Page 34 of His First Baby Rodeo

He’d meant that he loved being with her, of course. He wasn’t saying he wasin love with her. Of course not. And she hadn’t mentioned anything about what he had said, so if she had even noticed it, Mac was sure she’d heard it the right way — the way he had intended it. Still, the moment haunted him. He hadn’t intended to say that at all. And he’d been with plenty of women before, and that particular problem had never occurred.

First that, and nowrelationship. At this rate, he would be asking her to marry him without meaning to.

But it was just a word. He hadn’t meant it the way it sounded.Relationshipcould mean anything, right? He was just talking about the fact that they were… whatever they were to each other. Friends. Coworkers. Those things were types of relationships. That was all he was talking about.

El recovered. “I’ll always worry about you,” she said. “You’re a mess when you don’t have anyone around to look after you.”

“Then I’m lucky I have you to stay here and make my lunch while I go to my doctor’s appointment.”

“Stay here and make your lunch,” she scoffed. “That is not even in my job description.”

“Okay, I guess I could always have leftovers.”

“For God’s sake. Chicken salad or tuna?”

He grinned. “Chicken, please. I don’t think I’ll be gone for very long. Today is just a checkup.”

“Well, good luck with it all the same,” she said. “No more chores to do today — I got everything done before ten in the morning — so maybe after lunch we can watch a little more of that movie we started last night.”

She was speaking in very unsubtle code. They had started a movie, but there was a reason they hadn’t finished it. The idea of sitting on a couch next to El Moyle for two straight hours and keeping his hands to himself was unthinkable, and when they’d eventually paused the film and turned their attention to one another instead, it had felt downright inevitable. He was sure she was hinting at wanting more of the same.

As always, the thought made him feel as if someone had turned up the temperature in the pit of his stomach, as if lightning was shooting down his spine. As always, that fact made him feel a surge of unease. Having El in his life meant a constant battle with himself — he spent half his time reassuring himself that what they were doing was fine and harmless, and the other half worrying that he was already in much too deep.

He’d been so concerned about the idea of possibly breaking her heart that it hadn’t even occurred to him that his own might be on the line.

But that was ridiculous. He was Mac Palmer. He didn’t fall in love, and certainly not with a woman ten years younger than himself who had made it clear from the very start that she wasn’t interested in anything lasting with him.

“Sure,” he said. “We can finish the movie.” As he said it, he decided it would be a test. He would challenge himself to just sit there, to watch the movie and keep his hands off of El for once.

He could do that, right?

* * *

“So, I’ve got your scans back,” Dr. Logan announced, clipping them to the wall so that Mac could look.

Mac squinted. Reading X-rays was not a skill he possessed. “What am I looking at here?”

“This one is the image we took when you came in on the day of your accident,” Dr. Logan said. “You can see the fracture here — this shadow, do you see it?”

“I see it.” He remembered having this pointed out to him, and how surreal it had felt to realize that something so small could cause such dramatic upheaval in his life.

“This is the scan from today,” Dr. Logan went on, pointing to the next image. “As you can see, the fracture is healed completely.” He ran a finger along the place where the shadow appeared. “This is a picture of a healthy arm.”

“I’m healed?” Mac repeated. “So that means… what does that mean?”

“It means we can go ahead and remove your cast today,” Dr. Logan said with a smile. “It’s a bit earlier than anticipated, but this is good news. I know you’ve been looking forward to getting that arm back.”

“Right,” Mac said uneasily.

It was strange. The moment he had been told his cast was coming off, he’d felt a sense of dread. That wasn’t the way he’d expected that moment to feel. He had assumed it would be an exciting one. But all he could think about was what this was going to mean.

He was going home with his cast off today. He was going to have his arm backtoday.

What did that mean for him and El?

She had come to Texas to help him on a temporary basis. He had only ever meant to hire a ranch hand until he was able to resume his chores for himself. If he was healed now, that meant the end of their time together.

He hadn’t expected it tomatterso much. But it did. He didn’t want her to go.

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