The Surgeon's Christmas Baby

by Marin Thomas

  Luke opened the back door and got out of the truck.

  “Everyone okay?” the man asked when he reached them. He took off his shades and ran his gaze over Luke.

  “We’re good,” Luke said.

  Hannah joined Luke and said, “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t paying attention to my driving. I didn’t hit you, did I?”

  “Not by a long shot. How about you?”

  His eyes were a hypnotizing shade of caramel brown. “How about me what?”

  “Did you get hurt?” His sexy mouth spread into a grin.

  She shook her head. “I’m fine.”

  He examined the rear wheel. “You’ve got a flat tire.”

  Hannah peered over his shoulder. She’d been driving on bald tires for months. It had only been a matter of time before one of them blew.

  “If you have a spare, I’ll put it on.”

  Where were her manners? When he stood, she held out her hand. “Hannah Buck.” His warm grasp was the nicest thing she’d touched all morning.

  “Alonso Marquez.”

  “This is my brother, Luke,” she said.

  The males shook hands and Hannah noticed Alonso was only an inch or two taller than Luke’s five-ten.

  “I have a spare,” she said. “Luke, grab the wrench and jack from the toolbox.”

  Her brother climbed into the truck bed and rummaged through the steel storage compartment, then handed the tools to Alonso.

  Hannah closed her eyes and rubbed her brow, where a dull throb beat against her skull. The headache had begun right after she’d picked up Luke from Connor’s.

  “Hey,” a deep voice whispered near her ear, and she jumped. “It’s okay.” Alonso smiled. “No one got hurt.”

  Tears stung her eyes at the note of concern in the stranger’s voice. When was the last time anyone had been worried about her?

  True to his word, Alonso put the spare tire on in record time.

  “Thank you,” she said. “And I’m really sorry I almost ran over you.”

  “Be careful.” He saluted her before walking back to retrieve his bag.

  “Aren’t you going to give him a ride?” Luke asked.

  “We don’t know anything about him,” she said.

  “Who cares? He helped us, didn’t he?”

  True, but what if Alonso turned out to be a serial killer or robbed them at gunpoint after she dropped him off farther down the road? Still...this was a lonely stretch of Highway 8 and the town of Paradise was fifteen miles away.

  “Hey, mister, you want a ride?” Luke shouted.

  Alonso waved Luke off, then put in his earbuds, threw his bag over his shoulder and started walking.

  Luke jogged toward Alonso—funny how his hangover prevented him from doing chores but not racing after strangers. Alonso listened to Luke for a minute, then the two walked back to the truck.

  “I told him that you were worried he might kill us.” Luke nudged Alonso’s arm. “Tell her what you said.”

  Alonso flashed his white teeth. “I don’t kill. I save lives.”

  “He’s a doctor, Hannah.”

  “Trauma surgeon,” Alonso said.

  Luke nodded to the man’s fatigues. “And he was an Army doctor in Afghanistan.”

  Hannah would never have guessed the sexy, masculine man was a surgeon. “Why are you hitchhiking?”

  “I took a personal leave from the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque.” He looked at Luke. “Kid, I appreciate the thought, but your sister’s uncomfortable giving me a lift.”

  Luke jutted his chin. “This truck belonged to our dad, so it’s half mine and I say you can have a ride.”

  Alonso glanced between sister and brother. He didn’t care to get involved in their squabble. The teen leaned in close and Alonso caught a whiff of stale alcohol on his breath. “You can ride up front,” Luke said.

  “Aren’t you a little young to be drinking?”

  “I’m sixteen.”

  “Last I heard the drinking age around these parts was twenty-one.”

  “No one pays attention to that law.”

  Touché. Alonso had drunk as a teen—not often—but he’d slammed back a few beers once in a while so the homies in the ’hood wouldn’t make fun of him. It had been tough enough that the kids had picked on him for getting good grades. If not for his little sister Lea’s asthma attacks, forcing Alonso to skip school to care for her while their mother worked, he’d have been a regular Goody Two-shoes. And Goody Two-shoes never made it out of the barrio.

