“Wyatt, what is it?”

The next she knew he was against her, his mouth burning hot and rough against hers. Not the way she’d imagined their first kiss. Caught so off-guard she could do little more than react, she let her arms come up under his as he steered her backward to the wall and ground her into it, kissing her with the length of his big body.

She’d always liked kissing—good, wholesome fun kissing. This was nothing like the playful, gentle kisses she’d found on the lips of any other men. It overwhelmed her, burning away every other thought, claiming every part of her—it was a flow of something hot and molten that dragged her down, burning her lips, singeing her tongue, searing her from the inside out with his breath she breathed.

When he lifted his head she could only stare at him, light-headed and shaking, her arms still locked around his shoulders, broad, warm, and steady…and she couldn’t think of anything but kissing him again.

Imogen tried to get control of her breathing, but held fast lest he get any ideas about letting go before she got her balance. Say something. Quick!

“I like the way you talk” was what came out, followed by a bubble of semi-nervous giggles.

Smooth.

His gaze fell heavy on hers. Dark. Troubled. Though the giggles ceased, words still failed to materialize—and she was usually so good at talking.

Dear Reader

Growing up, I shared a dream typical of kids growing up in the country: I wanted nothing but to see the world. I didn’t expect the way that travel would affect the way I see the place when I come home again, letting me really appreciate the lush beauty of the Appalachian region and the rich local culture of the kind, generous, and colourful people who live here.

I’m so happy my debut novel allows me to introduce this place to those who will never walk these wooded hills, explore what home really means, and tip my hat to the notion of finding love in the most unexpected places.

I hope you enjoy reading Wyatt and Imogen’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I’m thrilled to hear from readers. You can find me online: amalieberlin.blogspot.com, www.facebook.com/amalie.berlin, or by e-mail—amalieberlin@gmail.com

Cheers!

Amalie

There’s never been a day when there haven’t been stories in AMALIE BERLIN’s head. When she was a child they were called daydreams, and she was supposed to stop having them and pay attention. Now when someone interrupts her daydreams to ask, ‘What are you doing?’ she delights in answering: ‘I’m working!’

Amalie lives in Southern Ohio with her family and a passel of critters. When not working, she reads, watches movies, geeks out over documentaries, and randomly decides to learn antiquated skills. In case of zombie apocalypse she’ll still have bread, lacy underthings, granulated sugar, and always something new to read.

Craving
Her Rough
Diamond Doc
Amalie Berlin

www.millsandboon.co.uk

I dedicate this book to my mom.

For enduring months of tears and tantrums while teaching this dyslexic girl to read. And for tricking me into reading of my own free will (at 11) with an old 1960s Mills & Boon® Romance™ and the warning that I was only allowed to read this grown-up book if I took the responsibility seriously…

Table of Contents

Cover

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

THE PROSPECT OF six months in rural Appalachia pinched like a noose around Imogen Donally’s neck. Three months—four, tops—was how long she liked to stay anywhere. Six months may as well be six years.

Amanda was the only person she’d even consider such a request from, and then only because she hadn’t seen her in a couple of years and Amanda’s need was great. Her pregnancy had started smoothly, but a week ago there had been an incident and now Imogen’s best friend—her only long-standing friend—was on bed rest for her entire third trimester. Single motherhood was hard enough without those kinds of complications. She needed help. In that perspective, six months wasn’t so long, right? Less time than gestation…

She took a deep breath and engaged all-terrain on her four-wheel drive, eyeing the deeply trenched gravel drive supposedly leading to the forested mountain home of Dr. Wyatt Beechum, Amanda’s cousin and boss—owner of a modern medical oddity: his family practice was housed on a bus.

This looked like the right place. Unless the hand-painted numbers nailed to a tree meant something other than the street address. Amanda’s directions were written in her usual wandering fashion: mentioning every landmark along the way. Mile markers on the road. The number of bridges she’d cross. And Imogen’s personal favorite—indications of where things used to be. As if Imogen had any clue where things used to be around there. She wasn’t even sure she could find things where they were currently located.

And yet, when asked for the insights into Wyatt that Imogen needed to plan her approach with him, the usually talkative Amanda had been tight-lipped. Recently returned home for his father’s funeral after years and years away. Lost his mother and brother when he was young. The traveling clinic was in danger of losing funding. Sad stuff, but not very telling. None of it especially helpful. So it came down to charm and playing it by ear. Her plan was simple: find the doctor; charm the doctor; and get him to let her cover Amanda’s maternity leave.

He needed a nurse to help keep his two-person traveling practice going, so he should be happy to agree. Easy-peasy. Just as soon as she drove up this creepy, dirty, graveled incline into a dense forest.

She reached for her phone. No signal. No double-checking the location with Amanda.

This dark forest drive was probably quite normal for the area. Every new place required a certain amount of adjustment. She just needed to acclimatize. Nothing scary waited at the other end. No crazy hillbillies with too much moonshine and chainsaws awaited her. Just a man. A normal man. A doctor, she hoped. She could handle one measly doctor. No problem.

She got a run at the incline. Better she stalk him here than at work. The car bounced up the path, now and then hitting potholes large enough to jar the fragile glass mementos packed in the back. Not hard enough to break them. They were okay. Not that any sane person should be so attached to cheap trinkets.

Six months from now, she’d get back on the road and life would return to normal. Any time she stopped moving too long, someone expected her to stay forever. Imogen couldn’t do forever. Besides, that wasn’t going to happen this time. She and Amanda had lived together all through college, and they had both survived parting. If only the world had more Amandas.

Dr. Earp, as she’d come to think of him, should be glad she was willing to head down to Banjoland to help out. Excellent nurses available on twelve hours’ notice were hard to come by.

A shiny black pickup sat in front of an old blue school bus with curtained windows. Someone lived here, or was here at least. Beyond it, she could see the beginning stages of a cabin. It was only a few logs high, but connected to a beautiful riverstone chimney.

Praying the rise in elevation had given her a signal, she reached for her cellphone again. She’d even take one stupid bar. Was it too much to ask for enough connection to send a text? Apparently.

She killed the engine, checked her hair to make sure she looked fairly presentable, and climbed out. Behind the cabin, lying parallel to one another up the slope, were several long straight trees. As she rounded the bus, a man came into view, looking all sorts of rugged and manly. Black hair, disheveled and longer than the white-collar type she had been expecting. Worn blue jeans. Work boots. White T-shirt. Handsome. And tall. Very tall. With safety goggles.

Which was when she noticed the chainsaw.

The man jerked the cord to send the blade whirling and angled it into one of the logs. Wood chips flew everywhere as he made a series of shallow cuts, and Imogen went unnoticed. Must be the safety goggles obstructing his vision.

Not emotionally ready to approach a big mountain man with a chainsaw, Imogen occupied herself by checking her presentability again in the dusty bus windows—which seemed more important now that she’d seen this broad-shouldered man with a chainsaw. Streaks of pink in her pale blonde hair stood out like beacons. Out of place. Oh, well, maybe it’d make her exotic. And after the hot contractor told her where she could find Wyatt, he could take her out for drinks and help her pass the next six months.

And maybe he could also explain to her why she could see a bed and old console television between the gaps in the bus curtains.

The outrageously loud buzzing quit, drawing Imogen’s attention back to the rugged outdoorsman. “Hello?”

No answer. Instead, he took his shirt off, balled it up and used the wad of material to brush from his corded bronze arms the tree shrapnel he’d created with the chainsaw.

