The gold ring inside the velvet box had a diamond that, in the right light, was large enough to signal satellites. Eadie snapped the box closed and stood up to lean across the table and set it in front of Hoyt.

Hoyt sat back in his chair to stare at her. He looked stunned. Well, so was she. And maybe insulted. If this was a joke, it was a rotten one she never would have expected from him.

“Your ring is beautiful,” she said casually. “But who’s it for…?”

Susan Fox lives in Des Moines, Iowa. A lifelong fan of Westerns, cowboys and love stories with guaranteed happy endings, she tends to think of romantic heroes in terms of Stetsons and boots.

Fans may visit her Web site at www.susanfox.org

Books by Susan Fox

HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®

3777—THE MARRIAGE COMMAND

3788—BRIDE OF CONVENIENCE

3796—A MARRIAGE WORTH WAITING FOR

3828—THE BRIDE PRIZE

His Hired Bride
Susan Fox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER ONE

THESE days, Eadie Webb was almost the only person in their part of Texas who got along well with rancher Hoyt Donovan.

Eadie managed that by either staying out of his way or by treating him with relentless good grace. She ignored his surly expressions, bore it patiently when he was terse or blustery, and pleasantly accommodated his every dictate.

She knew precisely why he was out of sorts lately, and it tickled her sense of justice, though she’d never confess that to him in so many words. Partly because she was too polite to do so; partly because she didn’t want to take the chance that she might somehow hurt his feelings.

Men like Hoyt never owned up to having feelings anyway, at least not the kind that could be hurt, so any truthful remarks she might make about his situation would only enrage him further and increase the misery of everyone who happened to cross his path.

Hoyt Donovan was the most god-awful male chauvinist in Texas, and though he deserved to suffer some sort of consequences for his actions, no one else deserved to suffer with him. Not that Eadie believed he was truly suffering like normal mortals would, but he’d probably had his pride dented. And pride—particularly male pride—was all important to men like Hoyt.

But then, he’d come by that pride naturally. His blunt, stony looks gave him a rough handsomeness to go with his earthy sensuality, which was patently unfair for females like her who were too lackluster to ever enjoy anything more of them than the view.

Because of his rugged good looks, Hoyt Donovan had been the target of every marriage-minded female in their part of Texas, and women flocked to him like butterflies. If he wasn’t in the mood to have his male vanity catered to at that moment, he was arrogant enough to send them scattering with a cranky look or some other, more subtle indication of disinterest.

He could be bad about that, but it didn’t seem to make a lasting difference to the butterflies. More taken by surprise than offended or hurt, they recovered quickly and came fluttering back for another chance. He seemed somewhat more attracted to the mercenary ones, and they were usually the ones he put up with the longest, as if he enjoyed an occasional challenge to his unrelenting date ’em and drop ’em style. He deserved something for that, but his dating habits were more a by-product of his biggest flaw.

He didn’t treat his women badly, and none had ever complained that she’d heard about. He periodically sent them flowers between one expensive date and the next, and he almost always sent them a decent piece of jewelry or some interesting trinket after he stopped calling them. Eadie’s only problem with his generosity was that Hoyt regularly assigned those chores to her, and she’d been put in charge of the actual selections.

It wasn’t that he didn’t show his women a good time, because he did. He knew how to treat a woman like a queen, and he had a diabolical knack for catering to a lady’s interests, whether those interests were his or not.

But his ability to dictate the emotional parameters of the relationship, yet remain remote and unmarried, was becoming the stuff of legends. He’d left a prodigious number of broken hearts along his trail, so if he was surly now over finally getting jilted by the one woman he’d actually taken seriously, he deserved it.

But the biggest reason Eadie Webb hoped Hoyt Donovan would suffer a bit longer, was that his male tastes ran—no, galloped—to beautiful women, and always the most beautiful ones. He liked leggy blondes with haystack hair and puffy lips, exotic brunettes with lush curves, and fiery, green-eyed redheads who wore their costly designer clothes two sizes too small.

He didn’t seem to notice that most of his beauties were more self-involved and shallow than he was. Until he’d finally met the one who’d done him dirt.

Eadie felt ashamed of herself suddenly. She not only owed Hoyt her gratitude for hiring her to work for him a few afternoons a week, she also owed him her complete loyalty and deference because of a discreet act of kindness he’d once done for her. Though neither of them had ever spoken about that awful night since or even vaguely referred to it, Eadie felt the bittersweet burden of obligation to him.

Perhaps one of the reasons she felt so little sympathy for his upset of late was that the gentle man—the supremely kind man—he’d been that night five years ago, had been appearing less and less frequently these days. There’d been times this past year when she’d found his sour moods increasingly obnoxious, and she often wondered if she’d dreamed what he’d done for her way back then.

