Only by You: Prequel (Montgomery Brothers of Montana #0.5)

One.

Julie

“He's back.”

Those two little words settle over me as I set down the patient file in hand with a sigh. “And what is it this time?” I ask, turning to Carol, the nurse practitioner on duty for today.

“Can’t you take care of him?” I all but beg.

I’m too tired to deal with this man and his cheesy one-liners of there being stars in my eyes or how I make his heart skip a beat .

“I’ll owe you,” I offer. “Next time there’s a miscellaneous object that needs extracting from an unmentionable place, I’m on it. ”

Carol smiles wide, crossing her arms and leaning against the open archway to the records room. “As appealing as that sounds, he asked for you by name. I can’t assist if he doesn’t want my help.”

I groan.

“Why don’t you just go out with him?” she asks for the hundredth time since Clayton Montgomery took a liking to me. Although, liking is putting it mildly.

It’s borderline obsession at this point.

“Well for one, it’s frowned upon to date a patient—”

“HIPAA laws, sure. I mean, that’s more for doctor-patient confidentiality,” she teases, “but go on.”

I glare at her. “And two… He’s just…too cocky for my taste.”

Carol’s brows rise into her brown, pixie-cut hairline. “That’s what you think?”

I shrug. “Don’t you?”

“Just because the man follows you around town claiming you’re his future wife doesn’t make him cocky, per se . It’s kind of…romantic.”

“Romantic,” I snort, shaking my head as I stand from the short stool I was using. “I wouldn’t call Clayton Montgomery romantic .”

Carol trails me out to my desk near the reception area. “Then what would you call him?”

I scoff, snatching his too-thick folder with my handwriting all over it. The man is persistent, that’s for sure. He’s been coming in here for the last three months with anything from a minor scrape to a busted eardrum. And every time, without fail, he asks for me .

As a registered nurse, I’m more than happy to provide care for my patients to the best of my ability, but I’m not his doctor. And Clayton Montgomery has a one-track mind.

“Arrogant, egotistical, conceited, obsessive…”

“Cocky,” Carol adds with a giggle.

“I’m glad you find this so amusing,” I say, pulling on my light sweater and reclipping my nametag. “For all we know he could be the next Ted Bundy.”

Her amusement for my predicament continues. “Oh, shush. Clayton is not a serial killer. You’re the only one in town who seems to have a problem with the man. He’s an absolute sweetheart, I think.”

“Good, then you help him,” I deadpan, shoving the overstuffed file into her hands, forcing her to hold it to her chest before it scatters to the floor in a slew of paperwork.

Carol places the file back down on my desk. “What’s this really about?” she whispers, glancing around to ensure no one is eavesdropping on our conversation. “Did something happen with Shawn?”

“What? No. God, no.” I attempt to hold back a cringe at the reminder of the date my father set up for me tomorrow night.

“That hasn’t happened…yet.” And it won’t if I have anything to say about it.

Times are changing, and whether my father wants to believe it or not, the world isn’t going to end if I’m not married by the time I hit thirty.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Carol weakly assures me, but the look on her face says otherwise.

Shawn Lewis is well known around our small town as the pretty boy living off his family’s money. City boys like him don’t mix well with the locals born and bred here in Whitetail, Montana.

He doesn’t have a hard-working bone in his body , I recall my mother shouting when Daddy told her about his matchmaking endeavor. He’ll learn , was my father’s lame reply.

That was nearly two weeks ago and he hasn’t budged on canceling, no matter what Mama or I have to say about it.

Maybe if I wasn’t single and still living at home at twenty-four, he’d cut me some slack.

But apparently, the two main things in life that make up who you are as a person in a small town—your relationship status and living situation—are unacceptable, in my father’s eyes.

Ha. And considering he is the reason I’m back home, his opinion is laughable.

“I mean, you could always…” Carol trails off with a shake of her head. “No, never mind.”

My ears perk up. I haven’t been secretive about how I feel toward my father’s push to get me out in the world to ‘find a husband’ as he so lovingly puts it. I’ve made my thoughts known to half the town at this point, and every last one of them thinks I can do better than Shawn Lewis.

And still, my father begs to differ.

“I could always what?” I ask, urging her to spit out whatever idea she has that could save me from a life of misery or—at the very least—an awful evening spent on the arm of a man who can’t even bait a hook. “Please?”

“You won’t like it,” she warns, her face alight with mischief.

I narrow my eyes at her. “No.”

She throws her head back with a laugh. “I said you wouldn’t like it.” She shrugs, rapping a knuckle against the manila folder in front of me. “Room one, Ms. Ball. Holler if you need me.”

Snatching the unwanted patient file from my desk, I fight back the urge to stomp my feet like a toddler on my way to room one.

She can’t possibly think going out with Clayton would solve my problem with Daddy’s poor choice of suitors, could she?

I suppose it would, wouldn’t it? Daddy would see it as me on the hunt for a husband, and Mama would be happy with a man who could—in appearances—provide and protect.

Maybe if I…

I stop dead in my tracks before reaching for the doorknob to the exam room, shaking my head to clear any ridiculous notions of the man on the other side of this door being a solution.

No matter what I say, or how I say it, he’ll get the wrong idea.

And the last thing I need is Clayton Montgomery trying to leave his mark on me.