The M.D. Courts His Nurse (16 page)

She stared up at him, noting the love in his voice for his friends, the intensity of his features as he talked about deeply personal feelings. Only a strong and good man, she thought, could have overcome that background to become what and who he is today.

A tight bubble of emotion swelled within her chest, and she hardly trusted her voice. “I'm no mystery, Dr. Saville. I just want love and commitment and a family.”

It all suddenly overwhelmed her—the full realization of how wrong she had been about him, how unfair. Her own insecurities had somehow taken hold of her and crushed her good sense. Now she looked like a fool. A jealous, vulnerable fool.

His knuckles brushed along the smooth line of her cheek. In a voice rough with meaning, he said, “If you need to know anything about me,
anything,
” he emphasized, “all you have to do is ask. I believe in honesty in relationships.”

She closed her eyes, sick with regret. “Sometimes asking is the hardest thing in the world to do. Especially if you're terrified of the answers.”

Her eyes opened. She knew tears glistened in them, but she had no more walls to put up. Now was the time to bare all. And pray there would be pieces left of her heart to pick up afterward.

Staring up at him, she confessed, “I didn't think we had a relationship. I suppose that's why I've been so cold. You were going off on your mysterious weekends, and I knew that day we spent together could very easily have been chalked up to just one of those things—especially for a big time bachelor M.D. But I couldn't keep you from affecting me. I guess I just couldn't relinquish the hope and need for something more between us. I just couldn't relinquish it,” she finished with a whisper.

“But why should you? I became a doctor because I care about people, Rebecca. I'm not the kind of guy who wants one-night stands and throw-away girlfriends.” His embrace grew tighter, his expression more intense. “Look, I was afraid to be too pushy. I knew that one time between us took us both by surprise. But I also knew I wanted more. And not just more sex, more
you.
But you were skittish, so I just figured it was me. That I was too uptight, too controlled for you—”

“It wasn't you. It's never been you,” she blurted out, wiping the tears from her cheek. “It was me, okay? I just didn't want another doctor to pass me up for a better class of woman.” She tried to pull away, but his hands became manacles, refusing her escape.

She shook her head, trying to entice him to let her go, but he wouldn't. Finally her body went limp against his. The tears came fast now.

“I was jilted by another doctor,” she said, the words bitter on her tongue. “I fancied myself pretty much in love
with the guy. Imagine my surprise when he told me my community college background wasn't going to quite cut it on the way up the ladder to his success. He left me for a woman who already had everything—a woman very much like Louise Wallant. And there I was, little old Rebecca O'Reilly, holding the empty bag again. I just—just wanted to forgo a repeat experience. Once was enough in my life, thank you. And besides—”

She swallowed and finally stared him in the eye. “Besides, what I felt for Brian was nothing compared to how I feel for you. I didn't think I could ever stand your rejection, and so the best way to protect myself was to not get involved.”

He drew her even closer. His arms locked around her shoulders. His mouth kissed away the tears. Nuzzling her hair, he said nothing for long sweet moments. Finally, in a lover's whisper, he said, “Becky, you are who you are because you're involved. That's so much of your beauty. Don't withhold it.”

She wanted to shout with joy. All the emotion she'd longed to show him seemed to demand release all at once. But once in freefall, the unknown assailed her. Her heart was captured, no doubt about it. But the ending was still unclear.

The timer on the oven dinged. The mood shifted.

“Dinner's ready,” he announced, holding her eyes with his. “Shall we delay it?”

“Let's.”

He pulled her against his chest; she surrendered to the strength of his arms. His lips found hers, warm and pliant and electrifying, and the hunger that drove them had nothing to do with dinner.

She pulled away first, breathless. “I think it's safe to say we have all night.”

He smiled and kissed her eyes shut. “Yeah, twelve glorious hours. Let's take our time. You can yell at Hazel all you want to. I think she's one cool gal.”

“Y
ou've taken plenty of blame for the misunderstandings between us,” John remarked over dinner in the cozy, candlelit dining room. “But a lot of the problems between us were my fault, too. I remained silent too often, and that created wrong impressions.”

“Why? Was it just your background?” Rebecca pressed him.

“Fear of failure. I see that now.”

“Fear of failure? You, a sought-after surgeon who publishes several articles a year in top medical journals?”

His smile was self-deprecating. “Weird, huh? But I've found out the hard way—early brainwashing goes down deep inside your genes. My dad was always screaming at me, ‘Failure is
not
an option.' I realized long ago he knew nothing about life skills. But no matter how much I really wanted to open up to you, I had this…I don't know, visceral fear of rejection. All stemming from the old days at home.”

He reached across the table and took one of her hands in his.

“We both screwed up,” she assured him. “I assumed, with no evidence, that you were a rich-kid snob, but it turns out our backgrounds are quite similar.”

She suddenly thought about that little rhyme Lois had recited earlier, and a smile tugged at her lips. “Or as Lois put it, you and I were both staying home from the circus to avoid being hurt.”

