Excerpt of A Hero's Homecoming by Laurie Paige

The door of the Hip Hop Café swung open. A cowboy in a thigh-length shearling jacket strode inside on a swirl of frosty January air. The chill mingled with the laughter that flowed around Dr. Carey Hall. She pulled the cardigan draped over her shoulders closer around her.

Watching the cowboy, she noted his quick survey of the restaurant. His eyes were a startling blue in the deeply tanned face. Whatever thoughts flickered in those azure depths were sternly hidden behind a granite shield.

J. D. Cade looked like a man who'd hit the road at an early age… and the road had hit back.

While his expression showed no emotion, his face was weathered and craggy, his body lean and sinewy, like that of a lobo who lived by his wits at the edges of civilization. There was silver in his hair, although it was difficult to see among the sun-bleached strands of light and dark blond.

A man who'd been there, done that.

His restless gaze skimmed past her, paused, then returned. In the space between two heartbeats, his eyes locked with hers.

During that split second, sparks seemed to fly between them as they had the first time she'd seen him at the Kincaid ranch—the day she'd taken care of Suzanne Paxton's brother. She'd felt that tingle of electricity each time the two had met during the months since his arrival in Whitehorn, Montana. Finally his gaze moved on, and she was released from the spell he cast.

She looked around the crowded room, her heart racing a bit. Every table was filled. If she'd been alone, would he have joined her? From someplace deep inside, the answer leaped into her mind… yes. Just last week he'd headed straight for her, then Reed Austin had called him over to his table.

A momentary lull heightened the awareness of the outsider's presence, then conversation resumed, but at a lower pitch, as if the diners now huddled closer, wariness seeping into the earlier cheer they'd shared in the odd little restaurant.

They should be wary. An alien, dangerous and self-contained, was in their midst. The man looked as out of place among the bric-a-brac of the café as that off-breed mongrel he owned would have looked at a purebred dog show.

He crossed the café in a rangy, almost insolent, slouch and chose a stool at the counter, then ordered the dinner special. His voice drifted across the room, deep and gruff—the growl of a beast from deep in a cave. It carried an element of menace, of danger best avoided.

She sensed a slight easing of tension in the atmosphere now that the invader had settled. Or maybe she was the only one who felt on edge. It had been a hard week at the hospital. She wasn't in the mood for fun and laughter. Not tonight.

She forced herself to relax and smile. The jokes of her companions had turned risqué. Susan, the senior staff nurse in pediatrics, had recently become engaged and they were having a congratulatory dinner for her.

"You have to train them right from the start," Annie, who looked like a curly-topped version of Raggedy Ann and was loved by every child in the pediatric wing, advised. "Every time he leaves his dirty socks on the floor, sweep them into the dustpan and dump them into the trash. That teaches him real quick to put stuff in its proper place."

"Did you do that to Bill?" someone asked.

She grinned sheepishly. "For two weeks. When he ran out of socks, he bought more. When I asked him about it, he admitted he thought I washed only once a month and he didn't want to admit he didn't have enough clothes to last that long."

Carey laughed with the other women.

"But I also showed him the washing machine and taught him how it works. Are you going to do that with Ken?" Annie demanded of the senior nurse.

Susan sighed and gazed at her ring, turning her hand so the diamond flashed. "I don't know." She sighed again. "Women are such fools."

Carey knew what was troubling Susan. They'd talked about it at lunch one day before Susan had accepted the proposal. Like Carey, the nurse was divorced. Susan's marriage had fallen apart because of another woman, Carey's because of her career. Medicine and marriage didn't mix, not in her experience.

No. It had been more than the demands of her job that had caused the failure. She'd thought she could be the emotional anchor for Jack. She'd tried to give him the stability she'd thought he'd needed. She'd learned that wasn't possible.

He'd been restless and fed up with small-town life within a year. After moving from job to job for two more years, he'd finally taken one in another state and demanded she go with him snap! just like that. She'd refused.

End of marriage.

She sighed. They'd been divorced for three years. At times the loneliness got to her, and she regretted the split. However, she'd gotten Sophie out of the deal. The five-year-old was the bright spot of her life, her reward for the long days of worrying about other people's children.

Her eyes went to the long, lean cowboy, who was still a stranger in spite of the months he'd been in town. He might fill the lonely hours, but she sensed he, too, wasn't a man to hang around for the long haul. She knew herself. Like moss, she wanted to grow on a stone that would stay put.

"The other nurses wanted me to ask," Annie's laughter-filled voice interrupted, "is this a want-to marriage or a have-to?"

Since Susan was well past fifty, this brought another round of giggles.

"Have to," Susan replied, undaunted by the younger nurse's teasing. Her voice dropped to confidential tones. "His mom came by last Sunday and caught us…"

"Yes?" three voices chorused.

"Making pancakes."

"Phooey," Annie said. "That's nothing."

"We weren't wearing much of anything at the time," Susan finished with a demure smile.

The group voiced a satisfied, "Aah."

"My dad would kill me if he ever found me at a man's house making pancakes, even if I wore a suit of armor," bemoaned Sara, the youngest of their staff, an eighteen-year-old records clerk fresh out of high school.

Carey cast the girl a sympathetic smile. Her thoughts shifted as the conversation again centered on the wedding. She felt death as a lurking specter at her elbow.

Jennifer McCallum was seriously ill. Baby Jennifer, as the reporters had called her when she'd been found, was an abandoned child who had turned into an heiress when it was discovered she was the illegitimate daughter of the late Jeremiah Kincaid, who had been the richest rancher in those parts. Jennifer had been adopted by a social worker named Jessica Larson, who'd married the deputy sheriff, Sterling McCallum.

Carey fought the despair that threatened to engulf her. She'd received the test results that afternoon. Jennifer, that laughing, mischievous three-year-old, had leukemia, and the chemotherapy wasn't working.

