Garret Averly was not used to being in constant pain. He was definitely not used to being incapable of doing everything for himself.
Most of all, he was not used to having a woman in his house who wasn’t his ex-wife.
His dead ex-wife, apparently.
The past few weeks had done quite a number on him. First, he’d had to come to grips with the fact that his brother, who’d presumably come back from war paranoid and delusional two years ago, had actually been telling the truth about the military corruption he’d stumbled upon.
Not only that, some secret group had been sent to Blue Valley, Montana—of all places—to help get to the bottom of it. Keep Nate safe and prove he was telling the truth.
Then, as if that wasn’t enough, said group had found out that Garret’s ex-wife had been part of it, sent here to keep an eye on Nate through Garret. Bad enough to be taken in by a woman he’d thought he’d been in love with, but things had become a hundred times worse. The group had informed him Savannah had given birth to twins four months after she’d left him high and dry, and then died in childbirth.
She hadn’t listed him as father to the twins, or even informed him of their existence. Instead, his ex had decided to secrete the kids off to her grandparents. The grandfather being the man who’d been black-market selling army weapons, and was indirectly responsible for Garret getting shot.
Despite being a cop, Garret had never actually been shot before. Threatened, shot at, but never actually shot.
He would not recommend it.
Now, he was out of commission for weeks, instead of doing his usual job as sheriff of Blue Valley. Stuck in his house with his dog, Barney.
And there was this...doctor all up in his space. While he struggled with the pain of a gunshot wound and the insurmountable information that he was a father.
To twins. Twins he’d never seen, never held, even now.
Garret appreciated that the secret group his brother had gotten himself mixed up in had helped Nate prove that he wasn’t losing his mind. He was downright grateful Nate had found himself a new beginning with Elsie Rogers, said group’s computer genius and former resident of Blue Valley. He was beyond indebted to them for discovering the existence of his own children, for this doctor stitching him up and performing a blood transfusion after he’d been shot.
But her still being here weeks later was starting to feel...awkward. Or perhaps worse than awkward. Comfortable. Enjoyable. She was doing her job and he was...
Well, it didn’t bear thinking about. Which was why, despite the fact he’d been up for about an hour, he hadn’t left his bedroom. He’d done his rehabilitation exercises, stared out the window and grappled with too many emotions to name.
But he did not brave the world outside his bedroom walls. That world would invade soon enough.
As if on cue, there was a knock at his bedroom door and he grunted, “Come in.” He knew that if he didn’t answer or told her to go away, she’d just march right in and poke and prod at him until she was satisfied, so there was no point doing anything else.
“Good morning,” Betty said cheerfully. She had her bag of torture devices—at least that was Garret’s opinion of them—and Barney followed her into the room like he was her shadow.
Garret glared at his dog, the traitor, who now trailed Betty wherever she went, looking lovelorn and besotted, if a dog could be either.
Apparently his dog could. Garret really didn’t like the fact it seemed to be rubbing off on him.
“I can walk to the kitchen. I don’t need to lie in this bed,” he said before she could start unpacking her supplies.
She studied him in that cool, doctor way of hers. She was petite. Couldn’t be much more than five feet tall, but she managed to give off an aura of authority. Her straight black hair was always pulled back in a tidy braid, her dark eyes always cool and assessing. He didn’t know how she’d gotten mixed up in this secret group of hers, but then again, he still didn’t know how his brother or Elsie Rogers had, either.
Everything in his life felt like a mystery, or a confusing nightmare, at the moment. Except for maybe the throbbing pain in his shoulder. That he understood. He might be irritated with the constant annoyance of it, but at least that wound made sense.
“Of course you can,” she said briskly and unaffectedly. “Is that what you would prefer?”
Of course it was what he’d prefer. Having a pretty woman touch him in his bed, no matter how efficiently and with the intent of only changing his bandage, was not exactly enjoyable. And he wasn’t talking about the pain in his shoulder. “Yes.”
