he were here instead of you. She might as well have said it out loud, Ridge thought, but he didn’t let the notion get to him. This woman didn’t know him personally. But he was going to make sure that sooner or later she would, and maybe then she’d be calling him wonderful. He didn’t know why changing her mind should be so important to him, especially when he didn’t know her personally, either. But all of his colleagues spoke of P.A. Saddler with great admiration. He valued her respect.
“I’m sure you do miss him,” he told her. “But Dr. Walters has earned a well-deserved retirement. And I’ve assured him I’m going to take the best of care of all his patients. He trusts me. Do you?”
She shot him a look that said she considered his question odd. “Trust you?” she repeated skeptically.
He gave her an indulgent smile. “That’s right. To be a good, dedicated doctor.”
Her gaze lowered to the floor, and Ridge took the moment to study her more closely. From the moment he’d spotted her in the waiting room, he’d found himself wanting to stare. She was nothing like the matronly woman he’d been expecting. Instead of wearing chunky heels, owl-rimmed glasses and a severe bun, she was sporting stiletto heels, clear gray eyes and long brown hair that swung freely to the middle of her back. It would be hard for him to guess her age, but that detail didn’t matter. She was the most beautiful, sexy woman he’d ever seen in his life.
“Oh,” she said. “Well, I’m sure you know your business. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
It wasn’t the response he wanted to hear from her, and he got the sense that she had already formed an opinion of him. One that wasn’t all that flattering.
“I was told you were working with Dr. Kelsey now.”
“That’s right.”
She certainly wasn’t helping him with this conversation, he thought. One-or two-word answers didn’t tell him much.
“Why?”
Her gray eyes popped wide. “I beg your pardon?”
He shrugged. “I was just wondering why you chose to work with him. Since you worked with Dr. Walters before he retired, I would have thought I’d have been your first choice. Or does dealing with heart ailments bore you?”
It was obvious that his question caught her off guard. She was floundering to come up with the right words.
Clearing her throat, she said, “Dr. Kelsey is a family practitioner. He deals with all sorts of health problems, and I get his overflow. I like the variety. And as for working with you—I don’t know you. And no one told me beforehand that you wanted an assistant.”
He smiled once again. “I wanted one when I heard about you.”
She folded her arms beneath her breasts and Ridge couldn’t help but follow the starched fabric of her lab coat as it molded to the rounded mounds. Even with the coat on, he could see she was a shapely woman.
His gaze moved to her left hand, and he was surprised to see it empty of a wedding ring. With her looks he’d figured some man had already branded her a long time ago as his property. But then, she could be a career women who didn’t want the extra responsibility of being married, he thought. In any case, finding out more about this woman was on his agenda.
“That’s…gracious of you to say, Dr. Garroway, but—”
“I’d really like it if you’d call me Ridge,” he interrupted. “After all, I’m sure we’ll be running into each other quite often.”
Not if she could help it, Nicolette promised herself. The man’s charm was as lethal as a flaming arrow and she wasn’t about to put herself in the path of the man’s aim.
To him she said, “Okay, Ridge it is. But as for us running into each other, I’m sure we’re both going to be very busy.” She glanced pointedly at her watch. “Which I am right now. I hope you’ll excuse me, but I have patients waiting.”
She glanced up at him, figuring his expression would have cooled somewhat, but if anything, his smile had deepened and the gleam in his eye was even brighter.
“Of course,” he said warmly. “I have work waiting on me, too. But we doctors need to take time out for ourselves, otherwise we’d need somebody to treat us.”
To her indignation, he winked and then casually turned to go. Before he pushed through the swinging door, he said over his shoulder, “Nice meeting you, Nicolette.”
That night, as Nicolette drove home to the Sandbur Ranch, she couldn’t stop thinking about the new Dr. Garroway. In fact, she was angry with herself because he’d popped in and out of her mind all day long. It wasn’t like her to be distracted by anyone or anything and she had to admit to herself that she was no better than the nurses who’d been awestruck over the man.
It wasn’t as though the man had enthralled her, she argued with herself. No, it was more like he’d irritated her with that cocky grin and that roaming brown gaze. He’d looked at her as though he’d like to eat her. And that wink! It was the most unprofessional thing she’d ever seen. Sexy, true. But totally out of place. Why, the man had only met her minutes before!
Forget it, Nicolette. Forget him, she muttered to herself as she parked her car and gathered her work from the passenger seat. She wasn’t going to be working closely with the man. Like she’d told him, she doubted their paths would cross all that much, so it wasn’t as if she would be dealing with his brashness on a daily basis.
Now she was ready for a relaxing evening at home. The ranch house where Nicolette lived with her mother and younger brother, Lex, was built in traditional hacienda style with a stucco exterior, a terracotta tile roof and a long ground-level porch with arched supports. The house was huge, as was the other family home on the ranch where her cousins, Matt and Cordero Sanchez, resided.
The Sandbur was not just a little spot near Victoria, Texas. It spread for thousands of acres, and at one time the Saddler and Sanchez families had been large enough to need the spacious houses. At least, when everyone was alive and all the children lived at home the leg room had been needed.
Nowadays things were different. Her younger sister, Mercedes, was presently away serving in the Air Force, and Nicolette’s cousin, Lucita, was down in Corpus Christi teaching. As for Nicolette’s father, Paul, he’d been laid to rest ten years ago, and nearly six years ago her aunt Elizabeth had passed away from diabetes complications. Even Nicolette had left the ranch for a while during those nine years she’d been married to Bill. But that was another man and another time that Nicolette didn’t want to think about.
As she approached the front porch, she saw two bamboo torches shedding a dim, flickering light over someone sitting in a wicker chair. Once she grew close, she could see it was her mother, Geraldine. The woman’s feet were propped up on a matching wicker coffee table, and a squatty tumbler was in her hand.
Nicolette released a weary breath.
“Good evening, Nicci. You’re very late getting home this evening.”
“Hi, Mother.” She walked the length of the porch to where her mother sat, then bent to kiss her cheek. “What are you doing outside at this time of night? I told you—”
“Now don’t start
