Doctor Seduction Page 6

  She hadn’t a clue. “It would be somewhere wonderful. Somewhere exotic and flamboyant and—” she paused “—very single-oriented,” she decided.

  “I have six listings for Walters,” the voice responded dryly. “But only one with the initial S.”

  “Let’s try that one.”

  Cait kept the number in her head while she disconnected and punched it in. His line was busy. He was talking to someone. Probably Dr. Kimberlie Leon.

  Suddenly appalled with herself at what she had just done, Cait slammed down the phone as Billy snaked around her ankles, begging for food. What if Sam had actually answered? Fate had spared her ever having to know.

  Cait went back to the living room to the pile of books on the coffee table. This was her life. She sorted through them, trying to figure out which one she wanted to read next. She selected one, turned on the lamp on the end table and curled her legs under her to open the book on her lap.

  Then she put her head down on one of the pillows and promptly fell asleep.

  Four

  Cait felt like an idiot as she paused on the threshold of the Lone Star Country Club ballroom a week later. What was she doing here? The question reverberated in her head as she teetered a little in the kind of high heels she rarely wore. She gripped her small clutch bag in front of her like a shield against all the potential horrors that could befall her if she actually entered the room.

  Where were her unplumbed depths when she needed them?

  “Cait!”

  She looked around quickly at the sound of Tabitha’s voice. Her friend swooped down on her, dragging Jake White by the hand. Tabitha looked gorgeous in strapless, electric-blue satin. She didn’t seem to have a problem with high heels.

  Cait unclenched one hand from her purse and lifted it in a halfhearted wave. “Hi.”

  “You’re certainly looking no worse for wear,” Jake said. She hadn’t seen him since her rescue from Hines’s clutches. To Cait’s utter shock, he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.

  “I could say the same for you,” she murmured. No one would ever have thought that he’d spent over a week in the hospital. He still looked tall, tough, toned.

  She was stunned to find herself actually envying Tabitha a little as the man draped an arm over her friend’s shoulders.

  “Come on,” Tabitha said. “Let’s eat, drink and make merry.”

  Cait moved into the ballroom with them. The place was done in blue and silver, and the chandeliers glinted with dim, golden light. A little path was traced on the carpet between the dance floor and the tables. They followed it to the opposite end of the room where a courtesy bar and buffet were laid out.

  Tabitha stopped periodically to talk with her staff, but Jake seemed content just to be alive and in love. “I like the eating part of her suggestion,” he said as Tabitha veered off into a conversation with two of her surgeons.

  They stepped up to the buffet. Jake speared a cocktail meatball with a pretty toothpick as Cait stared at the array. It was all finger food. She’d been hoping for something more substantial, something that would resemble dinner.

  “Is this what they serve at this type of affair?” she asked hesitantly.

  “Hey, Tabitha works hard with the budget.” Jake winked at her. “These, I believe, are genuine monkey meat. But with the chutney sauce, who can tell?” He popped the meatball into his mouth and chewed.

  Cait laughed and liked the feel of it. She filled a small plate with tiny peeled shrimp, then she felt warm breath tickle her neck. “Any woman who looks as good as you do ought to be sipping champagne,” said a voice from behind her.

  Cait jerked around so quickly a shrimp almost slid off her plate. She caught it. It was Kenny Estrada. “Hi,” she said a little breathlessly.

  “Dance with me.” Kenny took her free hand. “Please.”

  “I was just—” Cait broke off when Jake took her plate from her “—eating.”

  “Consider your hors d’oeuvres to be in safekeeping,” Jake said.

  “Now you have no excuse,” Kenny said.

  Cait felt her unplumbed depths twitch a little. “Except for one thing. I believe you offered me champagne.”

  To her absolute amazement and delight, Kenny laughed. The way Ricky Mercado had laughed. Deeply, happily. Cait’s pulse kicked.

  A waiter passed at just that moment, and Kenny took a flute off the tray, handing it to her. “There you go.”

