The Bachelor Doctor's Bride. Caro Carson

conversation on a topic unfamiliar to him—how to fix a girl’s dress and thereby a girl’s evening—and then he’d lost Diana’s spark. She was still dancing with him, moving in time to the music, but she was no longer with him.

      He needed that spark. Without any conscious effort on her part, without knowing he was hurting from the passing of Irene Caulsky, she’d made him feel better. Balanced, like there was enough light in the world to offset the dark.

      But somehow, he’d blown it. Hell, she was even looking for another woman again, someone else for him to dance with.

      Quinn was familiar with situations that went sour in a moment. As a cardiologist, he’d had patients chatting groggily with him as they waited for their sedation to take effect suddenly go into full cardiac arrest. As a rancher, he’d seen livestock ambling across a dry creek bed, kicking up dust, suddenly be swept away in a roaring torrent of water, a deadly flash flood from some faraway rainstorm.

      When situations turned, Quinn turned them back. He threaded wires into hearts and opened blocked arteries. He gave chase on horseback and lassoed swimming cattle.

      What did he do with Diana?

      Situations with women didn’t turn so rapidly. Women liked being with him, and he with them. If a woman was upset, it was generally because he hadn’t been able to keep a date—which usually meant a patient had taken one of those sudden turns for the worse. Although the circumstances that kept him from showing up were beyond his control, women liked an apology. They liked their apologies best when he showed up bearing a gift, generally wine and roses, or a tasteful piece of gold jewelry. No gemstones. He liked his relationships exclusive, but without expectations of permanence.