“Good,” Amanda replied, pivoting on her heels and marching away.
A moment later, Sam exited her office with a vow to forget about her. She was too complicated. He didn’t have time for that kind of trouble.
He had his head convinced. Now if he could just convince his heart.
Amanda was so shaken by the encounter with Sam that she had to go into the privacy of her office to regroup before going on to examine her next patient. Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply. She had a right to try to keep her heart in one piece, didn’t she?
And yet, somehow, she already knew that it was too late for that.
She was over the line.
Her heart was already in a million pieces because of him.
The next day, Amanda tried to keep herself busy so that she wouldn’t think about Sam—or his children. But that night before going to bed, she gave in to her inner struggle and called him. After all, she had the perfect excuse. She could always say she was calling to check on how the girls were doing—Caroline, in particular.
Which was the truth, of course. Only, it wasn’t the whole truth. She wanted to hear Sam’s voice, too. She just didn’t want to have to tell him that.
Sam answered the telephone on the third ring and immediately Amanda’s heart went into a wild galloping beat.
“Sam, it’s Amanda,” she said. She held her breath momentarily.
There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. In that one single second Amanda’s heart went from a galloping beat to a sudden stop. She imagined all sorts of things going through his head. But, finally, he said, “Hi.”
Amanda took a deep breath. “I hope you weren’t asleep,” she said.
Sam cleared his throat. “No.”
Amanda swallowed down the sudden lump in her throat. “I—I thought I’d call to check on the girls,” she stammered. “How’s Caroline doing? And Sara? I hope Sara hasn’t come down with what Caroline has.”
“As a matter of fact,” he said rather stiffly, “Caroline is doing much better. And, no, Sara didn’t get sick.” He cleared his throat again. “Uh, look, Amanda, I’ve got company right now. Can I call you back later?”
Amanda’s heart sank. He had company?
“I—I’m sorry,” Amanda stammered. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“Look, I promise to call you back,” Sam said.
“You don’t have to. It really isn’t necessary,” she said, trying to recover her equilibrium.
“Amanda—”
“Good night, Sam,” she said, hanging up the telephone. For some reason she felt sick to her stomach.
By the time she had taken a shower and turned down her bed for the night, Amanda was ready to have herself a good, long cry.
Chapter Eight
It was Friday, and as always Amanda’s workday was hectic. But at least she wasn’t on call this weekend. She was going to have plenty of time to curl up in bed and feel sorry for herself.
During the morning Lucy Foreman called her office and left a message reminding Amanda about the dinner party that night, and Amanda realized that somehow—because of her emotional state, she supposed—she had forgotten all about it. Sam was definitely going to be there. Sam and perhaps his overnight guest would be accompanying him. Uh-uh. No way. She wasn’t a glutton for punishment.
“What are you wearing, Doc?” Kathy asked after handing her the message.
“Huh? What? Oh, the dinner party. I’m not going,” she replied.
Kathy’s mouth dropped open. “Why not, for heaven’s sake?”
“I can’t. I’m busy.”
“Doing what?” Kathy asked in disbelief.
Amanda realized that she would just as soon give Kathy an excuse so the woman would leave her alone. She didn’t want to tell her it was because she didn’t want to see Sam. She simply wasn’t strong enough to handle being in his company. She needed more time.
As it was, all she could think about was him and that certain someone—a woman, she truly believed—whom he’d invited over to his house last night. It was killing her to even think of him being with another woman. In fact, it was eating her alive. Besides, he hadn’t called her back.
“I’ve been too busy to go out and buy something to wear,” she heard herself say finally.
“Well, that’s not a problem,” Kathy said, her eyes glittering. “I think we’re about the same size, and I happen to have a closet full of dresses you can wear. Some I haven’t even worn. In fact, I know of one in particular that would look great on you. It’s black and low-cut down the back—and s-e-x-y.”
“I’m not into sexy, Kathy,” Amanda replied blandly. “You know that’s not me.”
“Well, it could be, if you wanted it to. Be daring, Doc.”
Daring?
Didn’t Kathy realize whom she was talking to?
Daring for her was driving home from the hospital late at night a couple of miles per hour over the speed limit. She liked playing it safe. And she had been safe, until Sam Arquette stormed into her life.
But for her to go to a party wearing a black, sexy-looking dress when she knew he would be there was simply too much.
Wasn’t it?
Suddenly, Amanda found herself hesitating with her answer. It had been a long time since she had wanted to let herself feel sexy.
What would Sam think of her if she did wear Kathy’s black dress to the dinner party tonight? Would he even notice? She began to have second thoughts about the whole thing. “I don’t know about this, Kathy,” Amanda said, shaking her head.
Kathy placed her arm around her boss’s shoulders. “Leave everything to me, Doc. I have all the accessories you can possibly need. If you want me to, I can even do your hair, nails and makeup. But I really think you should go to that dinner party.”
“Yes, you’re right,” Amanda said, forcing herself to be daring for once in a long, long time. “I should go.”
And now that she had made the decision, all she needed was Kathy’s enthusiasm.
