“Don’t forget, I was raised in Texas, too. I might be tougher than I look.”
Sometimes she kicked herself for rising to the bait—after all, he was Maitland Maternity’s chief pediatric surgeon—but somehow, she could never stop herself. “Your Texas and my Texas are two different places,” she informed him.
“That so, Carrot Top?” She watched as he surveyed his work, calmly drawing the needle through flesh. “What’s my Texas?”
“Neiman Marcus, thoroughbred horses and studio-produced country music.”
Only his narrowed eyes hinted at the focus he brought to his task. Unfailingly alert, they were steely and chocolate brown, flecked with gold. “And your Texas, Katie?”
“Getting grub at Pok-E-Jo’s Smokehouse after a trail ride.” Despite how the man set her teeth on edge without even trying, she chuckled. “If you ever want to hear real country music, Dr. Carrington, you just let me know.”
“What’s this fake country music you think I listen to?”
“Oh, you know. k.d. lang. Tanya Tucker. Dolly Parton.”
He raised a lazy jet eyebrow. “What’s wrong with Dolly?”
“Old Dolly’s okay,” Katie conceded. “Just not new Dolly.”
“Keep it up, Katie, and I’ll start thinking you’re a snob.”
Behind her mask, Katie’s jaw dropped. “Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“You’re the socialite, Dr. Carrington.”
“You’ve got me there.”
Smiling, Katie glanced at the patient. The three-week-old boy on the table was named Jesse, and he hadn’t had a fighting chance before this operation. Even now, it was hard to believe he’d pull through. His slight five pounds could easily be cradled in Katie’s hand, and the rise and fall of the tiny, too-pale chest made her think of the delicate balance of nature in the woods she loved. Looking at the sickly child and feeling her heart pull, she thought of the tops of dandelions right before they blew away, and the fragile wings of birds, and the threads of spiderwebs. Life was so precious, and sometimes so unfairly fleeting.
Five pounds. Jesse was tiny, and yet for his mama, who was right outside the operating room, he meant the entire world. That was why, moments ago, Katie had sent a message to her, letting her know that an infected incision from a previous GI surgery had been cleaned and successfully resutured.
Katie could barely imagine the woman’s stress, and yet, as many tragedies as Katie had witnessed at Maitland Maternity, she’d seen far more miracles. Glancing up, she found herself staring into eyes that made her melt. Gently, Ford probed, “You still with us, Carrot Top?”
“Sure thing.” But as Ford fell to work once more, she felt strangely unsettled, as if he’d read her innermost thoughts. Deep down, she’d been wondering if she’d ever have her own little bundle of joy, her own miracle. She wanted a baby she wouldn’t have to leave in the hospital nursery at the end of the day. She wanted to be the woman waiting at the curb with a newborn in her lap and a balloon tied to the arm of a wheelchair, while the man she loved brought around the car, anxious to take his family home.
Stepping slightly back from the table, Katie held her gloved hands turned upward. “Tell me when you need me again.”
“Thanks, Katie.”
She watched his hands, noting their size and the long, slender, mesmerizing fingers. His eyes had grown piercing in their intensity. What little of his skin was visible—mostly high, chiseled cheekbones—was tanned the color of pecans, and through the transparent hairnet that covered a high, patrician forehead, Katie could see touchably thick, raven hair through which she’d often imagined running her fingers. When dressed in street clothes, without his scrubs, he looked more like a model than a doctor.
Stop it! How many times had she gazed too long into Ford Carrington’s arresting midnight eyes while he closed a patient?
Too many.
That was why leaving Austin tomorrow was imperative. Surely, after spending three months in Houston, she’d forget about him. But so far, no matter how she fought it, he always wended his way into her thoughts. While grooming her horse, riding the mower at her papa’s farm, or running to the feed store, she’d recall some moment, like a picture frozen in time: Dr. Carrington slipping from the doctors’ lounge; Dr. Carrington shooting her a smile as he opened a door.
With any luck, she’d meet a man in Houston.
Already, she’d sublet her apartment, and tonight she was staying with her papa and brothers at the farm, where she still kept her horse. Houston was close enough that she could visit on weekends, but she would do her best not to. She needed the time away. Her bags were packed, her car was gassed up, and she’d convinced herself that three months without Ford would cure her of this pointless obsession.
They were night and day, after all. He was old money, and she was backwoods farm stock and proud of it. His family had come to America on the May-flower, and pedigree was still so important to the Carringtons that Ford’s mother, Yvonne, had chartered an Austin branch of the Texas Genealogical Society; his father, David, oversaw Austin’s largest charity, the Carrington Foundation, which made bequests in the millions each January to health-related causes.
Society women were Ford’s usual companions, and it was rumored around the hospital that he’d probably propose to Blane Gilcrest, a tall, svelte, willowy woman with straight blond hair, breasts as discreetly small as a runway model’s and slender manicured fingers that she kept ringed with sparkling diamonds.
Not only was Ford practically engaged, he was seven years Katie’s senior, her co-worker and mentor. Still, during tense moments in the OR, Katie knew she’d witnessed what Blane never had—the determination Ford brought to bear when saving a child’s life.
Ford had to win against death.
What was the source of his feverish, formidable drive? she wondered. What secrets made him want suffering children to live at any cost? Why did he work so relentlessly?
Of all the surgeons at Maitland Maternity, he was the most competent, dedicated and controlled, and Katie had often seen his tough-minded tenacity win him the hearts of terrified parents, like Jesse’s mama. Ever since she’d first locked eyes with him over the operating table, Katie had fallen hard.
“That’s a wrap, folks,” said Ford. Once he was finished, he turned, preparing to wheel out a cart of instruments.
“You don’t need to get that cart,” Katie protested. “It’s my job.”
“You think I’m afraid of a little dirty work?”
“You should be. Someone might mistake you for a nurse and make you change bedpans or worse.”
“Lord knows—” Ford’s dark eyes lighted on hers, sparkling in a way that seemed less than professional “—I’d swoon if I saw a bedpan. Drop into a dead faint. Now, c’mon, Carrot Top. Can you get the door for me, before you clean up our patient?”
“With pleasure. Are you going to talk to his mama?”
Ford nodded. “I’m on my way.”
It was always wonderful when you could bring good news from the OR, Katie thought, wedging open the door with her hip. Simultaneously freezing and burning as Ford brushed past her, she caught a whiff of clean, male scent, noticeable among the antiseptic smells to which Katie would never become accustomed. Unexpectedly, Ford leaned closer, and she instinctively veered back, her startled eyes widening in question.
“When you’re done—” his low-voiced drawl sent a shiver through her “—come over to my place,