New York Doc to Blushing Bride. Janice Lynn

      “Hey, Dr. Trenton,” the paramedics greeted him, then turned to the moaning woman.

      “Mrs. Goines, please tell me you didn’t try sliding down the handrail,” Bud said immediately when he realized who the patient was.

      Obviously, there was a story behind Mrs. Goines and handrails. Sloan would get her to tell him about it soon. Maybe when he rounded on her in the morning because no doubt she’d be admitted through the emergency room tonight and he’d check on her prior to Preston’s funeral service.

      “Hey, Bud,” Cara greeted him, causing the man’s eyes to bug out with recognition.

      “Well, I’ll be. If it isn’t Cara Conner. Good to see you, pretty girl.” Then he recalled why she was in town and his happy greeting turned to solemn remorse. “Sorry to hear about your dad. He was a good, good man. Best doctor I ever knew.”

      “Thanks, Bud. He was a good man and doctor.” She took a deep breath. “Now, let’s take care of this good woman lying here in pain. She’s going to have to be put on the stretcher. Right hip is broken. I can’t be certain if her right shoulder is broken or just shoved out of socket from the impact of her fall. Her right clavicle is fractured, too.”

      Cara pushed aside the loose material of Mrs. Goines’s dress neckline. Sure enough, there was a large bump that had fortunately not broken through the skin but which did indicate that the woman’s collarbone had snapped from the impact against the concrete steps.

      “I do believe you’re right, Doc,” Bud agreed. “Let’s get this feisty little lady to the emergency room.”

      The two paramedics lowered the stretcher as far as it would go and positioned Mrs. Goines to where they could slide her onto the bedding.

      Cara and Sloan both positioned themselves where they wouldn’t interfere with Bud and Tommy’s work but where they could help stabilize Mrs. Goines’s body as much as possible during the transfer.

      “On the count of three, we’re going to lift you onto the stretcher,” Bud told their patient.

      Although Mrs. Goines cried out in pain, the transfer went smoothly.

      Sloan turned to Cara and smiled. “You should move back to Bloomberg. We make a good team, you and I.”

      Her gaze narrowed as if he’d said something vulgar. “You and I are not a team,” she said, low enough that only he could hear. “And I will never move back to Bloomberg.”

      She stood, bent and said something to Mrs. Goines, who was now strapped onto the stretcher to prevent her from falling off while they rolled her to where the ambulance waited. Then she nodded toward Bud and Tommy and disappeared inside the funeral home.

      Slowly, Sloan rose to his feet, scratched his head and wondered what he’d ever done to upset Preston’s daughter so completely and totally.

      And why he’d never wanted a woman to like him more.

      People Cara had known her entire life shook her hand, hugged her and pressed sloppy kisses to her cheek. People told her how wonderful her father had been, what a difference he’d made in their lives, stories of how he’d gone above and beyond the call of duty time and again during his thirty-plus years of practicing medicine in Bloomberg—as if Cara didn’t know firsthand what he’d sacrificed for his patients.

      She knew. Oh, how she knew.

      Everyone milled around, talking to each other, saying what a shame it was the town had lost such a prominent and beloved member. All their words, their faces churned in Cara’s grieving mind, a whirlwind of emotional daggers that sliced at her very being.

      Her gaze went to the one stranger in their midst. A stranger only to her, it seemed as he was the other person receiving condolences from everyone in the funeral parlor.

      Acid gurgled in her stomach, threatening to gnaw a hole right through her knotted belly.

      Why was he getting handshakes, hugs and sloppy kisses from people like little old arthritic Mary Jo Jones and Catherine Lester? Why did everyone treat him as if he’d suffered just as great a loss as she had?

      Preston had been her father, her family. Not his.

      Sloan Trenton was an outsider. Someone her father had recruited to join his practice about a year ago when he’d apparently given up on her joining any time in the near future. Then again, maybe not an outsider. How many times had her father said Sloan was like the son he’d never had? How impressed he was by the talented doctor he’d added to his practice? Every time they’d talked, he’d been “Sloan this” and “Sloan that.”

      So perhaps the bitterness she felt didn’t really stem from Sloan being treated as if his grief was as great as her own. Perhaps her bitterness had started long ago while listening to her father go on and on about the man, about how Sloan loved Bloomberg and its people almost as much as Preston himself did, about how Sloan tirelessly gave of himself to the town, that watching Sloan was like a flashback to himself thirty years before, except that he’d been married. Of course, her father had joked, Bloomberg’s most eligible bachelor wasn’t still single because of a lack of trying on many a female’s part.

      Sloan. Sloan. Sloan. Gag. Gag. Gag.

      Dr. Sloan Trenton could do no wrong in her father’s eyes and, deep down, Cara resented that. Although he’d loved her, she had never achieved that complete admiration because she’d had too much of her mother’s love of the big city in her blood, too much of her mother’s resentment of how much Bloomberg stole from their lives, and her father couldn’t, or wouldn’t, understand.

      She’d had enough of her father in her to love medicine, but she hadn’t been willing to have her life light snuffed out by the demanding town that had taken its toll on her family. Give her the anonymity of the big-city emergency room any day of the week.

      She huffed out an exasperated breath.

      The tall, lean object of her animosity couldn’t have heard her sigh, not over the chatter in the crowded funeral home and the distance that separated them, but Sloan turned as if she had called out his name. Filled with concern, his coppery brown gaze connected to hers and held, despite the men still talking to him as if he was focused solely on them.

      She narrowed her eyes in dislike, not caring what he thought of her, not caring about anything except the gaping crater in her broken heart. She focused all her negative energy toward him, as if he were somehow to blame for her loss, as if he could have prevented her father from dying. Logically, she knew he couldn’t have.

      Sloan’s handsome features drew tight. He looked almost as exhausted as she felt. But she didn’t like him, didn’t want him there. Everything about him disturbed her.

      Had from the moment she’d opened the door to find him standing on her front porch yesterday during the midst of her major boo-hoo fest. She’d have hated anyone to see her that way, but she especially hated that her father’s beloved prodigy had witnessed her meltdown.

      Currently, one of his coal-dark brows arched in acknowledgement of her enmity, no doubt questioning her dislike. Why not? Obviously, he was well loved within the community. Her father had sure loved him. The townspeople loved him. With his inky black hair, those amazing eyes, handsome face and a body that, despite her doom-and-gloom mental state, she had to admit belonged on a television hunk rather than a small-town doctor, women loved him. Why would he expect anything less than adoration from her?

      “Oh, Cara, your dad is going to be so missed at the hospital,” Julie Lewis, Cara’s closest friend during grade school, sympathized, plopping down next to her on the long wooden front pew and wrapping her in a tight hug.

      Cara leaned her head on her longtime friend’s shoulder, grateful for the excuse to break eye contact with Sloan. Julie’s light, flowery perfume filled Cara’s nostrils with memories of when they’d first started wearing makeup and perfume. Her friend still wore the same honeysuckle scent as she’d worn throughout high school.

      “I