The Cowboy and the Lady

by Marie Ferrarella

  The rest of the time, she was in the back, working at her true calling and recently obtained vocation, that of being a nurse. Achieving the status meant that her fondest dream had come true. Or, more accurately, her fondest dream right after marrying Ray, the youngest of the Rodriguez clan and the man she had been in love with for what amounted to most of her life—ever since elementary school.

  Holly loved being a nurse.

  Loved it so much that not even the most menial of tasks associated with the vocation daunted her enthusiasm. On a few rare occasions, since Forever had no hospital and the closest one was located in Pine Ridge, some fifty miles away, patients who had to undergo emergency surgery were placed in the room that served as the clinic’s recovery area. When that happened, Holly was the one who gladly remained overnight and watched over the patient until he or she was strong enough to be transported to Pine Ridge Memorial.

  Holly had momentarily returned to the front desk less than three minutes ago. She was in the middle of organizing the last batch of patients who had signed in while she was in the back, assisting the two doctors. She had to admit, if only to herself, that trying to split herself equally between the doctors and working the desk was really beginning to wear her down.

  Right about now, she was very close to wanting to sell her soul for some extra help.

  The bell over the door chimed, indicating that yet another patient was coming in. Holly tried not to feel overwhelmed as she looked up to see who had come hoping to be squeezed in to see one of the doctors.

  It felt as if most of Forever had already been here today.

  Holly was surprised to see Jackson White Eagle enter. To her recollection, the man had never set foot in the clinic seeking medical help for himself. It was always for whomever he had in tow.

  Today was no different, Holly thought when she saw that someone was with him.

  Someone, Holly realized as she looked more closely, who she didn’t recognize at all.

  Between working at the clinic and waitressing at the diner, the job she’d held down while she was studying for her nursing degree, Holly felt fairly confident that she knew everyone who lived in and around Forever, at least by sight if not by actual name.

  But the person with Jackson was a woman she had never seen before.

  “You picked a really bad day to try to see one of the doctors,” she told Jackson the moment he crossed to the front desk. “I think we’re well on our way to breaking the record for number of patients treated here in a single day. If you’re not feeling too bad, maybe you could come back tomorrow,” Holly tactfully suggested. She was addressing her words to Jackson, but due to past experience, the polite suggestion was intended for the person she assumed was the real patient, the woman he had brought in with him.

  “We’re not sick,” Jackson assured her. “As a matter of fact, I’m actually here to do you and the docs a favor.”

  A rather mysterious smile played on his lips as he spoke.

  Somewhat confused, Holly cocked her head, waiting for more of an explanation.

  “Who’s in charge of hiring?” Jackson asked her.

  He assumed that it was Dr. Davenport, since Davenport was the one who had reopened the clinic after it had been closed for over thirty years. But just in case Dan had handed off that job to the new doctor, he didn’t want to start Debi off on the wrong foot by accidentally stepping on any toes—or egos.

  But he hadn’t.

  “That would be Dr. Dan. Why do you ask?” Holly asked. The words were no sooner out of her mouth than the answer hit her. Afraid that she’d probably made a mistake, her eyes still seemed to light up as she went on to ask, “Did you bring the clinic a sec— An administrative assistant?”

  Her tongue had stumbled a little over the job title. At times it was hard remembering the correct terminology being used these days. Forever might be a very small town with its share of growing pains, but it wasn’t exactly lost in the last century, either. People in the know did their best to remain current.

  Jackson glanced at the woman with him before looking back at Holly. There was a spark of amusement in his eyes. “Not exactly.”

  “Oh.” The single word was just brimming with disappointment.

  Debi was quick to pick up on it—as well as to take in the fact that there was growing chaos on the front desk’s surface.

  “Do you need help out here?” Debi asked, ready to volunteer.

  She knew what it felt like to be swamped. As far as she was concerned, what she’d just asked was basically a rhetorical question since she could see that the young woman behind the front desk was all but drowning in paperwork, files and patients.

  “Oh, God, yes.” The words slipped out of Holly’s mouth before she could think to stop them. She could handle this, she knew she could. It would just take her half the night after the doors closed, that’s all.

  The young woman’s response was all the urging Debi needed. “What do you need me to do?” she asked, coming around the desk.

  Jackson watched the woman he’d brought to the clinic. It was his turn to be confused. “I thought you told me that you were a surgical nurse,” Jackson said.

  “I am, but I worked in the front office while I was studying for my nursing degree. You get a feel for how a hospital operates that way.”

  Holly’s mouth dropped open.

  “You’re a nurse?” she cried, looking very much like a child whose every wish for Christmas had just been summarily granted. “Really?” Her voice trailed off in a thrilled squeak.

  “Really,” Debi happily confirmed, then added, “But I know my way around a desk and appointment ledgers. I don’t mind working a desk, really.”

  Energized by this one piece of information and the promise that went with it, Holly sprang to her feet. “Wait right here,” she instructed both of them.

