Rocky Mountain Romance (Six Pack Ranch) (34 page)

She reached into her shirt pocket and pulled out a syringe, staring at it for a moment.

Steve didn’t know what had happened, but from the look on Melody’s face, this was going to break her. The driving need to make everything better ramped up, and he dropped to his knees beside her. Draped an arm around her shoulders as if he could will his strength into her. “We can take him back to the clinic,” Steve offered. “I’ll pay whatever it costs to get him fixed up.”

“He’s in a lot of pain, Steve.” Melody’s hand shook as she filled the syringe with liquid.

He wasn’t going to argue with her. This was her area of expertise, and he knew damn well that at some point animals came to the end of their life. But as he watched her, tears welling up in her eyes as she stoically moved forward, he wanted all over again to fix things.

He couldn’t. There was no fixing this.

What he could do was be there for her.

Steve moved to cradle the dog’s head in his lap, petting the old-timer’s muzzle. “If you’re sure. But if you can fix him up, I mean it. He can live out his days with me.”

Melody swallowed hard and put the needle to the dog’s skin, depressing the plunger halfway until the whimpering and shivering stopped. “We need to get him to the clinic as soon as possible.”

Steve moved before he thought it through, pressing a kiss to her temple and holding her close for a moment. “Thank you. For saving him. And for saving me.”

She leaned into him briefly, waiting until he’d lifted the dog in the air to struggle to her feet.

That’s when he noticed. “Jesus, woman. You didn’t tell me the cougar got you too.”

“I’m fine.” She swayed, slamming a hand against the wall to catch her balance. When he would’ve put Bear back down to help her, she glared hard enough to set his feet tromping toward the door. “I’ll grab his bed and be there in a minute. Put him in my backseat. The ride will be smoother than in the truck bed.”

It took a few minutes to follow her directions so they could settle Bear into the backseat, Charlie next to him. Only when she would have handed him her keys, Steve came to a full stop.

“What are those for?”

“You drive my truck—I didn’t want you to get blood in yours. Phone the clinic as soon as you’ve got a signal and tell Tom you’ve got an emergency—”

“And what do you think you’ll be doing instead of heading into town with me?” Steve dropped to his knees in front of her and reached for the shirt tied over the bloodstained section of her pants.

“What’re you doing?” she complained, attempting to push away his hands. “I’ll stay here and deal with the cougar. I can’t leave that in the middle of the house for Marion and the others to face.” She hissed in pain as he pulled the bandage free to examine her leg. “Steve, stop.”

“You stop being a martyr,” he ordered. He grimaced at the slashes, long but shallow grooves, the bleeding slowing already. He retied the makeshift bandage firmly as he glanced upward, putting on the most commanding face he knew. “It’s not being irresponsible to change your plans when you face a crisis. And no one is going to complain you didn’t do your damn job, and if they do, I will personally see they get on the receiving end of the wrath of the Coleman women.”

“But—”

“The only butt I’m seeing is
your
butt in the truck, because I will fucking tie you up if I have to so I can get your ass to a hospital.”

All her bluster faded and she drooped as she nodded in agreement. Steve caught an arm around her waist, bringing her with him into the truck cab and letting her curl up beside him the best she could.

The road seemed even more impossible now than thirty minutes earlier—and he couldn’t believe everything that had happened in that short of a time.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “I mean, relatively? Not too much pain?”

They rocked together as he guided the truck over an extra bad section. “It hurts, but I can handle it. You?”

“Felt worse getting caught walking though a patch of thistles.” He glanced over his shoulder, but the two dogs were doing fine in the back. Bear wasn’t moving, and Charlie had put her head on the edge of the dog bed, swaying as she responded to the uneven road.

Melody eased out her leg, moaning as she stretched into a new position. “Never expected that.”

“A cougar? Did she break into the house?”

“No, she’d been left in the back room, and didn’t like someone new in her territory.”

Jeez. “Ian had a cougar in the house?”

“It happens. Happens more often than you’d think. Someone finds an abandoned den with kits or wolf cubs, and for whatever reason decides to keep one and raise it as a pet.”

“Bet that doesn’t work out well in the end.”

“No. Usually we find these after the ‘pet’ turns on their owner. You can only train a wild animal so far. They’re not domesticated, and it shows.”

