Disobedient Cowboys [Lone Wolves of Shay Falls 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (6 page)

“Wouldn’t you? And please, call me Stephen.” He was looking at Caleb. “Can’t say I’m surprised to see
you
here.”

“I’d be surprised if you were surprised.”

The doctor’s piercing blue eyes shifted back to her, and her stomach did a little flip. “Are you all right?” he asked. “You look flushed.”

There was a hint of accusation in the words. She swallowed and felt her face heat up even more. “I took a hot bath not long ago.”

“May I come in?”

Apparently, remembering proper manners didn’t come naturally after, well, coming powerfully. Rose pushed open the door she’d been clutching. “Of course. I’m sorry.”

As he entered, his knee-weakening scent trailed him in. The cologne from that morning had long faded, but his own masculine aroma enlivened her very senses. What was it about him, anyway? Besides the incredible good looks and medical degree.

An interesting though silent power play took place while she led her visitors into the living room. The men were clearly jockeying for position, and Stephen lost when Caleb all but pulled Rose down and sat with her between him and the arm of the couch. That left Stephen standing alone with an annoyed expression. He made no comment, however, as he sank down on the closest chair flanking the ends of the coffee table.

She offered him a smile. “So, what brings you to my door, Doctor?”

“Stephen. I thought I’d stop by and see how you were doing.”

Her brow lifted. “Really? House calls are a rare thing these days.”

Caleb grunted. “Yeah. Especially for hospital-based docs.”

Something flickered in the man’s eyes. “This is more of an informal visit,” he said. “Partly because I wanted to give you this.”

He held out an envelope she hadn’t seen him holding. The same logo that was embroidered on his doctor’s coat was stamped in one corner.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I’m sure it’ll be self-explanatory.”

She tore open a corner and pulled out an official-looking paper typed on hospital letterhead. With her head pounding as it was, focusing on the small type strained her eyes. She closed them and rubbed at her temples.

“Still have the headache?” Dr. Williams asked.

“It was mostly gone,” she said. “But it’s back now.” With a vengeance.

“When was your last dose of pain meds?”

She glanced over at a wooden wall clock. “I’m past due.”

He was up in a flash, strutting over to the adjacent dining area. A white pharmacy bag was sitting on the walnut-veneer dining table. “In this?”

When she nodded, he picked up the bag and headed for the open kitchen, where he had no trouble finding his way around to get her a glass of water.

“Seems like you know where everything is,” she said as she watched him dump two pills into his hand.

“I’ve visited the corporate housing before,” he said, wandering back to her. “The hospital puts up special guests here.”

She took the proffered medicine as he sat back down. “Like I said earlier, you’re quite the full-service physician.” While she swallowed her pills, she scanned the contents of the brief letter—and almost choked. “Just apparently not
my
physician.”

He flashed a look but said nothing.

She held up the letter. “You’re firing me as a patient after only treating me once?”

“Don’t think of it as a firing. It’s more of a clarification. It’s just a formality.”

Her heart pumped faster as she fought off disappointment. He didn’t want her as a patient. The dismissal rankled more than a little.

She tossed the letter beside the sketch pad Caleb had replaced on the coffee table when they’d gone to answer the knock. “I don’t understand.”

“I do,” Caleb said, and he stretched his arm along the back of the sofa behind her.

It was a possessive gesture, one she challenged with a look. He returned it with a naughty grin. Public displays like this were a bit much at this point in their relationship, and she probably shouldn’t encourage his behavior. Still, considering all he’d done for her, brushing him off in front of Dr. Williams wouldn’t be a nice way to repay him.

“This is nothing personal,” the doctor said.

Caleb’s snort cut in. “Like hell it ain’t.”

A muscle twitched in Dr. Williams’s jaw. “Fair enough.” His attention returned to Rose. “It’s nothing negative to do with you, then. Quite the opposite.”

Her woozy head refused to follow his words to a point, if he’d in fact made one. “As they say, just give it to me straight, Doctor,” she said.

“Call me Stephen.”

“Okay,
Stephen
.” She kicked herself mentally over the little happy dance tickling her stomach over saying his first name out loud. After all, the man was in the process of dumping her. Sort of.

Rose folded her arms. “Let me see if I have this straight. You’re saying I was a model patient for the whole twenty minutes or so that you were my doctor, but now you never want to see me again.”

He shook his head. “No. I’m not saying that at all.”

“Then I’m lost.”

He shifted forward in his chair so he could take hold of her hand. She ignored the accompanying tingles by gritting her teeth.

“I told you I expected we’d meet again soon. You thought I meant when you start work at the hospital. I meant something more personal.”

His thumb stroked the back of her hand, and the fireworks he touched off were impossible to drown out.

She gaped at him. “Are you asking me on a date?”

He smiled. “I suppose I am, in a manner of speaking.”

One man’s arm was draped around her seat while another one asked her out. She flicked wild glances back and forth between them. Caleb wore a casual, almost smug smile while Stephen made a play for her right in front of him—and right after Caleb had had his hand in her pants. Whatever rabbit hole she’d tumbled down, it was a deep one.

“You’re asking me this in front of Caleb,” she said, “whose arm you see around me. And that doesn’t bother you?”

His eyes shifted to Caleb. “Guess you didn’t tell her about me, did you?”

“Tell me what about you?” she asked.

Caleb shrugged. “It didn’t come up.”

The other man narrowed his blue-gold gaze. “‘It’ didn’t, or I didn’t?”

“Other things have been goin’ on.”

Stephen’s tone grew edgier. “Yeah, I’m aware of that. And yet what should have come up first wasn’t mentioned. That bothers me. A lot.”

She stared at him quizzically. Just when she thought she’d wrapped her head around the conversation, it drifted off into the unknown again.

