Wild Rekindled Love

WILD REKINDLED LOVE

Wilder Series 4

SANDY SULLIVAN

Copyright © 2010

Chapter One

“Okay, folks. This is our own little hometown girl, Samantha Wilder. She is one of the best little barrel racers I’ve seen in a long time. Let’s give it up for her and cheer her on. Go get ‘em, Sam!”

“You heard him, baby. Go get ‘em.” Jamie smiled from next to Samantha’s horse.

“Aw, Mom,” Samantha grumbled before she kicked her mare and moved away.

Jamie took her place at the fence as Sam started her run. She made the first turn with a great time, but when she headed for the second barrel, she lost her balance and tumbled to the ground. Jamie hopped the fence and took off at a dead run toward her daughter. When she reached her side, Samantha lay in the dirt crying and holding her left arm.

“Oh, God. Sammy, are you all right?”

“Mommy, my arm hurts.”

“It’s okay, baby. Hold on. The paramedics will be here in a jif.”

Jamie wiped the tears cutting a path down her daughter’s dirty cheeks. She knew if Sam cried, she must really be hurt and she didn’t like the angle of her arm.

A moment later, Jamie’s brother, Chase, stood at her side.

“Hey, squirt. What did you do now?”

“Uncle Chase, my arm hurts.”

“Let me look, sweetie.”

“What do you think? Is it broken?”

“I’m not a doctor, sis, but I would say yeah. The paramedics will take her to the hospital and get it x-rayed. That way we’ll know for sure.”

“Hey, Chase. What do we have?”

“Looks broken, but you guys are the experts.”

“That would be my guess too with the angle. We’ll take her in, Jamie. She’ll be fine. You can ride up front.”

“Thanks, Jack.” Jamie turned to her brother while the paramedics splinted Samantha’s arm and put her on the stretcher. “Can you get my truck to the hospital for me?”

“No problem, sis. I’ll drive it and Abby can pick me up.”

I’ll see you there, then,” Jamie said before she turned to follow behind her daughter.

* * * *

“Doctor Crossland?”

Wyatt Crossland looked up from the chart he had under his hand to find Amy Jenkins, registered nurse, standing at the entrance of the dictation room. “Yes?” She smiled.

She is kind of pretty with her big blue eyes, but she’s not the one I want.

“We have an ambulance coming in from the rodeo and a couple more patients in triage. The physician’s assistant is asking for you.”

“All right. I’ll be right there.” He rubbed his tired eyes for a moment before he struggled to his feet. It had been a hellacious twenty-four hours. The day before, the emergency room had been so busy, he hadn’t gotten any rest at all and when he went home, he had slept like the dead, not even waking for the alarm. The hospital had to call him and wake him up for his shift.

He made his way to the nurse’s station and stopped to talk to the physician’s assistant before he grabbed a chart. Flipping through the triage sheet, he sighed before he turned and headed toward the patient waiting.

Walking into the small room where his next patient lay, he vaguely heard the ambulance roll in and one of the nurses direct the paramedics to a trauma bay.

Mrs. Lewis lay stretched out on the gurney in front of him, telling him about the pain in her hip that had been there for over a month.

I love emergency medicine, but Lord sometimes I wish I didn’t have to listen to the same complaints day in and day out.

“Well, Mrs. Lewis, we’ll x-ray it and make sure nothing is broken, but it sounds more like arthritis pain. I’ll put in the order for the x-ray and something for pain for you. Okay?”

“Of course, Wyatt. You were always such a nice boy when you were growing up.” The elderly lady patted his cheek affectionately. “Too bad you had to leave to go off to school, but you are home now.”

“Thanks ma’am. I’ll be back to see you in a bit.”

“You just take your time, son. I know you’re busy.”

“Yes ma’am.”

He stepped out of the room and sighed.

This was a mistake. Why the hell did I ever come back to Laramie in the first place?
His heart whispered in return,
because she’s here.

Amy handed him a chart and said, “You might want to see this one next. It’s a little nine-year-old girl who fell at the rodeo and I’m pretty sure her radius is broken. I’ve ordered x-rays already, but she’s hurting pretty bad and her mother is upset too.”

“Okay. Thanks, Amy.”

The nurse’s eyes held a promise—the promise of fun later if he so chose. “No problem. Call me if you need anything.”

Nine years old. That’s just about the age our daughter would be.
Stop, Wyatt! Just stop! He shook his head before he headed in the direction of trauma bay five. Approaching the curtained off area, the soft murmurs of voices reached his ears and his heart skipped a beat. He looked at the chart in his hands, noting the name at the top. Samantha Wilder.
Holy fuck! It can’t be!

He took an unsteady step back as his gaze shot to the curtain again.
Shit! I can’t go in there, I just can’t.

“You okay, doc?” the male technician asked when he stopped at Wyatt’s side.

His stare swung to the other man and he mumbled, “Yeah. I’m fine.”

Taking a huge deep breath to steady his nerves, he slipped inside the curtained off area to meet the startled brown eyes of the woman he had left behind over nine years before.

God, she looks good.

