His Medicine Woman
Stella Bagwell
Johnny was impossible to forget… …although for five long years Bridget Donovan had certainly tried.But when he asked for help, her job as a doctor wouldn’t let her say no. Being so close to the man who’d broken her heart would be a trial and she vowed never to fall for him again. Johnny was certain he’d done the right thing in breaking it off with Bridget. She deserved so much more than him.Yet having her near reminded him of all he’d given up. And those feelings – no matter how much he ignored them – weren’t going away. Sometimes, what’s meant to be just can’t be denied.
“I can’t speak for you, Johnny. But nothing about our time together felt like make-believe to me.”
His stoic features didn’t flinch, but deep in his eyes she saw something flicker and knew that her words had touched him, perhaps even hurt him.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked bluntly. “It’s been five years. All of that ended back then.”
“Not for me.” She stood up so abruptly she swayed. Before she could latch a steadying grip on her chair, Johnny was instantly at her side, sliding a bracing arm around her shoulders.
Sucking in a deep breath, she dared to glance at his dark face. “You don’t have to bother yourself,” she said tightly. “I’m all right.”
He cursed under his breath. “You’re exhausted.”
“I’ll get over it.”
But I’ll never get over you.
Dear Reader,
When Johnny Chino first appeared in my MEN OF THE WEST series, I was completely smitten with his outward appearance. After all, what woman can resist tall, dark and rough around the edges? But it was his solitary attitude that really snared my attention. I wanted to dig deeper and learn more, but the more I tried to peel back the layers of his emotions, the more he wanted to hide. Fortunately, my heroine, Bridget Donovan, came along and pushed exactly the right buttons to make the real Johnny Chino emerge from his shell.
I truly believe that love and forgiveness are the two most powerful emotions that exist. And together, they can overcome anything that holds us back from happiness. But Johnny, like so many of us, has to learn the hard way that love and forgiveness are co-dependent. Neither can survive without the other.
I hope you’ll travel with me again to Lincoln County, New Mexico and discover how my hero learns to forgive, not only the hurts of his past, but also himself. And in doing so, finds the love of his life.
God bless the trails you ride,
Stella Bagwell
About the Author
STELLA BAGWELL has written more than seventy novels. She credits her loyal readers and hopes her stories have brightened their lives in some small way.
A cowgirl through and through, she loves to watch old Westerns, and has recently learned how to rope a steer. Her days begin and end helping her husband care for a beloved herd of horses on their little ranch located on the south Texas coast. When she’s not ropin’ and ridin’, you’ll find her at her desk, creating her next tale of love.
The couple have a son, who is a high school maths teacher and athletic coach. Stella loves to hear from readers and invites them to contact her at stellabagwell@gmail.com.
His Medicine
Woman
Stella Bagwell
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To all my family and friends living in
the Choctaw Nation.
Chapter One
Johnny. Johnny.
Her heart whispered his name as the Jeep carried Bridget Donovan closer and closer to the man she’d never been able to forget. Tonight was the first time she’d heard his voice in nearly five years and the sound of it had shaken her, almost as much as his request.
Will you come to my home? Grandmother is sick.
Tears suddenly blurred her vision and she automatically eased her foot from the gas pedal as she struggled to compose herself.
Even though the two of them resided in the same southern area of New Mexico, their lives moved along different trails. Once they’d parted, she’d never expected to cross his path again. But she’d often dreamed, hoped and desperately prayed that might change one day. He’d contacted her tonight out of desperation and nothing else. Yet that made little difference to her. The only thing that mattered was in a very few minutes she was going to see the only man she’d ever loved.
Johnny Chino didn’t know why he continued to clutch his cell phone as he stared out the window at the dark dirt road leading up to his mountainside home. He’d already forced himself to make the call. A call he’d once sworn to never make again. But for some reason he couldn’t slip the instrument back into his pocket and out of sight. Instead he gripped the phone as though he could hold on to her voice. Hold on to her.
The idea was as ridiculous as the dreams and hopes he’d once had for the two of them. And now he felt like a fool for standing at the window, watching with a mixture of dread and eagerness, for the flicker of her headlights.
She wasn’t coming to see him. No, those times were gone and long past, he grimly reminded himself. She’d moved on without him. Just as he’d intended.
The Jeep rattled across the wooden slats of an old cattle guard and then Bridget pressed hard on the accelerator as the gravel road began a steep climb between tall pines mixed with white-trunked aspens. The autumn night was cold and clear, but the starry sky was blotted out by the thick forest covering this portion of the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation.
Years had passed since she’d traveled this particular road, but driving the unfamiliar twists and turns in the dark wasn’t nearly as unsettling as the thought of what she might find once she reached her destination.
The Chino home sat on a hacked-out piece of mountain land that had originally been hand cleared by Johnny’s grandfather, Charlie. As her headlights swept the front of the small structure, Bridget could see the modest stucco was just a shade paler than the red-brown dirt that made up a small yard. The pine tree shading the small porch had grown much taller than she remembered, but everything else looked as it had so many years ago.
As she gathered up her medical bag, she heard dogs barking somewhere near the house and then a deep male voice calling to the animals. Swallowing hard, she glanced out the windshield and saw Johnny walking toward her vehicle. A red bone hound and a black collie trotted to keep up with his long, lithe stride.
Bracing herself as best she could, Bridget grabbed the handle of her bag with one hand and opened the Jeep door with the other. Before she could slide to the ground, he was standing only a step away, waiting for her to make the next move. Bridget focused her gaze on his face and suddenly everything came to an abrupt stop. Her breath hung suspended, her heart halted in midbeat and all she could do was stare. And ache.
Even in the semidarkness, she could see Johnny’s face was as striking as the image she’d carried around in her memory. Long, crow-black hair was pulled from his face and tied at his nape with a short piece of worn leather. Smooth bronze skin stretched across high prominent cheekbones, while a noble nose gave way to a pair of roughly hewn lips. Beneath a hooded line of black brows, his dark eyes pierced her with an unflinching gaze.
Bridget realized she should speak, but the tangle of knots in her throat made it nearly impossible to swallow, much less form a word. Forcing her lips to part, she tried to utter a greeting. But after a moment even that seemed trivial and unnecessary.
“Grandmother refuses to leave her bed,” he finally said. “I’m very worried.”
His words snapped her from her frozen state and she made a move to step down from the Jeep. Just as quickly, Johnny’s hand came around her elbow to assist her to the rocky ground and Bridget struggled to keep from gasping out loud. Even if his touch was shooting searing rivulets of heat up her arm, she couldn’t allow herself to forget she was here as a doctor.
“How long has she been ill?” Bridget managed to ask.
“Three days. Only tonight, she asked to see you.”
When Johnny had called the ranch earlier tonight, she’d wondered why he’d not contacted the Apache hospital in Mescalero for a doctor’s help rather than call upon her. The facility was far closer to the Chino home and offered free medical services to members of their tribe. Now he was making it clear that it had been Naomi’s idea to summon her, instead of his. The news hardly surprised Bridget. But she felt ridiculously disappointed anyway.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she promised.
The walk to the house was short and no more words were exchanged as he opened the front door and allowed her to precede him into a small, comfortable living room. In one corner, the crackling flames from a fireplace emitted a dim, orange-gold cast to the room and its basic furnishings. Other than that, there were no other sources of light or sound.
Bridget paused and, though she was familiar with the layout of the house from years before, she waited for his instructions.
“She’s in the back bedroom. Grandfather is with her.”
Bridget followed him out of the room and into a dimly lit kitchen where the scent of fried bacon still lingered in the air. To one side of the room there was an opening followed by a short hallway. At the end of it, they entered a bedroom that, compared to the rest of the house, felt unusually cool and drafty. Her gaze was immediately drawn to the single window directly across from them and was amazed to see it was raised slightly.
Turning a questioning look at Johnny, she asked, “Is there some reason for the cold air?”
One corner of his mouth quirked slightly. “Grandmother believes fresh air is a cure-all.”
