The Marriage Experiment. Catherine Spencer

      People had already been talking, of course, even then. Those who’d known Grant in the past hadn’t forgotten him, or his stormy marriage to the chairman of the hospital board’s daughter, and they’d been more than willing to supply the details to those meeting him for the first time. She’d have had to be both blind and stupid not to have noticed the sly glances directed at her, or the way conversation had suddenly stopped whenever she’d come within earshot. If up-staging the bride and groom had been his intent, Grant had succeeded in spectacular fashion.

      But Olivia had come a long way since she’d watched him walk out on their marriage. In the seven years since, she’d grown up, and no longer hid behind the high stone walls of her father’s house. So she’d held her head high and smiled determinedly as Henry had swept her around the floor in a precisely correct fox-trot.

      If only the music hadn’t changed…if only Henry didn’t feel that jive was something best reserved for leather-clad delinquents….

      Sighing, she reached for the loofah and scrubbed languidly at her right leg. If only she’d had the good sense to say no! But Grant had caught her off-guard, stepping in the moment Henry had released her and grasping her by both hands. “Care to show ’em how it’s done, sweet face?” he murmured.

      “I really must protest,” Henry began.

      “Must you really?” Grant replied with a grin. “And how do you propose to do that, Henry, old sport? Knock my block off?”

      Even if he’d been so inclined, at five-ten and only a hundred and seventy pounds or so, Henry was no match for a man of Grant’s build. Comparing the two, Olivia experienced a shocking sense of déjà vu as she recalled the first time she’d seen Grant without any clothes.

      Doctors weren’t supposed to be so broad-shouldered or narrow-waisted. They usually weren’t blessed with muscular arms, long, athletic legs, and a chest tailor-made to take a woman’s breath away. They were supposed to be studious and serious and kind and safe and, like Henry, a little bit stooped around the shoulders. And what an M.D. looked like stark naked wasn’t supposed to be the first thing a woman thought about when confronted by him.

      Henry, bless his soul, didn’t have a clue about what she was thinking. “Olivia? Do you want me to get rid of this fellow?”

      “It’s all right, Henry,” she said, aware that she was mesmerized by Grant’s laughing blue eyes and even more shamefully aware of the sudden rush of moist electric heat dampening her underwear. “I can handle this myself. If Dr. Madison would like to dance, I’m willing to accommodate him.”

      Accommodate him, indeed! And far more intimately than Henry could begin to guess! Consigning self-preservation to another time, she let Grant draw her into the seething, insistent tempo of “Proud Mary”, and as if it had been only yesterday, they rediscovered the wordless affinity of two people who knew one another so well that their bodies instinctively interacted as one.

      How was it possible for a dance to be so charged with vibrant energy and yet to smolder with such sultry tension? Half the time he sent her spinning away from him, with nothing but the sure grip of his fingers to anchor her. And she let herself go, confident that he wouldn’t lose her, that she wouldn’t stumble, that, eventually, he’d bring her back to him. As he did, drawing her hard and close to him so that their thighs locked and their hips rocked in grinding, hypnotic motion.

      Then, when she thought she could bear it no longer and was sure everyone around them knew she was melting for him, he’d fling her away again, turn her so that her spine rubbed against his chest, pass his hand around his waist and offer it behind his back so that, as she swung by him, her arm brushed against him and her fingers wanted dreadfully to drift down and linger on the taut curve of his buttocks.

      Oh, he was a devil in disguise, no doubt about it, and she a mindless fool for not putting an end to matters when she had the chance! But, too dazzled to sense the danger, she remained with him and let him draw her into the next dance, a slow, slow number which invited—no, which guaranteed intimacy and full body contact—and he crooned softly in her ear This Guy’s In Love. Words to break her heart, because he’d never really been in love with her.

      To hide the sudden pang of regret which blurred her vision, she closed her eyes and dropped her head to his shoulder. He gave a little growl of satisfaction and, folding her hand against his heart, tilted his hips so that she couldn’t possibly miss noticing how thoroughly aroused he was. Which was what it always came back to, with Grant. Sex, sex, and sex. As if that was enough to make her forget the hurt and betrayal he’d dealt out to her.

      So, to let him know that she wasn’t about to be seduced again, she reared back and practically shrieked, “How dare you, Grant Madison?”

      “Well,” he muttered, obviously chagrined, “it’s not as if I took the damned thing to obedience school and had it trained to perform on command! When a woman presses her nice soft body up against a man, he’s likely to react.”

      Too late, she realized that the music had stopped. Had the people closest overheard the exchange? she wondered, appalled. Were the titters and giggles and one or two outright guffaws directed at her, or were they just the normal reactions of people enjoying a wedding party?

      Surely they were. But did she comport herself with dignity, as befitting a woman of her position in the community, and simply walk away from Grant Madison and his deplorable behavior? Oh, no, not Olivia Margaret Whitfield! As if they hadn’t already put on enough of a floor show, she hauled off and slapped him across the cheek as a grand finale.

      Groaning at the recollection, she drew in a long breath and submerged her head beneath the water, wishing she could drown herself. How would she ever face people again, after such a performance? Worse still, how would she face him, as she’d undoubtedly have to do if, as he’d claimed, he’d be acting as Justin Greer’s locum for the next two months?

      CHAPTER TWO

      FOR the next two days, Olivia literally hid from the world. Turning off her phone, she buried herself in tasks about the gatehouse, spending Sunday morning painting the powder room at the back of the hall, and the afternoon weeding the flower garden bordering the patio.

      On Monday, thanks to the miracle of modern computers, she was able to put in a full day’s work without once stepping outside her front door. But when she found herself actually planning to lie about not feeling well rather than attend a scheduled meeting at Springdale General on the Tuesday, she knew the self-indulgence had gone on long enough.

      “Grow up, Olivia!” she muttered. “After Saturday’s wedding debacle, showing your face in public again won’t be easy, but you’ve survived worse.”

      An hour later, she wasn’t sure that was true.

      “Hear your husband’s back in town,” Ingrid from the deli greeted her, when she stopped by on her way to the hospital. “Hear your father’s fit to be tied about it, too.”

      There wasn’t much Ingrid didn’t hear in the course of a week. The little tea shop at the back of her premises was well patronized by local matrons and a hive of gossip, even when there was nothing much to talk about. The return of the renegade Dr. Madison would have made front page news even if he’d come sneaking into town under a cover of darkness. Olivia wasn’t the only one who’d found his slow, sexy smile and hypnotically persuasive voice irresistible.

      “I’ll take a jar of black olives, please, and a small carton of the bean salad,” she said stiffly, hoping to nip the conversation in the bud. “And, just for the record, he’s my ex-husband.”

      But picking up subtle hints never had been one of Ingrid’s strong points. “Don’t think folks haven’t noticed, hon! There’s a whole flurry of social events suddenly being planned and, as usual, the first one out of the gate is Mrs. Bowles. Just yesterday, she booked me to cater a garden party and let slip that Dr. Madison’s name’s at the top of her list of invitees. And I guess we all know why.” She weighed the salad, slapped a lid on it, and hitched her bosom on the edge