Womanly curves graced her hips now that hadn’t been there before, but she still sported shoulder length wavy hair, full kissable lips, straight nose and breasts he would love to taste again.

“Hi, Jamie.”

Her startled gasp whipped through the air around them before she jumped to her feet. “Wyatt?” She took a step toward him. “Oh, my God! Wyatt!”

Jamie threw her arms around his neck and his hands immediately went to her waist. He closed his eyes for a moment as he inhaled the sweet scent of roses and horse. He would forever link the two with Jamie.

After several seconds, embarrassment flushed her cheeks before she dropped her arms and stepped back. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.”

“What are you doing here? I mean—wait! You’re the doctor in the emergency room? Since when?”

“Can we talk about this later? I need to treat your daughter.”

Jamie turned and moved back toward the other side of the bed. “She fell at the rodeo. I think her arm is broken.”

Wyatt’s eyes moved over the beautiful little girl on the gurney and his heart swelled in his chest.
My daughter.
“Hi, sweetie. I’m Doctor Crossland, but you can call me Wyatt.”
Or Dad.
“Can I look at your arm?”

Samantha’s lips turned down in a frown as she held her arm to her chest. “It hurts.”

“I know it does, pumpkin, but I need to see it so we can make it feel better.”

His heart thumped loudly at the trust in the blue eyes so much like his own. If he had any doubt the little girl in front of him happened to be his daughter, it vanished when he noted the color of her eyes. The turquoise blue was a trademark of the Crossland family.

“Okay,” Samantha said.

He gently grasped her arm and then ran his fingers along the area appearing to be fractured and she whimpered slightly as she tried to pull her arm out of his grasp. “It’s okay. I’m almost done.”

“Mom?”

“It will be fine, Sammy. He won’t hurt you,” Jamie said, their eyes meeting over their daughter’s head, before he returned to the task at hand.

“There you go, sweetie.” He gently laid her arm back across her chest. “A nice young lady is going to take some pictures for me, okay?”

He could see tears welling up in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall when she stubbornly nodded.
Just like her mother.

“Jennifer, just get a two view of the forearm, especially right there,” he pointed to the large lump under the skin.

“No problem, doc.” The young x-ray technician turned to Samantha and said, “Can you walk with me, sweetheart, or do you want to take a ride in a chair?”

“How about the chair, Jen? I’m sure Samantha will enjoy it.”

“Okay. Got one right here.” Jennifer pulled the wheelchair up closer to the bed and said to Jamie, “You can come too, mom.”

The trio moved down the hall toward x-ray while Wyatt stood outside the trauma bay curtain and watched. A confused looked crossed Jamie’s face before they rounded the corner and disappeared.

* * * *

What in the hell is he doing here? Nine years! It’s been nine years since he held me in his arms and now he’s back and just as devastating to my heart as before. Damn, he looks fantastic.
The full head of dark hair was slightly longer than she remembered and when she’d thrown herself against his chest, the familiar rock hard muscles felt good, too good. Standing six-foot, he always made her feel almost petite even at her own five feet eight inches tall. Polo cologne wrapped itself around her mind when he’d held her for that split second, taking her back to a time when things were so much simpler. Jamie closed her eyes and sighed before she rubbed a spot over her left eye where a nagging headache had begun to pound.

Shit! Chase will kill him, not to mention Cole and Justin if they get wind he’s back in town.

The radiology technician handed her a heavy apron to put over her chest so she could stay in the room with Samantha.

Damn! Samantha! How am I going to explain this to her? Of course, Wyatt didn’t say anything. I wonder if he thinks she’s not his—no, he can’t possibly think that. She’s got his eyes.

“If you’ll stand over there against the wall, Mom, I’ll get these pictures really fast and we’ll be done.”

“Sure. Thanks for being so good to her.”

“No problem. She’s a doll.”

Once they were finished, Jennifer rolled them back to the room they were in before and Samantha hopped up on the bed again, cradling her arm to her chest. “Where is Wyatt, Mom?”

Wyatt.

“I’m sure he’ll be back in here in a minute, sweetie. He has to look at the pictures to make sure what is wrong with your arm.”

In her best grown up voice, Samantha said, “Mom? Did you know him before?”

Jamie’s heart stopped in her chest, and she looked her daughter. “What makes you say that, Sam?”

“You hugged him.”

More like threw myself into his arms.

“Yeah, sweetie, I knew him a long time ago. He’s been gone for awhile.”

“Did he know my Dad?”

Jamie closed her eyes for a moment before she looked at her daughter again.

What the hell do I say to that?

“Yeah, Sammy, he knew your Dad.”

A moment later, Wyatt stepped through the curtain and she knew by the confusion on his face he had heard the conversation between her and Samantha.

“Well, it is broken and we’ll have to put a splint on her arm.”

“You’ll give her something for pain?”

His mouth turned down in a frown. “Of course, Jamie. I would never do anything to hurt her.”

No, but you walked out on her before she was ever born!

“Good.”

His focus turned back to their daughter. “Sweetheart? We are going to have to see if we can fix that arm.” Samantha nodded. “I’m going to give you a shot with some medicine so it won’t hurt.”