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“I dare you to come to Fort Worth General and make a lot of children’s lives longer and better. You’ve got what it takes to do it.” He looked her directly in the eye, and she felt the heat and power of his passion. “I dare you.”
One
Jill could hold her own. She’d had years of practice, and she rarely played the fool. She was no coward, and she knew how to protect herself. The first week after Dr. Tyler Logan had audaciously delivered his challenge, she’d dismissed him and his hospital. She refused to be manipulated.
As much as she dismissed him, however, he kept popping up. He’d had no idea of the enormity of his dare. He’d had no idea that he was presenting her with the opportunity to conquer or be conquered by her greatest, most secret pain.
And that was why she was currently organizing her temporary office at Fort Worth General Hospital. She glanced out her window at “Cowtown’s” downtown area. A few blocks away stood the old stockyards, a statue of the legendary cowboy William Pickett, and Billy Bob’s bar, the largest saloon in Texas. Wherever Jill’s projects took her, she’d learned her job went much easier if she understood the natives. That meant she was going to have to be a temporary cowgirl. That might be challenging, considering she didn’t eat beef.
“It’s just temporary,” she whispered, trying to settle her nervous stomach. “Temporary insanity.” During her stay in Fort Worth, this office would be her safe haven, the place where she could close the door and take deep breaths, her island of peace and creativity. Her sanctuary.
A sharp rap sounded on her door, then it whooshed open. “Welcome to Cowtown.”
Jill’s stomach tightened again. That voice had haunted her during the past month. The man wasn’t important, she reminded herself. He was merely a door she would walk through to make peace with herself. She glanced up to meet his blue gaze. The incongruous combination of his white coat, a stethoscope with a tiny stuffed bear attached to it and his cowboy hat caught her off guard. Even though the man was tall with broad shoulders and dark good looks, that tiny stuffed bear should have deep-sixed his sexual appeal. It didn’t. “Thank you,” she finally said.
“What took you so long to get here?”
She gave a light laugh and relaxed slightly. “You were that sure I’d come.”
“If you followed your instincts,” he said, entering the room. “You’ll like it here.”
“It’s temporary,” she said more for herself than him.
“You didn’t answer my question. What took you so long?”
That Texas drawl and lanky stride were deceptive, Jill thought, hiding a grin. The man was impatient. Jill understood impatience. She’d just learned to conceal hers. “This may surprise you, but I was working on another project at the time. I needed to tie up some loose ends and make sure there was a smooth transition between me and the new rep. I couldn’t just snap my fingers.”
“Well, I am surprised,” Tyler said. “You’re supposed to be a sorceress, remember?”
She shot him a sideways glance. “I’m curious,” she said. “Is this how you usually get your way with people?”
He picked up a pencil holder. “How?”
“Oh, by using a combination of flattery and manipulation.”
He widened his eyes in mock innocence. “Flattery?” He shrugged. “I just tell the truth. And manipulation sounds mean. I’m not mean. I just do what it takes to get the job done. That makes some people nervous. What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Do I make you nervous?” he asked in a voice like black velvet.
Her heart jumped in her chest. “No,” she said, a half beat more quickly than she should.
“Good,” he said, “because you and I will be working together. I make the administration a little jumpy sometimes, but I get the job done.” His lips twitched. “You’re here, aren’t you?”
“Temporarily,” she emphasized.
His gaze swept over her. “Long enough,” he promised. “Why are you staring at Wild Cody?”
Jill blinked. “Wild Cody?”
“My bear. You remind me of one of my kids.”
She felt her cheeks heat. “I’m not used to seeing a bear on a stethoscope.”
“Distracting, isn’t it?” His lips twitched again when she nodded. “That’s the idea.” He took her hand and held it in his, then took her index finger between his fingers.
Feeling a strange, tumbling sensation in her stomach, she tried to pull back.
Tyler shook his head. “Hold on.” He pulled another tiny bear from his pocket and attached the little bear to her finger. “You are now officially a member of the heart menders’ wild posse.”