Bridget held back a frustrated sigh. Now was not the time to offend the older woman by trying to change her beliefs.
“Well, she can’t keep lying in a draft like this. Perhaps she won’t notice if you close it while I’m examining her,” Bridget suggested in a voice only for his ears.
He gave her a barely discernible nod and Bridget moved away from him and toward the double bed pushed against the far wall of the room. At the head of it, Johnny’s grandfather, Charlie Chino, was sitting in a wooden, straight-back chair. His weathered old face was full of worry, but he said nothing as Bridget approached.
Naomi was resting on her side with her eyes shut. Her long white hair was unbraided and lying loose upon a pair of frail shoulders. Five years’ time had wrinkled the woman’s face even more and Bridget made a quick mental calculation to determine that Naomi would most likely be in her early nineties now.
Bending over the low bed, Bridget caught the sound of her wheezy breaths. The raspy noise was not what she wanted to hear.
Placing a palm upon Naomi’s forehead, she called her name. “Can you hear me, Mrs. Chino? Naomi?”
Thin, crinkled eyelids fluttered, before slowly lifting to expose a pair of milky brown eyes. For long moments they stared straight at Bridget and then to her relief, she spotted a flicker of recognition in their depths.
“Bridget.”
The weak whisper of her name very nearly caused tears to well in Bridget’s eyes. But she did her best to blink them away and call upon her professional steadiness to get her through the moment. This woman had once meant much to her, and over the past years, Bridget had never forgotten the closeness they’d shared.
“Yes, it’s me, Naomi. I’m here to help you get well. Is that okay with you?”
Naomi’s bony hand slipped from beneath the heavy covers and reached for Bridget’s. She gave it to her willingly and was relieved to feel a bit of strength in the woman’s grasp.
“Yes. I’ll get well now.”
Straightening to her full height, Bridget reached for her bag and realized, with somewhat of a start, that Johnny was standing directly behind her. She’d thought he was still dealing with the window, but then he’d always had the uncanny ability to move without making a sound.
Forcing herself to look at him squarely, Bridget asked, “Has she been coughing?”
“A little.”
“Does she have any other health problems I should know about?”
“Grandmother is ninety-three,” he said, as if that should answer everything.
Bridget reminded herself that this man had always moved at a different pace. “Does she take any medications?”
Johnny looked at his grandfather and spoke to him in their native language. The older man simply shook his head, which prompted Johnny to translate.
“No.”
“Thank you. That helps,” Bridget told him.
She pulled several instruments from her bag and went to work taking Naomi’s vital signs and examining her from head to toe. Along with an elevated temperature, the woman’s heartbeat was weak and rapid and her lungs rattled with the warning of impending pneumonia.
Bridget’s first instinct was to demand that Naomi be taken to the hospital so that she could receive round-the-clock care and intravenous medications. But if the woman had already refused Johnny’s pleas for her to go to a medical facility, then no good would come of further prodding by Bridget. Johnny had always been the apple of Naomi’s eye. If she wouldn’t heed his pleas, then her mind was already set like cement.
Thankfully, Bridget had treated an illness similar to Naomi’s earlier in the day and she’d left a bottle of the antibiotics stored on dry ice in her medical bag. As she filled a syringe with the correct amount, Johnny asked, “What’s wrong with her?”
While she’d been examining Naomi, Bridget had felt his presence, felt his gaze watching her every movement. To make sure she treated his grandmother gently? Or because he still ached for her, the way she’d ached for him all these years? Oh, God, don’t let her think about that now, she prayed.
“She appears to have the flu. Have you or your grandfather been ill? Or been around anyone coughing or sick?”
“No. But Grandmother worked at the farmers’ market last weekend—helping her friend sell squash and pumpkin. Someone there might have been sick.”
Bridget nodded while deciding there was no use in asking if any of them had taken a flu shot. The Chinos lived basically as they had years ago. Preventative medicine was not something they practiced.
After giving Naomi the injection of antibiotics in her hip, she tucked the covers warmly around her, then glanced at Johnny. “Does the glass of water on the nightstand belong to your grandmother? She needs to swallow a few pills.”
“I’ll get fresh water,” he told her.
He was gone from the room less than a minute before he returned with a small glass filled with chilled water.
After thanking him, Bridget took the drink and, lifting Naomi’s head, helped her tilt the glass to her lips. If they did their job, the pills would help to reduce her fever and loosen the phlegm in her chest.
“That should help you feel a bit better, Naomi.”
She lowered the woman’s white head back to the pillow and Naomi nodded drowsily. Bridget moved away from the bed and signaled for Johnny to join her outside the room.
In the hallway, he glanced solemnly back to the door of his grandparents’ bedroom, then to her. At that moment, Bridget wanted to wrap her hands around his, to comfort and assure him that he wasn’t going to lose the only mother he’d ever known. At least, not if she could help it.
“She needs to be in the hospital, Johnny. Will she not go to the Indian medical facility in Mescalero?”
“She’d rather die in her bed,” he said grimly. “She’s particular about who she lets near her.”
Bridget released a long sigh. The Apaches provided excellent health care for their people. It didn’t make sense that Naomi would refuse the services of her own tribe. But she had to remember that Naomi had never wanted to accept the more modern ways. Still, why would the old woman insist that Bridget be the one to doctor her?
“Well, I’m thankful she trusts me enough to allow me to treat her.”
His dark gaze roamed her face and upswept hair and though she did her best to stem the memory of his embrace, she was suddenly reliving the sensation of his hands tangled in her copper-red curls, his lips ravishing hers. No man had ever touched her the way that he had. And she doubted any man ever would.
He asked, “Will she get well?”
She blinked as Johnny’s voice shattered the erotic image in her head. “I think so. But at her age it’s easy for things to go wrong.” Even though the interior of the house was cool, Bridget’s cheeks felt flush and her upper body on the verge of sweating. Rubber seemed to have replaced the bones in her legs and she realized with a bit of shock that if she didn’t sit and pull herself together she was going to faint. “Can—we go to the kitchen to finish this discussion? I could use a cup of coffee.”
Wordlessly, he gestured for her to precede him down the short hallway. Pulling back her shoulders, Bridget moved past him, then on to the small kitchen where a bare lightbulb over the sink illuminated most of the room.
A small pine table with matching chairs worn smooth from years of use was situated along the outside wall. As she moved toward it, she unbuttoned her coat. She was shrugging one shoulder free of the cream-colored cashmere garment when he came up behind her and with both hands lifted it away for her.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
While she took a seat, he carried the coat over to a hall tree standing by a door that exited the house. After hanging it next to a jean jacket with a sheepskin collar, he moved to a white gas range and switched on a burner beneath a granite coffeepot.
“The coffee was made for supper. It’s strong.”
“That’s fine,” she assured him. “I need for it to be strong.”
With the burner blazing beneath the simple pot, he turned away from the stove and as his dark eyes focused on her, Bridget felt exposed and all too aware of how she must look to him. She’d not taken the time to change from the formal clothes she’d been wearing for Conall’s wedding reception. Now she desperately wished she’d taken a moment to race upstairs and change out of the strapless dress fashioned of emerald-green faille. To make matters worse, diamonds glittered at her throat, her ears and hair, while high, high heels of the same emerald color adorned her feet. No doubt he was viewing her as someone who lived far away from his world and she hated that this unexpected reunion was displaying her in a way that didn’t depict her normal day-to-day life.
When he failed to make any sort of comment, she felt compelled to explain. “I—was—when you called—it was at the wedding reception for my brother, Conall. I didn’t want to waste time changing clothes. That’s why—I’m dressed this way.”
“I’m sorry I interrupted your evening. I didn’t want to.”
He was still brutally honest, she decided. She figured eating a sandwich of nails and sandpaper would have probably been easier than calling upon her for help. Not that he disliked her or even held ill feelings for her. No, the end of their relationship had been far more complex. There had been no hateful, judgmental words or spiteful arguing. They’d parted just as they had met, with love.
“I wasn’t complaining,” she told him. “Just explaining.”
