Marked for Marriage

by Jackie Merritt

  “I—I’ve become a…tramp,” she stammered between great gulping sobs.

  Noah nearly fell over from shock. “Maddie, what in hell ever put that notion into your head?”

  “Oh, just listen…to…to…the man’s surprise,” she gasped out, then viciously turned on him. “It’s your fault, and you know it, too, don’t you?”

  “Uh…okay…fine. I’ll take the blame…but would you mind telling me what blame it is that I’m accepting?”

  “For my being a tramp! Do you think I sleep with just anybody? You have the most uncanny knack for catching me with my…my…guard down.”

  “I thought you were going to say ‘with my pants down,’” Noah drawled. “Maddie, you couldn’t be what you called yourself if you tried. The word is so insulting and so far from the truth that I can’t even say it. Listen for a minute. The reason you drop your guard with me is because you’re falling in love.” He knew he was taking a huge chance with those words, but he was so full of words that he wanted to say to her, and maybe he had to risk part of himself to gain all of her.

  “What?” Maddie bolted to a sitting position and gaped at him with tears still dripping down her face, her hair all askew and apparently unaware that she’d left the blankets behind and she was naked to the waist.

  Noah’s gaze dropped and lingered on her perfect little breasts. “Would that be so terrible?” he asked softly, and lifted his hand to gently cup the back of her neck. “I rather like the idea.”

  She was truly stunned, mostly because she’d been thinking so much about love while they’d been making love. But he’d only said that she was falling in love, and that hurt her.

  “Just because you seem to have some kind of sexual influence that makes me behave like a…a…you know…doesn’t mean I’m falling in love. Your ego is getting just a bit out of hand, Dr. I’m-Just-Too-Cute-To-Resist.”

  “Well, obviously you can’t.”

  “Can’t what? Resist you? That’s absurd!” She shook his hand away from her neck, noticed the sagging blankets and yanked them up to cover her breasts.

  “Maddie, you just said yourself that— Well, you know what you said, and the bottom line is that now you’re not being honest with me.”

  “And you, of course, are the heart and soul of honesty,” she retorted sarcastically.

  “I’d like to be. With you, I’d like very much to be totally honest.”

  “Oh, sure, that’s the reason you inserted that huge void in your soap opera tale of young Dr. Martin’s life between his medical school years and the present. Do you think I’m stupid enough to believe that nothing important happened during those years? I believe you used the word meaningless. Well, something damned meaningful transported your ass from San Francisco to Whitehorn, buster, so if you’re suddenly all holy and full of grace over honesty, start talking!”

  “All right, I will. But will you tell me something first?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Why you were crying when I called.”

  Maddie looked at him a moment, then sighed and lay down again. “I thought you were Mark.”

  “I realize that, but do you usually cry when he calls?”

  “Of course not. But today was…awful…and I came to bed wishing I could talk to Mark about it. He’s more than just my brother. He’s my best friend…my confidant…the one person I can tell anything to. I apologize for yelling at you…for accusing you of pretending to be Mark. That was ridiculous, and I knew it was even while I was saying it, but I was just so upset over the day, and then being awakened by the phone in the middle of the night and…well, I’m sure you get the picture.”

  “Pretty much, yes, except for what happened that made the day so awful.”

  Maddie’s eyes filled again. “Something’s wrong with Fanny. I spent most of the day at the Braddock stable with her, and there’s something wrong with her legs. I have a veterinarian going out there tomorrow, and…”

  “You have an appointment with Dr. Herrera tomorrow.”

  “I know I do! Good Lord, give me some credit. My appointment with Herrera is in the morning, and the vet, a Dr. Riley Pierce, is going to the ranch around three in the afternoon. I plan to be there when he is, and I will be if I have to cut every corner in the book.”

  “I’m sorry, Maddie, maybe I spoke out of turn, but I happen to think that your health is more important than a horse’s.”