Probably not Wyatt. That tall, broad-shouldered man with the back of a chiseled god could not be him. The only doctors she’d seen with their shirts off had been pasty and usually somewhat pigeon-chested. The profession didn’t naturally lend itself to buffness. Probably why she always ended up with the rough-and-tumble lot. They looked good, and were rarely given to the deep, soul-baring conversations you started building forever on. Imogen knew that road. Dead end. Full of potholes. Kind of like the road on which she’d just driven up the mountain.

She started up the incline, which got his attention. Their eyes met through the scratched plastic protecting his eyes. That probably should’ve made the experience less exhilarating, but Imogen found herself smiling like an idiot and resisting the urge to toss her hair and add extra wiggle to her walk. “I’m looking for Dr. Wyatt…something. You’re not Wyatt, are you?”

He extracted earplugs and stuffed them into his back pocket. “What do you want?”

Well, that was a crappy greeting. But that’s okay. With those shoulders, Tall, Dark and Cranky could work for her. “I’m looking for Wyatt Beechum…B. E. E. C. H….Actually, I don’t know how it’s spelled.”

He dropped the now still chainsaw to his side, letting it dangle as he impatiently spelled “Beauchamp” for her then repeated, “What do you want?” Hot contractor had bad people skills.

And might not be the contractor.

“I don’t think that’s right. That’s all…French and whatever. This is like the tree, maybe? Beechum.”

“That’s how it’s said around here,” Likely Wyatt muttered. “Guess no one saw fit to modify the spelling.”

“Oh. Well, I’m Imogen, a friend of Amanda’s.” She stuck out one hand and approached, ready to shake and be friendly.

“I know. My cousin is a picture hoarder. Has you in several on her walls.” He looked at her hand, but didn’t shake it. Which was better than being chainsawed at least—which might be the only way she’d feel less welcome. She could only pray his bedside manner was better.

“I’m going to assume you’re Wyatt and not another cousin lurking about.” On the plus side, working with him would give her plenty of time to convince him to show her the sights. And anything else he wanted. He was taciturn enough that he didn’t seem inclined to long talks about his hopes, dreams, and future two point five children. She could just pretend he was mute as long as his shirt was off.

“I told her this morning you should’ve called before wasting the gas.”

“Okay.” Her nose wrinkled and she paused, needing a mental kick to get her back on the reason for her visit. “You filled the position already?”

“No, but you can’t help me.”

“I’m a good nurse.” She started with business, seeking common ground.

“Amanda said as much. But you can’t be her replacement.”

“Her temporary replacement.” Imogen corrected that first, still smiling, though now with effort. “If you know I’m a good nurse, and your usual nurse recommended me, why do you say I can’t help you?”

He pulled off the goggles and laid them on the log he’d just notched. “No offense, but Amanda has the respect of the people we care for, and no matter how good you are at your job they won’t trust you and won’t be as open as we need them to be to get the best care.”

“Seems a little last century to me. You’re afraid I can’t take care of people because they speak with a different accent than I do?” She smiled, trying to cajole him. “I can do the accent if that’s seriously your hang-up.”

“Don’t try to do the accent.” He leveled a stern look at her, as if he could stare the words into her with those dark eyes. “You’re an outsider. You’ll never be someone they’ll identify with. I can’t use you.”

To buy time to think, Imogen walked the short distance to inspect the cabin walls. “You’re local. Can’t they just talk to you as a trustworthy insider, and I’ll follow your lead?”

“I’ve been gone a while. They’re not sure what to think of me yet.”

She tried a different tactic. “That’s not the bus, is it?” That ancient wreck wouldn’t inspire anyone to come and get healthy in it.

He didn’t say anything, just gave her another wilting look, then went about maneuvering the first log of the line.

“Good.” This really wasn’t working out the way she’d pictured, and she dearly wished he’d put his shirt back on. She never had trouble making friends. Everyone had some kind of common ground, the trouble was finding it. “Do you need help with that?”

“No.” He grunted the word more than spoke it, but, then, he was obviously exerting himself, wrestling a log to the cabin walls. The muscles across his shoulders and down his back bunched, momentarily wiping her mind of anything clever to say. “I don’t need anyone’s help with the cabin.” He didn’t stop working to talk, though he may have been slowed down by it.

“Go visit Amanda, your trip doesn’t need to be wasted.”

“Later.” She walked up the embankment as he continued with his logs. Once she stopped the lusty staring, some cognitive function returned. “Do you think you could put your shirt back on? Wouldn’t want you to lose a nipple in a tragic log-rolling accident.” She failed to suppress her natural cheekiness. Impulse control: sometimes she had it, sometimes she didn’t.

He smiled up at her—his first smile since she’d arrived—and immediately lost his balance, nearly falling. It took skill to regain his footing and keep the log from getting away from him.

Okay, she was cute. He didn’t want to like this pink-haired woman. Couldn’t afford to like her. Liking her would make him more likely to grant her request, and he needed to make all practice-based decisions with a clear head. He’d had his fill of do-gooder city doctors as a kid when Josh had been sick, and he’d sooner close the practice than have it turn into a professional pit stop for condescending outsiders. No matter how cute.

“I’ve been doing fine without the running commentary so far.” He’d also been doing fine without shapely tanned legs drawing his eye away from his work. Doing better, really. He changed position so she stood between him and the old blue bus. He never liked looking that direction, and the change made it easier to pay attention to what he was doing rather than to her legs.

“Okay.” Up until now, she’d been mostly good-humored about his refusal, but her continued presence said she wasn’t the type to go down without a fight. Strange that she and Amanda were such good friends—they couldn’t have been more different.

“I can see you want to get back to work,” Imogen said to his back, “so I feel obligated to point out that you can get rid of me very simply. Say you’ll let me work the next few months, and I’ll leave you to play with your big-boy building logs in whatever state of dress you like.”

She didn’t talk like a nurse. They were usually a little more cautious and obliging than this one. She really didn’t like being told no. That was tough. “Find a job in Piketon if you’re sticking around.” He got the log close to the cabin then used rope to muscle it into position.

“They don’t need me in Piketon. Like it or not, you do.” she moved into his line of sight again and propped her hands on her hips, looking more confident and at home on his mountain than she had any right to. “You can’t run your practice by yourself, and Amanda’s made it clear how uncertain its future is. Funding in jeopardy and all that business. She wants her job back when she’s able, and that means there needs to be a job for her to go back to.”

The cuteness was starting to wear off.

Wyatt dropped the rope and looked at her, keeping the bus at his back. Winter would be here before he knew it, and the cabin needed to be roofed before then or he might be staying in the blasted bus. That couldn’t happen, and wouldn’t if she’d go away. “Kicking up a fuss won’t win me over. Glad you came to help Amanda out, but you aren’t working for me.”

He briefly considered paying her to leave, anything to make her stop looking at the bus. Damn, that thing needed to be gone.

The fingers on her hips dug in and she looked from his chest to his neck, to his eyes, then off to the side. She was tall. Tall enough that even with his height and the additional elevation where he stood, she still came up to his chin. Must scrape six foot, this one. For some reason it pleased him to find her struggling with where to look at him.

“You’re not even going to give me a chance?” Her body language screamed discomfort, but she wasn’t backing down. Something else he didn’t want to like about her.

Maybe if she stuck around, in a couple weeks—after he hired someone—he’d visit and make amends. No matter how bad a fit, anyone who’d drop everything to run to the side of a friend in need deserved respect at least. “There’s no chance of this working.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do, actually. I’ve seen this scenario play out many times when out-of-town medical professionals with good intentions come to help the backwoods mountain folk. I know you mean well…” Even when they’d spoken jargon they’d mistakenly assumed a child wouldn’t understand, he’d known they’d meant well. And he’d known how sick his brother had been. Good intentions never saved anyone.

