Heartland Courtship by Lyn Cote

soft cheek tantalized him, beckoning him to press his lips...
    Unable to brook further delay and needing to distance himself, Brennan started to roll the stove ponderously away from this woman. The stove picked up momentum—off balance because only one man had started it.
    “Brennan Merriday, please wait for Noah. Thee might hurt—”
    Unsettled, the stove began to tip and rock on the logs, rolling forward. Brennan tried to dodge the out-of-control iron beast, but—
    Rachel cried out.
    Stifling a curse, Brennan gasped with pain. His arm had become pinned between the cockeyed stove and the doorjamb of her cabin. Backed up against the log wall and half sitting, he struggled to keep outwardly calm but inside he was kicking himself down the road. And fighting to keep on top of the pain, ride it out, keep it in.
    She hurried forward, voicing her upset. She moved as if to try to shift the stove, half on the logs, half off.
    “Don’t!” he thundered. “It might come off completely and crush me.”
    She stared down at him, wringing her hands. “Going for Noah won’t help. He will not delay in returning.”
    Brennan couldn’t meet her eyes so he focused on her chin. If he hadn’t given in to his own haste, this wouldn’t have happened. He waited for the lady to point this out.
    Instead her mouth moved as if she were chewing tough meat. Finally, she said, “Thee has been behaving like a fly caught in flypaper. What drives thee, Brennan Merriday, to chafe so?”
    The pain goading him, he almost bit off her head, but now his mouth chewed on that imaginary tough meat. He had no answer for her. Why did he get so restless?
    But now all his concentration was tied up in not showing how much he suffered. He could not shift the unwieldy weight of the stove pressing on his wrist and upended forearm. Had he broken his arm? Inwardly he called himself every name he could think of, venting the pain.
    Rachel stood over Brennan, folding her hands, murmuring a prayer for help.
    The minutes spent waiting, bearing the brunt of the iron stove on his hand and wrist, depleted Brennan like hours spent working in the sun.
    Within minutes Noah, accompanied by the young man Brennan had met at the Ashfords’, entered the clearing.
    “The stove rolled!” Rachel called out the obvious. But she didn’t add the fact that Brennan had caused this by his haste. Brennan nearly gagged on the fact that it was all his own fault. That admission and the pain were nauseating him. But still Miss Rachel protected him.
    Noah and Gunther hurried to Brennan. Without wasting any time asking questions, the men surveyed the situation and with quick commands, they hefted the stove back squarely onto the logs, releasing Brennan.
    At the sudden deliverance, Brennan could not suppress a long moan. The two men rolled the stove inside.
    Rachel dropped to her knees beside Brennan.
    At first he resisted Rachel’s efforts, holding his painful arm close to his chest, shielding it with his other arm. Finally he let her support his injured arm. He sent her an anguished look, their eyes at a level.
    “How bad does his arm look?” Noah asked in his unruffled voice, standing over them.
    Rachel gently probed the arm from the shoulder downward. When she prodded Brennan’s wrist, he sucked in air sharply, not only from the pain but from her touch.
    “Bend the wrist, please,” Rachel instructed.
    Brennan tucked his lower lip under his front teeth and bent his wrist, stifling a groan. Sweat popped up on his forehead but he did as she asked, knowing a broken wrist wouldn’t bend.
    “Rotate it?” she pressed
    Again Brennan suppressed any show of pain and obeyed, watching his wrist move.
    “Well, that’s a relief,” Rachel pronounced.
    “Easy for you to say,” Brennan gasped. Her prodding and instructions had aggravated the pain of the injury. Her soft shoulder was so near his cheek. He imagined resting his head there. He closed his eyes, willing away the image, the