Our routine grew on me. I’d cook breakfast while Montana and Darius fed two thoroughbreds. He watched every inch of me while I cooked lunch and dinner.
This morning—the hardest part of the day while alone with him—my fingers pressed along his rib cage. “How does that feel? And FYI,again,this is my job. Not retaliation for the title.”
“I’m good.” He huffed, trying to sound unbothered, but his jaw ticked. He chuckled. “Doctor … Sweet Cheeks.”That dang title!
After an argument where he claimed his pain level was a three, and we settled on a five—asolidseven—I murmured, “Good. Although you’re downplaying the pain?—”
“Ain’t.”
“Mm-hmm, Montana.” I lifted the tape from his skin for further inspection. Now, every word teased against his spine as I said, “As anticipated, no signs of infection. No swelling.”
“You been washing me up good, doc.”
He’d been buttering me up with compliments, but I couldn’t allow what happened at HC&PP to get in the way. Those feelings should be dead.
I rolled fresh gauze over his torn skin. “Hold still. Need to bring this around front.”
“So you can hug Big Country and call it medical care?”
“Heh. You need to recycle that line, Montana. You used it on day one. Moreover, if you’re gonna refer to yourself in third person, I’m not the doc for you.”Dang, my little two-faced self.Nobody had to know my Zuri monologues. Besides, self-talk kept my name alive.
Him?
Just being his usual impossible self.
I stepped around Montana, the gauze brushing the smooth, brown divots. I’d gone through the motions the first few days. Cleansed his wound day and night, cooked. But today, I woke on the wrong side of the bed because I missed laughing with him.
Missed our jokes and how I semi-felt like we were besties—didn’t have any example to assess—but we teased each other. He loved bringing up how I almost got him naked when we met.
Now I didn’t have a fixation device. And my hot shower this morning did nothing. Absolutely nothing for me.
Yes, you do have something to focus on, dummy, the gauze.
But my eyes landed on his. Mistake of my life. Dark. Intense. A teasing glint. And a flicker of exhaustion he’d never admit to.
On instinct, I swatted his shoulder.
“What was that for,chère?” A chuckle bubbled through those alluring lips.
“You,”uhhhh, have been amazing and a gentleman,“left the hospital eight nights ago.”Okay, Zuri. Awkward and matter-of-fact.
“Can I hit you back? Won’t hurt unless you want.”
“Montana!”
Another chuckle, lower this time.
“Zuri.” He said my name, and my eyes zipped to his, caught under a rapture of desire. My pulse tripped.
zuri
. . .
Morning just kept coming, and this man, this tall, dimpled, and bearded danger to my sanity, watched me with the intensity of a lion, and I was a two-legged gazelle who’d wandered too close to his enclosure.
The way he just said my name? Took something out of me. The first time it rolled off his tongue in reverence, now it sounded of temptation and a Southern drawl.
My pulse tripped. My fingers froze over his chest, and my professionalism packed its bags. I played it cool. Gave him my best deer-in-the-headlights impression. “Huh?”