“I do mean well.” She pushed her hands into her hair, dragging it back from her face as she finally looked back to his eyes. “Give me a chance. If I fail, fire me spectacularly and smooth over any feathers I inadvertently ruffle. I can give you references. I have more accreditations than you’d believe. I’ve worked in all kinds of different places. I can adapt.”

He shook his head once more and his answer finally took. With much muttering to herself, she stomped off down the hill. There wasn’t much he could make out, but the word “ass” came through loud and clear.

Probably fair. He heard the car door slam and the engine roar to life, and glimpsed her purple car before losing it in a cloud of dust that told him She was tearing down his mountain faster than was safe.

Purple four-by-four. Pink hair. She should work in some upscale cosmetic surgery center, not in a mobile clinic traveling through the neediest, most remote communities in the Appalachians. Sure, she might spend a couple weeks there doing charity work, especially if there was a mine explosion or some natural disaster, but she’d always go home before long.

Imogen definitely wouldn’t fit in, and she couldn’t even if she tried.

It was too bad. She looked fun to play with. At least, when she stopped talking.

Finding a place to turn around took forever. It was a good half hour before Imogen made it back up the fool’s mountain. She shouldn’t have let him run her off. Failure was not an option.

She marched straight for Wyatt and the look he gave her was a mixture of irritation and surprise. But his shirt was back on, thank God. It helped her keep the steam she’d built up in her aborted departure.

He opened his mouth to say something. She shushed him preemptively. “You just listen. I’m going to help you today. The only way you’re getting me off this mountain is by calling the cops. I’ll wear you down. I’m like…” She blanked, blinked, and hurried past it. “Something that wears people down.” Analogy failure wouldn’t stop her either. Imogen waved her gloves at him.

“Got my tire-changing gloves. Put on my boots.” She turned her foot out to show him those too. “If at the end of the day you can still say I’ll be no help, I’ll leave you alone.” And just as she got to the end of her tirade the analogy crystallized and she blurted out, “Water! I’m water. I’m so water, and I can move mountains if I keep at it. And you’re just like a mountain. All tall…and unmoving.”

“Okay, Water. It’s a nice offer, but—”

“But I can’t help you. You said that already,” Imogen cut in, trying to keep the shoulder-tensing frustration out of her voice. “Do you always make snap judgments about people?”

“I listen to my instincts.”

“And your instinct says?” She gestured impatiently for him to spit it out.

“Friendly. Cute. Unreliable. Insubstantial.”

Maybe she gestured too impatiently.

“Insubstantial? Good grief.” She retrieved a hairband from her pocket with such a rough touch it snapped her knuckles, the sharp sting wrecking her impulse-control efforts. People usually kept their masks polite, but Wyatt came at it backwards. If his mask was this surly and unpleasant, did it hide something worse?

Focus. His opinion only mattered as far as it affected her ability to cover Amanda’s leave. In six months she’d be gone and he wouldn’t matter anymore.

“Okay, give me a chance to prove I’m substantial enough to get the job done and then—as much as I think it’s ridiculous for a man to play with chainsaws all by himself in an area with no cellphone coverage—I’ll leave you in peace at the site of your future, accidental amputation.” Okay, so maybe she should’ve been trying harder to keep the frustration out of her words and been less worried about her tone.

“No.” Wyatt stepped over the stumpy wall and made for the logs again. “And no standing within fifty feet of the cabin.”

“You should wear gloves. Don’t you know doctors are supposed to have soft hands?” She thrust her gloves at him, refusing to abide by his fifty-foot decree. “Want mine? They aren’t seeing any use now.”

“I’m fine.”

With a grunt and a shake of her head Imogen dragged the gloves on and followed him. “I’ll help you by dragging the logs to the cabin, and you won’t have to wait so long to run your beloved chainsaw. Give me the rope.”

“No.”

Hadn’t the man figured out yet that she wasn’t going to leave until he said yes?

“It’s hard work. You’ll hurt yourself,” Wyatt added.

“The last place I worked was at a pediatrics unit.” She dropped her gloved hands to her hips, instantly aware of how stiff the gloves were. “Want to know what I learned there?”

“No.”

“Too bad! I’m telling you anyway.” Ass.

“You really don’t like being told no, do you?”

Wyatt actually chuckled a little then, but it was the kind of mirthless, superior man noise she noticed happening at those times the little woman tried to do man’s work—like learning to change spark plugs. Or move logs. Having drinks and passing the time with this man no longer sounded like much fun.

In fact, the urge to hurt him nearly overwhelmed her already limping impulse control. “I learned that if you want something and you’re told no, you should do other stuff that they don’t want you to do. Worse stuff. Until they reconsider your first, sensible request. Or you should just keep asking until they give up from exhaustion.”

He tied the rope around the notched end of the log and straightened, giving her a weird, almost amused look. “How often that work for you?”

“I’d say about three out of four times. People don’t like confrontation.” She amended, “Most people.”

“There’s nothing you can do on the mountain that will bother me enough to change my mind.” He looked at her a long moment then turned, pulling the rope over one shoulder to drag the former tree down to his cabin.

The man clearly had no idea how annoying she could be if she set her mind to it. She almost regretted him putting his shirt back on. Pine cones and prickly seedpods from the sycamores would be great for proving to him and his stupid amazing back how irritating she could be.

Imogen followed, barely resisting the urge to pelt him with prickly tree bits, her mind in a mad scramble for another way to handle him. Amanda didn’t want someone getting comfy in her job while she was away, and Imogen was the pit bull she’d chosen to turn loose on the problem.

But maybe she’d set this up wrong from the start when she’d made it sound like a request. He was under the illusion she was the one who would eventually give up from exhaustion. Or maybe firm but sensible would work where bratty and frustrated had failed.

“Please?” Please should help, at least a little. “I’m invested in this working,” She tried to keep her voice as level as possible—no easy task considering she was one of the people who generally avoided confrontation. Confrontation meant getting involved in subjects that caused big feelings and crossed lines she didn’t like to cross. “Give me a chance to prove myself. Or say yes. I’ll leave and see you tomorrow for work, Dr. Beechum.”

“So…” Wyatt looked her fully in the eyes, somehow making her feel short for once. A little intimidated. That’s the reason people liked to avoid confrontation. Uncomfortable. “Your offer to help move logs is to annoy me into saying yes to hiring you for the practice?”

“Um, no. Maybe that’s how it looks, but offering to help was not to annoy you.” Imogen rubbed her head with the still stiff rawhide glove. “That was a different plan to make you say yes. That plan involved showing you that I’m a quick learner.” She began ticking off fingers as she talked herself up, but the gloves were so stiff her ticking lost the pizzazz she’d hoped to muster. “I’m determined to make it work. I’ll work very hard to make it come out well for everyone, including your patients, Amanda, and even you.”

Wyatt looked at the gloves and back to Imogen’s face. Nice face, even all pink and angry like that. Her help—anyone’s help, really—was the last thing he wanted. If Josh had survived, they’d have been rebuilding together. As the last Beauchamp standing, the responsibility was his alone.

“You really are like erosion.” Exceptional at wearing things down. Absolutely relentless. “If it will make you shut up, go ahead. You won’t make it ten minutes, but move the logs if you’re able.” She wouldn’t be any help. Letting her wear herself out on a log might just get her out of his hair.

He grabbed the chainsaw and safety gear. Before starting it, he watched how she did with her first log. Stubborn woman. No way in hell was she going to get that thing moving without hurting herself.

