The Cop

Cole Younger Outlaw turned from the bedroom window, and his eyes swept her with a slow, clothes-stripping scrutiny that sucked the air from her lungs. One corner of his mouth twitched upward. “Tell you what, Red,” he said in a low rumble that sent an acre of goose bumps racing over her skin. “I’ll pull off my pants if you’ll pull off yours.”

For a nanosecond she actually considered taking him up on the offer. He was without a doubt the most…phenomenal man she’d ever encountered. Even in ragged sweats and with several days’ growth of dark beard, sex appeal oozed from his pores and wafted across the room like nitrous oxide. Hard. Dangerous. Survival instincts would have sent a lesser woman screaming from the room, which, she was sure, was what he intended.

She was made of sterner stuff.

“That’s not an option, Mr. Outlaw. And please don’t call me Red. My name is Kelly Martin. Dr. Kelly Martin.”

His dark brows lifted a tad, and he gave her another slow perusal. “You sure don’t look like any doctor I’ve seen lately.” He flashed a full-fledged grin, and her knees almost buckled. “The offer still holds.”

“Look, Mr. Outlaw—”

“Call me Cole, darlin’.”

She ignored the “darlin”’ part. “Look, Cole, I have an office full of patients waiting, and I don’t have time for games. Dr. Ware is in surgery all day, and I’m here as a favor to your mother. She and your dad are worried sick about you, and so are your brothers. You’ve holed up in this room and refused to go to physical therapy. You won’t cooperate with anybody who’s trying to help you. You haven’t—”

“Put a sock in it, Red.” He scowled and turned back to the window which was festooned with a bright holiday swag.

Kelly was torn between clobbering him with her medical bag and stalking from the room. Instead she tossed the bag and her jacket on the bed and walked closer to him. “Exactly what is your problem?”

“My problem?” He glared at her with storm-cloud gray eyes. “Besides losing a chunk of lung, getting my hip and leg shot all to hell and being a cripple the rest of my life, you mean?”

She waited only two beats before she shot him a cheeky grin. “Yeah, besides that, flatfoot.”

He ducked his head, but not before Kelly saw a hint of a smile. When he looked up a few seconds later, he was scowling again. “I’m not a flatfoot. I’m a cop. Was a cop.”

“You can be a cop again—if you’ll go to therapy.”

“Sorry, Red, it won’t wash. There’s no way in hell I can work homicide again, and I’m not cut out for being a desk jockey. You got a cigarette on you?”

Kelly patted all her pockets. “Nope. Fresh out.” She fished a small sucker from her purple lab coat. “This is the best I can do.” When he reached for it, she popped it back into her pocket. “The examination comes first. Take off your pants.”

“Don’t try to play games with me, Red,” he growled. “I eat little gals like you for lunch.”

Kelly burst into laughter. His scowl only deepened. “Try it,” she said, then deepened her voice to add in her best Dirty Harry imitation, “Make…my…day.”

She thought the corner of his mouth twitched upward again, but she couldn’t be sure because he suddenly hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his faded sweats and stripped them off. Next the shirt landed on the floor beside the pants, and he turned to her. “Examine away.”

Her woman’s breath caught for less than a heartbeat before the physician kicked in. “I see the incisions seem to be healing nicely. Let me get my gear.” She retrieved her bag from the bed and took out her stethoscope. Automatically she held the diaphragm in her fist and blew on the metal, warming it before she placed it on his chest. “Take a deep breath.”

After listening to his heart and lungs, she carefully checked the surgical sites and damage to his chest and back. The scar from the exit wound was more vicious than the one from the surgeon’s scalpel. She knew that things had been touch-and-go with him for several days after he was shot and that he had spent weeks in a Houston hospital before his folks had brought him back home with them to finish recuperating. Naconiche was a small town, and everybody had known about his gun battle with a murder suspect. Too, she shared an office suite with Noah Ware, the surgeon who was Cole’s local doctor.

When the time came to check his left hip and leg, Kelly pulled up a nearby straight chair and sat down to examine the places.

“Ugly looking mess, isn’t it?” Cole asked.

“I’ve seen much worse. I worked in Ben Taub ER in Houston for a year. I saw more gunshot wounds than most doctors see in a lifetime. Bet this hurt like a son of a gun,” she said as she gently probed the sites, which were now patched with pins. Kelly asked him to move and bend, then walk a few steps.

He had to use his walker and limped badly.

“Your injuries are healing properly, but it’s imperative that you go to physical therapy daily,” Kelly said. “I can’t find any reason to contraindicate PT, and it will do wonders for your recovery.”

“Sure you haven’t got a cigarette?”

She took a patch from her bag, peeled off the back and slapped it on his right hip.

“What’s that?”

“A nicotine patch. I’ll have the drugstore deliver some more. You’re not to smoke a cigarette under any circumstance, and don’t pester your folks to buy any for you.” She retrieved the sugar-free lollipop from her pocket. “Suck on this. It’ll help some.”

He scowled at the smiley face on the plastic-wrapped candy. “Like hell it will.”

She glanced at her watch. “Okay, hardcase, I have to get back to my office, and you need to keep your PT appointment at the hospital.”

“No.”

“No? For goodness’ sakes, why not?”

He glared at her for several seconds, but she didn’t so much as blink. Finally he turned away and mumbled something.

“Say again.”

“I said I can’t get down the damned stairs, and I’m not going to have my brothers carry me down like a baby.”

Pride. Big time. She nodded. “I understand.”

“I should have never given in to my folks and come here. I should have stayed in Houston. Mama’s hovering is driving me nuts.”

And his recalcitrance was driving his mother nuts. She nodded again. “I’ll work on a solution, Cole. You can get dressed now.”

He glanced down at his nakedness. “Bother you, Red?”

“Nope. But you might look a little better if you’d shave.” With that perfect exit line, she turned and walked from the room.

“Red,” he called after her.

She stopped at the door.

“Forget something?”

Kelly turned and saw Cole standing there, still naked, with her medical bag dangling from his fingers.

She stalked back, grabbed her bag and hurried out. His laughter followed her as she clattered down the stairs.

Miss Nonie, Cole’s mother, waited for her at the foot of the stairs that ended in the back of the Double Dip ice-cream parlor. Nonie and Wes Outlaw lived in the apartment upstairs from the business that Nonie had run since she retired from teaching and Wes retired as sheriff of the East Texas county. Two or three years before, the couple had divided their extensive ranch property among their five children, leaving their big house to their son Frank and his twins, and moved into town.

Miss Nonie looked worried. “How is he, Dr. Kelly?”

Kelly patted Nonie’s back. “He’s doing very well considering what he’s been through. He simply needs time and physical therapy.”