Coltrain's Proposal Read online

  “What exactly did you plan?” she asked probingly.

  He lifted his water glass and took a sip. “Well, I had hoped that Copper would see something in you that he hadn’t found anywhere else. You’re unique, Lou. So is he, in some respects. You seemed like a match.”

  She glared at him. “We’re chalk and cheese,” she said, ignoring the things she and the redheaded doctor did have in common. “And we can’t get along for more than five minutes.”

  “So I see.” He looked around and made a face. “Oh, God, more complications!”

  She followed his gaze. A determined Nickie, in a skintight dress cut almost to the navel, was dragging an embarrassed intern to a table right beside Coltrain and Dana’s.

  “That won’t do,” she remarked, watching Coltrain’s blue eyes start to glitter. “He won’t like that. And if she thinks he’ll forgo a scene, she’s very wrong. Any minute now he’s going to get up and walk out.”

  When he did exactly that, leaving an astonished Dana at one table and a shocked Nickie at the other, Drew whistled through his teeth and gave Lou a pointed stare.

  “You know him very well,” was all he said, though.

  “I know him,” Lou said simply. “He says I read his mind. Maybe I do, on some level.”

  He frowned. “Do you realize how rare a rapport that is?”

  She shrugged. “Not really. He seems to read my mind, too. I shouldn’t feel sorry for him, but I do. Imagine shuffling two women in one restaurant.”

  He didn’t add that it was really three, and that Copper had been watching Lou surreptitiously ever since she and Drew entered the restaurant. But of the three women, Lou was the only one who wasn’t blatantly chasing him.

  “He’s paying the check,” he remarked. “And, yes, there he goes, motioning to Dana. Good thing they’d finished dessert, wasn’t it? Poor Nickie. She won’t forget this in a while.”

  “I told her she was pushing too hard,” Lou remarked. “Too bad. She’s so young. I suppose she hasn’t learned that you can chase a man too relentlessly and lose him.”

  “Some women never chase a man at all,” he said.

  She looked up and saw the teasing expression on his face. She laughed. “Drew, you are a dear,” she said genuinely.

  He chuckled. “My wife always said that I was,” he agreed. “What are you going to do?”

  “Me? What do you mean? What am I going to do about what?”

  “About Copper.”

  “Nothing,” she replied. “Right after the holidays, I leave for Austin.”

  He pursed his lips as he lifted his coffee cup. “You know,” he said, “I have a feeling you’ll never get out of town.”

  Chapter 7

  Saturday morning, Lou woke to the sound of someone hammering on her front door. Half-asleep, with a pale pink satin robe whipped around her slender body and her hair disheveled, she made her way to open it.

  The sight that met her eyes was shocking. Coltrain was standing there, dressed in jeans and boots and a faded cotton shirt under a fleece-lined jacket, with a weather-beaten gray Stetson in one lean hand.

  She blinked. “Are we filming a new series called ‘Cowboy Doctor’?”

  “Cute,” he remarked, but he wasn’t smiling. “I have to talk to you.”

  She opened the door, still drowsy. “Come on in. I’ll make coffee,” she said, stifling a yawn as she shuffled toward the kitchen. She could have gone immediately to change, but she was more than adequately covered and he was a doctor. Besides, she reminded herself, he had two women chasing him relentlessly anyway.

  “I’ll make the coffee. How about some toast to go with it?”

  “Plain or cinnamon?”

  “Suit yourself.”

  She got out butter and cinnamon and, just as the coffee finished brewing, she had the toast ready—piping hot from the oven.

  He watched her moving about the kitchen. He was sitting leaning back in one of her kitchen chairs with one booted foot on the floor and the chair propped against the wall. He looked out of humor and wickedly handsome all at the same time.

  In the position he was occupying, his jeans clung closely to every powerful line of his long legs. He was muscular without being exaggerated, and with his faded shirt unbuttoned at the throat and his red hair disheveled from the hat, he looked more relaxed than she’d ever seen him.