  “How dare you say that to me? You don’t know the first thing about my feelings for Fanny. I couldn’t bear anything serious happening to her. She’s the reason I’ve been successful in rodeo. I love her more than myself, and what’s more, I couldn’t earn a living without her. We’re a team. You probably don’t understand how crucial teamwork between a rider and her horse is in barrel racing, but take my word for it, no one wins without it.”

  Noah listened to Maddie’s every word, but he was also realizing something astounding while she talked. If she couldn’t compete anymore, she would probably stay in Whitehorn!

  Oh, my God, he thought as hope blossomed within him. In the next heartbeat, guilt hit him with all the power of a battering ram. Maddie adored her horse, and he had never been a cruel person, certainly not cruel enough to wish for the demise of an innocent horse so he could have what he wanted—its owner!

  Noah snuggled himself around her. “Let’s believe that both you and Fanny are fine,” he said quietly. “Maddie, may I stay here with you tonight?”

  “I should say no.”

  “Because?”

  “Because…because we’re both getting deeper and deeper into something that could and probably will end up with one of us…probably me…getting hurt.”

  He brought her head to his shoulder and sighed. “Maddie, I’m more apt to be the one who gets hurt. Remember that I’m not planning to go anywhere, and you are.”

  Maddie became very still. His warmth surrounded her, and it was truly wonderful to be so close to someone in bed at night. She’d slept alone all of her life. Even the few romances in her past had not included sleeping all night with a man. But along with that realization came another. For the first time she saw whatever it was that was going on between her and Noah from his point of view. At least she caught a glimmer of how he might be feeling about everything.

  She was hardly your average, everyday woman. Take their first meeting, for instance, when he’d nearly laughed himself to death over her bravado with a paperweight. After that she had to have been one shock after another for him to absorb—her career, for one thing, her lifestyle for another. She lived in a trailer with a horse! She’d never thought so, but Noah, who had grown up in a perfect family and had lived a perfect life—until the VOID, which she still didn’t comprehend—even to attending the perfect schools, probably couldn’t think of her choice of home and roommate as anything but bizarre.

  But all that could be over, Maddie thought with tears stinging her eyes again. If Fanny couldn’t compete anymore, everything would change. Could she ever adjust to an ordinary way of life? Be an ordinary woman who worked at some boring job and lived in a regular house? A house without wheels? She would be so stuck, so rooted.

  On the other hand, if Fanny was all right, they would be leaving Whitehorn, possibly very soon, which also meant saying goodbye to Noah.

  Maddie’s heart began aching so badly that she could hardly bear it. She knew then, just as Aunt June had said she would, that she was madly, deeply and eternally in love with Dr. Noah Martin.

  “Noah,” she whispered emotionally. “I have to tell you something. You were right. I…I do love you. I just now realized it. I love you, I really do.”

  “Hmm, that’s…good. I love you, too, Maddie.”

  He sounded odd, and Maddie turned her head to peer at his face. He was sound asleep! Had he really heard what she’d said and knew what he’d said? Would he remember in the morning that they had each confessed love for the other?

  Maddie quietly cried herself to sleep. Normally an optimist,
she couldn’t find one single thing in her life to be optimistic about. Nothing was right, not one damned thing.

  Very early the next morning Noah got up, gathered his clothes, dressed in the living room and noiselessly left the house. When Maddie woke up several hours later, the only evidence that he’d really been there during the night were the scrunched indentations in the pillow he’d used. She had no idea what time it had been when he’d gone, but she wished that he had kissed her and told her that he loved her before he went. It would have been much easier to believe if he’d said it when they were both wide awake.

  The cloudy gray sky that morning did nothing to lift Maddie’s downcast spirit. Obviously yesterday had been a fluke—one glorious day of sunshine and warmth—before true February weather blanketed the area again. The sky didn’t look like another heavy snowfall to Maddie, though, but she felt that rain was a strong possibility.

