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Mallory nodded and pushed through the double doors, Courtney on her heels.
The quiet evening was over, and Courtney didn’t have a chance to think about much of anything until it was time for her dinner break at ten o’clock.
She drove the short distance home and let herself into the house. There was a water glass sitting on the counter in the kitchen where she hadn’t left it, but that was the only indication that Mason had been moving around the house.
A light came from his room down the hall, and she headed there quietly in case he was sleeping. She stuck her head around the doorway and looked inside.
He was sprawled on the bed, more or less in the same position that she’d left him. A book was lying closed on the mattress beside him, and Plato was lying next to that.
Her dog’s brow wrinkled as he looked at her, but he didn’t lift his head. He looked as if he were settled for the night. Between the big dog and the big man, there was barely a spare inch of mattress left.
Courtney settled a light blanket over Mason and turned off the light. Mason still didn’t stir. That was good. He needed sleep.
“Good boy,” she whispered to Plato, giving his head a scratch.
She left the house again and went back to the hospital to finish her shift. The second half passed even more quickly than the first, thanks to a motorcycle accident on the highway outside of town. It was just after three o’clock when she got home again.
Mason’s room was still quiet, except for the faint sound of his snoring.
She smiled a little to herself and went into her own bedroom, which was across the hall from his. She exchanged her scrubs for a pair of lightweight pajama pants and a tank and then—because she always needed to unwind for a while after getting off shift—headed out to the family room again. She’d barely sat down in front of her computer when she heard the pad of Plato’s paws. He propped his head on her knee, flopping his tail against the floor.
“So, Plato. Are you ready to have a baby?”
Chapter Three
Courtney rested her chin on her palm and stared at the computer screen, her mind eagerly whisking into the future.
“A little boy or a little girl?” She didn’t care which. She glanced at the dog. “Come this time next year, we’ll have a smiling, gurgling little someone to cuddle. What do you think?”
Plato’s warm brown eyes stared back at her. He made a low sound that she took as complete agreement.
Brilliant dog that he was.
She grinned and reached out to run her fingers through his thick, silky hair, and he grinned back at her, pushing his head harder against her palm. His long, feathered tail slapped the base of her chair. “I knew you’d like the idea, too.” Plato had been around children before she’d adopted him. His previous owner had run a foster home before cancer had stricken her.
Thinking of the woman who hadn’t only been Courtney’s teacher in Cheyenne, but also her friend, made her sigh.
Then she leaned over and pressed a kiss on Plato’s big head before turning back to the computer screen that glowed in front of her. She wasn’t going to end up like Margaret, taking in other people’s children when they couldn’t properly care for them. For Margaret, that had been enough.
Not for Courtney.
She wanted a child of her own.
“Thank goodness for Axel, huh?” She didn’t look away from the computer screen. “If it weren’t for him, we’d be waiting even longer.” Of course, when her cousin had approached her about taking in Mason, he’d had no idea of her plans and still didn’t. For that matter, nobody in her family had any idea.
She simply wasn’t ready to share, yet.
She looked back at her faithful companion and scrubbed her fingers through his thick coat again. “You’re the only one who knows,” she whispered.
The four-year-old Saint Bernard gave a huge, contented sigh.
Which had pretty much been the dog’s reaction ever since she’d begun voicing her intention to add to their small family.
She was twenty-six years old. Financially independent in a modest way. She had a good job. She—along with the bank—owned a home that she’d spent the past nine months remodeling.
And she wanted a baby.
So what if she didn’t have a man in her life?
Weaver, Wyoming, was a small town. She’d known all of the available men here since they’d all pretty much been in diapers. She also knew the men who weren’t available, yet liked to think they were.
She had no problem giving them all a pass.
The fact was, not a single man in Weaver had ever really turned her head, romantically speaking.
Well.
She grimaced slightly. Not any man who was from Weaver, she amended, thinking of the man sleeping right down the hall from her.