The café blurred. Carey blinked rapidly.

Glancing away from the chattering group at her table, she encountered eyes as blue as topaz. J.D. watched her with an intensity that reached right down inside her and shook something free that had been tied up for a long time.

His gaze held her. She fought it for a few seconds before giving in. She let herself drift like a piece of flotsam in a warm sea as he continued to study her. His gaze became warmer… hot…

A slow smile kicked up one corner of his mouth, as if he mocked the attraction that had sparked between them from the first minute they'd met. She trembled, but didn't—couldn't—look away.

Hunger opened like a chasm inside her. He could fill that need….

She had a sudden image of his lean body pressed over hers, filling her with his hot demands, bringing ecstasy and forgetfulness, if only for an hour or two. She wanted that.

One night of mindless bliss.

Sophie was at her first sleepover at a friend's home. No one would have to know. Dear God, she was insane.

Without breaking eye contact, he picked up his coffee mug and took a drink. His hands were slender, the fingers aristocratically long.

A cowboy would have calluses. She would feel the slight abrasion from them when he touched her in all the places that hadn't been stroked in years—

She silently gasped when she realized the direction her thoughts had taken. However, it wasn't the first time she'd had erotic daydreams about J. D. Cade.

That fact confused her. She wasn't a man-hungry woman. She'd never been boy crazy as a teenager. She didn't flirt or dress provocatively or wear makeup. Medicine had been her goal, her first love, even back then.

Tonight, she had other things to think of, important things that didn't include an interlude with a drifter who would probably move on when the next fierce storm of the year came blowing through.

Running before the wind was the term for cows that got lost in a storm. They blindly and instinctively walked in the direction the wind was blowing. Like tumble weeds.

And men like J. D. Cade.

She was distracted when the waitress poured fresh coffee for them. She picked up the cup and took a sip, welcoming its warmth all the way to her stomach. When she looked up, J.D. was cutting into his serving of chicken-fried steak, his attention on his food.

Anger with him and with herself for her erotic musings added to her frustrations. She glared at the steam rising from the hot brew before her.

Annie nudged her with an elbow. "Lighten up, Doc. We're here to have fun."

"You're here to give me a hard time," Susan corrected.

"That's the fun part." Annie grinned and tossed her mop of fiery red curls.

"Where's that cherry cobbler?" she demanded, joining in the merriment. "I won't leave without it, and a big helping of ice cream melting on top."

The rich dessert arrived, and Carey again found J.D.'s eyes on her when she picked up the spoon. He watched while she took a bite of the luscious treat. The smile appeared at the corners of his mouth.

She thought of all the places he might kiss her as she licked ice cream off her lips….

Heat erupted all over her body at once. She couldn't decide if it was anger, embarrassment or just plain wild, lustful longing. Not that it particularly mattered. She had no time for any of them. Or for a cowboy with eyes that promised paradise.

"Look, Doc is having a hot flash," Annie, the irreverent, declared, pointing at the moisture that had collected on Carey's upper lip and forehead.

"It's the cobbler," one of the others piped up. "It's so delicious I'm getting erotic thoughts, too."

Annie eyed her fat-free sherbet in disgust, then grinned slyly. "Maybe I'd better order two servings of cobbler to take home. Bill needs all the help he can get—"

"I don't want to know about it," Susan stated firmly. "After all, I'm about to become a blushing bride."

"I hear the other guys in the lab are betting on when you and Ken will surface after the ceremony. They give Ken three days at the most, then he'll have to get out of the house for some rest. They're thinking of renting a motel room so he can grab some sleep."

"He'll need it," Susan declared.

This drew another knowing "Aah" from the group before they dissolved into another round of laughter. They were still teasing the nurse about taking it easy on her husband-to-be when Carey left.

She saw that J.D. had already finished and was gone when she paid. He'd slipped out while her group was giving Susan a hard time over the nuptials, which would take place on Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day—five weeks away. Christmas had passed in its usual whirl of pine boughs, tinsel and colored lights. A new year had begun, and she could barely recall the previous one—

"Oh." She laid a hand over her pounding heart as a tall, lanky form stepped out of the shadows.

"It's okay," J. D. Cade told her in his gravelly voice. "I didn't see your car and thought you might need a ride."

Carey was surprised that he'd noticed. Obviously he'd been silently watching her as much as she'd been watching him.

"No, thanks. I have to go back to the hospital. I left my car there."

He nodded and pulled his Stetson farther down on his forehead. "The wind is picking up. There might be snow before morning." He fell into step beside her.

"Maybe. Maybe not." For some reason, she stubbornly refused to agree with him.

She rammed her hands into the pockets of her old parka, bought at a closeout sale at the Army-Navy Store five years ago. The same went for the cardigan she wore and the gloves she'd forgotten somewhere. She was bad about losing things. She could never remember putting gloves and such down, and so couldn't remember where to find them.

"I really don't need an escort," she said.

"A woman shouldn't be alone on the streets after dark. It could be dangerous."

"In Whitehorn?" Her tone was openly scoffing.

The only danger she sensed came from him and the odd longing that made her want to crawl into his arms and stay there while passion flashed between them like heat lightning until they were both consumed. Lordy.

"Bad things have happened here," he reminded her.

The wind whipped the low statement away with a shriek as they turned the corner of the building at the end of the block. She staggered when the gale hit her full force in the face.

Her unsought companion looped an arm over her shoulders and tucked her in beside him, using his greater bulk to partly shield her from nature's fury. She felt instantly warmer. And safer. Which was odd, because she'd never felt less than at ease in the town. Nearly everyone knew her. After all, she'd grown up here.

"Bad things happen everywhere," she offered softly, sensing things from his past that he wouldn't share.