The Doctor's Courageous Bride. Dianne Drake

I need to get back to it.”

      Paul took a sip of his ginger ale, glancing around to size up the guests there this evening. Most of them he knew, some he did not. Some would be generous donors, others would refer him to their accountant for that obligatory contribution—the one that would make Bertrand Léandre take notice of them—and still others would simply decline. But that’s the way it was in his world, and he didn’t take it personally. “So tell me, Bertrand, to whom should I be talking instead of you now? Who will be the best use of my time here tonight?”

      “My, but you have become proficient, haven’t you?”

      “I’ve had a good teacher,” Paul responded, his eyes still scanning the crowd.

      “Always the work, Paul.” Bertrand tsk-tsked him, shaking his head. “Always the work, and yet you are so rarely there to see the work. All that education and you reduce yourself to a common beggar.” He shook his head again, this time frowning. “It’s such a waste, my friend. You could be the head of a great hospital somewhere. You have the talents and I have connections. Would you like for me to see what I can do for you?”

      Paul smiled patiently. They’d had this discussion before. Many times before. “About picking some pockets for me, yes, please see what you can do. But about finding me another job, you know the answer. I have my job.” And he loved it. Passionately. Because in the end, people who couldn’t afford treatment from other sources received treatment at his hospital. At no cost. So maybe he didn’t doctor in the traditional sense so much now, but the outcome was the same. People who needed help were helped.

      Paul glanced away from Bertrand to the entryway, to the woman standing there, looking around the room. His breath caught in his throat for an instant. Then he blinked. Had she stumbled into the wrong party? Dressed in khaki shorts, a blue T-shirt and hiking boots and standing there so elegantly in her jungle attire amid all the sequins and silks and Ferragamo shoes, that had to be the case.

      Whatever the reason, the Fates had sent her here only for him, and the man who never looked was already grateful for the gift, because she was the most stunning woman he’d ever seen in his life. With flawless skin and wild black hair hanging well past her shoulders, she was tall and lithe, and her legs…Dear God, those legs…Covering them in the formal wear all the other women at Bertrand’s affair wore would have been a high crime.

      Quite simply, everything about her took his breath away for in that moment as she stood there surveying the room and he surveyed her, it was just the two of them. Dim lights, soft jazz, and no one else. And as her eyes searched all the people and finally came to rest on his, he didn’t hear the next words from Bertrand, neither did he hear any of the stifled gasps coming from the crowd over her audacity to gatecrash the affair dressed as she was.

      No, he heard none of that because as her eyes finally met his, he heard only the pounding of his heart.

      Then as she started to move across the room, her strides purposeful and not at all in the graceful manner he might have expected from one so exquisite, he found himself still drawn to her every movement—the way she pushed her hair back from her face, the way her shoulders swayed with each step she took, the way she moved through all glitz yet emerged as the most captivating person in the room.

      No, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Didn’t even try. Perhaps she was looking for directions to her rightful destination—a place to which he already ached to follow her.

      But she didn’t stop, not even when one of waiters approached her to offer champagne. She merely refused him with a gentle smile and continued on, showing to everyone who looked on that in a room full of tuxedos and designer gowns, that she was the standout, the one all eyes followed, and not because of her attire.

      The farther into the room she moved, the more hushed it became, and by the time she reached the spot where Paul and Bertrand were standing, it was so quiet throughout, even the clinking of the champagne flutes on the waiters’ trays seemed an intrusion.

      Stopping there, she glanced up briefly at Bertrand Léandre, offering him a faint smile. “Papa,” she said, pausing briefly as he bent to kiss her cheek. Then to Paul, “You are Dr Paul Killian, are you not?”

      Paul nodded, and before he could utter a word she grabbed hold of his hand and started to pull him away from her father. “Good. My name is Dr Solange Léandre, and I must speak with you, Dr Killian. Privately.”

      “You don’t look like your photograph,” Solange commented once they were in the hall. Then she smiled shyly, quickly adding, “I mean that in a good way. You look much better than your photo.” He was much more handsome in person. Larger, too. Well over six feet tall, with light brown, slightly long and unkempt hair, blue eyes, perfect smile—yes, he was handsome, but in a way she’d certainly never considered worth a second look. Until now.

      Dr Mauricio Raúl Muñoz had certainly been a handsome one. The type who’d never failed to turn her head and, in retrospect, the type she should have turned her head away from. He was shorter than Paul, with dark, wavy black hair, and those dark, brooding eyes. Solange shivered, and not in a good way, thinking about him. Mauricio had been, oh, so wrong for her. Three years wrong, as it turned out. “I saw your photo in the newspaper. You were posing with my father at one of his charity events, and he was donating some lab equipment to your hospital, I believe.” Actually, she knew. She’d kept the copy and memorized Paul’s face in the expectation of this meeting.

      And, admittedly, she’d liked his smile in that photo. The same smile he was flashing at her right now. The one that was causing her to shiver again, but in a good way this time.

      “I’m flattered that you remember me and, more than that, recognize me from the photo, because it wasn’t very flattering.” He chuckled. “It’s true what they say about cameras. They put on ten pounds and, in my case, ten years.”

      Solange tossed him an impertinent smile. “Are you fishing for a compliment, Doctor?”

      “Having you notice me was the best compliment you could have paid me.” He snagged a flute of champagne from the tray of a waiter scurrying into the Salon Rose and handed it to Solange. “In my dreary life, that’s a rare occurrence,” he continued, grimacing. “Sadly, more rare these past two years than I should be admitting to a lady such as yourself. It makes me seem rather pathetic.”

      “I think we all get noticed where we want to be noticed, Doctor. Where and how.” She took a sip of her champagne, then set the flute on a replica Queen Anne hall table against the wall behind her. “If you live a dreary life, I suspect that’s by choice.”

      “Or necessity.”

      “I understand necessity. That’s the reason I’m here. Out of necessity.” She drew in a deep breath. That sounded a bit too sharp-edged, she thought. But she was nervous, and this was so important. “Forgive me for getting straight to the point.” To take the edge off, she retrieved the champagne and drank it all in one effort. She simply tilted the glass back and let the bubbly slide down her throat in the hope that it would brace her for this, as well as make her a little more mellow.

      “Basically, what I want is a place to send my patients for various tests. Yours is a private hospital, your money pays for the tests, your equipment performs them, and I thought that proper protocol demanded me asking you before I started sending people your way. A medical courtesy.”

      “Your patients?” he questioned.

      “Rurals, Doctor. I work up in the Massif des Montagnes Noires, traveling to the various villages.”

      “And the rurals rarely seek out traditional medicine, Doctor?” Paul asked. “In my two years here on Kijé, I can recall only one or two instances where they came to the hospital. Most of the time they don’t trust us.”

      Solange smiled. “It’s a challenge. I understand that. But for me, I like knowing there’s help available if I need it. Someplace to send my patients if the situation warrants it.”

      “And how are you going to persuade them to come to me?”