LITMIR.BIZ

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started to nod. Realizing his faux pas, he simply shrugged.

      The puppy yipped again. All at once it wiggled out of Tripp’s hands, landing in the boy’s lap. The little boy looked down dazedly. And then, as if in slow motion, he reached out, tentatively touching the puppy’s fur. It was all the invitation the dog needed. Tail wagging, the pudgy little puppy licked P.J.’s face. P.J. blinked, smiled and let loose a belly laugh.

      “Folks sure are gonna miss that man around here.”

      Amber cast a questioning look at Fredrico, but he was already starting to move away from her and didn’t see. “If I don’t get these charts over to OB, Proctor’ll send out a search party. If she hasn’t already.”

      Amber whispered, “Goodbye, then, and thanks.” Her gaze returned to the man and child in the room up ahead. Tripp was so engrossed in the boy, he didn’t seem to know she was watching. Her breath caught just below the little hollow at the base of her throat. With his stubby ponytail and earring, he still looked like the street-smart kid he’d been years ago. She was beginning to realize that he was so much more than that.

      His voice was a low murmur, his touch gentle as he showed P.J. how to pet the puppy. Mesmerized, Amber acknowledged the fact that this wasn’t simply a case of no longer being bored. This was something else, something she couldn’t name but wanted to explore.

      Tripp chose that moment to glance into the hall. Their gazes locked, and awareness fluttered around the walls of her chest. He didn’t smile, but she felt the heat in his gaze just the same.

      P.J. said something, and Tripp turned his attention back to the boy. Shaken, and touched, Amber smoothed her hands down her slacks, her fingers tracing the outline of the watch in her pocket. Her heart beat wildly. Unwilling to intrude on the doctor-patient moment, she wrenched herself away, and retraced her footsteps to the elevator.

      What was happening to her?

      She wanted more than ever to talk to Tripp. She considered waiting in the lobby, but the thought of being scrutinized by Nurse Proctor was less than appealing. If only she had something more constructive to do here.

      She looked around. Some people hated hospitals. Not Amber. She dealt with them on a weekly basis in her work for the Hopechest Foundation, an organization her mother had founded years ago. Today, the foundation funded centers for children in need all across the country. Among them were day-care centers for children who were HIV positive, and after-school programs, and sporting events for city kids confined to housing projects.

      Amber looked around again, recalling the children she’d seen working in the fields during her drive from Prosperino. Needy kids weren’t confined to housing projects or large cities. They were everywhere.

      Striding to the nurse’s station she’d passed earlier, she introduced herself. At her mention of her affiliation with the Hopechest Foundation, the other woman was all ears.

      “I was wondering if you might direct me to the person in charge of special programs to help children in need.”

      The young nurse beamed her approval. “Directions won’t do. I’ll take you there myself.”

      Now this, Amber thought, was more like it. By the time she left the hospital administrator’s office, the scent of hospital food wafted on the air. The meeting had taken longer than she’d expected. Wondering if Tripp was still in the building, she followed the exit signs through a labyrinth of hallways. She must have taken a wrong turn, because she didn’t recognize this wing. Sure enough, she came to the stairs, not the elevators.

      Pausing to get her bearings, she turned and started back the way she’d come. She’d taken only three steps when the low murmur of voices carried to her ears from an open door a few feet away.

      “People around here are going to miss you, Calhoun.”

      She stopped in her tracks. People were going to miss Tripp? Now that she thought about it, Fredrico had implied the same thing. Where was Tripp going?

      She turned again. Striding to the door, she raised her hand, prepared to knock. The voices started again, and Amber’s hand remained suspended in midair.

      “But if you insist on leaving, I’m putting dibs on your office.”

      Tripp looked at the man sitting on the other side of his desk. Aside from their chosen professions and their affiliation with this hospital, he and Gavin Cooper were complete opposites and unlikely friends. With his blond hair and blue eyes, Coop looked more like a beach bum than a brilliant doctor. He was laid-back and easygoing. Dubbed the Don Juan of County General, he wore the perpetual, slightly bedraggled, contented look of a man who’d recently crawled out of a woman’s bed. Even now, slouched in a chair, his arms folded, his feet on Tripp’s desk, ankles crossed, he made a science out of relaxing.

      Not Tripp.

      He shot out of his chair, slid his hands into his pockets and jangled his keys. “I haven’t gotten the position yet, Coop.”

      He found himself standing at his window, his back to his friend. He had a great view of the mountains from here. It wasn’t the Mendocino Ridges that drew his gaze, but the parking lot below. The lot contained the usual assortment of vans and family sedans. The candy-apple-red Porsche stuck out like a sore thumb. He’d seen that vehicle parked in the driveway at Hacienda de Alegria that very afternoon.

      It belonged to Amber Colton.

      When he’d happened to glance into the hall outside P.J.’s room an hour ago, he’d thought he was seeing things. Amber had stood so still, she could have been a mirage, and he, a thirsty man in the desert.

      Her hair had been long and loose around her tanned shoulders, her body, lean and svelte beneath formfitting slacks. A bolt of sexual attraction had come out of nowhere. If he hadn’t been sitting down, it would have knocked him off his feet. He couldn’t afford that kind of attraction. He’d already been down that road once: The poor street kid made good and the bored, rich heiress. It hadn’t been pretty.

      “It’s only a matter of time. After all, who better than you…” Coop’s voice droned on in the background.

      Tripp ran a hand down his face, scrubbing it over the stubble on his jaw and on down the front of his wrinkled shirt. That red sports car in the parking lot was no mirage. What was Amber doing at County General?

      “Calhoun, are you even listening?”

      “I heard you. It so happens I received a letter from Montgomery Perkins in Santa Rosa yesterday. The field has been narrowed to two.”

      “Who’s your contender? Anybody I know?”

      His back to Coop, Tripp said, “Does the name Spencer ring a bell?”

      “First or last?”

      “Last.”

      “Spencer? As in, Derek Spencer?”

      The next time Tripp looked, Coop was sitting up straighter.

      “The one and only.”

      A succinct and unbecoming but fitting word spewed out of Cooper’s mouth about the same time his feet hit the floor. “I still can’t believe he became a pediatrician. I always figured Spencer for the type to specialize in plastic surgery, not so he could repair cleft palates and facial scars, but so he could do nose jobs and boob implants for wannabe starlets down in Hollywood. What would he want with a position in a private practice in Santa Rosa?”

      “It gets worse.”

      “How could it get any worse than competing with your backstabbing rival from med school?”

      “It seems Derek’s gotten himself engaged.”

      “Who’s the unlucky woman?”

      Any other time, Tripp would have appreciated his friend’s sarcasm. “Olivia.”

      “Your Olivia?”

      Tripp

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