He laughed.

Each of them lapsed into silence, just getting lost in the eyes of the other, and this time silence was awkward for neither of them.

The May nights still had a snap to them, and he had built a wood fire in the old nickle-and-brass stove. Not only had wood been chopped into neat stove lengths and piled nearby, but Hazel even made sure there was crumbled tree bark in a coffee can, for use as kindling. By now the flames reflected in the new polish of the floor and furniture, making them glow like embers.

He rose and moved around behind her chair, leaning down to embrace her and lightly kiss her hair.

He lowered his lips to kiss her neck, and she trembled with pleasure.

“Failure isn't always so bad, is it?” she asked him gently. “Hazel told me once that failure actually makes us more lovable because it makes us more human. You need to get over your perfectionist hang-up. I would still…love you even if you failed now and then.”

“You know,” he murmured low in her ear, his breath warm and tickly and exciting, “I actually believe that. After all, I failed to get that door open, didn't I? Yet you just said you love me.”

“Hmm, that door. Did you really give it your best shot, Doctor, no pun?”

“Hell no,” he confessed brazenly. “I'm not crazy. Hazel had a good plan, and I wasn't about to blow it. Mad at me?”

“Outraged,” she fibbed, pretending to pout. “Now you'll have to take your punishment like a man.”

She turned her head just enough to put her lips in contact with his.

Both of them found sudden release for their pent-up passion in a long, deep kiss.

“Tonight I'm a glutton for punishment,” he told her, his breathing, like hers, heavier and less even now. “Can we go into the bedroom so you can
really
teach me a lesson?”

She searched his face. “I hate to point out the obvious, doctor, but at the rate we're going, your real lesson may come in about nine months.”

He brought his face closer to hers. A secret smile tugged on his lips. “I love you, Becky, with all my heart I love you. You're the one for me. I knew it practically the moment I met you. If we produce a child from our union it would be the second happiest day of my life.”

“What would be the first?”

He stared at her deeply, his face taut with emotion. “Our wedding day. Would you do me the great honor?”

Tears filmed her eyes, and emotion closed her throat against speech. She managed a nod.

He kissed her, his tongue, his lips dipping into her very soul. Slipping one arm under her legs, the other behind her back, he easily lifted her. Once in the adjoining bedroom, he lowered her to the coverlet.

Two half-filled champagne glasses stood on the bedside table from earlier. Candles provided a gentle, burnished light.

He stood over the bed and raised his glass. “A toast,” he said softly. “To Doctor and Mrs. John Saville and the long, happy life they're going to share.”

She sipped from his proffered glass. Already she was lightheaded from sheer joy and the heady course the night had taken. The cold, arrogant snob she had invented in her mind was dead and buried forever, along with the pain Brian's treachery had caused her.

“Come here,” he whispered, staring down at her.

She did.

He watched her, transfixed, while she rose to her knees. Slowly, languidly, she unfastened the white terry robe provided by their ever-thoughtful hostess. The robe's edges fell away, revealing white pearly skin bathed in the candlelight.

When he started to remove his trousers and shirt he'd just thrown on, she playfully pulled him onto the bed with her.

“Allow me,” she whispered. Running her hand down his unbuttoned shirt, she kissed his tautly muscled chest, reveling in the warm hard rock beneath her tongue.

Her lips moved lower, kissing his hard, flat stomach. His hands slid between them, and he cupped her breasts to tease the nipples erect with his fingers.

Impatient, he pulled her fully on top of him. He eased first one, then the other nipple into his mouth. The delicious heat made her gasp.

He slid off his shirt. She straddled him, holding tight while he slid off his trousers. The white robe was next, puddling uselessly on the floor.

His hands wound into the mass of her unbound hair. He kissed her fiercely, then whispered, “I love you, Rebecca, I've needed you my whole life. At last, you're here,” he said as he slid every inch he had into her.

She gasped. Pleasure filled her. The want for more and more of him drove her as she moved her hips with increasing speed and force.

His kiss satiated the hungry hollow of her mouth. He moved harder and deeper inside her until she shuddered
from the intense waves that gathered to the exploding point. In her mind, in her heart, all she saw, tasted and felt was him. All sense of time and place disappeared, taken over by the mindless ecstasy of newfound love.

He groaned his passion, coming deep inside her, and like a domino effect, he sent her crashing into her own release. She collapsed on top of him, exhausted by pleasure, enveloped by love.

Just before she drifted off, floating on a warm sea of bliss, he whispered in her ear, “May I assume you won't be looking for that new job after all?”

“You may,” she whispered back. “But we just might have to discuss a generous maternity-leave policy, Doctor.”

 

When Hazel finally unlocked the door on Friday morning, she was prepared to defend herself.

The first pleasant surprise was finding her two guests lingering over omelettes and coffee, looking very tired but very happy.

“Now don't get your innards in an uproar, you two,” she greeted them. “I know what you're going to say, and I—what?”

She stopped, surprised, when both of them burst out laughing.