“I don’t need that.”
He turned back to the coffeepot while Bridget closed her eyes and tried to get her breathing back on an even keel. Of course he didn’t need explanations from her, she thought. What she was wearing or what she’d been doing didn’t concern him.
Behind him, Johnny heard the coffee strike a boil and he turned his back to her in order to switch off the burner and gather cups from the cupboard. After he filled both of them with the dark, pungent liquid, he carried them over to the table where she sat, then went to the refrigerator to collect a can of evaporated milk.
When he placed the milk can in front of her, a faint smile crossed her face. “Thank you for remembering,” she said.
Johnny could have told her that taking milk in her coffee was not the only thing he remembered about her. And seeing her again tonight was bringing those recollections back in a violent rush. Oh, God, he’d rather have taken a knife blade to his chest than call her tonight. But she was the only doctor his grandmother would agree to allow in the house. And with Naomi’s health rapidly deteriorating, he’d had no choice but to ask Bridget for help. Now as he looked at her, he felt sick with wants and regrets.
Somehow these past years he’d managed to avoid running into her. It had meant declining invitations from her brother and his good buddy, Brady Donovan, to visit the Diamond D, and making sure he didn’t go near anywhere he suspected she might be. But that hadn’t taken much effort. His lifestyle rarely took him off the reservation and he’d never traveled in the same social circle as the well-to-do Donovans.
Pulling out a chair across from her, he eased onto the seat. “What do I need to do for Grandmother?”
She spilled a small amount of milk into her coffee and slowly stirred it with the spoon he’d left in her cup. “See that her room gets more heat and try to get as much liquid down her as possible. Things like chicken broth, fruit juices or even sports drinks. She hasn’t been consuming much food or drink, has she?”
“No. Only a bit of goat’s milk. It was the only thing she wanted.”
A soft sigh escaped her and Johnny’s gaze was drawn to her heart-shaped face. She was still breathtaking, he decided. Eyes as pure and green as a mountain meadow were framed by delicately arched brows and long lashes, both of which were a few shades darker than her copper-red hair. Smooth, milk-white skin was sprinkled here and there with pale freckles, especially across the bridge of her straight little nose and the crest of her shoulders. Soft, dewy lips, the color of a raspberry, were full and tilted sweetly upward at the corners.
The lips, the freckles, the white satin skin of her body had all been touched by his mouth, he thought. But not enough. Not nearly enough.
“That’s fine, too,” Bridget was saying. “Anything she’ll take to hydrate her and give her strength is good.”
She took another long sip of coffee, then spoke again. Though this time she kept her gaze on the liquid in her cup rather than him. Johnny decided it was almost a relief not to feel her green eyes on his face.
“She’ll need to take several more medications. Early in the morning, I’ll fetch them and drive back.”
This jolted him. He’d only expected to see her just this once. Just long enough for her to diagnose his grandmother’s illness and prescribe medicine. He wasn’t sure he could take being around her any more than that.
This isn’t about how you’re feeling, Johnny. This is about your ailing grandmother and what she needs.
“Write the prescriptions and I’ll get them,” he told her.
She shook her head. “It would be a waste for you to make the trip when I’ve got to return anyway.”
“Why do you have to return?”
Her brows shot upward and he realized she considered his question stupid. And maybe it was. But having her here, seeing her so close was ripping him apart, like two hands tearing a piece of cloth. Much more of her presence and there would be nothing left to hold him together except a few fragile threads.
“I don’t think you understand the severity of your grandmother’s illness, Johnny. She needs an IV drip and that will have to be monitored. Plus, I’ll need to make sure her lungs haven’t worsened overnight.”
Her voice had gone firm and professional and he was glad for that. The sound jerked him out of the past and away from the time when her soft words had excited him, soothed him, nestled in his heart like golden sunshine saved for a dark and lonely night.
He let out a heavy breath. “And what if they have worsened?”
She pressed fingertips to the tiny crease in the middle of her forehead. “My plan is to keep that from happening. If it does … Then you or your grandfather will have to do your best to change her mind about the hospital.”
His grandmother was a stubborn soul, Johnny thought. Though she loved her husband and grandson, she had her own ideas about life and how she should live it. If she believed the Great Spirit was calling, then she’d give up her earthly fight to survive.
“My grandparents have very little money. But whatever charges you need to make I’ll see that you’re paid in full.”
Staring hard at him now, she lowered her cup to the tabletop. “I’m not here for money, Johnny,” she said stiffly. “Not any money.”
“I don’t expect such favors from you.”
“No,” she said softly, sadly. “You’ve never expected anything from me, have you?”
A tight fist was suddenly in his throat, twisting and clawing. He swallowed. “I’ve already taken enough from you, Bridget.”
She didn’t say anything. Instead, she reached across the small tabletop and touched her hand to the top of his. Something hit him deep in the gut and for a moment the room around them faded. The urge to lift her hand to his lips, to pull her from the chair and gather her close was gripping him like an iron claw.
But having her body next to his wasn’t part of his plan. She was a luxury he couldn’t afford. A sin he couldn’t commit. Not again. She belonged in her own world. Not his. But he didn’t offend her by jerking his hand away. Instead, he endured the sweet torture until she finally cleared her throat and pulled her hand back to her side of the table.
While he deliberately avoided making eye contact, she drained the last of her coffee and rose to her feet.
“I’ve done all I can do for right now,” she said. “But I’ll be back in a few hours with the medications she needs.”
By the time she drove to Ruidoso there wouldn’t be much left of the night, he realized. Rising from the chair, he said, “You should rest first. And your clinic is—”
“Accustomed to dealing with my emergency leaves,” she interrupted, then added with a faint smile. “Don’t worry, Johnny, I’m a doctor. I’m used to going on very little sleep.”
She was a doctor because she wanted to be. Not because she needed a job or the income. She was a giver. Not a taker. Yet she’d taken his heart and he’d never been able to get it back.
Nodding slightly, he said, “I’ll walk you to your Jeep.”
“That isn’t necessary.”
“The dogs don’t know you,” he explained.
Starting out of the kitchen, she said with a bit of humor, “By the time I get Naomi back on her feet, I’ll have the dogs eating out of my hand.”
And what would she have him doing? Johnny wondered. Forgetting that he was a man of honor? Forgetting his vow to never touch her again? For his grandmother’s sake, he was going to have to push his emotions aside and deal with this woman in a reasonable way.
But there was nothing reasonable about the way he was feeling as he walked along beside her. He wanted to jerk her into his arms and kiss her. He wanted to carry her off to some dark place and make love to her as though they’d never parted.
Reasonable? Hell, it would be a miracle if he managed to resist her. But he had to, because letting her go the first time had nearly broken him. And he wasn’t sure he’d survive it again…. That’s why he couldn’t let himself take a second chance with Bridget. Giving her up twice would crush him.
Chapter Two
“Bridget? Are you in there?”
The sound of her sister’s voice broke through the fog of Bridget’s sleep and she opened her eyes to see early morning sunlight streaming through her office window.
Slowly she sat up and swung her legs to the floor. “Yes—come in,” she called groggily.
As she attempted to push a tangled web of hair away from her face, Maura strode in carrying a foam cup filled with steaming coffee. Her older sister was dressed in a pair of bright colored scrubs, while the happy smile on her face said the night of partying had hardly affected her energy level.
Bridget was often amazed at how her sister always remained so young and beautiful and bubbly. She and her husband Quint had two little boys, Riley and Clancy, and both were under the age of three. When she wasn’t working here at the clinic as Bridget’s supervising R.N., she was taking care of her husband’s and children’s needs, along with keeping a close eye on her grandfather-in-law, Abe. But Maura was in love, Bridget thought wistfully. And she had a husband who loved her back. Maybe that made all the difference.
“Oh, my, you do look awful,” Maura exclaimed as she came to a stop in the middle of the room. “You’d better get some of this coffee down. Your first patient will be arriving in about an hour.”
