“Guess we’re private folks,” the cowboy said. “Sure, we’d be glad to stay here a bit longer.”
But Karin had no desire to be cooped up with him...them. “I don’t—”
The doctor pulled the curtains apart slightly. “I’ll be back in a little while,” he told the cowboy. “Call for the nurse if her condition seems to change.” Then he left.
Karin waited a moment until the doctor’s steps were lost amid the general noise of the emergency room, then she sat back up. The room only wobbled slightly.
“Hey, now, the doc didn’t say you could get up,” the cowboy scolded.
He was standing in the doorway as if he was waiting for the sheriff to arrive, his arms crossed over his chest, his hat in one hand. She glared his way. Her immunity to him was growing with each minute. His voice still seemed to glide over her skin like a caress, but that was just due to her injury. And if her insides felt particularly jellylike, it was due to her empty stomach, not his smile.
“I’m fine,” she told him. “Feel free to look for Beverly if you still want. I don’t need anybody here with me.”
“Daddy doesn’t need to talk to Beverly,” the little girl said as she came closer. “I already did. Daddy just thinks he has to do everything.”
She made the statement with such resigned weariness that Karin had to smile. “He does seem a little bossy,” she agreed.
“Bossy?” he drawled. “I’m bossy just because I’m the only one here with any common sense?”
“See?” the girl said and sat down on the chair near the gurney. “I’m Lissa and that’s my dad. His name is Jed.”
Jed? Short and to the point. It fitted the man perfectly. Not that Karin was giving him any thought. “Lissa’s a pretty name,” she said.
“My real name’s Melissa, but that’s kind of dorky so I shortened it to Lissa. Karin’s a pretty name, too.”
“Thank you,” Karin said even as she frowned slightly.
There was no reason to wonder how they knew her name. Her coat and purse were on the far chair. All they’d had to do was look in her wallet. And even if they looked all through her purse, they wouldn’t know any more about her than her address and library-card number.
Yet she had this uneasy feeling that all her secrets had been exposed. That they knew everything about her—that she was the only girl in the sixth grade who didn’t cry when they watched Romeo and Juliet, that she had her first date when she was a sophomore in college and then it was a blind date that ended before nine o’clock, and that she was scared to death about becoming a mother. She felt a wave of dizziness return.
“My father saved your life.”
Karin’s eyes opened wide. “He what?”
“Lissa.” The frown on the cowboy’s face deepened as he looked at Karin. “I did no such thing, ma’am.”
There was a ruggedness about him. A toughness. Like you could lean on him, no matter how strong the storm. Too apt an analogy, Karin thought. She needed to get up off this gurney and leave.
“You did, too, Daddy.” The girl turned toward Karin. “It was his life force that pulled you through.”
“Life force?” Karin said, her forehead wrinkling.
Lissa nodded. “It flowed from his soul into yours.”
“I see.” Though she didn’t. Maybe it was one of those New Age things, something that wasn’t covered in the Journal of the American Medical Association. And therefore something that ranked right up there with everlasting love and happily-ever-afters—all myths. Still, she didn’t like to be rude.
She flashed her best professional smile at the cowboy. “Well, thank you so much for your life force,” she said. “I appreciate it.”
“All I did was hold your hand,” he said, his voice making it clear that this life-force stuff wasn’t his idea.
Yet somehow his holding her hand seemed all the more dangerous. She glanced down at her hands, almost certain she could feel his touch even now. This was nuts. It was just the power of suggestion from her overactive brain. She had to get out of here and away from this cowboy. A little rest and she’d be as good as new.
“Well, thanks for holding my hand,” she said and slipped off the gurney to her feet. “I appreciate it, but—”
“Karin!” Lissa cried.
Somehow Karin’s knees had been replaced with rubber—soft, mushy rubber—and they wouldn’t hold her up. She grabbed for the edge of the gurney but found Jed’s shoulder instead. He was picking her up!
