The Doctor Wore Boots

“Are you ready to order, sir?”

Dex heaved a sigh fraught with equal measures of impatience and frustration and looked up at the waitress watching him expectantly.

“Scotch,” he told her. “No water. And make it a double.”

She nodded and headed in the direction of the bar, weaving her way through the throngs of occupied tables and pausing occasionally to take another customer’s order.

Glancing at his watch, Dex considered whether or not to call in and inform his grandfather of the delay. He definitely wouldn’t make this afternoon’s meeting of the board. Dex frowned. Montgomery men had no tolerance for delays. There was little he could do about it, however. The old man would simply have to fend for himself. His frown relaxed a bit with that thought. Charles Dexter Montgomery, Senior, was getting a little soft anyway. Sparring with the sharks who made up the board of M3I would be good for him.

Considering the boring financial conference Dex had just endured, it was only fair. This was the third conference he’d attended in the last two months. He was sick of hearing how M3I could improve its profit margin. Dex clenched his jaw. Modern Medical Maintenance, Inc., affectionately known as M3I, maintained a very healthy profit margin. Dex and his grandfather saw to that. They’d started with a single facility in Atlanta and had built a medical empire. M3I now consisted of a chain of cutting-edge facilities throughout the Southeast. The business was focused on providing quality medical care and making a profit.

Not necessarily in that order.

“Anything else?” The waitress placed the drink in front of him and smiled. Not a thank-you-for-your-patronage kind of smile, but one that became a predatory gleam in her eyes. She was flirting.

“No, thank you.” He paid the lady and turned his attention to his drink. He didn’t need a flirtatious waitress and he damn sure didn’t need two hours in a bar.

He needed work.

Dex almost laughed out loud at that one. What he did wasn’t work, it was choreography. He led a well-rehearsed dance to the sound of money changing hands. The medical degree and license he held were mere icing on the cake of the distinguished position as chairman of the board. Dr. Dexter Montgomery. It had the right ring to it even if it wasn’t for practicing medicine. No doctor with the Montgomery name would dare sully his hands treating patients. Not when there was money to be made.

Dex stopped himself. He always got this way when he spent any length of time away from the office. That’s why he all but lived at the office. Work was his life. He knew nothing else, didn’t even have a hobby. And why should he? He had plans. Plans that didn’t include silly, sentimental musings.

“To profit margins,” he muttered and downed a hefty gulp of Scotch.

The hair on the back of his neck suddenly stood on end. Frowning again, he tilted his head left then right, stretching to relieve some of the tension. But that little niggling sensation of being watched just wouldn’t go away. He glanced around the room, then did a double-take. A couple of tables away a man, his cowboy hat on the table before him, sat, seemingly paralyzed, the glass in his hand halfway to his mouth.

Dex registered surprise first…then incredulity. The cowboy was dressed differently than he was, no Armani or Cardin, but he looked exactly the same. Same thick dark hair, cropped short. Maybe his was a fraction longer. Same dark eyes…same square jaw…same…everything.

Dex pushed to his feet, the legs of his chair scraping across the tiled floor. Before he had the good sense to stop himself and think about what he was doing he’d crossed to the man’s table, passed his drink to his left hand and extended his right. “Dex Montgomery,” he said numbly.

Apparently shocked himself, the cowboy stared first at Dex’s hand, then at him. “Ty Cooper,” he responded stiffly. His callused hand closed over Dex’s. The contact was brief but something passed between them. Some strange energy that felt alien but somehow oddly familiar.

Dex shook his head in question. “Who…? How…?” This was surreal. The man didn’t just resemble him—he looked exactly like him.

Apparently at a loss himself, Ty gestured to the empty chair on the opposite side of the small table. “Maybe you’d better have a seat.”

Dumbfounded, Dex complied. “This isn’t possible. I mean…” He shook his head again. “I’m a doctor and even I’m at a loss for an explanation.” This couldn’t be. It was like looking into a mirror. It was bizarre.

The other man scrubbed a hand over his chin. “You’re right, partner. It’s a little weird looking at your reflection in another man’s face. Maybe we’re related somehow?” He laughed nervously. “You know, distantly. Identical cousins or something.”

Dex lifted one shoulder, then let it fall. “That’s possible, I suppose.” A memory pinged him. “Did you say Cooper?” he asked, almost hesitantly.

