Seeing Stars: A Loveswept Classic Romance Read Online Free PDF

Richmond.”
    “Silence can be a lie.”
    He knew she was right. He’d deceived her by his silence, hoping to keep her at arm’s length. But in the long run he’d outsmarted himself. He took a hard breath. “What can I say? I was—”
    The telephone rang, cutting him off in mid-sentence. As though it were the most natural thing in the world, Nick answered it. “Hello.”
    “Who’s this?” the caller asked point-blank.
    Rudeness begat rudeness as Nick replied in kind. “Who wants to know?”
    “Curtis Lee Brown, that’s who!” His booming declaration carried clear across the room.
    At that, Dovie catapulted from her rocker andfairly skidded across the highly polished floor in her stockinged feet.
    “Now, who the hell are you,” her brother all but bellowed, “and what are you doing in my sister’s house at eight damn thirty in the morning?”
    “Maybe you’d better explain it to him,” Nick said, handing her the receiver.
    “Dovie Ann, are you all right?” Curtis demanded.
    “Of course I’m all right.” Anger ripped through her voice as she released some of her pent-up pain on her brother. “And where do you get off calling up here and lighting into my guest like that?”
    “I was just surprised, that’s all,” he admitted, then added tactlessly, “I mean, it’s not every day a man answers your telephone.”
    Honestly, she thought, she wanted to reach through the telephone wire and strangle him! “It’s not every day I fall in the river, either.”
    “What?”
    Both the sting of Nick’s rejection and the shock of his deception began to fade as Dovie described her fall and the way his quick action had saved her life. She left nothing out. Quite literally he’d given her a second chance. In return she gave credit where credit was due.
    Nick lazed back against the wall, feeling guilty as sin as he listened to Dovie praising him to the skies. He’d badly misjudged her and he owed her an apology—no two ways about it. But he wasn’t good at making apologies. Never had been, and probably never would be.
    Her intense tone suddenly piqued his professional interest. “Did you call your doctor? Do you need to borrow my car to drive her to the hospital?… What does he mean, it sounds like flu? How can he sit in an office fifty miles away and tell flu from labor?”
    Dovie drew in a deep, calming breath then. “Well, it’s not going to do either one of us any good to get mad, but it’s at times like this that I wish the plans for our clinic hadn’t fallen through.… Tell you what. Come get my car and take Linda into Richmond so the doctor can examine her properly.”
    On the other end of the line, Curtis lowered his voice to a confidential level.
    “Right,” she replied softly.
    While Dovie waited for her brother to relay her message to his wife, she directed her attention to Nick. “Curtis said to tell you he’s sorry he yelled at you a moment ago, but with no doctor nearby and his first baby showing signs of being born two weeks early, he’s just about reached the end of his rope.”
    “No hard feelings.” Nick shrugged nonchalantly, thinking he could certainly tell her a thing or two about hanging on by a thread. Against his better jugement he asked, “How far apart are your sister-in-law’s pains?”
    “They’re not really pains per se,” Dovie admitted reluctantly. “Curtis said she woke up shivering, with a splitting headache, and now she’s complaining of mild stomach cramps.”
    Obeying an impulse that was overwhelming for all that it remained nameless, Nick pressed on. “Is she spotting? Has her water broken yet?”
    “No. But when Mama went into labor with our twins, Merle and Mary, she had symptoms similar to Linda’s.” Dovie put her hand over the mouthpiece, Nick’s sudden interest sparking an idea. “If Linda were
your
patient, what would you suggest she do?”
    “She’s not my patient!” he rebuked her rawly, shoving himself away from the wall to stand