Grumpy Cowboy (Single Dad Collection)

Slowly, I increase the pressure of my fingers while I continually watch his face for signs of it being too intense or painful.

“And while you think it’s all a bunch of hogwash,” I repeat his earlier words. “It’s not. It’s actually very important and a step that’s often skipped during postoperative rehab. Not only does massage help with inflammation and pain relief, but in your case, it will help with alignment.”

“Alignment? I got surgery because I fell off a bronc, darlin’. Not because my shit was out of place.”

“You just love questioning everything I say, don’t you?”

He just shrugs.

“I’m aware your knee wasn’t out of place, but between the surgery and the severe injury you endured, you basically need to retrain the parts of your knee that work together to do so effectively. If they don’t work together efficiently, then everything will be out of alignment. If that happens, then healing, stretching, and rehabbing are of zero use. You’d just end up back in surgery down the road.”

When he doesn’t say anything, I add, “I mean, maybe you learned differently where you got your medical degree, but all my years of training taught me that the right kind of massage is vital.”

The hint of a smirk lifts one corner of his mouth up. “You’re feelin’ mighty proud of yourself with that little dig, aren’t ya?”

I shrug, but also keep steadily increasing pressure to his hamstring muscle with my fingertips.

“Well, I can tell you one thing, I’m not gonna let you do this shit as often as you and Joe keep tossin’ those fuckin’ ice packs at me. If you haven’t noticed, I don’t have time to be lying flat on my back all damn day.”

I grin at that. “Just so we’re clear, it’s your stubbornness that led you to that many ice packs.”

He quirks a brow. “And how’s that?”

“Oh, c’mon,” I retort. “If you would’ve been following doctor’s orders from the start, the swelling and inflammation would’ve never gotten that bad.”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“Your leg looked like a tree trunk.”

He snorts at that. “You have a real gift for exaggerating, you know that?”

I roll my eyes. “And you have a real gift for being pigheaded.”

For the most part, Rhett just lies there with his eyes closed, and the same irritated scowl he tends to have when I’m around doesn’t grow deeper.

“You do this shit for all your patients?” he asks, his husky voice eventually breaking the silence.

“Before I left my practice to take a job with the Slammers? No, I didn’t have time to do this with all of my patients,” I answer honestly. “But I did have a few massage therapists that I trusted, and I referred my patients to them.”

“You work for the Salt Lake City Slammers?”

“I do, but why are you saying that like it’s a shock?”

“No offense, darlin’, but you don’t come across as the kind of woman who’s into sports.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Just because I like wearing heels and nice clothes and putting on my makeup and fixing my hair doesn’t mean I don’t like sports.” I mean, truthfully, I didn’t get a job for the Slammers because I like basketball. I got the job because I want to succeed in my career as an orthopedic physician and surgeon. And I want to have the financial stability I never had growing up.

When it comes to my brother’s and my childhood, it wasn’t abnormal for us to go hungry some nights because our parents were too busy feeding their alcohol habit.

“So, you like sports?” Rhett asks, pulling me from my walk down unfortunate Memory Lane.

“I mean, sort of?” I respond and he laughs.

“How much do you even know about basketball?”

“I know enough.”

“Sure ya do.”

I dig my fingertips into the top of his hamstring muscle, and he grunts in discomfort.

“Christ, no need to take it out on my leg.”

“Oh, sorry. Was that too much for you?”

He glares at me. “You know damn well you did that on purpose.”

“I would never intentionally hurt a patient.” I feign outrage. “That goes against my oath.”

He smirks at that. “Somethin’ tells me I’m an exception to your oath.”

“Well, I’ve never had to chase around a patient on a two-thousand-acre ranch just to get him to let me help heal his knee.”

“And I’ve never seen a physician try to teach horses aerobics,” he retorts on a sly grin.

“I was not teaching them aerobics,” I protest, and he just chuckles.

“Whatever you say, Doc. Pretty sure my filly Jasmine is still traumatized from watching the scary lady in neon-pink spandex do jumping jacks and squats in the pasture.”

“New rules,” I say, and he looks at me with a quirk of his brow. “No talking during massage.”

That spurs a laugh from his throat.

“This your way of tellin’ me you don’t want to talk about your new aerobics gig?”