The M.D. She Had To Marry

“Good.”

His handsome face had settled into a scowl. She watched him rearrange it to something more gentle. “We’ve got another hour and a half before we have to make our appearance at your cousin’s house. Why don’t you go on back behind that curtain and lie down again?”

She blew a tangled curl out of her eye. “No, thanks. I’m wide awake now.” She marched to the sleeping nook, ducked inside and came out with her lace-up hiking boots.

His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What are you doing?”

She sat in the rocker and pulled on one of the boots. It wasn’t easy, working around the bulge of her stomach, but she’d had a lot of practice in the past few weeks. Huffing and puffing, she tied the boot, pulled on the other one, tied it up, too.

“Lacey.”

She stood, turned to the bureau, picked up the brush lying on top and went to work on her hair. Their eyes met in the mirror. “I’m going out behind the cabin a ways. There’s a creek that runs by back there. Very picturesque. I’ve been doing a few sketches. Willows and cottonwoods, a few cows and their calves…” He was scowling again. She pretended not to notice. “I’ll be back in an hour or so, in plenty of time for dinner with Zach and Tess and the family.”

“Are you sure that you should—?”

She turned and pointed the brush at him. “Don’t, all right? Just…don’t. Nothing’s going to happen to me down by the creek. It’s barely a hundred yards from the back door, for heaven’s sake.”

“What if some big bull comes at you?”

“It’s not an issue.”

“This is a cattle ranch, isn’t it? If I’m not mistaken, bulls live on cattle ranches.”

She struggled to contain her building exasperation. “There’s a barbed-wire fence that runs between this particular spot on the creek and those cattle I mentioned. If there are any bulls nearby, they would most likely be on the other side of that fence.”

“But—”

“Read my lips. I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll come with—”

“Logan. Stop. If you insist on staying here, in a twenty-by-twenty-foot space with me, we’re going to have to give each other a little breathing room. I am going alone.”

He shut his mouth, made another growling sound and then dropped to the side of the daybed. “Great. Fine. Do what you want to do. You never in your life did anything else.” He braced his elbows on his spread knees and shook his head at his stocking feet.

Tenderness washed through her. She set down the brush. “You’re the one who needs more rest. Come on. Stretch out and sleep for an hour. You’ll have the cabin all to yourself. Forget all your cares and I’ll wake you up when I get back.”

He didn’t say anything, just went on staring at his socks.

“Logan…”

“All right. I’ll take a damn nap.” He lay down on his back with his feet over the edge, turned his face to the wall and shut his eyes.

Smiling to herself, Lacey collected her sketch pad and a couple of nice, soft pencils from the chair where she’d set them earlier. Before she went out, she couldn’t resist whispering, “Sleep well.”

“Thanks,” he grumbled, neither turning his head nor opening his eyes. “Be careful, for God’s sake.”

“I will, Logan. I promise you.”

He was sound asleep when she returned, lying in almost the same position she’d left him in, his hands folded on his chest. His head, however, was turned toward the room now.

Lacey stood over him, admiring the beauty of his body in repose, thinking that maybe she could do a few sketches of him sleeping—nothing too challenging right now. She wasn’t up for it. But she could certainly line out a few ideas in pencil.

Then, later, after the baby came, she could go back to what she’d started, delve more deeply. She loved the softness of his face when he was sleeping. And something else. Some…determined vulnerability. Some aspect of his will that came through even when he was unconscious, some sense that he distrusted the necessity of surrendering to sleep.

He had a wonderful face, handsome in a classic way. And very masculine—she’d always thought so, even before she realized she was in love with him. A broad forehead, a strongly defined supraorbital arch, so the eyes were set deep, shadowed in their sockets. Cheekbones and jawline were clean and clear-cut and his finely shaped mouth possessed just enough softness to betray the sensuality she’d discovered with such delight during their five incredible days together last fall.

Though he didn’t know it, she had painted him. A number of nudes, from memory, in the first months after their affair. She believed they were her best work so far. And she had exercised great ingenuity, in all of them, so as not to reveal his face.

Had she been wrong to paint him without his knowledge? After all, Logan Severance was not the kind of man who posed for nude studies—let alone the kind who would allow them to be hung in an art gallery for all the world to see. Those paintings weren’t in any gallery yet. But someday they would be. Lacey had told herself that she’d protected his privacy by obscuring his face. But sometimes she felt just a little bit guilty about them, wondered what his reaction would be if he ever saw them—which he would probably have to. Someday.

She wasn’t particularly looking forward to that day.

“What are you staring at?”

Caught thoroughly off guard, Lacey gasped and stepped back. She could have sworn he was sound asleep just seconds ago. But those eyes looking into hers now were clear and alert.

“Well?”

The truth slipped out—or at least, some of it. “I was thinking that I’d like to sketch you while you’re sleeping.”

“Why?”

“Something in your face. Something…unguarded, but unwillingly so. It’s very appealing.”

He grinned. “You like me best unconscious, is that what you’re telling me?”

She’d regained her composure enough to reply smartly, “I wouldn’t have put it that way, but now that you’ve done it yourself…”

“Marry me. You can watch me sleep for the rest of our lives.”

She resolutely did not respond to that. “We should go. It’s quarter of six.”

At the big side-gabled wood frame ranch house, Zach introduced his family to Logan.

“This is Tess.” He put his arm around his wife. “And our daughters, Starr and Jobeth.”

The older of the two girls, a beauty of about eighteen, with black hair and Elizabeth Taylor eyes, gave him a polite “Hello.” The younger one, Jobeth, who looked ten or eleven, smiled shyly and nodded.

Next, Logan shook Edna Heller’s slim, fine-boned hand and learned that she had once been the ranch’s housekeeper but now was one of the family; her only daughter had married a Bravo cousin, Cash. She lived in the foreman’s cottage, which was just across the drive from the main house.

“And this is Ethan John,” Tess said. She held up a big, healthy blue-eyed baby. “Ethan is just six months old today.” The baby gurgled out something that sounded almost like a greeting.

They ate at the long table in the Bravos’ formal dining room. Ethan John sat in his high chair and chewed on a teething ring and occasionally let out a happy, crowing laugh.

“Ethan’s already had his dinner,” Tess explained. “We enjoy having him with us during meals, but we don’t enjoy watching the food fly. So I feed him early and he sits with us and everybody’s happy.” Tess turned her smile on Logan. “Do you have children, Mr. Severance?”

Logan answered that one carefully. “Not yet.”