I got beeped about two seconds after you left, and she was furious that I didn’t have time for her.”
“The price of your popularity, Doc,” she said sympathetically. “And it could have worked out, Luc, but you never let the relationship get past the first couple of weeks.”
He stared accusingly at her. “I do, but my schedule puts a lot on hold.”
“So what was the real problem, then?” Angela asked as she snapped her handbag shut and left it in a chair with her shawl. She nodded to the kitchen and he followed, his gaze focused on the sexy curve of her bare back in the low-slung dress. Her skin looked warm and soft.
“Luc?”
He mentally shook loose the erotic fantasy that just flew through his mind and took the beer she was offering. “I told you, she couldn’t handle my schedule.” This was Ange, his buddy. His only family…well, her and her parents, her brothers and sisters and their brood of kids.
“I could believe that if you were still a resident in San Diego, but that excuse is old now, darlin’.” Angela cocked her head and studied Lucas. He’d been a tough kid with a chip on his shoulder when she’d first met him. The new boy.
With his imposing height, his dark looks and icy China blue eyes, everyone had been afraid of him. Except her. She’d seen the loneliness in him, the fear of rejection, and the friendship she’d struck up with him had been worth every second. Even when Daddy tried running him off because he thought Lucas was nothing but trouble about to happen. But it didn’t happen. The more they said he couldn’t do, the harder Lucas worked to prove them wrong. She was proud of him and his success. Although the “dare to get close to me” chip was about gone, his coming to her after every broken relationship was getting old. Even he was treating her like the Dear Abby of the airwaves.
“Know what I think?”
“If I knew what women thought, Ange, I wouldn’t be crying in my beer.”
She stole a sip, then handed back the bottle. “The day you cry over a woman, Ryder, is the day I can spin straw into gold.” She pushed him out of her kitchen, her hands on his shoulders, fingers digging in to his tense muscles. He moaned, almost purring. “I think you’re dating women who like your social status and success more than the fact that you heal children.”
He slid her a look, then faced her. “You’ve got more to say, I can tell. Go on.”
“I don’t think you’re looking for deep, so you’re not getting deep.”
“I’d like to get married some day.”
She laughed outright and didn’t see his offended look as she walked past and looked out the window for her date. Only Luc’s Jaguar was parked in front of the house. She swung around as he made himself at home on her sofa.
“I don’t want to be alone forever, you know.”
Alone? Never. Single? Oh, yes, she thought. “Okay, if that’s true then date women who are marriage material, for heaven’s sake. From my perspective, your selection almost guarantees a breakup.”
He looked up from peeling the label off the beer bottle, and those blue eyes caught her dead in the heart. God, he was so sexy.
“Luc, honey.” She crossed to the sofa and sat beside him. “You’re committed to your career far more than anything else.”
“Am not.”
“Really? You’ve been back nearly two years and I’ve seen you twice a month, maybe. And just why did Denise—”
“Diane—”
“Diane dump you?”
“Tired of me canceling or leaving in the middle of a date to get to the hospital.” His dark brows drew down. Maybe she had something there. But Diane did mention Angela a couple times when they were dismantling their relationship, and Luc knew she’d been jealous. Was he using his job to protect himself from actually making a commitment like marriage? “She’s dating Arty now.”
Arthur was the podiatrist at the hospital, she recalled. “See there, one of the marriageable ones would understand, be supportive. And marriage is more than a home-cooked meal and getting your dry cleaning picked up, Luc. Lord, you go through women like diet sodas. It’s disgusting.”
He resented that. He wasn’t that bad. “Look who’s talking. What about Andrew?”
“That was two months ago.” She made a see-what-I-mean face. “Besides, he thought that because I’m AJ at Midnight, giving advice to lovelorn over the radio, it meant I knew everything there was about sex.”
His features sharpened. “Did he try something?”
“Yeah, a lot,” she said with feeling. “But I beat him off with an ugly stick.”
He grinned. “I’ll just bet you did.”
The sound of a car pulling into the driveway was accompanied by the flash of headlights through the windows. Angela stood, grabbing her shawl and throwing it over her shoulders.
Lucas nearly swallowed his tongue.
“What’s the matter? Is it too short? You can’t see the tops of my stockings, can you?”
She walked to the hall mirror and tried to get a look at her hem. Luc moved behind her, and when she looked up, she caught his gaze in the reflection. Her heart instantly skipped to her throat. She’d never seen him stare at her like that, not since they were teenagers.
“Lucas…you’re looking at me like you want to get me out of my panties.”
His gaze shot to hers, and for a second they just stared, then he walked closer, giving her a sexy half-smile. “I’ve always wanted you out of them, darlin’, except you’re too good a woman for a guy like me.”
“A pediatrician, financially stable, not too hard on the eyes? Oh, yeah, you’re a real bottom of the barrel loser.”
“You say that now, but I like fried frog legs and I know how you feel about that.”
She shivered with revulsion. “You’re right,” she said. “I’d have to kick you out first time you brought that gunk within smelling distance.” She tossed the edge of the shawl over her shoulder and snatched her evening bag. “Let’s be friends, huh?”
Friends. Why didn’t that satisfy him as it usually had, he wondered as she kissed him quick and sweet. The urge to pull her close surged through him. He smashed it down and wondered where his mind had gone to live, because it sure as hell wasn’t in his head right now.
Two
“Whoa, wait a second.” In Angela’s kitchen, Katherine Davenport set the untouched coffee cup she’d been holding aside. “You are planning on having a child alone, with no husband. In the south!”
Angela winced at the censure in her voice. “Kat, this is the twenty-first century, for pity’s sake. I have a good job and a nice house and I will be able to work any hours I need to.”
“My