The rawhide gloves she’d been bandying about looked to have never seen use. Still stiff and not a mark on them. She flexed her fingers a couple times to get them bending then mimicked what she’d seen him do earlier: turn, rope over the shoulder, then lean forward to pull. A few aborted tries and she choked up on the rope, which lifted the end enough to actually get it moving. Stronger than she looked, and smart.

The shorts were impractical for that kind of labor, but it let him see her legs flex from her calves all the way up to a plump little rear. Hard to look away from. Since he’d come home, Wyatt had resisted all the local attempts to fix him up. But now, with Imogen’s legs and rear distracting him…Swearing off dating since he’d come home might not have been the best decision.

Shake it off. Get back to work.

Imogen worked as long as she could. But even taking a break after every log, her whole body still hurt. Her shoulders screamed the loudest, like a foghorn warning her away from the dangers ahead. She had a new appreciation for packhorses and whatever farm animals had to do this in the olden days—before she’d been around to make stupid points about being a hard worker.

She flopped onto the ground where Wyatt marked more logs to cut, sprawling gracelessly on her back. “Okay. I admit it, this was a dumb idea.”

Wyatt chuckled, and it sounded like honest amusement this time. “They’re heavier than you’d think.”

“And I…” Her voice cracked. She swallowed and tried again. “Can’t remember what I was going to say.”

He pulled a watch from his pocket. “You’ve been at it a few hours. I need to make a call. Think you can make it to the ridge?”

“You want me to climb the mountain with you?” Oh, sure, now he wanted her to go somewhere with him. Now that she couldn’t move.

“Yes.”

For once he didn’t say no. If he were a puppy, Imogen would give him a treat. More yeses was what she wanted to encourage in him. Plus, hard workers didn’t lie down on the job, though they might ask for help to get up. She lifted one hand toward him. “If I fall, just cover me with leaves or something suitably survival-oriented.”

His hand was large and warm, and were she not exhausted, Imogen would’ve sworn her skin buzzed where his touched it. Distracting, and probably due to her poor, overworked hands having to grip that rope so hard for so long. Even if the universe was dead set on punishing her for her stubbornness, at least Wyatt seemed to have softened to her a little. Enough to be cordial, if nothing else.

Once she was upright, he released her hand, waited for her to get a drink, then started up the steep incline. A shorter stride and a slower pace said he was waiting for her to keep up, probably another nod to cordiality. The air no longer crackled with irritation, and Imogen wanted to keep it that way. She tried to move faster than she actually wanted to move: zero miles per hour.

When she resorted to using the trees to slingshot herself further up the incline, Wyatt backtracked and took her by the hand to haul her the rest of the way up the hillside. “Not in the mood to chase you down the hill when you start rolling, or to carry you to the hospital when you fall and crack your head open.”

“So gallant,” Imogen murmured, but she held fast to his hand—grateful not only for the assistance but for the distraction his touch provided. The sensation wasn’t buzzing, though it had a kind of vibration to it. It was more like an energy she couldn’t identify. Waves of tingly awareness raced up her arm and to distant, interesting parts of her body. Parts that now demanded more attention than her screaming muscles. If he could keep this Helpful Polite mask on, she might revisit that drink idea.

“Big step.” Wyatt dragged her attention back to climbing then took both of her hands in his and hauled her the remaining few feet, past the tree line to the grassy ridge.

When she was steady, he released her, fished out his cellphone and strolled a short distance away, leaving her to take in the view.

Imogen folded back onto the ground, her eyes tracing the contours of the rolling green hills that spread out in front of her. “Okay, the view was worth the hike on screaming limbs.”

“Thought it was a good reward.”

He sounded distracted. She glanced his way and watched him scowl at the phone in his hand. “Trouble?”

“Need a new one…” He tapped the screen a few more times and shook his head.

“Want mine? It’s the toughest of cellphones. Waterproof. Easy to use. When you can get a signal, that is.”

“Why do you have a waterproof cell?”

“Sometimes I get caught in the rain with the top off my car.”

He shook his head, but the small smile made it less judgmental. With her phone in his hand, he took a few steps away to make his call.

She should definitely take a picture when he got done. Also maybe take a picture of him and his whole chiseled-muscles thing. Hard. He was probably hard all over. If only he was less mentally hard. Short-sighted. Narrow-minded…

He was probably thinking the same thing about her. Which was fine. If it got her what she needed, he could think what he liked. She already had a friend, and one was plenty. The last thing she needed was to impress another member of Amanda’s family and have them start comparing notes on her. Or conspiring to make her stay.

He kept his voice low, but she could hear the tension in it as he spoke.

“So you have to climb a mountain to use a cellphone around here. Sort of negates the convenience factor.” Talking to herself, another sign she was tired, crazy, or that maybe it was time to give up. As she gazed over the scenic panorama, she caught a glimpse of something white in her peripheral vision. On a flat spot inside the trees down the ridge sat lots of big white blocks placed in a rectangle. She waited for him to hand back her phone and asked, “Did you start building up here first?”

“No…” He didn’t need to look where she was pointing to know what had roused her curiosity: the barrier wall surrounding the old family graveyard. She didn’t need to go there. Best leave that undisturbed. She disturbed enough on the mountain without turning her loose on the dead too. “That’s not a house foundation. You had enough of the view?”

“Picture, then I’m done.”

Having confirmed the agency couldn’t get a suitable replacement by tomorrow, he’d best consider whether or not to brave the week alone or give her the shot at the job she repeatedly demanded.

Wyatt waited at the trees for her to get the photo and rejoin him. Her feet dragged—not nearly as much bounce in her step as when she’d haughtily stormed his mountain—but she didn’t look so close to dropping as she had when he’d hauled her with him up the climb. “Need help?”

“No, I’m better.” Betterish, maybe. She stuffed her phone into her pocket and took the kind of deep breath a person did when about to attempt something requiring concentration.

He helped her off the first ledge-like step anyway, then let go. A few steps down and he turned to look back at her, needing reassurance she wasn’t going to fall after he’d worked her like a mule all afternoon. Her own fault, too stubborn to stop when it had got to be too much, but he’d feel bad if she got hurt because he’d let her exhaust herself. He’d never thought she’d actually pose a threat to his rule about the cabin or he’d just have put the earplugs back in. Why hadn’t that occurred to him earlier?

Was this what it would be like to let her work for him? Someone he’d always needed to keep an eye on wouldn’t be much help. As nurses were always in demand, it made them hard to get on short notice. Amanda’s opinion of Imogen counted for something, but he had to wonder if part of her support was just friendship or knowing how fast Imogen would be available. But in his experience, annoying and stubborn were easier to suffer than superior and condescending. Having her work for him might even make him look good enough by comparison that he’d become the one the patients opened up to, rather than his nurse.

His shoulder cracked against a tree, forcing him to look where he was going again. “If you need help, say something.”

“I will,” she called, her voice labored and breathy.

No, she wouldn’t. She’d set her mind on proving she could work herself half to death and suffer no ill-effects. Who could deny Wonder Woman a job?

Maybe he’d been a little premature on the insubstantial label. She was substantial enough to fight for what she wanted.

“I’m fine. It’s a little easier going down. You just have to kind of control your fall by using the trees. They’re like nature’s speed bumps.”

It was the nature’s speed bumps bit that got him. He laughed out loud, surprising himself, and lost his footing. The second time one of her quips had cost him his balance. His legs shot out from under him, and he did precisely what he’d been worried she’d do.

He fell down the mountain.

CHAPTER TWO

IN THE SPACE of a few seconds Wyatt traveled several yards down the mountain and was caked from hip to heel with a layer of dirt. Some time during his impromptu trip the outside of his right forearm had caught against something. It hurt.