Why was her heart pounding? she wondered with a kick of exasperation. She glanced at the little stuffed bear and sighed. Oddly touched, she smiled. “Thank you. Do you give these to your patients?”
He raised his eyebrows. “That’s not a bad idea. Maybe I could get them in bulk. I can see Clarence twitching over a purchase requisition for a hundred miniature bears.” He grinned and squeezed her hand. “There you go. A good idea and you haven’t even been here an entire day. I told you we needed you.”
Her stomach turned another somersault. “Ideas are the easy part. The hard part comes later,” she murmured, thinking he had no idea how hard this could become for her.
“You need a challenge,” he told her.
His assumption nettled her again. “Why do you say that? You don’t even know me.”
“I could say your reputation precedes you,” he said. “Or I could say we needed you at Fort Worth General because you’ve got great legs. Or I could just say I know a kindred spirit when I see one.”
“Is this a multiple-choice quiz?” she asked, her voice betraying her impatience.
He leaned closer and she could see the very devil in his blue eyes. “Check all of the above.”
A flirt, she concluded with disapproval. Her ex-husband had been charming, too confident and an outrageous flirt. She didn’t need to read that book again. “I don’t think—”
“Howdy!” a young, plump woman called from the doorway. Her gaze immediately latched on to Tyler. “Oh, hi, Dr. Logan,” she said in a breathy voice.
“Hi, Trina,” Tyler said. “This is our PR specialist, Jill Hershey.”
Her gaze weaving between Tyler and Jill, she said, “I’m Trina Hostetter and I’ll be your assistant while you’re here in Fort Worth.”
“Good job,” Tyler said as he moved toward the door. “Trina, you take good care of Jill. She’s going to do great things for us.” His gaze dipped to Jill’s legs for an audacious extra second, then he gave a half grin. “See you later.”
Jill watched Trina gaze longingly after Tyler. “I’d like to do great things for him,” Trina murmured under his breath.
Jill rolled her eyes. “He’s a flirt.”
Trina swerved her head around. “But not a mean flirt,” she quickly said. “He just knows how to make a woman feel good. He doesn’t break hearts.”
Jill raised her eyebrows doubtfully, but smiled. “Why do I think you might be a little prejudiced?”
“Oh. Just because it’s obvious that I’d like Tyler to park his boots under my bed anytime, you think I might be prejudiced.” Trina shook her head. “Just about every woman with any taste would like to have Tyler. What’s not to like? He’s handsome, but not pretty. He’s smart, funny, kind, and he likes kids. Sure, he dates a lot, but he doesn’t make promises he won’t keep. Everyone’s just trying to find a way to get him to make some of those promises.” She glanced at Jill’s finger. “Omigod, he gave you one of his bears. He must really like you,” she said with a trace of envy.
Jill immediately unfastened the bear from her finger and transferred it to a pencil. “Don’t worry. It has no romantic significance. The reason Tyler wants me here is because he believes I’m going to help him get something he wants—the new pediatric cardiology wing.”
Trina blinked. “Are you saying you don’t want him?”
Jill smiled. “Exactly. I would rather catch the flu than catch Tyler.”
“Are you married? Engaged?”
“No, just sane. Very sane when it comes to men. Believe me,” Jill said, feeling a rumbling of trepidation inside her. “I’m not here to get involved with Dr. Logan.”
A sharp rap sounded on Jill’s office door, startling her and breaking her concentration. The door opened and Tyler strode in. “Time for your tour,” he said.
Jill blinked in irritation. The man always seemed to catch her off guard. “Trina already took me on a tour of the hospital,” Jill told him. Trina had also given her an earful on just about every person they’d encountered.
“That was Trina’s tour. Mine is different.”
“Trina was very thorough,” Jill said.
“I’m sure she was,” Tyler said with a dry chuckle. “You probably felt like you’d walked through scripts for three soap operas by the time she finished.”
“It was—” she paused and her lips twitched “—colorful.”