What no one would ever know and what Hoyt Donovan would never suspect, was that she’d fallen in love with him that night five years ago. Completely and irrevocably. Because she had, and because she was the very last woman on earth that beauty-obsessed Hoyt Donovan would ever consider a romantic possibility, Eadie was fully aware that the biggest reason she took such a harsh view of his love life was that she couldn’t seem to get past the jealousy she felt, so it gave her more than a little satisfaction to know he’d gotten a taste of his own medicine. She wondered if the beautiful Celeste had sent him a “parting gift.”

It frustrated her that Hoyt couldn’t see that his beauties were too in love with themselves to ever truly love him. Hoyt wasn’t a stupid man, and she’d always been wary of his insights, but he was as dense as a brick on some subjects.

Five years of loving him in secret was a long time. Long enough to prove, even to her, that Hoyt Donovan’s tastes would never change. It hadn’t taken five minutes for Eadie to realize he’d never be interested in a plain woman like her, though it had taken her far less than five minutes that awful night to realize she was doomed to love him—almost unconditionally—for the rest of her life.

Eadie forced herself to ignore the depressing sense of hopelessness she felt as she finished tidying up Hoyt’s desk. She’d typed his letters and caught up on his bookwork, saving it all to files before obsessively backing them up. Donovan Ranch was a monstrous headache to keep track of. Her three afternoons a week made a respectable dent in the paperwork, but Hoyt took care of the rest himself.

He’d paid her well for the tasks he’d hired her to do, and the money came in handy on her own small ranch, though the extra income evaporated by the time she got done paying bills. If things at home continued going downhill, by next year she might have to sell out.

The notion dragged her spirits lower. The idea of having to move to town and take an office job was traumatic. Aside from losing touch with the ranch life she’d loved and had grown up with, she’d no longer have either a reason or the opportunity to see Hoyt, though that was probably for the best. At twenty-six, the only thing more pitiful than being doomed to achieve “old maid” status in another few years or less, was to hang around a man she could never have.

The sound of Hoyt’s heavy bootsteps pounding steadily through the big ranch house startled her and she automatically glanced at the clock. The fact that Hoyt had apparently come back to the house early today wasn’t a good sign, not when he was still so riled and cranky. Because his bad mood had grown worse this past week, Eadie had taken greater pains to stay out of his way. She’d hoped to make her escape before he came back to the house, but his sudden arrival thwarted her plan.

From the bedroom end of the house opposite the wing the office was located in, she heard him thunder, “Eadie? I need you in here! Now!”

The order was as angry as she’d ever heard, and Eadie hurriedly finished stacking the handful of letters with their envelopes on his desk blotter to rush out of the room. Hoyt never leveled his bullish temper on her, though he often treated her to a blustery verbal account of the reason for his choler. She suspected he did that because she always listened calmly, and her very calmness seemed to cool him off by the time he was done letting off steam.

And of course, once he finished, he usually saw reason and quickly got over his aggravation. That was one of the things that made her forgive those times when his temper rose high: when he cooled off, Hoyt was truly mellow, and he didn’t hold grudges.

The problem in the aftermath of his breakup with the beautiful Celeste was that he’d fumed around for weeks now, and as far as she knew, he’d not spoken more than a handful of choice words on the subject. Most of what she knew had come from gossip. Which was why she’d guessed that his male pride had somehow been soundly assaulted. And why he wasn’t showing signs of letting go of a bit of his anger over it anytime soon.

She’d barely made it down the hall and halfway across the big living room before he bellowed out another, “Eadie—get in here!”

She sprinted the rest of the way across the living room to the hall, suddenly shaky because she sensed something new about his anger this time.

As she slowed to rush into what had to be the master bedroom, her shaking increased. She’d never been in the private areas of Hoyt’s home, and his bedroom was the most private. And intimate. She had only a moment to note the dark luster of the wide headboard of his massive bed before she reached the open door of the master bath and rounded the corner.

The moment she saw him, Eadie realized that for the rest of her life, she’d always feel this same wild excitement and rush of happiness at the mere sight of the man.

Hoyt was so big and broad-shouldered, his powerful, work-hardened body the very zenith of masculinity. His larger-than-life presence made the large bathroom feel about a foot wide. Beneath the black Stetson he still wore, his hair was dark and overlong, and his face was almost too rugged and harsh to be considered handsome, though it was.

And she adored him. Truly and simply, Eadie adored everything about Hoyt Donovan, though she’d never in a million years confess that to him or to anyone else. She’d taken brutal pains to make sure she never showed it.

The glittering black gaze that missed so little when it wasn’t dazzled blind by female beauty, arrowed straight to her heat-flushed face and impacted her startled blue gaze with enough force to make her eyelashes give an involuntary spasm.

