Doctor Seduction. Beverly Bird

got up for more wine. “I’m sorry.”

      “For what?”

      “For boring you.” She poured, topping off both glasses without thought.

      “You’re not. I’ve always wondered what makes you so straitlaced.”

      “I have unplumbed depths!” Cait burst out. Then she flushed.

      Tabitha’s brows lifted again. “Sorry. I forgot that part.” She chomped down onto an egg roll. “You’ve been through a lot lately. What happened in that underground room, anyway? You never did tell me.”

      Cait felt her skin turn to glass. “Nothing.”

      “You spent seventy-two hours in there.”

      “Hines was in and out. He didn’t stay, but we could hear him walking around in the house upstairs whenever he was around.”

      Tabitha waited. “And?” she prompted when Cait said nothing more.

      Cait kept chewing, focusing hard on her food. But Tabitha remained quiet, waiting, not willing to change the subject.

      Cait sighed and put her fork down. “He already had bottled water and crackers down there in the basement. I told Jake that. Jake said that was because Hines had planned the whole thing.” Tabitha’s Jake had been the detective assigned to the hostage situation. “So we ate and we tried to figure out ways to get free. But the basement door was locked from the outside and the windows were so tiny not even I could fit through one. We tried banging on them for a while, but they faced the backyard and no one heard us.”

      “What did you talk about?”

      Everything but how old she was when she was potty-trained, Cait thought. She sipped wine, then suddenly found it hard to swallow. “Mostly about me. I think I was nervous. I must have talked a lot.”

      Tabitha nodded. “That makes sense.”

      “And he called me a sparrow. A rigid sparrow. I just felt like I had to defend myself against that.” So she’d given him her whole life story.

      “You told him about the foster homes?” Tabitha looked surprised.

      Cait shrugged. “No one was ever unkind to me in any of them.”

      “What else?” Tabitha asked. “What else did you two talk about?”

      “I don’t know!” Cait cried. “Missed chances. Lost dreams. Plans for the future. What do two people talk about when they’re stuck in a room together for hours and hours on end?”

      “Talk wouldn’t have been high on my list of guesses in the first place,” Tabitha said dryly. “That’s not Sam Walters’s rep with a good-looking woman.”

      “Nothing happened!” Cait shouted. Then she went still, frowning. “Good-looking? I’m not good-looking.”

      “You’re cute as a button and haughty to boot. Get off it.”

      “Haughty?”

      Tabitha nodded. “With that don’t-touch-me air you’ve got going on.”

      “How can you say that?”

      “I just think it would be a real challenge for a Sam Walters-type to see if he could touch you.”

      The hurt that raced through her almost stole Cait’s breath. It was very cold and seemed to numb her nerve endings. Was that all she had been? A challenge?

      Of course, she thought. It was the only thing that made sense. He’d gone out of his way this morning to make sure she knew it had been a one-time thing. Why, then, had she believed that it’d had something to do with getting to know her?

      “Well, he didn’t,” she said tightly. She stood quickly to take her plate to the sink.

      “I’ll pass the word, then.”

      Cait whipped back to face her. “Why?”

      “Because everyone in the hospital is wondering and it will kill the rumors. Come on, Cait. Pretty nurse. Knockout womanizing doctor. One basement room. Three days. What would you think?”

      “I wouldn’t think about it at all! It would be none of my business!”

      “Unfortunately the rest of the hospital staff doesn’t share your high ideals.” Tabitha stood, as well, and began cleaning up the takeout packages.

      Cait hugged herself, distraught. Now she was another Sam Walters statistic!

      Tabitha glanced her way and her expression softened. She dropped a hand on Cait’s shoulder in comfort. Cait twitched. She wasn’t used to being touched. Tabitha took her hand away.

      “It’ll all blow over as soon as Sam sets his sights on something else in a skirt,” she assured her. “That’s the way gossip mills run. Anyway, I’ve got to go. I told Jake I’d be back in an hour.”

      “Of course. Thanks for stopping by.” Cait realized that this time, for the first time, she genuinely meant it.

      They were halfway back to the door when Tabitha turned around. “I almost forgot. I’m supposed to pester you about coming to the hospital’s End of Summer Ball next weekend.”

      Cait frowned. “Who told you to pester me?”

      “Jake. And Jared Cross.”

      Her heart gathered itself into a knot and cannon-balled into her toes. “You talked to Dr. Cross?”

      Tabitha looked at her strangely. “He’s my director of child psychiatry. I talk to him on a regular basis.”

      “About me?” Her sessions with him were supposed to have been confidential! Or had someone noticed her visiting him? Had rumor gotten out some other way? Tabitha was right about one thing. The hospital-employee environment was closeknit, with people spending long, stress-filled hours together. Gossip was rife.

      But Tabitha was shaking her head. “I talked to him about all my staff who were involved in that nightmare. I wanted to know if I could help in any respect.”

      Cait finally let her air out. That made sense. It was something Tabitha would do.

      “And he mentioned that everyone needed to get back on with their lives as expeditiously as possible,” Tabitha continued.

      Cait nodded. “But I never do balls or that sort of thing.”

      “I think you should do this one,” Tabitha said. “Jake thinks it will be good for you, too. He’s expected to be released from the hospital by then. Besides, everyone is talking about you. You should stop in, even for a little while, to show them that you’re absolutely fine.”