  Cait sipped and sighed. The bubbles tickled her lip. “Thank you.” Then the band swerved into “Someone to Watch over Me.” Cait sighed. She loved old forties music.

  “Can you dance with that in your hand?” Kenny asked.

  “Of course.” Actually, she had no idea. But Cait passed her purse to Jake, as well. “Hold this for me, please?”

  She discovered the art of slow-dancing while holding a flute of champagne. It worked, she thought, if you looped your arm around the man’s neck just so, without really holding on. Then you could grip the glass, too.

  Cait relaxed and began to honestly enjoy herself.

  Cait was the first person Sam noticed when he stepped into the ballroom. She wore something in mint green that shimmered. The dress cleaved his tongue to the roof of his mouth and rendered his ears deaf. He saw Kimberlie Leon’s lips moving as she spoke to him, but he had no idea what she was saying.

  He had no idea because Caitlyn Matthews—every petite, slender inch of her—was wrapped in something skintight, not to mention Kenny Estrada’s arms.

  As Sam watched, staring, she lifted a glass of champagne over the intern’s shoulder. The man laughed and let go of her just long enough for her to take a sip from it. Then he pulled her close again.

  “What?” Sam jerked around as Kimberlie’s voice finally penetrated his daze with the force of a sonic boom.

  She lifted one pretty brow. “I was just saying that I think our table is back that way.” She pointed. “Number twenty-two.”

  “Do you want to sit or do you want to dance?”

  She smiled slowly. “Dance. Definitely dance. I’ve had fantasies for weeks now about finding my way into your arms.”

  “I can take care of that.” Sam got a grip on himself and grinned. As a waiter passed, he plucked a glass of champagne from his tray. Damned if he was going to be outdone by a sparrow of a nurse. “But you’ll need this first.”

  Kimberlie took it and followed him to the dance floor. Then she knocked back half of it and set the glass on a table at the rim of the floor. Sam thought it lacked the finesse of a glass draped around a man’s neck, but then she slid into his arms and pressed herself close. He held her, intent on making the most of the moment.

  Then he felt his gaze cutting to Cait again.

  Had she been seeing Estrada this past week since she had shot down Ricky Mercado? If she had shot down Ricky Mercado, he reminded himself. The jury was still out as to whether this little blond nurse was the same one who had bruised Mercado’s ego.

  The song ended. He watched Cait ease out of Estrada’s arms, but then she rested her free hand on his shoulder and murmured something in his ear. The pair moved off to a table.

  “Time to eat,” Sam decided.

  Kimberlie pulled out of his arms to look at him. “Are you serious? We only started dancing.”

  “I just realized I’m starving.”

  He led her off the floor in the direction of the bar and the buffet. He glanced at Cait’s table as they passed it. Estrada was holding a shrimp out to her. Instead of just taking it from the man’s fingers, she opened her mouth and let him lay it on her tongue.

  Sam choked.

  He dropped Kimberlie’s hand and pointed at the laden buffet table. “The food is right over there.”

  She gaped at him. “You’re not coming with me? Eating was your idea.”

  “Grab something for me. Please?”

  She nodded, still looking confused. “Sure.”

  “I just noticed someone I want to say hello to. I’ll mee
t you back at our table in a minute.”

  “All right.”

  Cait looked up from her plate and felt her stomach dive. Sam was approaching her table. The shrimp became clogged in her throat.

  “Dr. Walters,” she said when he reached her.

  “Selective memory,” he murmured, pulling out a chair and reaching for one of her shrimp.

  Cait slapped his hand before she knew she was going to do it. “Get your own. And what does that mean? Selective memory?”

  “It means that apparently you only call me Dr. Walters these days when you’re not trying to chop me off at the knees.”

  Cait’s gaze flew to Kenny and her face flamed. “I’ve never chopped him off at the knees,” she said quickly. “He must be drunk.”

  “Stone sober,” Sam disagreed. “We just got here.”