“It’s about time,” he growled. “I coulda bled to death in here.”

Alarmed, Eadie’s wide gaze dropped to the side of his ripped and bloodied chambray shirt as he turned, then pulled the shirttail out of his jeans and held it up to display the oozing slice in the hard flesh beneath.

Eadie’s gasp was overridden by his clipped, “Hurts like a son-of-a-gun.”

His remark was far less profane than it might have been if he’d been talking to one of his men, but Eadie barely noticed as she stepped close for a better look.

“You need to see a doctor.”

“Medical stuff’s in the cabinet right there.” He nodded toward a panel of the wide mirror that spanned the long counter. “Clean me up an’ slap on a patch.”

Hoyt’s voice was loud in the crowded space. His frustration was in the terse order, but the volume of his voice was anger. None of it made much of an impression on Eadie because she knew instantly that his frustration was with the injury and his anger was at himself for being injured in the first place.

“It needs stitches,” she said as she quickly washed her hands, hastily dried them, then rummaged briefly in the cabinet he’d indicated to find antiseptic and sterile gauze pads.

“You too squeamish to do it?”

The demand was a bit more crabby than angry, and they both knew she was anything but squeamish. Eadie opened the peroxide, then tore open a few of the sterile pad packs to dampen them. She turned toward him to brush the pads gently around the gash to clear away the blood, and answered.

“There’s a big difference between cowhide and your hide.”

“Stitches are stitches. If you can sew up a cow, you can sew me up.”

Eadie let herself smile faintly to acknowledge how ridiculous that was. “Not the same thing,” she murmured as she continued to work.

“How come?” Now his big voice had gentled a bit more as if his temper was already cooling.

Eadie glanced up to make eye contact. “Your hide’s thicker.”

As she’d hoped, he’d liked that. The lingering anger in his gaze abruptly softened to a glitter. The stern line of his mouth curved slightly. “Do tell.”

Eadie looked back down at her work, thrilled, flustered, but confident it wouldn’t show. She’d had years of practice keeping her face blank, even when Hoyt got that dangerously sexy look that made her ache for him. She knew that sexy look wasn’t aimed at her for any special reason. It was just the man’s natural state, and nothing to take personally. She directed them both back to the business at hand.

“Let me finish here and cover it, then I’ll call the doctor and find someone to drive you to town.”

“I’ll drive myself,” he growled, and Eadie wasn’t surprised. As long as Hoyt was conscious and on his feet, she wouldn’t think of arguing with his macho declaration. He’d consider the suggestion polite, but arguing with him about it would somehow put his manhood in question.

“Suit yourself.”

The silence as she gently worked suddenly seemed odd somehow. There was a tension to it, but the tension could only be hers. After all, taking care of Hoyt like this was a tiny spark of heaven. And that was not only ridiculous, but evidence of how pitiful she was.

Helping Hoyt with paperwork was one thing, but cleaning the small wound on his side seemed intensely personal, at least for her. She was tingling all over and her insides were fluttery. And oh, oh, she loved even a flimsy excuse to stand so close to him, and she couldn’t get enough of the smell of leather and sunshine and man.

Meanwhile Hoyt wouldn’t even notice the smell of her bargain shampoo. He wouldn’t be any more affected by her touch than he would have been if someone had absently brushed against his arm in a crowd. Though she knew that, the longer this small bit of first aid went on, the more intense the tingles and flutters became.

She couldn’t help it. Touching him, even like this, was about as good as it got for her. And Hoyt’s skin was not tougher than cowhide. It was hot and firm on his side, surprisingly silky, and the steely muscle and bone beneath were rocklike. Eadie suddenly felt a primitive feminine craving to touch more of him.

“How come your hands are shakin’?”

The blunt question made her heart jump and Eadie felt her face go a scorching red. She tried to cover it with a faked hint of irritation.

“You stomped in bellowing for me like a crazed bull. And since cleaning this has got to hurt, I keep thinking you’ll bellow again.”

“That all it is?” There was something edgy in his stark question, as if her trembling hands had somehow put him on alert and made him suspicious of her.

Which seemed like nonsense until it dawned on her why he’d go on the alert. Considering Hoyt’s taste for beautiful women, even a faint hint that sexless, Plain-Jane Eadie Webb might be getting a bit excited over this was sure to be a horrifying notion for a lady-killer like Hoyt.

Hurt by the idea, Eadie tried to finish quickly. If he’d suspected enough of her feelings to hint so fast that he was repelled, then it was time to counter his impression by rushing this. The doctor would insist on doing a more thorough job anyway, but for now it was clean enough to cover for the ride to town. At least the bleeding had almost stopped.