“You think now maybe you’ll listen to the doc and take it easy?” he said. “Or am I being bossy again?”
She wanted to kick him, but it would take coordination she didn’t have. So she just closed her eyes and lay her face against his chest for the brief endless moment that he held her before laying her back down on the gurney. His heart was beating so close to hers, and he smelled so good. She wanted—
“Karin? Karin Spencer?”
Karin turned, clutching Jed’s shoulder instinctively as a smiling woman came bursting into the cubicle.
“Amy Dubonet,” the woman said, advancing still farther into the cubicle. “From third-year French.”
“Oh, right.” Karin gave her uncertain smile several extra watts of certainty though she had no recollection of taking three years of French back in high school. “I’m sorry. How have you been?”
“Fine.” Amy grinned and took a long slow look at Jed. “Although not as good as I hear you’ve been doing.”
“What? Oh, my.” Karin suddenly realized she was still in Jed’s arms. Not only in his arms, but clutching as if the floor was covered with snakes. Her face burned with embarrassment and she slid from his arms to sit on the edge of the gurney. She felt a little weak and a little wobbly, but much more in control.
“You sure you’re okay?” Jed asked.
Karin ignored him. Letting even his voice near her meant losing a piece of her control. And she had already lost too many pieces this afternoon. “So, Amy, what have you been up to? Do you work at the hospital?”
Amy laughed loudly. “Oh no you don’t. You can’t waltz into Memorial with this handsome hunk and then start talking about careers. We all want the juicy details. When’s the wedding?”
“When’s the what?” Karin had no idea what Amy was talking about.
“You must have misunderstood,” Jed told Amy.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Was it a secret?”
“It’s not anything,” Jed said. “There’s been a—”
“Hey, I gotta run,” Amy said, giving Karin a quick wink. “I’ll see you at Penny and Brad’s wedding and you can tell all then.”
“Wait a minute,” Jed cried, then muttered something under his breath as Amy left.
Karin continued to stare at the space where Amy had been standing. She felt as if she’d been mugged. As if someone had snuck in and bopped her over the head. She wasn’t even in town yet and the gossip network had struck. Somebody had seen Jed with her and the whole town had jumped to the conclusion that the two of them were a couple.
“Lissa, you stay here with Karin, will you?” Jed was saying. “I’ve got to go after that lady and clear this up.”
As if it would be that easy. “It’s just a silly misunderstanding,” Karin said. She felt tired all of a sudden. This had been a hell of a day. “Somebody just jumped to conclusions like someone always—”
“I think it’s more than that,” he told her.
She stopped to stare at him. “More?” Maybe it was the bump to her head but she didn’t understand.
He nodded. His eyes met hers but his earlier bravado was gone. “The paramedic got the wrong idea. She thought we were married, but left before I could correct her. I tried to find her once I got to the hospital—”
“I told you I took care of it,” Lissa cried. “I told her that you two weren’t married.”
Karin looked from Jed to Lissa and then back to Jed. A little flame of annoyance started to flicker but she tried to smother it. Maybe it w
as all a bad dream. Maybe she was still unconscious and imagining this.
She took a deep breath. “Now let me get this straight. This wasn’t someone jumping to conclusions. This was someone actually saying to you that she thought we were married and you didn’t correct her.”
“There wasn’t time,” he said, sounding as if he was fighting his own impatience. “Now, I really ought to go—”
“There wasn’t time? How much time does it take to say, ‘No, you’ve got it wrong’?” she asked with a frown. The feeble control she had on her anger slipped a notch or two.
The whole scene played out in her mind like a bad horror movie—the paramedic told Amy and Amy told everyone on the hospital staff from Chesterton, and they all told their husbands and wives and sisters. By the time Karin got to Penny’s wedding, the whole town would know. Worse, Karin’s mother would know and be wiping away tears of joy. Once again, Karin would disappoint her mother and leave her to be the butt of jokes.
“There were other things going on at the time,” Jed pointed out. “Like getting you to the hospital.”
