”Hang on, Cowboy. Don’t try to move yet,” Tracey said. She kept her voice low and even, knowing how most injured people responded to a show of confidence and calmness. In less than five minutes, they were out of the arena, going code three, lights and siren, when they hit the highway just outside the parking area.

Bo drove, which left Tracey to tend their patient. Inside the confines of the ambulance, she could tell he was a big man though compact, wide shouldered and lean flanked. She settled the oxygen mask in place over his face, turning on the flow of life-giving air. As she checked his vitals, she began to relay the critical numbers by radio to the emergency room at River Bend General.

As she bent over to take the blood pressure cuff off the cowboy’s arm, her chest was right above his face. Just when she began to shift back, his eyes popped open. For a moment his gaze plumbed the cleavage revealed by the drooping V-neck of her pullover top. Then he stared up at her face with a perplexed look.

He had beautiful eyes, the rich dark brown of the best quality Dutch chocolate, rimmed with a picket fence of curling black lashes. The start of squint lines lightly etching the skin at their outer corners lent a hint of humor to his expression.

She could barely hear him through the oxygen mask but it sounded like he said, “Gawd amighty, I musta died. For sure this is an angel bendin’ over me.”

Feeling her face burn with the blush, she drew herself upright. “Don’t try to talk,” she ordered, striving for a stern tone. “You need to lie still and stay quiet.”

“Aw hell, a bossy angel. Come on, Sugar. You’re too purty to act like a mean old school teacher.”

Tracey huffed out a short sigh of exasperation. “It’s for your own good, cowboy. We don’t know how badly you’re hurt. You just had two horses romp all over you and probably got kicked on the way down, too. Just relax. We’ll have you to the hospital in a few more minutes.”

“Honey, I purely hate hospitals. Can’t you just kiss it and make everything better?”

“I’m not your mommy.” Although Tracey heard the acerbic bite in her words, she didn’t repent. Sometimes these damn randy cowboys were just too much. The darn cuff seemed to be caught on something. She tugged but it wouldn’t come free. She had to lean over again to see what was wrong.

How an injured man could move so fast she didn’t know. Somehow he had the oxygen mask down and a hand twining into her hair, tugging her down to him, before she realized what was happening. Then, heaven help her, for a second or two she was not aware of anything in the world except the feel and taste of his mouth against hers. Even as her lips began to respond, she jerked away.

“Damn it! What in the blazes do you think you’re doing?”