Chapter 1
Eighteen months later
Megan Fuller,M.D. paused outside the exam room door, smoothing her white coat out of habit, patting her pocket to check that the stethoscope was still there. She pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose. They needed an adjustment. They’d been slipping allday.
Lastpatient.
Based on how her day was going, inside she could expect to find a crotchety grandpa or a talkative mom with a toddler. She hadn't had an appointment end on time allweek.
She glanced at the patient chart in her hand, squinting at the tiny type. Dan Evans. Crotchety grandpa itwas.
She only let herself breathe for a moment, then pasted on a smile, knocked softly, and opened thedoor.
A man looked up from where he sat on the exam table. But this was nograndpa.
He was shirtless, and his muscled shoulders stretched for miles. His abs were defined, and she pretended her quick perusal was simple professional interest even as heat suffused hercheeks.
"Hello. I'm Doctor Fuller," she saidquickly.
He nodded, his chocolate eyes darting away, lashes a dark smudge against his cheekbones as he stared at thefloor.
His jaw was hidden by two days of scruff, but he had an elegant nose that defied the ruggedness of his features. His hair was... a mess. It looked as if it'd been shorn, buzzed almost to his scalp, but was now growing out—that awkward stage in between two malehairstyles.
It did not detract from hisappearance.
As she stepped into the room, she saw the cowboy hat atop his button-up shirt, both lying on the chair in thecorner.
Acowboy.
She pushed back the instant flare of attraction—how anyone could not be attracted to the man was beyond her—and let her physician's eyes catalog. His tension was obvious in his grip on the exam table and the muscle ticking in his jaw. Had she offended him with the perusal she couldn't help? Should she apologize? Pretend it hadn'thappened?
"To what do I owe the honor of your visit today?" she asked, hoping a bit of humor might ease them both into theappointment.
"Stitches."
He twisted his torso and gave her a glimpse of the gash across his ribs, beneath hisarm.
"Uh-oh." She set the chart down on the counter and moved to the sink to scrub her hands, putting her back to him momentarily. "Please don't tell me you got it doing something reckless like bullriding."
He didn'trespond.
She glanced over her shoulder to see his eyes cut away. As if he'd been watching her while her back wasturned.
"Or a farm implement gone rogue?" She grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser and leaned her hips against the counter to dry herhands.
The cowboy didn't look up, didn't crack even a hint of asmile.
"I tried to butterfly it, but the bandages wouldn't hold." He spoke to the floor. As a former ER doctor from Houston, she was used to all different reactions from patients. From talkative to comatose, from patients handcuffed to the bed screaming obscenities, to laboring mothers. In Houston, the cowboy's reaction wouldn't have blipped her radar as unusual. But she'd taken over the family practice in Taylor Hills two weeks ago, and every single person she'd seen had chatted her ear off. From the grandmothers who detailed their entire medical histories, to the men in their mid-forties who questioned her credentials because she looked younger than her thirty-five years, they all wanted totalk.
Not thecowboy.
Fine. She needed to get home to Julianne and Bradyanyway.
"Let's take a look." She stepped to the exam table, unable to douse her awareness of his muscledform.
Ignore it.Pretend he's agrandpa.
Her internal instructions didn't help. Especially when she touched the corded back and hestartled.
