The Trophy Wife

by Sandra Steffen

He'd delivered some good news to her parents this morning. The blood tests had ruled out leukemia. The bad news was, she was still running a fever and her belly still hurt. Though Sierra wanted to go home, she needed more tests. She wanted to go home. Migrant workers, her parents didn't have health insurance, money in their pockets or even a permanent home. None of that mattered to Sierra. Home was wherever her family was.

  There were hundreds of families just like them in this part of the country. They were exactly the kind of people Tripp had set up his pilot clinic, located on the outskirts of Ukiah, to help.

  The clinic was helping, but there was so much more that needed to be done. Medicine cost money. There was no way around it. He could have used a windfall. If he was ever going to expand his pilot program and fund more clinics for the poor in other towns all across California, he needed donations, backers. He needed prestige and contacts, and one way to acquire both was to land and hold that position down in Santa Rosa for a few years, at the very least.

  He needed to reconsider Amber's offer. Damn. He had as much trouble swallowing his pride as Sierra had swallowing medicine.

  Replacing Sierra's chart, he studied the little girl. Her eyes fluttered closed. She was still very sick. Mentally, he was deciding on the next round of tests. He left the room, deep in thought, his footsteps as heavy as his guilty conscience.

  He cringed. He was feeling guilty, and he hated it. Amber Colton had said it was a great motivator. Maybe it was true for some people, but it hadn't been guilt over lying to Joe and Meredith Colton all those years ago that had made him strive to be truthful and to do his best. It had been Joe and Meredith, themselves. It was their generosity, their goodness, and the kindness they'd bestowed on him.

  Not everyone had ulterior motives. He wondered if it was possible that Amber had offered to act as his fiancée out of the goodness of her heart. Was her offer an act of kindness, and not pity as he'd first suspected? He should have tried to discern which it was. Instead, he'd refused her help, point-blank. And he'd insulted her in the process. He'd seen the hurt in those big green eyes. She'd driven all the way over here to return his watch yesterday, and he hadn't even said thank you.

  He wished the hell he would stop thinking about what he should have done or said to her. He wished he could stop thinking about her, period. She'd found her way into his dreams last night, too. He'd awakened in the throes of a strong passion. Not a good way to start a day that promised to be long and frustrating.

  He entered his next patient's room. Cisco Villereal grinned at Tripp. The boy was going home today, less his tonsils. Cisco wouldn't miss the infected little bands of tissue, but Tripp was going to miss the six-year-old who, with his family, was heading for the next field and the next harvest.

  Kids like Cisco and Sierra made all the grueling days, the long hours, double shifts and hard work worthwhile. Tripp knew doctors who complained that pharmaceutical companies governed modern medicine. It was true that doctors had to shuffle through a boatload of paperwork, but the bottom line remained the same. It was the patient that mattered.

  Tripp treated the patient. In the process, he helped the entire family. Often, he could tell how sick the child was by how great the fear in the parent's eyes. Those parents didn't care about hospital politics or red tape or malpractice insurance. If the child was sick enough, they didn't even care about money. They wanted their child well.

  It was what Tripp wanted, too. He'd made it his life's work. Not bad for a kid who'd dropped out of school when he was fourteen. He'd dropped out of life before that. Back then, he'd never imagined that someone like him could be anything other than a tough, smart-mouthed street kid whose mother was dead and whose father wasn't around. Kids like him didn't grow up to be doctors. A lot of them didn't grow up at all.

  Tripp had been heading down a short road that led nowhere. And hadn't cared. All that began to change the day he was sent to the Hopechest Ranch. From there, it had only been a stone's throw to Joe and Meredith Colton. That stone's throw had changed the entire course of his life.

  He'd never set foot inside a hospital until that summer when he was fifteen and Meredith Colton had taken him to the emergency room. He'd busted three bones when his fist had connected with Peter Bradenton's arrogant, better-than-thou face. Fascinated by the buzz and bustle of the hospital emergency room, Tripp had no longer felt any pain. When it was over, his fear that Joe and Meredith would send him away had returned. Not that he'd admitted that, but somehow, Meredith had known. She'd been different back then, kind to her soul, and filled with so much goodness a person ached to make her proud.