  Actually, it was more of a plea.

  She began to dash to the back of the clinic when one of the patients in the waiting room lumbered to his feet. A big man with a gravelly voice, Ralph Walters wasn’t shy about voicing his displeasure.

  “Hey, I’ve been waiting to see the doctor for almost an hour,” he complained, then jerked his thumb in Jackson’s direction. “How come they’re getting to see him before I do?”

  “Because they’re about to make life a whole lot better around here,” Holly promised. Turning around to look at Jackson and the young woman he had brought with him, she said, “Don’t go anywhere.”

  The next moment, she ducked into the second exam room.

  Less than three minutes later, Holly was back out and at the desk. “Dr. Dan said not to go anywhere. He’s finishing up with a patient and he’ll be right out to see you.”

  Debi realized that with all this going on around her, she hadn’t introduced herself to the very pretty, harried young woman behind the desk. Leaning forward, she extended her hand to the nurse.

  “Hi, I’m Debi Kincannon,” she told her.

  Holly grinned. “I’m Holly Rodriguez,” she responded, gladly taking Debi’s hand and shaking it.

  “And I’m getting damn impatient,” Ralph grumbled, glaring at the two women.

  Holly suppressed a sigh. “Mr. Walters, please. The doctors are working as quickly as they can, but they don’t want to be careless or overlook something just in order to save time,” Holly told him, doing her best to reason with the man.

  Jackson turned around and looked at Walters, who had a couple of inches and a great many pounds on him. Seeing what appeared to have all the earmarks of a confrontation, Debi held her breath as she waited to see just what was going to happen next.

  “Nobody likes waiting, Mr. Walters,” Jackson pointed out. “But complaining about it just makes it unpleasant for everyone.”

  Walters appeared as if he was about to say a few
choice words in response, but then the older man looked up into Jackson’s face. It was obvious that the rancher realized that Jackson was younger, stronger and far more capable of subduing him than the other way around.

  Muttering under his breath rather than voicing his opinion out loud, Walters sank back down into his seat again.

  Holly seemed both impressed at the interaction and relieved that it hadn’t escalated. “Bless you,” she mouthed to Jackson.

  Jackson nodded in reply.

  Just then, the door to the second exam room opened and Alice Ledbetter, one of Miss Joan’s waitresses, walked out. The woman was smiling. “My back and neck feel much better already,” she was saying to the tall, striking man who walked out with her. “I don’t know how to thank you, Doctor.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” Dan replied genially. Sending off his patient, Dan quickly took in the duo standing by the front desk. “Jackson,” he said heartily, shaking the man’s hand, “Holly tells me that you’ve brought someone to make our lives here a little less hectic.” Dan focused on the young woman standing beside Jackson. “I take it Jackson and Holly were talking about you.”

  Flattered and a little floored, Debi wasn’t exactly sure just what to say or even where to begin. Did she thank the man for seeing her? Modestly brush aside the fact that any sort of compliments were implied? Or did she give him a litany of her accomplishments and focus on explaining why he should be hiring her?

  In general, she had never been the type to oversell herself. Too much of a buildup left too much of an opportunity for a letdown. She could only go with the simple truth.

  “I’m a surgical nurse and I’m going to be here in Forever for at least a month.” She glanced toward Jackson. Maybe she was being too optimistic about Ryan’s progress. “Maybe longer. I was wondering if you—”

  “You’re hired,” Dan told her.

  Debi stared at him, stunned. She was good and she deserved to be hired, but there was no way the man could know that, not without verification.

  “Don’t you want references, to see my work records, my—”

  Dan stopped her right there.

  “I’m sure they’re all in order. If they’re not, that’ll come to light quickly enough,” Dan told her. Putting out his hand to her, he said, “I’m Dan Davenport and I’m very happy for any help you can give us, as, I’m sure, is Holly. We’ll discuss terms later after the clinic closes for the night. When can you start?” he asked, not bothering to hide the fact that he was eager for her to join the team.

  “I was thinking tomorrow, but I can stay and help Holly if she needs me to.” Debi was exhausted and the thought of getting a room at the hotel and just sleeping through until tomorrow morning had a great deal of appeal, but becoming part of the team, even a temporary member, was important. She didn’t want to begin by shirking off responsibility.

  “And risk having you quit before you ever get started?” Dan asked with a laugh. “No, tomorrow will be fine,” he told her. About to go into exam room one where yet another patient was waiting for him, Dan paused for a moment longer as a question occurred to him. “Do you have a place to stay? Because if you don’t, my wife and I have a spare bedroom—”

  “I’m taking her to the hotel,” Jackson told him, cutting the doctor’s offer short.

  Dan nodded. “Good—but if you decide you don’t like it there, the offer’s still on the table,” he told his new nurse before finally leaving the reception area.

  Holly was about to bring another patient into the room that Alice Ledbetter had just vacated. But first she paused for a moment by the woman she looked upon as a candidate to become her new best friend.

