Ah, finally. Finally something more than a nosy neighbor bringing a casserole and gossip while the real cases went all the way to South Shore. Finally something more than poison oak, something right up her alley, and she moved in to help support Stone, pulling his arm over her shoulder, grabbing his hand to steady him. He had big hands, tough and scarred, much like the man himself even before whatever had happened to him today. “First room,” she directed TJ, bypassing the front desk, turning toward the hallway which held two examination rooms. “What happened?”

TJ opened his mouth, but Stone beat him to it. “Just need a few Band-Aids.”

“Really.” Without her and TJ’s support, he’d have slid to the floor. But she was well used to stubborn patients, the majority of which were always of the male persuasion. She figured it had something to do with carrying a penis around all the time. “So you can walk on your own then?”

Stone managed to arch a brow in her direction, though only one because the other was slashed through, and bleeding down his lean jaw. “Why would I do that, when having you hold me is much more fun?” He gave her more of his weight, which she estimated at approximately one hundred and ninety pounds of solid muscle. “You’re softer than old Doc Sinclair,” he murmured.

True, though her father was plenty soft. In fact, it was his soft heart that had landed Emma in this situation in the first place, and she wasn’t referring to the mild heart attack he’d suffered two months ago-the one that had brought her here to run his business while he recovered.

Nope, she was talking about his inability to concentrate and focus on the things that mattered, such as billing people for services rendered, a problem that had him shockingly near bankruptcy. In the time she’d been in Wishful, she’d discovered he’d not billed more often than he had billed, a mistake she wouldn’t be making. Ever. “Well, you’re stuck with me at the moment, soft or otherwise.”