warm to be comfortable in a tie and sport coat. He wasn’t out to impress Ms. Whatever-her-name-was.
When he’d finished dressing, he ventured outside and was again jolted by the sight of the crumpled fender on his BMW. He’d only had it for a week, and in that time he’d protected and sheltered it like a baby. Then, in the blink of an eyelid, that sexy young airhead who didn’t have sense enough to keep her eyes on the road had run a stop sign and crumpled one side of its shiny white magnificence.
His rage ignited again. She had no business driving a car. She was a menace on the road. Who had issued her a driver’s license in the first place?
It was probably a man. All she would have to do was pout and bat her long, thick eyelashes at a man, and he would give her anything she wanted. Sam figured he should know. She’d even had him going there for a while.
When she’d first looked up at him with those wide doelike eyes, he’d felt a rush of tenderness that took his breath away. She’d looked so shocked and vulnerable, and for a moment he’d had an urge to take her in his arms and assure her that she was innocent of any wrongdoing. That he would take care of everything, if she would just smile at him.
He snorted with self-disgust as he backed the battered car out of the driveway. He’d been so swamped with patients all day that he hadn’t even had time to take it to the garage. Fortunately, the damage was only to the body. The V-12 engine still purred like a kitten.
As he drove down the tree-lined streets on his way out of town, his unruly mind returned to the accident and the woman responsible. Her driving skills left a lot to be desired, but her looks sure didn’t. Even though he’d been mad as hell at her at the time, he couldn’t help but notice her.
She was a real beauty. Quite tall, approximately five-seven to his five-eleven, and she’d fit into his embrace as if she’d been custom-made for him.
A wave of warmth washed over him and he groaned and shifted his thoughts back to the present. Obviously it had been too long since he’d had a date! He’d been so busy that he barely had time for sleep, let alone a social life.
But why was he attracted to this woman he didn’t even know?
Because he’d made the mistake of catching her when she stumbled, that was why. She’d snuggled into his arms, so soft, so warm and inviting, and she’d smelled faintly of lilacs, his favorite floral scent. He’d held her close and had a hard time letting her go when she pulled away from him.
Then another thought caught him off balance. Could that fall have been deliberate? Had she been using her femininity to distract him and make him feel protective?
Sure she could have. Not only could have, but probably did. She’d no doubt been bewitching males all her life, to get what she wanted.
Well, he’d learned his lesson early on, and he wasn’t going to be caught in that particular hell again. He had good reason to distrust women.
A few minutes later he turned off the two-lane country road onto the Buckleys’ driveway. There was the usual assortment of automobiles, trucks and farm machinery scattered around the barnyard, and he paid little attention as he stopped near the front of the house.
Before he got to the top of the steps the screen door was flung open and Coralie walked out grinning happily. “Well, if it isn’t the late Dr. Sam,” she said gaily. “What was it this time? Mandy Hoover’s overdue baby, or old Mr. Proctor’s rheumatism?”
“Neither one, smarty,” he said as he gave her a friendly hug. “It was the Tuckers’ youngest son. He fell while running with a knife, and I had to put sutures in his arm. How long before we eat? I’m starved.”
Coralie laughed and disengaged herself as she turned toward the door. “I’m not going to feed you until I’ve introduced you to my best friend in all the world,” she said as she walked into the house with Sam right behind her.
The sun was still bright, and it took him a few seconds to adjust his eyes to the darker living room. As he blinked, Coralie indicated a woman who had just risen from the couch and was standing a couple of feet away.
“Sam, I want you to meet my friend, Kirsten Reinhold,” she said, and there was excitement in her tone. “Kirsten, this is Sam Lawford, the doctor I’ve told you so much about.”
One final blink cleared Sam’s vision, and he saw himself gazing into those same doelike brown eyes that had been haunting him since this morning.
Kirsten Reinhold was the airhead who had trashed his brand-new car!
“No!”
“No!”
Their denials were spoken in unison, even in perfect harmony, as though a conductor had lowered his baton to signal the first fortissimo notes of a fiery duet.
But this was no duet. It was an anguished protest to a fate that seemed intent on bedeviling two nice, unsuspecting people caught in a web of circumstances through no fault of their own.
“You are Kirsten Reinhold? The angel of mercy and paragon of virtue whose praise Coralie has been singing to me for months?” Sam sputtered.
“And you… You are Sam Lawford? The world’s most eligible bachelor, who only needs the right woman to turn him into the world’s most perfect husband?” Kirsten stammered sarcastically. “Why didn’t you tell me who you were this morning?”
“Why didn’t I? I did. I gave you my business card. Why didn’t you tell me who you were?”
She couldn’t believe he could be so obtuse. “I did. I wrote it all out on a piece of paper and handed it to you. It’s not my fault you didn’t look at it.”
Her sense of fair play finally caught up with her, and she sighed. “Although, I…I have to admit I didn’t read your card, either.”
A second male voice boomed through the room. “What’s going on here?”
It was Jim Buckley. In the few hours she’d been at the farm, Kirsten found him to be every bit as handsome and loving toward his family as Coralie had said. And he was just plain nice. Now he was standing next to Coralie, and they both looked surprised and perplexed.
Kirsten was the first to offer an explanation. “This…this is the man who was involved in the accident with me on the road this morning.” Her tone still rang with resentment.
“She caved in the whole side of my car,” Sam inter-jected, angrily.
“I did no such thing.” Her denial was heated. “It was only a slight dent in the front fender. The way you carry on you’d think I’d run over one of your children.”
“I don’t have any children, but I’ve only had that car for a week. Six days to be exact,” he said, fuming. “I had to go all the way to Boise to find a BMW dealership, and it hardly had a fingerprint on it until you came roaring down the road and rammed into it.”
Kirsten’s mouth dropped open. “Roaring down the road!” she raged. “I was barely moving. Twenty miles an hour at the most when you came out of nowhere and drove right in front of me—”
“Whoa there, take it easy!” Jim interrupted as he stepped between the two combatants. “Let’s cool down a little and find out what really happened.” He nodded to Kirsten. “Okay, you first.”
Belatedly Kirsten realized that both she and Sam were being rude, to say nothing of tacky, by waging their quarrel in the home of their host and hostess. She was regretful and embarrassed, but they’d gone too far now not to try to settle it.
She recounted how she’d taken her eyes off the road for just a second to turn off the radio. “I don’t know where he came