Steve slipped his fingers over her shoulder, needing that extra assurance she was safe. “I’m sorry you got hurt.”

“Thanks.” She snorted. “At least it wasn’t totally outrageous to find a cougar in our neck of the woods. Imagine walking into a house in Calgary to discover a full-grown lion staring you down—I’ve heard of that as well.”

He wasn’t interested in letting this time with her vanish in inane small talk. “I came after you to tell you I was sorry about being an idiot the other day.”

“Steve—”

“Because I was an idiot. You were right, you’d made it very clear what you wanted, and I still went around you, and I’m sorry.”

“I know you are.”

God
. His apology wasn’t enough. She wasn’t looking at him with those eyes of mesmerizing blue. She wasn’t slipping her hand into his. She wasn’t
his
…not in all the ways he desperately needed her to be.

He reached for where she had her fingers linked, hands resting in her lap. “What do I need to do to prove I’ve learned my lesson?”

All he could spare was a second’s glance off the road—just long enough to read her face as she examined him. There was hope written there, and his heart rate accelerated.

She spoke softly but clearly. “Back at Ian’s. You were pretty damn bossy about me leaving.”

“Damn right.”

“Even though it means I didn’t finish my job? You don’t think that shows you’re still trying to run the show?”

He shook his head. “Not the same thing, sweetheart. You’ve got Bear to get to town and take care of, and you’ve been hurt. I’m not letting you put yourself in harm’s way. You bet I’m going to be bossy if you try that nonsense.”

She hesitated. “And that’s different than you taking a swing at someone who insulted me because you don’t want my feelings hurt?”

Night and day different. He opened his mouth to explain that, and got hit by another two by four.

He glanced at her. “You’re sly. And you’re brilliant, and you’re so damn beautiful
because
you’re sly and brilliant. Yes, those things are totally different, and I promise I’ll only be an asshole when it comes to protecting you from real dangers. Although, it was all you protecting me at the cabin.”

She snuggled against his side and breathed out slowly. “I already forgave you, by the way. Before you came up to the cabin.”

Another ray of hope struck. “You’re okay with us being together?”

“Yes, only…”

The silence went on for far longer than it should have.

“I don’t like sentences that end with ‘only’. Tell me what you’re thinking.” He squeezed her fingers. “Tell me how I can be there for you.”

This was about so much more than sex, or liking how he felt around her. How much he admired her, and wanted to be with her all the time. It was everything at the same time, and so much
more
than everything added together.

Somehow falling in love had taken all those bits that were enjoyable by themselves—very enjoyable, he would admit—and churned them to create an entirely new sensation. Something as vital to him as air.

There was no denying it any longer. He’d fallen in love.

She twisted in her seat, grimacing as she adjusted position. With one elbow resting on the dashboard, she hung onto his good arm with her other hand so she could look at him, and he could peek glances without driving them off the mountainside.

“I need to deal with the ranchers. I need to have that put behind me, and the only way it’s going to be solved is when Mathis gets back. He had enough faith in me to put me in charge, and whether I screwed up like the men think—”

“You didn’t.”

His insistence dragged a reluctant smile from her as she finished her thought. “—or if they’re a bunch of idiots, I have an obligation to Mathis to finish the job and see how he wants to handle it.”

That made sense. But… “What does that have to do with us?”

“It’s just a few more days. He’ll be back by Saturday, and until then, I don’t want to give anyone anymore ammunition against me.”

“Dating me isn’t a crime,” Steve drawled.

“No, but you are a distraction, and I…” She sighed. “Maybe this is mixed up and wrong, but I need to finish the damn job before I start anything new, even if the new is being with you.”

The words
horse hockey
sprang to mind, but what he said was, “I get it.”

Melody wrinkled her nose. “Then you’re smarter than I am, because part of me thinks I’m crazy. But—”

“No, I hear you. You want a fresh start. Put the things behind you that weren’t good and move forward.”

He was bullshitting one hundred percent right then because the longer they talked, the whiter her face grew, the pain in her leg obviously hitting hard.

This wasn’t the time to berate her and tell her no bloody way would he sit back and let her mope through the next few days without him to hold her hand.

