Instant Gratification

“That’s okay.” Stone looked at her. “He always says you’re a better doctor than him.”

“Whoa. He said that?”

“Yeah, which means you must be really good.”

Oddly touched that her father would say such a thing about her, much less anything at all, she didn’t respond. She and her father didn’t know each other well. Other than the matching MDs, they had nothing in common. Her dad liked the slow, laid-back style of doctoring in a small town, while she preferred the busier, more interesting, fast-paced ER life. Oil and water…“What happened to you, Stone? Did someone do this to you?”

“No.” His voice was low and hoarse, as if it hurt just to talk. “I’m okay.”

Wasn’t that just a Wilder for you. Tall, built and sexy, and so completely full of shit. Out of the three brothers, she liked Cam and TJ best, mostly because they spent most of their time out of town.

But Stone…well, he was charming and charismatic as hell, but he was also as wild as his name implied—her least favorite quality in a man, tough or otherwise. And Stone was as tough and impenetrable as they came, the kind of man who could be dropped anywhere on the planet and get on just fine. An admirable characteristic, sure, but she preferred a quiet, more sophisticated guy, preferably another doctor, who understood her world.

Not that it mattered. He was a patient not a prospective lover, and she directed him to an examination table. Not that she could “examine” much with all the mud. “We need to get those dirty things off,” she told TJ, and left him to it while she pulled a gown from a drawer.

Stone lay back willingly enough when TJ pushed him down to a prone position. “Just the Band-Aids is all…Tell you what, you give me a box, and in return I’ll take you on an outdoor adventure. Name it. Anything you want.”

The Wilder brothers ran an outdoor adventure/expedition company, which as far as Emma could tell meant that they got paid to be ski and mountain bike bums, playing all day long in the great outdoors.

She skied, but that was about it for the great outdoors for her. “I don’t think so,” she said, pulling out a tray.

“Ah, come on, the fresh air’s good for you.” He sounded as if he could barely talk. “How about a rock climb, or getting on a mountain bike?”

She understood the appeal of the area, she really did. It was just that in her world, which she was chomping at the bit to get back to, she didn’t have time for such things. “Let’s focus on your injuries.”

He let loose a slow, bad boy smile, weakened by pain, but still potently sexy. “I’ll be fine.”

Everything Stone did was slow and sexy. Slow and sexy, slow and easy, and so laid-back she’d often thought he needed to be checked for a pulse.

But not by her. The Wilders were gorgeous, and gorgeously dangerous to female hearts across the land, so yeah, he affected her, but she was a big girl and could resist. There’d be no giving into any smiles, charming or otherwise, thank you very much. Moving to the sink, she began to wash up, no dallying for her.

She had enough going on here trying to keep the clinic up and running and her father on the path of rehabilitation as required by his medical condition—not an easy feat given that the man apparently thought he was still twenty-one instead of sixty-one, hiking and fishing daily at his remote cabin.

After seeing him only a handful of times in all her life, Emma had seen him more in the past two months than she’d ever planned on. But he still hadn’t bounced back, and that worried her. She wanted him well and thriving.

And back at work, so she could go home, and back to her work.

Unfortunately, she didn’t seem any closer to that than she’d been two months ago. Out of necessity, she’d taken on the additional pressure of handling his books, which were in bad shape, with invoices and reports tossed haphazardly in files in some random system that made absolutely no sense. Apparently her father accepted cash, credit cards, and if she was looking at things correctly, casseroles. Casseroles. He had a freezer full of them, and twice this week alone, someone had brought her new ones instead of money when they’d needed services rendered.

Casseroles.

Her father had laughed at her concern, saying a single man enjoyed a home cooked meal once in awhile.

Well, he could eat one every day for a month and still have leftovers.

So could she, for that matter. Yeah, she probably wouldn’t starve to death, though she couldn’t vouch for the condition of her arteries after all the heavy cuisine.

She dried her hands, grabbed some sterile water and the antiseptic, and headed toward her patient, who was clearly hurting big-time. Stone was lying on the examination table, eyes and mouth strained in spite of his attempt at a relaxed air.

With sympathy, she started with the gash through his left eyebrow, squirting the water over it, gently washing the blood free of the wound, probing, until he hissed out a pained breath.

“Easy, Doc.”

She was being easy. It was her job to be easy. “This is going to have to be stitched.”

TJ nodded.

“No, thanks.” Stone spoke lightly enough, but his words came through his teeth now, as if he was barely holding it together. “Seriously, just point me in the direction of those Band-Aids.”

“Seriously?” she mocked lightly. “Band-Aids aren’t going to do it.” She stepped in and blocked him from attempting to get up when TJ might have let him. Her hands were on his shoulders, which were tense and strained belying his easy-going nature. “We need to sterilize, scrape, x-ray, and then assess, Stone. No way around it.”