Groaning, Bridget scrubbed her face with both hands. “Unfortunately, I don’t have time for the coffee. Is Janna here yet?”
“She just came in, why?”
“Because my morning appointments are going to have to be rescheduled. Tell her I’ll try to work in the most serious cases this afternoon, the rest will have to be scattered through the remainder of the week.”
“Oh. What’s up?”
Rising from the couch, Bridget took the cup from her sister and downed several fortifying sips before she answered, “An emergency. Johnny Chino’s grandmother is very ill. I need to leave in a few minutes to travel back to the reservation and treat her again.”
Maura frowned. “Is that where you raced off to last night? Brady told us you had an emergency, but he didn’t know where.”
Nodding, Bridget handed the cup back to Maura, then plucked her high heels from where she’d stepped out of them early this morning. Thankfully her private office was not only large enough to accommodate a couch for her to crash on during emergencies, it was also equipped with an ample-size shower and a closet with enough room for several changes of clothing. Ileana Sanders McCleod, the physician who’d originally built this clinic, had definitely understood what a doctor needed to keep herself on schedule.
“That’s right,” she said, answering Maura’s question.
“But why call you? I mean, there’s an Indian hospital right on the reservation.”
Bridget kept her face carefully averted from her sister. Although, she wasn’t sure why she needed to guard the emotional upheaval she’d gone through last night. Maura had no idea that she’d ever had any sort of connection to Johnny Chino. Nor did the rest of her family. Without that knowledge, there was no way Maura could read anything into her expressions.
“Naomi Chino is ninety-three and refuses to go to the hospital. She—asked for me to come and I—couldn’t refuse.”
“Hmm. I suppose you should feel honored that she wanted you treating her instead of a doctor from her own tribe. But frankly, it doesn’t make sense. Have you met her before?”
Bridget kept herself busy pulling bobby pins from her thick mane and allowing the curls that had managed to stay fastened to her head fall to her midback. “Years ago. I went to a few festivals on the reservation and we … talked during those occasions. But I figure Brady’s long friendship with Johnny is probably the reason she wanted me to doctor her.”
“Oh, yes. They’ve been like brothers since way back. Probably since kindergarten days.”
Bridget smiled to herself. Imagining Johnny as a five-year-old boy was an almost impossible task. To her he’d always been a tall, bronze warrior, a man who made her heart beat fast and dreams blossom. How shocked would Maura be if she told her that? Bridget wondered wryly. What would her sister think if she told her that she’d once loved, still loved the Apache? It was a question that often entered her mind, but had never been put into spoken words.
“So what’s wrong with Mrs. Chino?”
Forcing her thoughts to the present, Bridget moved behind her desk, and searched through a drawer for a hairbrush. “Flu. And I’m afraid she’s near pneumonia.” Finding the brush, she began to tug it through the tangled curls. “So how did the rest of the reception go? Conall and Vanessa seem so happy, don’t they?”
“They’re glowing like neon signs,” Maura agreed. “And everyone at the party seemed to have a great time. And the band was fabulous,” she added, then chuckled. “Who knew Conall liked doo-wop music! It was so much fun!”
“I’m glad I got to be there for part of it.” With a few quick flicks, Bridget coiled her hair into a knot and pinned it to the back of her head. “I’d better get out of this dress and head to the shower. Would you tell Janna what’s going on?”
“Sure.” Peering more closely at Bridget, Maura pushed her hip away from the desk. “Are you okay?”
“Fine. Why?”
Shrugging, she said, “I’ve never seen you looking so exhausted. Maybe you should ask another doctor to go to the reservation in your place.”
“That’s out,” Bridget said flatly. “I’m handling this.”
With a palms-up gesture, Maura made a move to leave the room. “Okay. It was just a suggestion.” At the door, she paused to look back at Bridget. “What time do I tell Janna that you’ll be back here to the clinic?”
“If all goes as planned I should be back by lunchtime. I’ll call if that changes.”
Nodding that she understood, Maura said, “Be careful driving over the mountain. And don’t worry, I’ll help hold down the fort here.”
“Thanks, sis.”
Once Maura had slipped through the door, then shut it firmly behind her, Bridget jumped into action. Five minutes later, she was showered, dressed in a pair of neat gray slacks, black turtleneck and dress boots. After deciding to leave her hair loose, she grabbed a red woolen jacket and headed out a back exit of the clinic.
By now, the morning sun was beginning to filter through the golden autumn leaves of a nearby aspen. Maura’s truck, along with the receptionist’s car, was parked alongside her Jeep in the private parking area. Sharp north winds were swooping across the parking lot, forcing Bridget to pull on her jacket before she climbed in and started the engine. As she backed the vehicle onto the quiet street running adjacent to the rear of the building, she was glad that she’d filled the gas tank last night, rather than having to take extra time to do it this morning.
As for the medications Naomi needed, Bridget didn’t bother making a stop at the nearest pharmacy. She’d pulled the medicines from the private stock of drugs she kept on hand for use at the clinic. If Johnny happened to notice there were no pharmacy labels on the bottles, she’d explain they were samples and leave it at that. From past experiences, she knew that he and his grandparents were proud people and didn’t want or expect handouts of any kind.
Even though it was daylight and the road clearly visible, it took more than thirty-five minutes to drive to the Chino home. During the trip, Bridget tried to keep her mind on Naomi and the treatment she’d mentally mapped out for her. But even as Bridget pondered the old woman’s ailment, Johnny was right there, haunting, reminding her that so much had changed and yet so much was still the same. His strong, solemn face was the last thing she’d seen last night as she’d driven away from the Chino home and this morning when Maura had woken her, it had been Johnny’s image who’d instantly rushed to the forefront of her thoughts.
These past few years, she’d only heard snippets of information about him, mostly through her brother, Brady. And though she’d desperately longed to ask him more in-depth questions, she’d not done so. Johnny had never wanted anyone, especially Brady, to know about their short-lived affair and she’d always respected his wishes. But there had been many occasions she’d wanted to break down to one of her sisters, her mother, even her grandmother and pour out her feelings. Maybe they would think it a bit scandalous that she’d loved a man so different from them, but they would never condemn her for it. No, they were her family and they would console and support her in whatever way they could.
But discussing the situation with anyone wouldn’t help to change matters, she realized. And for the past five years, she’d tried to move on and hope that someday she would meet a man strong enough to drown out Johnny’s memory. So far that hadn’t happened. And she wasn’t really expecting it to. The weak flicker of a candle couldn’t take the place of an all-out blaze.
When she eventually parked in front of the Chino home, the dogs were the first to greet her, but this time their barks were only halfhearted and their tales were wagging.
Bridget didn’t wait for Johnny to step onto the porch; instead she snatched up her bag with the medicine and hurried toward the house. She was about to rap her knuckles on the facing of the screen door when the inner door creaked open and Charlie Chino stood staring out at her.
“Good morning, Mr. Chino.”
He pushed the screen wide and gestured for her to enter the house. Bridget stepped inside and waited while Johnny’s grandfather dealt with the door. As he did, she took note of his tall, straight posture, the long gray braid lying against the middle of his back. She was glad to see he was very agile and alert for someone his age. In fact, he hardly looked a day older than the last time she’d spoken with him.
“Naomi is awake,” he said. “She’s been asking for you.”
Doctors had rules. They weren’t supposed to get emotionally involved with their patients. But this was Naomi, the woman who’d mothered Johnny from the time he was an infant, and the fact that she was reaching out for Bridget caused her heart to wince. “I have more medicine to help her.”
Expecting the old man to immediately usher her back to the bedroom, she was surprised when he turned his quiet, wrinkled face toward hers.
“Naomi didn’t care if she got well. Until you came last night. I thank you.”
Bridget reached for Charlie’s big bony hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I’m glad I could help, Mr. Chino. Naomi has always been special to me. And so have you. I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure she gets well.”
She didn’t bother adding that Johnny was equally special to her. The old man didn’t have to hear spoken words to see or understand things. She figured last night her feelings for his grandson had shown on her face and Charlie had read them clearly.