  It occurred to her that this was the way he usually was, except when he was working. It was like a private look into his secret life, and she was unexpectedly pleased to have been given it before she left town for good.

  “Here.” She put the toast on the table, handed him a plate, put condiments on the spotless white tablecloth and then poured coffee into two cups.

  “The Christmas concert was nice,” he remarked.

  “Was it?” she replied. “I went to bed.”

  “I had nothing to do with getting Dana down here,” he said flatly. “In case you wondered.”

  “It’s none of my business.”

  “Yes, I know,” he said heavily. He sipped coffee and munched toast, but he was preoccupied. “Nickie and Dana are becoming an embarrassment.”

  “Leave it to you to be irritated when two lovely women compete for your attention,” she remarked dryly.

  His eyes narrowed on her face. “Irritation doesn’t quite cover it. I feel like the stud of the month,” he said disgustedly.

  She burst out laughing. “Oh, I’m sorry!” she said when he glared at her. “It was the way you said it.”

  He was ruffled, and looked it. He sipped more coffee. “I wasn’t trying to make a joke.”

  “I know. It must be difficult, especially when you have to make rounds at the hospital, with both of them working there.”

  “I understand you’re having some problems of your own in that regard.”

  “You might say that,” she agreed. “I can’t find Dana or Nickie when I need them. I seem to have the plague.”

  “You know that it can’t continue?”

  “Of course I do,” she assured him. “And when I leave, things will settle down, I’m sure.”

  He scowled. “What do you mean, when you leave? How will that help? Anyway, we’d already agreed that you were staying.”

  “We agreed on nothing,” she returned. “I gave you my resignation. If you tore it up, that’s your problem. I consider it binding.”

  He stared down into his coffee cup, deep in thought. “I had no idea that you meant it.”

  “Amazing,” she mused, watching him. “You have such a convenient memory, Dr. Coltrain. I can’t forget a single word you said to Drew about me, and you can’t remember?”

  His face hardened. “I didn’t know you were listening.”

  “That makes everything all right?” she asked with mock solemnity.

  He ran a hand through his already disheveled hair. “Things came to a head,” he replied. “I’d just had to diagnose leukemia in a child who should have had years of happiness to look forward to. I’d had a letter from my father asking for money…”

  She shifted against the table. “I didn’t know that your parents were still alive.”

  “My mother died ten years ago,” he replied. “My father lives in Tucson. He wrangles horses, but he likes to gamble. When he gets in too deep, he always comes to me for a grubstake.” He said it with utter contempt.

  “Is that all you mean to him? Money?” she asked gently.

  “It was all I ever meant to him.” He lifted cold blue eyes to hers. He smiled unpleasantly. “Who do you think put me up to breaking and entering when I was a teenager? I was a juvenile, you know. Juveniles don’t go to jail. Oh, we didn’t do it here,” he added. “Not where he lived. We always went to Houston. He cased the houses and sent me in to do the actual work.”

  Her gasp was audible. “He should have been arrested!”

  “He was,” he replied. “He served a year and got probation. We haven’t spent any time together since I was placed with a foster family
when I was thirteen, long before I started medical school. I put all that behind me. Apparently so did he. But now that I’m making a comfortable living, he doesn’t really see any good reason not to ask me for help when he needs it.”

  What sort of family life had he grown up in? she wondered. It was, in some ways, like her own upbringing. “What a pity that we can’t choose our parents,” she remarked.

  “Amen.” His broad shoulders shifted against the wall. “I was in a temper already, and Drew’s phone call was the last straw. It irritated the hell out of me that you liked him, but you jerked away from my slightest touch as if I might contaminate you.”

  She hadn’t thought he’d noticed. He took her reaction as a sign of her distaste for him, when it was a fierce, painful attraction. It was ironic.

  She lowered her eyes. “You said when I first came to work with you that we would have a business relationship.”