She was a modern, independent woman.
She had scads of supportive—albeit nosy—family members in the area. Everything in her life was aligned perfectly, just as she’d planned and worked for.
And now, thanks to Axel’s suggestion and Mason’s rent, she’d have the funds she needed even sooner than she’d planned.
If she’d learned anything in her life, it was not to wait too long to put into action the things you wanted.
Well, the waiting was done.
For months, she’d been checking out the various websites of sperm banks. Checking references. Checking reputations. And she’d finally settled on one—Big Sky Cryobank. It was located in Montana, had been around for as long as she’d been alive and came with impeccable references.
Now, given what she was earning, thanks to Mason, she would be able to bank enough extra money to pay the cryobank fees and the associated physician fees, since she knew her health insurance wasn’t going to cover the process of getting pregnant. She’d also have enough in her savings to tide her over for a few months when the baby came, so she wouldn’t have to go back to work the very second her maternity leave was used up.
“Everything is perfect,” she told Plato.
The dog stared up at her as if he could read her mind.
She grimaced a little. All right. Modern, independent woman or not, she had to admit that “perfect” would be the husband and a wedding ring along with the baby she was desperate to have. But she wasn’t willing to wait for all of that to come knocking at her door. Not when her door—save that one night with Mason all those months ago—was essentially silent. “As perfect as it’s likely to get,” she allowed, giving Plato a firm look.
“What’s perfect?”
She jerked, her heart lurching in her chest, and spun around on her chair to peer down the darkened hallway. “Mason. What are you doing awake?”
His rubber-tipped crutches provided a slow, rhythmic clump as he moved closer.
Her heart hadn’t stopped lurching, and she rose, wishing like fury that she’d thought to put on a robe over her thin knit pajamas. Thank heavens the room was lit only by a small lamp and the glow from her computer monitor. He would never be able to see the thumping in her chest, which felt so heavy it was probably visible. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
He finally stopped on the other side of the dining room table. He shook his head.
She moistened her lips and pressed her palms down the sides of her drawstring pants. “Do you need anything? You were sleeping when I came by during my break, and I didn’t want to disturb you then. But if you’re hungry or thirsty, I’m happy to get something for you.” Better to have a task to focus on, even if she did realize that she was talking too fast in the process.
He shook his head again, then jerked his chin toward the computer. “What’s that? One of those computer dating websites? Searching for your perfect match?”
She barely kept herself from shutting off the computer monitor. “Sort of.”
His dark gaze shifted back to her. “What’re you looking for? Blond hair? Dark hair? Blue eyes? Brown?”
She laughed a little nervously. Maybe if she described him, he’d drop the subject. Or not, considering his “sex option” comment when he’d arrived.
She wasn’t brave enough to find out.
Nor was she brave enough to hear what sort of comments he might have about her decision to find a daddy for her baby through a sperm bank. She pushed a few buttons on the computer keyboard, and the screen went blank, and she moved toward him. Away from the narrow desk where the computer sat. But the closer she got to him, the warmer she became.
Fortunately, there were a few working brain cells left inside her head for her to realize the heat wasn’t coming from inside her, but physically radiating from him. At a temperature much higher than normal.
She reached up and pressed her palm against his forehead. He was burning up.
“Mason,” she tsked. “You have a fever. Are you in pain?”
“No.” He’d closed his eyes and sighed faintly when she’d laid her hand on his forehead. The kind of sigh that signaled relief.
“I don’t believe you,” she murmured, but left her hand on his forehead a moment longer than necessary before she tucked herself between his casted arm and his side. She slid the crutch out of her way and leaned it against the table.
The feel of his torso against hers was blazing hot.
“Come on. You shouldn’t be on your feet.” She wrapped her arm behind his back for support and gently nudged him in the direction of the hallway.
“I don’t want to go back to bed. I’m sick of beds at the moment.”
“Okay.” She shifted slightly. “How about the couch?”
