Cowboy's Caress. Victoria Pade

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      Chapter Two

      For a split second when Bax first woke up he thought he was back in the days of his residency when it wasn’t unusual to work a twenty-four-hour shift and catch forty winks in any empty bed he could find, at any time of day he could manage it.

      Then he remembered that he was long past that particular portion of his life and he searched his memory until he recalled that he was in Elk Creek, Wyoming, in the bed in one of the rooms in the house he’d rented.

      Carly Winters’s house.

      A wave of satisfaction washed through him.

      He was just so damn glad to be out of the city.

      He was a small-town boy at heart. Always had been. Except that the small town he’d grown up in had been in Texas rather than in Wyoming.

      It had been exciting to leave that small town and go to medical school, exciting to practice medicine in the hub of that same university since then. But he’d had a change of heart over the past couple of years. A change of heart that had made him want all he’d left behind. For himself. And for Evie Lee. Especially for Evie Lee.

      He felt as if his daughter had gotten short shrift in the parent department so far in her young life. His wife had died on the delivery table, leaving Evie Lee semiorphaned right from the get-go. And Bax knew he hadn’t been the best of dads since then.

      He’d thrown himself into his work to escape a grief that had seemed unbearable any other way, building up one of the largest medical practices in Denver. That had meant sixty- and seventy-hour workweeks, being on call most nights and weekends, and generally putting fatherhood second.

      It had meant leaving Evie Lee in the care of a string of live-in nannies. Not all of whom had treated her well.

      He wasn’t proud of any of that.

      But he was going to rectify it.

      Here and now, he thought as he opened his eyes to glance at the clock on the bedside table.

      Three o’clock on a Sunday afternoon and a new life had begun for both him and Evie Lee. He’d make sure of it.

      Bax yawned, stretched, then clasped his hands behind his head and had a look around the room that had been predesignated his.

      The bed was a fair-size four-poster. At the foot of it was a television on a stand against the facing wall. A tall, five-drawer dresser was to the right of the bed. And a door that no doubt led to a closet was to the left.

      The whole room was painted a serene shade of beige, with the woodworking all stained oak. Crisp tieback white curtains bordered the two large windows on either side of the television, with scalloped shades pulled down to the sills of both.

      The room was comfortable. Functional. Charmingly old-fashioned.

      He liked it.

      And he wondered if this had been Carly Winters’s own room.

      Probably not, he decided. It didn’t smell the way she did.

      Not that it smelled anything but clean. But he sort of wished it had that faintly lingering scent of honey and almonds that he’d caught a whiff of when he’d carried her to the porch. It was a nice smell.

      A nice smell to go with a nice-looking lady, he thought.

      Sure, she’d shown the wear and tear of a long night in an emergency room. But despite that, she was still a head-turner.

      Besides smelling great, her hair was so smooth and silky and shiny, it had made him want to yank that pencil out of it and watch the tresses drift like layers of silk down around her face.

      A face that glowed with flawless, satiny skin.

      She had a rosebud of a mouth that was pink and perfect and much too appealing even without lipstick. She also had a cute, perky nose that was dotted with only a few pale freckles he wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been so close.

      Artfully arched eyebrows and long, thick lashes accentuated stunning, unusual eyes, too. Brown eyes, but shot through with golden streaks that made them the color of topaz. Sparkling topaz.

      Her body hadn’t been anything to ignore, either. She was on the small side, weighing next to nothing when he’d lifted her. But petite stature or not, when she’d put her arm around his shoulder to help bear some of the burden, he’d felt a more than adequate breast press enticingly into his shoulder.

      Oh yeah, it was all nice. Very nice…

      And strange that he should remember everything about her so vividly.

      Particularly when the other woman he’d met that morning was just a vague blur in his mind. He wasn’t even sure he’d recognize the other woman again if he met her on the street, and for the life of him he couldn’t recall her name.

      Yet every detail of Carly Winters was right there in his mind’s eye.

      Making him stare up at the ceiling with a smile on his face…

      Cut it out, he told himself.

      But that was easier said than done.

      In fact, it was damn difficult to get her out of his thoughts, he discovered when he tried.

      Maybe it was just that he was in her house, in a room that might have been hers. In a bed she might have slept in…

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