“Wyatt!” Imogen shouted his name twice before he sat up. “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s okay. I’m okay.” And just as soon as he finished a mental inventory of his parts and aches, he’d believe his own words.

She knelt and lifted his arm to look at the gash he knew was there.

“Wow, whatever got you must have been sharp. It opened the skin right down to the fascia. Muscle doesn’t look cut. You don’t have a scalpel in your pocket or something, do you? Open pocket knife? Broken glass?” She slid her fingers into his, keeping his arm up and stationary so she could get a better look at it. “It needs stitches.”

“Hard to conduct myself when I’m watching someone else,” he muttered. Stupid. Of course he’d have to fall in front of her. And now that her fingers were linked with his, he realized how small they were, fine-boned and delicate. How in the world had she managed to move the logs at all? Her slender fingers didn’t look strong enough to flex the stiff gloves, let alone haul timber. She may be tall, pushy and annoying, but her hands were soft. Feminine.

“Yep, you should’ve kept your eyes in front of you and let me fall if I was going to. I said I’d yell if I needed you.” Imogen wiggled her fingers free and shifted her hands to the hem of his shirt, which she tugged. “Take off your shirt. Need pressure on that and I’m not taking off mine.”

Another travesty.

“It’s not covered in mud?” He looked at himself again, shrugged and raised his arms so she could lift the shirt. Her little hands shook—just the barest tremble—as she helped him out of his shirt.

“Do I make you nervous?”

“Oh, yeah. Earlier with the chainsaw and now I’m afraid that I might ogle you, and that’s hardly professional.” She smiled at him and teased, but he recognized a bedside manner when he saw it. Her voice had changed. Her whole demeanor had changed. The words may be teasing, but the tone was sweet. Much sweeter than she’d shown him so far. Distracting him from the pain and humiliation, and doing a damned fine job of it too.

“Not that it’d be my fault,” Imogen added, helping him up. “I’m sure you spent years bench-pressing fallen trees just so you could make annoying women babble at you when you fall off mountains.” She flipped the shirt inside out and gently wrapped his arm. “Pressure here. Try not to jostle that, there’s grit and debris in the wound. You think a speck of dust in your eye hurts…bits of dirt and wood in an open wound would be torturous.”

Half an hour later Wyatt sat in the passenger seat of her ridiculous purple vehicle, instructing her through town. His little town wasn’t particularly secluded, not like the communities he drove the practice to, but it still took time to get there from the mountain. But it took no time to get through the tiny town to the large lot where his big shiny silver bus was parked.

A much better bus than Dad’s. Getting that wreck off the mountain would give him the incentive to get the cabin built. It just meant going inside first to get stuff. Pictures. Mom’s jewelry box. The family bible. Dad’s crossbow. Important stuff. The only problem? Wyatt didn’t want to go inside.

“This isn’t the hospital,” Imogen said, dragging his mind back.

“No. It’s my practice.” He popped the car door open and stepped out, closing the door again with his knee to keep the pressure on his wound. “Keys, right front pocket.”

Imogen looked at the jeans pocket and then back up at his eyes. The fact that he was standing there, shirtless and bleeding, demanding she fish around in his pocket after he’d spent the day repeatedly refusing her requests registered. “It’s locked.” And his arm hurt, but he wasn’t going to admit that. He added a word to avoid admissions. “Please.”

She crammed her hand into his pocket and retrieved the keys. “Which key?”

He indicated and she let them inside.

“Why are we wasting time here?”

“We’re here because it’s close, it has all required medical supplies, and there’s no waiting.” He followed her, bumping the lights on with his good elbow. “First exam room, you’ll find everything we need in the cabinets.”

Imogen went ahead of him, doing as he’d bid, but obviously not happy about it. “This is silly. I’ll clean it, dress it, then we’ll go to the emergency room. You cannot suture the outside of the forearm on your dominant hand. And, yes, I noticed you’re a righty.”

Time for her to kick up another fuss. If she wanted the job, she’d prove it. “That’s why you’re going to do it.”

“I’ve never sutured.” She grabbed supplies and then headed to the sink to wash up. “And it’s kind of illegal. I’m an RN, not a PA. Actually, it’s illegal for you too.”

“After you glove, wash my arm from the elbow down. Then irrigate with the saline and grab a mirror from the third drawer so I can see it.”

“All that I can do. It’s legal.”

Her thoughts played across her face so clearly she might as well have said them. She thought he was testing her.

Of course he was testing her.

“I bought the supplies. This is my practice, and you don’t work for me,” Wyatt murmured as she set about cleaning his arm. “You’re just a friend I’m trusting to help me out.”

“You have funding. Didn’t the funding buy these supplies?”

Smart. But also cautious and a little too reticent—traits that wouldn’t serve her well around here.

“No. I haven’t actually acquired funding yet.” Another test. One that stopped her cold.

“Amanda said you were in danger of losing your funding.” She lifted her gaze from the wound and stared at him with the biggest blue eyes he’d ever seen. Big blue eyes with a smudge of dirt under one. It was good his hands were occupied because he had a sudden urge to thumb the smudge away.

She had to stop staring at him like that. Made it hard to focus. She was probably experiencing the same thing. He was making the tests too hard.

“That’s what I told her, and if you’re her friend you won’t tell her different.” Her mouth had fallen open with surprise. Wyatt tilted his head to try and see what she was doing as it was the only way to keep from staring at her mouth. He coughed. “She wouldn’t accept her full salary if she knew it came from me and not from a fund.”

She started moving again. Despite her suspicions and the long day, her hands moved steadily and gently over the wound. “So, this is a regular practice? That stuff about getting the use up…”

“That’s true. There is funding available if I can get the patient base big enough. Until then…” She should smell terrible. He knew he smelled awful after the long day, but she smelled good, and she’d worked herself hard—probably to the point of dehydration.

She dried his arm after flushing the wound and checking under magnifying glass for any debris. Whatever her thoughts about his revelation, she kept them to herself. “It looks clean to me, but I still wish you’d—”

“You want me to trust you. Show me I can.” He reached out with his other hand, making contact with her forearm. Whatever strange chemistry rumbled between them, she felt it too. Her gaze fell to his hand, compelling him to take it away. “Today I saw a hard worker, someone who wants to help. Now show me someone who is willing to take the same chance on me that she’s asking me to take.” Wyatt smiled, trying to soften what amounted to a dare.

“That’s not the only problem. You’re trusting me to do this right without any practice. I’ve never so much as stitched up a turkey for Thanksgiving.” Imogen held the mirror up so he could see the wound. Seeing it made it sting worse, but she was right—flayed to the fascia. Should be easy to stitch.

“If you can follow directions, you’ll do fine. If you mess up, I’ll go and get new sutures put in tomorrow. But if they’re good, I’ll give you two weeks to prove you can handle the position.”

“I thought I’d already proved myself on your mountain.” Imogen pointed an accusing gloved finger at him.

“I never said yes.” Antagonizing her before making her stitch him up might not be the best idea he’d ever had, but he’d rather she snapped at him than a patient. “I just let you move the logs.”

Her eyes called him an ass again, but to her credit she bit her tongue.

“You were being very annoying,” Wyatt said, and when she scowled, he held up one hand, “But I can now see your bedside manner is different.” When she still scowled, he corrected himself. “It’s better. Good.”

“A month. That’s the bare minimum required for a fair trial,” Imogen countered.

“Is it?” Wyatt couldn’t help but grin at her. She was ballsy, and that was something people here would respond to—it was easy to respect bravery. “One month, unless you do something so terrible I can’t keep our arrangement. Behave, and don’t annoy my patients.”