Caleb made a clucking sound at Stephen. “See, that’s the difference between you city fellas and cowboys.” A shiver ran down her arm when he moved his hand from the couch to stroke her shoulder. “Ya’ll are in such a hurry. Cowboys, well, we like to take our time with things.”

“Except when those ‘things’ involve getting it on with a mate,” Stephen said. “Then you move right in for the kill.”

Heat flooded Rose’s cheeks.

“And by the way,” Stephen went on, “it just so happens that I am a cowboy. Was, anyway. I spent six years working a ranch right here in Shay Falls.”

Caleb laughed. “Is that so,
Doc
?”

“It was a while ago, I’ll admit. But it’s true.”

She stared at him. How old was he? Certainly not much more than thirty. How could he have been a cowhand for six years, graduated medical school, and practiced long enough to land a hospitalist position? Had he been four years old when he “worked” this ranch?

“Once a cowboy, always a cowboy,” Caleb said. “If you say it in the past tense, I ain’t sure you had the chops to call yourself one in the first place.”

Stephen gave Caleb a one-sided smile that tinged on dangerous. “So far as I can tell, I have the distinction of being the very first cowboy in this town to get that life yanked right out from under my boots because I got turned.”

Caleb’s smile vanished.

Rose’s brow furrowed. “Turned? Turned into what?”

Stephen’s gaze honed itself on Caleb like a blade on a whetstone. “You told her nothing at all? How could you be intimate with her without telling her the truth about yourself?”

Several things about that statement set off Rose’s internal alarms, and the first one she jumped on was the last one she should have been worried about. “Whoa, whoa. Why are you acting like it’s a given Caleb and I have been intimate when you know we barely met yesterday?”

His dangerous grin turned her direction. “Are you denying you’ve been with him?”

She bristled and shifted on the couch, pushing Caleb’s stroking fingers away with an irritated grunt. “It’s none of your business if I have or not. I just find it curious you’re assuming I throw myself around freely when the truth would probably surprise the hell out of you.”

“What truth, that you’re a virgin? That wasn’t the question I asked.”

Her eyes widened. “You, too? What is this? Don’t tell me that piece of information turned up during my medical exam.”

He ignored her tirade and focused on Caleb. “Why the hell didn’t you tell her the truth?”

Caleb’s eyes flashed, and he gave the front of his shirt a vicious tug. The snaps on his shirt gave way, baring his still-injured chest. “When
you
get shot at by silver bullets not just because of what you are, but who your pack was, then you can lecture me about my reluctance to share my darkest secrets.”

She gaped at him. “Would somebody please answer at least one of my questions? What darkest secrets?”

“Why don’t you ask Caleb what happened to the wolf you ran into with your car?” Stephen asked.

“The wolf?” She frowned. “What about it?”

“You mean this wolf?” Caleb snatched up the sketch pad from the coffee table and flipped to the drawing.

Stephen gazed at it with a question in his eyes.

“Rose drew this picture off of a dream she keeps havin’,” Caleb said. “Even though she ain’t never seen the falls.”

The other man nodded. “Not that there was any doubt who she is.”

A spark of irritation touched off in her chest. “‘She’ is sitting right here. And by all means, Caleb, go right ahead and show my private artwork to anyone you feel like.”

“Stephen ain’t just anyone, darlin’.” Caleb’s smoldering look heated her stomach. “And I think you know it.”

The buzz of questions shouting in her mind silenced when he scooted closer to her, invading every inch of her personal space. “You feel it, don’t you?” His voice was low and throaty. Mesmerizing. “There’s somethin’ about Stephen that you can’t explain. It’s irresistible. Strong enough to pull you right off your pretty feet. It’s the same feelin’ you have for me.”

He leaned closer to her with every sentence until his words surrounded her like a hypnotic cloud. She was leaning, too, unable to curb the urge to bridge the gap and taste his lips.

“You’re starting up with her again,” Stephen said, “and yet you still haven’t told her what needs to be said.”

That burst through Rose’s trance, and she yanked back from Caleb with a scowl. Damn, how easily he could completely derail her train of thought! Hopefully, this was just a temporary side effect of hitting her head, not a talent Caleb could wield on her at will.

“Stephen’s right,” she said. “Whatever you should have told me, you better say it now.” She glanced at the drawing still in his hand. “Starting with what he meant about the wolf. What does it have to do with this? I never saw it again after I hit it.”

Caleb took a deep breath as he met her eyes. “Yes, you did. You’re lookin’ at him right now.”

She snorted in disgust. “And here I thought I was the one all confused from a concussion.”

“You saw that I was banged up and bleedin’ after the accident, and you knew that you’d hit me.”

“So?”

He held his shirt open wider this time. “But aside from the bullet hole, the rest of those injuries are completely healed already.”

True enough. She eyed his mouthwatering torso up and down, and there wasn’t a mark on him—except for a pair of curious puncture scars on his left shoulder.

“You said you didn’t remember hittin’ a man with your car,” he continued. “That’s because you didn’t.
I
was the wolf, Rose. I’m a shifter. And I ain’t the only one.”

Both men wore dead-serious expressions that she tried to mimic for a minute. Then she burst out laughing. “Come on, guys. It isn’t April Fools’.” She grinned at Stephen. “Was this why you wanted to talk to Caleb in private earlier today? So you two could set up a little joke on the head injury victim?”

“It’s no joke,” Stephen said, frowning. “And he’s not the only werewolf in this room.”

She shook her head. “So now he’s a
werewolf
. Not just a wolf.”

“He and I are both werewolves,” Stephen said, still looking sober as a church deacon. “I recognized him the minute I set foot in your hospital room. Not just because he’s another shifter, either.” He paused, searching her face. “I sensed the presence of my mates. Both of you.”