“Hello, Dr. Rose, I’m Brent Duncan. Houston Phi Chi.”

  “The medical fraternity!” Dylan said approvingly. No wonder they knew her name and work. She had given a talk at a conference in Houston they’d all attended last week. It hadn’t escaped her that members of their fraternity had taken a particular interest in her allotted hour…and she felt certain it wasn’t just her knowledge of sports medicine that made her face so easily recognizable to them now.

  “How do you do, gentlemen?” She shook hands all around, and gladly accepted an offer of a drink from the bar, so long as it wasn’t labeled. The men laughed as if they knew what she was talking about. They then launched into a series of follow-up questions about her talk.

  Now this was the kind of conversation she could get into. Still, Dylan found her gaze tracking back inside as she spoke. Charlie Wild appeared on his way out, flanked by a yammering Smitty and a doting Veronica. But to Dylan’s surprise, his gaze settled on her. Was it her imagination or did she see a flicker of real remorse cross his gorgeous face? Dylan let her eyes drift cruelly over him, never snagging, as if she were only following a train of thought. She was surrounded by her own cheerleaders now.

  When she looked for Charlie again less than a minute later, he was gone.

  Better this way, Dylan tried to convince herself as she dropped into a seat the men offered her near the railing. Charlie Wild was a flirt, as unserious about her as he was about the rules. He shirked all responsibility and those who would impose it on him—and that was okay. The worlds they inhabited may have shared the same orbit, but they were still light-years away from having anything in common. In fact, she wanted nothing to do with him. She was a helpful professional, a woman with a career that would last her all her life. He was a party boy whose most pressing concern was where his balls were at any given moment, double entendre most definitely intended. He had maybe a few more years before a major injury took him out or the media grew bored with him and decided to assist in his downfall. Dylan had seen this story play out a million times before.

  Still, that didn’t stop her from finding number twenty-seven down on the playing field once the game started. He wasn’t the biggest guy out there—the linebackers got that honor—but Charlie Wild was the indisputable center of gravity. Of course he would be surrounded by cameras and reporters, giving his pregame interview. Dylan leaned forward, folding her arms beneath her on the railing as she watched. Maybe it was all right to admire him from a distance—the way his mile-wide shoulders filled out his pads; the way he leaned all his weight to one side, with his helmet nestled in the crook of his hip. The way the tight little knot of hair piled atop his head gave his chiseled features a strength and severity she hadn’t fully appreciated before.

  Okay, fine. She would admire him with all the rest. But like all the rest, she would only allow herself to admire from a distance.

  The first quarter started. Dylan sipped on her second vodka-cranberry, relishing the tart taste that kept her company as she observed the action below. Occasional comments from her seatmates drew her attention away from the field, but her eyes always returned to the Teamsters’ star quarterback. Someone wise had once said to never meet your heroes. Not that Charlie was her hero, but she couldn’t help feeling…disappointed somehow. And not because she had built up some false, worshipful image of who he was in her head. He had a whole team of people behind him off the field whose sole job was to market him as the playboy of football, a potent man’s man who conquered women as easily as he conquered his opponents.

  But that wasn’t the man Dylan thought she had met an hour ago. He had been cocky, sure, but…surprising. Chivalrous was the word she wanted to use, but she kept it to herself. Dylan sucked her drink down until the ice cubes rattled, and then she got up to get herself another.

  “WILD IS DOWN! WILD IS DOWN!” the radio announcer in the skybox suddenly shouted.

  All around her, the box erupted in shouts. The crowd below them roared like an ocean in upheaval. Dylan whirled around and rushed back to the railing. Her glass slipped through her fingers and smashed on the ground.

  Maybe a few more years before an injury takes him out. Her own mean-spirited thought came back to her, and she cringed, feeling guilty. She hadn’t caused this, but there he was all the same, number twenty-seven sprawled on the field, surrounded by his teammates—with a stretcher on the way.

  2

  CHARLIE

  Lockhart Bend was pretty much exactly as Charlie remembered it: a dusty town with a third lane for tumbleweeds, with the air of a set from a Clint Eastwood movie. This was a place disconnected from time, hanging suspended between present and past, and that was exactly the way the locals liked it.

