Lover Undercover (McCade Brothers 1)

He sighed. “I was down at Rawley’s Pub, having a drink and, um, let’s say chatting with Lou Ann Doubletree.”

Lou Ann had been a year ahead of Ellie in school, but she remembered the tall, sandy-haired blonde well enough. The older girl boasted two particularly unforgettable features. “Lou Ann Double D?”

“For a girl who’s not fond of her own nickname, you’re awful quick to toss out someone else’s.”

“She liked hers. She was proud of the body parts inspiring it.”

“They are inspirational, you gotta admit.”

“So I’m told,” she said, doing a mental eye roll. What was it with men and mammary glands? She tied off the thread on a surgical needle and prepared to start stitching. “So, you were at Rawley’s, chatting with Lou Ann, and…”

“She’s on-again-off-again with Junior Tillman. Remember him?”

The name sounded familiar. Her memory called up a wide, burly guy with a booming voice and a proclivity for smashing empty beer cans on his forehead whenever the Buffalos scored a touchdown. She completed the first stitch. “Beefy guy. Your year. Had a voice like a bullhorn?”

“That’s him. Anyway, according to Lou Ann, they’re currently off, but Junior showed up tonight with his drink most definitely on, and a slightly different recollection of where they’d left things.”

“So he shot you? I can’t believe you haven’t already called the cops.” Despite her agitation, she added another small, tidy stitch to the meticulous line. It would be a travesty to scar such perfection.

“No need to get all worked up. He went after me with the coon chaser he keeps in the gun rack of his pickup. He wasn’t aiming to kill me, just stake his claim.”

“Stake his… Oh my God, you’re all hopeless.” She tied off the final suture, cut the thread, and tossed the scissors on the table.

“Not my way of thinking, Doc. I’m just trying to explain what was going through Junior’s half-rocked mind. He’s going to feel real bad about this once he sleeps off the booze.”

“He can sleep it off in a cell,” she said firmly.

Tyler made a negative sound. “Junior’s a damn good builder, plus he’s got a four-year-old boy with a baby mama over in Ashland. If he’s in jail, it’s going to be real tough for him to make child-support payments. Then the kid suffers for Junior’s bourbon-fueled bad judgment.”

“He shot you. I’m obligated to notify the authorities. It’s nonnegotiable.” Considering the matter settled, she affixed a bandage over the stitches. “You’re done.”

He craned his neck to look at his bandaged cheek, then hauled up his jeans and turned around. Those hypnotic green eyes captured hers. His lips curved up in a slow, simmering smile. “Everything’s negotiable.”

Melody’s words from the diner floated through Ellie’s mind. Roger’s ideal woman has a whole lot of experience and very few boundaries.

Practicing medicine wasn’t a gig for the easily shocked, so she didn’t see boundaries as an issue. But experience? That was another matter. Maybe the answer stood before her, in the form of a walkin

g, talking wealth of sexual know-how? Medically speaking, he also qualified as a walking, talking female libido enhancer.

“C’mon Doc, what would I have to do to persuade you to keep this between us?”