Dancing in the Moonlight - Harlequin.com

102 DANCING IN THE MOONLIGHT
mother volunteered me. I’m absolutely not interested in
Jake Dalton that way.”
The other woman studied her for a moment, then
shrugged. “Too bad. He’s a good man. My husband
works hard but his job does not pay for doctors. Without
Dr. Jake, we would have nowhere to take our children
when they are sick.”
Again she wanted to tell the woman she wasn’t interested
in a Jake Dalton testimonial, but she had no idea
how to make her stop.
She didn’t want to know any of this. She preferred
to picture him as the arrogant rich boy playing at doctor,
not as the caring, compassionate physician she had witnessed
the past two hours.
She was finding it very difficult to nurture her anger
against the Daltons since she’d returned to Pine Gulch.
How could she continue to detest the lot of them when
at least one member of the family had done nothing but
confound her expectations since she’d been back?
She didn’t like it. Things had been easier, cleaner,
when she could lump the whole family in with their
arrogant SOB of a patriarch.
Jake wasn’t very much like his father. He never had
been, she acknowledged. Hank had been brash and
forceful, the kind of person who sucked all the oxygen
from a room wherever he went.
Even in the years before he had double-crossed her
father, Jake’s father had always made her uncomfortable.
His voice was loud, his hands were as huge and
hard as anvils, and he had always seemed so different
from her own smiling, gentle papa.