Eadie tossed the last wad of soiled gauze pads into the sink, then reached for three of the larger gauze packs to tear them open. In moments, she had the big squares pressed against his side and took his hand to lift it to hold the pads in place so she could tape them.

But taking Hoyt’s big, callused hand was like taking hold of the live end of a broken powerline, and Eadie couldn’t tell if her reflex was to yank her hand away or to hold on tighter. When she guided his fingers into place over the gauze pad and let go, her racing heart slowed a good ten beats per second. As desperate to deny the snapping charge she’d just gotten as she was to get this over with, she briskly tore off strips of tape to anchor the pad to Hoyt’s skin.

When she finished, she took an extra second to press a ripple of tape more securely against him. Only she had to know that the ripple was no ripple, but was instead an overwhelming need to touch Hoyt one last, daringly insane time. In the normal course of her life, there’d been few opportunities to ever touch him, and she was certain this time was destined to be the last.

Eadie reached for a small dark green towel and handed it to him. “Take this along, in case it starts oozing.”

She gingerly reached for the corners of the soiled gauze pads and bent to get out the small garbage can from beneath the sink. She transferred the squares to the trash before she put it back under the sink and let the door close. She’d just turned on the hot water tap to wash her hands and squirt some liquid soap from the ceramic dispenser into her palm before it dawned on her that Hoyt was still standing close by, not moving away as she’d expected.

Eadie sneaked a peek into the mirror to confirm what she could already see in her peripheral vision. Hoyt was staring solemnly at her, watching her every move. Her gaze dropped back down while she briskly washed her hands, splashed a bit of water against the bowl of the sink to rinse away any spots, then turned off the faucets and stepped away to dry her hands.

She’d not wanted to allow herself to read something ominous in Hoyt’s profile as he’d stared at her, because the fact that he was staring at her couldn’t be good. Though her instinct was to get out of his sight as soon as possible, she tried to sound cool about it.

“Well, that’s it,” she said, taking a moment to straighten the hand towel on the bar as she automatically did the same with the larger ones next to it. Clearly Hoyt wasn’t the neat freak she was. “Be sure to ask the doctor when your last tetanus shot was in case you need another. I was just about to get home.”

With that, she turned to walk to the door without looking directly at him, but Hoyt caught her arm. The fresh jolt that he gave her sent her gaze shooting up to his.

“That’s it?” His dark brows were cranky whorls that confused her.

“I said I’d call the doctor.”

“You’re gonna let me drive to town alone?”

Eadie studied his stern face a moment, unable to miss his disapproval. “You said you’d drive yourself.”

“You’d let me do that? I thought women liked to fuss.”

Eadie gave her head a disbelieving shake. “Do you…want me to fuss?”

He released her arm then and growled, “Not if you have to strain yourself.”

Eadie stared harder, unable to grasp this, though she was almost amused by it. “So you do want me to fuss,” she concluded as she tried to come to grips with the idea. “How much fussing…would you want?”

She almost giggled over how ridiculous that sounded, but didn’t dare. Hoyt looked deadly serious!

Now some of his stony expression eased and a bit of the ire in his dark eyes died down, as if her question mollified him.

“Considering how froze up you are, slather it on. I’ll let you know if it’s too much. My side’s stingin’ like a son of a buck, and it feels like you cleaned it with acid.”

Eadie ignored the crack about her being “froze up” and instantly felt bad that she’d hurt him. She impulsively touched his arm. “I’m sorry. Can you walk to my truck or do you need help?”

“I can walk,” he grumbled, then added, “just steady me till we’re sure.”

Genuinely sorry she’d hurt him and anxious to make up for it, Eadie took back the hand towel and moved to his uninjured side. She helped him lift his arm as she ducked beneath it so he could rest it across her shoulders and lean on her if he had to. She hesitantly put her arm around his waist and got a grip on his belt, both to avoid coming in contact with his injured side but also to provide a hold in case his legs somehow did give out.

That idea seemed absurdly far-fetched because Hoyt was so physical and naturally strong, but if he was feeling poorly enough to sacrifice a little male pride to ask for assistance, then he must be feeling bad. He hadn’t nicked an artery, but maybe he was a little shocky. Could he have hit his head?

“You’re a puny little thing, you know that? How the hell do you do outside work?”

Eadie turned her head to briefly look at him before she faced forward to start him toward the door. He didn’t sound weak, just irritable. Looked it, too.

“Thanks for the compliment. I don’t have to be big to use smarts. Lean on me if you need to because it’s almost closing time at the doctor’s. You don’t want to pay for the emergency room,” she said as they walked out into the bedroom.

“You’re supposed to coddle me, not worry me about money,” he said, vexed.

“Sorry.”

“And it sounds like you don’t think I’m worth the extra fee.”

