Caro Carson - The Bachelor Doctor's Bride

The woman he was dancing with was the one. Diana could see it in everything about their body language. They looked right together.

Mission accomplished.

Diana toasted herself with a sip of her champagne. It still looked pretty in the glass, but it had grown warm and kind of flat.

She looked around the room, hoping to see someone with whom to strike up a conversation. It would be nice to enjoy herself with a man the way the woman in the white dress was enjoying herself with Quinn.

I’m the gal pal. Again.

Diana knew her role. There was always a character like her in movies and TV shows. Once the gal pal helped the guy decide to go for it, she exited, stage left.

Diana tapped her tiny purse against her thigh as she took one more look around at the crystal and the flames. They were pretty, but they didn’t need her to continue brightening the night. Neither did Quinn.

Diana headed for the grand mezzanine. Maybe someone there was just waiting for a push in the right direction.

Chapter Two

Quinn MacDowell, M.D., was enjoying himself. His family would be surprised.

He was enjoying himself at a mandatory-attendance gala for the hospital. Forget his family’s surprise; Quinn found himself somewhat astonished.

The reason he was enjoying himself was a bold and playful woman with hair the color of whiskey and a green dress that tantalized him with her every move. And that was—

Well, it was...

Unsettling.

At thirty-one years old, Quinn knew himself. He was a cardiologist. He dealt in physics, in measurable pressures and electrical impulses that powered the human body. He served on the board that governed the hospital his father had founded. He visited his mother on the homestead ranch, he badgered his brothers for getting married and tying themselves down, and he dated women who were polished, professional and career-oriented.

He knew himself.

If a complete stranger ordered him to dance with other women at a black-tie gala, then he, Quinn MacDowell, M.D., would never comply.

Never.

Yet here he was.

The woman in his arms purred her words in a cultured, educated voice. “It’s so refreshing to have real music to dance to, not that auto-tuned nonsense, don’t you think?”

She was stunningly beautiful. Every woman Diana had chosen for him had been so. As a matchmaker, Diana actually was good. Quinn had been exaggerating the flaws of his partners after each dance, but Diana had definitely picked out women in whom he’d normally be interested.

He’d fine-tuned his criteria over years of trial and error, and knew exactly the type of woman who fit into the lifestyle that his career as a cardiologist dictated. Long-term relationships saved time and effort when it came to dating, so Quinn generally dated a woman for a half-year or more. Eventually, the girlfriend would announce the need to move on, typically after reporting that her biological clock was ticking, or because she wanted to move into the ranks of the society matrons and needed to find someone with marriage in mind. With no hard feelings, they kissed goodbye.

His last kiss had been quite a while ago.

West Central Hospital had been floundering under poor leadership, and it had taken all of Quinn’s efforts to keep the ship afloat. Despite his aversion for corporate politics, he’d found himself incapable of standing by and watching his father’s legacy flounder, so he’d joined the hospital board. There’d been very little time for female companionship this year, not while he’d been the only MacDowell still in town.

The hospital was going to survive. With some manipulation on Quinn’s part, his oldest brother had left Manhattan to return to Austin, and a more competent CEO for West Central was hard to imagine. His brother’s wife, Lana, the woman whom Diana claimed was her business associate, was rebuilding the research division. Quinn’s youngest brother had finished his years of service in the army and now worked in the emergency department, and had just announced that he would take over as department chair in the fall.

All of which left Quinn with less of a professional burden to bear. He supposed the time was right for the next woman in his life. In fact, while he’d been watching Braden and Lana dance, he’d been thinking just that: something was missing in his life. Then Diana had appeared out of nowhere.

Now here he was, dancing with an entirely eligible woman, someone familiar to him as an acquaintance of an acquaintance. Tonight’s rounds on the dance floor were tantamount to announcing that he was available, something that managed to get around his social circles with quiet efficiency. Appropriate women, like the one in his arms, would find him. Quinn would make a choice, and everything would proceed smoothly.

Diana Connor’s matchmaking mission had been unnecessary.

Still, it was amazing, really, that a perfect stranger like Diana could take one glance at him, another glance around a crowded ballroom, and choose matches for him as well as he could have himself. By every measurable criterion, the woman Diana had chosen, the woman in white who was so smoothly following his lead on the dance floor, was perfect for him.

Yet, something wasn’t quite right. He ought to be more interested in his dance partner. She pressed a little closer, causing her very well-supported, very expensively clad, very tastefully revealed cleavage to swell a bit against his chest.

He ought to be very interested, indeed.

But tonight, he was finding one thing utterly distracting: Diana herself. It was hard to focus on the woman in his arms when green fringe kept shimmying in his mind, shimmying its way over a curvy body that nearly crackled with energy.

To dance with her, to hold that woman in his arms, a woman so vibrant with her enthusiasm for life...

There was no hope for it. Diana had caught his attention completely, and no amount of cultured, educated, wealthy women that she threw his way could divert him.

Diana wasn’t his type. He’d probably never run into her again after tonight. They didn’t move in the same circles, despite her claim to be a business associate of his sister-in-law, Lana. After all, he was a business associate of Lana’s. Diana did not work at West Central, that much Quinn knew.

There were other businesses besides medicine, of course, but there was nothing businesslike about Diana’s behavior. She was too forward in her manner, too familiar in the way she spoke to a perfect stranger.

But she made him laugh. She poked and prodded him—literally—and he was certain that she had no idea that she was physically appealing in a way that was slowly sending him out of his mind. He’d spent the past half hour waiting for that green fringe to travel that last inch up her thighs.

Life had been all work and no play for too long. He was not going to let a curvaceous, vivacious woman with whiskey-colored hair slip through his fingers without a dance.

And if she refused to dance with him, but insisted he ask someone else of her choosing? Then Miss Diana Connor, the woman who seemed to think he had no idea how to pursue a woman, would find herself on the receiving end of all the charm Quinn MacDowell could muster.

He smiled.

The elegant woman in his arms thought it was meant for her.

Quinn changed directions in time to the music, a move designed to return his partner’s focus to her feet rather than the smile on his face. He glanced toward the chairs he and Diana had been sharing.

She was gone.

* * *

“Strike three.”

The deep voice caused Diana to stutter midstep. She whirled around, a quick pirouette in her smooth-soled sandals on the polished mezzanine floor. Quinn caught her elbow, stopping her so she squarely faced him. He stepped closer as he steadied her, so she found herself caught with just inches between a cold pillar at her back and a hot man at her front.