He was the cousin of her best friend, and they were close. Close-ish. Imogen wasn’t entirely certain what that entailed, but it didn’t matter. He might be kind of a jerk, but she had to believe he wouldn’t do something to ruin her life. Oh, sure, he might not hire her because she allowed herself to be talked into doing something illegal, but the chances were slim that he intended to jeopardize her license.

Imogen wanted to say no, be as uncooperative as he’d been all day. She’d learned how to be stubborn the last time she’d held still for six months. But being flexible might actually get her what she wanted. Unless he tried to trick her again.

She considered his expression, saw nothing but sincerity there and sighed. Like she had a choice. She wasn’t built to leave someone suffering if she could help them. Leaving him with an untreated injury just because he ticked her off…Couldn’t do it. And she couldn’t go halfway on her promise to Amanda—she made promises so infrequently already.

“I suppose we should numb it. Where’s your pharmacy? And tell me what to give you.” If the stitches were crooked, loose or too far apart, it was his own bossy fault.

He rattled off directions and sent her packing with his keys to a locked cabinet for drugs and a suture kit. Not even a flinch when she gave him the injection. He just started explaining how to work the needle and the kind of stitch he wanted.

Imogen drew a deep breath and picked up the instruments. She’d seen this done a million times. She’d removed stitches a million times too. No problem. It was just like repairing a hole in her favorite dress. If her favorite dress happened to be made out of human flesh. Ugh. Amanda had better have booze at her house left over from her non-pregnant days.

The first stitch seemed to take forever. Imogen realized she was wincing in tandem with Wyatt’s frowns. She tried to relax her forehead, a tension headache brewing between her eyes. “Looks straight.” A slight tug tested the give, and when it looked decent she allowed herself another deep breath, “One down. How many do I need to do?”

After looking at the cut again, he asked, “How many do you think?”

“Six? Seven?”

“Sounds about right.” He smiled, a gentle but encouraging light in his eyes. The man didn’t trust her to haul logs but he trusted her to sew up his body. Very strange. “You’re doing great. Just do that a few more times.”

She moved on to the second stitch, ignoring the warmth tickling her belly from his praise and his faith in her.

If this was a glimpse into what the coming month had for her, she wouldn’t be bored.

But she should probably invest in a big bottle of aspirin.

Wyatt unlocked Amanda’s back door and stepped into the mud room between the back porch and the kitchen. Amanda and her mother, Jolene, had twin cottages two hills down from the mountain. It was normal business for him to invade and use the shower whenever he pleased. Normal enough he’d forgotten to mention it to Imogen after she’d stitched his arm last night.

He didn’t want to be impressed with the way she’d handled his little test. She had skills and, more importantly, she had the touch. Soothing. And at odds with the chemistry that roused urges in him he should ignore.

His thoughts had swung between irritated attraction and worry about how she would be with the patients. At best, she was someone they’d get used to and come to care about who’d quickly abandon them. Like all the times Josh had been passed from one transitory doctor to another. Sometimes they’d changed every visit. It kept things impersonal. A revolving door that left people not knowing who to trust. He didn’t want that for his patients.

A few lights burned inside the cottage, enough that it looked like Imogen was awake, but when he knocked on the glass no one came. As tired as she’d been, there was a real chance she was still asleep, which would throw a wrench into their schedule. Wyatt waited another minute then let himself inside.

A quick check of the bedrooms assured him she was awake. The eventual sound of the shower told him where she was. He backtracked to the sofa and sat, mental images of her in the shower turning his thoughts back where he’d been fighting them since yesterday.

As pushy and stubborn as anyone he’d ever met, Wyatt couldn’t put his finger on precisely what kept her in his mind—other than her appearance. He’d only really ever dated stereotypical Southern women. Sweet, though sometimes he knew it to be an act. But not too challenging. Easy to understand, and because of that easy to be around. Easy on the eyes. Imogen may have that last bit, but there was nothing else easy about her. To be fair, she was a good nurse, so if she could handle the PR aspect of the position, she might be easy to work with.

The bathroom door opened and she came out, wrapped in a towel and swathed in billowing steam. Wyatt stared.

His presence caused her to gasp and clutch at the top of her towel, her hand folding over the place where one corner was tucked in, keeping it on. The action drew his gaze to her breasts, but the look on her face had him looking up again.

“You’re here. What are you doing here?” She checked the front seam of her towel, making sure she was decently covered.

“No shower on the mountain yet.”

When she didn’t say anything else, he added, “I knocked. Then I used my key.”

She frowned and nodded, turning toward the room she was sleeping in.

“Done in there?” Wyatt called after her.

“Yes.” She stopped and looked from the bathroom to him. “The water. There’s probably not much hot.”

She hurt. He could tell by the way she moved, stiffly and slowly. She’d been trying to steam the soreness out of her body. It hadn’t been a shower for cleanliness. Her hair was mostly dry, and secured in a fancy braid. Not a trace of the pink remained in the pale tresses. The baby-fine tendrils forming a halo around her clean face were damp and curling. A hot flush colored her skin, from the shower or her attire, he couldn’t be sure. Not that he really cared. His body appreciated the result.

Wyatt cleared his throat. “It’s fine. Be ready in half an hour.”

He tried not to watch as she walked to the future nursery where she slept, wanting to see every inch on display and not wanting it at the same time. Guilt won and he dragged himself to the bathroom. She was in for a long day and it had already started on the wrong foot, sore from the logs he’d practically dared her to move.

The cold shower, surprisingly timely and bracing, sluiced over him with a wave of painful shivers. Wyatt placed both hands against the wall of the shower and stayed still until he could stand no more.

Any other day, he would’ve said the sight of an attractive woman wasn’t enough to send his thoughts spiraling out of control. Any other day, he would’ve believed himself in control of his body.

It figured this would all happen on a week they were scheduled in towns with the dinkiest motels in history. He’d grown accustomed to sharing a double room with Amanda. It worked fine with cousins sharing; Amanda was as close as a sibling. As far as he could tell, the further along in her pregnancy she’d gotten, the more she liked having someone close by. But with Imogen…could that be a bad idea?

Nah. Well, probably not. They were adults. And after her first day deep in the mountains Wyatt doubted either of them would be feeling particularly lustful. Sometimes he felt almost as sensitive to the behavior and opinions of non-locals as his patients were, and he already knew what they’d think of Imogen. If only he’d managed to get a temp hired yesterday. The option of firing her spectacularly, distasteful as it was, might be just what had to happen.

“Imogen, we’re almost there.”

The voice, a low, manly rumble, distracted her into wakefulness. And his scent…She’d thought she’d dreamed it. He smelled good, the whole front of the bus smelled like him. Her sleep-addled brain mixed with hormones surged in response to his extremely appealing pheromones. She didn’t figure out what he’d said until she’d blinked away all that fog from her brain. “How long?”

“You’ve been asleep about two hours, and we’re about half an hour out. We probably won’t see as many patients today—the Trout Derby is on—but just in case, I want you prepared,” Wyatt answered, while steering the big silver bus slowly down yet another winding country road—both doctor and driver of this practice on wheels. “I need to go over what’s expected of you first, so wake up. Have some coffee.” He handed her a thermos so she could refill her cup and drink herself sentient.

While she was waking up, he went through a list of common-sense expectations any nurse fresh out of school could have anticipated. Imogen only really felt awake when he got to the weird stuff.

“Wait…What?”

“Someone, probably an older lady, will come early and bring us something she made—food, usually baked goods of some description. Take some, even if it’s just a little, and eat it. Thank her. If you’re feeling conversational, ask for the recipe. Be courteous, be nice, even if it seems weird. Most of our patients are children, who you probably can’t offend, or the elderly who you can. Treat them like you would your grandparents.”

