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“Oh, I went places, all right—beginning with boot camp and ending up in Germany. Six countries in seven years.”
“Must have been exciting,” Lauren murmured, nudging him to close the gap in the line again.
Nick moved obediently. “Turned my life around. Taught me discipline. Gave me pride, goals. Enlisting was the best decision I ever made.”
“An architect…” Lauren shook her head, still not quite believing it. “So are you happily married now, with two-point-five children?”
“Not me.” He glanced at her left hand, obviously looking for a wedding band. His eyes widened in surprise. “You’re single, too?”
“Yes, and probably always will be unless you know a saint who wouldn’t mind his wife delivering everyone’s babies but her own…”
“Hey, Bud! Do you want a dog or not?”
Thus alerted that he was holding up the line again, Nick said, “Don’t run off,” then turned his back on her.
Lauren noted that he was just two people from the counter now. Guessing he’d face forward until served, she made the most of the opportunity to examine this view of him. Not bad, she thought, relishing how his sweater accentuated his broad shoulders and how his jeans hugged his backside and long legs. Clearly he hadn’t let his desk job get the best of his physique. No, a man had to stay active to maintain a body like that.
“Lauren? Dr. Lauren West?”
For the second time that afternoon a man called her name. This time, however, Lauren recognized the voice. She cringed.
“It is you!” Frank Montgomery, friend of Lauren’s brother-in-law, exclaimed as he angled up from nowhere and turned her around to face him. “And looking h-o-t as ever. How’ve you been, babe?”
“Fine,” Lauren replied, unsuccessfully ducking the wet kiss he planted right on her mouth. That kiss brought back vivid memories of their one and only date in Houston last month—a disaster from the get-go, thanks to his inflated ego, ever-ready lips and busy, busy hands.
Frank, who stood maybe an inch over her own five-feet-eight, lay a heavy arm across her shoulders, holding her so that her back was to the food counter and the scoop neck of her sweater in his direct line of vision.
“Would you believe I was going to call you after the game today? I’m in town until Wednesday. Thought we could get together and take up—” he gave her arm a promising squeeze “—where we left off.”
Though tempted to slap the man senseless, Lauren kept her cool. Frank Montgomery was, after all, head of the surgery department at the hospital where Diana’s physician husband, Stephen, hoped to earn operating room privileges. Diana would kill Lauren if she did anything to jeopardize his chances.
“I really can’t—” Lauren murmured, trying to ease free of his embrace without giving him a peek at her breasts.
“Playing hard to get?” His beer-scented whisper fanned the tendrils of hair framing Lauren’s face. His lips loomed inches from her own.
“I’m not playing at all…”
“Lauren, honey, do you want mustard or ketchup on your—er, sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.” It was Nick, and looking as dangerous as 007 ever did.
Oh so grateful he’d saved Frank from bodily harm, Lauren wrenched herself free and followed his inspired lead. “Don’t be absurd,” she murmured, pulling her sweater back up on her bare shoulder. “This is just Frank Montgomery, whom I met through Stephen a few weeks ago. Frank, this is Nicolas Gatewood, my—”
“Fiancé,” Nick interjected, extending his right hand, which a visibly flustered—or was he angry?—Frank took, shook and quickly released.
“S-Stephen is going to be on the surgical staff at Houston Regional just as soon as his appointment is approved,” Lauren stammered, still trying to adjust to Nick’s sudden conversion from friend to fiancé. “Frank, here, is head of the department.” Anxiously, Lauren searched Nick’s expression for any sign that he understood her unspoken message: be nice to this jerk.
Nick’s quick wink, which could not have been seen by their companion, told her that he did. “Houston Regional’s gain.”
“Uh, yes, of course,” Frank murmured. “Stephen is a fine surgeon.” Lauren noted that his gaze dropped to her left hand just as Nick’s had earlier. He frowned ever so slightly. “How long have you two been engaged?”
“Not long at all,” Nick replied when words failed Lauren.
“We, um, haven’t even had a chance to shop for a diamond,” she added, trying to assuage the doubt she read in Frank’s expression.