So there wasn’t time for him to say three words—we’re not married? Karin covered her face with her hands. “I can’t believe you did this.”
“It’s not Daddy’s fault,” Lissa repeated, her voice wobbly. “I told the lady. She thought you were my mom and I said no, that you guys weren’t married. That Daddy was just your prince.”
Karin let her hand slip from her eyes. “My prince?”
The words came out a little more horrified than Karin intended and she clamped her mouth shut. So the town wouldn’t think she was married, just deranged.
“That’s what all the people at the restaurant said he was,” Lissa said.
Karin forced a shaky laugh. This wasn’t Lissa’s doing. She couldn’t let Lissa take on a share of his guilt. “Well, that’s certainly something the town will enjoy—me having a prince.”
Jed gave Karin a look, then thrust some money into Lissa’s hands. “I saw some vending machines behind the nurses’ station. Want to get us something to eat? Hunger’s making us all a mite testy.”
Lissa grasped the money and went toward the opening in the curtain. “Every woman needs a prince,” she told Karin. “Everybody says so.”
Karin smiled. “And now I’ve got one. Great.” She would kill Jed, but not until Lissa was gone. She held her smile until the girl left and then a few moments longer to give Lissa time to move away from the cubicle.
Then she turned on Jed. “I can’t believe you did this,” she cried in a low whisper. “It’s just perfect. It’s all I needed to make my life complete.”
But Jed didn’t flinch back from her anger. “Well, I could clear it all up if you’d just let me go find this Amy.”
“You just want to find Amy?” Karin snapped at him. He didn’t get it. He didn’t have a clue what was happening this very moment, even as they were stuck here arguing. “Talking to Amy won’t do any good. She’s told dozens of people by now. And they’ve each told dozens. By now, half the planet thinks we’re a couple. They probably have us engaged.”
He stared at her. “Why?”
She opened her mouth to continue her rant, then closed it again when no sounds came out. She tried again. “Why what?”
“Why would everybody be talking about this? Why would anybody care?”
His voice was so calm, so low and slow and soft with a drawl that teased at her anger, trying to defuse it.
“Back home, we talk about the things that surprise us. A calf being born with two tails. A bear that nursed a stray pup. Mrs. Hornway getting another tattoo. A beautiful woman having a beau wouldn’t cause any talk at all. Unless, of course, your real beau is gonna get wind of this.”
He was trying to trick her out of her irritation, but she wasn’t going to get sidetracked. “I don’t have a real beau,” she pointed out. “But that’s—”
“You don’t have a beau?” He frowned at her. “What’s the matter with men in the Midwest?”
“Why does there have to be something wrong with the men in the Midwest?” she snapped, looking him over from his booted feet to the cream-colored cowboy hat in his hand. His washed jeans snugly covered his—she looked away even as her heart began to race. She was not affected by his presence, not in the slightest.
“In the civilized world, it takes two equal partners to make a relationship,” she said. “So if I’m not in one, it’s my choice.”
“The civilized world, huh?”
His voice was soft but she had a moment’s misgiving. Maybe that had been the wrong way to put it. Maybe she should—
“I sometimes forget what life’s like here in civilization,” he said with an even slower drawl.
Karin felt her cheeks redden with heat. “I didn’t mean anything by that,” she assured him quickly. “Just that starting a relationship isn’t like coming in and roping a cow. ‘Oh, I like the way that one looks. I think I’ll take it home.’ Both parties have to be interested in the other for a relationship to happen.”
“So you’re saying I shouldn’t be packing my lasso when I go to parties here in Chesterton, no matter how pretty the fillies are?”
For some unknown reason, Karin blushed. A fullbody, head-to-toe, bright red blush. It was not caused by the idea of him going to parties in Chesterton. And certainly not by the idea of him being attracted to anyone here. Her reaction had to be the delayed effects of her injury.
“Make fun of me all you like,” she said. “But you know what I mean.”