Eadie tried to be patient with that surprising hint of self-pity. It was out of character. “Money’s an automatic worry for me,” she said calmly. “I forget some folks don’t need to worry.”

“That’s right, it’s my money,” he said, then went on. “But how come you worry? Are you saying I don’t pay you enough?”

“It’ll be easier to coddle you if you stop talking.”

“I never noticed meanness in you before, Eadie Webb.”

She couldn’t help an ironic smile, since he couldn’t see it. “I’m not surprised.”

“Why aren’t you surprised?”

He was like a child who couldn’t stop asking questions. Eadie was patient with him because his relentlessness might be a cover for genuine pain. “You’ve got better things to do than make a study of me.”

“Do tell,” he said, and the way he drawled it the slightest bit made her smile again. “Maybe I ought to use my convalescence to make a study of you. What do you suppose I’d find out?”

Oh, Lord, what was this about? Her smile faded. It was about nothing, absolutely nothing. She’d do well to remember that.

“If you were studying me now,” she said, suddenly inspired, “you’d figure out that I’m beginning to doubt you need me to lean on.”

“You think I’m fakin’?”

“Yes, and I wish you wouldn’t. I’ve got a sink full of dishes and chores in a couple hours, so if you don’t really need me, I’d just as soon get home.”

“What if I paid you overtime?”

“I wouldn’t take pay for something like this.”

“Then I reckon I could do your dishes later.”

Eadie giggled over that. “Would I have any left that weren’t broken?”

“I’d buy you a new set. And a dishwasher, too.”

“I’ve got a dishwasher, but I can’t use the extra water. Please, let’s just get you to town.”

Eadie got him to the front door then had a brief argument about whether they’d take her little truck or his big new supercab pickup. She gave in for the sake of time and helped him into his truck before she rushed to the driver’s side and got in to start the engine and get the air conditioner going.

She turned to get out and dash to the house to call the doctor, but Hoyt vetoed it. “Miss Ed should already have done it, so let’s just go.”

So Hoyt had been putting her on, at least about wanting her to stitch him up instead of a doctor, since the call to the doctor had already been made. She closed the driver’s side door and adjusted the seat so her feet could reach the pedals before she put on her seat belt.

“Your legs are short.” Hoyt’s brusque observation made her smile a little as she put the big truck into gear.

“Thanks so much for all the fine compliments, boss. I’m puny, my legs are too short, I’m mean. And let’s don’t forget how ‘froze’ I am. Keep that up, and you might turn my head. Of course, that might be just before you got dumped along the highway someplace.”

“Huh. Those are not coddle words, Edith Regina Webb.”

“No, they aren’t,” she said and flicked a glance his way. “And you’ve sprung a leak. Better put that towel over it and apply some pressure.”

Eadie faced forward and pushed down on the accelerator to rocket down the long driveway to the highway. Once she got on the pavement, she settled back and tried to enjoy the novelty of driving a nearly new pickup with a powerful engine that all but flew them to Coulter City.

CHAPTER TWO

HOYT got right in at the doctor’s, since they’d arrived just before Doc Harris finished with his last patient of the day. Eadie was surprised when Hoyt asked if she was going in with him. He’d said he wanted her to go in to help him keep the doctor’s instructions straight, but Eadie was suspicious of that. She went along though, torn between the pleasure of being needed and the feeling that Hoyt was somehow toying with her. He seemed as hale and hearty as usual, so the fact that he wanted her to go in with him was odd.

No sense trying to figure this out, though. Eadie sat down on a chair out of the way and tried not to be conspicuous while the nurse took his vitals, noted them on his chart, then went out. Whatever reason Hoyt wanted her in here, it was sure to seem strange to the doctor.

And maybe suspect. After all, Hoyt was a known ladies’ man who’d had a parade of women through his life. Eadie was his lackluster, part-time secretary who not only worked three afternoons a week for him, but had now trailed into a doctor’s private examination room with him. Eadie felt no small embarrassment over how that might look to the doctor. Would he think she was imposing on Hoyt to get his attention? Eadie suddenly decided she was willing to risk Hoyt’s ire by leaving him alone in here.

And of course, the doctor came in just as she stood to go to the door and slip out. He eyed her like some unusual phenomenon.

“Well, hello to you, too, Eadie,” Doc Harris said as he peered at her over his half-glasses, his kind eyes lively with curiosity. “Is there some interesting development between you two?”

Eadie’s face went red-hot. “H-Hoyt…just wanted me to—to come in and get your instructions straight, but I don’t need to do that until you finish with him.”

The doctor looked at Hoyt. “Do you want her in or out while I have a look?”

“In.”

The terse little word was nothing less than an order, and the doctor grinned.

“She stays then. Let’s get that shirt off and see what we’ve got.” He spared a moment to send Eadie a glance. “Might as well have a seat, Eadie. Right over there’s fine.”

