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Daisy spoke with such pride in her voice that for a second the name didn’t register. Then it hit him with the same vengeance as another burning prod to his back.
“Sara Ann Wilson?” he asked, dumbfounded.
“That’s her,” Daisy responded, pride deepening her voice.
Clark groaned inwardly. Was this really happening? Yes, and his misery wasn’t near over yet. He was accustomed to the best sports doctors in the business working on his chronic back pain, which had been brought on by an old football injury from his college days. He didn’t want this small-town doctor working on him, especially because he planned on having a business relationship with her.
Damn! Fate had definitely kicked him in the gut.
“She’s one of them pull-and-stretch doctors.”
“You mean chiropractor?”
“That’s what I said.”
Despite his condition, Clark almost laughed outright. Talk about a quirky twist of events, this was it. But not a good one, he told himself, trying to decide if he should crawl to his vehicle and attempt to make it back to Lufkin.
He moved slightly only to yelp out loud.
“You’re in sad shape, sonny boy.”
Clark glared at Daisy, then holding onto one arm of the swing, he staggered to his feet. However, that was as far as he could go.
“Want me to help you?” Daisy asked.
Hell, no! “Yes, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Put your arm around my shoulders.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Daisy pointed her finger in his face. “You always were one to argue with your elders. For once, just do as you’re told.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Somehow Daisy managed to help him inside the Lexus without further harm to him and without any to her. In fact, she was much stronger than she looked; he’d have to hand her that. She might be old, but she wasn’t dead—far from it.
Minutes later he brought the vehicle to a stop in the doctor’s driveway, then very gingerly made his way to the front door. But not without cost. A new onslaught of sweat drenched him, and he suspected his face was the color of paste.
He practically fell against the doorbell and stayed there. Yet it seemed an eternity before he heard any sound of life. If she wasn’t at home, he didn’t know what he’d do.
The door swung open.
“Yes?” a soft voice asked before her eyes widened and her mouth fell open.
“Sorry to disturb you,” Clark said in a low, terse voice, “but I’m—”
“In pain. That’s obvious.”
Clark clamped his jaw shut, another pain spasming his back.
“Clark Garrison, right?”
Before he could respond to the fact that she recognized him after all these years, a wave of dizziness swept over him, and he pitched forward into her arms.
Her gasp was the last thing he remembered.
Two
Later Sara couldn’t have said how she remained upright, much less got this six-foot-two lug of a man to the floor without causing further injuries. An added miracle was that she positioned him on his back.
If she hadn’t seen his twisted features, she would have sworn he was drunk, something that wouldn’t have surprised her, considering who he was and what she knew about him.
Although it had been years since she’d seen him, she would have recognized him anywhere. His appearance hadn’t changed all that much except that he had gotten better looking, if that was possible. Alice and every other girl her age had thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. These days Sara suspected that women thought the same thing.
Now, however, was not the time to rehash what a conceited “bad boy” her sister’s ex-boyfriend had been. Her job was to revive him and relieve his pain as quickly as she could.
At this point Sara couldn’t say who was perspiring the most, him or her. Geez, she’d had some memorable moments in her tenure as a chiropractor, but this one would go down in the history books as the most bizarre to date.
A smile unwittingly tugged at her lips. Wasn’t it supposed to be every woman’s secret dream to have a gorgeous man fall at her feet? While she had no such dream, she could appreciate the moment.
“Clark, Clark,” she said, “can you hear me?”
He grunted, then nodded.
Relief surged through her. “Welcome back.”
“Yeah, right.”
Apparently he hadn’t lost total consciousness which was good and bad. His tolerance for pain, it seemed, was quite low, a weakness found in many of her male patients. “Can you tell me, or better yet, pinpoint where you hurt the most?”
There were a million other questions she would’ve liked to ask, such as how had he known who she was and where she lived. But those questions were easily answered. In a town the size of River Oaks, nothing was sacred.
He seemed comfortable, sprawled on the carpet that covered her hardwood floor. At least he was no longer moaning, and a semblance of color had returned to his face.
“The cattle prod’s right here.” Clark rolled onto his stomach, grimacing, and placed his hand in the middle of his lower back.
His analogy brought another smile to Sara’s lips, although she knew exactly what he was saying. In order to understand back pain, one had to have experienced it. She certainly had. That was one of the reasons she had chosen this profession.
“Let’s see if we can’t get rid of that prod,” she said, “but I’m making no promises. This situation is far from ideal, but then, I don’t have to tell you that.”
“Dammit, lady, just do what you gotta do, okay?”
“I have a table in my spare bedroom. You think you could make it in there?”
“Do I have to?”
Sara picked up on his shallow breathing at the same time she noticed the muscles in his jaw were bunched. “No. I think I can make an adjustment right here and work the kink out. A hard surface is what we need, and the floor certainly is that.”
“Go for it.” He cursed. “Otherwise, I’m not sure I’m going to live through this.”
Sara hid a smile. “Oh, I suspect you’ll live. I’m good at what I do.”
“Let us pray.”
“Your shirt has to come off,” Sara said calmly but crisply, ignoring his ill humor and crankiness.
He struggled onto his elbows. Between the two of them, the shirt was soon off and tossed aside. Once he was again flat on his stomach with head to one side, she knelt and placed her hands on his upper back, then began a slow, deliberate descent down toward his lower back, touching, pressing in what she knew were just the right spots.
