The Best Catch in Texas

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She cast him a sly glance. “Cook’s pretty and she gets you stirred up. That’s closer to the truth, isn’t it?”

Dan pursed his lips as though he was going to argue, but then he suddenly let out a deep chuckle. “Well, old Hattie is some looker.”

They were both still laughing at his admission when a nurse arrived with a wheelchair to take him downstairs. Nicolette placed the box of cookies on his lap and walked along with him. Outside, he climbed spryly into the vehicle with his housekeeper, and Nicolette promised to see him soon, then waved the two of them off.

Moments later she was walking across the parking lot toward her car when someone from behind called out her name.

“Nicolette! Wait up!”

She recognized his voice even before she turned to see Ridge Garroway hurrying toward her. The sight of him in dark slacks and a gray-and-white-striped shirt was enough to make her stare and wish, just for a moment, that she had a whole and trusting heart.

“Hello, Ridge,” she said when he finally reached her.

Grinning, he swiped a hand at the blond hair blowing across his forehead. “Been seeing Dan off?”

She nodded. “I was glad he was looking so much better.”

His eyes roamed her face with appreciation. “I’m glad to see you looking more rested.”

And she was glad to be seeing him again. It was an awful admission, even if she was only making it to herself.

Feeling awkward now, she glanced pointedly at her watch. “Well, I only have a short time left for lunch. I’d better be going.”

“That’s why I called out to you,” Ridge told her. “I’m on my way to lunch, too. I’d like it very much if you’d join me.”

Oh no. It would be risky, even foolish to spend one moment more in this man’s company than was necessary. On the other hand, when exactly had she turned into such a coward? Ridge Garroway couldn’t eat her. He couldn’t hurt her. Not unless she allowed him to. And she was a grown woman. She had more sense than to let him get that close.

Before she could change her mind, she blurted out, “Well, if you’re inviting, I suppose I could. This once.”

“Great!” He said and quickly reached for her arm. “My truck is right over here.”

The June day was already hot, with a humid breeze whipping from the southeast. The wind was picking at the fluttery pink hem of Nicolette’s skirt and threatening to toss it over her head. She held it down firmly with one hand as Ridge helped her into the passenger seat of his red Ford truck.

“Do you have a favorite eating place?” he asked as he buckled his seat belt and started the engine.

Nicolette looked at him blankly. How could she think of restaurants when he was sitting so close beside her, his blond hair mussed, a sexy smile dimpling his cheeks? He was enough to turn a woman’s senses upside down.

“No. Just go wherever you were planning to go. I’m not a picky eater.”

“All right, we’ll be there in less than two minutes.”

The lunch hour traffic was heavy on the main thoroughfares, but they traveled less than two blocks before Ridge turned onto a side street and parked in front of an older wooden building painted a dull turquoise trimmed in pink.

“This is one of the best Mexican restaurants I’ve found in the whole town. Okay with you?”

“Fine,” she said, while asking herself how she’d ended up here with the very man she’d planned to avoid. She shouldn’t have been so impulsive, she thought with a bit of self-disgust. She should have gone back to the clinic and eaten a sandwich at her desk. But in spite of what she’d told Jacki, she was tired of being alone. And Ridge Garroway made her feel alive. More alive than she’d felt in years.

He helped her out of the truck, then kept his hand at her back as he ushered her into the little restaurant. Her flowered blouse was made of thin voile and she could feel the heat of his fingers spreading up and down her spine as they walked to a vacant booth in the back of the room.

The plate-glass windows on the west side of the building were covered with woven shades to block out the hot sun and leave the dining room cool and dimly lit. It took Nicolette’s eyes a few moments to adjust as they seated themselves and waited for someone to bring menus.

“You eat a lot of Mexican food?” she asked.

“Actually, I eat too much of it. It’s my favorite. So I try to exercise more to keep the calories and the cholesterol in check.”

She smiled faintly. “What a novelty, a doctor who tries to practice what he preaches.”

His eyes glided over the part of her that wasn’t hidden beneath the tabletop. “You look like you keep in great shape. Do you go to the gym?”

Nicolette wrinkled her nose with distaste. “Never. I don’t like gyms. I think natural exercise is the best. So I ride horses whenever I can. And I walk as much as possible.”

“You know, I’ve got to confess that last night at the hospital, I wondered why you showed up in jeans and boots. It’s not usual attire for women in the medical profession.”

A wry smile touched her lips. “Sorry. Those were the most available things in my closet and I was in a hurry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

He tilted his head back and laughed. “I wasn’t offended, Nicolette. I was intrigued. And by the way,” he added, as he settled a twinkling gaze back on her face, “you looked as sexy as hell.”

