“No,” Jenna said. Pain was not what she was experiencing. Did the woman have to have great hands, too? “Are you done?”

“Just a second.”

Gard lightly probed one spot on the outer aspect of Jenna’s knee, and Jenna thought a burning poker had been jammed into the joint.

“Ow, God. Ow, damn it.”

“Sorry. Might have a little bit of a ligament tear,” Gard said.

“They shoot horses for that, don’t they?” Jenna gritted her teeth and refused to whimper.

“Not anymore.” Gard slid one hand behind Jenna’s knee and the other in front. “I’m going to test this now and if I hurt you, I want you tell me immediately and I’ll stop.”

Jenna wanted something to hold on to, and the thin plaid blanket was the only thing available. She gripped it in both hands. “Go ahead.”

Gard bent Jenna’s knee in smooth steady increments and Jenna started to relax. Sore. But not terrible. Then, out of the blue, fire blazed across her knee again and she cried out before she could stop herself.

“I’m done,” Gard said quickly. She carefully straightened Jenna’s leg and rested it back on the sofa.

Jenna didn’t realize she’d yanked the blanket above her hips until a gentle tug on the fabric clutched in her grip drew her attention to Gard covering her again. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you. You’re going to need to stay off that leg for a day or two. Ice, anti-inflammatories, minimal weight-bearing. I think you’ve just got a bad sprain, but if it doesn’t get better with conservative therapy you may need an MRI or arthroscopy.”

“I think I’d rather you shoot me.”

Gard laughed. “You say that now. Let me find an ice pack and we’ll get you over to the hotel and into bed.”

“You don’t have to do that. You’ve done enough already.”

“I already told you there aren’t any other options. You’d be miserable sleeping on this couch and you won’t get a cab out here this time of night.”

“At least let me pay you for your—”

“Don’t insult me.” Gard stood quickly, her hands in her pockets, and regarded Jenna tightly. “I’ve got a knee immobilizer in the back. My part-time office manager left it here when she got tired of wearing it. Softball injury. It ought to allow you to walk if you’re careful.”

“Thanks.”

“Are you going to need help getting your pants on?”

“Oh for God’s sake…I can…how much time do we have?”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Gard tried to sound casual, but the last thing she wanted was to get any closer to Jenna. She’d been touching her, even if she had been completely professional, for longer than she’d touched a woman in years. Jenna’s skin was so soft, and she smelled so damn good. Now she was half naked, and goddamn it, thinking about her naked when she was hurt and vulnerable was wrong. Carefully, she slid Jenna’s silk pants over her ankles and guided them up Jenna’s thighs. Despite trying not to, Gard caught a glimpse of delicate black panties stretched over the graceful arches of Jenna’s hip bones and the inviting hollow just above the mound of her sex. Her mouth went instantly dry and her abdomen tightened with a swift and dangerous hunger that shocked her. She didn’t realize she’d stopped moving, the material of Jenna’s pants gripped in her fingers, until Jenna spoke.

“I think I can get it from here.”

“Of course.” Gard released the pants and straightened abruptly, turning her back. “I’ll get that immobilizer.”

Before Jenna could protest, Gard disappeared. Jenna closed her eyes, the unmistakable image of desire imprinted on her mind.

Chapter Seven

Jenna had been quiet since they’d left the clinic, and ordinarily Gard wouldn’t mind silence. She spent so much time alone, or talking to animals who didn’t talk back, she’d pretty much lost the art of casual conversation, let alone anything more intimate. Jenna’s quiet didn’t bother her so much as it concerned her. She couldn’t tell if Jenna was in pain, or angry, or sad. She’d sat motionless, looking out the side window, since they got in the truck.

“Are you all right?” Gard asked.

“I’m fine,” Jenna said softly.

“Still hungry?”

“It’s two in the morning.” Jenna turned from where she’d been watching the night pass by in fragmented snapshots of hoary fields back-dropped by the skeletal arms of tree branches stretching into a ghostly sky. She’d cracked the window, and the tang of newly plowed fields, fresh-cut grass, and fecund life transported her back a dozen years and five hundred miles away to a place she’d thought she would never want to go again. How was it that the taste of a summer night could make her feel fifteen again, filled with promise and expectation and restless longing? But she wasn’t fifteen anymore, and all that youthful anticipation had been extinguished by the harsh hand of experience. Hopes and dreams were for those who couldn’t control their own destinies, but she could. She could. She’d had to learn to shape her own fate, and she’d gotten very good at doing that. “I imagine you’d like to get some sleep tonight.”