Eadie felt another tide of fierce heat wash into her face and hesitantly went back to the chair to sit down, but kept her gaze fixed on the floor as Hoyt took off his shirt. Doc Harris adjusted the table to an incline so Hoyt could sit back. She could tell the doctor was carefully pulling away the gauze patch. And then she heard it hit the nearby tray as he discarded it.

“Ah well, it’s just a nick,” the doctor scoffed. “I thought we had something serious here. Eadie could have fed you an aspirin and sewed you up in a flash. Or called the vet.”

Eadie’s gaze flew to the doctor’s grinning face, then realized he was making light of Hoyt’s injury as a tease. After all, the gash was almost four inches long, and it was oozing again. Eadie realized then that this was a typical joke between macho males. Doc Harris would have made the same remark if Hoyt had come in with his leg half cut off. And she could tell by Hoyt’s rugged profile that he was grinning almost proudly. Men!

The doctor went briskly out, leaving the door open. Eadie took a steadying breath, tried to stay where she was and not stare at Hoyt’s bare chest. Doc Harris came back fairly soon and his nurse trailed in after him with a stainless-steel tray that she exchanged for the one with the discarded bandage.

Doc dismissed his nurse, wishing her good-night, then took care of everything himself. All the while, the two men talked cattle and markets as if they were doing no more than chatting over coffee. Eadie was relieved that they both seemed to have forgotten she was in the room, but she was aggravated to be present for this.

What a ninny she’d been to allow Hoyt to put her in this position, and yet she couldn’t entirely blame him for that because a large part of her couldn’t help giving in to him. He’d truly wanted her in here, whatever his reason, and she couldn’t help thinking again about that time years ago when he’d come to her rescue.

The two situations weren’t even remotely alike, except that what he’d done for her in her time of trouble and need had automatically guaranteed that she’d never refuse to come to his aid during his time of trouble or need. She’d just never considered that his trouble or his time of need would be so relatively minor. She hoped they’d all be this minor.

In truth, being in here with Hoyt gave Eadie a strong taste of what it might be like to be entitled to be with him in things as small as going to the doctor. If she were a wife instead of an employee, she’d get to share a multitude of things like this, along with happier things.

And that was just more proof of the shameful fact that she was pathetic enough about Hoyt to grab for every crumb that fell to her, however much her pride squirmed and screamed at the indignity. On the other hand, depending on how things worked out with her little ranch in the next few months, her pride might have at least some hope of relief if she decided to sell out and move to Coulter City. She’d be doing that sooner rather than later if some unforeseen financial crisis popped up.

It took a moment for her to realize the doctor was waving his hand to get her attention.

“I thought you were supposed to listen to my instructions?”

Eadie cringed a little. “Sorry. I was thinking about something else. When was his last tetanus shot?”

The doctor’s smile widened. “Good question.” Then he winked at Hoyt. “Is she always that good at keeping track of you?”

“I’m just a weekly paycheck to her, Doc,” Hoyt complained, though his dark eyes glittered with amusement.

“I’ll look up the date, but I’ll call in a ’script to the pharmacy for an antibiotic and a painkiller.” He looked back over at Eadie. “He’ll need to take the antibiotic till it’s all gone, of course. Make sure he takes it with food. No booze with the painkiller. No driving. And keep him off machinery and horses while he takes that one. Stitches out in seven days.”

The doctor peeled off his latex gloves and discarded them, then washed his hands. He went out as Hoyt gingerly rose to a full sitting position. Eadie got up and retrieved his shirt to hand it to him.

“Help me with this, would you?” he said, and Eadie sorted out the sleeves and helped him put on his shirt, careful to accommodate him to keep his movements from pulling on the flesh around the stitches.

But, oh, the foolish and dismally unforgettable pleasure of helping Hoyt with a task as casually intimate as putting on his shirt! His hard body was so wholly masculine that her insides quivered like jelly. The fact that she couldn’t avoid having the backs of her fingers brush against his hot skin here and there was another pleasure/torment.

Hoyt at least buttoned his own shirt, but didn’t tuck it back in. “Do you mind running me to the pharmacy to pick up the medicine or do you have to get home?”

“We’ve got time for that,” she said as she belatedly forced herself to step back, feeling a little chastened for her earlier declaration that she had dishes and chores to do. She did have to do those things, but there was still plenty of time to keep to schedule, thanks to the doctor’s quick work.

He came back in then with a syringe and a small vial. “Eadie was right on the money about the tetanus shot. It’ll probably ache worse than the scratch on your side.” Now the doctor gave Eadie a sparkling glance over the top of his half-glasses. “You might want to step out for this one, since it’ll go in his hip.”

