Page 3 of Naughty Secrets

Chapter Two

NATALIE

“I’m here to see Dr. Steadman. My name is Natalie White.”

Usually I go straight home after visiting Ethan at the cemetery, but one of my fillings fell out and the pain in my tooth has kept me up for the last two nights. Dr. Steadman was kind enough to squeeze me in as his last patient of the day even though I wasn’t registered with his office.

“Nice to meet you, Natalie. I’m Gina. I’ve got some forms for you.” She hands me a clipboard with a few papers attached, and a pen. “We ask all our new patients to fill them out.”

“I didn’t even know the former Dr. Steadman’s office had reopened until my friend mentioned there was a new dentist in town. She said the new dentist is the former Dr. Steadman’s grandson.”

“That’s right.” A smile spreads across Gina’s face. “So you haven’t met the new Dr. Steadman?”

“I’ve heard about him,” I say vaguely, although thanks to my single friends, there is little about him I don’t know. According to my bestie, Alexis, he is in his early to mid-thirties, with brown hair, a chiselled jaw, piercing blue eyes, and a body to die for. Revival’s own Chris Pine, she called him.

“He’s lovely.” Gina sighs, and her cheeks flush. I make a mental note to tell Alexis her competition is a beautiful twenty-something Latina receptionist with a sweet smile. Now single after a string of bad relationships, Alexis wasted no time when an eligible bachelor rolled into town. However, despite her best efforts, she has never managed to get anything more from Dr. Steadman than a cleaning, a toothbrush, and a tube of fresh mint toothpaste.

I fill in the forms and tie my hair back into its usual ponytail. My visit with Ethan is done, and it’s time to get back to the real world of practical living in which hair doesn’t belong near the face. A dental hygienist takes me to the treatment room and settles me in the dental chair. The room is painted a soothing sea green that complements the cream décor, and the bright photographs of the local forest trails on the walls.

The dental hygienist introduces herself as Mariko. She is an intern, also very young, very pretty, and looks like she works out four hours a day. Her nails are painted rose-petal pink to match her perfectly glossed lips, and her hair is so shiny it shimmers ebony under the bright lights. I am suddenly, painfully aware of my callused hands and broken nails, the lines around my eyes from squinting in the sun, and the extra pounds I can’t seem to lose, no matter how many hours I spend working outdoors. Although I dressed up for my visit to Ethan today, I feel every inch a woman who no longer truly cares for herself.

“I’d better take out this ponytail or I won’t be able to put back my head.” I force a half laugh as I pull out my hair tie and finger comb my hair. “I wasn’t really thinking about lying upside down when I put it in.”

Mariko smirks as she sets out Dr. Steadman’s instruments on the tray beside my chair. “We get that a lot from women your age.”

Ouch. Burned by twenty-year-old Mariko. Could my day get any worse?

“Natalie White.” Dr. Steadman walks into the room, every bit as breathtaking as he’s been rumored to be. Taller than I imagined, even more handsome, with a broad forehead, sensual lips, and a hint of muscle visible below the collar of his shirt, his deep, masculine rumble makes me feel warm inside. “We haven’t met.” He holds out his hand. “I’m Aiden Steadman.”

His hand is cool. Long, slim, and elegant. Soft, without even the hint of a callus. And clean. City hands, not country hands. My skin tingles when I touch him, awakening feelings I buried long ago.

“You’ve met my student intern, Mariko.” He waves vaguely in her direction, and I feel no small amount of satisfaction that he doesn’t seem to notice that she’s bent over the tray for no apparent reason other than to demonstrate how low cut a scrub top can be and still pass for professional. “My regular hygienist, Jessica, had a family emergency,” he continues. “Mariko will be assisting today if that’s okay with you.”

“Of course,” I say magnanimously as Mariko’s expectant smile fades.

“Let’s make you comfortable, and I’ll take a look at that tooth.” He gently brushes the hair off my cheeks, his fingers dancing lightly over my skin. His touch is nothing but professional, and Mariko is standing beside him, and yet that light caress reaches something deep inside me. I can’t remember the last time I was touched so lightly, or spoken to with gentle words and a soft voice.

“Everything good?” He pulls up his surgical mask, hiding his beautiful smile as he lowers the chair, giving me an entirely different perspective of Alexis’s newest crush. He is as lovely upside down as he is right side up, but with Mariko clearly aware of his charms—and her own, if I’m reading the low-cut scrub top and ultra-tight scrub pants correctly—and in the office with him every day, Alexis might have her work cut out for her.

“Yes.” No. Maybe coming here when I am still emotionally raw from my visit to the cemetery wasn’t such a good idea. And does he have to be so breathtakingly gorgeous? It is extremely unfair to his patients who need to have their wits about them to explain what is going on.

“Open wide.”

Lying partially upside down with my mouth open wide should kill my naughty thoughts, but as he pokes at my tooth with his sharp-edged tool, I am hyperaware of everything about him. His fresh, slightly spicy cologne reminds me of the forest behind our acreage, and his eyes above the mask are blue and clear, like the afternoon sky on a summer day.

“I don’t remember seeing your file in my grandfather’s cabinet,” he says, pressing a button to elevate the chair.

My fingers lace together in my lap, as my blood rushes downward, making me hot in a place that shouldn’t be hot when one is sitting in the chair of a sexy dentist about to get a tooth drilled.

“I haven’t been here since I was eighteen. I used to be Bianco. Now I’m White.”

He laughs, a rich, deep, rumble that tugs my lips up at the corners, and Mariko’s lips down as she studies me. I can’t remember the last time I heard Sam laugh. In fact, I can’t remember the last time he smiled. Sam has a beautiful smile. It melted me the day we met, and it melted me the day I said, “I do.”

“Isn’t that what they call serendipity?” he asks.

“I suppose so.” Although our marriage wasn’t so much chance as it was necessity. Sam might have had dreams of becoming a rock star and living a life of fame and travel, but at heart he is an honorable man. A good man. A man who moved back to Revival to work on the farm with his dad when we discovered we were having a baby. A man who left his dreams behind, just as I left mine.

“You’ve got an exposed nerve there, which is why you’ve got all the pain,” he says. “I’ll freeze your mouth and fix it up for you, and you’ll be as good as new in less than an hour.”