Ty nodded. “Of Rolling Bend, Montana. We have a cattle ranch called the—”

“Rolling Bend, Montana?” A chunk of ice formed in Dex’s stomach.

“Yeah.” Ty swallowed hard. “You know the place?”

Dex’s gaze settled fully onto his. He couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “My mother’s name was Tara Cooper. She was born in Rolling Bend.”

Ty signaled the passing waitress. “Ma’am, we’re gonna need another round here,” he said, his voice hollow.

She glanced at Dex, then started visibly when her gaze landed back on Ty. “Doubles for doubles,” she said with a giggle. “Are you guys twins or something?”

Dex glared at her and she scurried away. Ty leaned forward as if what he had to say was too unbelievable to utter out loud. “Tara Cooper was my mother.”

A choked sound, not quite a laugh, burst from Dex. “But my mother died when I was three months old.”

“My birth date is May 21, 1970,” Ty countered. “My mother died in an accident with my father when I was three months old.”

“Oh yeah? Well, so did mine. But I don’t have any siblings,” Dex argued, unable to comprehend what he could see with his own eyes.

“Neither do I—well, except for my adopted brothers.”

Dex gestured vaguely. “Maybe there were two Tara Coopers in Rolling Bend?”

Ty moved his head slowly from side to side. “We’re the only Cooper clan in that neck of the woods.”

“I’m certain there’s some reasonable explanation,” Dex suggested. Adrenaline pulsed through his veins making his heart pound. This man couldn’t be his brother. That was impossible.

“There’s an explanation all right,” Ty said flatly. “We’ve been had.”

THREE HOURS and too many drinks to remember later, Dex had concluded the only reasonable explanation. Ty Cooper was not only his brother, but his identical twin. They had both missed their scheduled flights home, but neither cared.

The stories of their parents’ whirlwind courtship, marriage and tragic deaths matched down to the dates. Ty had been told, as had Dex, that he had no other family. Dex could just imagine the reaction of his grandfather when his only son had married a rancher’s daughter. Dex had only been told his mother’s name, little else.

“What I want to know,” Ty said, his speech a little slower, thicker, “is how the hell did they decide who would take who?”

For one long moment the two just looked at each other. Dex wondered briefly what his life would have been like if he’d been chosen by the other set of grandparents, but he couldn’t begin to imagine. Considering his grandfather Montgomery’s penchant for absolute control, Dex couldn’t help thinking how the old man would react when he found out that Dex had learned the truth. He had no doubt that his grandfather was the mastermind behind this whole scheme.

“We should show up together and stage a confrontation,” Dex commented dryly before draining his glass.

Ty grinned. “You may have something there.” Those unnervingly familiar dark eyes twinkled with mischief now. “I say we give ’em a taste of their own medicine.”

A flash of concern found its way through the warm, Scotch-induced haze now cloaking Dex. “What do you have in mind?”

Ty motioned to the waitress and then pointed to their empty glasses once more. “I’m talking about trading places, brother. For just a little while,” he added quickly. “Just long enough to teach our families a lesson.”

Dex hesitated at first, then a smile slid across his face. “Oh, that’s good. All we have to do is bring each other up to speed on how to act and what to do.” He flared his hands and inclined his head in a gesture of nonchalance. “It’s simple on my end. You leave the business decisions to the old man. I have a secretary and a financial advisor who take care of things at the office. They’ll keep you straight on the day-to-day schedule.” He paused, considering. “If a problem does come up and you need to make a financial decision on your own, use your own discretion. You are a Montgomery.”

“Same here,” Ty assured him. “I have two adopted brothers. Between them and the ranch hands, they can handle things at the Circle C. It’ll be good for both of us. We can get to know the rest of our family.”

Dex nodded, though he was more concerned at the moment with teaching his grandfather a lesson than anything else. He noted the time. “All right, then,” he said. “We have ninety minutes before our flights leave for our respective destinations. Let’s do it.”

Ty folded his arms over his chest. “You go first. I have a feeling your folks are a lot more complicated than mine.”

Dex didn’t bother to tell him that complicated was not the word he was looking for, instead he told Ty Cooper everything he would need to know in order to play Dexter Montgomery for just a little while.