Eadie nodded, only too glad to comply. That would have been even more over the top and unnecessary than being present for all the rest. She took refuge in the waiting room until Hoyt came out. They walked to the pickup but there was no discernible sign of weakness in Hoyt at all. When they got to the pharmacy he went in by himself while she waited. It wasn’t long before he’d come back out with a small white bag and they were on their way back to Donovan Ranch.

“My thanks for your help, Eadie,” Hoyt said, and his mood seemed mellow and almost pleasant. She hadn’t seen him like this in weeks, and got the idea that coming with him to Coulter City might have helped do that.

It was a dangerous notion though, and close to lethal to think that she could have a mellowing effect on Hoyt. Yes, her calmness usually did have a strong effect on him, but he’d been particularly difficult lately, and she’d seemed to have lost the knack. When he’d come to the house this afternoon, he’d been even more impossibly cross and difficult than usual. Remembering that made her realize his good mood now might be solely because his bad mood had simply burned itself out.

They’d just got to the Donovan Ranch driveway and turned onto it when Hoyt broke the pleasant silence.

“Miss Ed’s probably gonna go home at her usual time tonight. Is there a chance you could come back after chores to set me up for the night?”

Shocked, Eadie glanced over to see the dead seriousness about him. And there was just the faintest impression that he was cradling his side but trying not to be obvious about it, as if, despite the truck’s cushy suspension, the light vibration from the graveled driveway made him uncomfortable but he was too macho to let on.

Eadie glanced back at the road ahead and gently slowed the big truck in hope of minimizing his discomfort. Now that it had been a while since he’d got the injury, it was probably making itself sharply felt. The local anesthetic had surely worn off, and his side had suffered not only the injury, but the trauma of being stitched.

Yes, he probably was genuinely hurting now. Eadie glanced at Hoyt a second time to see him silently watching her, his dark eyes unreadable as he waited for her to reply.

Her soft, “Of course I can,” made him give a grim nod so she faced forward again. There’d been no sign of teasing in his gaze this time, no hint that he was putting on.

Of course I can she’d said. Eadie suddenly knew then that she’d always do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted her to. Heaven help her, she’d probably be saying yes to Hoyt Donovan or Of course I can for the rest of her days.

She was like an old-time cowboy who swore allegiance to the brand he rode for, and lived it out come hell or high water until the day he died and was planted under the sod in the ranch cemetery. The dreary knowledge dragged her spirits low.

Before Eadie headed back to Donovan Ranch, she had a quick bite to eat, took a shower and washed her hair. She applied a bit of makeup before she dried her hair and put on a good pair of jeans and a yellow cotton shirt. Eadie would never wear either the yellow shirt or her single pair of designer jeans to work outside, and both were a nice change from what she wore every day of the week except Sunday and special occasions.

It wasn’t a big change from her regular jeans and work shirts, which she also wore to do paperwork at Hoyt’s, but it was something. And she’d gotten her shower out of the way because she wanted to be ready for bed when she got home. The only thing left to do was wash her face and go right to sleep. Morning came early at 4:00 a.m., and tomorrow would be a long day.

Tonight would be something out of the ordinary for a workday night, and Eadie felt too foolishly excited about going over to help Hoyt to be sensible about this. Though she was a hopeless case where he was concerned, she would at least be dressed a little nicer tonight and feel good about the way she looked while she was being an idiot.

Eadie knew she didn’t look bad. She was plain, but not unattractively so. Her blue eyes were standouts because of her light tan and her dark, shoulder-length hair. She had even features and a nice smile. In truth, she’d always been happy about the way she’d looked.

Until she’d fallen for Hoyt. Knowing about his taste for beauties had caused her to compare herself with some of the most spectacular women in Texas, so of course she’d come off looking as plain as an unpainted fence to herself as well as to Hoyt.

She hoped she at least had a nicer personality than some of Hoyt’s women. He’d always seemed to like her well enough. But then, he also liked his housekeeper, Miss Ed, so his liking wasn’t proof of anything in particular. Miss Ed was no beauty herself, but Hoyt hadn’t hired her to hang around his house looking beautiful.

Though the very sour Miss Ed was a good woman, she had anything but a Miss Vivacious-Never-Met-A-Stranger personality. Hoyt had hired her because she took care of his house the way he liked and she was a peerless cook, so she got along with him fine.

Eadie got along with him fine, too, despite his prickly moods. He seemed to enjoy talking to her, venting his complaints, getting her opinion, and he appreciated the way she handled the things he’d hired her to do for him. Beauty and sparkling wit were irrelevant, though Hoyt sometimes seemed at least charmed by her.

