sides of the road.”
Kirsten knew what he said was undoubtedly true, and she would have admitted it if he’d been reasonable. But he wasn’t reasonable, so she wasn’t going to be either. She’d already apologized, and she wasn’t about to do it again.
“I did, too—” she started to insist, but again Jim interrupted.
“Now hold on a minute, both of you.” Jim’s tone was stern. “Kirsten, you’ve told your side of the story, now let Sam tell his.” He looked at the other man. “Okay, pal, go ahead.”
Sam wished he’d used more restraint when he first realized that Coralie’s friend and houseguest was the woman who’d bashed in his car. Unfortunately he’d shot off his mouth, and now all he could do was take a deep breath and try to control his aggravation. “I had a full schedule of patients at my office this morning when I had to drop everything and hurry out to Chester Atkinson’s farm to help one of his cows deliver a calf that was turned wrong and couldn’t be expelled…”
“A calf?” Kirsten broke in, too astonished to be polite. “I thought you were an M.D.!”
He looked at her and nodded brusquely. “I am, but there’s only one veterinarian in this whole area, and he had to fly back East a couple of days ago to attend the funeral of a family member, so I was the next best thing. Delivering baby animals isn’t that much different from delivering baby humans, and without medical intervention both the cow and the calf would have died.”
Kirsten was stunned by an unexpected rush of admiration for this pugnacious man. She’d worked with a lot of physicians, but she doubted that any of them would have interrupted office hours to make a house call way out in the country to deliver a calf!
“Are they all right?” she asked softly.
He nodded and smiled. “Yeah. All the little guy needed was to be repositioned and he popped right out.”
He looked altogether different when he smiled. His cold brown eyes warmed and softened, and his whole expression lightened. For the first time she saw the slight indentations of dimples on either side of his mouth.
Was it possible she’d misjudged him? If he’d had an office full of sick patients waiting for him to return from an emergency house call, it was no wonder he’d been so harried and impatient with her. She’d delayed his return even longer, as well as damaging his new car.
“That…that’s very commendable of you, Doctor,” she said, suddenly shy as she basked in the warmth of his smile. “I’m a nurse, and I don’t know any physicians who make house calls for humans, let alone animals.”
He chuckled, and there was a sensual sound to it that made her tingle. “I assure you, going to the cow was the only way to handle the situation. Can you just imagine the reaction of my waiting room full of patients if Farmer Atkinson had led his bellowing pregnant bovine into their midst?” He extended his hand. “And please, call me Sam.”
She put her hand in his. His was smooth and well cared for, as most doctors’ hands were, but it was also hard and muscular and his grip was strong.
Their gazes met, and for the first time he was looking at her as an attractive woman instead of an incompetent ditz who couldn’t even steer a car down a deserted highway without running into his new and expensive toy.
“All right, Sam,” she said. “And I’m Kirsten. Coralie’s told me so much about you that I feel as if I already know you.”
He still held her hand, and she couldn’t seem to summon the willpower to pull it out of his grasp.
“Did she tell you that I sometimes act like a real jerk?” he asked seriously.
“No, that came as a surprise,” she blurted and felt the hot blush of embarrassment stain her face as soon as she realized what she’d said. “Oh, I mean…That is…”
He squeezed her hand and released it. “Don’t apologize,” he admonished her. “I had that coming. I’ve been acting like a spoiled five-year-old throwing a tantrum because one of my playthings got broken. I am sorry. I’m not usually so impatient and childish. It must have been the pressure of time constraints. I’ve been literally running from one patient to another all day long, and I’m afraid I got my priorities screwed up. Will you please forgive me?”
There was a twinkle in his deep-set eyes, and she would have forgiven him anything. “Of course,” she agreed readily, “if you’ll forgive me for damaging your beautiful car.”
He shrugged. “It’s nothing a little bodywork won’t fix.”
He was being amazingly casual about the accident, considering how upset he’d been just a few minutes earlier.
Coralie finally spoke from her position beside Kirsten. “If you two have settled the matter of who did what to whom, we’d better sit down to supper before everything gets cold.”
For the next couple of hours Kirsten thoroughly enjoyed herself. The food she and Coralie had prepared was delicious; Jim was a gracious host; his daughters were bright and well mannered, and Dr. Sam Lawford had made a lightning change from ogre to charmer.
Her innate good sense told her she shouldn’t be captivated by his illusive charm, but she couldn’t help herself. He was seated next to her at the table, and she was again aware of the fresh, clean aroma of the forest that she’d noticed that morning. The scent was uniquely his and it drew her attention no matter how hard she tried to ignore it.
Contrary to Coralie’s efforts at matchmaking, Kirsten hadn’t come to Idaho to find a groom. Oh, her long-term goal was to settle down with a husband and children, but she’d only recently celebrated her twenty-sixth birthday, and there were still a lot of things she wanted to do before she got to that point.
She wanted to advance in her profession. She loved nursing, and hoped someday to go back to school to become a nurse-practitioner. She also wanted to travel, to see the world a little at a time: Europe, Asia, and especially Scandinavia where her dad’s family had its roots. Her parents were middle-class people who had trouble making ends meet, so she’d had to put herself through college with scholarships and part-time jobs.
Now she wanted to be free, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t date and have fun. Far from it. She had a very satisfactory social life in Eureka and dated often, but never exclusively with one man. She had many male friends, but drew the line at taking any of them as lovers.
Sam finished his strawberry shortcake smothered in fresh whipped cream and sank back with a contented sigh. Coralie had moved the adults into the comfort of the living room before serving dessert, but Gloria and Amber had taken theirs and gone upstairs to watch television in their rooms.
He and Kirsten were seated together on the sofa. If she hadn’t been wearing a full-skirted cotton dress that billowed on either side, their hips would have been touching. His thigh muscles twitched at the thought, and it was all he could do to keep his hand from inching over to caress her leg.
He hated to admit it to himself, but his usual keen assessment of people had been really flawed this time. Kirsten Reinhold was neither airheaded nor conniving. She was not only beautiful, as he’d discovered this morning before he knew who she was, but she was also well above average in intelligence and shared many of his interests. They were both trained in medicine, but they also shared a love of country-and-western music, mystery novels and the Oakland A’s.
There was one thing he’d been right about this morning, however. She was one sexy lady! Not flashy or blatant. She did nothing to call attention to herself, but there was a warmth about her, a radiant appeal that drew him like a magnet and made him itch to touch her, hold her as he had for a few moments that morning when she had literally fallen into his arms, and caress the soft curves of her high breasts, small waist and enticing hips.
A wave of heat rolled through him and brought him back to reality with a thud. Damn! What was the matter with him? He was behaving more like