“You mean like becoming a nurse?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of your becoming a doctor,” he said quietly as he began to bandage her foot.
“Me? A doctor?” she said, her voice telling him what she thought of that idea.
Thomas frowned. “You’ve doctored two people. Why not more?”
“One of my patients died, and the other . . .” She lowered her voice. “Roger hates me for what I did to him. He says my nursing skills are as subtle as a stone baseball bat.”
Thomas snorted. “Roger is jealous of you.”
“Of me?” Madison said, laughter in her voice.
“Of course. He reeks with it, like a fish left out in the sun for a week.”
Madison smiled. “You make me feel good. Smart, I mean.”
“You don’t need that from me. Roger knows that you’re smarter than he is, as well as better looking and a better person. How can he compete with someone like you?”
“Someone like me,” she said softly. “‘A Montana cowgirl.’”
Thomas didn’t respond to what she’d said, nor did he apologize for having called her that before he’d met her. Instead, when she looked down at the top of his head, at his thick, black hair, she thought that he was taking an extraordinarily long time bandaging her second foot. As for her, she thought that he could go on holding her foot—or touching any part of her—forever.
It was growing darker by the minute, and they were so very alone, with nothing but the water to one side of them, high rocks to the other.
She was looking down at him hard. What would she do if he made a movement toward her? If he, say, ran his hand up her leg under her trousers? She’d never been touched in that way by any man except Roger, and she had never felt with him as she did with this man right now. Every pore in her body seemed to be alive.
It was Thomas who broke the spell. Abruptly, he dropped her foot, stood up, then looked down at her. “We only have one tent for the two of us. Two sleeping bags but one tent. If we sleep in the same room, so to speak, are you going to try to take my virtue?”
The way he said it made her laugh. “Depends on what color your underwear is,” she said as she stood up.
“Red,” he said instantly.
“Nope, does nothing for me.”
“Sorry. I forgot. It’s black.”
Madison laughed again. “No. Nothing.”
“Green?” he asked hopefully.
She smiled. “So what are you serving me for dinner? I could eat a horse.”
“Ah, now I remember. My underwear is made of that pony fabric. You know, white with big brown spots. Makes me look like a horse. Dead ringer.”
Madison laughed hard. “Go away. Get me something to eat. And where can I . . . You know?”
“I’ll take you,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.
“What happened to ‘No romance’?”
“That was before I liked you so much,” he said, smiling at her.
For a moment she looked at him. “I bet you had some interesting encounters with women while you were traveling. All you had to do was look at them without your scowl and they’d—” She broke off because Thomas was looking at her with a wide smile. His scowl was gone, so his eyes were round, not narrow slits, and his lips were soft and full.
It was in that moment that Madison knew that if—a big, big if—there was ever to be anything between them in the future, then she must, absolutely, positively, must not allow anything to happen on this trip. For all his leering and teasing, her intuition told her that she had to keep this whole trip light.
“Well, I like you too,” she said as though to a little boy, “but there’s a matter of previous ownership.” With that, she headed for the bushes.