Truly Madly Montana

by Fiona Lowe

  “Yes, sir.” She had no clue what had happened in 2010, but right now this meeting was shaping up to be a total disaster for her.

  Chapter 10

  Will’s day had been a series of treat ’em and street ’em, and he was hanging out for when Josh got back from his honeymoon, because the bulk of the people he’d seen today were not ER situations. He’d prescribed antihistamines and calamine lotion for mosquito bites and suggested the hapless camper buy bug spray from the pharmacy. He’d also recommended to the young woman who thought she was pregnant that she take a visit to the drugstore, pointing out that the test he would use was identical to the one she could buy there at a considerably cheaper price.

  There’d been one case of bad sunburn; a cowboy with a deep laceration to his arm when he’d come off second best in an argument with a barbwire fence; and a forty-five-year-old bloke with a suspected heart attack that had thankfully turned out to be heartburn. Will had prescribed avoiding Leroy’s “challenge meal” of an eighty-ounce steak, baked potato, salad, roll and twenty-two-ounce beverage, even if it did come with a T-shirt.

  Bored, he glanced at the clock, willing the last few minutes of his shift to hurry up and finish or bring in something exciting. It was a shocking thing to wish harm on anyone, and he didn’t, but he was going stir-crazy. He needed a jolt of adrenaline, a rush of invigorating panic, a blast of healthy fear—something to make him feel alive. Something to fill the void that was now part of him since Charlie’s death.

  “Will,” Millie called out as she walked through the door waving a sheaf of papers.

  Goose bumps rose so fast on his skin that his arm hair stood to attention. Bloody hell. Over the last six days he’d done his best to honor the vow he’d made to himself to meet a woman who interested him, have sex with her and shift this crazy reaction to Millie. He’d taken all the ER nurses out to dinner at Leroy’s for team bonding and had talked to each and every one of them. They were a great crew, but there was no spark between him and any of the single women or, thankfully, the married ones. He’d jumped online and met a woman who lived in Cut Bank, the next closest town to Bear Paw. She’d been pleasant enough, but he kept finding himself comparing her to Millie, which made no sense, because this woman was heterosexual and available and Millie was neither of those things.

  This whole Millie thing was driving him around the bend. On top of trying not to think about her in any way other than as a medical student—and failing miserably, especially at 3 A.M. when visions of what he imagined she might look like naked swam into his mind—there was dealing with the real Millie every day. When he’d accepted this job, he’d done it because he was craving friendship and Millie on paper was the perfect friend, but ever since her hypo on Saturday, she’d been different. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly how, but he’d definitely noticed.

  Now she leaned against the nurses’ station in green scrubs, which made the green flecks in her fascinating eyes darken, making him think of the lush rain forests of far north Queensland. Her top sported a brown stain of antiseptic from when the burly cowboy with the barbwire laceration had fainted, knocking the bottle from her hand. Her scent was a combination of antiseptic and lemons—clean, sharp and fresh—a hint of home.

  It took him back to his childhood when he and Charlie had rushed inside with cuts and scrapes and his mum would hoist them onto the kitchen bench and sit them next to the fruit bowl to tend to their wounds. The wooden bowl, made from Tasmanian Huon pine, always had lemons in it picked fresh from their tree. With a start, he realized he hadn’t seen a lemon tree since arriving in Montana, and a shot of homesickness fizzed in his gut.

  He cleared his throat, which suddenly seemed tight. “What have you got there?”

  “I need you to sign these doctor release forms.”

  He noticed she had faint black smudges under her eyes. “You okay?” he asked as he signed the documents. “Blood sugar behaving?”

  “I’m fine.” Her emphatic and almost fierce tone reverberated around the quiet department. “You?”

  “Bored.”

  “I told you Bear Paw was quiet.”

  “Wednesday wasn’t,” he said, thinking of the bus of band camp kids from Calgary who’d all come down with food poisoning and had arrived in the ER vomiting and worse. Millie, who for some reason had been wearing bright purple scrubs that day that surprisingly suited her, had dashed about dispensing antiemetics, antidiarrheals and a lot of TLC.