Oh, yeah, and that sexy dress of hers.
Sam glanced at the clock on the wall in his bedroom. Soon he would be leaving for the Foremans’ dinner party. Already Mrs. Cunningham had arrived to baby-sit his girls. And yet, here he was still waiting on Amanda to return the message he’d left for her on her answering machine at home. He knew her well enough to know that it would be just like her to get home and ignore the blinking light altogether.
Damn the woman. She was driving him plum crazy. Besides his girls, she was all he ever thought about.
Frustrated, he grabbed hold of his telephone and dialed the number to Amanda’s house. It rang until her answering machine picked up again. Refusing to leave another message, he hung up. A few moments later he slipped on his dinner jacket, walked out of his bedroom, then said goodbye to his two young daughters and their baby-sitter.
It was a cold night and Sam was glad when he arrived at the Foreman ranch. Tom Foreman answered the door, and since it was his and Sam’s first time to meet, Tom had immediately introduced himself as Lucy’s husband. Lucy was sitting on the sofa, holding their baby. Sam walked over to look at their infant son.
“Want to hold him?” Lucy asked.
Although Sam was taken off guard, he thought it was a great idea. He hadn’t held a baby in a long time. The last one had been Sara, he thought, and already she was four years old. He immediately took the sleeping infant from Lucy’s arms. “Hi, little fellow,” he said. “Remember me?”
Just then the doorbell rang and Tom hurried to answer it. In less than a minute he reentered the living room with Amanda.
She looked sensational. She had on a sleek, off-the-shoulders, long-sleeved black dress. No doubt about it, she was a complete knockout. So much so, Sam couldn’t take his eyes off her. In fact, he could hardly breathe.
He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Her hair had been pinned up and she wore a pair of sparkling earrings that flirted with the dim lightin
g in the room. The cut of the dress made the line of her neck look long and lean, and he knew exactly where he wanted to place a kiss.
“Doc Lucas, I believe you know our other guest,” Tom said.
“Yes, of course. Sam,” she said, nodding her head in greeting.
All at once her gaze settled on the small bundle he had in his arms, and for a fraction of a second, her features softened. Using the rare moment to his advantage, Sam stepped forward with the infant. “Remember this little guy?” he said. “He was squalling the last time we saw him.”
Amanda gazed down at the sleeping child, and Sam thought he noticed her eyes moistening—and now he knew why. Or, at least, he thought he did. She wanted her own baby—something, according to her, she could never have.
“Can I hold him?” she asked, quickly recovering.
“Sure,” both Sam and Lucy said at the same time. Sam turned and Amanda took the baby from his arms.
The four adults conversed for a while with Tom telling Amanda and Sam how grateful he and Lucy were to them for helping deliver their son safely into the world. Eventually Lucy took her son to his nursery and put him down to sleep.
By the time she returned, dinner was ready to be served and all four adults moved to the dining room. As they were heading in that direction, Sam leaned close to Amanda’s ear and said, “I want to talk to you in private.”
“Please, Sam, there’s nothing more to say.”
“Well, I have plenty to say to you,” he replied. “I’m following you home tonight, so we can talk.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Sam...”
“I mean it, Amanda. I’m following you home and that’s that.”
She glared at him before taking the seat that Tom offered her.
Finally, they were all seated and enjoying their meal. Afterward, they had coffee and dessert. But by now the only thing Amanda could think about was the fact that Sam was going to be following her home as soon as the dinner party was over.
And, unfortunately, that was happening all too soon.
She and Sam said their goodbyes to the Foremans at the front door. Tom offered to walk Amanda to her car, but Sam intervened and said he would do the honor.
“Where’re your keys?” he said to Amanda the moment they were out of earshot. She handed them to Sam and they walked side by side until they reached her car.
Once she was inside, he handed her her keys and said, “I’ll see you at your house.”
Without bothering to answer him, Amanda cranked her car’s engine, put its automatic transmission in forward gear and drove off.
Fifteen minutes later she was parking her car in the garage when Sam pulled up behind her in the driveway. Soon they were entering her house.
Right away Amanda slipped off her coat and tossed it over the back of a chair. Then, taking a deep breath, she crossed her arms over her chest. Instead of feeling strong and in control, her heart was pounding just being near him.
“Okay,” she said. “We both know that you’ve got something on your mind. So let’s hear it.”
Sam shook his head in what looked to be complete frustration. “How can I talk some sense into you when you’re keyed up like this? For once in your life, Amanda, relax.”
“I am relaxed,” she replied stiffly.
Sam frowned. “You’re practically standing at attention.”
“Well, for your information, I don’t happen to like being put on the spot the way I was at the Foremans’ What I can’t figure out is why I let you get away with it.”
Sam shrugged. “Probably because you had no choice.”
“Exactly,” she replied heatedly.
“Amanda,” he said, “I’m in love with you. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” His eyes were intense...piercing...earnest.
“Don’t say that,” she replied, her eyes filling with tears, her heart pounding uncontrollably.
“Why not? It’s true.”
