dedicated physician with quite a fan club.
She sighed and shifted her leg to a more comfortable position. She could sense her feelings about him were subtly changing and she wasn’t very thrilled about it.
It had been much easier to dislike him on principle than to face the grim truth that a man like Jake Dalton would never be interested in her now. Before her accident, maybe. She knew she wasn’t ugly, and she used to be funny and smart and interesting before her world fell apart.
The bombing in Kabul had changed everything. She was no longer that woman, the kind of woman who could interest a man like Jake Dalton.
He had kissed her, though.
If he wasn’t interested in her, why had he kissed her, that puzzling, intense kiss she couldn’t get out of her head?
In the four days since their heated embrace, the memory of kissing him seemed to whisper into her mind a hundred times a day. The scent of him, the taste of him, the strength and comfort in those arms holding her close.
She couldn’t seem to get her brain around it. She had tried to analyze it from every possible angle and she still couldn’t figure out what might have compelled him to kiss her like that.
“If you like him,” Celia said, yanking her from that sunny afternoon and back into Jake Dalton’s comfortable exam room, “you should do something about it before some other lucky chica comes along.”
Some other chica with two feet, no doubt, and a healthy, well-adjusted psyche.
She was saved from having to respond by the return of Jake and Raquel to the room.
As she translated his final instructions for the girl’s follow-up care, Maggie determined again that she had to figure out a way to put a stop to this ridiculous arrangement her mother had suckered her into.
She wasn’t sure what was worse—dealing with him at the ranch, in his faded jeans and thin cotton tractor T-shirts, or watching him interact with his patients, and the consideration and compassion that seemed an inherent part of him.
Right now both situations seemed intolerable.
He shouldn’t have manipulated her into this.
Jake studied Maggie out of the corner of his eye as he finished examining Hector Manuel, a sixty-year-old potato factory worker with a bleeding ulcer. After three hours of clinic—and with an hour’s worth of patients still sitting in the waiting room—he couldn’t for the life of him figure out how to tell Maggie he didn’t want her there anymore.
She had been an incredible help, he had to admit. This week’s clinic had run more smoothly than any he’d done yet. With the improved communication, he’d been able to see more patients and he felt as though the advice he’d been able to give had been better understood and would be better followed.
She had translated in at least two-thirds of his cases today, and he couldn’t figure out how they had ever gotten by without her. Her fluency with both Spanish and the medical jargon had been a killer combination, enormously helpful.
At what cost, though? he wondered.
Although she was doing her best to hide it, she looked beat: her eyes had smudges under them that hadn’t been there when she walked in; her shoulders stiffened tighter with each passing hour; and every few moments she shifted restlessly on her chair trying to find a better position, though he was sure she had no idea she was doing it.
Even if he told her in no uncertain terms to go home, somehow he knew she wouldn’t quit until every last patient was treated.
He could almost hear her argue that she was stickingit out as long as necessary, if only to avoid giving him the satisfaction of watching her throw in the towel.
She was stubborn and contrary and combative. And he was crazy about her.
With a barely veiled wince, she shifted her prosthesis again, and he frowned as he listened to Hector’s heart. She should be home taking it easy, not sitting in his cramped exam room. He should never have come up with this ridiculous plan.
On
She sighed and shifted her leg to a more comfortable position. She could sense her feelings about him were subtly changing and she wasn’t very thrilled about it.
It had been much easier to dislike him on principle than to face the grim truth that a man like Jake Dalton would never be interested in her now. Before her accident, maybe. She knew she wasn’t ugly, and she used to be funny and smart and interesting before her world fell apart.
The bombing in Kabul had changed everything. She was no longer that woman, the kind of woman who could interest a man like Jake Dalton.
He had kissed her, though.
If he wasn’t interested in her, why had he kissed her, that puzzling, intense kiss she couldn’t get out of her head?
In the four days since their heated embrace, the memory of kissing him seemed to whisper into her mind a hundred times a day. The scent of him, the taste of him, the strength and comfort in those arms holding her close.
She couldn’t seem to get her brain around it. She had tried to analyze it from every possible angle and she still couldn’t figure out what might have compelled him to kiss her like that.
“If you like him,” Celia said, yanking her from that sunny afternoon and back into Jake Dalton’s comfortable exam room, “you should do something about it before some other lucky chica comes along.”
Some other chica with two feet, no doubt, and a healthy, well-adjusted psyche.
She was saved from having to respond by the return of Jake and Raquel to the room.
As she translated his final instructions for the girl’s follow-up care, Maggie determined again that she had to figure out a way to put a stop to this ridiculous arrangement her mother had suckered her into.
She wasn’t sure what was worse—dealing with him at the ranch, in his faded jeans and thin cotton tractor T-shirts, or watching him interact with his patients, and the consideration and compassion that seemed an inherent part of him.
Right now both situations seemed intolerable.
He shouldn’t have manipulated her into this.
Jake studied Maggie out of the corner of his eye as he finished examining Hector Manuel, a sixty-year-old potato factory worker with a bleeding ulcer. After three hours of clinic—and with an hour’s worth of patients still sitting in the waiting room—he couldn’t for the life of him figure out how to tell Maggie he didn’t want her there anymore.
She had been an incredible help, he had to admit. This week’s clinic had run more smoothly than any he’d done yet. With the improved communication, he’d been able to see more patients and he felt as though the advice he’d been able to give had been better understood and would be better followed.
She had translated in at least two-thirds of his cases today, and he couldn’t figure out how they had ever gotten by without her. Her fluency with both Spanish and the medical jargon had been a killer combination, enormously helpful.
At what cost, though? he wondered.
Although she was doing her best to hide it, she looked beat: her eyes had smudges under them that hadn’t been there when she walked in; her shoulders stiffened tighter with each passing hour; and every few moments she shifted restlessly on her chair trying to find a better position, though he was sure she had no idea she was doing it.
Even if he told her in no uncertain terms to go home, somehow he knew she wouldn’t quit until every last patient was treated.
He could almost hear her argue that she was stickingit out as long as necessary, if only to avoid giving him the satisfaction of watching her throw in the towel.
She was stubborn and contrary and combative. And he was crazy about her.
With a barely veiled wince, she shifted her prosthesis again, and he frowned as he listened to Hector’s heart. She should be home taking it easy, not sitting in his cramped exam room. He should never have come up with this ridiculous plan.
On
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