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case and she'd have to meet him at the country club. She smiled to herself, knowing full well that any
other doctor on staff would gladly have covered for him if he'd really wanted them to.
She drove herself to the ball, crushing her pretty taffeta dress in the small confines of the little white
car. She got out, her glorious hair in a becoming tangle down her back, her evening purse gripped in
her hand, and went in-side.
The Coltrains were at the door to greet their guests, since they were the organizers.
"Don't tell me," Lou said when she greeted Kitty, "Drew's been called to the hospital."
"Fortunes of war," Kitty mused.
Jeb didn't say a word. He smiled and said the conventional things and watched Kitty go to the
refreshment table alone.
Lou's hand clung to his unobtrusively. "He's fighting it."
"Damn it," he muttered, contracting his fingers around hers. "He could have gotten someone to cover
for him at the hospital."
She moved closer to him, momentarily resting her blond head against his shoulder.  The road to true
love is rocky."
He looked down at her, his blue eyes nar-row and full of love as they searched her pretty face. He
smiled. "But worth the climb," he murmured.
She smiled. He bent his head and kissed her softly.
"Cut it out," Matt Caldwell teased, grinning at them.
They both flushed a little, still feeling like newlyweds after more than a year and several months of
marriage.
Matt had a hand in his pocket, and he looked devastating in an evening jacket, his black wavy hair
neatly combed above a lean and dark face with dancing dark eyes. He was the most eligible bachelor
left in Jacobsville, but no woman ever seemed to touch his heart. All the same, he never lacked for
dates as a rule. But tonight he was alone.
"Where's Kitty?" he asked, tongue-in-cheek.
They both flushed even more. "Now, Matt," Lou began.
He held up a hand. "It's all right. I knew why I was being invited. I like Kitty. I didn't have anyone in
mind to bring anyway. Where is she?"
"By the punch bowl," Jeb sighed. "She was supposed to come with Drew, but he had an emergency."
Matt was looking past them at Kitty. He scowled. He'd known her since high school, although she was
four years behind him, but he'd never seen her look like that!
"Poor man," he mused. "His loss is my gain. See you."
He went straight to Kitty like a shot, barely acknowledging the people who spoke to him as he walked
through the crowd. He stopped in front of Kitty, towering over her.
"Cinderella, I presume?" he mused, giving her a bow. "The prince is here."
She laughed. Her sad face was radiant as she went gratefully into his arms, feeling like the belle of the
ball. The number they were playing was an exquisite waltz, and it was one dance she did very well. So
did Matt.
He whirled her around the floor with pure delight, noticing that the other dancers moved aside for
them. He had eyes only for pretty Kitty, with her contacts in and her glorious hair flying as he whirled
her to the rhythm.
Despite the fact that his name had been loosely linked with that of widow Elysia Craig Nash, he
seemed to find Kitty enchanting.
It was at that moment that Drew showed up, his emergency having been little more than a scratch that
needed a single stitch. He greeted Jeb and Lou, but they were engrossed in conversation with Jane and
Todd Burke, so he waved and went forward, hands in his pockets, to see what the crowd was watching.
The sight that met his eyes had a strange effect on him. There, in the middle of the floor, was his
receptionist dancing with the richest, most eligible bachelor in Jacobsville. And judging from the
look on her face as they danced, she was floating on a cloud.
Chapter 5
Kitty felt like a princess as she twirled gaily in Matt's arms to the rhythm of the waltz, her eyes half-
closed, her face radiant and almost beautiful in the brilliant light from the chan-deliers. She was
breathless, oblivious, in those few moments. There was no past nor present, only now and the music
and the brilliant color.
The waltz ended, though, and people ap-plauded wildly. Matt hugged Kitty close and she returned his
affectionate embrace, still ex-hilarated from the breathless joy of dancing for the first time in years.
"Oh, that was fun," she exclaimed at Matt's ear. "That was so much fun!"
He chuckled. "You're some dancer, Miss Carson," he mused, smiling down at her.
"So are you. You're wasted on business."
He shrugged. "Can't make much money dancing, but I do all right at buying and selling horses."
"All right" meant that his Caldwell Enter-prises was listed in the Fortune 500 companies. His business
empire was so diversified that even if one company failed, there were a hundred more successful
ones to take up the slack. Matt was the original hometown boy made good, except for that one black
incident in his past...
"Enjoying yourself, I see, Miss Carson," a cold voice murmured behind them.
Kitty turned, flushed and breathless, to meet the icy dark eyes of her boss.
"Indeed I am, Dr. Morris," Kitty said with a breathless laugh. Her green eyes flashed at him. "I haven't
danced in years."
Drew's gaze had gone all over the green satin dress twice. He couldn't seem to drag his attention away
from it.
Matt lifted an eyebrow and quickly glanced past them.
"Excuse me, won't you?" he asked politely. "I have to talk to Justin Ballenger about some stock he and
Calhoun are feeding out for me. Be right back, Kitty."
He winked at Kitty and nodded at Drew be-fore he strode off toward the Ballenger brothers and their
wives.
"If you came on my account, you needn't," Kitty told Drew, and without resentment; he couldn't help
the way he felt about his late wife, after all. "I'm sure Matt wouldn't mind taking me home."
He looked really out of sorts, despite his striking appearance in evening clothes. His hands were in
his pockets and his face was drawn and stiff with banked-down anger.
"Do you want to get something to drink at the refreshment table?" she asked when he didn't speak. She
glanced around to see eyes watching them surreptitiously. "People are staring at us." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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