  Lockhart Bend was too small for Charlie, and Lockhart Bend General Hospital was even smaller. As Charlie stared up at its plain brick face, he felt the first faint stirrings of anxiety in his stomach.

  “Been a long-ass time since I’ve been back here,” he said to his half brother Trevor, mostly to distract himself from the gooseflesh down his arms. He shifted on his crutches, wincing more at the sight of his reflection than from any actual pain. He looked broken, he thought. Janky. Lopsided. Like a stiff gust of wind might blow him off stride. That wasn’t him, and it never would be. He would have left the crutches at home, if not for Trevor insisting he bring them. He was fine without them, or as close as made no difference. It had been over a month now since he’d gone down, and he was as good as recovered, nearly back on his feet.

  Trevor shifted beside him and cleared his throat. He looked as uncomfortable as Charlie felt. The stern-faced cowboy almost always looked uncomfortable when confronted with someone or something that wasn’t a horse, but this went beyond even his usual restlessness. Charlie decided to take pity on him.

  “Look, I know we both hate this place. Why don’t you wait out here?” Charlie nodded at a low bench near the front doors. “Once the meeting’s over, I’ll come and get you. You can look at all my fucked-up MRI scans. Get to know the most intimate parts of me.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.” Charlie clapped his brother on the shoulder, then his gaze zeroed in on a figure coming toward them on the sidewalk. “No shit,” he muttered under his breath. Trevor turned to see what the matter was and went so far as to push the brim of his Stetson up to get a better look.

  She might have been a mirage shimmering out of the Texas heat to torment him. Today she had shed the baggy clothes, but he still would have recognized her anywhere: she was all legs in those jeans, all easy confidence, as if the skin she wore was enough for her and anything else could be easily discarded as excess. The baseball cap was gone, and her dark hair flowed around her elegant neck in soft waves. She was even more striking than he remembered—those green eyes of hers were arresting even from this distance, reflecting the light of the midday sun.

  “You know her?” Trevor sounded doubtful.

  “That’s the chick I was telling you about. The mystery brunette from the stadium.” Charlie slapped Trevor’s shoulder again. “Stand back. Watch and learn.”

  “Uh-huh.” Trevor sounded like he was trying not to laugh, but that was fine. Charlie had this.

  The woman’s eyes locked with Charlie’s as she headed for the front doors. Recognition flickered in their green depths, but she kept walking as if she hadn’t quite remembered who he was, only that she’d seen him somewhere before. That was the only explanation that made sense to Charlie. What woman would ignore him, knowing who he was?

  “Well, hey there again, beautiful! Didn’t expect to be reunited with you this soon!” Charlie said. He was all too happy to break the ice. “What did you say your name was again?”

  “I didn’t,” she replied. His overfamiliar greeting didn’t cause so much as a hitch in her stride. Her apparent lack of interest was puzzling to Charlie, but it only made him more intrigued.

  “You stalking me?” he asked as he started after her, shuffling as best he could on the crutches that had been custom-made to support a man of his size. Wounded warrior, he told himself. Chicks love it, don’t worry.

  “While it may come as a surprise to you to hear it, I actually live here in Lockhart Bend,” the woman informed him curtly. “So, you’re the one intruding on my area code.”

  “Great. Maybe you can help me, then. I’m looking for my doctor—Dr. Dylan Rose.” Charlie reached out to hold the door open for her, and she breezed right past him without glancing his way. “You don’t happen to know where I can find him, do you?”

  The woman turned around—finally, progress!—but before she could respond, a nurse hurried over.

  “Oh, here you are—and you too, Mr. Wild.” She nodded at Charlie. “Everyone’s waiting, if you’ll come right this way.” She ushered them both down a dingy hallway, the hospital smell so heavy Charlie’s eyes watered. His fight-or-flight response kicked into high gear, but instead of doing either, he swung forward on his crutches, catching up with his mystery woman in two sloppy strides.