Eadie suspected he’d enjoyed their little exchanges today, and in retrospect it was more than a little flattering that he’d made her a part of everything after he’d got hurt. She ignored the idea that he currently had no adoring beauty to call on, and because it had been nearing closing time at the doctor’s office, most of his beauties wouldn’t have had time to come to the ranch to demonstrate their sympathy anyway.

And Hoyt had asked her to come over tonight. There was no getting around the fact that she’d grown even more excited about the out-of-the-blue opportunity the past three hours. Despite her effort to keep her head, Eadie just couldn’t seem to keep from losing it yet again over Hoyt. Hope probably did spring eternal because she was surely the most hopeful—and hopeless—ninny on the planet.

Even picturing a disappointing scenario didn’t seem to put much of a damper on the lighthearted way she felt. She had no business expecting anything but more crabbiness from Hoyt tonight, and she was certain to face a complete and utter letdown over how ho-hum it would all turn out to be.

But for now, she felt happy. She checked the clock about a half dozen times before she figured it was late enough to start for Donovan Ranch. She went out and got in her little green pickup and once she’d made it up the ranch road to the highway, she had a hard time keeping the little truck enough under the speed limit to avoid getting a ticket on the ten-minute trip down the pavement.

When she finally pulled up to the front of the massive, single-story adobe-style Donovan Ranch house, she noted that Miss Ed’s ancient little car was indeed gone. Though it was just before sunset, a few lights were on here and there in the house.

She went to the front door and pushed on the doorbell, then waited for Hoyt to answer it. When he didn’t, she pushed the button again, then waited even longer for a response. Finally she realized he might have taken the painkiller and fallen asleep somewhere in the house. He couldn’t have gone to bed and left the lights on, so she debated whether or not to just go on in.

Though she’d worked for Hoyt for years now, Eadie never simply walked into the house unannounced, though she’d had permission to do so. She regularly arrived just after noon, so she always went around to the kitchen and tapped on the big glass patio doors to get Miss Ed’s attention before she came in.

Could Hoyt be in trouble? She certainly didn’t want to startle him if he just hadn’t heard the doorbell, but she was squeamish about just walking in. Leery but concerned, Eadie tried the knob and the door opened easily, so she walked in and called out a light “Hello.”

When she got no response, she closed the door, then crossed the stone floor of the foyer to the long, carpeted hall that spanned the length of the big house.

“Hello, Hoyt. I’m here now,” she called out, then hesitantly started down the hall toward Hoyt’s office, peeking in doors on her way past only to find that the big den was empty. She went in and turned off the lights, then came back out and started through the house.

The kitchen and dining room were immaculate, but empty, as was the living room. She glanced out to the big patio in back, but there was no sign of Hoyt. Then she saw his black Stetson hanging on a wall peg in the dim kitchen, and was certain he had to be in the house. Eadie started toward the bedroom wing.

The only light in this part of the house was coming from Hoyt’s bedroom, so she stopped just short of the doorway to rap her knuckles on the door frame without looking in. If he’d just stepped out of the shower in the altogether, she didn’t want to compromise his privacy. There was no response, but she heard what sounded like a soft snore.

Eadie cautiously peeked in and saw Hoyt sprawled on his back on the big bed. He had on a fresh shirt that he hadn’t tucked in and a different pair of jeans than he’d had on that day, but he was fully dressed. His boots were on again, so perhaps he’d laid down earlier because he was drowsy then had fallen asleep. Surely Miss Ed didn’t know about this, because she might have given him heck for putting his boots up on the beautiful bedspread.

Eadie couldn’t let him sleep the night in his clothes, so she started across the carpet to the big bed to touch his shoulder.

Her soft, “Hoyt, can you wake up?” was a whisper. She gave his shoulder a gentle nudge. “Hoyt? It’s Eadie. You need to wake up and get ready for bed.”

That seemed to rouse him and he began to stir. But the unguarded movement must have hurt because he drawled out a swearword. Eadie decided she had to be a little more firm and spoke in a more normal tone.

“Hoyt? You need to wake up. Be careful of your stitches, but wake up.” She gave his shoulder another nudge. “Hoyt?”

His low moan was more a resistant growl than an indication of pain, so she reached for his fingers and, careful not to brush his injured side, which was facing her, she chafed his hand between her palms.

And…oh, Lordy! The feel of his big, callused hand between hers was a guilty pleasure she didn’t dare indulge too long.

“Come on, Hoyt,” she coaxed, almost as much to get him to wake up so she could let go of his hand as to spare him an uncomfortable night. “You can’t sleep in your clothes. Wake up so you can take them off and get under the covers.”

The low growl that answered her was a shock.

“You take ’em off.”

Eadie stared down at Hoyt’s sleep slack face, stunned. She’d stopped chafing his hand between hers and that next second she realized her mouth was hanging open. Had she heard right?

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