  “You can’t have that sort of excitement every day,” she teased him with a flash of the old Millie. She was quiet for a moment, her expression thoughtful. “Seeing you’re craving the buzz, let’s go white water rafting tomorrow.”

  The offer tempted him way more than it should, and he almost raised his hand for a high five, but then he remembered the deadweight of her in his arms and how terrified he’d been when her blood sugar had crashed to dangerously low levels. It was one thing for that to happen on land—it was another thing entirely if it happened in a raft on churning, pulsating, white river water. What if she got tipped out? What if she got sucked under and he couldn’t reach her. His chest got tight just thinking about it. “I don’t think so.”

  She sucked in her plump and pretty and oh-so-kissable lips. “You’re not squirming out of an invitation, are you? Not when the weather forecast is perfect for rafting?”

  “I was thinking of a hike instead.”

  Enthusiasm zipped across her face. “Sure, that’d be cool. You said you wanted to do the Mount Brown Lookout? If we leave early, we could manage it, and with the clear weather the views will be amazing. There’s one patch of huckleberries on the trail”—she elbowed him gently in the ribs—“so I’ll bring the bear spray and a whistle.”

  Bears aside, Mount Brown Lookout was a tough hike with a long, upward, five-mile slog. It was a physical challenge for fit people who had a pancreas that worked, let alone a diabetic. “Actually, I was thinking of staying closer to home. Lorelei at the visitor information center told me there’s a pretty hike along the creek that starts under the trestle railway bridge.”

  Millie’s eyes narrowed. “Really? You, who thinks a thirty-mile bike ride is a warm-up to any event, want to hike a wheelchair-friendly trail that’s less than a mile? You wouldn’t even break a sweat.”

  She had an uncanny way of reading him, and he wasn’t used to women seeing much more of him than good looks and friendly, flirting charm. “Apparently the water hole’s pretty and there’s a fire pit. I could be the quintessential Aussie bloke and barbecue you snags.” She didn’t look convinced, and she didn’t even ask him what a snag was. In fact, she looked extremely pissed off, so he lied outright. “And it’s close to Bear Paw in case I get called in.”

  She folded her arms across her chest, and her breasts rose, hinting at a generous cleavage that her scrubs top normally hid. “I thought Great Falls covered your days off?”

  “They do, but McBain’s sick and I’m on call. So, are you in?” He waited for her dimple-cute smile to break across her face and confirm the arrangement.

  She pushed off the desk. “I’ll think about it.”

  Disappointment socked him. He tried to throw it off, but what remained unsettled him. “Fair enough. I understand. You’re leaving things open in case you get a better offer. I don’t want to get in the way of you dating.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Who knew you were so thoughtful.”

  He’d seen Tara in the foyer of the ER late on Wednesday after they’d dealt with the puking kids. She’d looked slightly less together than usual, as if something had gotten to her and blowtorched the edges of her frosty personality. Then again, it might just have been the acrid stench of vomit that had permeated the entire ER. He’d assumed she had a public health question for him about the roadhouse twenty miles away that had given the kids E. coli. When he’d enquired, she’d said no in that official clipped tone of hers and had asked if Millie was free. He’d even wondered if perhaps he’d been wrong about Ta
ra’s sexual preferences.

  Nah! He didn’t get that type of thing wrong.

  He pulled deep, wanting to make his next question for Millie sound casual. “Had that coffee with Tara yet?”

  “Yup.”

  Good? Bad? Her expression gave him nothing. “And?”

  She stood up and pointed to the clock. “And we’re done here for the day. How about you come to Leroy’s and I bust your ass at pool.”

  He laughed, relieved that for the first time this week, the old Millie was back. “Yeah, right. I’d like to see that.”

  She tossed her head, sending curls bouncing in every direction. “Oh, you’ll see it all right.”

  He loved a challenge, and feeling the happiest he had all week, he followed her across the road, anticipation thrumming.