But his comment did the trick. Quieted her enough that she curled up, her head on his shoulder in spite of the bumpy road carrying them back to town. Silence filled the cab, but Steve didn’t mind. He had a pretty good idea of what he wanted to say—when the time was right.

He put his arm around her and hung on tight, the way he intended to hold on for the rest of their lives.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Wake up, sweetheart.”

Cool, comfortable sheets surrounded her, along with a cloud of fog in her brain, which didn’t feel as good. “Steve?”

“I hope so. There shouldn’t be any other men in your bedroom while you’re scantily clad.”

The mattress shifted, and she looked up into his blue-grey eyes, concern creasing the corners. “Am I scantily clad?

One brow cocked higher. “There’s only one way to find out…”

Melody stretched cautiously, a smile rising to her lips. She had aches and pains in parts of her body she hadn’t expected, yet a blissfully numb sensation on her right thigh. She sat up, Steve reaching to help her, his arm curling around her shoulders.

She glanced at what she wore. “That looks an awful lot like your T-shirt.”

He shrugged. “I was all for naked, but you were insistent. You had to have something on in case there was an emergency at the clinic.”

“You’re making that up.”

His head shifted from side to side. “You also had a very strong opinion about what kind of ice cream we should stop for—one guess what type you didn’t want?”

Okay. She thought she’d woken in a fog, but it wasn’t getting any clearer. She glanced around the room, gaze settling on the alarm clock beside her bed. Two a.m.? But light was streaming in the window. She hesitated. “What time is it?”

Steve traced a finger down her shoulder and over her biceps. “Two in the afternoon.”

That made no sense. “We went out to Ian’s past three…”

She figured out the solution the same time he offered it. “You’ve slept for nearly twenty-four hours.”

The hospital. She twisted away and threw back the quilt to discover her right thigh wrapped in a crisp white bandage. She pressed lightly. The limb felt bruised, but nowhere near as painful as she’d expected.

“You can check mine too,” Steve offered. He lifted his left arm, showcasing the shiny packaging of his own. “I take it you don’t remember?”

Melody racked her memory. “We dropped off Bear at the clinic, and you took me to emergency.” She paused, pretty sure she hadn’t imagined this. “You were going to drop me off, but I made you come in with me.”

“Thus the matching bandages,” Steve agreed. His smile twisted. “We’re also going to have matching scars from the sound of it, but the scratches weren’t serious. Neither of us needed stitches—they used that tape stuff.”

She was still missing details. “How come it’s the middle of the afternoon, and how come you’re here?”

He pointed to the top of her dresser where she spotted a prescription bottle. “Painkiller. Between the post-adrenaline-rush crash, and whatever is in that prescription, you’ve been out like a light.”

She swung her legs off the edge of the bed, pulling his arm toward her to examine it closer. “Doesn’t explain why you’re here and not working.”

Then his hand cupped her face and turned her toward him, his expression gone serious. “There’s nowhere else I’m supposed to be when my girlfriend needs me.”

She wanted to complain. Protest that he wasn’t listening, because she was pretty certain they’d talked about waiting until Mathis got home.

The other part of her, the part that was being brutally honest, was damn glad he was there. She was tired of being alone and tired of being strong.

Steve traced his thumb over her cheekbone, his gaze fixed on her as if she were precious. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“I’m glad we’re both okay.” She leaned her cheek into his caress. “You don’t need to baby me.”

“Ah, there’s where you’re mistaken. This isn’t about what you need, not really.” He gazed intently at her. “This is all about me, sweetheart, because the sight of that cougar just about killed me. Not being able to protect you—
brutal
.”

She caught his hand in hers, pulling his knuckles toward her lips and giving him a kiss. “You don’t mind that I saved you?”

“Hell no. Crack shot as well as everything else you bring to the table?” He gave her a lecherous grin, and she had to fight to keep from laughing. “I’m a happy man, except I feel a little uneven on the playing field. So for the next twenty-four hours you get to just be you. Not Ms. Langley, large-animal veterinarian, taking names and kicking butt. Not the woman who had to teach a slightly stupid cowboy how to mind his Ps and Qs. Just Melody, who had a bit of a run-in with a cougar and needs some TLC.”