All of Me (8 page)

“Where’s yours? Date a Deusch.com over a doctor, lady? Anyway, it’s the bro code. Nah, tell you what. I’ll call someone else to help you. Someone who had a pink ribbon.” He ambled over to his truck and got back in.

It was official. Everyone in this town was shit-faced crazy. Certifiable.

“He broke up with
me
!” Ivey shouted as the guy took off.

Ivey stomped her foot, took out her cell and dialed Brooke. She was working, something about the first crush, but maybe she’d answer. No such luck, as the phone switched over to voice mail. Was Ivey really supposed to wait here until someone who had a pink ribbon showed up? Would the insanity ever end?

No other cars passed by in the next few minutes. It was the middle of the day in the middle of the week, and she wasn’t going to stand around until someone meandered home. She was only a few miles from the hospital, and if she didn’t get there soon she’d be late for her meeting with Jeff. Late to tell him that the women’s center might have to be fully staffed by doctors, because no midwives would come near it.

Lillian wouldn’t be thrilled. She’d given her a chance, and Ivey couldn’t blow it now.

Ivey rubbed her forehead. She felt a headache coming on, and the heat didn’t help.

Whipping out her cell phone, she thought about calling Jeff, but that would take him away from the hospital. Sick people needed him more than she needed a ride.

She’d  walk. It couldn’t be more than a mile or two.

*****

Some people changed their mind every ten minutes. Ivey now wanted more of his fries. She had that familiar longing in her eyes, so he pushed the plate in her direction.

“Have as many as you want, Little Face.” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d called her that, but she didn’t even blink. Smiled and licked her lips.

And since when did she wear lingerie to the diner? How had he failed to notice she wore the same red lace teddy he’d bought her from Victoria’s Secret so long ago?

Damn, she drove him crazy. Always had.

He wanted to kiss her more than he wanted his next breath, and for the first time in years they seemed to be on the same wavelength. She joined him on his side of the booth, threading her fingers through his hair.

“Ivey,” he groaned.

She put a finger on his lips. “Shhhh.”

That’s when he heard the buzzing sound. It got louder and louder as Ivey got smaller and smaller in his arms. “Wait. What’s happening? Where are you going?”

When she disappeared, he woke up with a jolt.

Dammit. Sleeping on a cot in the doctor’s lounge. Alone. No Ivey anywhere in sight. Certainly not in his arms.

His cell phone was buzzing. “What?”

“Hey, Doc. It’s me, Tim.”

Tim? His mechanic? Jeff rubbed his eyes. “What’s up?”

“Thought you should know. Your ex? She’s stranded on the side of Merlot Highway. I didn’t help her. Solidarity, bro.”

What the hell? “Wait. Are you telling me you didn’t help her because of the blue ribbon?”

“Yeah, and I feel bad. I was going to call someone, then I thought maybe you’d want to know.”

“Tim, you should have picked her up. Dammit.”

“I can go back now. I’ll do it. Whatever you say.”

“Never mind. I’ll go get her.”

“By now someone else gave her a ride. Doc, she looked real pretty.”

Jeff was almost positive she did, especially in this heat. Probably not dressed like a prairie woman today. The thought had him reaching inside his locker for his keys and grabbing a cold bottle of water from the fridge in the lounge.

“Anyway, thanks for calling me. You and I will talk about this later.”

“Good luck. I really would like to get rid of the blue and pink ribbons. I have a lot of female customers that still won’t talk to me.”

“Yeah.” Jeff thought they had gotten rid of them, but apparently Ivey’s reappearance had dredged the whole thing back up.

“I’ll be right back,” he called out to the charge nurse.

He wasn’t a mile from the hospital when he saw her in the distance, walking slowly until she saw him pull to the side of the road. Then she picked up her pace. It made him smile.

“Get in.” He turned the car around, and hung his head out the window as he drove behind her on the shoulder.

“I’m almost there. Sorry I’m late for our meeting, but my SUV broke down.” She finally stopped walking, turned to him, and damn if she didn’t look like she could headline a wet t-shirt contest. Sweat dripped down her neck and had soaked through her halter dress, leaving nothing to the imagination, not that he needed any reminders.

“I got here as soon as I heard.” He stopped the car, and walked around to open the passenger door. “I’ve got air conditioning.”

She tentatively moved toward the car, for which he was grateful because he didn’t really want to throw her over his shoulder and drag her into the car.

Her hand went to her neck, dabbing at some of the sweat. “Thanks. It’s getting a little hot out here.”

Considering the trip computer in his car said the temperature was a balmy ninety-eight degrees, he’d have to agree. He felt stuck somewhere between anger with her for trying to walk all this way in the heat, and guilt that his car mechanic thought he’d been doing Jeff a favor.

Finally she climbed in the passenger seat and turned the dial up to Antarctica, pointing every vent in her direction.

“Drink.” He handed her the bottled water. “Why didn’t you call your aunt, anyway?”

“She’s in Europe on vacation.”

Ah, the constant holiday of the wealthy Aunt. “Speaking of your Aunt Lucy, why couldn’t she use some of her bounty to get you a better car?”

“Well, she offered. But I’m not going to be one of the people who are constantly taking her money.”

Typical Ivey, always offering to help, never asking for any. “She is your aunt.”

She guzzled, then turned to him with a pout. “Your mechanic wouldn’t help me. Something about the bro code. And the blue ribbon.”

“Sorry. But he did call me, so his conscience must have been nagging at him.” As well it should have. If it weren’t for the fact that Tim was an excellent mechanic and Jeff was a doctor that shouldn’t send people to the ER, he would have no compulsion with beating the shit out of Tim. Jeff could take him, too.