“I…see. Well, congratulations and best of luck.” He began to edge away.
“Thanks,” Nick replied, standing by Lauren’s side until the man slithered off into the crowd. At that point he glanced back toward the counter. “Rescuing damsels in distress is not without its price.”
“What…?” Lauren, still in a bit of a daze, frowned after Frank.
“I lost my place in line, and not even for bratwurst on a roll will I go to the back and start over.”
A quick glance toward the head of the line confirmed it. “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry. Are you very hungry?”
“My stomach is gnawing my backbone.”
“I have a chocolate bar in my purse.”
“Give it to me, oh bride-to-be,” Nick told her, holding out his hand, palm upwards and grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
Abruptly Lauren grabbed. Nick’s hand and as good as dragged him away from the crowded concession area to the edge of the walkway. “I can’t believe you told Frank that we’re engaged.”
“Got rid of him, didn’t it?”
“Yes, but…”
“And probably for good.”
“Probably, but…”
“Then how about a little appreciation?”
Lauren sighed and gave him the credit he surely deserved. “Thanks, Nick. I owe you.”
“One good turn does deserve another,” Nick agreed, leaning against a concrete support, arms crossed over his chest. “You can pay your bill October twelfth at my boss’s house.”
“Excuse me?”
“I have a dinner party to go to a week from Wednesday. I want you to go, too, and play fiancée the way I just did.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Never more.”
“But why?”
“So a certain someone will keep her hands to herself.”
Lauren laughed in utter disbelief. “Can’t you just tell her to cool it?”
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple.”
“Who is this mystery lady, for crying out loud?” Lauren teased, enjoying Nick’s obvious discomfort at having to admit his problem. “The boss’s wife?”
“Exactly.”
Lauren’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding.”
“Wish I were. Will you help me?”
“I don’t know if this is such a good idea. Won’t there be complications at your office? I mean, your boss will surely spread the word. Telling a white lie to Frank, who, with luck, I’ll never see again, is one thing. Telling one to your co-workers is quite another. Won’t they wonder if they don’t see us out together now and then?”
“I rarely socialize with my co-workers, so I seldom see them anywhere besides the office. If I do, I’ll just tell them you’re delivering a baby or something.” He took both her hands in his. “So can you do it?” he asked, flashing her a killer smile.
Lauren sighed and gave up the ghost. Freeing her hands, she dug in her purse for her pocket calendar. A quick peek at it revealed she could probably manage a dinner party in ten days. “I can do it, and I will—”
“Thanks, Sissy.”
“—on the condition that you never, ever call me that again.”
“Agreed…Dr. West. Now dinner is at eight. I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty.”
“Okay.” Lauren dropped the calendar in her purse, then dug around for one of her personal cards, which she handed to him, along with a slightly squashed chocolate bar. “Here’s my address. There’s my home phone number. Is this thing dressy?”
“Dressy enough. I have to wear a tie.” He looked as if the thought choked him as much as the tie would.
Lauren laughed, pleased to see that a little of the old Nick still lurked inside the new. Not that there was one thing wrong with the new Nick. She found the combination of the past and present a most tempting package.
But who had time for temptation? Certainly not Lauren, who was suddenly assailed with second thoughts about the wisdom of all this. As if reading them, Nick frowned.
“You’re not going to back out on me, are you?”
“No,” Lauren heard herself say. “This is a debt of honor, after all, and I—oops!” Her pager, clipped out of sight on the waistband of her jeans before she left for the stadium that morning, vibrated against her skin. With a sigh, Lauren raised the hem of her sweater and pressed a button to illuminate the number of her paging service. “Must be a real problem for them to page me here. I’m on fifth call today.”
“Fifth call? What in the heck is that?”
“It’s a rather complicated on-call system my partners and I worked out to keep our patients happy. Most of them are…hmm, I’m not sure how to put this…”
“Filthy rich?”