  “So I did. But that didn’t mean you should treat me like a leper,” he remarked. Oddly, he didn’t seem to be concerned about it anymore. He smiled, in fact, his blue eyes sparkling. “But I wouldn’t have had you overhear what I told Drew for all the world, Lou. It shamed me when you asked to end our partnership.”

  She toyed with a fingernail. “I thought it would make you happy.”

  Her choice of words delighted him. He knew exactly what she felt for him. He’d had suspicions for a while now, but he hadn’t been certain until he kissed her. He couldn’t let her leave until he was sure about what he felt for her. But how was he going to stop her? His blue eyes ran searchingly over her face and a crazy idea popped into his mind. “If you and I were engaged,” he mused aloud, “Dana and Nickie would give up.”

  The words rambled around in her mind like marbles as she stared at him. The sun was out. It was a nice December day. Her Christmas decorations lined the windows and the tinsel on the Christmas tree in the living room caught the sun through the curtains and glittered.

  “Did you hear me?” he asked when she didn’t react.

  Her cheeks burned. “I don’t think that’s very funny,” she remarked, turning away.

  He got to his feet with an audible thud and before she could move three feet, he had her by the waist from behind. Steely hands pulled her back against him and when she caught them, she felt their warm strength under her cool fingers. She felt his breath against her hair, felt it as his chest moved at her back.

  “Shall we stop dancing around it?” he asked roughly. “You’re in love with me. I’ve pretended not to see it, but we both know it’s why you’re leaving.”

  She gasped aloud. Frozen in his arms, she hadn’t even a comeback, a face-saving reply. She felt his hands contract under hers, as if he thought she might pull away and run for it.

  “Don’t panic,” he said quietly. “Dodging the issue won’t solve it.”

  “I…didn’t realize you could tell,” she whispered, her pride in ashes at his feet.

  His lean arms contracted, bringing her soft warmth closer to his taut body. “Take it easy. We’ll deal with it.”

  “You don’t have to deal with anything,” she began huskily. “I’m going to…”

  He turned her while she was speaking and his mouth was on hers before she could finish. She fought him for an instant, as he anticipated. But he was slow and very gentle, and she began to melt into him like ice against a flame.

  He brought her closer, aware of her instant response when she felt his body harden. He made a rough sound against her mouth and deepened the kiss.

  Her fingers caught in the cool flames of his hair, holding on for dear life as his ardor burned high and wild. He kissed her as he’d kissed Nickie at the party, not an inch of space between their bodies, no quarter in the thin lips devouring her open mouth. This time when his tongue penetrated, she didn’t pull away. She accepted the intimate contact without a protest, shivering a little as it ignited new fires in her own taut body. The sensation was unlike anything she’d known. She held on tight, moaning, aware somewhere in the back of her mind that his hand was at the base of her spine, rubbing her against him, and that she should say something.

  She was incapable of anything except blind response.

  She didn’t resist even when he eased her back onto her feet and, still kissing her hungrily, slid his hand under her robe against the soft, tight curve of her breast. He felt her heartbeat run away. With a groan, he fought his way under the gown, against the petal-soft warmth of her skin, and cupped her tenderly, dragging his thumb against the small hardness he found. She shivered again. Reeling, he traced the tight nub with his thumb and forefinger, testing its hardness. She sobbed against his mouth. Probably, he thought dizzily, she’d never had such a caress. And he could give her something more; another pleasure that she didn’t know yet.

  His mouth left hers and found its way down past her collarbone to the softness under his hand. It opened on her body, and he drank in the scented warmth of her while his tongue took the place of his thumb. She gasped and struggled, but he began to suckle her, his arms swallowing her, and she shuddered once and gave in. He felt her body go lax in his arms, so that if he hadn’t supported her, she would have fallen. She caressed his nape with trembling hands, gasping a little as he increased the pressure, but clinging, not pushing.

  When he thought he might explode from the pleasure it was giving him, he forced his mouth to release her and he stood erect, pulling her up abruptly.

  His face was ruddy with high color, his eyes blazing as they met her half-open, dazed ones. She was oblivious to everything except the taste of him. Her lips were swollen. Even her tongue felt swollen. She couldn’t say a word.

