Home on the Ranch: Rodeo Legend
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Pamela Britton
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23
Chapter 1
“Let’s see what we’ve got here,” Dr. Ava Moore said, flipping open the cover of the tablet she’d brought into the hospital room with her and wincing at the medial epicondyle fracture she spotted on the X-ray. No wonder they’d called her in.
“Ouch.” She looked up and smiled at her new patient...and nearly stopped walking.
“Is it bad?” said Mr. Carson Gillian...according to his records.
She forced a smile. “Looks painful.”
Blue eyes the same color as the shallow end of a pool stared back at her, thick black lashes framing them. Dear goodness, the man could star in a beer commercial, one where he jumped off the back of a black stallion before he popped open a cold one.
And look who’s being fanciful. So unlike her.
She forced her attention back on his stats. “Your chart said you injured your elbow last week?”
“Banged it on a roping chute,” he admitted.
Look up. Polite smile. There.
“I’m surprised it took you this long to get to the ER.” Although not really. In her experience, his type of man didn’t seek medical attention unless a limb was about to fall off.
She expected a reaction to her words but he just stared down at his right elbow as if willing it to get better and, in profile, he was just as handsome. The square shape of his chin could be seen more clearly, as could what must be a day’s growth of whiskers on his strong jawline. She glanced at his records again—more of a defensive reaction—and wished, for some completely ridiculous reason, that she’d worn a more flattering scrub. Horses galloping on a blue backdrop were not, as a rule, sexy, but her daughter, Bella, had insisted.
Sexy?
She refused to examine that thought too deeply.
“So, um.” She took a deep breath and ordered herself to focus again. Sure, he was handsome, but in her line of work, good-looking adrenaline junkies were a dime a dozen. They were always falling off cliffs or tumbling down snow-covered mountains or doing something to hurt themselves. Like this one. She would bet he was...
She used her finger to swipe to a new page.
Yup.
Professional rodeo cowboy. Bella would go nuts. If circumstances had been different she would have loved to pick his brain about getting her daughter a horse, but now wasn’t the time, not when the news she’d just imparted made him look like he wanted to vomit. Maybe in a bit, once the news had settled in.
“It’s your right elbow, yes?”
He nodded. “Been killing me for a couple days now.”
She could see a crease in his hair where a cowboy hat must have sat until recently. She looked around, wondering if he had any family.
Wife.
“You have a bone chip, Mr. Gillian.” She forced herself to use her most chipper, professional tone. “Specifically your medial epicondyle has what’s called a slab fracture. They called me in because it will need surgery if you want it to heal correctly.”
When she met his gaze again she could tell he was not happy about the news. He must have been expecting it, though, because he nodded his head.
“Other doc said you might put some pins in?”
She moved forward and, for some reason, hesitated to touch him. He wore a hospital gown that exposed his elbow that, while somewhat swollen, didn’t seem injured. Bruised but nothing bad. Probably why he’d taken so long to come in.
“Just one. I’ll need to screw the chip to the main bone so they’ll heal back together. The sooner, the better. As it stands right now I’m going to have to debride it and pin it into place and hope it heals correctly.”
He tried to move the limb in question, winced. “Hope?”
“The longer an injury such as this goes untreated, the more of a risk you would be for long-term problems. Arthritis. Bone spurs. Loss of use. As such, I would recommend surgery sooner rather than later.”
“You mean it might not ever work right?”
She pasted on her most sympathetic smile. “There’s a chance.”
His blue eyes widened. “But I’m a professional team roper.”
“We’ll do everything we can—”
“So I have to have the surgery?”
Deep breath. His kind always fought surgical procedures. “Yes. If you ever hope to regain full use of your elbow, I’ll need to operate on it.”
She could tell the moment it finally sank in because his eyes seemed to focus on her for the first time, like a man who’d been staring at a spot on the horizon only to note an object in the distance. She saw his brows lift a bit and though he leaned back on the bed, he seemed to straighten.
“You’re the surgeon?”
“I am.”
“You don’t look old enough to operate on a Barbie.”
She tried her best to hide her irritation. She was twenty-nine and, yes, the youngest surgical resident on the floor, but she heard it all the time and it always sort of irritated her. She didn’t look her age, but that was the product of good genes and a face that didn’t seem to age, not because she was young and lacked experience. It was worse when her hair was down.
“I know.” She set her tablet down and reached for his elbow. “But I assure you, I’m your surgeon. You mind?”
He kept staring at her, so keenly and so intensely, heat singed the tips of her ears.
“No. Go ahead.”
She tried to be gentle, but when she peeked up at him, it was as the lines on his face deepened in pain. She gently prodded his injury, feeling the tendons and muscles, and trying to gauge how securely they were attached to the bone, things an X-ray wouldn’t reveal. She’d want an MRI before she operated, just to be sure.