“I never knew my grandparents, Wyatt, but I would never be rude to a patient.” She really did need to wake up if she was going to maintain a professional attitude with him. All about family, right out of the gate. “And just so you know, I’m great with kids. And I don’t run around hitting those of voting age with sticks and telling people they have ugly babies.” Although after yesterday it might be unsurprising he thought the worst of her. She’d hoped her agreement to stitch him up would have negated their earlier interaction.

“Don’t be dramatic. I’m not saying you’re going to be rude, what I’m saying is that your definition of rude and the local definition will be different. Polite, distant professionalism is worse than rude here.” He glanced at her long enough to establish eye contact and nodded once, then took his eyes back to the winding road.

“They want to treat us like family—and it won’t be that way off the bat, but it’s the goal. They’ll listen to and respect care instructions if they think of you as family—someone here for the long haul. When they feel comfortable, they’ll talk us up to their friends and families, and the number of patients will increase—which is crucial to getting the funding approved.”

His dark eyes had been warmer yesterday, when he had been walking her through the stitches. Where had that guy gone? “Won’t that kind of behavior from a stranger seem fake?”

“Not if you do it right. Try to be Amanda,” Wyatt suggested, glancing her way again.

Message received. You’re not good enough.

She could read between the lines. Why can’t you be like Amanda? My last nurse was better.

My last girlfriend was prettier.

My last girlfriend knew how to make jam.

Imogen rubbed her head and drank more coffee. Coffee, good for more than waking you up. Also a great scapegoat to blame when your hands trembled.

Ignore it. He didn’t think she could do the job. Fine. She had a month to prove him wrong. This judgmental stuff wasn’t about her as a person.

He’s not Scott.

The little mantras calmed her enough to get her hand under control, but Imogen still couldn’t bring herself to look at him, knowing her eyes would be glassy and wet. Instead, she focused on the window. “Amanda is effusive with everyone.” As the landscape rolled past, her vision cleared and her mind followed. “She’d take candy from a stranger then invite him home after announcing she lived alone and the nearest neighbor was a mile away.”

“She’s not that bad.” Wyatt chuckled. Like any of this was funny. “But you had it right about the friendly-to-strangers bit. Not insanely trusting but friendly.”

“I don’t know how to be Southern and candy-sweet.” Distance. Keep distance. Keep calm. He didn’t know any better. His opinion didn’t matter. Do the job. Go home. Pretend to drink the Kool-Aid, just don’t swallow it.

“All I’m saying is be nice. Friendly. Think of something to say to personalize your interactions. Compliment patients, ask their advice, engage them somehow, and don’t use any of your annoying tricks.”

“Back to thinking I’ll purposefully antagonize the patients? I have some training, you know.” She took a deep breath, counted to ten and smiled past the lump in her throat. She could fake a smile. It was the least offensive mask she had, even if perhaps not the most healthy. “Anything else?”

Wyatt looked at her a little too long, but the road demanded his attention and, let off the hook, she looked back out the window.

“Two more things,” Wyatt said. “One: there isn’t much black and white out here—the law, and how stringently it’s followed, is fluid. Don’t get involved unless something is likely to harm the patient or someone else.”

“Like?”

“I’ve treated and not reported a hunting accident before,” Wyatt answered without hesitation, so matter-of-factly that he might have simply expressed his love of potatoes.

“A shooting?” That just seemed wrong. Dangerous.

“Shot himself in the leg, but missed any major trauma.”

“That’s…”

“Illegal. I know.” He didn’t seem fazed by it, though. “The patient was hunting in the off-season, which is to say: illegally. But the way I see it, and the way pretty much anyone in the area would see it, a man has a right to feed his family. Happened on his land. He’s not well off, but he’s making the most of what he has. I wouldn’t want him punished for making sure his kids didn’t go without.”

“That’s why you wanted me to stitch you up…” Imogen murmured, realization coming in a flash.

“That’s why I wanted you to stitch me up.”

“He could have lied about being the one to shoot him, you know.” People lied all the time.

“I know, but he wasn’t.” Wyatt still seemed unfazed, and so sure of himself. Ego.

She nodded, still processing this information. The idea of putting her license on the line didn’t appeal, but she could understand his logic. There was a certain kind of nobility to the decision, whether she would’ve made the same call or not. “At least it won’t be boring.”

“Last thing. If you have questions or concerns about one of my calls, make them in private—later, ideally. I need you to trust me and follow my orders without hesitation.”

“I’ll try,” Imogen murmured, mostly because she wasn’t ever sure exactly what she was going to do from moment to moment. And even if she’d never questioned a doctor’s call in front of a patient before, she wasn’t feeling too sure of anything. The job. Why she’d come. Him. Her worthiness as a nurse or a person. Amazing how fast all that could come rushing back. And she had thought she was past someone having the ability to make her feel so off. So small.

He turned the bus off the road and into a gravel lot beside a tiny white church, the kind quickie-wedding places and photographers liked to clone for ambiance.

“Do better than try.” He sounded distant suddenly, and more than a little icy. Dr. Beechum had just arrived. A new mask came down, and Imogen didn’t know which Wyatt was the real one—the one who walked her through stitches, the surly wild man on the mountain, or this icy man now walking to the back to start setting up.

Ditching her cup, she rubbed some warmth back into her suddenly chilled hands.

She hoped it was the last of his masks she’d have to watch out for.

She’d learned early on that when the masks came off, the monsters came out.

CHAPTER THREE

“EMMA-JEAN?” Like an immigrant to Ellis Island, Imogen had been renamed. And this time it wasn’t a patient mangling her name.

The first couple of times she’d heard her name mispronounced by patients, Imogen had wanted to correct them. But in the spirit of following Wyatt’s Grandpa Law she’d held back. That and because the patients seemed no more interested in talking to her than they might be to a wandering taxidermist who offered to kill and stuff their favorite pet for them.

Most of her smiles went unreturned. No one even wanted to talk about the fabulous weather, how green and lush everything was, how wonderful it smelled outside, with the honeysuckle blooming, or pretty much anything else she brought up.

Her efforts to find common ground with one older gentleman had even resulted in her being called a “damned dogooder” for offering him a cup of coffee. Further alienating the patients wasn’t high on her frustrating list of things to do. Coffee had been her go-to for common ground. Who didn’t like coffee?

With a deep breath and after a few seconds to unclench her hands, Imogen turned to face Wyatt, who’d called her new name. He looked smug. He also looked like he needed someone to stomp on his toes. Someone like her. Later. After she played his stupid game.

“Yes, Doctor?”

“Next patient.” He could’ve just said that, but that would have deprived him of the perverse pleasure he took in her predicament.

She stepped off the bus and made for the serene little church, today’s waiting room, feeling not at all serene. Red carpet, wooden benches carved on the ends with crosses, an open stage in the front for the kind of preachers who needed room to wander. So quaint and peaceful it almost took the edge off her day. Her little oasis away from Wyatt.

Inside, a handful of people sat—most of whom had spent the day there, chatting while people came and went from the bus. She snagged the sign-in sheet from the table beside the door and called the last name on the check-in sheet. “Mr. Smith?”

Day almost over. Just one more patient.

An older man stood with some effort and as he turned to look back, ice lanced through her middle.

Blue skin.

Oh, no. His skin tone rivaled a blueberry, bluer than anyone she’d ever seen. She’d coded patients in her time, she just hadn’t expected it to happen on this job.

Fear, bright and blistering, sent her running for the man. “Sir, it’s going to be okay. Sit back down. Breathe for me. Sit. Yes.” She urged him back onto the wooden pew, ready to throw him on his back to give CPR.