  She arrived at Dr. Herrera’s office fifteen minutes ahead of her appointment to take care of the paperwork physicians always required of a new patient. An hour after her appointment time she was ushered into an examination room, where she impatiently waited another twenty minutes for the doctor. Worrying every second about being at the stable when Dr. Pierce examined Fanny, Maddie couldn’t bring herself to smile at Dr. Herrera when he finally came in.

  After thoroughly questioning her about her arena accident, then examining her hand, her knee and her reflexes in all of her limbs, the doctor called for his nurse and requested that she phone the radiology department at the hospital as he was sending Miss Maddie Kincaid over for some X-rays.

  “Wait a minute,” Maddie said. “How long will that take?”

  “I’m really not sure,” the doctor said. “I hope you have the time for X-rays today, Maddie. I believe your hand is healing as it should, but I’m quite concerned about your knee.”

  Maddie was suddenly terribly depressed. “I don’t doubt it. In fact, the way things have been going lately, I’d be surprised if you weren’t concerned.”

  “Let me explain. A sudden twisting of the knee may cause a ligament sprain or tear a meniscus…one or both of the disks of protective cartilage covering the surfaces of the two major bones in the human leg, the femur and the tibia. Now, that very well could have occurred when you fell from your horse. You also could have incurred severe damage to the knee joint, which can cause hemarthrosis, or bleeding into the joint. These are serious injuries, Maddie, and we must rule them out before considering more minor problems, such as inflammation of the joint lining. X-rays are quite necessary, Maddie, and the sooner the better.”

  “And…if my injury is more serious than not…what then?” Maddie was shaken and showed it in the unsteadiness of her voice. “Take the worst-case scenario from those you told me, would I still be able to ride my horse?”

  “You’ll always be able to ride, Maddie,” the doctor said gently. “You may not be able to compete, but you’ll always be able to ride.”

  Maddie nodded numbly. Never be able to compete again? And that was her! Were both she and Fanny going to be put out to pasture today?

  “All right,” she said tremulously. “I’ll get the X-rays whenever you say.”

  “Wise decision.” Dr. Herrera left the room to finalize Maddie’s arrangement with the hospital’s radiology department.

  “I’m not wise, I’m desperate,” she whispered.

  Maddie didn’t make it out to the Braddock ranch before three. She phoned Denise from the hospital at three-thirty. “I’m so upset I could spit,” she told Denise. “I agreed to having some X-rays taken, but then when I got over here to the radiology department, I found out that they’d put me on a standby list. Apparently they were booked solid and only agreed to squeeze me in, which, of course, Dr. Herrera didn’t tell me. Anyhow, is Dr. Pierce still there?”

  “He just left. I’m sorry, Maddie.”

  “Well, he wasn’t there very long.”

  “He was here about an hour.”

  “Then he got there before three!”

  “Yes, he did. I told him you wanted to be here while he examined Fanchon, but he had other obligations and couldn’t wait for you to arrive.”

  Maddie was afraid to ask, but she had to. “Did…did he tell you what’s wrong with her?”

  “It’s a tendon problem, Maddie. Have you heard of bowed tendon?”

  “Yes, it’s a serious condition…mostly found in racehorses,” Maddie said weakly. “Is that Fanny’s problem?”

  “Yes, but it’s not as bad as it could be. Here, let me read what he wrote down to give to you. ‘Tendons consist of numerous fibrils. The tendons involved in a bowed tendon condition are the deep flexor tendons located behind the cannon bone that runs from knee to fetlock. The condition is most common in the front legs. The bow is caused by swelling fibrils, oozing inflammatory fluid and by capillary hemorrhage. The severity of the condition depends on the number of fibrils stretched or torn, and on the position of the injury.’”

  Denise continued. “He also wrote his treatment recommendation. Do you want to hear that, too?”

  “Yes, please,” Maddie said in a near whisper. She was shaking all over and knew that if she were someplace alone, instead of in a public place, she would break down and wail out loud. Her heart felt shattered, and the horrible guilt engulfing her over her neglect in not having Fanny checked out immediately after the accident was almost more than she could bear.