“Were you some kind of wonder kid or something?” He had the curious expression of an engineer trying to understand a math problem. “The kind that graduated from college at twelve?”
She gently released his elbow. “Nope.” And for some reason she felt the need to project an invisible barrier, forcing her most professional smile. “I’m going to write an order for an MRI. With this type of injury there’s always the concern that you might have some tendon damage, too. I’d like to know exactly what we’re dealing with before we operate.”
She could tell he didn’t like the word operate any more now than before. He almost seemed to wince when she said the word, but that was to be expected.
“What kind of surgery are we talking about here, Doc? The kind where I’m awake, or the kind where you put me out?”
“We’ll put you out. I can’t risk you moving around.”
He didn’t look pleased by her answer. She tipped her head sideways, trying to piece together what she saw on his face. She might not have been a surgeon that long, but she’d seen his type during her residency. The pinched mouth. The furrows on his brow. The pale tint to his skin.
Fear.
He didn’t like the idea of surgery. More specifically, it was tough for the alpha male to realize he wasn’t infallible.
“Since it’s Friday, I’m thinking we can do the pre-op on Monday and the surgery on Tuesday. Would that work?”
No, his eyes said. I don’t want to be cut on Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Or Thursday.
That and more she read in his gaze, and it almost made her smile. Instead she did what she’d always done in these situations: she stepped forward, reached out and covered his hand with her own.
And instantly wished she hadn’t.
His hand was big beneath hers, his skin warm, and she could feel fine hairs on the back of his hand, something she’d never noticed before. Not ever. Not in all her years of medical school, and certainly not since she’d started working at Via Del Caballo’s general hospital.
“You’ll be fine,” she heard herself say as if from the end of a long room, one where her voice didn’t sound quite like her own.
“I’ll take your word for it.”
She let go, gave herself some breathing room. “I’ll go write up that order for the MRI.”
Lord help her, it was almost all she could do not to run from the room.
Surgery.
Carson tried not to think about it. He hated the thought of surgery. It reminded him of his mom...
She was back far faster than he would have thought possible, a purely professional smile on her face. Her eyes were her best feature, a shade of green that reminded him of the stones he used to pick out of a nearby lake. Jasper, it was called. Flecks of dark green and grays and browns were framed by her thick lashes. She wore no makeup, at least none that he could tell, and her lips were a little too wide for his taste, but she wasn’t his type anyway. He’d tried dating a professional before. Huge mistake. He could tell the doc was a city girl, too. City girls tended to love the idea of dating a cowboy...until they caught their first whiff of a farm.
“So you ride horses?” she asked.
That was something else city women wanted to do. Ride. Until they got on a horse and realized it looked a lot more romantic than it actually was.
“Every day.”
She wrote something on the tablet with a plastic pen. “My daughter is horse crazy.”
Married then. Or maybe not. He didn’t see a ring. “We breed cutting horses.”
“Cutting horses? I have no idea what that is.” She finished writing, pasted another professional smile on her face. “Part of the reason we moved here from Sacramento was so she could have a horse. She’s always wanted to ride, and lately she’s been interested in rodeo, too.” She shook her head good-naturedly. “Haven’t had time to look into getting a horse yet, though. I’m almost afraid to start. I hear it’s expensive and that you really need to know what you’re doing.”
“You heard right.”
She studied him for a moment. “You wouldn’t be able to help me with that, would you?”
He tried to hide his surprise. He’d just been told he would need surgery. It took him a moment to change gears.
“I might.” Actually he was pretty sure he might have a horse for her. His dad had just told him to sell a cute little mare that wasn’t going to work for their program.
“My daughter’s been bugging me forever. I keep putting her off, but I know I can’t keep doing that.” She seemed to hesitate, and it was clear she wasn’t entirely comfortable about asking for a favor. “Even if you just talked to her for me. Maybe explain what’s involved. We both don’t know anything about horses.”
“I suppose I could help out.” He found the play of emotion on her face fascinating. “Maybe you could bring her out.”
Her whole face lit up and it was like turning a spy glass around and seeing someone for the first time. The smile completely transformed her face.
“That would be so amazing.”
Damn.
She had one of those faces that lit up when she grinned. A kind of happiness that shone from the depths of her soul and turned her into a glorious being that took his breath away for a moment.
“Probably better to do it this weekend, before I have surgery.”
“Good thinking.” She tipped her head, smile still in place. “I’ll owe you a coffee or something.”
He could think of a few ways she could thank him, but just as soon as he had the thought, he dismissed it. Buttoned-up professionals weren’t his type. And for sure he could never see himself dating a doctor. She’d probably die laughing if she knew he fainted at the sight of blood, especially his own. But he didn’t mind helping her out. Couldn’t hurt to get in good with his doc.
“Bring her out on Saturday. Gillian Ranch. It’s off the old Highway 21. You can google it.”
Her eyes crinkled near the corners. “Great. I’ll see you then.”