“I’d say about a third of the month I’m up working all night,” Gard said. “This is as usual a time for me to have breakfast as it is to have dinner. I guess I don’t work by a normal clock.”

Jenna shifted around on the seat, trying to get comfortable with the unfamiliar and incredibly aggravating knee immobilizer forcing her to keep her leg out straight. Putting her back against the door, she watched Gard drive. She looked relaxed, her shoulders back against the seat, her hands low on either side of the wheel, her eyes fixed straight ahead. In charge, but comfortable, in tune with her surroundings. Gard didn’t look as if she ever had to wrestle with fate to keep her life just where she wanted it. Jenna found that both admirable and annoying.

“Are you married?” Jenna asked.

Gard whipped her head around and hit Jenna with a hard stare, then just as quickly faced front again. “I’m trying to figure out what my discussion of mealtime has to do with that.”

“Sorry,” Jenna said. “I have a tendency to think in chapter breaks. One of the first rules of novel writing is that every chapter should begin very close to the heart of the scene. I guess I’m not much on leading up to a topic.”

Gard laughed. “I’m still not getting the segue.”

“Oh. Sorry. I was thinking it must be kind of hard to be in a relationship when your schedule is so erratic. Unless of course, you have a very patient partner.”

“Plenty of doctors have stable long-term relationships.”

“Absolutely. And plenty don’t.” Jenna noted Gard very often redirected the conversation to avoid answering a question. She recognized the ploy because she used it herself. Gard, despite her laid-back demeanor, was very guarded. Her name suited her. “Touchy topic, Dr. Davis?”

“Nope.” Gard’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Not attached. Never have been.”

“And is that just because you enjoy working all the time, or you’re more of a casual dater?”

“Neither,” Gard said, sounding a little as if her answer surprised her. “You’re right—I do like my work, and it doesn’t leave a lot of time for socializing. But I’m not much for socializing anyhow.”

“That’s a shame,” Jenna murmured.

“Sorry?”

“Nothing.” Jenna wondered why she’d asked Gard the question. She rarely gave much thought to the private lives of women she found attractive. The only thing she really cared about was whether they were attached or not. When she’d run away from home and was living hand to mouth in one dead-end job after the other, sex staved off loneliness. She hadn’t been above sleeping with a married woman then, but before very long, the excuse that everyone was responsible for their own relationships started to feel a little self-serving. Now she at least tried to determine if the women she bedded were single. Well, usually. Thinking back to Brin—God, had it really only been twenty-four hours since they’d been tearing each other’s clothes off?—she realized she hadn’t made any effort to find out her marital status. But nothing about Brin screamed married. As to Gard, the answer was moot. The woman was attractive—physically, at least—but she was far too controlling. Jenna liked aggressive women in bed, but just spending time in the same space as Gard was a battle and she didn’t need that in the bedroom.

“You never answered my question about being hungry,” Gard said.

“Actually, I’m starved.” Jenna was wide-awake with nothing to look forward to except an uncomfortable night in a strange hotel. She wouldn’t mind spending a little more time sparring with Gard. Verbally at least. “So if you really don’t mind—”

“I was the one who offered. You can trust me to tell you what I mean. I don’t have time for games.”

Jenna heard the word anymore hang in the air, and wondered what game Gard had played, and with whom. And if she’d won or lost.

“I’m in then,” Jenna said.

Oscar’s Road House perched on the side of Route 7 like a wet rooster, bedraggled but feisty. Even at two in the morning, pickup trucks and eighteen-wheelers clogged the dirt and gravel parking lot around the ramshackle barn-red diner. No-frills security lights blazed from under the eaves, as bright as the noontime sun. Jenna blinked when Gard opened her door and helped her down from the truck.

“Popular place,” Jenna said.

“Oscar’s makes the best homemade sausage in three counties,” Gard informed her as they navigated the parking lot. “How’s the leg?”

“It’ll get me where I need to go, as long as I don’t need to be there this week,” Jenna muttered.

Gard laughed. “I could always carry you again.”

Jenna shot her a look. “Oh, and wouldn’t that make a perfect entrance. We’re probably going to be the only women in this place as it is.”