He shook his head as he took slow steps closer to her. Her mouth went dry and her hands started to sweat. It wasn’t that she was afraid of him—it was strange but she trusted him completely—but more that she was afraid of herself all of a sudden.
“You know,” he said quietly. “You sure are a stubborn lady. I can see why plan B didn’t work.”
His eyes had hers locked in some sort of visual embrace that she could feel down to her toes, but she just lifted her chin slightly. Even if he did provoke some strange and unknown reactions in her, it didn’t matter. She just wouldn’t give in to them. “And just what was plan B?” she asked.
He smiled. “That I wake you up with a kiss.”
Chapter Three
“This is ridiculous,” Karin snapped. “It’s totally unnecessary.”
Jed drove through the intersection before he spoke. There wasn’t much traffic, but he had a feeling he needed to be doubly careful here. Because things seemed so safe, it would be easy to let his guard down. Then something was sure to hit him.
“I’m sorry to argue with you, ma’am,” he said a moment later. “But it’s got to be done. I made the mistake, so it’s my job to make it right.”
“But not by coming to the wedding with me,” she said. “It was a misunderstanding. I’ll explain it all when I get there. Just drop me off and I’ll get the car from your motel later. You don’t need to do anything.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I do. A man doesn’t let a lady take the blame for his mistakes.”
Jed liked to think he was smarter than the average calf and maybe even smarter than the average bull, but the way he’d handled things today seemed to put him on the level of the average rodeo barrel. Why the hell had he let his tongue get tangled in his feet when that paramedic had called Karin his wife?
He could feel the start of a headache of his own and no debris had hit him on the head. Maybe that life-force thing had actually been a trade—her aching head for his life force. He needed to clear up the misunderstanding and get him and Lissa on their way.
“Did you say to turn left at the next light, ma’am?” he asked Karin.
She was fixing her makeup, and didn’t answer. Didn’t even act as if she’d heard him.
“You know, ‘ma’am’ doesn’t sound all that friendly,” Lissa pointed out from the back seat. “Karin’s going to think you don’t like her.”
Jed concentrated on his driving. He knew what Li
ssa was getting at, but he wasn’t rising to the bait. Wendy had always told him that calling every woman darlin’ was going to get him in trouble one day, and she’d been right. He’d only done it when Karin had been unconscious, but it still got him in trouble. And her along with him.
“It’s okay,” Karin said. “I don’t care what your dad calls me as long as he lets me straighten out this mess. Yes, turn left up here.”
Jed slowed down and turned. Karin’s voice sounded tired, but then she’d been through a lot today. A concussion was bad enough without having to bear the burden of his stupidity.
“I’m going to get this all straightened out,” he told her. “You don’t have to do anything.”
“Maybe I’d rather fix it myself,” she told him. “The last thing in the world I want is for you to get up in front of the wedding guests and announce we aren’t engaged.”
“That’s not exactly what I had planned,” he said.
She checked herself out in the little mirror on the back of the car’s sun visor, then flipped it back up with a dissatisfied snap. “Oh, what does it matter? This visit was doomed from the start.”
It was thinking like that that worried him. Maybe it was just the concussion talking. She must have a fierce headache.
“I bet that’s the place,” Lissa said. “Lucky the storm missed here.”
Off to their right was a gravel lane that led off through some trees, but at the head of the lane, on either side, the fence posts were decorated with a cascade of white flowers and balloons.
“Yep, that’s Penny’s tree farm,” Karin said. “We used to love to come here and play as kids.”
“Did you go barefoot?” Lissa asked.
“All summer.”
“Did you climb trees and catch lightning bugs and eat homemade ice cream on the porch?”
Jed could feel Lissa latching on to Karin’s memories. He knew Lissa needed this for some reason, but the whiteness of Karin’s face worried him more at the moment.
“Lissa,” Jed cautioned. “Karin’s got a bad headache. Let her be.”
Pregnant & Practically Married (The Bridal Circle #3) Page 4