  Pride was something he'd understood. Pride was all he'd had.

  Meredith told him she expected him to apologize to Peter. It hadn't been easy, but for her, Tripp had done it. When he'd finished apologizing, he'd warned Peter what would happen if he were ever unkind to any of the Coltons again.

  And then, yesterday, Tripp had been unkind to Amber.

  She'd offered to help him. And what had he done? He'd let his pride get in the way of what he needed. If that wasn't bad enough, he'd insulted her.

  And he wasn't sure how to fix it.

  At the very least, he owed her an apology. He'd picked up the phone to call her three times last night, only to replace it without completing the call.

  An apology like this should be made in person, but he didn't even know where she lived. Once he found out, he planned to drive to her place when his shift was over. He dreaded the confrontation, yet he didn't mind the prospect of seeing Amber again. That bothered him. He liked to think he was immune to curvy, blond and pampered women. The fact that he wasn't was unsettling as hell.

  "Good morning, Doctor."

  He nodded a greeting at the petite nurse who had spoken. A dozen people were milling about out in the corridor. His eyes homed in on the woman he couldn't get out of his mind.

  He stopped so abruptly someone from X-ray ran into him from behind. "Excuse me, doctor," the technician murmured.

  "My fault," Tripp said.

  He followed Amber around the corner, keeping her in his line of vision as she wove around patients and staff in her path. Tripp believed a man could tell a lot about a woman by the way she walked. Amber Colton had the walk of a woman accustomed to getting a second look. She wasn't oblivious to it, but she didn't seem affected by it, either.

  She was wearing another pantsuit, this one white. The top was sleeveless and cinched in at the waist. Her pants were loose in the legs and just snug enough at the hips to lead a man's imagination into dangerous territory. His blood heated, and he scowled.

  She was nothing like the kind of woman he needed to look for. She spelled trouble. There was no way around it. But he owed her an apology, and by God, she was going to have one.

  "Amber, wait!" It came out as little more than a croak; it was no wonder she didn't hear him.

  He lengthened his stride and increased his pace. This time, he kept his eyes trained on something other than the sway of her hips. He focused on the square leather bag hanging from her left shoulder. It swung with every step she took. Every now and then, it moved enough to give him a glimpse of a stuffed dog that was tucked beneath her arm.

  She passed the elevator and had almost reached the stairway when he tried again. "Amber, wait!"

  This time his voice reached her. She looked over her shoulder and stopped suddenly. He noticed she didn't smile.

  "You're not an easy woman to catch up to. Where are you going in such a hurry?"

  She glanced at the plush, stuffed brown puppy beneath her arm. "I want to get this up to P.J.'s room. I'm already late for an appointment with the head of charity affairs." She didn't add, "So if you have something to say, say it." She didn't have to. The lift of her eyebrows was a prod if he'd ever seen one.

  Tripp wasn't accustomed to being prodded.

  "What is it? What are you thinking?" she asked.

  He wondered if women had any idea how much men squirmed when asked t
hat question. He blurted the first thing that came to mind. "That you're a bossy woman."

  She flushed. And he gave himself a mental shake. He'd angered her again. Or perhaps she was still angry from the day before.

  With a lift of her chin, she met his gaze straight on. "You don't like the way I look, the way I act, the way I talk. What is your problem, Tripp?"

  He held up one hand. "I don't think bossiness is necessarily a bad trait. I didn't mean it as an insult."

  "You could have fooled me."

  She was no shrinking violet, that was for sure. Tripp admired her for it. If she'd been afraid of her own shadow, she never would have had the courage to stand up to her father on his behalf all those years ago. "I didn't stop you to take another cheap shot at you. I stopped you to apologize. For yesterday. And in answer to your earlier question, if I have a problem with you, it's not your fault."