  “So, since we’re both going into the same meeting, I assume you work here.” He let his eyes linger on her as he awaited her response. He wanted her to see his appreciation and guess the nature of his thoughts. The disgusted look she gave him in response wasn’t as discouraging as she probably wanted it to be. Charlie liked a challenge, and he needed a distraction.

  They entered the conference room together, but before he could drop down into the chair beside her and dig a bit deeper, Smitty motioned for him to join his management team at the other end of the table. Charlie saluted her—earning himself a scoff, which was marginally better than the lip curl—as he joined his people. The meeting kicked into high gear without Charlie’s input, a lot of talk about his treatment plan and how the hospital would handle a patient of his notoriety, but there wasn’t much there to hold his interest. The woman at the end of the table had him intrigued—she was focused, all business, stern and strong. But when he’d flirted at the stadium, she’d flirted back. Or had he imagined it?

  Of course he hadn’t. He was Charlie Wild, and she was…Who was she?

  A bland, droning voice cut through his thoughts. “So, we’d like to make a generous donation to the hospital.”

  Charlie turned to scowl at the man who’d spoken, one of the nameless suits representing the Teamsters’ head office. No one had bothered to consult him on this. The man didn’t seem to register Charlie’s surprise. “A fifty thousand-dollar donation to Sports Med from the Teamsters will go over well, we think. Not only will it improve the charitable profile of our client, but it will also raise the profile of the hospital and its sports med program. We look forward to collaborating with Lockhart Bend General on this arrangement.”

  “Pardon me, but wouldn’t those funds be better allocated to the pediatric wing?” His favorite dark-haired beauty had risen from her seat. “Sports Medicine is already generously endowed, and our pediatric patients are in desperate need of—”

  “Out of the question,” Smitty broke in. “The only way you’re getting this donation is if it raises the profile of my client and the profile of his team.”

  “Are you seriously trying to tell me donating to kids in need wouldn’t—”

  “Nobody is trying to tell any one individual in this room anything,” the hospital head interrupted quickly, with a significant look toward Charlie’s mystery woman. The brunette tossed her head in annoyance as she sat back down. Charlie shot Smitty a look—could we? being his unvoiced question—but Smitty just shook his head in exasperation. He probably sensed the inspiration for Charlie’s telepathic question and wanted to nip it in the bud now.

  Fat chance of that. As the meeting droned on, Charlie took turns watching the clock and watching the beautiful storm cloud brewing at the other end of the table. Finally, the hospital head dismissed them all. Charlie rose as quickly as he could on his crutches and lumbered after the woman. If she thought she was going to escape from him a third time, she could think again.

  “Hey. You.” Not his best attempt at an overture, but in his defense, he had tried pretty much everything else. The woman paused, perhaps taking enough pity on him to allow him to catch up.

  “Need help finding radiology, Mr. Wild? I’m sure one of the nurses will be happy to escort you.”

  “I was hoping for some more personal attention, actually. Your name would be a good start.”

  The mystery woman stared at him for a long, weary moment. Then she inclined her head toward the front entrance of the hospital. “Who’s the cowboy? He with you?”

  “Yeah, he’s with me. He’s my half brother, Trevor. He’s the owner down at Wildhorse Ranch. I’m going to be staying with him for a bit.” Whoever this woman was, it was likely she had at least driven by Wildhorse on her way in and out of town.

  “Your half brother? I thought you were from Austin,” the woman muttered to herself. “That’s what it says on all your stats.”

  “I am. And I’m flattered you were looking at my stats.” Charlie leaned forward as casually as he could manage on his crutches, hoping to crowd the approaching Smitty out of their conversation. “But I’m from here originally. Charlie Wild, of Lockhart Bend. Pleasure to keep making your acquaintance, Miss…?”

  “Dr. Rose. Dr. Dylan Rose.”

  Smitty arrived just in time to hear. His eyebrows rose so dramatically his sunglasses nearly fell off his head.

  “Shit,” Charlie said. Well, he’d blown that.

  “I guess my only question, Mr. Wild, is what the hell did you do to yourself in private after your more publicly broadcast injury?”