  “Ray and I have plenty of room on the ranch if you decide you want something a little quieter than a room at the hotel,” she offered. “No charge,” she promised. “Just let me know.”

  Debi nodded, somewhat caught off guard by the displays of generosity aimed in her direction. It overwhelmed her.

  “You look a little confused,” Jackson observed as they walked out of the clinic again. Despite the Stetson he wore, Jackson found he had to shade his eyes as he looked in her direction. “Something wrong?”

  She wouldn’t have put it quite that way. “Not wrong, exactly...”

  Inclining his head, he asked her patiently, “But what, ‘exactly’?”

  She wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of this sort of selfless generosity. It didn’t exactly make her feel uncomfortable, but it did make her feel a little...strange, for lack of a better word to describe her reaction.

  Debi did her best to explain how she felt about being offered all of this to Jackson.

  “Where I come from, people go out of their way not to take you in if they don’t have to, especially if they don’t really know you. Being offered a place to stay not once but twice in the space of a few minutes, well, it just seems...”

  Her voice trailed off as she lifted her shoulders in a vague shrug.

  “Unusually generous?” he supplied when she stopped talking.

  Debi nodded. That was as good a way to phrase it as any, she supposed. “That wasn’t exactly what I was going to say, but I guess that’s a good way to describe it.”

  “I guess people are a little more cautious about opening up their homes to other people in Indianapolis,” Jackson guessed.

  “Yes.”

  Was he looking down at Indianapolis? She could feel herself automatically getting defensive. When had defensiveness become a way of life? she wondered. It hadn’t always been that way.

  “People tend to march to a different beat in a big city. In a town, especially a town as small as Forever is, people look out for one another.” It was the same way on a reservation, Jackson thought. Because they had more than their share of missing parents and incomplete family units, the inhabitants that were there became one large extended family. “It’s the usual course of events. They want to help, they get involved. Anonymity and minding ‘your own business’ just isn’t a factor in a small town like Forever.”

  “Maybe not, but it does take some getting used to,” Debi confessed.

  He thought about it for a moment. “I suppose that it does. If you’re raised to be suspicious and to examine everything, then taking things at face value takes some effort.”

  Something in his voice caught her attention. “You sound like you’ve been through something like that yourself.”

  She regarded him in a whole new light. Initially, she’d thought that Jackson was born somewhere close by if not directly in Forever. But for him to know why she might have misgivings about the offers that had been made, he had to have experienced something along the same lines as she had at some point.

  “I might,” Jackson acknowledged, then closed the topic in the next moment. “Here’s the hotel,” he announced needlessly.

  The hotel had been finished less than a year ago and it was still a surprise to see it standing there whenever he came into town. Getting used to having the building as part of the town’s backdrop was going to take some doing, Jackson surmised.

  “You know, if you’re worried about money,” he began abruptly as he pulled up in front of the hotel, “you’re welcome to stay on the ranch.”

  “Your ranch?” she asked, half convinced that he had to be referring to another one.

  “Yes,” he answered. Why would she think that he would offer up someone else’s home?

  “Where?” To the best of her knowledge, any extra people on the ranch slept in one communal place. “In the bunkhouse?”

  Now that would have definitely been asking for trouble, Jackson thought.

  “No, we can’t have you staying there with the guys. If nothing else, that sends the wrong message to them and having you there would definitely distract them from any lesson they’ve been sent here to
learn. No, I was talking about the ranch house,” he told her. “We do have a couple of spare bedrooms in the ranch house. Nothing fancy, just a bed, a small bureau and one nightstand.” He came full circle back to the reason for the offer. “But if you’re pressed for money—”

  Debi looked at him, surprised and somewhat uncomfortable.

  “Who said I was pressed for money?” she asked.

  “No one,” he replied simply.

  He wasn’t making his offer based on words he had actually heard. What had prompted him to make the offer was a feeling he’d gotten from the way she talked more than from what she actually said. She’d said she was taking a leave of absence from her job, but she had seemed eager to go to work at the clinic. If money was of no consequence, she would have been content just to stay at the hotel and observe Ryan at a distance.

  Money, however, was of consequence.

  “But no one likes to spend money if they don’t have to...” he said vaguely.

  She had a difference of opinion on that, an opinion that was probably the direct opposite of the one that Jackson had, she thought. She knew of several people who loved spending money and they did it as if it was going out of style.

  In addition, one of those people—John—was actually spending money he didn’t have. That had come to light thanks to the divorce proceedings. Spending money recklessly was definitely something she would absolutely never do. However, she wasn’t about to be the object of pity, either. If she actually did have that job at the clinic, then the charge for the hotel room wouldn’t be a problem. She wasn’t looking to save money while here, she was attempting to pay her bills while she stayed close enough to be within shouting range for Ryan if it turned out that he needed her.

  “If I’m going to be working at the clinic, it’s easier for me to be staying in town, as well, which in this case means having a room in the hotel. But thanks for the offer,” she told him with feeling.