Cowboy's Heart

"Doc Mercer, you'd better come quick, there's been a wreck!" Wade Keller, Cole Mercer's foreman, yelled as he bounded up the porch steps. "What happened?" Cole asked, snatching his hat and raincoat from the peg by the door. He followed Wade down the steps toward the beat-up truck idling in the drive. "A woman ran her car off about a mile up the road. It went nose first into the ditch," he shouted above the rain hammering on the roof of the truck. "Why come for me? I'm a veterinarian; you ought to have fetched Dr. Ellison." Cole stopped by the truck door. He'd had a long, punishing day and had no desire to get soaked. "Was she hauling a horse trailer? Were any animals hurt?" "Dr. Ellison is away, so you're what we've got," Wade said, climbing into the truck and banging the door shut. When Cole still didn't get in, Wade gunned the engine as encouragement. Cole yanked open the door and slid in with a resigned sigh. "You should've called an ambulance," he said, gripping the handle over his head. Wade had taken the curve a shade too fast, and the truck skidded. "The bridge is out, and nobody can get through. She's awake, but that leg won't bear her weight," Wade said as he straightened the truck "There may be more wrong with her than a broken bone, Wade," Cole said when the wreck came into sight. One of the ranch trailers had been unhitched from the back of a truck, and they'd moved the woman inside it to keep some of the rain off. She sat with two of his hands, Travis and Nolan. Their bodies blocked the open side windows, trying to keep the worst of the wind and rain from striking her. The instant the truck slammed to a stop, Cole jumped down and hurried to the rear of the trailer, and Travis and Nolan stepped aside when they saw him. He tipped his hat lower against the rain in his eyes. It looked to be falling even harder now. Lena heard the truck and saw its lights as it came alongside the trailer. As the two men, who had been doing whatever they could to shield her from the rain, moved apart, she saw a very tall, broad-shouldered man climb from a truck. He wore a long slicker and a big cowboy hat pulled down to keep the rain from his face. He came toward her with purpose, and when he climbed into the trailer, he seemed to take up more of the cramped space than the three of them had together. The older man, who had rushed off to get help, had brought a lamp too, and he set it by the trailer door now. The man in the cowboy hat reached to tip up her face, and she recoiled. She wanted none of these unfamiliar men putting hands on her. It was bad enough that escape wasn't possible and that she lay at their mercy. In the past, ducking her head and saying nothing had made her disappear, but it was not working now. "It's O.K., miss," the older man who had been sitting with her said. "Doc Mercer is here to help you, and he isn't going to hurt you. Will you tell us your name?"