The Bachelor Doctor's Bride

Diana jumped at the chance to talk about something so silly. Remaining quiet as he toyed with the fringe of her dress was too much to ask of herself. Talking would distract her from this awareness of how they moved, how they meshed, how they made magic—at least in her mind. Oh, but did he feel it, too?

Talk. He asked about Becky.

She tapped his shoulder with her purse. “To my boss’s dismay, this purse is too small for me to waste room on things like business cards, but I always find space for critical items like safety pins. Becky’s dress was just a size too big. She couldn’t relax, because her top was loose. A few safety pins along the seams—”

“Strategically placed while you chatted behind a palm tree?”

“Bingo. You can really dance once you know your dress won’t come off.”

Quinn laughed, but this time the laugh had a slightly different undertone. A little more bass to it.

“Since you’re dancing with me, you must feel very certain that your dress is not going to come off.”

She leaned back just enough to smile with him, but he wasn’t smiling.

He turned them once more. “Your dress will stay on no matter what I try?”

The possibility that he was talking about more than dancing was hard to ignore.

Quinn spoke intimately into her ear. “I find myself tempted to test that theory.”

He smiled at her, but it was something of a pirate’s smile. “Just how certain are you that your dress won’t be coming off tonight?”

* * *

Diana hoped her smile didn’t slip. Apparently, she’d gone and done it again. A man had mistaken friendliness for something else. Something looser. Easier.

Sleazier.

She never saw herself that way. It always disappointed her when other people did. It just about killed her that Quinn did.

Darn it, she’d wanted him to be different.

She was curvy. She smiled a lot. Tonight, she was pretty much flashing all the leg she owned in a dress that was just a teensy bit too small. Could she blame Quinn for thinking she was less of a matchmaker and more of an easy bed partner?

She’d been thinking about finding magic, about making perfect matches. He was thinking about getting her naked. Tonight. His hand slid lower, leaving her upper back cold as he curved his arm around her waist.

The disappointment was crushing.

She started to let go. At the same moment she loosened her hold, he tightened his, and then she found herself bent backward in a dip, breathless and disoriented, despite being held securely by his strong arms.

The last notes of the song faded away. She focused on his green eyes, the crystal and the flames and the music all a blur beyond him.

He smiled that disarming, charming half smile. “You were quite right. Your dress is secure. It’s safe to dance the next song with me.” He stood her up and gave her hand a friendly squeeze.

She was such an idiot. She was the one who’d jumped to all the wrong conclusions. They’d been talking about safety pins. Quinn hadn’t been thinking of her in a sexual way; he’d been joking with her. Of course he had been—she was the buddy.

Quinn held her lightly, waiting for her to say she’d dance with him.

Diana called up her smile. She forced herself to laugh. She placed her hand on his shoulder and smacked her other hand in his, in a move that resembled a high five. “Let’s dance. We can scope out your perfect partner over each other’s shoulders.”

* * *

Quinn knew he’d screwed up.

Thirty seconds, that was all it had taken. He’d been dancing with Diana, having a genuinely interesting and lighthearted conversation on a topic unfamiliar to him—how to fix a girl’s dress and thereby a girl’s evening—and then he’d lost Diana’s spark. She was still dancing with him, moving in time to the music, but she was no longer with him.

He needed that spark. Without any conscious effort on her part, without knowing he was hurting from the passing of Irene Caulsky, she’d made him feel better. Balanced, like there was enough light in the world to offset the dark.

But somehow, he’d blown it. Hell, she was even looking for another woman again, someone else for him to dance with.

Quinn was familiar with situations that went sour in a moment. As a cardiologist, he’d had patients chatting groggily with him as they waited for their sedation to take effect suddenly go into full cardiac arrest. As a rancher, he’d seen livestock ambling across a dry creek bed, kicking up dust, suddenly be swept away in a roaring torrent of water, a deadly flash flood from some faraway rainstorm.

When situations turned, Quinn turned them back. He threaded wires into hearts and opened blocked arteries. He gave chase on horseback and lassoed swimming cattle.

What did he do with Diana?

Situations with women didn’t turn so rapidly. Women liked being with him, and he with them. If a woman was upset, it was generally because he hadn’t been able to keep a date—which usually meant a patient had taken one of those sudden turns for the worse. Although the circumstances that kept him from showing up were beyond his control, women liked an apology. They liked their apologies best when he showed up bearing a gift, generally wine and roses, or a tasteful piece of gold jewelry. No gemstones. He liked his relationships exclusive, but without expectations of permanence.

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