Page 3 of One Last Rodeo

“They don’t. Just yours, apparently.”

She’s already turning away from me.

"Hey. Doc. Wait up!"

"You will address me asDoctorAlba."

"Right. Doctor Alba." I rub the back of my neck, still trying to catch up to the fact that she's standing in a training room in Austin instead of an operating room in California. "Didn't figure I'd ever see you again. Sorry about not coming to my follow up appointment.”

I’m trying to be funny, but I guess that didn’t land. She just looks at me with those big, round brown eyes and slowly blinks. Dammit. She’s pretty when she’s mad.

“Guess congrats are in order, on the new gig and all," I say.

She goes very still.

"Congrats," she repeats the word slowly, and I know instantly that was the wrong thing to say.

"Yeah, I mean, that's a hell of a jump. Heart surgery to bull riders."

I'm just talking now, filling space, the way I do with everybody. Except apparently, I’m not supposed to do that with her, because her eyes have gone flat in a way that makes Heath turn around slowly and find the tools he brought out extremely interesting.

"Must've been a slow year for hearts, huh?"

"A slow year for hearts," she repeats and folds her arms tightly across her chest.

I’m fucking this up. I’m not sure why. But I am completely fucking this up.

I run my fingers through my hair. "That came out wrong."

"No," she says, calmly. But it’s a scary calm. "It came out exactly right. That's the assumption, isn't it? That a woman doesn't walk away from the top of her field unless somebody handed her a worse career out of pity."

"Well, that's not what I—"

"I don't need your congratulations, Mr. Grant. I need you to take your own health as seriously as I took putting your heart back together. That's the entire job. That's all I'm here for." She's already moving for the door again. "Try not to need me again so soon."

The door swings shut hard enough to bounce off the frame, and I'm left sitting there with my shoulder throbbing, replaying what I said, trying to find the part that was an insult and coming up empty. And somewhere underneath all the confusion, there’s something that feels a hell of a lot like wanting her to come back in here and yell at me some more.

I like her.

Heath clears his throat. "So, that went well. Seems like the new doctor and you will get along just fine."

"I don't even know what I said. I blacked out."

"Yeah," he says, grinning down at my shoulder like it's the funniest thing he's seen all week. "That's usually how it goes with you and women, isn't it? Lay back, let me finish up, and maybe next time you stay out of Doctor Alba’s way, yeah?"

I lay back on the table. “Yeah…”

But all I can hear is the muted rush of water in my ears, the feeling of being suspended beneath the surface, caught somewhere between panic and calm and unable to take in air.

And then I think of her…Doctor Catalina Alba.The strange jolt I felt when I touched her. Seeing her felt like breaking the surface and finally pulling in a breath after holding it for too long.

Chapter 2 – Catalina

A slow year for hearts.

I press my palms together hard enough that my knuckles ache, flexing each finger one at a time, checking that he didn't leave a mark on me with that gorilla grip of his.

He didn't. Of course he didn't. Jensen Grantdoesn't leave marks anyone can see. Not on skin, anyway.