But for how long? Amanda wondered. A month? Two months? A year? Then he would begin to wonder what he was doing with a woman who couldn’t give him more children. She knew the routine. And she wasn’t about to fall for it.
Still, there was a part of her that wanted to take him at his word.
“Don’t you see,” he continued. “We’re perfect for each other. We can make a life together. You can continue to have your career, and I can continue to take care of the children and the farm. Can’t you see, I’m offering you a chance to have your career and a family, too. And whether or not you admit it, I think you want those things. You’re just too hardheaded to admit it.”
By now Amanda’s pain was so deep and so raw that she thought surely she wasn’t going to survive the next moment. Whirling around, she walked several feet away from him. Drawing in a long, steadying breath, she prayed for the courage she knew she would need to help get her through the following seconds.
“This isn’t about my being hardheaded. It’s about...I’m not perfect. I can’t give you more children,” she said almost angrily.
“I know that, and I’ve given it a lot of thought,” he said. “We could always adopt, if we want.”
“And what? Have you wake up one morning down the road and decide that you’re tired of living with only half a woman? No, thank you. I can do without that.”
“Is that what you think of me?” he asked, gaping at her.
“I’m just being realistic,” she said.
“You’re not even willing to give me a chance? Why not?”
“Look, I was engaged to be married once, to someone who also claimed to love me. But within a few hours of learning that I was infertile, my so-called fiancé no longer wanted me for his wife.”
“I—I’m sorry about that,” Sam said.
“Pity is exactly what I don’t want from you.”
“I don’t pity you. I love you. Can’t you understand that?”
Biting back her tears, Amanda turned away from him. “I just can’t take the chance of going through something like that again. I just can’t.”
“Amanda, I’m only human, and I can’t take much more of this, either. You know, don’t you, that if I leave here like this tonight, I won’t be coming back—ever.”
Amanda swallowed back the lump in her throat. “Yes, I know,” she finally said.
“Fine then,” he replied, as if he were truly heartbroken. Moments later Amanda heard the door slam behind him.
All alone now, she crumpled into the nearest chair and sobbed her heart out.
Chapter Nine
The following morning Amanda woke to find her eyes all swollen and red from crying herself to sleep the night before. Not only that, but she had a throbbing headache. Struggling out of bed, she went to the kitchen, took two aspirin and made an ice pack for the pain in her head. Then she crawled back into bed and pulled the covers up to her neck. She was in no hurry to get up and face the day. She had wanted Sam out of her life. Well, now he was. And while she knew it was for the best, she was completely heartbroken.
Without a doubt, this was one heartache that was going to take her a lifetime to recover from.
In spite of everything that was going wrong in his life these days, Sam was trying his best to keep his spirits up. He fixed his girls breakfast and they all sat down to eat together. But he kept looking at the one empty chair opposite him, thinking that Amanda should have been sitting in it. She belonged with them. He knew that now. Heaven help him, but it wasn’t as though he had been looking for someone to love. It had just happened.
He was tough, he told himself. He could take the blow. If Amanda didn’t want to listen to reason, he couldn’t make her. In fact, he was already getting himself started down the road to recovery. Tonight Mrs. Cunningham was going to baby-sit for him and he was going to find himself the smokiest, loudest honky-tonk around these parts. If Amanda was willing to settle for just a career, then why should he care? At least he had learned something about himself in all of this.
He wasn’t immune to falling in love.
Sam was ready that night when Mrs. Cunningham arrived at his house. He hugged his girls good-night while telling them to behave while he was gone. The last thing he heard as he was walking out the door was Mrs. Cunningham saying, “You had better not get yourself into trouble.”
Someone from Mason’s Grove had told him about a honky-tonk in the next county that had plenty of cold beer and enough good-looking women and loud country music to soothe any man’s soul. He wheeled his truck in that direction and settled back in his seat with his radio set to a country music station. And although his heart was heavy with thoughts of Amanda, he had convinced himself that once he arrived at his destination, he was going to have himself one heck of a good time.
In fact, he was determined to.
And as it turned out, he did. Until around midnight. By then he’d had all he wanted of cold beer and loud, loud music. He had a headache and found himself sitting at a far corner of the bar next to a great-looking young woman...sobbing in his beer over Amanda.
What a bummer. The young woman looked absolutely bored stiff with him and, in truth, he didn’t blame her.
His night out on the town really wasn’t doing him any good. He was still mooning over Amanda. In his heart he knew that she was the only woman he really wanted to be with and no amount of beer or pretty women was going to change that.
“This is ridiculous,” he said, suddenly throwing enough money on the bar to pay for his tab and then some. “I’m going home.” He rose from his stool, turned and headed for the door.
There was a woman sitting at a table with two men. She saw him heading out and yelled, “Hey, good-lookin’, where’re ya goin’?”
“Home,” he answered, looking her square in the face. “To the woman I love.”
“Well, whoop-de-do,” she replied, and then went back to her own business.
Sam left the bar.
He knew one thing. It wasn’t going to be easy to convince Amanda of his feelings for her. She had a stone wall around her emotions three feet thick and ten feet high. But somehow he would get through it. He simply had to.
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