Katie had been glorious in her passion, her milk-pale silken skin damp and on fire, creamy in places most men didn’t see, as mouthwateringly sweet as honeysuckle where her freckles ended and as fresh as dew where sun and skin never met. Her plump pink mouth, always so sassy, had slackened with release, and her upturned green eyes, always so sharp, had glazed like boiling sugar. She’d given as good as she got, just as she did in the OR, and she’d turned Ford on as he’d never been before. Just as she’d tested his horses that night in the stables, finding their weakest spots, she’d tested him and discovered secrets no other woman had ever bothered looking for. It wasn’t because Katie was so experienced, either, but because she made love the way a woman should, with her heart.
“So, what do you say, Ford?”
“What, Cecil?”
Cecil squinted, then suddenly slapped his thigh and loosed a belly laugh. “Hope you’re done for the day.”
“All I’ve got left is the insertion of a feed tube.”
“Good. ’Cause you’re definitely not playing with a full deck at the moment. While you were busy thinking, I said maybe Katie can shift back in another few months, but I need her now. About a week ago, when she called, I could tell she’s done great things in Houston. Fact is, I think that little spitfire knows more about the human heart than I do at this point, and since my team covers heart and lungs, we want to see what she learned. Some of the other nurses are considering enrolling in that Houston program, too.”
Ford’s mind, usually as sharp as spurs, hadn’t quite caught up. “You talked to her?”
Cecil nodded. “She called last week. They loved her there, even offered her a job. Scared me, since we need her.”
Katie had phoned Cecil? She was thinking of taking a job in Houston? Ford had considered calling her for months, but every time he picked up the phone, he’d visualize her lying across his bed—short-winded, her chest heaving and lamplight from his upstairs hallway shooting streaks of gold through her tight red curls. He wished that he hadn’t, in the last breathless minute before he’d removed her clothes, reiterated the reasons they wouldn’t make a good couple—that he was too rich, too much older than she was, too caught up in a world unlike her own. At the time, he’d meant it. Women like Blane, not Katie, peopled his life.
But the body had a mind of its own, and now he’d crawl right out of his skin if he didn’t make love to her again. Unfortunately, after sex that had taken the back of his head clear off, he’d awakened to find her gone—as if she couldn’t leave fast enough. No note. No panties he might keep in his drawer to remember her by. Nothing.
Because he was a gentleman—at least sometimes—for three months, he’d left the ball in Katie’s court. Now he’d started thinking that if she worked with him in the OR again, she might decide to date him. Maybe they could just start off slow and easy. Grab a bite to eat. See a movie. See what happened.
“She didn’t take the job, right?” Ford asked casually.
“I assume she didn’t. She would have said otherwise.”
Ford’s mind turned over, playing the options. “But there’s a chance she’ll move to Houston?”
Cecil’s blue eyes were as intrusive as scalpels, and his powerful shoulders suddenly shook with merriment. “About five minutes ago I said I wasn’t positive, Ford. But I guess you quit listening.”
“When did she call?”
“Last week. Keep it up and I’ll think you want to move Katie to your team for personal reasons.”
“Oh, you’re swift, Cecil,” Ford said. “You caught me.”
Cecil laughed. “You’re crazy.”
Ford thought about the night they’d spent together. It had been crazy. Hot, sweaty and wild. They’d shared the kind of sex people only dreamed about.
“I’d forget about her if I was you, Ford.”
Since there’d be no forgetting that night, Ford decided the older surgeon was starting to get on his nerves. “Why?”
“Your lives couldn’t be more different. You’ve got a fancy East-coast education, money, family, power. If you want the best table in Austin, any maître d’ will move the governor of the state to give it to you. But Katie Topper?” Cecil’s chuckles got the best of Ford, darkening his mood, mostly because he knew what the elderly man was thinking: for once, Ford Carrington, who’d been born chewing a silver spoon, was going to have trouble getting something he wanted.
But there was a lot Cecil didn’t know.
Like most men who’d pulled themselves up by the bootstraps, Cecil couldn’t imagine the wealthy having any hardships. He’d never guess what it had been like for Ford—a lone child in a big house who, at the age of ten, had felt blamed for his little brother’s death. Cecil would never guess how, despite his professed hatred for medicine, Ford had become a surgeon to win family approval that never came, or that to this day, the cold withdrawal of parents for whom he professed not to care had left a core of anger burning in Ford, just as strongly as the desire to find love. Inside him was an empty hole that no one had ever really filled. But just for a second, on a night three months ago, he’d felt satisfied, maybe even loved. No woman had ever touched him the way Katie had, which was why he was still single at thirty-six.
No, a man like Cecil wouldn’t understand. Maybe Katie Topper wouldn’t, either. Ford hadn’t forgotten how her eyes had assessed his house, and while he’d sensed her ability to love a man not for what he did or owned but for who he really was, Ford knew she was put off by wealth. He’d noted it in the OR, when they teased each other. Like Cecil, she seemed to think that silver spoons bought the end of trouble. But the truth was, money always had a price.
Cecil was still laughing. “Sorry, Ford, but even if Katie had been secretly in love with you for years, you’d never get hold of an Irish spitfire like that without a fight.”
“Fine by me.” Ford smiled easily. “You know I live for the challenge.” Difference was, where Katie would come out swinging, Ford was the type to apply slow, silent pressure. He’d win, too. Cecil was right. The all-powerful Carringtons had everything at their command, including wealth, charm, connections and good looks.
Ford Carrington had everything but Katie.
And while he’d probably never be the marrying kind, he’d decided months ago that she was coming back to his bed.
THE PHONE RANG, and for a missed heartbeat, she was sure the caller was Ford. “If it is, don’t be a wuss, Katie Topper!” she coached nervously, pacing around her apartment. “Just tell him the truth, hear what he says, and if he blows his stack, calmly tell him you’ll think things over and get right back to him.”
Slipping an anxious hand over her belly, she felt her heart pull with a bittersweet mix of excitement, joy and worry for which there was no name in the English language. Then, startled into action, she began quickly tossing aside empty boxes and lifting couch cushions, muttering, “C’mon, where are you, phone?”
Before she’d left for Houston, she had sublet the apartment furnished but had packed her breakables, and since she’d spent Christmas at her papa’s farm, she’d only now gotten around to unpacking. Not the most thrilling New Year’s Eve she’d ever spent, she thought, wishing her brothers hadn’t had dates and that her papa hadn’t left town for a few weeks, as he often did, to do a contracting job in Dallas. Of course Katie had lived through worse. Yeah, like the past three months when you didn’t so much as see Ford Carrington.
It took six rings to unbury the phone and another to take a very deep breath just in case it was Ford. Why Katie bothered, she didn’t know. It had been a one-night stand, pure and simple. No man could have been clearer about wanting only sex. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. Trouble was, every blessed second had been pure, delicious fantasy, as if Ford Carrington had looked into her mind and then done