Read With This Ring for Free Online

gardens, he wondered who in the hell her parents
were
. When she'd said River Oaks, Sam had envisioned one of the streets on the fringes, not this prime center location.
    He couldn't suppress a low whistle as she turned on Inwood Drive, drove about half a block, then pulled into the driveway of an enormous red brick Georgian home with a gray mansard roof. After stopping to punch in the code for the electronic security gate, she drove on through, and he was right behind her.
    "Holy shit," he muttered. "These people have some bucks!" For a few seconds, he wondered what he was doing there. Then he told himself not to get weirded out just because Amy obviously came from a background so far removed from his that they might as well have been born on different planets.
    Still, this kind of money was a bit intimidating. But what the hell, he wasn't planning on marrying her or anything even close. They were just having fun together. They'd go up to her apartment, and she'd try to teach him how to dance—finding out soon enough how hopeless that was—and then, if he got lucky . . .
    He smiled wryly.
Forget it, Robbins.
He might have only known her a few hours, but he was smart enough to understand that Amy wasn't the kind of woman who'd jump into the sack with some guy she'd just met. Not only that, from what she'd told him about herself, she might as well be wearing one of those marriage/picket fences signs, too. No, this was probably a one-shot deal, and sex wasn't going to enter into the picture.
    Amy's taillights vanished around the back of the house, and Sam followed. It wasn't fully dark. Instead, the day had faded into the hazy lavender of twilight, and the house and trees were inky silhouettes against the muted sky. For the second time that day, Sam's fingers itched for his camera.
    A large, four-car garage, partially obscured by dozens of huge leafy trees, loomed ahead. Amy opened the door at the far right with an automatic opener and pulled inside.
    Sam parked his Corvette behind her. He didn't want to block anyone in, although the main house was dark except for outside lights flanking the front and back doors and lining the flower beds.
    "Well, this is it," Amy said, walking toward him.
    Sam looked around. The grounds of the estate seemed to go on forever, and the house was huge. "Good Lord, Amy, what does your father
do?
Own an oil company or something?"
    She smiled. "No. Nothing like that. He's a heart surgeon."
    It took Sam several seconds before comprehension dawned. He stared at her. "Is your father Dr. Alan Carpenter?"
    "Yes."
    Her father was world famous. Like Michael DeBakey and Denton Cooley, Alan Carpenter was a pioneer in open-heart surgery and had perfected several techniques that he had demonstrated all over the world. He had operated on kings and Saudi princes, famous actresses and ex-presidents. Dr. Alan Carpenter! Jesus H. Christ. No wonder Amy was such a class act.
    Good thing you have no serious intentions toward her, isn't it, Robbins? 'Cause you wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell . . .
    "Do you mind if I collect my parents' mail before we go up to my apartment?" she asked, beginning to walk around to the front of the house, motioning for Sam to follow. "They're in Europe right now," she explained, "and part of my deal with them is that I take care of the house and mail and stuff while they're gone. They travel a lot."
    Sam nodded, still a bit dazed by his discovery of Amy's identity.
    After gathering the mail, they walked back to the garage, and Sam saw that there were outside steps leading up to the apartment.
    "Come on," she said. "Let's go up."
    When they reached the top, he realized that there was a wooden deck on the second level that appeared to go around three sides of the garage, although it was getting too dark to really see. He hadn't noticed the deck at first because, when you stood at the bottom, the trees hid it from view. "This is nice. Like living in a treehouse."
    He followed her