“All right.” She turned around and headed for the kitchen, giving no evidence of how she felt about the change in venue. Barney trotted right after her.
“Figures,” Garret muttered.
Garret scratched his hands through his hair and then got to his feet. She always left the faint hint of vanilla wafting about behind her. He couldn’t articulate why that irritated him, but it felt like an invasion of his space when this woman was quite literally keeping him from dying.
But he was grumpy and tired. And if he concentrated on all those bad feelings, he could mostly ignore the twisting in his stomach that hadn’t dissipated since he’d found out he was a father.
A father. To twins. He’d never met.
Yeah, he’d rather get his bandage changed and focus on that pain than this one. He moved into the kitchen and sat down. Betty was methodically spreading out her supplies to change his bandage.
Garret didn’t know much about her. Her name was Betty, or at least that’s what she went by. Who knew if the members in this secret group used real names. She was a doctor, allegedly. Hard to doubt when she’d saved his life.
He figured somewhere she had a full dossier on him, while he knew next to nothing about her. Not even her last name. If he’d had more energy, he might have demanded to know a few more things. If he wasn’t so preoccupied with the idea of his children out there, all this might have really bothered him.
But he couldn’t get beyond the dogged exhaustion, the throbbing pain and the emotional upheaval of finding out he was a father.
For four or five months, his children had been in the world and he hadn’t known. They’d been born premature and he hadn’t been there to watch after them, hope and pray and worry for them.
Savannah had been dead.
A boy and a girl. His. And he’d never even laid eyes on them.
He wanted to scrub his hands over his face, but he had to keep still while Betty peeled the old bandage away and began to clean the wound. After a long silence, she spoke in her quiet, gentle way.
“You can’t do this all on your own quite yet. But if you need some space, I can stay somewhere else.” She said it so equitably, it took him a few moments to understand what she was saying.
Translation: stop being a grumpy jerk and taking out your frustrations on the doctor who is only doing her job, and quit acting like she’s the problem.
“Where? No hotels. You don’t know anybody else here besides Elsie.” So effusive and kind, Garret. Really.
Betty’s face remained impassive, but her eyes were amused. “I have my ways.”
“You’re fine here,” he mumbled. “For the time being.” He kept looking ahead at the wall while she changed his bandage. Better than studying her face like he had the first few times she’d gone through this process. High cheekbones, dark, intelligent eyes, a golden glow to her skin that was all too distracting.
But her full, sexy mouth was the real problem. Her eyes were always cool and direct when she examined his wound or changed his bandage, but her mouth was plump and sultry, and he couldn’t help but want a taste. She pursed her lips, chewed on the bottom one, twisted it into all sorts of distracting shapes while she worked on him.
Yeah, best to stare at the wall.
A knock sounded on the door, but Betty didn’t hurry through what she was doing. She meticulously finished the bandaging.
Once she was finished, she let Garret stand and open the door.
Elsie stood there, Nate behind her. Nate had been taking care of Garret’s horses since Garret had been shot.
Though Garret’s full-time job was being sheriff to Blue Valley, he kept two horses on his property and helped his father on the family ranch when he could.
Now he was ducking his parents in order to keep them from being worried, dodging his dispatch secretary, Mrs. Linley, to avoid from being clucked over and having to explain to the whole dang county how he’d been shot.
The only people who knew what had happened to him were standing right here. His brother often stopped by after feeding the horses, but not usually with Elsie. “Let me guess. You’re not here for a friendly visit.”
“One of these days I’ll try to be,” Elsie said with a smile, “but not today. Still, I’ve got some great news.”
Garret moved out of the doorway so Nate and Elsie could enter. He eyed his brother, but Nate’s face gave nothing away.
“We’ve finally made some headway with Mrs. Loren.” Garret tried not to scowl at the name of Savannah’s grandmother, who allegedly had his children.