  SEETHING, Millie racked the balls on the green felt of Leroy’s pool table. Will Bartlett might be the pool champion of his hometown, but she was Bear Paw’s, and she planned to wipe the floor with him and then tell him to take a hike—preferably off a cliff.

  He’d been giving her odd looks on and off all week, and when it was his turn to bring in food for the staff, instead of the traditional frosted donuts, he’d provided almonds, celery sticks with peanut butter, cherry tomatoes, cheese and crackers and baby carrots. Everyone had put it down to him being Australian, but Millie had a sneaking suspicion the platter was meant for her. And it would have been a kind and thoughtful gesture if it hadn’t been for those long, penetrating looks. Looks that said, You’re diabetic and What’s your blood sugar reading?

  She knew she had a tendency to get mad not only at her diabetes but also at the way people treated her because of it, so she’d decided to run a check to make sure she wasn’t overdramatizing and misreading the situation. The invitation to go white water rafting was a test. A test he’d failed miserably, and she was furious with him.

  Be fair. He probably is on call and can’t be too far away.

  But she didn’t want to be fair. She remembered how he’d behaved with her before he’d found out she was diabetic and how he’d behaved since. It both irked and hurt.

  Will grinned as he spun a quarter into the air. “Heads or tails, Mils?”

  Mils? Did he have no clue how angry she was with him? “Heads.”

  “Come in, spinner.”

  She wanted to know what come in, spinner meant, but she refused to ask him, because she was mad at him and this game of pool wasn’t about being friendly. This was war.

  He caught the coin, slamming it down onto the back of his hand before saying, “Heads it is.”

  Good. “I’ll break.” She chalked her cue, leaned over the table, lined it up and shot. Yes. The thwacking noise the balls made when they hit on-center gave her a buzz, and she watched with hope in her mouth as the colored balls scattered out toward the pockets. The solid purple four ball dropped neatly into a corner pocket. Great start.

  “Nice.” Will’s accent made it sound like noice, and admiration clung to the word.

  I don’t want you to be nice. I’m not playing nice. “I’ll play solid colors.” She moved around the table and adjusted her cue between her thumb and index finger before wrapping her index over the wood to make a closed bridge. “Red ball, side pocket.”

  Clack. The red ball raced across the felt and fell straight into the pocket before rolling loudly down the ball return trough. Two down, six to go.

  “Shot,” Will said amiably at the easy play.

  She didn’t want an amiable game. She wanted to sink every colored ball and leave him standing by the table holding a cue he couldn’t use. She marched past him and repositioned herself on the other side of the table. The location of the maroon ball was a gift, and she sent it clear into a side pocket.

  “Folks,” Ty said, setting down his guitar, “Millie’s on a roll, so I’m taking a short break.”

  A few of the guys in the bar had already drifted over to watch. “I’d bet on you, Doc, if I ever got to see you play,” Trent Dattner said with a grin.

  “You won’t have to wait long,” Will said confidently, his gaze scanning the table.

  Not if I have my way, buddy. Studying the lie of the balls in relation to the pockets, Millie made a decision. “Yellow and green into the forward corner pocket.”

  Will laughed—a rich, deep, rumbling and sexy sound—clearly entertained by the notion. “So not going to happen.”

  The velvet effects of his laugh were still stroking her, tempting her to let go of her anger, but she wasn’t buying. “Is that so?”

  “Yeah.” He rocked back on his feet as if he owned the floor space. “Those balls have my name on them.”

  This time she laughed. “I don’t think so, mate.” She hit the Aussie word with a distinctive diphthong, copying Will’s accent. “But feel free to tell me why you do.”

  He stood slightly taller. “Green and gold are Australia’s national colors.”

  She’d never seen him show any signs of patriotism before, and it surprised her. “Tonight they’re two colors on Montana’s flag. Watch me sink them.”

  She took her shot, confident she could do it.

  Clack. Clack. Clack. Yes!

  An enthusiastic cheer went up from the onlookers.

  “That’s a pretty good effort,” Will said, sounding both impressed and perturbed all at the same time.

  “Be afraid, Will. Be very afraid,” Ethan said drily as he gave Will’s shoulder a slap.

