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“Count on it.” Ethan had until the Saturday after Thanksgiving, less than two weeks away, to last a full eight seconds on one of Clay’s broncs. That was another of the conditions Ethan had to meet in order to enter the jackpot. “I’ll be here every evening if I have to.”
The door to the small room beneath the announcer’s stand stood ajar. A minivan was backed up to it, the rear hatch open. As they neared, Ethan glimpsed plastic containers and cardboard boxes stacked inside the van and a handicap placard dangling from the rearview mirror.
Clay stopped suddenly and scratched the back of his neck, the movement tipping his cowboy hat forward over his furrowed brow.
“Something the matter?” Ethan asked.
“I was going to surprise you. Now I’m thinking that’s not such a good idea.”
“Surprise me with what?”
“My new nurse. You know her.” He smiled ruefully. “That is, you used to know her. Pretty well, in fact.”
Ethan had only a second to prepare before a young woman appeared in the doorway. She paused at the sight of him, recognition lighting her features.
Caitlin Carmichael.
She looked the same. Okay, maybe not the same, he decided on second thought. Nine years was a long time, after all. But she was as pretty as ever.
Her former long blond hair had darkened to a honey-brown and was cut in one of those no-nonsense short styles. Her clothing was equally functional—loose-fitting sweats beneath a down-filled vest. It was her green eyes, he noticed, that had changed the most. Once alive with mischief and merriment, they were now somber and guarded.
Something had happened to her during the years since they’d dated.
Was she thinking the same thing about him?
He waited for her glance to travel to his left leg. It didn’t. Either she was very good at hiding her reactions or she hadn’t heard about his injury.
“Hello, Ethan,” she said, her voice slightly unsteady. “It’s good to see you.” She came forward, her hand extended. “Clay told me you were back in Mustang Valley and training horses for him.”
“For a while now.” He took her hand in his, remembering when their greetings and farewells had included a hug and a kiss. Often a long kiss.
An awkward silence followed, and he finally released her hand. “So, you’re a nurse?”
She smiled. “I suppose that’s hard to believe.”
“A little.” The mere sight of blood used to make her queasy. “I guess people change.”
“They do.” Her gaze went to his leg, answering Ethan’s earlier question. She quickly looked away.
“I work mornings at the middle school and afternoons at the new urgent-care clinic in Mustang Village,” she continued. “Have since the school year started.”
“And now for Clay, too.”
Her cheeks colored.
Why? Ethan wondered. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask how her husband or boyfriend felt about her busy schedule. Then it occurred to him maybe she and Clay were seeing each other. That would explain the embarrassment.
Ethan couldn’t blame his friend. And it wasn’t as if he had any kind of claim on Caitlin himself. Not after leaving her high and dry when he’d enlisted, following his mother’s death.
“Speaking of which,” Clay interjected, “Ethan’s your first patient.”
Her eyebrows rose. “You are?”
“It’s nothing,” Ethan insisted, sending his friend—soon to be ex-friend once again if he kept this up—a warning look.
He’d hardly gotten over the shock of seeing Caitlin. No way was he ready to be examined by her.
Any choice he had in the matter was taken from him when Clay all but shoved him through the door and into the dimly lit room.
The next instant, his friend was gone, leaving Ethan alone with the woman whose heart he’d broken, and who still owned a very large piece of his.
CAITLINPULLEDAFLIMSY metal folding chair into the center of the space and indicated Ethan should sit.
Gripping the back of the chair, he tested its strength. The legs wobbled. “You sure?”
She shrugged apologetically. “I’m still setting up.” When he hesitated, she added, “There’s always the cot.”
He promptly sat, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his big frame dwarfing the chair. Ethan had always been tall, some had said too tall for a bronc or bull rider. What he’d done since they last saw each other was fill out. No longer lean and lanky, he’d grown into a wall of solid muscle. She supposed his two—or was it three?—overseas tours were responsible.
The extra weight looked good on him.
Who was she kidding? He just plain looked good.
Dark eyes, jet-black hair and a five o’clock shadow that should have looked scruffy but somehow managed to be sexy. And that smile of his. It had dazzled her at age seventeen, and never stopped during the four years they’d dated.
Wait. On second thought, he hadn’t smiled yet.
He’d been pleasant and polite, but that devil-may-care charm was noticeably absent.
“I’m guessing you injured yourself?”
“My left shoulder,” he said.