Charlie nodded and gestured toward the doorway leading to the back part of the house. As the two of them passed through the kitchen, Bridget was pleased to feel the house was somewhat warmer than it had been last night, which meant that Johnny was doing his best to follow the instructions she’d given him.
Glancing to her left, she noticed the table where she and Johnny had sat drinking their coffee was now cluttered with breakfast leftovers. Two plates smeared with congealed egg yolk sat among cups, jelly jars and other condiments. The sight reminded her that she’d not yet taken time for food. But apparently Johnny and his grandfather had already eaten.
She was wondering where he was and why he’d not met her at the door, when Charlie seemed to read her mind and answer her unspoken questions.
“Johnny went to Mescalero for things at the grocery store. He’ll be back soon.”
“I won’t be leaving before he gets back,” she assured the old man.
Inside Naomi’s bedroom, she quickly went to the woman’s side. After switching on the nearby lamp, she gathered her equipment together. As she wrapped a blood pressure cuff around Naomi’s arm, she was relieved to see the woman’s eyes appeared a bit more clear this morning.
“How are you feeling, Naomi?” Bridget asked.
Naomi gave her a faint nod and Bridget finished noting the blood pressure reading before she asked, “Do you hurt anywhere?”
Naomi laid a hand on her chest and then slid the same hand slowly to her stomach.
“Have you had anything to drink or eat since last night?” Bridget continued with her questions.
“Cider. And a little goat’s milk.”
Bridget smiled softly at the woman. “Well, that’s better than nothing. By this afternoon I want you to try to eat something, though. Will you try?”
Naomi let out a weary sigh. “I’ll try.”
Bridget took the woman’s temperature, then got down to the all-important job of listening to her lungs. She didn’t hear the huge improvement she would have liked, but Naomi would need much more medication before Bridget expected to see a turnaround for the better. For now, the woman’s condition hadn’t worsened overnight and for that much Bridget was very thankful.
Once she put away her stethoscope, she explained to Naomi that she’d brought a bag of medicine for her and that she needed to fix a needle in her hand for her to receive it. Expecting the woman to put up a fuss and probably refuse the IV medications, she was pleasantly surprised when Johnny’s grandmother agreed.
“My hide is tough, Bridget. But you can try,” she acceded.
Not wasting any time, Bridget quickly gathered the needed paraphernalia from her bag. Thankfully, near the head of the bed, there was a hook on the wall holding Naomi’s housecoat. After removing the garment, she used it to hang the bag of medications, then went to work affixing a small shunt to the woman’s hand.
“This might sting a little,” Bridget warned as she plucked Naomi’s hand from atop the cover. “I’ll try to be as easy as I can.”
Starting an IV was something Bridget hadn’t done since way back in her intern days. Now that she had her own private practice, she had nurses to do such tasks for her and she couldn’t help but wish her sister Maura was here to do this one.
But fortunately she didn’t have any trouble finding an appropriate vein or positioning the needle. However, as she smoothed the medical tape across the top of Naomi’s fragile hand, Bridget had plenty of problems with the unbidden thoughts rushing to the forefront of her mind.
This woman hadn’t always been old, or wrinkled or ill, Bridget thought. At one time her bony hand had been plump and smooth, her face and figure full of youth. At the age of forty-three she’d given birth to her and Charlie’s only child, a daughter named Scarlett. A miracle in itself, considering they’d already passed two decades of a childless marriage.
Five years ago, in spite of Johnny’s misgivings, Bridget had made a few visits to the Chino home. She and Naomi were very different people, but that hadn’t stopped them from taking an instant liking to each other. Naomi had talked with her about many things, one of them being Johnny’s mother. She’d told Bridget that while she’d been pregnant, she’d had a premonition and it had told her the girl child she was carrying would never truly be hers, but that someday she would receive another child and it would be a boy.
Strangely enough, Naomi’s intuition had come true. Scarlett had grown up beautiful, but too wild to tame. As she’d entered her teenage years she’d been reckless and defiant and from there her life had quickly gone downhill. By the time she was nineteen, she’d spent a short time in jail and eventually bore a son out of wedlock.
The responsibility of a child had been overwhelming to Scarlett and as quickly as she’d given birth, she’d handed the infant over to her parents and left the reservation and New Mexico behind. Four years later, they’d received word that she’d died in an alcohol-related car crash, making Naomi’s premonition come true. She’d lost a daughter, but a baby boy had come into her life.
“Bridget, is something wrong?”
Naomi’s weakly spoken question interrupted Bridget’s deep thoughts, and with a barely discernible sigh, she looked at the woman and smiled. “No. Everything is okay, Naomi. Why do you ask?”
“The sad look on your face. Maybe you don’t think I’ll get well.”
With a firm shake of her head, Bridget placed Naomi’s hand carefully back on the bedcover, then patted her shoulder. “I’m sorry I looked sad. I was just—thinking. About all the things I have to do today. That’s all. I promise you’re going to get well.” She stabbed the old woman with a pointed look. “You do want to get well, don’t you?”
Naomi grimaced. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Bridget studied her closely. “I don’t know. Some people get lazy when they get older. They get too lazy to fight for anything. I don’t want you to fall into that category.”
The old woman tried to snort, but only managed to make herself cough. When she eventually regained her breath, she said, “I’ve fought for some things. And I won’t stop now.”
“Good,” Bridget replied. “See that you don’t.”
After regulating the IV drip, Bridget gave Naomi several oral medications, then urged her patient to go to sleep.
Once the woman had closed her eyes, Bridget moved a few steps away from the bed to where Charlie sat in the same straight-back chair with a twine woven seat. The man looked tired and uncomfortable, but Bridget chose not to tell him so. He didn’t need a woman, not even a third of his age, telling him what to do and when to do it.
“Your wife should sleep now, Mr. Chino. And let’s pray the medicines will do the trick.”
“I pray all the time,” he said.
Bridget didn’t doubt his simply stated fact. The Chinos had always been spiritual people, including Johnny. At least, that’s the way it had been five years ago. Whether he’d held on to his faith, she didn’t know. Through snippets of information from Brady, she knew that Johnny’d more or less turned into a recluse and had turned his back on a job that had, at one time, garnered him fame and the reputation of being one of the best trackers in the West.
She was glancing toward the slow dripping IV, trying to mentally calculate when it might be finished, when she heard stirrings in the front part of the house. The sound of Johnny’s arrival set her heart to pounding and after only a split second of indecision, she decided to go meet him.
By the time she reached the kitchen, he was there easing a paper sack full of groceries onto the countertop. The moment he caught the sound of her footsteps, his head turned in her direction and for a moment they simply stared at each other. Or that’s what it felt like to Bridget. Maybe she was the one doing all the staring as she took in his black, black hair, broad shoulders and long lean legs encased in worn denim.
“Good morning,” she greeted him.
“Good morning,” he replied.
Forcing herself to breathe, she moved over to where he was standing and watched as he pulled out a jug of orange juice, several sports drinks, cans of condensed soup and a loaf of bread.
“You should have told me you needed those things,” she said. “I could have brought them with me this morning.”
“It isn’t your place to bring food.”
She was an outsider and he wasn’t about to let her into his world. After all this time, the notion shouldn’t hurt her. But it did.
“God forbid that you should accept anything from me,” she muttered with exasperation.
He slanted a sharp glance at her and she let out a weary sigh. “Sorry. I’ve not had breakfast this morning. I’m feeling a bit testy.”
“How is Grandmother?” he asked abruptly.
“Since her condition hasn’t worsened, I’ll say she’s holding her own. Which is a good thing, considering. I’ve started her IV drip and given her a few other medications. The drip should take a couple of hours. I’ll stay until it’s completed.”
His jaw tightened slightly and she knew he wasn’t happy about her being here, especially for such a lengthy period of time. But he also seemed to realize there was nothing either of them could do about it.
Turning his attention back to the groceries, he said, “Sit at the table and I’ll fix you something to eat.”