  Three to go. Millie’s heart hammered so fast in her chest she didn’t know how it could be pumping any blood at all. You can do this. She walked slowly around the table, trying to shut out the many and varied suggestions the guys were calling out to her. Trying to shut out the way Will stood tall in the crowd with his left hand resting casually on his cue and his right knee bent, hips tilted—all easy grace, sexy and gorgeous.

  He’s not gorgeous. He’s an ass, and I’m pissed with him. I’m proving a point.

  Publicly humiliating him at pool isn’t going to stop him from thinking about your diabetes.

  Yeah, but it will make me feel better.

  By now she’d sunk every easy and moderately difficult ball, and things were looking decidedly tricky. Stalling, she re-chalked her cue.

  Will stepped forward to take a closer look, and despite the twelve inches of air between them, her skin immediately heated and tingled.

  You’re mad at him, remember. So mad.

  “Bastard of a shot,” Will said laconically.

  She stifled a smile at his first real attempt at trash talk. The man was worried. Good. He should be. She blew the loose chalk off her cue and out toward his face. “I’ve had worse.”

  He quirked one chestnut and disbelieving eyebrow and leaned in a little closer. “I find that hard to believe.”

  His softly spoken words sent a spark of hot, heavy, pulsing need into every part of her, and she gripped her cue tightly to stop herself from swaying toward him.

  “You obviously haven’t played as much pool as I have, hotshot.” She reached her arm out across him, being careful not to touch his shirt, and she pointed to the play. “White ball to blue, blue to cushion and then taking a forty-five-degree trajectory to orange and into the side pocket.”

  He snorted and appealed to the crowd. “Tell her she’s dreamin’.”

  And she was, but she wasn’t going to let him know that. Pulling some bills out of her pocket, she slapped them on the table’s side rail. “Bet me.”

  He grinned. “You sure about that, Mils?”

  “Millie only bets on a sure thing, Will,” Ethan said, shooting her a look that said, What’s going on?

  She ignored him.

  Will did, too, and instead turned his beautiful dark blue eyes onto her. An ache of longing started to slowly suck the oxygen from her anger, but behind the competitive glint in his eyes she glimpsed the same hint of worry that had been there all week. Worry for her. It refueled her anger at him.

  She tapped his chest with
her forefinger. “Oh, I’m very sure.”

  “Millie’s kicking his ass,” a cowboy muttered to Ty.

  Will pulled out his wallet and matched her bet. “You’re on. But know you’ll be short on lunch money all of next week.”

  “Let me worry about me, okay.” She moved to the right at the exact moment he moved left, and the next second she was slamming into him, hard.

  Her breasts flattened into his chest, his rock-hard thighs pressed into her softer ones and the simmering warmth that always ran just under her skin whenever they were in the same room coalesced into a fireball of need. It exploded into every cell, flooding her with a desire so strong it shut down all normal function. Her knees sagged, and she pressed more heavily against him. A faint voice in her head that sounded like it was coming from under water said weakly, Step away.

  “Oops,” he said, his voice raspy as his strong, wide hands gripped her hips. The next second, he’d spun her around and stepped back quickly. “I believe it’s your go.”

  My go? Her mind had joined her body, and both were currently lying on their backs, panting.

  Stop that. Sit up and behave, both of you. We’re playing pool and beating the crap out of him.

  She thrust out her hand and felt and saw it tremble as she closed it around the cue rest. “Dirty pool, Will,” she muttered under her breath.

  “Sorry, what?” He sounded slightly breathless and unusually distracted instead of fully prepped for trash talk.

  Had she winded him? She realized with a bolt of shock that their collision must have been an accident and not part of his strategy to unnerve her. Duh! It was hardly a psychological play, because a lesbian wasn’t going to turn into a basket case of brain-draining, chaotic lust from being pressed up against him.

  Only, she wasn’t gay, and right now her body was a puddly, uncoordinated mess. Pull it together. You’re not losing this. The quiver in her body faded, and she carefully placed the cue rest in position.