Page 75 of The Cajun Doctor

Tears filled Samantha’s eyes, and she turned, not wanting Daniel to see her emotion, but also not wanting to intrude further on his private moment. She went back to the car where she sat frozen with disbelief for about fifteen more minutes.

Me? In love with Daniel? Could I have been so blind? Sure, there’s a fine line between love and hate, but the sniping between the two of us the dozens of times we’ve met was surely a sign of dislike, not like. Or love, bless my foolish heart.

The Great God of Irony must be doing the Snoopy dance over my falling for another doctor.

But maybe it’s all my imagination. A blip of madness in the midst of the madness that has become my life.

When Daniel got in the driver’s seat, he just sat, staring ahead for a long moment, his fingers clenched on the steering wheel. Then he turned to her. “Well, aren’t you going to say something?”

There were so many things she wanted to say.

Like, “Why would you give up medicine when it clearly touches you so?”

Or, “So, you’re a familiar face at a cancer medical center? Does that mean you have a Louisiana medical license after all?”

Or, “I think I’m falling a little bit in love with you.”

But all she could come up with was a most innocuous, “Doctor Dan?”

Chapter Sixteen

Some people say shopping is a form of foreplay . . .

An hour later, Daniel wasn’t surprised that they’d accomplished all their errands in record time, but Samantha was.

“No fuss, no bother. In and out,” he told Samantha after pulling out of the parking lot for the Designer Overstock Home Warehouse. It was at his insistence that they’d stopped here, instead of going all the way to Metairie to the big box store. “Women could learn a lot about shopping from men.”

She rolled her eyes.

After leaving the medical center and heading out of Houma, Daniel had noticed a billboard for the warehouse, which in smaller print had mentioned “appliances, furniture, fine accessories, everything for the home.” Forget the Costco that was almost an hour away, this could be a better alternative, he’d told her.

“But it’s a scratch-and-dent kind of place,” she’d protested.

“Who cares about a little wear and tear? Bayou Rose Plantation is a homage to wear and tear.”

“That doesn’t mean—”

Her words had been cut off as he’d abruptly pulled over to the side of the road and made a U-turn.

“Are you crazy? That pickup truck almost T-boned us.”

“You mean the one with the cowboy who gave me the finger? Or the one with the bumper sticker that read, ‘Keep Honking, I’m Reloading’?”

She’d just ignored his question and braced her feet on the floorboard, as if they were going to crash. Silly girl . . . rather, woman! He was a careful driver, having served a residency in trauma where the effects of lead-footed driving were often accompanied by massive amounts of blood.

Within an hour, he’d picked out a pillow-top mattress set for the antique double bed frame, which would go in a second floor bedroom, but also two single mattress sets, which would be placed temporarily in the front parlor for Angus and Lily Beth, and later moved upstairs to a guest room. Then he bought a whopping big, thirty-six-cubic-foot stainless steel fridge with a bunch of bells and whistles, and hardly a dent or scratch in evidence. Water and ice dispenser, of course. French doors. And, to appease Samantha’s call for historical integrity, a special kit that would allow for wood panels to cover the fridge at a later date to match whatever cabinets were installed. Apparently, preservationists called for modern conveniences to be hidden. You weren’t supposed to know there was a fridge, or a television, or dishwasher, or even, God forbid, a toilet. And, no, he didn’t buy a fridge with a built-in keg, as Aaron had suggested, but this one did have a “blast chiller” that turned warm beer cold within minutes.

Samantha couldn’t stop tsk-ing. “Are you sure that huge fridge is going to fit into the kitchen?”

“I’ll make it fit.”

She rolled her eyes again. “If you would’ve stopped flirting with that sales clerk, Deb-bie, I could have shown you a refrigerator model more fitting for your mansion. She was so short, she almost seemed like a teenager. She even giggled like one. Especially when you told that dumb story about Eskimo iceboxes. Your very own Little Debbie!”

He grinned. “Hah! You were the one attracting attention in that hoochie-mama outfit. I swear, half the male clerks in the store were watching your behind in those shorts, and the other half was aching to untie the bow in front of your top.”

She put a hand to said bow, and blushed.

It was a kick that he could make her blush.