Heat poured into her cheeks and she cleared her throat with plans to remind him not to get so personal. But the waitress appeared before she had a chance to say anything and for the next few moments the two of them were busy choosing drinks and food.

Once the waitress was gone, he said, “I think you’ll be glad to hear that Mr. Nelson has agreed to take his daily medication and come in for routine checkups. Hopefully I can keep him on the right track.”

Nicolette sipped from a glass of water the waitress had left behind. “He told me that you want him to take a look at his livestock. That was a nice gesture. It made him feel important. Now that his wife has passed on, the man doesn’t have anyone, except for his housekeeper.”

“I wasn’t doing it just to make him feel important,” he said. “He has years of experience and knowledge with cattle and horses. I would value his opinion and advice and be glad to pay him for it.”

Once again he’d revealed that he wasn’t above asking for help. Apparently he wasn’t one of those guys that thought he knew more than everyone else on every subject under the sun the way her ex-husband had. During their marriage, Bill had worked as an executive for an insurance firm in San Antonio and he’d been good at his job. Yet the man had been hopelessly lacking with manual tasks of any kind. Even so, he’d found it offensive if she’d suggested he get help from a mechanic for an ailing car, or a plumber to replace a leaky faucet.

“I’m sure Dan will be more than glad to help you,” Nicolette commented.

He started to make some sort of reply when he suddenly frowned and reached to his shirt pocket for his vibrating cell phone.

“Excuse me,” he said as he flipped open the phone to identify the caller.

Nicolette watched the frown deepen on his face as he snapped the phone shut and drop it back into his pocket.

“Not an emergency?”

“She probably thinks it is,” he answered. “That was my mother.”

“Oh. Well don’t let me intrude. If you need to talk to her it won’t bother me.”

He sighed. “Thanks, but it isn’t necessary. I already know what the call is about. A big fund-raiser is being held back in Houston this coming weekend for a congressman in my parents’ district. She wants me to attend and refuses to accept that I won’t be there.”

She studied him thoughtfully. “You don’t like politics?”

He released a humorless laugh. “Politics has nothing to do with it. I don’t want to spend my free time at big social galas of any sort. I have more important things to do.”

Nicolette was digesting his comment when the waitress arrived with tortilla chips, hot salsa and tall drinks of iced tea. After the young woman had served them, Nicolette plucked a chip from the basket and dipped it into the salsa.

“Do you have siblings?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “I wish. It’s hell being an only child.”

Nicolette munched the chip, then said, “I wouldn’t know what being an only child would feel like. I have a younger brother and sister. So my mother spreads her attention among all of us.”

“Lucky you,” he muttered and his features tightened as he reached for his tea. “Don’t get me wrong, Nicolette. My mother is a loving person in her own way. But she can be smothering. It was really hard on her when I left for college and medical school. She, uh, you see, my father is always working. Always. So I guess she used me to fill the vacant spot.”

Nicolette was beginning to get the picture and it wasn’t a pretty one. “What do your parents think about you moving to this area?”

A sardonic expression twisted his features. “My father refuses to say more than hello to me. And my mother still believes I’ll change my mind and return to Houston. One of these days she’s going to realize that will never happen.”

“You sound sure of that.”

His brown eyes hardened with conviction. “Never been more sure of anything, Nicolette. When you grow up watching your parents do everything wrong, you grow up determined to be different.”

She could feel the undercurrent of tension in his voice and it told her the issues he had with his family were not small matters. The urge to ask him more questions surged up in her, but she bit them back. It wouldn’t do to let him think she was that interested. She didn’t want to give him any reason to think she was looking at him as a man rather than a doctor and colleague.

Thankfully, the waitress arrived with their meal, and they spent the next few minutes digging into their food and exchanging small talk about the clinic.

In spite of it being eons since she’d sat across the table from a man other than her brother or cousins, Nicolette began to relax. It was nice to be out, to be talking, to have a man looking at her as though she were lovely and interesting.

“Tell me, Nicolette—”

“Nicci,” she interrupted. “Everyone calls me Nicci, so you might as well, too. My name got cut short as a child and it stuck.”

He grinned and his eyes twinkled teasingly as they roamed her face. “Little Nicci. Sounds tomboyish. Were you?”

Her cheeks warm, she chuckled softly. “Terribly. I cried when Mother made me wear a dress to church.”

“Well, you obviously grew out of it,” he said as he recalled her long, beautiful legs exposed beneath the hem of her skirt and the sexy high heels on her feet. She was the essence of femininity and every inch of her pulled on him like a mighty magnet.