  “We?” Cait hated herself for asking, but the word was out of her mouth before she could catch it.

  “I brought Kimberlie Leon.”

  “Apparently slammed doors turn her on.” Cait felt her heart kick as she wondered where the tart words had come from. Then hurt rained through her from her heart to her toes. He had brought a date. And the date wasn’t her. Even though they had done it just a few weeks ago.

  Then again, what had she expected?

  Sam grinned like a shark. “She invited me. What could I do but oblige?”

  “Which just goes to show there’s no accounting for people’s tastes.”

  “I do believe you’re being sarcastic again, Nurse Matthews.”

  “It’s my unplumbed depths.”

  He laughed. Like Kenny had. Like Ricky Mercado had. Cait felt bemused.

  “What unplumbed depths?” Kenny asked.

  Sam lowered his voice so only she could hear. “‘Show me how.’ I’d say that’s about as unplumbed as you can get.”

  Cait had just taken another sip of champagne and it almost came up through her nose. “Don’t you have a date to get back to?” She looked at him again, hoping her eyes were shooting daggers.

  “She’s getting me something to eat.”

  They both looked at the buffet table at the same time. Kimberlie Leon waggled her fingers at them in greeting.

  Sam leaned closer to Cait. “Here’s the way these hospital parties go,” he said conspiratorially. “Dr. Leon will be seriously intoxicated within the hour. So will Lover Boy sitting there beside you.”

  “His name is Kenny.”

  “Whatever.”

  Cait was appalled. “We’re hospital personnel. No one is going to drink too much. Half of them are on call.”

  “Oh, they will. Take my word for it.”

  “If you’ve got such disdain for them, why are you here?”

  “Why are you?” he countered.

  Because she was seriously trying to get back to normal, although how something as uncharacteristic for her as a party could help on that score, Cait still didn’t know. And she’d die before she’d admit to him that her shrink had recommended it.

  Sam took her hand where it rested on the table. “Tell you what. Let’s make a run for it and leave these people behind.”

  Cait jerked her hand free. “You’re out of your mind.”

  “I’m starting to think so.”

  He looked almost serious, she thought. It made her heart do odd things. “I’m not leaving here with you. You have a date.”

  “Then just dance with me.”

  “Next lifetime.” She knew, somehow, that if she ever let herself back into his arms again, she would never let go. Her heart started slamming into her ribs.

  “Come on, Cait,” Kenny said suddenly. “They’re playing our song.”

  Cait looked at him, wondering where he had come from.

  Then she registered what he had just said. They didn’t have a song. He was rescuing her. She grabbed the hand Kenny held out to her like a lifeline and left Sam sitting at the table, alone. She didn’t dare look back.

  Tabitha Monroe found her way to Jared Cross’s side at the bar. She toasted him and inclined her head in the direction of the scene unfolding at Cait’s table. “Interesting,” she murmured conversationally.

  Cross grinned. “The quiet ones usually are.”

  “Spoken like a true shrink,” Tabitha said just as Melanie Tourbier approached and tucked her hand into Jared’s arm. “Personally, my theory is that the arrogant ones always meet their match.”

  “And you were speaking of…?”

  Tabitha blinked innocently at Cross. “Sam Walters, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “What do you suppose happened between them in that basement room?” Tabitha wondered aloud.

  “I’m sure that if Nurse Matthews confided in anyone, it would be privileged.”

  Tabitha looked at him. “You don’t know, either.”

  “Nope.” Cross handed his drink to Melanie as Cait and Kenny Estrada danced. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. I want to check in with her and see if she’s doing okay.”

  Tabitha pounced on that. “She is seeing you professionally.” She’d thought so, if only because of Cait’s reaction the other night when she’d mentioned Cross. “Good. I approve of that.”

  Cross glanced back at her. “I’m just acting in a friendly capacity.”

  In a pig’s eye, Tabitha thought. “What about Sam?”

  “He can take care of himself.”

