The Trophy Wife. Sandra Steffen

proposals she’d received these past five years spoke for themselves. Amber Colton knew how to get a man. She was beginning to doubt she would ever find one to love, however. There had been a strong attraction between her and Tripp in the garden earlier that day. Though it wasn’t love, it had been fun.

      “You want this position. I’d like to help you get it.”

      “What’s in it for you?” he asked.

      “What makes you think there has to be something in it for me?”

      The sound he made in the back of his throat spoke volumes. There was arrogance and belligerence in the lift of that chiseled chin. In that instant, he reminded her of how he’d looked after she’d stood up for him to her father all those years ago.

      “All right,” she said. “We were friends when we were kids. I’m hoping we can be friends again. Friends help each other. If acting as your fiancée for one evening helps you gain a position you want, so be it.”

      “I don’t like lying. Lies are like dogs. They seem harmless to your face, but the minute you turn your back, they go straight for the seat of your pants.”

      “Pretending isn’t the same as lying. If you need—”

      He shook his head. “I want to do this on my own, without the help of a bored heiress in need of a project.”

      Her mouth fell open. She snapped it closed. Finally she said, “Of all the condescending…” But words failed her. She swung around in a huff and reached the door in three brisk strides. “If you ever decide to come down off your high horse, give me a call.”

      She slammed the door.

      She hadn’t gone far when she heard Tripp being paged to the ICU.

      He reached the elevator seconds after her. They entered in single file. She punched the button for the lobby, he the second floor.

      When the door closed, he said, “I suppose I owe you an apology.”

      She stared straight ahead. “That didn’t sound very convincing, Tripp. Unless you’re sincere, forget it.”

      They rode in silence.

      “If you’ll excuse me,” he said when the elevator stopped on two.

      She stepped aside without comment.

      He started to get off, then paused in midstride. Finally, he resumed his exit.

      He turned around to look at her just as the door began to close. She stared at him for a moment, then looked away. An instant later, the door closed and the elevator jerked into motion.

      Friends? she thought clutching the rail.

      Ha! She’d received friendlier goodbyes from the man who read her electric meter every month.

      If this was friendship, they were off to one heck of a start.

      Three

      Tripp placed the stethoscope on his young patient’s chest. After listening intently to her heartbeat, he moved it around and listened to her lungs. Most of his patients giggled when he did this.

      It was all eight-year-old Sierra Rodriguez could do to smile.

      “Still not feeling so good?” He spoke in Spanish. The shake of her head was a universal language.

      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.