“I can tell you’re in PR. My tour is different,” he said. “I want you to meet some of my patients.”
Jill’s stomach tightened. “Oh, well, you don’t have to do that.”
He met her gaze. “Sure I do. People put more on the line when it’s personal. If you meet some of these kids, it will be personal.”
She nodded slowly. “You’re right, but we don’t have to do it today. I’m sure you’ve had a long day, and I’m digesting all the information I’ve gathered today and—”
“Why don’t you want to meet them?”
Her breath stopped somewhere between her lungs and her mouth. How could she tell him that she wasn’t prepared to face her demons in that way today? She couldn’t. She carefully inhaled and exhaled. “I didn’t say I don’t want to meet them. I just thought there might be a better day.”
“Nope,” he said with a shrug.
She bit her lip and nodded. “Okay,” she said, resignation sinking into her as she walked out of her office with him.
“We have three recovering from surgery and four either in for testing or preparing for surgery,” he said as he led her with his long-legged stride through the white-tile corridor to the elevator.
“What age?” she asked, telling herself she could handle this.
“Infant through teenage.”
Infant. Jill steeled herself against the poke at her secret wound. Focus on something else, she told herself. “What made you choose your specialty?”
He nodded for her to enter the elevator. “I think it chose me. If my father had chosen, he would’ve kept me on the ranch. Thank goodness my oldest brother is the rancher.”
“Sounds like your family is big on tradition.”
He shrugged. “You could say that. We’ve been around West Texas for several generations now, we have a long-standing feud with our neighbor, and some say there’s a curse on the Logan name.”
“A curse?” she echoed, intrigued at the prospect that the cocky, charming Dr. Logan could suffer from a curse.
He rolled his eyes. “I never believed it, but the Logans have not been particularly lucky in the romance department. Their women don’t seem to hang around.”
“They leave?”
He shrugged again. “Or die.”
Her eyes widened and she swallowed a chuckle. “Oh, my. Is that why you haven’t married?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Nah, just haven’t met the right one.” He looked her over curiously. “What about you?”
“I thought I had, but I was wrong.”
“I thought someone would have tried to take you off the market. What did he do?”
“He left at the worst possible moment,” she said and smiled. “No fairy-tale ending, but I’m over it now.”
“Ready to go again?” he asked with a flicker of sexual challenge in his blue eyes.
“I like taking my time,” she returned, thinking he would be a tempting package for some other woman. She met his gaze. “I know it’s part of your style to flirt with women and to flatter. You don’t have to do that with me. My ego can handle the direct approach.”
He glanced at her mouth, then back to her eyes, and he gave a sensual grin. “What if I like flirting with you?”
“I think you should save it for the legions of women around here who want to—” she paused, then added Trina’s words “—lasso your heart.”
He roared with laughter. “You’ve been talking to Trina.”
“No. Trina’s been talking to me.”
“So you’re not gonna try to lasso me,” he said, rubbing his chin. “I wonder if my feelings should be hurt.”
“I’m sure you’ll survive,” she said in a dry voice. “No ropes, no chains. If I want your body or your face, it’ll be for a media photo op that will get you your new wing.”
“Some men might see that as a challenge,” he told her.
“I’m glad you’re too intelligent for that,” she said with far more assurance than she felt. Intelligence was one thing, the male ego another.
The elevator stopped. “We’ll see,” he said. “But right now you get to meet some of my kids. Hey, Betty,” he called to a nurse. “How’s TJ?”
“A little down. His mom might not be here until tomorrow morning.”
Tyler winced and swore under his breath. “TJ is seven and has six brothers and sisters. His family lives three hours away and his dad has a broken leg, so his mother is doing triple duty right now. He has surgery tomorrow to repair a hole in his heart. This is his room.”
“Hey, bud,” he said as he entered the room. “What’s up?”
TJ was thin, his face drawn and his eyes frightened. Jill’s heart immediately went out to him.
“My mom won’t be here until late tonight.”
