It's in His Touch by Shelly Alexander Page B

of power for herself.
    Sad that every move obviously had to be calculated, strategic.
    He eased into the designated chair and took a drink of wine. So did Angelique. Several small, nervous little sips, in fact.
    She placed a napkin in her lap and twirled linguini onto a fork. “I hope you like Italian.”
    Her lips closed around the fork, and his throat turned to chalk dust. “I do. Very much.” Then he gave himself a mental kick in the pants and said, “I like anything that’s home-cooked. I don’t get a lot of that.”
    The savory aroma made his stomach growl, unlike his usual meals scraped together at the Red River Market—the town’s only grocery store. They required little more than punching the keypad on his microwave or smearing mustard across a slice of store-bought bread.
    “Your mother didn’t teach you to cook?” She forked up salad and sipped wine again. Fork, sip, fork, sip.
    Hmm. Ms. Badass Attorney was nervous. Because of him. That could work to his advantage if this legal situation got ugly, which it was likely to do.
    “My parents divorced when I was young. I grew up outside of Phoenix with my mom. She was a nurse and worked long shifts at the hospital. So no, there wasn’t much cooking in my house.”
    When his mother did have spare time at home, it wasn’t spent in the kitchen. Silent and smoldering in bitterness over her five miscarriages, she’d pushed his father away more with each lost child until he finally left. Once they divorced, she completely withdrew into herself. It had been like living with a stranger. A lonely only child, his youth had been quiet and isolated. He’d spent a few holidays and long weekends every year in Red River with his dad and cherished those visits because they were the only time he felt like he belonged to a real family. Those few weeks in Red River each year had been his refuge growing up.
    Now the people of Red River were his family, along with his dad, stepmom, a few aunts and uncles, and a smattering of cousins. Probably the reason he wanted to get married and have a houseful of kids. He wanted a family of his own.
    He forked up his own pasta and nearly moaned when the savory morsels touched his tongue. “Mm,” he said with his mouth full. “This is really good.”
    At the compliment, the rigidity of her shoulders eased. “So how’d you end up in Red River?” She passed him a basket of warm bread and slid a saucer of shaved butter toward him. Very Martha Stewart.
    “My dad grew up here. He moved back to Red River after he and my mom split.” He took a drink of wine and buttered a piece of bread. “So I did my residency in Albuquerque and bought out his practice a few years ago when he retired.”
    She hesitated. “Your dad was a doctor?”
    He nodded, suppressing another moan as he chewed another generous bite of shrimp linguini. Italian-flavored bottom dwellers weren’t bad. He glanced at Angelique. Not bad at all. “Yep, he is a country doctor, too. He volunteers on most of the Native American reservations in the area. Gives him something meaningful to do in his retirement.”
    She stilled. Stared at her plate, picking at noodles and chewing on her bottom lip. “The tribes allow him to do that? My firm collaborated on some legal work for one of the tribes last year, and the leaders are pretty particular about letting in outsiders.”
    “My stepmom is half Navajo.” He shrugged. “That helps.”
    “So acting like Florence Nightingale is a family tradition, then?”
    He stopped mid-chew and locked his stare on to hers. He swallowed, then stabbed at his salad. “If helping people who are ill and too poor to travel long distances for medical care makes me a target for smart-ass remarks, then so be it. At least I can sleep at night.”
    “It was a joke, Doc.” The chandelier light glinted off her big black eyes.
    “Oh,” he said back, because that was the most intelligent word he could think of with those onyx gems shimmering at