The Good Doctor by Karen Rose Smith Page A

He didn’t know how not to fight, and he was going to try to instill some of thatfighting spirit into Ryan. Violet’s experience with patients was apparently different from his. Maybe that was because as a surgeon, he was active in his treatment. She often had to sit by and watch nature take its course. Not an easy thing to do.
    Still aware that every fiber of his being wanted to be close to her, wanted to take her into his arms, wanted to do a hell of a lot more than that, he came to the next topic for discussion.
    In the matter of dates and being smooth about them, he simply wasn’t. “I was going over my schedule for the weekend,” he began. “You bought a date for the Riverwalk. So do you still want to do that?”
    After a long look into his eyes, she responded, “If you do.”
    Great. She was leaving the ball in his court. “I don’t break commitments I’ve made,” he assured her. “I won’t be on call on Saturday. How about Saturday night around seven?”
    â€œSaturday night sounds good.”
    She sounded as if she might be looking forward to it. To his chagrin, so was he.
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    Her husband was avoiding her.
    Lily had been sitting in the living room, reading, when Ryan came in from the barn Tuesday afternoon. His gaze had wavered from hers as he’d told her he was going upstairs to change for a business appointment in San Antonio.
    Throwing her magazine on the coffee table, she felt anger rise in her all over again. Business appointment. He had too many of those. Her eyes filled with tears as she thought about Melissa Wilkes hanging all over Ryan at the bachelor auction. Married or not, that girl had her cap set for her husband. It wasn’t going to happen.
    A little voice inside Lily’s head murmured, Maybe it already has.
    After her reunion with Ryan and their marriage, they’dbeen closer than they’d ever been in their younger years. But over the past few weeks, he’d become remote, and she didn’t know what to do. She’d asked him if something was wrong but as she suspected, he’d insisted there was nothing bothering him. His actions said differently. She wasn’t the type of woman to just sit around and let an affair happen.
    When Ryan returned to the living room, she asked, “Will you be back for dinner?”
    He headed for the front door. “I doubt it. You go ahead without me. I’ll see you when I get back.”
    A few moments later, Lily heard the heavy front door close.
    He’d see her when he got back? After being with someone else? After showing his real feelings to another woman? He hadn’t even given her a chance to kiss him goodbye. There was something wrong, whether he would admit it or not.
    Pushing aside the magazine she’d been reading, Lily headed for the table in the foyer where she’d left her purse, hurried to the back entrance and ran to the garage. She waited outside by the side of the building until she heard Ryan start up his truck and pull out. Then she went inside the garage into her own SUV, made herself count to twenty and followed him.
    As Lily tailed him, Ryan drove to San Antonio—to the east side. She almost lost him a few times, but he was traveling at a steady pace and she found his truck again. Her heart pounded along with the revolution of the tires. As instinct told her he wasn’t keeping a business appointment, she hoped she was being paranoid.
    Eventually Lily ended up in a development of homes. They were spacious houses with expansive properties. Lagging behind so as not to be noticed, she almost lost her husband as he turned right and then left. Finally, with his turn signal blinking, he drove into a curved, brick-patterned driveway that led to a beautiful two-story brick home.
    Lily pulled up across the street under the cover and shade of tall trees and quickly opened her glove compartment, removing small binoculars she used on the ranch to