Million Dollar Marriage. Maggie Shayne

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СКАЧАТЬ is something you do so often you’re barely conscious of it anymore,” Claudia said.

      Ignoring her, Holden stared across the crowded room to where Lucy Brightwater was now chatting with Ryan and Lily. She looked a bit like Lily. Same dark coloring, same dramatic black eyes. Damn, no wonder Ryan had been in love with Lily for thirty-some-odd years. A woman like that…

      “I’m sure as hell not ignoring her now,” he heard himself mutter.

      “Well, you sure as hell ought to be,” Claudia snapped. “Leave her alone, Holden. She’s not a one-night-stand kind of woman.”

      “No. No, I remember that about her. She was always pretty…” He shook his head. “Man, she sure grew into her looks.”

      “There’s a lot more to Lucinda Brightwater than the way she looks. As there is with most women, not that you’ve ever bothered to look any deeper than the surface.”

      Holden shrugged. “Fine. You want to start listing her stellar qualities, go ahead. I’m listening.” And interested, he thought. In fact, he was dying to know what Lucinda in the Sky Brightwater had been up to all these years.

      Claudia narrowed her eyes at him, then shrugged. “Fine, I will. Lucinda is kind, compassionate and caring. She’s intelligent and accomplished and sensitive, and a casual fling with a man like you could do a lot of damage to a woman like her. Leave her alone, Holden.”

      As she turned and strode away to set the heaping platter on a table, Holden sent a confused glance at his cousin. “You’d think I was the devil himself, the way she acts.”

      “Some might say you are,” Matthew said. “Claudia’s a little protective of Lucinda. They got pretty close during the pregnancy and all.”

      Holden tilted his head, lifted a brow.

      “Lucinda is Claudia’s doctor. Works over at Red Rock General.”

      Holden blinked. “She’s a doctor?” He looked her way once more. Damn, she didn’t look like any doctor he’d ever seen. “Maybe it’s time I make an appointment. I must be overdue for a physical…or something.” He was only half kidding.

      “Hey, I’m offended! I thought I was your favorite doctor. Besides, you’d never get in to see Lucinda…you don’t have the right equipment.” Matthew grinned at Holden’s puzzled expression. “She’s an OB-GYN.” Matthew said. “She delivered Bryan. And she and Claudia sort of…bonded.”

      “That’s the Dr. Brightwater Claudia was always talking about,” Holden said as a lightbulb finally flashed on in his mind. He hadn’t made the connection until now.

      “The one and only,” Matthew said, echoing Lucinda’s earlier words. “And she’s not the kind of woman who would enjoy being judged on the basis of her looks.”

      “Then she shouldn’t go around looking like that,” Holden said.

      “Give it up, cousin. You don’t stand a chance with her. Go find some bimbo to charm into your love nest. That woman is out of your league.”

      Holden finished his drink in a gulp and set down the empty glass. “Yeah. That’s pretty much what I always thought, too. But that doesn’t mean I can’t talk to her, does it?”

      Mistake, his mind cautioned him. Big, big mistake.

      “I’m sorry, Claudia.” Lucinda Brightwater was still a bit shaky. She hadn’t wanted to come to this party. No, that wasn’t true. She had wanted to come. For Claudia and Matthew. For little Bryan. What she hadn’t wanted was to run into Holden Fortune. The man who had taken her virginity one drunken night so long ago she should have been over it long before now. A night that had meant everything to her. A night with repercussions that were still resonating through her life.

      A night that had obviously meant less than nothing to him.

      She was not an awkward teenager anymore. She was not the too smart, too tall, too skinny girl who didn’t quite fit in. And she certainly wasn’t the same girl who’d been heart-and-soul in love with the most popular boy in school. A boy who hadn’t so much as returned her shy hello when they’d passed in the halls. She was a doctor now. She’d grown into her body and become comfortable, even confident, with her looks.

      So how could a brief encounter with Holden Fortune reduce her once again to a quivering mass of nerve endings, all of which seemed to be standing on end? She’d told herself that if she ran into him she would feel nothing but coldness—and a bit of her long-time resentment for the mess he’d made of her life so long ago.

      Instead, she felt so many emotions she couldn’t name them all. Anger, shame…and still a hint of that old attraction to a man who was never anything but bad for her. Poison.

      “You have nothing to apologize for,” Claudia said softly. “My husband’s cousin puts on a good show, Lucinda, but he’s truly not as bad as he seems.”

      “You’re forgetting,” Lucinda said with a slightly wry look, “I knew him in high school.”

      Claudia tilted her head. “Did…something happen between you and Holden back then?”

      “What a crazy question!” Lucinda averted her gaze. “Why on earth would you ask me something like that?”

      “Well, you seem awfully…angry with him over something. And it has been a long time….”

      Lucinda nodded. “You’re right, it has, and my mood really doesn’t have a thing to do with Holden.” It was a lie, but not entirely. She’d been feeling like hell for weeks now. She’d get the results of her ultrasound test tomorrow, and she was dreading what she’d hear. She had a pretty fair idea about what was going on with her body.

      “I probably shouldn’t have taken it out on him,” she said, but she didn’t mean it.

      “What is bothering you, Lucinda?”

      She shook her head. “Oh, the usual. You know, with every baby I deliver it seems I hear my biological clock ticking louder than before.”

      Claudia smiled. “Got that urge, huh?”

      “I’ve had that urge for some time now. And my time’s running out.”

      “Don’t be silly. You’re only…”

      “Thirty-four,” she said, lowering her eyes to hide the fear she knew she couldn’t hide. “And then there’s the clinic.”

      “Still can’t get the funding, huh?”

      Lucinda shook her head. “Health care for lower income women around here is practically nonexistent. And my big plans to change that state of things don’t seem to be going anywhere.”

      “I don’t see why you won’t just let Matthew and I back you.”

      “I need several backers, not just one. The amount I need to get this clinic up and running is too much to expect one person to give. And taking money from friends—especially the kind of money we’re talking about here—is never a good idea, Claudia. You know how I feel about that. Besides, the Fortunes aren’t the only wealthy family in Texas. СКАЧАТЬ