by Judy Duarte
Fortunately, Melanie was doing much better now. In fact, she was due to deliver in about five weeks.
“Take a left at the next stop sign,” Mike said.
Tammy did as he instructed. Moments later, he directed her to the long, unpaved driveway that would take them to the Snyder place.
“I really appreciate you driving me out here,” Mike said.
“No problem. I’ve always handled the doctoring on my daddy’s ranch. So helping you seems like the most natural thing in the world to do.”
“Have you had first-aid classes?” he asked.
“Nothing formal. Whatever I learned was from books and on the internet. I find the whole medical field interesting. In fact, I probably should have majored in biology, but my dad needed me on the ranch. So I...well, I guess you could say I bloomed where I was planted.”
“What did you end up majoring in?”
“I...uh...didn’t go to college at all.” She bit down on her bottom lip, then shot a glance at him. “I mean, I would have. It’s just that my older brothers used to work construction during the summers whenever they were on a school break. And a couple of years ago, they got a contractor’s license and started their own company, which was tough on my dad. He’d hoped that Aidan and Nathan would take over the ranch when he retired, but they weren’t all that interested.”
“So you stuck around to help out?”
Tammy shrugged. “I couldn’t leave him alone. You know how it is.”
No, Mike didn’t. His old man had abandoned him and his mom nearly thirty years ago. He couldn’t even remember the guy, let alone disappoint him.
When they reached the barn, where a ladder leaned against the side, Tammy pulled over and parked near a John Deere tractor. Mike grabbed his medical bag and climbed out. Then he reached in back for his supply case. He’d no more than taken a step toward forward, when a tall, lanky ranch hand approached the truck. “Thanks for coming, Doc. I’ll show you where you can find Slim and Pete.”
Mike followed the cowboy across the yard and to the house.
“Is Brian here?” he asked the man.
“No, he and his wife are away this weekend, visiting relatives in Austin. Our foreman, Jim Phelps, is in charge.”
They entered through the mudroom, with Tammy on their heels, and continued to the kitchen, where Mike immediately spotted the two injured men. One was seated on a chair with his boot and sock off, his ankle badly bruised and swollen. The other held a bloody towel to his head.
Mike placed his case of supplies on the table and the smaller medical bag on the counter. Then he washed his hands and slipped on a pair of sterile disposable gloves before examining the men.
“Do you want me to clean that head wound?” Tammy asked.
“Yes, if you use this.” Mike handed Tammy some antibacterial soap and sterile pads. “You’ll need to get a pair of gloves for yourself.”
Twenty minutes later, Mike had stitched the laceration on Pete’s head and put his shoulder back in place. But Slim, the other ranch hand, was going to need X-rays and an orthopedic surgeon. In spite of his insistence that he’d be as good as new in a couple of days, Slim had clearly done a real number on his ankle. There was some obvious tissue damage, as well as a probable fracture that might need a few screws. So the tough guy was going to be laid up a lot longer than he realized.
“I can take Slim back to town with me,” Mike said, “but I’m having engine trouble, which is why I had to catch a ride here.”
“No problem,” Jim Phelps, the foreman, said. “This is a worker’s comp injury, so our boss’s policy is for me to accompany him.”
“Sounds good to me,” Mike said. “And it’s probably just as well. As soon as I get back to Tex Byrd’s place, I’m going to call a mechanic or a tow truck.”
“I can take a look at it for you,” Tammy said.
Mike smiled at the woman who’d proven to be a good medical assistant. “Is there anything you can’t do?”
“Not much.” Tammy tucked her hands in the front pockets of her jeans and grinned. Her eyes sparkled, and he found himself studying her a little more closely than he ought to. Besides the size and pretty hue of her eyes, she had lush dark lashes and a pert nose dusted with freckles.
When he realized she was studying him, too, he tore his gaze away. For a moment, he wondered if little Tammy Byrd had a crush on him—not that he wasn’t flattered. But he wouldn’t be sticking around Buckshot Hills any longer than he had to. He was counting down the days until he could return to Philadelphia, although there wasn’t any need to let that news get out until Dr. Reynolds returned or another doctor stepped up to take his place.
But damn, Mike thought, as he glanced back at Tammy. For a girl who seemed to cover up her femininity, she had the most amazing eyes.
* * *
“Can you hobble outside?” Jim asked Slim. “I’ll get on your bad side and you can hold on to me for support.”
As Doc turned away from Tammy and focused on his patient, Tammy’s heart soared.
He’d noticed her. He’d truly noticed her. No man had ever looked at her like that. Maybe she wouldn’t need her cousins’ help and feminine advice, after all.
As the foreman helped Slim out of the kitchen, Doc packed up his supply case and medical bag. “Thanks for your help, Tammy.”
“You’re welcome. It was fun to see you in action. You’re not only medically skilled, you’re also good with people. That’s got to come in handy when you doctor folks.”
“Thanks. But practicing medicine in a small Texas town is a lot different than it is in the city. I’m not used to making house calls and working out of a truck. And it’s frustrating to know that I don’t have any high-tech labs and specialty hospitals nearby.”
