Their Divine Doctor(Divine Creek Ranch 9)(6)

He’d barely managed the save when Gage had asked if the pretty doctor would like to check his wound for him later, if necessary. If Gage became her patient she’d never date him. Since they’d both already voiced a mutual interest in her it was imperative that they not establish a regular doctor-patient relationship.

Unfortunately, Gage hadn’t been able to sleep because of the pain, and Duke had elected to drive them back to the apartment, where Gage had a stronger pain reliever leftover from a recent oral surgery. Gage had encouraged Duke to stay at the campsite and get to know the doctor a little better, but Duke had wanted to approach her with Gage.

Gage focused on the address on the envelope, and his eyes bugged. “No way.”

“Oh, yeah. The doctor is in,” he said triumphantly. They couldn’t have asked for better luck. “I left a note stuck to her door to let her know that her friendly upstairs neighbors got her forwarded mail in their box by accident.”

Duke’s thoughts were interrupted by the telltale chime of an instant message on Gage’s laptop computer sitting beside him on the couch. Gage sighed heavily and rubbed his hands over his face.

Duke asked, “Is Amy still pestering you?”

“Yes. I told her I wasn’t interested in meeting. She is being persistent.”

Duke grimaced and said, “Persistent? We know all the signs of cyberstalking. You’ve tried reasoning with her. You’re just going to have to block her.”

They’d met Amy playing Call of Duty online one night with two other friends. They had no problem playing with women on their team, and she’d done okay. Gaming had progressed to her messaging them at other times. Duke wasn’t interested in an online relationship because he knew the risks and had ignored and discouraged the contact from the start.

Gage had a softer heart and had replied to her messages, trying to keep it friendly. His interaction with her had only encouraged her to contact him more often. She’d become needy to the point that he’d had to tighten the security settings on his social networking sites to stop her from spamming him, which made having them at all kind of pointless. The private messages had taken on a whinier, more desperate tone, and Gage had finally told her that it had to end. She was silent for two days and then began instant messaging him almost constantly, even in the middle of the night. She wanted to meet him face-to-face.

When the text message alert suddenly sounded on Gage’s cell phone, he peered at the screen and cringed. He looked at the phone like he wanted to throw it.

Duke gaped and said, “You’ve got to be joking.”

“She tricked one of the guys into giving my number to her. I already called him. This is what I get for being a nice guy.”

“Yeah. Cyberstalked. I think we need to do a little research and then contact her to put a stop to this.”

Gage shook his head. “I’ll e-mail her and warn her one last time.”

“Have you ever Googled ‘personality disorders’? Amy sounds obsessed. Seriously.”

Gage scowled as his phone chimed again. He turned the phone off and lifted the computer to his lap.

Duke hoped this time Amy got the message. Given his background in security and investigation, he felt relatively certain that Amy was who she said she was and wouldn’t be difficult to find. The issue worrying Duke was that she might be more deeply fixated on Gage than he realized.



* * * *



Emma climbed from her vehicle and quietly closed the door. She hadn’t seen her new apartment in broad daylight since she’d visited it with the property management representative the week before. She’d come home late every night since moving in. Her lease had come up for renewal on the house she’d been renting, and she’d opted to move out of the noisy neighborhood to find someplace a little quieter.

She followed the moonlit sidewalk to the front of the building with her keys ready and waiting to unlock her door.

A folded note was slipped into the crack between the doorjamb and the door, which she removed as she slid her key in the lock. Walking in, she sighed at the stack of sealed boxes the movers had delivered that still waited to be unpacked. Her goal was to have the apartment shipshape by that weekend. After hanging her keys and purse up, she unfolded the note and read it.



Hello New Neighbor!

Your mail was accidentally placed in our box by the mail carrier today. Feel free to come by at your convenience to get it. Welcome to the neighborhood.

Your upstairs neighbors in Apt. 104B



The confident, boxy scrawl looked like a man’s handwriting. Her mail had been forwarded from her old address, and today would’ve been the day it would start delivering at her new place. She was willing to bet her neighbors had gotten quite a stack.