  Amber stared up at Tripp. His shirt and tie were black, his skin a shade of brown that didn't need sunscreen. He was clean-shaven this morning and handsome beyond belief. And it ticked her off that she'd noticed. He'd just admitted that his earlier jabs had been cheap shots. In the same breath, he'd admitted that he did, indeed, have a problem with her.

  "Whose fault is it then, Tripp? This problem you have with me." Her breath caught in her throat, making her voice sound breathless to her own ears. That ticked her off, too.

  "I'm sorry about insulting you yesterday. You didn't ask to be born into a wealthy family any more than I asked to be born into a screwed-up one. It's just that you rich people have no idea how intimidating you are to the rest of us."

  He called that an apology? "I…you…" Amber was never at a loss for words, yet here she was, stammering for the second time in a matter of days.

  She didn't try to speak again until she'd made certain she'd put one entire thought in order. "Rich families can be just as dysfunctional as poor ones."

  They were arguing about whose family was more dysfunctional? The conversation had sunk to a new low.

  He shrugged in a noncommittal, infuriating manner.

  "I intimidate you?" she asked.

  He released the clasp on his watch, fiddled with it, tightened it again. "Forget it, okay?"

  Perhaps she should have let it go, as he'd asked, but that wasn't her style. Yesterday, when she'd seen him again out in the garden at Hacienda de Alegria, she'd felt a connection to him. Ever since her mother had changed and her father had grown distant and her family had basically fallen apart, she'd feared that nobody would ever love her for herself again. Looking at the lines around Tripp's eyes and the furrow between his brows today, she believed it was possible that she'd been wrong. She felt on the brink of understanding something important about him.

  Forget it? Now why on earth would she do that? "How do I intimidate you?"

  Releasing most of his breath in one noisy stream, he said, "You're brilliant, you're witty, you're rich. You received your MBA from Radcliffe."

  "And you're a doctor, for heaven's sake."

  Luckily, the corridor was empty, so no one heard him raise his voice as he said, "I'm a struggling, part-Latino, mostly broke doctor who had to work my butt off to make it through med school."

  "I distinctly recall my father saying that you graduated at the top of your class."

  "The top of my class would have been the bottom of yours."

  "I highly doubt that."

  He made no reply. So she tried another tactic. "I intimidate you. That's the problem," she said, persisting. "That's what's keeping us from being friends. Let's see. How could we fix it?"

  "I don't think we—"

  "When I was in grade school and had to give a speech, I used to imagine my classmates in their underwear. Maybe you should try it."

  His eyes darkened, his lids lowering slightly.

  She ducked her head, pulled a face, and smiled. "On second thought, that's probably not a good idea."

  It occurred to Tripp that he was staring. He couldn't help it. The warmth in Amber's smile got to him. He couldn't help that, either. He ran a hand over his hair, skimming the rubber band that secured the stubby ponytail at the back of his neck. He'd kept his ponytail to remind him of where he'd been, and where he was going.

  "Coop read me the riot act when he discovered I'd turned down your offer. But you're right. This isn't a good idea. None of it." Not what was in his imagination, not what was coursing through his body. "If I need a woman, it's one who shares my background, my heritage. And I don't need anybody's pity."

  Her face fell, a bleak expression settling where her humor had been. She took a backward step. An instant later her chin came up, and her voice rose. "Pity? That's what you think this is about?"

  "Aw, hell." He'd done it again.

  She handed him the stuffed dog. "I'm late for my meeting. I would appreciate it if you would see that P.J. gets this."

  For a long moment, she stared at him without blinking, a burning, faraway look in her eyes. Slowly, she turned, her heels clicking as she walked away from him across the polished, spotless floor.

  She paused in the doorway, her back to him, her shoulders rising and falling with her effort to draw a deep, calming breath. "I never felt sorry for you, Tripp." She turned and faced him. "Until now."

  She left him standing in the middle of the corridor, his heart beating a heavy rhythm, the ears of the stuffed dog clutched tightly in his fist, sourness in the pit of his stomach, and egg on his face.

  * * *

  Amber ignored her doorbell on her Fort Bragg home the first time it rang. Not five seconds later it rang again, followed immediately by a loud knock that rattled the house. She unfolded her arms and legs and rose from the floor. Hurrying, she raised up on tiptoe to peer through the peephole.