  Denise read, “‘Rest is crucial. Do not exercise the horse. Apply ice packs to the swellings, then wrap legs firmly from knee to the fetlock joint. Repeat daily.’ Maddie, he said that he’d drop in every few days to give her an anti-inflammatory injection.”

  “Do you have time to apply the ice packs and wrappings?”

  “No, but I know a young man who adores horses and is constantly hounding me for odd jobs. If I show him once what to do, he’ll take it from there.”

  “I’ll pay his wage, of course. Denise, you said it wasn’t as bad as it could be. Was that Dr. Pierce’s opinion?”

  “Maddie, he sort of beat around the bush about that, to be honest, but he clearly stated that he’d treated horses that were a lot worse off than Fanny. If you take that into consideration along with his calm appraisal of the situation, I think Fanny will be okay in time.”

  “How much time, Denise? Did he say?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “I’ve heard of horses being spelled in a paddock for months and months,” Maddie said sadly. “I’m sure you have, too.”

  “Fanny’s not that bad off, Maddie. Even I can see that, and Dr. Pierce did come right out and say that the swelling of Fanchon’s legs was minimal. Please don’t think the worst. I’m betting she’ll be fine in just a few weeks.”

  “Fine enough for competition? You don’t have to answer that. At this point I don’t know if I’ll be fine enough for competition in a few weeks. Denise, thanks for everything you did today. I’ll contact Dr. Pierce’s office and find out when he’ll be out there again. I really would like to talk to him.”

  “Of course you would. You said you’re in line for some X-rays?”

  “It’s my left knee, Denise. Fanny’s not the only Kincaid with leg problems,” she added in a feeble attempt to lighten the situation.

  “Let me know how you are,” Denise said quietly.

  “I will. Thanks again.”

  It was drizzling rain when Maddie finally drove home. She could not have been in a more despondent frame of mind. She’d been told in radiology that her X-rays would be read, documented and sent to Dr. Herrera, probably tomorrow, but while she was understandably concerned about her own physical well-being, it was Fanny’s condition that had Maddie so down in the dumps.

  Because of the dismal atmosphere of rain, heavy cloud cover and an early nightfall, the streetlights were on and creating eerie yellow globes in the pewter-like twilight. Maddie drove like an automaton, heeding stop signs and other vehicles through sheer habit, not because her mi
nd was where it should be.

  But, dear God, how could her life have become such a disrupted, discordant and probably irreconcilable mess in so short a time?

  A sob threatened to escape her throat, but she refused to shed another tear today. In fact, she was fed up and angry, mostly with herself, but the world in general wasn’t all that great, either. Actually she was ticked off at pretty much everything and everyone—Noah Martin included! Maybe Noah Martin especially! After all, other men hadn’t taken advantage of the frail little woman she’d become since the accident, had they? No, sir, he was the only unscrupulous rogue she knew, and she wasn’t going to pace away the evening frustrated and steaming mad.

  Maddie suddenly turned her truck around and headed back to the medical center. It didn’t take long for her to locate Noah’s office and to find a parking place. When she walked into his waiting room and saw no one but the receptionist, she knew she’d come to spew her wrath at exactly the right time.

  “Hello,” the receptionist said with a pleasant smile.

  “Hello. I need to see Dr. Martin.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No, but I know he’ll see me. Just tell him that Maddie Kincaid is pacing in his waiting room.”

  “Ms. Kincaid, he’s with a patient. But I’ll speak to his nurse. Please have a seat.”

  Noah was just finishing up with his last patient of the day when Norma, his nurse, knocked, then opened the door and stuck her head into the room.

  “Could I see you for just a moment?” she asked.

  Noah sensed something amiss in her voice. “I’ll be right out. Mr. Jenkens was just about to leave anyhow.” He walked out with Mr. Jenkens and then veered over to where the nurse was standing and looking anxious.

  The second Noah walked up to her she whispered, “There’s a woman in the waiting room who is demanding to see you, and the way she looks and talks alarmed Belva. Her name is Maddie Kincaid and—”