Healing Her Boss's Heart. Dianne Drake

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      “So, I’ve got a gun at my back and this belligerent man resisting everything I was trying to do. My only hope was to sneak in a sedative and wait until it took him down enough that I could drag him out into the street.

      “Trust me, he wasn’t easy. I ended up with a broken nose, a sprained wrist and more bruises than I could count. But today he’s alive and well and embellishing his story on his radio sports talk show every chance he gets. He was the hardest work I’ve ever had. So if you’ve got something harder, bring it on. I’m ready for it.”

      “Well, try doing that dangling on the end of a rope extended out over a six-thousand-foot drop, then we’ll talk.”

      She laughed. “OK, so you’ve got me beat. But let me just say this. The reason you should let me into your program is that, so far, my life has been all about getting myself to a place that’s more of a challenge than the last place I was. I take the risks. I meet the challenges. But I also get the results. If you give me this opportunity—and you know you want to—you stand a fair chance of getting exactly what you want out of this program.” This time when she smiled at him she wrinkled her nose. She hadn’t meant to because it came so close to...flirting. And she didn’t flirt. Never flirted. Never wanted to find herself in the position of having to deal with the results. Yet she’d just wrinkled her nose...

      “Which would be...?”

      “Me,” she said. “And all my experience.”

      “You, the person who doesn’t follow orders. So, tell me. How am I going to deal with that? Because there’s no room for it in my program.”

      “Sounds like you’ve just accepted me.”

      “Maybe I have.”

      “In that case, all I can say is I’ll try to do better. I want this. I don’t want to go over the top and ruin my chances. So I’ll do everything I can to make sure I don’t.”

      “Won’t that be fighting the natural woman? Because I see what you’re made of, and I’m not sure you can fight it.”

      “Then accept me provisionally, or put me on probation. I want this. I want to be in a place where I’m needed. Where I can make a difference. And I can do that here—for you.”

      “Not for me, Carrie. For the people who’ll need you. But you’re tempting me. I’m concerned, though, that we’ve got all kinds of experience here you’ve never had. Mountains, rivers, wilderness, wildlife...” He shrugged. “Since you’ve always been a city girl, you won’t be afraid to take it on, will you?”

      “Nothing’s ever scared me.” Not since the night they’d taken her away from her mother and thrown her in a foster home for her own benefit. Her mom had been a drunk. A drug addict. And Carrie remembered lying on the cot in the large room full of other scared kids, listening to so many of them cry. She’d cried, too, that night. She’d become one of the many. But she’d been old enough to realize that she couldn’t be just one of the many if she wanted to survive. She couldn’t be scared. Couldn’t cry. And after that night she hadn’t allowed anything to scare her. She shook her head, clenched her jaw. “No, it doesn’t scare me.”

      “You do realize you probably wouldn’t have the opportunity to join the police force here. At least, not in the same capacity as in Chicago.”

      “That’s fine. I want to be a paramedic first anyway. I only went through police training so I could specialize as a tactical paramedic, and it was required of me. Of course, if becoming the town sheriff or anything comes with a horse and a cowboy hat...”

      “Nope. He drives a mountain-worthy SUV and, as far as I know, the only hat I’ve ever seen him in is a bright orange stocking cap he wears when he’s out in the woods.”

      “Well, I don’t look good in orange, so I may have to find some other kind of work here to help me support myself. Maybe something part-time in your emergency department. If there’s an opening.”

      “Well, like I already said, I do have some concerns. I’ll be honest about that. But if you can keep your over-exuberance under control, you’re in. The term is eight weeks for the initial part of the training, at least forty hours a week, with continuing education follow-ups until you’re certified. You’ll be on call for any and all emergencies during your training. The assignments will be my choice, not yours. So, do you want this?”

      “I let my apartment go back in Chicago, sold my furniture to get me out here and get me set up so, yes, I want this. Now, can my dog get some training on this course along with me?”

      “You have a dog?”

      “Big one, with a good tracking sense. Smart. Trains easily. I’ve always thought she’d be great in the field.”

      Jack dropped his head back against the chair and let out a long sigh. “You’re going to insist on the dog, aren’t you?”

      “Well, maybe not insist so much as try to persuade. There can be advantages.”

      He stared straight at her. “You never quit, do you?”

      She smiled, feeling as happy about this new opportunity as she’d ever felt about anything. “Never.”

      Jack’s response was to groan. Simply groan, then shut his eyes.

       Chapter Two

      CARRIE HANDED A dog treat to Bella, her large, black Labrador-mutt mix, and climbed into the pickup truck next to her, nudging Bella back over to the passenger’s side. “We’re in,” she said to her companion. Bella and Carrie had been together for a year now, resulting from an unintentional meeting. Bella had gotten caught up in some gunfire—an innocent passerby—and had taken a bullet to her hindquarter. Nothing serious—just a flesh wound. But she’d needed patching, and Carrie happened to be the one on the scene who could do that. Only problem was, after she’d dropped Bella off at the closest veterinarian’s office for better care, the bill had come to her since Bella was a stray. So, because she’d paid for the dog’s care, she’d kept the dog. Best thing she’d ever done. “He seems nice enough. Not very personable, but we’re not here to make friends, are we?” she asked her friend, as she eased her truck forward and started off down Marrell’s main street toward the one-room garage apartment she was renting.

      By the time she reached her temporary home. Carrie was more than ready to go inside, kick back and spend the evening reading a medical journal. Maybe open a can of soup and heat it up over a single burner hot plate and snuggle in. She hadn’t expected to live in the lap of luxury, coming to Montana, but she’d hoped for something better than this. One room, a foldout sofa that converted to a bed, a tiny kitchen table for two with a wobbly leg, a chair. But it was warm, and given that it was almost October, and she’d already been caught up in light snow flurries, that warmth was a bonus. That, plus the fact that there was a little stretch of open land across the road where she could walk Bella without having to go too far.

      “There’s no place to go,” she said, adjusting her cell phone to speaker so she could get comfortable talking to her former roomie, Hannah Clarkson. Hannah was a nurse practitioner who managed a small satellite clinic for one of Chicago’s leading hospitals. “I knew I’d be getting into some pretty remote areas, but I didn’t expect it to be quite so...isolated.”

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