  A sound of surprise rose from the back of her throat before she could stop it. Fifteen minutes of meditation, wasted.

  She dropped back down to the heels of her feet. Bristling, she reached for the doorknob, but froze in indecision. Her ego was still smarting from her last confrontation with the stubborn, belligerent Dr. Tripp Calhoun.

  "Come on, Amber. Open up."

  She considered ignoring him. In the end, her curiosity got the better of her. "Give me one good reason why I should."

  The moment of silence stretched. Prepared to wait as long as necessary, she shifted her weight to one foot and folded her arms.

  "Please?"

  He gave her that one word in a voice soft and warm enough to slip into. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth, gliding slowly down her neck, coming to rest over the rapid thud of her heart. She took a fortifying breath, turned the lock and opened the door.

  Facing him squarely, she simply looked at him. He was wearing faded jeans and a black T-shirt that had seen better days but fit him to perfection. His face was made up of interesting planes and hard angles. His teeth were white, his lashes long, his chin firm, his cheekbones prominent. His nose was narrow and had probably been considered regal-looking before it had been broken years ago. He was an arrestingly good-looking man, with just enough imperfections to ensure that his wasn't a pretty face. She had artist friends, like Claire, who would love the chance to paint him. He was that handsome. Amber knew a lot of handsome men. None of them made her so angry with seemingly so little effort.

  "Please isn't a reason, Calhoun."

  His chiseled features cracked slightly, giving her a glimpse of a self-deprecating half smile. "I'm afraid it's all I've got."

  Her traitorous heart skipped a beat, darn it all. He was wrong. He had so much more. But who was she to argue? "What are you doing here?"

  "I came to say I'm sorry."

  She clasped her hands together and stared at them. "Your last apology had a lot in common with an insult."

  His silence drew her gaze. Studying his lean, olive-skinned face, her heart lurched. He seemed to be having difficulty swallowing, too, his lips thinning into a straight line. "I'm sorry about that, too."

  She believed
him, which either made her foolish or desperate. She bristled. Oh, no it didn't.

  Squaring her shoulders, she said, "Apology accepted. Now, if you'll excuse—"

  "P.J. loved the stuffed animal."

  "He did? I mean, I'm glad."

  He held her immobile with his eyes. "And I was thinking that it might be good for him to meet someone like you."

  "Someone like me?" She was breathless again. Had she no backbone whatsoever?

  "Someone with a strong will, a drive to succeed, a sense of humor and a forgiving spirit."

  Evidently not.

  She nearly melted into a heap at his feet. Entirely too caught up in her own emotions, she had to remind herself that she was no longer a whimsical girl of nine, or even nineteen. She was a woman, strong and independent.

  He looked at her for a long time. Next, he looked beyond her into her foyer where a candle burned and a tabletop fountain gurgled.

  "I would be honored if you would invite me in."

  The word honored was nearly her undoing. It was so old-fashioned, it left her wondering if chivalry was really dead, after all. Thinking "once burned," she took control of her wayward thoughts and said, "You've apologized and I've accepted. What else is there to say?"

  She could tell this wasn't easy for him. Groveling never was. She might have let him off the hook, but then she remembered his little quip comparing her to a spoiled cat. And he'd called her bossy.

  It wouldn't hurt to let him squirm.

  "I've changed my mind, Amber."

  "Oh? About what, pray tell?"

  "About your offer."

  As it often did this time of day, a heavy fog had rolled in, producing a perfect excuse for her shiver. "And what offer was that?" She didn't know what to blame for the way her voice had dropped in volume.

  "Your offer to act as my fiancée at a dinner party this weekend. That is, if the offer still stands." He glanced over his shoulder at the sound of voices from a middle-aged couple walking their Great Dane. "May I come in?"

  So, he'd changed his mind about that. She waved at her neighbors, then looked up at Tripp again. She wondered if he'd changed his mind about her, as well. But one thing at a time. She stepped aside, and opened the door all the way.