“There will still be a lot of legal hoops to jump through. Especially since Mrs. Loren lives in Virginia and you live here. She hasn’t agreed to give up custody or anything like that, but she’s agreed to come here with the twins. So you can meet them at the very least. I know it’s not what you were hoping for, but it’s a big step forward.”
Here. Here. “When?” Garret asked, holding himself too still, too tight. He would crack apart if he didn’t learn to bend.
“We’re coordinating to get them here as soon as possible.”
BETTY WAGNER HAD worked on a lot of big, grumpy men in her time as North Star’s head doctor. She’d had to crawl on top of thrashing military men, immobilize cursing, bleeding villains, and operate on, sew up and otherwise “fix” all manner of people in some of the worst situations.
But she was always in a more...controlled environment. Her old medical center, North Star headquarters, or even the field—mountains, forests, the vast Dakota Badlands. She’d done it all and seen it all.
Except stay in a man’s house and take care of him while his adorable dog followed her around...
Like the man’s eyes.
Betty had come too far to feel threatened by that, and if she’d had any qualms about staying in Garret’s space, she would have voiced them. She wasn’t a martyr, and she was hardly afraid of her boss, who was really more like one of her closest friends.
She didn’t think Garret Averly was dangerous. But her reaction to him was not comfortable.
Especially when the topic was his children. Garret was so wounded over this betrayal, this loss, and it made her want to, well, fix it for him. She was a doctor. She was used to being able to sew up and heal hurts.
But these weren’t those kind.
Elsie was giving the details, and Garret still stood. He didn’t look pained, but he held himself too rigidly, kept his face devoid of emotion. His brother like a shadow right behind him.
Two impressively tall, broad men who’d clearly learned to hide their emotions, school their reactions and be strong in the face of threats and pain.
It really shouldn’t feel any different than her years at North Star at all. She was used to exactly this.
“The most important thing is proving paternity,” Elsie was saying. “She wants to use her doctor. We want to use ours.”
“Why not both, then?” Betty suggested. “That way both parties can be assured of their test results.”
“You can do a test?” Elsie asked.
“I can do the test, and I have a contact who can, privately, without anyone finding out, examine the results.” Betty looked from Elsie to Garret. “When they land, I’ll be with you. I’ll give the children a full checkup myself—I can get a basic idea of health even if the grandmother doesn’t let me give a full examination. We’ll perform our own paternity test—no matter what the grandmother wants to do. We will make sure everything is on the up-and-up, and those kids are healthy.”
“And from there, we’ll help you work out the legalities of guardianship,” Elsie continued.
“But...why?” Garret asked, and finally his expression betrayed at least some of the things he was feeling. Confusion chief among them.
“You were shot during one of our missions,” Elsie said. “If a civilian is caught in the cross fire of things we instigated, we make sure to take care of them.”
Garret nodded at his brother. “Nate instigated your case. And I’m a sheriff, hardly a civilian.”
“Depends on how you look at it,” Elsie returned. “But we’re helping you out, Garret. Civilian or sheriff or brother. Consider it payment for your contribution to our mission.”
“I did it for Nate,” Garret said gruffly.
“Regardless,” Betty said, adopting the physician voice she used when she wasn’t about to argue with someone over a trivial issue. “Consider us your team to get your kids back. We don’t disappear until the job is done.” North Star never backed away from a challenge, and Betty in particular wasn’t going to back away from an opportunity to help a father be united with his children.
Nate put his hand on Garret’s good shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Betty’s right. We’re your team. We’ll get those kids.”
Garret nodded, and Betty knew she should speak up, but she couldn’t bring herself to ruin the moment.
Because, God knew, getting those kids united with their father was absolutely her end goal, but it was also clear Garret hadn’t considered anything about what it would mean for him. How he would take care of them. How his life would change. Especially if he got them before he was fully healed.
Which just meant she had the time between now and when those twins came home to their father to prepare him.
Copyright © 2022 by Nicole Helm