  Dylan’s sharp eyes flashed with green fire. Charlie winced. “That’s some bedside manner you’ve got there, Doc. What makes you think I did anything to aggravate it?”

  Dylan’s brows shot up, like she couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. She angrily indicated the wall where she had posted his MRI scans. “Because we’re currently standing in radiology, Mr. Wild, in one of the best sports clinics in the country, and fortunately they taught me how to read these things when I was in med school. Whatever you did to yourself, I’m looking at the results.”

  “It was my fault, ma’am.” Trevor stood with his arms crossed beside Charlie, having come in and found him, tired of waiting outside. Charlie shot him a silencing look, but that had never been as effective on family as it was on his management team. “Charlie offered to help me move some equipment out of one of the barns. He told me he’d cleared it with you first.”

  “Really.” Now Dylan was giving Charlie a look that could have melted his MRI results like cigarette burns on old film. “That’s funny, considering he didn’t know who I was until today.”

  “Look, Doc, I didn’t think it was a big deal. I was feeling okay that day, and I thought, what could it hurt?”

  “What could it—” Dylan made a choking sound. Her eyes sparked with rage. Their green depths reminded Charlie of the freshwater swimming holes he and his brothers used to leap into as kids…Only these waters were slightly less welcoming at the moment. He held up his hands in a warding-off gesture.

  “Don’t bite my head off. I fucked up, okay? But exercise is a good thing. Trevor said—”

  “Don’t bring me into this.” Trevor shook his head. “I said it was fine if your doctor approved it, not if you were bored and just looking for something to do.”

  Charlie scowled at Trevor, then glanced back at Dylan. Both of them were looking at him like Mom used to do when he’d gotten himself into some stupid scrape. Charlie was seriously starting to regret inviting his brother to this appointment. Trevor was meant to be here for support, not to rat out his fibs.

  “It can’t be that bad,” said Charlie, projecting a bravado he didn’t feel. “I got downstairs this morning without so much as a twinge. Whatever it looks like, I’m Charlie fucking Wild. It’ll take more than a tweaked knee to throw me off my game.”

  “Your ego aside, Mr. Wild—Charlie.” Dylan corrected herself when she appeared to remember there were currently two Mr. Wilds in the room. “There won’t be any more fucking up now that I’m on your case. You’ve aggravated your injury to the point where a literal misstep could end your career. My expertise can only carry us so far—what I need you to do is start following my rules, whether I’m around to enforce them or not. An ACL injury of this magnitude isn’t going to care who you are, or whether or not you’ve got a game to get back to.”

  Charlie’s guts clenched at Dylan’s grave tone. He hated that tone—half-gentle, half-stern, with a pinch of compassion. They must teach doctors that damn bad news voice at med school.

  “So, how about it, Charlie? You going to be good?”

  Charlie wanted to snap back with a smart remark, but if he opened his mouth, he thought he might puke. He smirked instead, and looked Dylan up and down, letting his eyes linger on the sparkling rose pendant that hung between her breasts. Oh, yeah, I’ll be good for you. I’ll be good, all right.

  Trevor elbowed him, and for a moment Charlie worried he’d said that out loud. Then he remembered that he was Charlie Wild, the Teamsters’ favorite say-anything, do-anything playboy, and he relaxed a little. If outside observers didn’t automatically assume his thoughts were perverted, then he wasn’t projecting himself right. Though he had some vague memory of Smitty suggesting he tone it down a bit.

  For her part, Dylan didn’t appear to notice his roving gaze. The white coat and the sensible clothes she wore beneath it were only marginally more form-fitting than her game day getup, but Charlie surprisingly found he approved of her modesty. It left him more to discover for himself—and damned if he wasn’t prepared to explore. He straightened up, feeling better, and cleared his throat.

  “Do you have any more questions for me at this time?” Dylan asked him curtly.

  He didn’t, not really, but he still felt defensive, and what better defense than a good offense? He let his smirk widen into a grin. “Yeah. Who the hell names their daughter Dylan?”