  “Stay out of trouble, kid.” Alonso left the siblings by their truck and started down the road. He’d walked less than a minute before Hannah pulled up next to him and lowered the passenger-side window. He took out his earbuds but kept walking.

  “Where are you headed?” she asked.

  “Nowhere in particular.” He’d had no plan in mind when he’d left his job—just that he hoped lots of fresh air and escaping the city would restore his faith in humanity. His coworkers thought he’d lost his mind when he’d confessed that he needed a break from the blood and gore. Their disbelief hadn’t surprised him. ER doctors and nurses were adrenaline junkies who thrived on chaos. But Alonso’s past was catching up to him. He’d grown up in a rough neighborhood, watching bad things happen to good people. His time in Afghanistan was more of the same—good soldiers losing their lives at the hands of the people they were trying to help. Then he’d returned to the States, where he tried to save more lives—kids shot by kids. Women who were beaten by their boyfriends or husbands. Drug overdoses and innocent men, women and children injured by intoxicated drivers. He’d become weary of all the death and destruction and had needed to escape it for a while.

  Luke poked his head out the window. “You can stay at our ranch if you want.”

  “Luke!” Obviously Hannah didn’t want Alonso anywhere near her or her brother. Smart girl.

  “I’m good, thanks.” He read the indecision in Hannah’s pretty blue eyes and he let his gaze linger on her.

  At first glance she came off plain looking, but upon closer inspection he noticed her eyes darkened to indigo when they shone with worry. Her mouth was a little wide and he imagined what it would feel like to kiss her full lips. Damn. He’d just met Hannah and already he was thinking of having sex with her. She was smart to be wary of him.

  “Luke’s right. You deserve a lift after I almost ran you down, and then made you change a flat tire.”

  “Thanks.” The word was out of his mouth before he could stop it—blame it on her baby blues. Once he got situated in the truck bed, the half window in the backseat opened.

  “You can sit up front with my sister.”

  “I’m fine right here.” Alonso put in his earbuds but didn’t turn on the music. He shouldn’t eavesdrop, but he was curious about the siblings.

  Hannah guided the pickup onto the road and Alonso closed his eyes against the cool breeze. When he’d begun his journey five days ago the high had been seventy-three. He’d headed southeast and had walked twelve hours a day, covering almost thirty-five miles per day. Each twenty-four-hour period that passed, the temperature had dropped. He guessed the first day in November hovered near sixty-five degrees.

  “Why are you so mean?” Luke’s accusation drifted through the open window.

  “What are you talking about?” Hannah asked.

  “Making Alonso sit in the truck bed because you think he’s some psycho.”

  Alonso thought Hannah should be suspicious of him. Not only didn’t she know much about him, but he carried a handgun in his duffel bag.

  “Leave it be, Luke. I don’t want to argue with you.”

  Luke tapped his shoulder. “Alonso.”

  “What?”

  “You ever ro
deo?”

  “No, but I’ve ridden a bucking bronc before.” In high school he and his friends, Cruz Rivera and Victor Vicario, had spent time at the Gateway Ranch, where several cowboys had taught them how to bust broncs. It took only a few short seconds in the saddle for Alonso to figure out rodeo wasn’t his sport. He’d spent the remainder of his stay at the ranch taking care of the livestock.

  “I want to learn how to ride broncs,” Luke said.

  “Bronc riding can be tricky.”

  “But rodeo is so cool.”

  Alonso sensed a wild streak in the teen—no wonder his sister appeared stressed out. “Some high schools have rodeo teams.”

  “School sucks.” Luke lowered his voice. “I’m gonna drop out.”

  “I doubt your parents would approve of you quitting school.”

  “My mom and dad are dead.” That Luke said it so matter-of-factly left Alonso speechless.

