His breath dammed up in his throat. My God, Maddy? Here? The last time he’d seen her he’d been standing on her porch with his hat in his hand, begging her to forgive him.
While he’d been having a high old time in Canada, flirting with more pretty girls than there were fleas on a dog, she’d been twisting and turning through two days of torturous labor, only to hemorrhage and nearly die before the frantic GP had taken the baby by cesarean. Her parents had waited less than twenty-four hours before offering her an ultimatum—give the tiny but perfectly formed baby girl up for adoption or take the kid and leave.
It hadn’t been much of a choice for a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl with no job skills and no money, so she’d signed the papers that had taken her baby away forever. It hadn’t been easy for her, however. Anything but. Her eyes had still been puffy and glazed with grief two weeks later when she’d opened the screen door to his nervous knock.
Forcing himself to breathe again, he scanned the patient-info sheet. Thirty-nine years old. Employed as a guidance counselor at Whiskey Bend High School. Divorced. His mind stuttered over that fact before moving on to the medical history—the usual childhood illnesses, an appendectomy at the age of seven. On the night they’d made love she’d been embarrassed to let him see the scar—
“Luke, are you all right?”
His head shot up and for an instant he felt disoriented. “What?”
“Don’t take this wrong,” Dorie murmured, looking both concerned and amused. “But you look exactly like a man who’s taken one where it hurts the most.”
He managed an off hand grin. “It’s my office. I can look anyway I want, sugar.”
Unimpressed gray eyes, sharp as lasers, zoomed in on his face. Heat crept up his neck as he dropped his gaze to the chart. “This…this patient, what do you know about her?” he asked, careful to keep his voice low.
“Just that she’s a referral from a GP I never heard of, has excellent insurance through a group policy for Texas-state employees, arrived early for her appointment, seems a bit aloof, but pleasant—and definitely anxious, though she hides it well. On a scale of one to ten, style-wise, I give her a twelve.”
“What the hell is ‘style-wise’?” Luke muttered. He was always edgy when he was caught off-guard.
“You know. Style. Presence.” She lifted an eyebrow and he frowned. “The way a woman dresses and wears her hair and carries herself.”
“Mrs. Foster is a twelve?”
“Absolutely.” Dorie grinned, clearing enjoying herself. “If I had to guess, I’d say she bought the suit she’s wearing from Neiman Marcus, probably not on sale. Same with her shoes. Lizard pumps, probably Italian. And hair to die for. Thick, sun-streaked and blond, which has to be natural or the best dye job I’ve ever seen.”
Luke felt a little dizzy. The Maddy he’d known had worn jeans or short cotton skirts and flirty shirts that showed off her ripe breasts to perfection. Her hair had definitely been glorious, however. Long and silky and the exact color of honey shot through with sunlight.
“You’re sure she’s here as a patient?” he pressed, more confused than ever.
Dorie offered him a curious look. “Since she filled out the new-patient forms, I think that would be a safe assumption, yes.”
“Damn.” He raked his hand through hair still damp from his shower. The rare nervous gesture from a man who prided himself on his control had Dorie narrowing her gaze.
“Luke, is there a problem?”
“Hell if I know.”
Dorie regarded him strangely for a beat, then broke into a knowing grin. “Aha, an old girlfriend. And from the panicked look on your face, I’d say the flame is still flickering inside that lean mean bod of yours.”
Luke bit off a crude reply. “Don’t you have insurance forms to fill out?”
“Yes, sir.” Dorie snapped him a mock salute before disappearing into the reception area.
Luke braced one hand against the wall and dropped his head. His heart hammered his chest as he fought to regulate the breathing that threatened to tear through his throat like a feral howl.
He’d struggled for years to drive his darlin’ Maddy Sue out of his head. Years and years of going weak in the knees whenever he heard bubbling laughter or caught a glimpse of thick blond hair shining in the sunshine. Of feeling his gut knot and twist whenever he saw a woman holding a baby.
He should have figured God wouldn’t let him slide forever, he thought as he pushed himself away from the wall, squared his shoulders. He’d sell his soul for a drink right now, he thought as he took another ragged breath, then opened the door.
Chapter 2
The white coat with his name embroidered in red above the pocket said he was an MD. The calendar said he was six weeks away from his forty-first birthday. Two steps into the room and he was an eighteen-year-old rodeo bum, with a crushing pressure in his chest and shock waves in his gut from a hard-knuckled punch in the solar plexus.
It was exactly the same as it’d been that blistering-hot day in Texas, he realized with a kind of stunned dismay. One minute his life had been under his control, the next he was reeling.
Maddy had been as pretty as a picture at seventeen. Now she was stunningly beautiful. A sophisticated lady exuding poise and a quiet confidence, even perched on the end of his examining room table with her spine as straight as a die and her chin pridefully high.
The big hair that had mesmerized him was gone, but the glorious color was that same shade of honey shot with sunshine. Once it had spilled to her shoulders in glossy waves, swishing like molten silk with every sassy toss of her head. Now, however, it had been tucked back out of the reach of man’s hands into a chic twist right out of one of Dorie’s glossy magazines. He wanted to ask why she felt she had to keep all that wonderful sunshine hidden away, but he’d lost the right to ask her that kind of question.
“Hello, Maddy,” he said after closing the door behind him. He hadn’t felt this wired since the last time he’d dropped from the top rail of the chute onto the back of a nightmare.
“Doctor.” She inclined her head, queen to subject. Damn, but she was something, he thought, fascinated in spite of the wariness skimming his nerves.
Ordinarily he offered his hand to a new patient, the first fragile thread of trust. Only the certain knowledge that it would cost him more to touch her than he wanted to risk had him trying a smile, instead.
“You look terrific.” His voice came out rusty as hell, but he had a feeling it was the words themselves that had her eyes narrowing between those long fluttery lashes.
He let his gaze drift lower, skimming the curves that filled out the pale yellow jacket in all the right ways to mess with a man’s head. She was also pregnant, he realized with a jolt that twisted all the way through him, leaving him a little breathless. About six months along was his best guess.
He still remembered the jagged despair in her voice when she’d told him that the surgical field had gotten contaminated