“How's your heart this morning?” John teased her. “Any flutters? Or did we decide you had twitches?”

All three of them laughed.

Rebecca poured Hazel a mug of coffee, and she joined them at the table.

“Hazel,” she told her friend fondly, giving her a quick hug. “You're too wicked to be pitied, you know that? And I love you for it.”

This was a far better reception than Hazel had envisioned; indeed, she had even begun to regret her bold plan and feared their anger.

It was clear, however, after several failed schemes, that she had finally played the right trick. Not only was she vindicated as a master matchmaker, but her beloved town would have one more wonderful family to keep it alive and thriving.

“Happy now?” John demanded, grinning at her.

“Do-si-do and don't let go,” she replied, singing it like a square-dance caller and evoking more laughter. “Well it's about time you two opened your damned eyes,” she added in a lecturing tone, though from a joyful face. “It was as obvious as clown's makeup, to me and Lois, that you two belong together.”

She squinted, spotting something on Rebecca's ring finger when the latter raised her cup to drink.

“What's that, honey?”

She and John exchanged a glance, and both laughed again. It was a ring fashioned from a horseshoe nail John had found in a cabinet.

“Hazel,” he asked, “any chance you'd be interested in holding a wedding reception for us here at the ranch? As soon as next week, I mean?”

“Would I—well, is Paris a city? Of course I will! But my lands, why so soon, what's the hurry?”

“Because we're pretty sure,” he replied, “that we've got less than nine months to tie the knot.”

“And doctors,” Rebecca added with a wink to him, “are seldom wrong about these things.

L
ois rolled her eyes at Hazel. “He's a nervous wreck. If that baby doesn't come soon, they'll have to put him in the hospital.”

Hazel stood at the patient sign-in almost rubbing her hands in glee. “That's always the way. Doctors can handle just about any complaint except their own.”

“Tell me about it!” Rebecca chimed in from behind Lois, a stack of files in her hands.

“What are you doing carrying files? Let me take those!” Lois chided. “Do you want to give him a heart attack? It's bad enough you're still at work!”

Becky rubbed her blossomed middle with the absentminded contentedness of a mother-to-be. They'd been married almost nine months but with John at her side, the time seemed to have flown. Perhaps because she was living the life she'd always wanted, with her soul mate by her side, and there weren't enough years to savor it all.

A soft smile touched her lips. She winked at Hazel. “Dr. Saville's been impossible. At night when we go home he studies every move I make like I was some kind of new amoeba he'd just discovered in his microscope. Certainly, I'm not wishing anything upon you, Hazel, but one of those “flutters” that put us in this state might be pretty welcome right now. The good doctor needs a mysterious illness to get his attention off of—”

“Dr. Saville! Just the man I wanted to see!” Hazel piped up, her face beaming at the frowning man who had just entered the reception area from his office.

“Great to see you, Hazel. How are you feeling?” John asked, crooking his arm around his very pregnant wife.

“Fit as a fiddle,” Hazel answered. “This check-up's for you. I hear fatherhood's been wearing you out and you haven't even got to your first trail ride yet.”

He released a sexy, tired grin. “Wearing me out? This devil of a woman won't even let me come with her to the OB. Says I'm too obsessive.”

Rebecca laughed. “You got that right, doctor. Save it for your own patients.”

“But his patients are so darned healthy!” Lois added to the ribbing.

John nodded, exasperated. “She won't even tell me what we're having. The decorator came to do the nursery, and Becky wouldn't let me know if she ordered pink or blue.”

Rebecca gave Hazel an aside gesture. In a mock whisper, she said, “He couldn't handle it.”

John stood behind the two, his arms crossed over his chest. “I'm a physician. I've seen everything. I graduated top of my class at the best medical school this side of—”

Hazel nodded to Rebecca in compliance. “That's right, Becky. Better use the kid gloves with him. He's new to this particular game, you know. Go gentle with him.”

Rebecca felt John's arms go around her. They were
strong and sure, and she knew, despite the teasing, they would see her through the next few days.

“All I'm asking for is the color of our baby's nursery. I don't think that's out of line given the fact that I was very much involved in the process of making this as-yet-un-color-coded baby,” he grumbled.

Rebecca grinned. Her hand held his across her stomach as she smoothed over a kick. “Alright. I'll tell you.” She winked again at Hazel. “Get out the smelling salts, gals, because he's got to know sooner or later, so I'm telling him now.”

“And the color is—?” he prompted, nuzzling her.

“Pink
and
blue.”

John stopped. He stared down at his wife in astonishment, his expression radiating his total love.

“See?” Rebecca shrugged at Hazel.

Hazel laughed. It was good to know her beloved town of Mystery would grow and flourish. It was even better knowing she had had a hand in the process.

“Where are you going, Hazel? After all,” Rebecca cried out, laughing at her husband's overly protective embrace, “this is your fault too, you know.”

“I take the blame gladly,” Hazel quipped, with a secret smile of her own.

And she'd do it again, too.

The first chance she got.