  The truck slowed, then turned onto a dirt road and drove beneath a wooden arch with the words Blue Bison Ranch painted in white across it. He should remind Hannah to stop and let him out, but the words never came.

  She drove a quarter mile before he saw a house, barn and corral. The place could use a little TLC. The adobe-style home needed a fresh coat of beige paint, and the red barn had faded to pink and was missing a few boards. A flatbed trailer half-loaded with hay bales sat beneath the open barn loft. No ranch hand appeared to greet them—maybe the hired help was out with the cattle.

  Hannah parked in front of the barn and as soon as she and her brother opened their doors, they started in on each other.

  “Finish loading the hay, Luke.”

  “You load it. I’m going to bed.”

  Hannah grabbed Luke’s shirtsleeve. “If you think you’re old enough to stay up all night drinking, then you can do a man’s work the next day.”

  “I’m sick of you bossing me around. Go to hell.” Luke stormed into the house.

  Alonso waited for Hannah’s next move, then his chest tightened when she dabbed her eyes with her fingertips. He couldn’t stand to see her cry.

  “I’ll load the hay.” He hopped out of the truck bed.

  She slapped a hand against her heart and stared at him wide-eyed—yep, she’d forgotten about him. A first for Alonso. He was quiet by nature but a decent-looking man, according to the ER nurses, who repeatedly reminded him of their single status.

  “I was supposed to let you off by the road.”

  “Not a big deal. It isn’t that far of a walk.” He nodded to the trailer. “Loading hay bales is the least I can do to thank you for the lift.”

  After a second’s hesitation she said, “I need twenty-five more.”

  “Twenty-five bales it is.” He waited for Hannah to enter the house, then went into the barn and climbed the ladder to the loft. As he dropped the bales to the ground below, he wondered if the siblings fought like this every day.

  Did it matter? As soon as he finished the chore, he’d hit the road again.

  Chapter Two

  Hannah stood at her bedroom window and watched hay bales sail out of the barn loft. She was grateful that Alonso had offered to help and embarrassed that he’d witnessed the drama between her and Luke.

  True to his word, her brother had crawled into bed as soon as he’d gone into the house. Luke was a spoiled brat and she accepted much of the blame for his self-centeredness. She’d always felt sorry for him, because Ruth had neglected him. Then, when Luke was old enough to do guy things with their father, Joe had chosen to spend his free time with a can of beer rather than his son. So Hannah had babied Luke and now she was paying the price.

  The tears she’d held back all day dripped down her cheeks. She wiped the moisture away, assuming her weepiness was the result of exhaustion and worry. She returned downstairs, grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and, ignoring the pile of dirty dishes in the sink, she went out to the barn. Halfway there she froze when she caught a glimpse of Alonso’s bare chest. He’d taken his shirt off and his skin glistened with sweat, the muscles rippling when he heaved a bale over his head. The sight of all that masculinity set off an explosion of feminine twinges—erotic little aches that she hadn’t experienced in a long, long while.

  He disappeared from the hayloft window, then a moment later walked out of the barn, his T-shirt hanging from his jeans pocket. “Almost done.” He began picking the bales up off the ground and placing them on the flatbed. The words US Army were tattooed above an image of eagle wings and a snake coiled around a rod. He hadn’t lied about being a military doctor.

  She held out the water bottle.

  “Thanks.” He guzzled the drink, then sucked in a deep breath.

  It was none of her business, but she asked, “How long were you in the Army?”

  “I did one tour in Afghanistan before I returned to civilian life.”

  “Are you originally from New Mexico?”

  “Born and raised in Albuquerque.” He lifted the bottom of his T-shirt and wiped the sweat off his face. “What about you?”

  “Born and raised in Paradise.” Four generations of Bucks had lived on the ranch outside the small town—population just a little over two thousand. “My great-grandfather bought this land.” But it was Hannah’s grandfather who had made most of the improvements—digging the water wells and starting up a bison herd. Sadly her father had run it into the ground.

  “Anything else I can help with before I take off?”