“Strained it?”
“Or something.”
She stood in front of him and gently placed her hand on the afflicted area. He jerked at her touch.
“Does that hurt?”
“Some.”
She suspected her proximity was responsible for his reaction more than anything else. There was a lot of history between them, after all, much of it unresolved.
“What happened?” She gently probed his shoulder.
“A horse decided he didn’t much like me riding him.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask how he managed that with a prosthetic leg, but she refrained. Clay had warned her that Ethan didn’t appreciate reminders of his handicap, and refused to let it hold him back. Well, he’d always been competitive. First high school sports, then professional rodeo after graduation.
“Did you at least land on soft ground?”
“The arena.”
“Thank goodness.” She lifted his arm. “Tell me when it starts to hurt.”
He said nothing, even when she raised it clear over his head. The clenching of his jaw told another story. She lowered his arm, then raised it again, this time to the side.
He squeezed his eyes shut, but remained stubbornly silent.
Bending his arm at the elbow, she pressed his hand into the small of his back. “What about now?”
“Okay.” He released a long breath and shook off her grasp. “You win. It hurts.”
So he wasn’t invincible.
“You should see your doctor as soon as possible and get an X-ray,” she told him, lightly massaging his shoulder. “You might have torn a ligament or your rotator cuff.”
“I’ll be better by morning.”
He was back to being the tough guy.
“No, you’re going to be worse. Trust me.”
“I’ll take some ibuprofen.”
“Three a day, extra strength. Up to six if your stomach can tolerate it. Ice the shoulder for at least an hour tonight before you go to bed, and again in the morning. When you can’t stand the pain anymore and decide I’m right, see your doctor.”
He chuckled, and the smile she’d been missing earlier appeared, if only a shadow of the one she remembered.
“You have nothing to prove, Ethan.” She laid her palm on his good shoulder. “See a doctor.”
“You’re wrong.” He rose from the chair, either her touch or her words galvanizing him. “I do have something to prove.”
One step on his part and they were standing toe to toe.
Unable to help herself, Caitlin looked up into his face. As his gaze raked over her, lingered on her mouth, the atmosphere surrounding them went from calm to highly charged.
So much for believing the attraction had died.
She retreated on unsteady legs. All these years apart, and he still had the ability to unsettle her.
“How’s your family?” she asked. Breathing came easier with some distance between them. “Clay mentioned your brother’s getting married.”
“This spring. I suppose Clay also mentioned the two of them are partners in a stud and breeding business.”
“No.” By unspoken agreement, she and Ethan made their way to the door. “We really haven’t talked much other than about setting up the first-aid station.”
“Huh. I thought maybe you and he…”
“He and I what?”
“Had kept in touch.” Ethan stepped aside, allowing her to precede him outside.
“We did up until he got married and moved away. I had no idea he was divorced and back in town.”
“Then how did you wind up working for him?”
“He showed up at the school last Wednesday and asked me to run the first-aid station.”
“Have you been at the school long?” They stopped beside her minivan.
“You really don’t know?”
“Should I?”
“I thought maybe someone told you.”
Mustang Village was a horse-friendly residential community, built in and named after Mustang Valley, the land Ethan’s family had once owned, and where they had raised cattle for four generations. Their ranch, what was left of it, lay nestled in the foothills of the McDowell Mountains, and looked down on the village. Caitlin didn’t think much happened that the Powells didn’t know about.
She’d certainly heard about Ethan’s injury, medical discharge and return home.
“I’ve worked at the school since August,” she told him.
“That long?” he said, more to himself than her.
“Clay told me you’re breaking horses for him.”
“Trying to.” Another half smile appeared. “Some of them aren’t embracing the process.”
“If anyone can change their minds, you can.” Again she wondered how he managed such a physically demanding job. “Is your sister still living in San Francisco?”
“For five years now.”
“But she visits, right?”
“Used to. Not much the last couple years.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Sierra being gone so much is hard on Dad. He misses her. Misses Mom, too. Though he’s doing a lot better lately since Cassie came to live with us. He’s crazy about her.”
Caitlin had met Ethan’s twelve-year-old niece at the school. “I don’t imagine recovering from the death of a loved one is ever easy.”
“It’s not.”
The mention of his late mother put a damper on their conversation. It was right after Louise Powell died that Ethan had abruptly enlisted, leaving Caitlin to suffer the loss of not only a dear friend, but the love of her life.