Tammy could understand that, but she was glad he’d come to Buckshot Hills. Otherwise, she never would have met him.
As she and Doc left the house, they spotted the foreman helping Slim get into a faded-blue Dodge pickup.
Minutes later, after Doc put his supply case in the pickup bed and climbed into the passenger seat with his medical bag, Tammy slid behind the wheel and started the engine. Then they were on their way to the Flying B.
“It’s too bad you didn’t go to college,” Doc said. “You would have made a great doctor or nurse—if you’d wanted to.”
The compliment made her heart leap, yet it also reminded her that he was a lot more educated than she was, that they didn’t have as much in common as she’d hoped. Yet in spite of the momentary insecurity that whispered through her, it didn’t seem to matter all that much. Not when she’d caught his eye.
“Any chance you could go back to school?” he asked.
“I doubt it.”
“Would you like to?”
For some reason, whenever Tammy was around Dr. Mike Sanchez, she wasn’t sure about anything anymore. So she shrugged and said, “Yes, but it’s too late.”
“It’s never too late.”
He might be right about returning to school. And she might even be tempted to look into a night class or something. But there was something else a lot more pressing right now.
Once she got back to the Flying B, she had to figure out a way to reattach that disconnected wire to the distributor cap before Doc realized what she’d done.
Okay, so she’d been far more sly and trickier than she’d ever been before. And if truth be told, all that sneakiness didn’t sit too well with her. But it had been worth it just to see him gaze at her, to have him tell her what a good assistant she’d been.
Tammy stole a glance across the seat at her handsome passenger. “As soon as I get you back to the ranch, I’m going to ask you to sit behind the wheel of your truck. Then I’ll lift the hood and have a little look-see. I’ll bet that I can have you up and running i
n no time at all.”
“I hope you’re right. I need to get back to the office.”
Knowing the raised hood would prevent Doc from seeing what she was doing and feeling a bit smug about being so clever, Tammy smiled inwardly all the way back to the ranch.
That is, until she pulled the pickup next to his truck and spotted the hood already up—and one of the Flying B ranch hands bent over the engine.
Uh-oh.
Her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach, and her cheeks warmed. If her secret got out, she was going to lose Doc before she even had a chance to win his heart.
“Hey,” Doc said. “It looks as if a Good Samaritan is trying to fix my truck.”
So it appeared. Tammy’s heart pounded against her chest as if it wanted to break free and skedaddle before the truth hit the fan, splattering her guilt everywhere.
The ranch hand slammed down the hood, just as Tammy parked. The blond, shaggy-haired cowboy brushed his hands together, then moseyed up to Doc’s side of the truck.
Preparing for the worst, Tammy shut off the ignition. She didn’t know who the ranch hand was—just that his name was Caleb something-or-other. She’d seen him around a few times. He and Hugh, the foreman, seemed to be close. She’d overheard them chuckling about something once, just like old friends sharing a joke.
But there wasn’t anything funny going on now.
“My truck wouldn’t start,” Doc told Caleb.
“Yeah, I heard Tammy asking Hugh for the keys to one of the ranch pickups. And then I saw her drive off with you. I figured you had engine trouble.”
“I didn’t have time to check under the hood,” Doc said, “so I appreciate you looking at it for me. Did you find out what was wrong?”
If Tammy were a coward, she might have taken off with her tail between her legs about that time, but as it was, she took the consequences of her actions like... Well, like a man, she supposed, although something about that thought rubbed her the wrong way.
“One of the wires to the distributor came loose.”
Doc stiffened. “How did that happen?”
Tammy’s cheeks warmed. Instead of dropping her chin, she raised it, prepared to face the consequences of her actions—if need be.
“Either someone disconnected it,” Caleb said, “or it just came apart on its own.”
“How could it have come loose?” Doc asked, his brow furrowed.
Caleb glanced at Tammy, who must have flushed a deep shade of okay-I-confess red. She expected him to voice his suspicion, but, instead, he just got an expression on his face as if he was either biting back a grin or a frown. She didn’t know him well enough to decide which it was.
Tammy was about to suggest that the wire might have come unhooked on its own, but decided she was better off accepting the free ride the cowboy Good Samaritan seemed to be offering her.
“Well, it’s fixed now,” Caleb said.
Yes, and Tammy didn’t have to resort to trickery to do it herself. She ought to count her blessings for that, but a surge of guilt rose up inside, taking the edge off her relief.
Should she admit to what she’d done? What harm had there been in it? Doc hadn’t lost but a minute or two in getting to the Snyder ranch, and he’d said the injuries weren’t serious.
They’d made such a nice step forward today that she didn’t want to risk it. Maybe one day, when she and Doc were married with a passel of kids, she’d tell him what she’d done and they’d laugh about it.
Oh, for Pete’s sake. Who was she kidding? A romance between her and Doc didn’t stand a chance of blossoming unless Tammy did something to close the gap in their differences—and fast.
But how would she go about doing that? She wasn’t in a position to sign up for any online college courses while she was at the Flying B, so she’d have to do the next best thing.