She didn’t want him to cook for her. She didn’t want him to do anything for her. No! That wasn’t true. She wanted him to do everything for her. Especially take her into his arms and tell her how much he loved her, wanted her, needed her. But since that was never going to happen, she might as well settle for a simple breakfast.
“All right.”
While he was putting away the groceries and gathering the things for her meal, Bridget tried to relax and rest. God only knew how exhausted she was, but being in Johnny’s presence made unwinding her coiled nerves impossible. In spite of her orders to look at the walls, the floor, the cabinets, her gaze insisted on fixing itself to him. With his back to her, it made it doubly easy for her to stare and measure the faint changes she could see against the vivid memories she’d carried with her for all these years.
Time had only made him more of a man, she recognized. Hard muscle now bulked his shoulders, arms and legs, while his bronze features were honed to lean, tough perfection. She didn’t think Johnny had ever been aware of just how potent his looks were to women. And even if he had known it, he’d never been the type who’d use those looks for his advantage. There was nothing pretentious or frivolous about the man and she supposed that quiet deepness about him was the very thing that had drawn her to him. And had never let her go.
Before long, the coffee began to perk and the rich aroma blended with the scents of frying chorizo. Bridget’s stomach was growling with hunger and though she wanted to cross the room and help herself to a cup and the granite coffeepot, she waited patiently for him to serve her. To do anything else would offend him. And that was something she’d never wanted to do to Johnny Chino.
Eventually, he switched off the burner beneath the iron skillet and filled a plate with the food he’d prepared. Once he carried it and a cup of coffee over to the table and placed it on the table in front of her, he said, “It isn’t much, but it’s better than nothing.”
“It’s more than enough,” she assured him. “Thank you.”
While he went after a cup of coffee for himself, Bridget dug into chorizo and scrambled eggs wrapped in tortillas.
“I should have picked up something for breakfast before I left town,” she commented between bites, “but I didn’t want to waste the time.”
The coffee was scalding hot and very strong, forcing her to take one careful sip at a time. The jolt of it helped to push away her fatigue.
He took a seat across from her, yet he didn’t turn his gaze in her direction. Instead, he focused on the nearby window. In some ways it was a relief not to have him staring at her with those all-consuming brown eyes of his. Yet a part of her missed the connection, missed the words his eyes spoke that his lips would not.
“What about your clinic?” he questioned. “Do you normally see patients at this time in the morning?”
Bridget glanced at the watch on her wrist. “Usually. But there are days when I have emergencies to tend to at the hospital or urgent house calls to make. My staff knows how to handle things. The patients I miss this morning, I’ll work in later in the week. Except for the ones with more serious issues, and those I’ll remain at the clinic late this evening to see.”
As she sipped her coffee, she could see a faint grimace pull at the corners of his mouth. Clearly he didn’t like the idea that he and his family were causing such an upheaval in her schedule. Or maybe he didn’t like the idea that she was still willing to do so much for him.
“Will you need to see Grandmother tonight?” he asked.
“That depends on you.”
That brought his head around and he stared at her with misgivings. “What do you mean?”
“I’m going to call you later on this evening and have you report on how she appears. You will tell me the truth, won’t you?”
His features tightened. “I have always told you the truth. Why would that change?”
Her eyes still clinging to his face, she lowered her cup to the tabletop. “Because I think you’d do most anything to keep me away from here—from you.”
Chapter Three
His brown gaze broke connection with hers and dropped to the tabletop. “Not at my grandmother’s expense,” he said flatly. “I want her to get well. My feelings about you don’t matter.”
Bridget was suddenly choked with all the emotions she’d been trying to stem since last night when she first laid eyes on him. “I wasn’t aware that you still had any feelings about me,” she said in a low, strained voice.
“Bridget.”
Her name came out more like a warning than anything and the whole idea that he wanted to keep everything tamped down, all the hurt wrapped up and locked away on a shelf, sent a shaft of anger ripping right through her.
“You don’t have to scold me, Johnny. I understand that you don’t want to talk about us.”
His jaws clamped tightly. “There is no us. There never was.”
He was like an unmoving piece of iron and Bridget wondered what it would take to push the right buttons to make him react, to force him to expose the emotions hidden behind his dark face.
“A moment ago you said you would never lie to me,” she pointed out. “Yet you’re doing it now.”
His nostrils flared. “I’m not lying. Yes, we were together. But not in the fairy-tale way you want to imagine.”
Before he could guess her intentions, she reached across the table and snared his wrist with her thumb and fingers. The pressure of her grip apparently surprised him because he glanced at the hold she had on his wrist before he finally lifted his gaze to her face.
“I can’t speak for you, Johnny. But nothing about our time together felt like make-believe to me. When you kissed me, touched me—made love to me, it felt very real.”
His stoic features didn’t flinch, but deep in his eyes she saw something flicker and knew that her words had reached him, perhaps even hurt him.
She hoped it wasn’t the latter. She didn’t want to hurt this man. Far, far from it. She wanted to jar him, shake him into admitting that he’d been wrong to put a wall between them.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked bluntly. “It’s been five years. All of that ended back then.”
“Not for me.”
As she watched his lips harden to a thin line, her fingers unconsciously tightened around his wrist.
“Little fool,” he muttered.
Jerking her hand free of his wrist, she stood so abruptly she swayed. Before she could latch a steadying grip on the back of her chair, Johnny was instantly at her side, sliding a bracing arm around her shoulders.
Sucking in a harsh breath, she dared to glance at his dark face. “You don’t have to bother yourself,” she said tightly. “I’m all right.”
He cursed under his breath. “You’re exhausted.”
“I’ll get over it.”
But I’ll never get over you.
The unspoken words hung between them like a charged atmosphere on a stormy night. And then slowly, achingly, his gaze drifted downward to settle on her lips.
“Do you know what this is doing to me?”
Even though his question was spoken in a clipped whisper, she could hear agony and desire coating his words, twisting his voice.
“Yes,” she answered simply.
For one split second she thought he was going to drop his arm and move away. But then a groan sounded deep in his throat and before Bridget could anticipate his next move, she found his lips hovering over hers, his warm breath caressing her cheeks.
Desire stabbed her so deeply that she actually whimpered out loud. “Johnny.”
His name came out as a soft sigh, a gentle plea echoing from the past and he answered by closing the last bit of distance between their lips.
In the flash of an instant, the kiss became a frenzied give-and-take that had their mouths crashing together, their tongues tangling. The crush of his hard mouth was bruising, almost savage in its possession, yet Bridget’s senses thrilled to the utterly masculine domination.
Years of emptiness and longing fueled her need to get closer and without even knowing it, her arms slid around his neck, her body pressed into his.
But just as passion was beginning to consume her and the heat of his body spread through hers like liquid fire, he tore his mouth free and rapidly stepped back from her.
Pinning her with an accusing glare, he asked hoarsely, “Are you happy now? To know you still wield power over me?”
Completely dazed, her lungs heaving, Bridget stared at him. “Power?” she whispered in disbelief. “Is that what you think this is about?”
“What am I supposed to think? You come here tempting me.”
She gasped. “I didn’t just show up here! You asked me to come to your home! Remember?”
But for a tiny muscle twitching in his jaw, his face was as hard as a piece of granite.
“Yes. And already I regret it.”
His answer was like a punch in the stomach and she was still reeling from the pain when he turned on his heel and left the room.
Moments later, she heard the front door slam and the cold sound reverberated through her trembling body.
Tempt him? Yes, maybe a part of her had wanted to push him into some sort of reaction, she thought dismally. Maybe she’d wanted to see if there was still a spark between them, a vestige of desire leftover from the past.
Dazedly, her fingers lifted to her swollen lips. His wild kiss had given her the answer, she supposed. Five years had changed nothing. He might still want her, but he was determined not to have her.
So what, if anything, could she do about filling the chasm between them? Bridget didn’t know. But she was sure of one thing. She was older, wiser and much, much stronger than the woman he’d pushed out of his life five years ago. This time he was going to find that pushing her away wouldn’t be easy.
