Page 5 of Overdue for a Cowboy

The drugstore was mostly empty of customers, but Dodge knew the cashier who was standing at the register leafing through a magazine. They’d gone to school together, but she’d been a year ahead of him. “Hey Alyssa.”

“Hey Dodge,” she answered, closing the magazine then looking beyond him toward the door, no doubt hoping his older, and much more charming, brother would walk in after him. “Chevy with you?”

He shook his head, and her shoulders slumped. He was used to that reaction. Chevy was the middle brother—the one everyone loved—the charmer who made people laugh and who flirted with anything in a skirt. Chevy loved a party and could create one just by showing up. The total opposite of Dodge, who usually preferred horses and dogs to people and was content to never leave the ranch and spend his evenings in the company of a good book.

He pointed out the window to where his truck sat. “Can you see that woman asleep out there?”

She nodded. “You mean Maisie?”

“Yeah,” he said, already walking toward the back of the store to where the pharmacy counter sat. “Can you keep an eye on her and holler at me if she wakes up?”

“Sure. Seems a little early in the day to be passed out. You two have a party?”

“No. She’s just asleep. She was in a car accident, and the pain meds knocked her out. Just yell if you see her wake up,” he called, his tone probably sounding too firm.

“Sheesh. Okay,” she said with a huff. “I’m watching her.”

He’d grabbed several things on his way to the back of the store and laid a couple of bottles of Sprite and Gatorade, two cans of chicken soup, a bag of Cheetos, a bottle of Advil, two protein bars, two Snickers, and a package of gummy bears on the pharmacy counter.

Abe Abernathy had been the owner and pharmacist of Abernathy Drugs for as long as Dodge could remember. Abe knew everyone in town and probably knew all their secrets from the medication he filled for them. But the man always had a kind word and never gossiped, which made him a good guy in Dodge’s book.

Thinking about gossip, he realized he probably shouldn’t have called out through the entire store that Maisie had been in a car accident. But he didn’t want Alyssa, or anyone else, spreading stories that Maisie had gone on a bender with him and was passed out on Main Street in his truck. He’d spent enough time in his life fending off rumors about his mom being a drunk—although those rumors were true—but he didn’t want anyone saying that about Maisie.

Abe smiled at Dodge and held up a white pharmacy bag. “I heard. Is Maisie okay?” he asked as he rang up the stack of items.

“Yeah, she will be. Conked her head and sprained her wrist. She needs some rest, but she’ll be all right,” Dodge told him, this time keeping his voice quieter.

“Those will help,” the pharmacist told him, pointing to the bag. “Tell her to take one every four hours to stay ahead of the pain. They might make her drowsy, so no driving.” His instructions echoed the ones the doctor had given them in the emergency room. “And she doesn’t have to take them with food, but if they bother her stomach, a few crackers should help.” He nodded to the aisle of crackers and chips.

“Thanks,” Dodge told him as he grabbed a box of Saltines and added it to the pile. He tapped his card to the reader, grabbed his bags, and hurried back toward the front of the store.

“She hasn’t moved,” Alyssa told him as he strode past.

“Thanks,” he called back as he pushed through the door and headed to the truck. Maisie stirred as he slid back into the driver’s seat and pulled the door shut. “You doin’ okay?”

She nodded as she blearily blinked her eyes. “Tired.”

“I know.” He reached to rub her shoulder, then pulled his hand back and started the engine. The scent of her—something floral with a hint of vanilla—filled the cab of his truck and it was doing funny things to his insides. The sight of her, battered and bruised and slumped against the door, not only had his protective instincts coming out, but other feelings as well. Feelings that had him wanting to scoop her into his arms and kiss away the bruises and pain. And he hadn’t had feelings likethat in a long time. “I’ll have you home and in your own bed in no time.”

She laughed as her eyes closed again, and she muttered, “Dodge Lassiter is taking me home and to bed. Imustbe dreaming.”

He shook his head as he backed up and pulled onto the street, but he couldn’t keep the grin from crossing his face.

He drove a few blocks and turned onto Fourth Street. He knew where she lived, not just because everyone in Woodland Hills knew where everyone else lived, but because she had told him about the small house she’d bought the year before and renovated herself when they were working together a few weeks earlier at the rundown farmhouse his oldest brother, Ford’s girlfriend, Elizabeth, had purchased. Elizabeth had assigned them the upstairs bedrooms to paint, and they’d had fun that day as they’d worked together.

Maisie had always acted quiet and a bit shy around him, but that day, as she had focused on cutting in the trim and he had concentrated on the paint-rollering, they had talked easily about books they’d both read, how things at the ranch were going, and her work at the library.

They had a lot in common, not just in the people they knew or their shared love of reading, but in the harder parts of their lives, the parts where they had both been abandoned by parents and both had close relationships with the grandparents who had stepped in to raise them.

They didn’t say those things aloud, but having known each other so long, they knew them, and there was an unspoken bond between them in that regard. He’d always considered Maisie a friend, had always thought about her as that sweet, shybookworm he’d known forever, but more and more lately, he’d noticed how big and blue her eyes were behind her glasses and how pretty she’d become.

He turned into the driveway of a small blue house with white shutters and a neatly mowed lawn. An array of colorful flowers filled the garden areas on either side of the front steps. White slats lined a wide front porch that held a well-worn wicker sofa covered in blue and white overstuffed pillows.

Dodge carefully opened the passenger door so Maisie wouldn’t fall out and then gently nudged her shoulder. “We’re here.”

She blinked open her eyes and let out a sleepy sigh. “Home sweet home.”

He got an arm around her and helped her up the steps. Moose padded along behind them. Dodge pointed to the rug on the porch. “Stay.”

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