Ivey finished off the bottle, and as if she’d suddenly noticed that she was giving him a free show, she covered her breasts with her hands. “Oh. My. God.”

He turned to keep from showing her his smile, and pulled out onto the highway.

“I guess you’re enjoying this.”

“Never.”

“What did you tell everyone after we broke up? There must be some reason the entire town took sides. It must have been something you told them.”

Of course she would blame him. “I didn’t say anything at all. But I don’t know, maybe I might have given off a certain vibe.”

“What kind of vibe?” Her eyes narrowed.

That his heart had been ripped out by the seams? That he was a damn fool? He hadn’t said a word, but he was pretty sure his face had said everything for him. “The bummer vibe?”

“This isn’t fair. There are two sides to this story.”

“There usually are. But you’re the one who left.”

“And you left me first. That’s the part everyone seems to be missing, because you kept your mouth shut like a typical man! So I leave town and some people assume I’m the one who broke up with you?”

Yeah, she was really fired up now. Too bad he loved it when she got all heated and outraged. It didn’t happen often enough. “That’s usually how it works. And you told everyone that would listen that you’d met someone over the internet and were going to be with him.”

“So because I try to move on with my life, I get the blame?”

“Forget about it. This is what people in a small town do. Entertain themselves with the gossip mill. You knew that before you left.”

“But why do they have to pick on us?” She sighed and brought her hands down from her breasts. “It’s kind of funny, in a bizarre way. Blue and pink ribbons.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I think today’s going to go a long way toward ending the problem.”

“You do?”

“Think about it. Tim called me, and he knew I was coming to get you. He’ll tell his wife, who’ll tell her friends. And on and on.”

“Right. They’ll know that you and I aren’t angry at each other, and maybe then they’ll stop being mad too.”

Jeff sensed an opening and he proceeded to drive the proverbial Mac truck through it. “The best thing you and I can do is show everyone in town that we’re getting along. That we’re friends again.”

“Yeah. We better get the word out.”

He nodded. “Having dinner with me might help too.”

She whipped her head around so fast he worried about whiplash for a minute. “You and me? Not for real. That can’t happen. We’re not going there again.”

“Going where?” Yep, he was going to do this. Watch her walk right into his trap.

“Making love. Getting back together. Do I have spell it out for you?”

“Wow,” he said. “I’m flattered. But I was talking about dinner. You and your one-track mind.”

Suddenly, absolute quiet from the passenger seat. But as his luck would have it, not for long. “I caught you staring at my boobs. Don’t try to lie to me now.”

“I’m a man, Ivey, and right now you’re a wet-t-shirt-contest dream.”

“Don’t you dare stare at my boobs!”

He grinned. “Try and stop me.”

She shifted her entire body away from him, facing the passenger side door. “I don’t suppose you’d consider taking me home to change before we have our meeting.”

Would he consider taking her home? This day was turning out better than he could have expected, but he was due back at the hospital. Eventually someone would page him.

He hesitated too long because Ivey changed her mind. “Never mind, actually. We shouldn’t even bother with a meeting. Take me home.”

This was a new turn of events. He’d never known a time when Ivey would pass up a chance to talk. And she loved talking about pregnancy. For his part, it was all rather disconcerting. Early on he’d decided to steer clear of obstetrics when he’d done that rotation and witnessed a woman in labor scream like a hyena. He didn’t do screaming women.

He’d always assumed that one day he’d be a father, and until that time he’d have preferred to not think about it for the most part. No such luck with this subcommittee assignment. He was elbow deep in all the gritty stuff that happened between two pleasant events.

“Why aren’t we going to bother?”

“I met with the local midwife I told you about—Marissa. Let’s just say it didn’t go well.”

“Elaborate.” He drove well under the speed limit, and hoped she didn’t notice.

Ivey turned to him. “It’s not only the doctors that don’t like the idea of midwives in a hospital setting. The midwife I talked to seems to think it’s a crazy idea. The last place she wants her patients to be is in a hospital.”

“Why?” Granted he hadn’t specialized in obstetrics, but he understood and had studied how much could go wrong. It made sense to be in the hospital.

“Because this seems to be an ‘us-versus-them’ argument. I guess we’re messing with thousands of years of tradition, and no one likes change. I thought I would get support from a midwife, because women who are too paranoid to give birth at home at least have another option.”

“But again, why would women give birth at home when they could go to the hospital?” A stupid question, he was almost certain of it, but he dared to ask it anyway.

She blinked. “Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve told you?”

“Yeah. Listening.” Mostly. Between, of course, the hard pulls of lust he felt every time she was in the room. But he could do more than one thing at a time, and he’d be willing to prove it too.

“If you’d been listening, you would know that birth is a natural event, and it shouldn’t be treated like a medical condition. The less intervention, the better. Unless absolutely necessary.”

“You had me at absolutely necessary.”

“Fair enough. It happens sometimes. Unexpectedly. We can’t anticipate every problem. That’s why I thought a good compromise would be the women’s center.”

“It makes sense. Why does the midwife object?”

“Because, as you said about your pal Dr. Stewart, she sees it as a slippery slope.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, then he spoke because before long he’d be pulling into the exclusive gated condo he knew her aunt lived in. It was the only one in town. “So what are we going to do?”

She turned to him, the light in her eyes that made him a goner. “We? Does that mean I’ve already convinced you, Dr. Garner?”

He couldn’t help but grin. “Congratulations. I think we should make our recommendation that the board hire a staff of midwives and let them decide.”

She stared out the window. “I don’t know.”

He didn’t either, because he was afraid he’d left something unfinished with Ivey. And it wasn’t because he was lonely, but because he’d been an idiot.