Chapter Four
Johnny had hiked halfway up the mountain behind the Chino house before he realized where he was or what he was doing and the only reason he’d noticed was because one of his dogs, a Redbone named Rowdy, had nearly tripped him.
Pausing on the well-trodden trail, he looked over his shoulder to the eastern ridge of mountains, then down below where the house sat nestled in the small clearing.
The sun was still low in the clear sky, while wood smoke drifted from the chimney and spiraled lazily downward in the heavy, dew-drenched air. Clouds of vapors created by his rapid breaths swirled about his head and reminded him how far the temperature had dropped this morning.
When he’d slammed out of the house, he’d not taken the time to grab a jacket. But he hardly needed one, he thought with self-disgust. Even before he’d made the rapid climb, his whole body had been heated and burning from Bridget’s kiss.
Damn it! Why did he have to be such a fool? So weak and willing?
He’d thought the past years would have dimmed his passion for the woman. He’d believed that fire she’d built in his gut so long ago had turned to nothing more than a candle flame, just a warm, flickering memory.
God, how wrong he’d been.
Touching her again had set off an explosion in him and now he could only imagine what she was thinking.
That he still loved her? Wanted her?
Hell, Johnny, she already knew that much. You didn’t have to grab her and kiss her just to point all that out to her again.
With a helpless groan, he scrubbed his face with both hands while wishing there was some way he could wipe Bridget and the whole hopeless situation completely out of his mind. But there was no magic potion to take away his misery. Like a wolf pining for his one and only mate, he was caught as surely as an animal snared in a steel trap.
Wearily, he eased his lanky frame onto a nearby boulder and, resting his forearms across his parted knees, he bent his head and closed his eyes.
Maybe by the time he got to be as old as his grandfather, if he was to be that blessed, he would be over this fascination with Bridget. Maybe by then his body would be too old to burn with longing, his heart too hard to ache.
God only knew that he’d certainly never planned to get involved with her. Even though he’d been a childhood friend of Brady Donovan, he’d never considered him or his family a part of his own social circle. He’d never looked at Bridget with a plan to seduce her. Hell, he’d never even thought to get near enough to have a conversation with her, much less make love to her.
She was the stuff that poor Apaches could only dream about. And Johnny had never been much of a dreamer. He was a realist. Even as a young boy, he’d known what he could or couldn’t expect out of life. And Bridget had come under the heading of couldn’t.
But shortly after he’d come home from his last stint in the army, he’d unexpectedly run into her at an isolated cabin on the lake where he and Brady had often gone to camp and fish. She’d been alone, trying to recuperate from the stress of studying for final exams at medical school and he’d taken one look at her lovely face and fallen like an idiot walking too close to a dangerous ledge.
Before Johnny could stop it, his mind wandered back to a bright spring day. The leaves on the aspens had been pale green and hardly bigger than a squirrel’s ear, while the snowmelt had left the streams flowing and the lake rising. He’d been home from Iraq less than a week and his soul had been craving the peace and quiet he could only find in the wilderness of the Sacramento Mountains near his home. He’d gone to the old cabin with the intentions of enjoying several days of solitude. Never in his wildest imaginings had he expected to find Bridget sitting on the rickety front porch, sipping coffee from an old, chipped granite cup.
In spite of his friendship with Brady, he’d never formally met Bridget or, for that matter, any of his sisters. Mainly because Johnny had always avoided attending anything and everything that involved his friend’s family. As long as the two of them were away from the sprawling Diamond D it was easier to forget that the Donovans had money and class and the Chinos lacked it. Still, there’d been a handful of occasions when he’d seen Bridget from a distance and that day at the old cabin, he’d instantly recognized her bright copper hair and pale face.
She’d greeted him like an old friend, calling him by his first name and inviting him to share her coffee as though their chance meeting was nothing out of the ordinary. Johnny’s first instinct was to get out of there as fast as his legs could carry him. He’d even gone so far as to apologize for intruding and turned on his heel to leave. But with a hand on his arm she’d stopped him and urged him back to the little porch.
Thirty minutes later he’d been enthralled by her warm smile and gentle voice, the sparkle in her green eyes. And by the time the sun had settled behind the mountain and shadows had darkened the woods, she’d persuaded him to stay and share the cabin with her.
Johnny had never meant to make love to her, but she’d seemed to want him as much as he’d wanted her, making it impossible for him to refuse all that she’d offered. After three days they’d left the cabin and gone back to their respective homes, but by then their taste for each other had been whetted and not long afterward, Bridget had driven to the reservation to see him.
What followed was a white-hot affair that had changed Johnny’s life. Loving Bridget had pushed his hopes and dreams beyond a mundane life on the reservation. Her love and compassion had helped him deal with the haunting memories of serving in the military and seeing, in a far too personal way, the brutality of war. Fighting battles for freedom were oftentimes necessary, but those battles also tore at a man’s soul. After his stints in Iraq, Johnny had needed healing in the worst kind of way, and without Bridget he wasn’t sure he would’ve ever been able to come to terms with the demons that, at times, were still hard for him to face.
But five years ago he’d been a weary soldier just back from a war zone, and meeting Bridget had been almost like an escape to a gentler world. He’d started believing in himself and the idea that the two of them could actually make a life together. He’d been on the verge of proposing and giving Bridget the go-ahead to tell her family about their love, when the ground had suddenly opened up and hell had spewed out in the form of a so-called friend.
Johnny had never considered George Barefoot as anything more than an acquaintance, even though he lived on the reservation and had gone to high school with Johnny’s mother, Scarlett, and professed to be one of her closest friends. He was considered by most to be lazy and always looking for an easy angle to make money. Johnny usually did his best to avoid the man, but one day in Mescalero, he’d inadvertently passed the man on the sidewalk and before he could protest, George had pulled him into a nearby bar.
Over a beer, George had begun to tell Johnny that there was something about his rich girlfriend’s family that he ought to know. Johnny hadn’t been in any mood to hear tales about the Donovans. Most of them were far-fetched and based on unfounded gossip anyway, but when George had suddenly brought up Scarlett’s name, he’d forced himself to listen to the man.
Thirty minutes later, Johnny had left the bar feeling sick and the nausea hadn’t been a result of the cheap beer. Not wanting to believe George’s outrageous tale, he’d gone straight home and confronted his grandparents. That’s when he’d been forced to accept it as the truth. Reluctantly, his grandparents had revealed to him that his mother had been working for the Donovans, mucking stalls and doing other chores around the barns, when she’d gotten pregnant with Johnny. As the pregnancy had advanced, she’d offered the child to Doyle and Fiona. She’d wanted the Donovans to adopt Johnny and raise them as their son! His grandparents had been humiliated by her behavior and ordered Scarlett to put such a thought out of her head. But their opposition to her plans had set off a firestorm of retaliation in their daughter and she’d chosen to take her misery out on the Donovans, a family who seemingly had everything that she didn’t. She’d quit her job, then for further revenge she’d snuck back onto the ranch a short time later and attempted to burn down one of the brood mare barns. Thankfully, Doyle had caught her in the act and managed to prevent much damage from happening to their property, but to Johnny the Chino name had already been damaged beyond repair, especially with the Donovans. Moreover, the whole matter had pointed out the obvious. In spite of Charlie and Naomi’s protest, his mother had been of age and legally held the right to hand her son over to the Donovans’ care. She’d given the Donovans the opportunity to adopt him. But for some reason they’d not accepted the needy little Apache baby. Who could say they would accept him as a part of the family now?
Trying to control the violence he felt welling up in him, Johnny was torn between his realization that he wasn’t healed enough to trust himself and his anger with his mother and the pain she was still causing him. Forcing himself to face facts, Johnny had put an abrupt end to his relationship with Bridget. Of course, she’d not understood his sudden change of heart and he’d made a mess of giving her a logical reason. Clearly, she and her siblings hadn’t known anything about the incident that had happened with his mother and their parents so many years ago and Johnny was too humiliated and dejected to repeat the story. In fact, Johnny had made a point to search out George and threaten him with bodily harm if he ever repeated the story to anyone again. As for Bridget, he’d simply tried to explain that the two of them were from different worlds and to try to meld them would end up being painful for both of them.
