The Cop. Jan Hudson
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Red, it won’t wash. There’s no way in hell I can work homicide again, and I’m not cut out for being a desk jockey. You got a cigarette on you?”
Kelly patted all her pockets. “Nope. Fresh out.” She fished a small sucker from her purple lab coat. “This is the best I can do.” When he reached for it, she popped it back into her pocket. “The examination comes first. Take off your pants.”
“Don’t try to play games with me, Red,” he growled. “I eat little gals like you for lunch.”
Kelly burst into laughter. His scowl only deepened. “Try it,” she said, then deepened her voice to add in her best Dirty Harry imitation, “Make…my…day.”
She thought the corner of his mouth twitched upward again, but she couldn’t be sure because he suddenly hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his faded sweats and stripped them off. Next the shirt landed on the floor beside the pants, and he turned to her. “Examine away.”
Her woman’s breath caught for less than a heartbeat before the physician kicked in. “I see the incisions seem to be healing nicely. Let me get my gear.” She retrieved her bag from the bed and took out her stethoscope. Automatically she held the diaphragm in her fist and blew on the metal, warming it before she placed it on his chest. “Take a deep breath.”
After listening to his heart and lungs, she carefully checked the surgical sites and damage to his chest and back. The scar from the exit wound was more vicious than the one from the surgeon’s scalpel. She knew that things had been touch-and-go with him for several days after he was shot and that he had spent weeks in a Houston hospital before his folks had brought him back home with them to finish recuperating. Naconiche was a small town, and everybody had known about his gun battle with a murder suspect. Too, she shared an office suite with Noah Ware, the surgeon who was Cole’s local doctor.
When the time came to check his left hip and leg, Kelly pulled up a nearby straight chair and sat down to examine the places.
“Ugly looking mess, isn’t it?” Cole asked.
“I’ve seen much worse. I worked in Ben Taub ER in Houston for a year. I saw more gunshot wounds than most doctors see in a lifetime. Bet this hurt like a son of a gun,” she said as she gently probed the sites, which were now patched with pins. Kelly asked him to move and bend, then walk a few steps.
He had to use his walker and limped badly.
“Your injuries are healing properly, but it’s imperative that you go to physical therapy daily,” Kelly said. “I can’t find any reason to contraindicate PT, and it will do wonders for your recovery.”
“Sure you haven’t got a cigarette?”
She took a patch from her bag, peeled off the back and slapped it on his right hip.
“What’s that?”
“A nicotine patch. I’ll have the drugstore deliver some more. You’re not to smoke a cigarette under any circumstance, and don’t pester your folks to buy any for you.” She retrieved the sugar-free lollipop from her pocket. “Suck on this. It’ll help some.”
He scowled at the smiley face on the plastic-wrapped candy. “Like hell it will.”
She glanced at her watch. “Okay, hardcase, I have to get back to my office, and you need to keep your PT appointment at the hospital.”
“No.”
“No? For goodness’ sakes, why not?”
He glared at her for several seconds, but she didn’t so much as blink. Finally he turned away and mumbled something.
“Say again.”
“I said I can’t get down the damned stairs, and I’m not going to have my brothers carry me down like a baby.”
Pride. Big time. She nodded. “I understand.”
“I should have never given in to my folks and come here. I should have stayed in Houston. Mama’s hovering is driving me nuts.”
And his recalcitrance was driving his mother nuts. She nodded again. “I’ll work on a solution, Cole. You can get dressed now.”
He glanced down at his nakedness. “Bother you, Red?”
“Nope. But you might look a little better if you’d shave.” With that perfect exit line, she turned and walked from the room.
“Red,” he called after her.
She stopped at the door.
“Forget something?”
Kelly turned and saw Cole standing there, still naked, with her medical bag dangling from his fingers.
She stalked back, grabbed her bag and hurried out. His laughter followed her as she clattered down the stairs.
Miss Nonie, Cole’s mother, waited for her at the foot of the stairs that ended in the back of the Double Dip ice-cream parlor. Nonie and Wes Outlaw lived in the apartment upstairs from the business that Nonie had run since she retired from teaching and Wes retired as sheriff of the East Texas county. Two or three years before, the couple had divided their extensive ranch property among their five children, leaving their big house to their son Frank and his twins, and moved into town.
Miss Nonie looked worried. “How is he, Dr. Kelly?”
Kelly patted Nonie’s back. “He’s doing very well considering what he’s been through. He simply needs time and physical therapy.”
“But he refuses to go to physical therapy. His father and I have talked to him. His brothers have tried to talk to him. He won’t listen to any of us, and we’re all at our wit’s end.”
Kelly smiled. “He is a little hardheaded. Let me work on an idea that I have, and I’ll get back to you later today. How about an ice-cream cone for the road? Butter pecan would be good.”
Between the ice cream and leaving her coat in Cole’s room, Kelly nearly froze before she got to her car. An early December norther had blown through the day before, and the morning temperatures were in the forties. But she’d sooner be switched with a peach limb than go back for her jacket. She’d pick it up later.
COLE STOOD at the window and watched Kelly Martin drive away. Now there was a woman. And a doctor of all things. Tall, long-legged and gorgeous. Any man would give a month’s pay to have that curly tumble of red hair spread across his pillow. With those snapping green eyes and kiss-me lips, she revved his motors more than any female he’d run across in years—for all the good it did him now. Hell, he couldn’t even dress himself without breaking out in a sweat.
He snagged his clothes from the floor and hobbled the few steps to his bed. Sure enough, by the time he’d pulled on the pants and shirt he was breathing hard and dripping wet. He wasn’t any use to himself or anybody else like he was. If he hadn’t been so doped up on painkillers, he would never have agreed to come to Naconiche.
Of course, his apartment in Houston was on the third floor, but he could have made out with pizza delivery and a few groceries from one of those online places. Here, he was worried about his mother. She ran up and down those stairs a dozen times a day checking on him, and she was no spring chicken anymore. Cole thought again about taking his brother Frank up on his offer to stay with the twins and him, but he didn’t want to impose, especially now that Frank was engaged. J.J.’s place was out—stairs again—and he was engaged, too. In fact, J.J. and Mary Beth were getting married in a few days. They had plenty going on without having to worry about their gimpy brother.
Nope, that wasn’t an option.
Hell, he knew he needed to go to PT. The sooner he got able to tend to himself, the sooner he could be out of everybody’s hair. Cole wasn’t used to being dependent on anybody, and he didn’t like being helpless. Not a damned bit.
He was just going to have to try to get down those stairs by himself.
KELLY