He gave a faint grunt and, with most of his weight on his remaining crutch, headed toward it. By the time he’d managed to half hop and half crutch his way around until he could pretty much collapse on the smooth leather cushions, she was glad she’d rearranged the furniture. She was also out of breath, and she didn’t consider herself exactly out of shape. Not with the running that she did.
She propped her hands on her hips and blew out a breath. “Now stay there.”
“Funny girl.” He finally let go of the crutch that he was still clutching, and it slid to the floor. “I hate this,” he muttered.
A fresh wave of sympathy plowed over her. “I can only imagine.” She gently shushed Plato out of the way when he tried tucking his big head on the couch next to Mason, then grabbed one of the soft throw pillows from the opposite end of the couch and deftly tucked it behind his head. “Just take a few deep breaths. I’ll be right back.” The dog trotted after her as she hurried into Mason’s bedroom. He gave her a faint woof, then leapt up onto the bed, turned around a few times and lay down.
Courtney left him there, retrieved the wedge cushion, as well as Mason’s antibiotics, grabbed a bottled water from the refrigerator in her kitchen and wet down a clean washcloth.
She went back to him and folded the damp cloth over his forehead.
He lifted his hand to it. “I don’t need that.”
She pushed it right back into place. “This is not coddling,” she assured drily.
“Feels like it.”
“Stop complaining.” She rattled the antibiotics bottle. “Did you take a dose before you went to sleep?”
“Yes, Nurse Ratched.”
She couldn’t help but grin. The big, tall, dangerous-looking man sounded as cranky as an overtired five-year-old. “Mason, you have no idea,” she warned lightly. “I work the night shift in an emergency room. I can order the meanest sons of guns around.”
“I’m shaking in my boots.”
“You’re not wearing any,” she reminded him, then went to her own medicine cabinet in her bathroom to retrieve a bottle of acetaminophen as well as her ear thermometer.
Back in the living room, she spotted the wet cloth clutched in his fist and not on his forehead.
Stubborn.
But then, so was she.
She shook out a few of the pills, opened the bottle of water and tugged the damp cloth of out his grip, then handed them to him.
“What are they?”
“Good old Tylenol. For fever and maybe to help dull the pain a little.” She didn’t think now was the best time to broach the subject of his prescribed painkillers. He’d already said he refused to take them, and that was his right.
He swallowed the pills and drank down half the bottle of water, then leaned his head back again against the square pillow. She folded the cloth once more over his forehead. “Leave it.” She touched his chin lightly and tried to ignore the tantalizing feel of that raspy chin. “Turn your head a little.”
“Why?” His voice dripped with suspicion.
“So I can torture you some more, of course.” She held up her thermometer. “I need your ear for a moment.”
He grimaced and turned his head slightly.
“Take comfort in the fact that it could be worse.” She quickly took his temp and then sat back on her heels. “Well, it’s not as high as I thought it might be, but if it’s not back down to normal by morning, I’m going to have my mother come by.”
He pulled the cloth off his face and gave her a look. “Your mother.”
“She’s a doctor.”
He shook his head slightly. “Right. I should have remembered that.”
She tugged the cloth out of his hand yet again and replaced it on his forehead. “Should? Why?”
“I met her once,” he said, sounding annoyed. “Because I remember stuff. I’m supposed to remember stuff.”
She didn’t know why she was unnerved to think that he’d met her mother. He’d spent a few weeks in Weaver around the time that they’d been … uninvolved. It wasn’t unnatural to think he might have met more of her family than just her, particularly since he’d been working with Axel. “Stuff … about cases?”
He lifted the cloth enough to give her a baleful look from beneath it. “Cases of what?”
Fortunately, she had a lifetime of experience dealing with men who thought they could control a situation with just such a look. “Cases for the agency, naturally.”
Mason felt only slightly better than roadkill, yet he still was shocked by the words that Courtney uttered so blithely. “What do you know about the agency?”
