Page 7 of Texas Daze (Texas Montgomery Mavericks)

Her mother laughed. “Please. Days? You spent yesterday in your room and you should be theretoday.”

“No way, no how. I need to get down to the barn. Check on the new calves. And we’ve got those two teens from the Whispering Springs Police Department program starting. I need to make sure that everything isready.”

“You don’t have to do everything around here,youknow.”

Marti sat at the table and rolled her eyes up to where her mother stood. “I know, but with you and dad planning to take the summer to travel, you need to know you’re leaving the ranch in goodhands.”

Her mother hugged her. “We know that. You don’t have anything to prove to us. Besides, we don’t leave for another week and we can delay the trip ifnecessary.”

“Absolutely not,” Marti said. “You won’t have to. My ankle is already feeling so muchbetter.”

“We’ll see,” hermothersaid.

After a quick breakfast, Marti climbed onto the ATV parked at the backdoor and rode it down to the barn. Any other morning, she could have walked, but Dr. Boone—the scorching hot Dr. Boone—had stressed, as did his nurse, that she should put as little weight on it to help healing. She wasn’t supposed to be on a horse, dangling legs and all, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t help out with the daily barnchores.

She checked in with the ranch foreman, and took over the grooming that needed to be done. Pedro was moved from grooming horses to literally shoveling shit from the stalls. The job switch was met with good natured groans and protests, but he winked at Marti as he left Rascal’s stall. She was just getting started when the foreman called her back to the barnoffice.

“You’ve got a call,” he said, handing her thereceiver.

“Hello?”

“Martha? This is Dr. Boone. I wanted to see how you were getting along withtheboot.”

His deep voice jabbed her gut, making her pull in her abdomen inresponse.

“Call me Marti,” she said. “I’m doing fine. Swelling down. Pain is better. Overall, I think I’ll be back to normal before youknowit.”

“That’s great. Good to hear. I, um, like to check on my patients to make sure they’redoingokay.”

“I am. Thank you for calling.” She paused. “Is thereanythingelse?”

She crossed her fingers this call was a ruse to ask her out. What woman wouldn’t want to be seen with the attractive new doctor in town? Not a relationship sort of thing. She didn’t need the hassles that went with those, but some male attention would be welcome. After all, her handheld shower massager was beginning to show signs of excessive wearandtear.

“Well, now that you ask, I wonder if I might drop by and discuss a projectwithyou.”

“A project?” Her fingersuncrossed.

Damn it. Why did she seem to draw the attention of men who needed something from her? Besides sex, sheamended.

“I…” She hesitated. “Sure,whynot?”

“Great. This afternoon work?Aboutfour?”

“Sure,” she repeated. “Seeyouthen.”

She went back into Rascal’s stall, picked up the grooming brush and began running it along thehorse’sside.

“So,” she said to Rascal. “Guess who I justtalkedto?”

He shook his mane, which she interpreted as, “Tellmemore.”

“Dr. Hottie.” A ripple ran along Rascal’s back, which could have been the brush, or maybe Rascal had a sense of exactly how sexy thedoctorwas.

“Oh,” a suspiciously Hispanic male voice said. “I bet he wants to kiss you.” This statement was followed by loud kissing noises and agiggle.

“I don’t know, Rascal,” she said, playing along. “But I know one thing. Pedro is going on the mucking list for the rest of the week if I see him in the next twominutes.”

“This isn’t Pedro,” the voice said. “This is Rascal.” This was followed by a girl’s giggle. Marti rolled her eyes. Her latest police department offenders were a couple of seventeen-year-old girls who’d been caught throwing toilet paper into the trees in the high school yard. They’d been sentenced to the ranch for a month of stallmucking.

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