Her Forever Cowboy

She waited, but nothing more came. “And that’s it?” she asked, still waiting for the other shoe to drop—hard.

“That’s it,” Brett told her guilelessly.

“And the monthly rent?” Alisha pressed, wondering if it was going to be prohibitive—at least by his standards, she silently amended.

The woman really did seem anxious to live by herself, Brett thought, wondering if it was that she was antisocial, or if there was more to it that she wasn’t telling him. And just possibly, herself, he added.

“Why don’t you come upstairs with me and take a look at the place first,” he suggested. There was the chance that she really didn’t know what she was getting into, and what he thought was small might be unacceptable to her. “If you find that you like it, then we’ll discuss the rent.”

“I said I don’t have to see it. I’ll take it.”

Brett was not about to back off from this point. “And I said that I’d rather that you did see it,” he countered.

If she was going to rent the apartment, he didn’t want her turning around in a month and stiffing him for the rent because something about the place wasn’t to her liking. Having her view the place just meant there’d be one less problem down the road.

“Okay, show me the apartment,” she said, barely managing to stifle a huge sigh.

Brett nodded. “Knew you’d see things my way,” he told her.

Alisha swallowed the retort that rose to her lips as she reminded herself that for the time being, while she was here, this man’s apartment was her one and only option.

“Hey, Finn!” Brett called out to his brother from the far end of the bar.

Finn had just poured one of their regular customers a whiskey, neat, and glanced in his older brother’s direction. Brett beckoned him over with an exaggerated hand gesture.

Crossing to Brett’s end of the bar, Finn asked, “What?”

“I need you to take over the bar for a few minutes,” Brett answered.

“Where’ll you be?” Finn asked.

Brett nodded toward the woman on the other side of the bar. “I’m going to be showing Lady Doc here the apartment upstairs.”

“Oh? Oh,” Finn cried as the truth of the situation, at least as he perceived it, suddenly dawned on him. “Sure.” If possible, his grin was even wider than his older brother’s. “You take as long as you like,” he said, looking significantly at the new physician.

“That is strictly up to Lady Doc,” Brett informed him.

“Gotcha. You lucky dog,” Finn murmured to his older brother in a tone low enough for only Brett to hear. When it came to securing female companionship, both he and Liam agreed that Brett was the master.

“Strictly business,” Brett assured him.

Finn’s grin grew wider still, all but splitting his face in half. “If you say so. When I grow up, I want to be just like you,” he told Brett with a wink.

Brett’s response was to playfully cuff him.

Growing up an only child with no siblings to share anything with, good or bad, this kind of a physical exchange mystified Alisha—and, in a way, made her a little envious, as well.

“What was all that about?” Alisha asked. She’d heard only a few words of the exchange between the two brothers.

“A misunderstanding” was all Brett seemed willing to say. His answer made no sense to her since his cheerful expression did not match his words. “C’mon. This way,” he told her, leading the way to the rear of the saloon. There was a narrow corridor there that led to the restrooms on one side and an even narrower stairway on the other.

Alisha looked at the wooden staircase with its narrow steps in obvious dismay. Was that the only way to get to the second floor?

“There’s no private access?” she asked.

“The original owner didn’t think to build one,” he told her. His uncle had always liked to take the simplest path available to him.

The din suddenly swelled, growing even louder. Alisha glanced over her shoulder at the people at the bar and sitting at the small, round tables scattered throughout the room. A thought suddenly hit her. “I have to walk through the bar in order to get to the apartment—and in order to leave in the morning?” she questioned.

He answered, pretending that she was objecting to the distance, not the location. “It’s not that far from the front door to the back,” he told her. “You should be able to cross it making good time.”

Alisha glared at him. He was talking down to her, she thought. “I don’t need sarcasm.”

Brett inclined his head. “Duly noted.” With that, he began to retrace his steps, leaving her standing where she was.

Surprised, she called out to him, “Where are you going?”

“Back to the bar.” He nodded toward it. “Since you’re not interested in the apartment, I thought I’d get back to work.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t interested in the apartment,” Alisha protested.

He made his way back to her. “You made it sound as if the lack of a private entrance killed the deal for you.”

She hated when things were just assumed about her—the way Pierce had just assumed she would go along with his behavior in exchange for his family name. “Did I say that?”

“No,” he allowed.

“Well, then, let’s go and see it,” she said, pointing up the stairs toward where she assumed the apartment was located.

Brett laughed, shaking his head as he got in front of her to lead the way up the stairs. “Lady Doc, you give out really mixed signals.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” Alisha asked as she climbed up the stairs behind him.

“Calling you what?” he asked as he continued climbing.

Almost slipping, she clutched on to the banister more tightly. “Lady Doc,” she repeated unwillingly.

He spared her a glance, making note of the white-knuckle hold she had on the banister. Was she afraid of heights? he wondered.

“Well, aren’t you a doctor?”

“Yes, of course I am.” She was frazzled at this point, and it took effort not to snap.

“Then you object to being called a lady?” he asked, doing his best to keep a straight expression on his face.

She glared at his back. She really hoped that interaction with this man was going to be at a minimum. “No, of course not.”

“Then what’s the problem?” he asked mildly.