  He searched over her face and then dropped his eyes to her bodice. He moved it out of the way and looked at the small, firm breast he’d been tasting. She looked like a rosebud there, the nipple red from his mouth.

  He traced around it lazily and then looked back up at the shocked pleasure in her dark, dark eyes.

  “I could have you on the kitchen table, right now,” he said in a deep, quiet tone. “And you think you’re leaving in two weeks?”

  She blinked. It was all so unreal. He’d all but seduced her. His hand was still on her breast and he’d pulled the robe and gown aside. He was looking at her…!

  She gasped, horrified, jerking back from him. Her hands grappled with the unruly fabric before she finally got her body covered. She backed away, blushing, glaring at him accusingly.

  He didn’t move, except to lean back against the kitchen counter and cross his long legs. That action drew her eyes to something she’d felt earlier, and she blushed scarlet before she managed to look away. What had she done? What had she let him do?

  “You look outraged,” he mused. “I think I like having you blush when I look at you.”

  “Would you leave, please?” she asked tightly.

  “No, I don’t think so,” he said pleasantly. “Get dressed. Wear jeans and boots. I’m taking you riding.”

  “I don’t want to go anywhere with you!”

  “You want to go to bed with me,” he corrected, smiling gently. “I can’t think of anything I’d enjoy more, but I saddled the horses and left them in the stable before I came over here.”

  She huddled in her robe, wincing as it rubbed against her body.

  “Breast sore?” he asked softly. “I’m sorry. I lost my head a little.”

  She flushed more and the robe tightened. “Dr. Coltrain…”

  “Copper,” he reminded her. “Or you can call me Jeb, if you like.” He pursed his lips and his eyes were hot and possessive. “You’d really better get dressed, Lou,” he murmured. “I’m still pretty hot, and aroused men are devious.”

  She moved back. “I have things to do…”

  “Horseback riding or…?” He moved toward her.

  She turned and ran for the bedroom. She couldn’t believe what had just happened, and he’d said something about them becoming engaged. She must be losing her mind. Yes, that was it
, she’d worried over leaving so much that she was imagining things. The whole thing had probably been a hallucination.

  He’d cleared away the breakfast things by the time she washed, dressed, pulled her hair back into a pony-tail with a blue ribbon and came into the kitchen with a rawhide jacket on.

  He smiled. “You look like a cowgirl.”

  She’d felt a bit uneasy about facing him after that torrid interlude, but apparently he wasn’t embarrassed. She might as well follow his lead. She managed a smile in return. “Thanks. But I may not quite merit the title. I haven’t ridden in a long time.”

  “You’ll be all right. I’ll look after you.”

  He opened the door and let her out, waiting for her to lock it. Then he helped her into the Jaguar and drove her to his ranch.

  The woods were lovely, despite their lack of leaves. The slow, easy rhythm of the horses was relaxing, even if the company wasn’t. She was all too aware of Coltrain beside her, tall and elegant even on horseback. With the Stetson pulled low over his eyes, he looked so handsome that he made her toes tingle.

  “Enjoying yourself?” he asked companionably.

  “Oh, yes,” she admitted. “I haven’t been riding in a long time.”

  “I do more of it than I like sometimes,” he confessed. “This isn’t a big ranch, but I run about fifty head of pedigree cattle. I have two married cowhands who help out.”

  “Why do you keep cattle?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. It was always a dream of mine, I guess, from the time I was a boy. My grandfather had one old milk cow and I’d try to ride her.” He chuckled. “I fell off a lot.”

  She smiled. “And your grandmother?”

  “Oh, she was a cook of excellent proportions,” he replied. “She made cakes that were the talk of the county. When my dad went wrong, it broke her heart, and my grandfather’s. I think they took it harder because he lured me into it with him.” He shook his head. “When a kid goes bad, everyone blames it on the upbringing. But my grandparents were kind, good people. They were just poor. A lot of people were…still are.”