He moaned.
“Am I hurting you?”
“God, no,” he rasped. “Please don’t stop. Your hands feel like magic.”
Sara had had her hands on numerous bodies, most of them male due to the numerous ranching and farming jobs around River Oaks. Never once had she experienced any stimulation whatsoever. Until now. Suddenly, she was light-headed, and her mouth was dry as her hands massaged his muscles.
Maybe it was because she knew him from back when, knew that he had been in her house, knew that he had dated Alice, knew that he had possibly been intimate with her sister.
The latter thought rocked her to the core. So what if he’d fooled around with her sister? It was nothing to her. It hadn’t been then and it sure wasn’t now.
Clark moaned again as her hands touched the right spot directly above his waistline. Sara watched as the hard, tanned muscles rippled and quivered underneath her fingers. What a great body, she thought, feeling her mind jump back on that runaway train headed down that forbidden track.
The first time Clark Garrison walked into their old rambling house on Vine Street, which had long since been sold, her breath had almost stopped. She would never forget that moment. His confident swagger and devilish smile had brightened their dreary kitchen like a dose of unfiltered sunlight.
She had remembered thinking, If only he was older and she was prettier, maybe he would’ve stared at her with those hungry eyes instead of her sister.
Stop it! Sara chided herself, feeling her face flame and hearing him yelp. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You hit the place.” His words came out a grunt, and she noticed new patches of sweat on the exposed side of his face.
“I want you to roll over. Your knee needs to come up to your waist,” Sara told him, her tone all business now. “The pain will be severe at first, then it’ll taper off.”
“I know,” he ground out. “That’s what my doctor does at home.”
Once she had the knee where she wanted it, cupped into his waist, and her hands back on his flesh, she felt the knotted muscles give way.
“Ahhh,” he moaned.
“Better?”
Clark blew out a long breath. “You bet.”
“Think you can sit up?”
“I know I can.”
Sara stood. “Once you’re upright, we’ll head for the sofa. I want to put some heat on that area.”
It wasn’t near the ordeal Sara suspected it would be, though again he was a big man. Still, he was agile and not at all cumbersome on his feet. That was what had made him an all-state athlete in school.
Within seconds after he was up, Clark was sitting on the couch with his head back and his eyes closed.
“Are you all right?” Sara asked, scrutinizing him closely.
His eyes popped open, and he squinted up at her. “You should know.”
“In that case, you’re welcome.”
“Patting yourself on the back, huh?”
“Self congratulations aren’t quite in order,” she finally said. “You still have to get up and walk out of here before I can do that.”
That mocking smile she also remembered softened his heretofore tense lips. Talk about sex appeal—he seemed to ooze it, a scar under his right eye, another trophy from his football days, heightening that appeal.
She couldn’t say that he was handsome. He wasn’t. His features were too irregular, yet somehow they worked, especially in conjunction with his unkempt sandy-colored hair, great physique, tanned skin and brilliant blue eyes. They were all undeniable pluses. With those, a man’s face didn’t have to be perfect.
Suddenly Sara felt self-conscious, thinking how awful she must look, only to jerk herself back in hand. It didn’t matter how she looked. He was a onetime patient—nothing more, nothing less. “Hold still while I get the heating pad.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. I’m afraid to move.”
“Don’t be.” Sara’s lips twitched. “We can do it all over again, you know.”
“I’ll pass,” he said tightly.
She turned and walked toward her makeshift office. When she reached the room, her heart was beating far faster than it should have been. Damn!
Not bad, not bad at all, Clark thought as he watched Sara make her way out of the room, at least not from the back. If nothing else, her derriere was intriguing, moving in perfect rhythm with her every step. Yet she was uptight, except when she’d had her hands on him, he corrected himself.
He jerked his gaze off her and let a few expletives fly. What the hell was wrong with him? He knew, though he hated to admit it. There was touching and there was touching.
His insides vibrated just thinking about the sensations that had run rampant through his body everywhere she touched. He hadn’t been lying, no siree, when he’d said she had magic fingers.
He wondered what they would feel like on another part of his body. He swore, his face tightening as if he had lockjaw. Thinking of her in terms of sex was the last thing he needed. It was bad enough that he’d had to come to her for treatment, in light of why he was in town.
On the other hand, he couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Because of who she was, she had saved him from having either to return to Houston or go to the hospital in Lufkin. Once she put the heat to his back, he was convinced he’d be as good as new. Oh, he’d be sore for a few days, unable to brand any cattle, but he could live without that.
Besides, he hadn’t come to town to play with his cows. He’d come to land a coup that would make him rich. He wasn’t about to let anything mess that up, certainly not his libido.
Yet when Sara walked back into the room, he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her. What galled him was the fact that she wasn’t even conventionally pretty.
She wasn’t homely, either.
Because her face was devoid of makeup, he could see her great bone structure—high cheekbones and wide-set green eyes. Her skin was incredible, too—a milky white that appeared as smooth as a baby’s butt.
Her hair was an odd color, somewhere between auburn and light chocolate, which added to her allure. She wore it in a short, straight style that accented her long neck.
But it was her body that was the attention grabber. Although extremely slender and tall, she had more than ample breasts, breasts that even her loose-fitting caftan couldn’t hide. He wished he could see her waist; he’d bet his hands would fit around it.