Assess. Breathing somewhat labored, but he still breathed. He looked a little alarmed but not panicky. Didn’t exactly add up. She needed Wyatt. Blue skin was a bad sign. “Someone get Dr. Beechum.”

Everyone in the room stared at her, shock and horror on their faces—and not one of them equipped to run for Wyatt.

With the man seated, she confirmed his pulse was more or less regular then held up one hand to signal he should stay, and barreled for the bus. The door had barely opened before she started shouting, “Wyatt! A patient inside is cyanotic. I think he’s coding…”

Wyatt grabbed a tank of oxygen and a mask, and ran behind her.

She was nearly at Mr. Smith’s side when Wyatt took her by the elbow and thrust her behind him. “Oh, sir, I’m so sorry. My nurse is new—Emma-Jean, Amanda’s friend. Don’t think she’s ever encountered anyone with methoglobinemia before.”

Her breathing sounded so loud in her ears Imogen couldn’t even be sure she understood what Wyatt was saying. The man wasn’t coding? Blue skin happened when someone was deprived of oxygen. Blue skin was never good.

The two men exchanged a few quiet words and the next thing she knew, Wyatt was peddling her backwards, out of earshot, his big body blocking her view of the bizarrely colorful man. “Take a walk, Emma-Jean.”

“Please tell me what’s going on. That man—”

“He’s descended from the Blue Fugates of Troublesome Creek.” Wyatt leaned close as he spoke, like she knew the people or the creek. It was a hell of a time for him to invade her space and fill her nose with his good smell. It just got warmer and fuller the longer the day wore on. And with her adrenaline surging, her senses only multiplied her reaction to it.

“Take your phone, walk up the hill and run a search on it. Come back in a half hour, I’ll explain if needed.”

“I’m sorry. I thought…”

“I know.” His voice gentled but he still looked grim. “You’re embarrassed, and so is he. Take a walk.”

Imogen nodded, and though she wanted to apologize to the man for causing a scene, she slipped to the exit with as much dignity as she could muster.

She felt the burning in her eyes before she got to the door but managed to hold back a well of frustrated tears—they got no further than her lashes. Horrified didn’t begin to cut it.

Shaking started deep in her shoulders, after-effects of adrenaline. A simple walk up the hill wouldn’t suffice. She had to move.

Once clear of the building, Imogen broke into a jog. For a few minutes the scorching embarrassment from nearly coding poor Mr. Smith deadened the soreness that had racked her body since yesterday.

Wyatt’s repeated warnings that she wouldn’t fit in had sounded like a bunch of excuses before today. All her efforts to engage the patients, all the resisting of correcting the pronunciation of her name, all her good work…gone, in the wake of one well-intentioned mistake.

It figured that he’d be right about her fitting in but wrong about her having cell reception at the top of the hill. No bars again. The mountains rejected both her and her cellphone. What was she even doing here?

The surge of energy left as quickly as it had arrived, and rather than walk back down to the bus and chance an encounter with the blue grandpa, she hopped over the ditch on the shoulder of the road, walked into the trees and sat.

Day One—Epic Failure. Would he even allow her to attempt Day Two? Should she count herself lucky if he went ahead and fired her spectacularly later?

When Mr. Smith had been gone for twenty minutes and Imogen still hadn’t returned, Wyatt stored any loose items and started the bus. Not the greatest day on record, but at least she hadn’t started chest compressions and broken Mr. Smith’s sternum.

Wyatt considered the thought and dismissed it. Imogen might be a little culturally clueless for the region, but she was a good nurse. When the situation had failed to compute for her, she had come for him. It had been the right call.

He found her sitting beside the road, right where he’d told her to go, knees up and hand to forehead, propping it up. With little enough traffic on the country road, he stopped. A few seconds later he heard the bus door open and close, and finally she joined him.

“You all right?” Wyatt asked, not starting the bus again yet—no one waited behind them and he wanted to look at her. No anger, though the set of her shoulders and her refusal to look at him said enough. Dismay. Disappointment. Maybe even defeat.

“I’m fine. Can we go?”

She wasn’t fine, but was obviously not ready to talk about it. When they reached the motel and had settled in, he’d try again.

She buckled in and he got the bus moving, letting her soak up some peace as they made the forty-five-minute drive to the nearest little town and the motel he usually stayed at.

Family-owned motels were what Wyatt preferred. They were tiny, but they were also friendly, not connected to the interstate so they felt safer, and the owners happily learned his route and saved a room for him. The colors the rooms sported had probably been hideous even when new, but for some reason their homeliness tickled him. Something he appreciated after years of a cosmopolitan lifestyle. They were also extremely clean. Another selling point.

Pulling off into the gravel lot of his usual stop, Wyatt realized two things: no Wi-Fi, so he was going to have to get Imogen to talk at least enough to explain what happened with Mr. Smith; and the Trout Derby might have filled his usual room. Ten rooms in the whole building, and by his count there were ten vehicles in the lot.

Shutting off the ignition, he climbed out of his seat and headed for the door. “Wait here. I’ll make sure they still have the room waiting.”

Imogen had given no indication she intended to move, but he said it anyway.

“Okay.”

One-word answers from the talkative woman…From the number of cars, if they had a room saved, it was going to be just that: one room, which was what they always saved.

Imogen watched Wyatt cross the lot and enter the office before it dawned on her that he’d said “a room.” Singular. One. Did he intend on staying in the bus?

She should stop him before he spent money on the wrong accommodations. Moving quickly was off the menu for the foreseeable future—her body ached more than ever after sitting still for so long—but with a cup of effort and a bushel of unladylike noises, she peeled herself off the seat and made her way off the bus.

Wyatt stood at the counter, talking and laughing with the rosy-cheeked, grandmotherly innkeeper, charm personified. Another new mask. Were they gossiping? He had never once tried to charm her. Because he didn’t want her working for him. And maybe he also just didn’t like her. She didn’t rate Charm Face. Well, she didn’t particularly like him either, so whatever.

“Dr. Beechum.” Screw him and his renaming her. She’d still say his name however he wanted—regardless of the spelling. It was called being a professional. “Pardon me, did you say a room?”

When he turned to look at her, the smile left his deep brown eyes. “Yes, and Miss Arlene has saved the room for us.”

“To share?”

“Double room.”

“To share?” she repeated, leaning heavily on the second word to drill its importance into him. Why couldn’t she have promised Amanda that she’d just come and take care of her, not her job? Then she wouldn’t be stuck about to share a room with a man who…who…who…was bossy. And stuff.

“Amanda never minded.” He cleared his throat, smiled at Arlene And leaned away from the counter to approach Imogen.

“You’re her cousin! She has to like you well enough to share a room. And she’s Amanda. Even if she minded, she wouldn’t mind.” Why was she yelling? Imogen stopped the flow of words and rubbed the tension from her forehead. Maybe she’d just sleep on the bus. There weren’t any blankets, but there were pain relievers and really uncomfortable vinyl exam tables.

Sigh. Too tired. Way too sore.

“She had a long day and dragged felled timber for me yesterday,” Wyatt said to Arlene, making more excuses for her behavior. This day just kept getting better.

“Come on.” Key in hand, he winked at Arlene and then steered Imogen out of the office and to the nearby room. “Run a bath and soak, it’ll help. I’ll put your bag outside the door and fetch dinner.”

“There aren’t any other rooms available, are there.” She couldn’t manage more than the faintest trace of a question in her tone, just giving the realization a voice.

“Not for about thirty miles.” He paused inside the room, hand on the knob, ready to exit again. “Want to go there?”

Imogen looked around the room, the full weight of the décor hitting her at once. “Do they film porn in here?”