then there’s the fact that if you were in an emergency room where you belong, they’d admit you to keep an eye on you overnight, and there is no way in hell I’d let you drive even if this was a balmy summer day. So no matter how you want to cut it, you, Maicy Clark, are stuck here. With me.”

  Oh...it was worse than she thought. Not only had she encountered the one person she’d hoped never to see again in her life, she was stranded with him?

  “You look sick—what’s going on?” he said.

  “What’s going on is that I don’t want to be here.” With you! she added in her head.

  But what she said was, “I don’t see mine, but surely you have a cell phone—call for help! Maybe somebody could come and get me—an ambulance, or the fire department.” She refused to believe that things were as impossible as he claimed.

  “If I couldn’t get in to town, no one can get out,” he reasoned.

  “I don’t want to be here with you!” she blurted, unable to stop herself this time.

  “I get that,” he said. “But right now we have to do what we have to do. And arguing about it will only waste time we don’t have to spare. This place is not a four-star hotel and we’re going to have to work to stay warm and fed. So if you think you’re doing okay enough for me to get you onto the couch, there are some things I need to do to get this place up and running—as much as it runs—in order to get us through tonight.”

  Tonight? They’d be spending the whole night together in this cabin?

  Could this day possibly get any worse?

  First her wedding had become a disaster.

  And now here she was, isolated and alone with the guy who had broken her heart and abandoned her in her most desperate time of need.

  Oh yeah, it definitely would have been better if she were just hallucinating.

  Maicy took a deep breath, rallied the strength she’d had to find in herself years before and said, “I can get to the couch myself.”

  He ignored that.

  Which was good because once he’d helped her to her feet her knees buckled and she nearly collapsed.

  He caught her in strong, powerful arms that—if she’d had even an iota of strength herself—she would have slapped away.

  As it was she had no choice but to let him help her to the sofa.

  Once she was there, she shrugged out of his grip and swore to herself that if she couldn’t get back up again without his help, she would stay rooted to that spot.

  Because the last thing she would ever do again was lean on Conor Madison.

  Copyright © 2017 by Victoria Pade

  ISBN-13: 9781488014451

  The Rancher’s Unexpected Family

  Copyright © 2017 by Helen Lacey

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