Lauren laughed. “I was going to say spoiled rotten, but filthy rich is appropriate, too. Anyway, to make sure every patient gets immediate and personal attention, my partners and I rotate responsibility. First call gets called first. Second call gets called if the doctor on first call is already busy. Third call—”
Nick held up his hands as if warding off a blow. “I get the picture, I get the picture. And I’m wondering ‘who’s on first’?”
“Dr. Carmencita Renfroe has first call tonight,” Lauren replied, only belatedly realizing Nick referred to the classic Abbott and Costello routine and not her equally complicated call schedule. She stuck out her tongue at him, an action that won her his mischievous grin. “I really have to go.”
“Not before we shake on this engagement thing.” Nick reached for her hand, but instead of a shake, he gave it a kiss…right in the sweaty palm. Lauren’s heart screeched to a halt then jump started back to life. She snatched her hand away and swiped it down her jeans.
“Just what was that?” she demanded, feigning indignation. It wouldn’t do for him to know just how much she wished that kiss had landed on her lips instead of in her hand.
“Inexcusable,” Nick said with a decidedly sheepish smile. “Just because I’m already half in lust with you is no excuse for me to act like Frank. I’m sorry, and I promise I won’t ever do it again.”
“Oh, you don’t have to go that far,” Lauren thoughtlessly blurted out even as she registered his “half in lust” comment. Too late she heard the echo of her own candid reply. “What I mean is, I’d never compare you to Frank. You two aren’t a bit alike.”
“That’s true. I’m an architect—he’s a doctor.”
Lauren blinked at that response. Did Nick mean he considered them alike in ways other than professional? she instantly wondered. Like, maybe, sexual…?
Half in lust.
The very concept took her breath away, probably because Lauren was already half—if not three-fourths—in lust with him, too.
Amazing what a few years of growing up could do.
She swallowed hard, suddenly as rattled as a teenager on a first date, even though she was as experienced as two serious affairs could leave her.
“Now I’ll be out of touch for a few days,” Nick said. “But I’ll call your secretary early next week to have her remind you about our date, okay?”
“Okay,” she told him, though the chances of her forgetting were slim and none. “I really have to go, Nick.” With a wave, she spun on her heel and tried to put some distance between them.
“Lauren?”
“What?” She paused but did not dare turn to look at him again.
“Who the hell is Stephen?”
Lauren smiled to herself. “Diana’s husband, Stephen Bayer.”
“So he’s family,” Nick murmured, softly adding, “Good,” a word that Lauren barely heard; a word that did not give her peace of mind…or body.
True to his word, Nick called Lauren’s office the day of the dinner party and asked for her secretary. After identifying himself, he explained that he was an old friend of Dr. West’s who wanted to remind her about a social commitment.
“You don’t sound old,” replied the young woman, who called herself Lisa.
Nick heard her playful tone and grinned, liking her on the spot. “Must be the connection. You don’t sound a day over twenty-one, yourself.”
“I’m not a day over twenty-one,” she retorted with a laugh. “I am old enough to take a message, however. What do you want me to put in this one?”
Nick grinned a little bigger. “Just remind Dr. West that she has a date with me tonight at seven-thirty.”
“Did you say…a date?” Lisa sounded as if the concept were a new one.
“A date. You do know what one of those is, don’t you?”
“I certainly do,” she replied, somewhat hesitantly adding, “Though I’m not at all sure Dr. West does.”
Her casual comment stayed on Nick’s mind all day. Lauren didn’t date? Unbelievable! Was she too busy? Too tired? Too picky?
Couldn’t be picky, Nick thought with a dry laugh as he drove his sleek silver Mercedes-Benz to Lauren’s Dallas neighborhood that night. He glanced at his gold wristwatch, purchased with money from his first Avery, Sanders and Wright, Inc. paycheck some four years ago. Remembering how he’d passed over a style he liked better so he could purchase the most expensive one in the jewelry store, he noted the time, 7:15, and shook his head. Thank goodness money had finally lost its hold on him. It had taken a couple of years—the scars of poverty ran deep—but now he could honestly say he knew what was important.