  The dance ended, and Cait and Kenny began to make their way to Cait’s table. Tabitha and Melanie watched Sam Walters launch himself up from that same table and stalk to his own. He took a startled Kimberlie Leon by the hand just as she was about to swallow her first bite of food. He pulled her to her feet and onto the dance floor. Dr. Leon was starting to look mutinous.

  Melanie and Tabitha tapped their glasses together in a silent toast.

  “This,” Tabitha said, “is going to be fun to watch.”

  When Cait returned to her table after the dance, she saw Jared Cross sitting there this time. Something inside her hitched and she glanced quickly at Kenny. She didn’t want to talk to Dr. Cross in front of him. Not that she didn’t trust Jared to be utterly professional. She just wasn’t quite sure of her own tongue these days.

  “Could you get me another glass of champagne?” she asked the intern.

  Kenny looked startled. “You haven’t finished your first one yet.”

  Her initial foray into the world of alcoholic beverages a week ago had left her feeling a little muddleheaded the next day. She’d discovered that she didn’t have much capacity for alcohol and so had determined never, ever to repeat the experience. “It’s going a little flat,” she said. Heaven knew she’d nursed it long enough.

  When Kenny agreed and turned away, she joined Jared. “So, Doctor, am I performing to your satisfaction?”

  A small smile touched his mouth. “Was that sarcasm I just heard from you?”

  Cait sat. “Yes, I believe so.”

  “I just wanted to see how you were doing with all this.” He waved a hand at the room.

  Cait’s gaze skittered over the gathering. “I never do parties. I don’t see how this can possibly help me get back to normal. But actually…I’m enjoying myself a little.”

  “The party isn’t the point,” Cross explained. “The people are. It’s from the same school of thought that said you needed to go back to that storage room last week.”

  Cait quickly sipped flat champagne. All the storeroom had gotten her was titillated. She squirmed a little in her seat.

  “It’s a common symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder to avoid any reminder of the traumatic incident,” Cross explained.

  “I know.” She had spent the better part of the past week assiduously dodging contact with any of the employees who’d escaped through the vent before she and Sam were abducted. And she hadn’t spoken to any of them tonight, either, though they were all here.

  “Since you refused to join in the group therapy I recommended, I thought this would be the n
ext best thing,” Cross continued.

  The very thought of opening up to a roomful of strangers made her itchy. “Are you implying that I…I should interact with these people?” she asked carefully.

  “It wouldn’t hurt.”

  “But would it help?”

  “In all likelihood, yes.”

  She looked around and steeled herself for it. Then she heard Cross sigh. She glanced back at him. “What?”

  “Caitlyn, I’m not suggesting that you face a firing squad.”

  “Close enough.” She bit the words out through a tight jaw.

  “You sell yourself short.”

  She was startled. “How?”

  “You’re a witty, clever, beautiful woman. People enjoy being around you when you give them the chance.”

  Cait felt her jaw drop. She pulled herself together again. “I’m not insecure. I just don’t need a lot of…other people in my life.”

  “Why not?”

  This was starting to feel like one of her appointments with him. “I’m better off by myself.”

  “Where you have control over everything that happens to you? Fewer variables that way?”

  She flushed. “Well…yes.”

  Cross laughed. Then he sobered. “That’s a logical reaction to your childhood, Caitlyn.”

  “I keep telling you—”

  He held up a hand. “I know, I know. No one was ever unkind to you.”

  She nodded, somewhat mollified. The only truly bad moment she could remember was the time she’d been uprooted from one home in the middle of the night, wakened by a social worker from a dead sleep in the darkness and whisked off to another home. Years later she’d learned that it was because her foster mother had committed suicide in the next room. The authorities had been trying to spare her the sight. All the same, she’d been terrified at the time.

  It was why her apartment was so important to her, why she paid her rent months in advance. Nothing like that would ever happen to her again.

  “Likewise,” said Cross, “your reaction to this ordeal—in the face of your past—is utterly predictable.”

  Cait straightened. “I don’t think I like being predictable.”