Bridget had refused to accept Johnny’s excuse. She’d argued that he’d known all along that there were differences between them. So what had really changed with him? He’d not been able to give her the answer. He couldn’t explain that her parents had already turned him away from their home, or about the anger that still welled up inside him. Telling her would’ve only caused more hurt and, in the end, accomplished nothing. So he’d forced himself to push her out of his life, even while she was swearing that she would always love him.
Now, after five long years without her, nothing had ever really ended for Johnny. He’d simply gone on loving and wanting Bridget and doing his best to convince himself that he’d done the right thing. For both of them.
The nudge of a cold wet nose against his hand forced his thoughts to return to the present and he opened his eyes to see Daisy, the black collie, pushing herself between his knees.
“I’m not going to the top this morning, girl,” he told the dog as he gently stroked her shiny head. “I have to go back to the house. Go fetch Rowdy.”
The dog seemed to understand his order and she raced on up the mountainside in search of the Redbone. By the time Johnny got to his feet, he heard Daisy bark. The sound told him that she’d found her buddy and the two dogs would be back at his side in a matter of moments to join him on the trek back to the house.
He and the dogs were halfway home when the cell phone in his pocket rang. Frowning at the disturbance, he fished out the instrument and glanced at the illuminated number.
Seeing it was from the Brown Bear Cantina in Mescalero, he flipped the phone open and jammed it to his ear.
“Yeah, I’m here,” he answered bluntly.
A woman’s familiar voice came back at him. “Johnny, it’s me, Rosalinda. A couple of guys are here in the cantina right now looking to hire a hunting guide. I told them about you, but I didn’t give them your number. What with your grandmother sick and all, I thought I should call you myself first.”
“Thanks, Rosalinda. You’d better put them on to someone else. I can’t leave my grandparents right now. Not for any length of time.”
“Gotcha on that. She doing any better?”
“Holding her own.”
“Let me know if I can do anything to help,” she said, then after a quick goodbye cut their connection.
Johnny thoughtfully slipped the phone back into his jeans’ pocket and headed on down the path. Any other time he would have been more than glad for the work. Not that he especially liked being a guide for men who traveled out of the cities to hunt or fish in a rough wilderness that, more often than not, came as a rude awakening to them. He’d never been much of a people person. And he especially didn’t care for dealing with men, and sometimes women, who were so obviously out of their element. But other than the small fixed income his grandfather received for his retirement from the forestry service, his grandparents had no nest egg for their golden years. Being a fishing and hunting outfitter was a way for Johnny to make a fairly decent living and still be around to see after his grandparents and help with their living expenses.
You don’t have to cater to the whining demands of those people, Johnny. Ethan would jump at the chance to hire you to the force. You’d make a damned good deputy. Hell, all you’d have to do is give someone who was thinking about committing a crime one of those stares of yours and it would scare them into going straight.
Johnny’s lips twisted to a cynical slant. He didn’t know what made his friend, Brady, believe he’d make a good deputy. Sure, he’d served as a soldier in the army and completed two grueling stints in Iraq. And as a tracker, he’d worked with law enforcement agencies spanning several Western states. But that didn’t give him the right stuff to deal with thieves and drunks, domestic violence, vehicle crashes and all the other tragic situations that people got themselves into. A man needed patience for that kind of work and an innate understanding of human nature. He had neither. He’d learned that the hard way when he’d made a tragic mistake in the California desert. A child had died because of Johnny. Because he’d not been able to foresee or understand what had been guiding his little footsteps. Until it had been too late.
No, he thought grimly. Brady and Sheriff Hamilton might think he had the makings of a law officer, but they were wrong. Dead wrong.
Blowing out a heavy breath, he did his best to shake his mind of the past and quickly descend the last of the trail.
* * *
Bridget was sitting in the Chino living room, talking on her cell phone to her receptionist when the front door opened and Johnny entered the house.
Her heart lurched, then sped into a heavy thud as he gave her a cursory glance before walking on past her and out of the room.
“That’s fine, Janna. I’ll make my rounds at the hospital after I see my last patient at the clinic. Six-thirty, seven. We’ll see how it goes. Yes—probably in an hour. Thanks—bye.”
Rising from the couch, she clicked the phone shut and after dropping it into the pocket of her gray slacks, headed to Naomi’s room.
As soon as she rounded the open doorway, she spotted Johnny standing next to the head of his grandmother’s bed. The gentle expression on his features was a vast contrast to the hard glare he’d given Bridget after that kiss they’d shared earlier in the kitchen. But that hardly surprised her. She’d always gotten the impression that Johnny hated himself for wanting her, loving her.
Trying to ignore the wincing pain in her chest, she moved forward until she was standing on the opposite side of the bed from him, which was thankfully on the side where she’d erected the IV.
“Good news, Naomi,” she told her patient, as she shut off the flow of liquid medications. “It looks like I can unhook your IV now.”
“That’s all of it?” Naomi asked weakly.
Bridget carefully lifted the woman’s hand to clamp off the shunt. “We’re finished with this for today. But you’re going to need another one tomorrow. I’m going to leave all of this stuff in your hand so I won’t have to stick you again,” she explained. “But it’s all taped down securely so nothing should move or hurt. If it does, tell Johnny, okay?”
Nodding faintly, Naomi turned her milky gaze on her grandson. His only response was to touch a hand to his grandmother’s hair.
With tears stinging the back of her eyes, Bridget hurriedly gathered up her medical instruments and organized the prescriptions she was leaving for the woman to take later tonight.
“When are you coming back?” Naomi asked as Bridget hastily scratched instructions on a small piece of notepaper.
“Tomorrow. Unless you need me before then.” Turning back to the bed, she folded her hand around Naomi’s shoulder and gently squeezed. “I’m leaving my number on the nightstand. If you need me for anything—day or night—have Johnny call me. Okay?”
To Bridget’s delight, the old woman attempted to smile.
“Yes. I will. Thank you.”
Ignoring the usual doctor/patient protocol she normally practiced, Bridget leaned down and kissed Naomi’s cheek.
“You’re going to get better soon,” Bridget promised her.
After telling the woman goodbye, she gathered up her medical bag, then motioned for Johnny to follow her out of the room.
Once they were in the hallway, she purposely kept her words and her voice professional. “You’ll find her medications and the schedule for taking them on the nightstand. Keep offering her fluids throughout the day. If she needs to get up for any reason, like a trip to the bathroom, you or Charlie need to be by her side to assist her. She’s so weak she might fall and hurt herself. If you see any change for the worse don’t hesitate to call me. I’ve left my cell number with the medicine schedule.”
Except for his gaze traveling over her face, his expression was unmoving and she could only guess as to what he was thinking, feeling. To say he was a man who kept his emotions hidden was an understatement, but Bridget knew better than to pry or prod. She had always understood it was hard for him to share that private part of himself with anyone, even her.
He said, “I’m sorry this is causing problems with your schedule.”
His gaze followed her hand as it smoothed back her hair. “Don’t worry about it. I’m used to having my days and nights interrupted. It’s just a part of the job. Now I’d better be going. I have to be back at the clinic in less than an hour.”
Not waiting for a reply, she ducked her head and started to step around him, but his unexpected words stopped her.
“I—was wrong to say those things to you in the kitchen,” he said in a low, strained voice.
“Yes. You were,” she agreed.
He closed his eyes and it was all Bridget could do to keep from dropping her bag to the floor and flinging her arms around him. To be close to him, to love him was all that she’d ever wanted, needed.
“These past two days have been very hard for me,” he admitted.
“I understand. You love your grandmother very much. You don’t want to lose her.”
His eyes opened to stare straight into hers. The contact jolted her, filled her chest with an ache so all-consuming it very nearly took her breath.
“I’m talking about you,” he said flatly. “You being here again. Touching you again.”
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