  “No.” She motioned to the flatbed. “You’ve done plenty, thanks.”

  His eyes shifted to the house. “Is your brother okay?”

  She refused to make excuses for Luke. “He’s sleeping off his hangover.”

  “Does he drink often?”

  Was Alonso asking as a doctor or just a guy she’d picked up hitchhiking? “He sneaked a can of beer once in a while before our father died. But last night he got caught binge drinking with a friend.”

  She waited for Alonso to lecture her on the evils of alcohol consumption, which sadly she was all too familiar with. Instead, he said, “Pull your truck over here and I’ll hook it up to the trailer, then you drive and I’ll cut the bales and drop them where you tell me to.”

  She wanted to refuse his help but swallowed her pride. Once Alonso hitched the trailer to the pickup, he walked up to the driver’s-side window. “Blow the horn when you want me to toss a bale.”

  She handed him the wire cutters and work gloves she kept in the truck. After he climbed onto the trailer, she drove off, slowing down when she left the dirt road and entered the pasture. She honked every ten yards. Halfway through her route the bison came over a ridge. After Alonso threw the last bale onto the ground she put the truck into Park and got out.

  He hopped off the trailer. “I’ve never seen bison up close. They’re pretty impressive animals.”

  “My great-grandfather raised cattle. It was my grandfather who switched to bison after he lost an entire herd to disease.” She smiled. “Have you ever eaten bison meat?”

  “Nope.”

  “We sell our bison to gourmet food markets, but once in a while a dude ranch will ask to buy one of the animals to keep as a pet. Tourists get a kick out of seeing them.”

  “How many do you have?”

  “My grandfather kept a herd of three hundred then my father decreased it to two hundred, and right now I have a hundred and fifty.” She’d had to sell thirty head to cover the back taxes. Once the ranch was in better financial shape, she intended to grow the herd again.

  “Ready when you are.” He got in on the passenger side and the musky scent of male sweat and faded cologne filled the cab. She turned the truck around and drove back through the pasture. “I would have been doing this in the dark tonight if you hadn’t offered to help.”

  “
You don’t have any ranch hands working for you?”

  “I can’t afford to pay one. If Luke would stay out of trouble and do his share of the chores, we’d manage fine.”

  “Luke mentioned both your parents are gone.”

  Gone sounded temporary, not permanent like dead. Maybe that was how soldiers viewed fatalities in the Army. His comrades never died—they were just gone. “Our father passed away in a horseback-riding accident and Luke’s mother died in a car crash.”

  “Must be rough, handling all this on your own.”

  “It’s been challenging.” She parked next to the barn. “You should stay for supper.” Hannah decided it would be best if she and Luke had a buffer between them for a while—otherwise they might say something they’d regret. “There’s a cot in the storage room in the barn. You can sleep in there tonight, then leave in the morning.”

  Luke would love it if Alonso hung around and did the rest of his chores for him. But that wasn’t why Hannah had extended the invite. She hadn’t been involved with anyone since Seth, and Alonso reminded her of how lonely she was for male attention.

  “I could use a good night’s sleep and a warm meal.”

  She opened her mouth to ask where he was headed then changed her mind. Come morning Alonso would gone.

  * * *

  “MY SISTER SAID you’re staying the night.”

  “I’ll head out in the morning at first light.”

  “You don’t have to clean the horse stalls.”

  “Someone has to do it.” Alonso tossed a clump of soiled hay toward the wheelbarrow.

  Luke climbed the ladder to the loft and sat, legs dangling above Alonso’s head. Obviously the kid would rather watch than help. No wonder Hannah was miffed at her brother.

  “Where will you go when you leave here?” Luke asked.

  “I’m not sure. I don’t have any place in mind.” He pointed to the wheelbarrow. “Lend me a hand, will you?”

  “And do what?”

  Alonso set the pitchfork aside and dragged a hay bale over to a stall, then dropped the wire cutters on top of it. “Spread clean hay in the stalls I’ve already cleaned.”