She’d have to throw herself at her cousins’ feet and beg for their help—no matter what their reactions might be.
Chapter Five
Tammy had hoped to talk to her cousins over dinner last night, but from what Barbara had told her, Jenna had gone into town earlier, saying she’d be back late. And Donna had holed up in her room again, working on some project. So even though Tammy had been primed to broach the subject of helping her, the girl-talk had to wait until breakfast.
But the next day, after the sun came up, Tammy found herself seated alone at the kitchen table once more.
“Where’s Jenna?” Tammy asked the cook.
“You just missed her. She had an early breakfast and went for a walk.”
Tammy didn’t even bother asking about Donna, who kept herself pretty scarce.
So how in blazes was Tammy supposed to ask either of them to give her some feminine hints?
She glanced at the clock on the stove. She still had several hours to learn how to put on a little makeup, since Doc probably wouldn’t arrive until afternoon. So she wasn’t going to worry about it.
In the meantime, she had plenty to keep herself busy until then. As soon as she finished the last of her coffee, she was going to set out on a fact-finding mission.
Last night, after dinner, she’d quizzed Barbara. Instead of admitting that she’d eavesdropped on a private conversation, she told her she’d been on a walk and had stumbled upon a cabin that had been locked up. When she’d asked the cook about it, Barbara had said, “I have no idea,” making it clear that she wouldn’t spill the beans about Savannah.
But maybe one of the ranch hands would. Still, even if Tammy came up empty-handed in the gossip department, she planned to find that cabin and do some snooping.
Not that she believed there was anything magical about the bed. After all, Tammy might be as curious as the proverbial dead cat, but she wasn’t superstitious. Still, she was determined to find the cabin and check it out. So after rinsing her plate and coffee cup in the sink, she went outside and scanned the yard.
The only ranch hand she spotted was Caleb, the one whose good deed had nearly thrown Tammy’s soaring romantic plans into a tailspin yesterday.
“Hey,” she said, as she approached the cowboy.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“I wanted to thank you for not accusing me of disconnecting that wire yesterday.”
“Did you?”
“I hate to admit it, but yes. I did.”
Caleb arched an eyebrow. “Why in the hell did you do that?”
Was he angry with her? Tammy wasn’t sure, because there was a trace of amusement in his question.
“I had my reasons,” she said.
“And what if Doc would have had an emergency?”
“I was ready to drive him wherever he needed to go.”
Caleb crossed his arms and eyed her carefully, a grin emerging. “Don’t tell me you took a fancy to Doc Sanchez.”
Her first impulse was to deny it, but Caleb hadn’t squealed on her when he had the chance, and something told her he might prove to be a good friend—or at least an ally. And if there was something she’d learned about herself, it was that she could use someone in her corner every now and again.
“Yes, I’m attracted to him, but he hardly knows I’m alive.”
Caleb sketched a gaze over her, his expression softening into a full-blown smile that dimpled his cheeks. “Well, you’re pretty enough. But you certainly don’t do anything to stand out from the female crowd.”
She could defend herself, but why? Caleb probably wouldn’t understand. She studied him for a moment in the morning light, making a quick visual assessment of him, just as he’d done to her.
He was nice-looking—and maybe a bit charming—but he didn’t appeal to her in the same heart-strumming way that Doc did. And she found that more than a little interesting. Apparently, chemistry, pheromones and s
exual attraction were not just amazing, they were also unpredictable.
Tammy shook off her thoughts and focused on the problem at hand. “Can I ask you a question?”
Caleb, who carried a tool belt cinched to his waist, crossed his arms. “Sure.”
“Do you know anything about the dream cabin?”
He furrowed his brow. “Are you talking about the one that Tex locked up years ago?”
She nodded.
“Not really.”
By the way he said it, Tammy wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or not. Either way, she sensed he was holding something back.
“Which one is it?” she asked. There were quite a few cabins scattered on the property, some of which housed ranch hands—maybe even Caleb.
The cowboy didn’t respond right away, and she wondered if he was deciding whether he wanted to dole out any information or not. Finally, he lifted his arm and pointed to the east. “It’s the farthest one from the house. Since I’m going to check on the pump at the old well, which is near there, I’ll show you.”
“Thanks.” Tammy couldn’t ask for more than that.
As Caleb began walking, Tammy strode along beside him.
“Why did you want to know about that cabin?” he asked.
“Just curious.” As their boots crunched along the dirt path, Tammy asked, “What do you know about it?”
“Well, apparently there’s an antique feather bed inside that some folks think is magical.”
“Really?”
Caleb laughed. “You mean, do people really make that claim? Or that dreams come true?”
“That people think there’s something to the legend, I guess. You don’t believe it?”
“Of course not. But Ella, Tex’s late wife, did.”
“Where’d the bed come from?”
“It used to belong to Tex’s mother, who claimed to have the gift of sight—or something like that. And Ella was uneasy about the whole thing. So once the old woman passed on, Ella demanded that Tex get the bed out of the house. And he had it moved to the farthest cabin on the ranch.”
