A Cold Creek Christmas Surprise. RaeAnne Thayne

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СКАЧАТЬ laughed. Jake and Maggie Dalton had three of the most adorable kids around, but they did have a lot of energy. “Well, that is a kind offer, I’m sure, but I would hate to deprive you of all that father–kid bonding time.”

      “Well, you’ve got my cell number. Call me if you have any concerns, particularly if you find any altered mental status or confusion.” He paused and gave a little laugh. “I should probably warn you, though, she’s a little, er, dopey from the pain meds. This doesn’t count.”

      Jake’s cautionary words made him more than a little curious. Sarah had seemed so contained back at his house. Even when her arm had to be screaming pain at her, she had fought tears and tried to be tough through it.

      He walked into the treatment room, not quite sure what to expect.

      Dopey was an understatement. Sarah Whitmore was higher than a weather balloon in a windstorm.

      As soon as he walked into the room, she beamed at him like he had just rescued a basketful of kittens from a rampaging grizzly.

      “Hi. Hi there. I know you, right?”

      He glanced over at the doc, who just barely managed to hide a grin. “Er, yes. I’m Ridge Bowman. You fell down my stairs a couple of hours ago.”

      “Oh. Riiiight.” She beamed brightly at him. “Wow, you are one good-looking cowboy. Has anybody ever told you that?”

      Jake made a sound halfway between a cough and a laugh. Ridge glared at him before he turned back to Sarah. “Er, not lately. No.”

      “Well, you are. Take it from me. Of course, what do I know? I don’t know many good-looking cowboys. Or that many good-looking noncowboys, for that matter.” She frowned, her features solemn. “I really need to get out more.”

      Jake laughed out loud, and Ridge gave him a quelling look. “Geez, how much did you give her?”

      “Sorry,” the physician said. “The dose was absolutely appropriate, but I’m thinking she must be one of those people who are hypersensitive to certain narcotics. Sometimes you have to titrate to an individual’s particular sensitivities.”

      “Apparently. Okay, Sarah. Let’s get you back to the ranch.”

      She started to stand up, but Jake laid a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Easy there. We’ll bring in a wheelchair to get you out to the car.”

      “I can walk. I broke my arm, not my legs.” She didn’t precisely call Jake stupid, but her tone conveyed the same message.

      “It’s a clinic rule. Sorry, Sarah.”

      “Well, it’s a dumb rule.”

      He chuckled. “I’ll take it up with the clinic director when she gets back from shopping with her mother in Jackson. Joan, can you bring a wheelchair?” he called out into the hall.

      A moment later, one of the clinic nurses pushed in a chair. Jake and Ridge helped her transfer into it, with much grumbling on Sarah’s part.

      While Jake and the nurse pushed her toward the front of the clinic, Ridge went out to pull his truck up to the doors. Wishing he had brought the ranch SUV, which had a lower suspension and was easier to climb into, he tried to help her up into the cab. In the long run, he settled on lifting her up when she couldn’t quite manage to navigate the running boards.

      When she was settled, he shut the door to keep in all the heat and turned back to Jake.

      “What else do I need to know?”

      “You’re going to want to make sure she drinks plenty of fluids tonight and keeps on a regular cycle of the pain meds, though you might want to dial that down a little. She’ll probably sleep off most of what we gave her here. You’ll want to check on her every couple of hours, make sure she’s still lucid. Any problems, again, call my cell number. I should be home all night and can run to your place in a minute, though I might be dragging three kids along with me.”

      Ridge reached out to shake his hand, grateful for the other man. Jake Dalton had been good for Pine Gulch. He had the skills and the bedside manner that could probably have built a lucrative family medicine practice anywhere. Instead, he had chosen to come back to his own small hometown. In the years since, he and his wife, Magdalena Cruz, had really thrown their hearts into helping the community, sponsoring free clinics out of their own pockets and taking anybody who needed health care.

      “I’m not worried. We should be fine.”

      “Are you sure? Maybe Becca or Laura can help,” Jake suggested, referring to Ridge’s sisters-in-law.

      “I’ll keep trying the cleaning company in Jackson. They might have an emergency contact number on her employment records.”

      “Good thinking. Drive safe. I think the storm is going to be here earlier than the weather forecasters said. No question about Pine Gulch having a white Christmas this year, I guess.”

      “Is there ever?” he said drily as he climbed into the pickup truck.

      After making sure his guest was safely buckled in, he waved to Jake and backed out of the parking lot then headed toward the River Bow, a few miles out of town, through a lightly falling snow.

      “Your truck smells like Christmas,” she said, rather sleepily.

      He pointed to the little air freshener shaped like an evergreen tree that hung from the rearview mirror. “You can give my daughter credit for that. She complains that it usually smells like shi—er, manure.”

      “You have a daughter?”

      He nodded. “Yep. Destry’s her name. She’ll be twelve in a couple of months.”

      “Like the movie with James Stewart.”

      “Something like that.” His late ex-wife had been fascinated with the old western Destry Rides Again, probably because she fancied herself a Marlene Dietrich wannabe. She had loved the name, and at that point, he would have done anything to try saving his marriage.

      “Where is she?”

      “Er, who?”

      “Your daughter. Destry.”

      Ah. That was easy. Explaining that his ex-wife took off a few months after their daughter was born would have been tougher.

      “She stayed at her cousin’s house last night, but she’s supposed to come home later tonight.”

      “Oh, that’s nice. I have twenty-four kids.”

      He jerked his gaze from the road just long enough to gape at her. “Twenty-four?”

      “Yes. Last year it was only twenty-two. The year before that, I had twenty-five. I had the biggest class in the first grade.”

      “You’re a teacher?”

      She nodded, though her head barely moved on the headrest and her eyes began to drift closed. “Yes,” she mumbled. “I teach first grade at Sunny View Elementary School. I’m a great teacher.”

      “I’m СКАЧАТЬ