The M.D. Courts His Nurse (5 page)

He hit a stretch of empty, open road and floored the gas pedal, feeling his Alfa surge like a powerful beast.

At least, he reminded himself, this was an off weekend for him. Tomorrow he'd put Mystery in his rearview mirror and spend two full days where he knew he was welcome and appreciated.

He was grateful for the distraction of his secret weekends. Who knows, he thought, with luck he might even get Rebecca O'Reilly out of his mind for a while.

One thing, however, was sure. She'd be on his mind tonight, all right, and if he was lucky, she'd be much nicer to him in his dreams.

 

“What in Sam Hill are you doing at
home?
” Hazel demanded when Rebecca called her at nine-thirty. “And alone? You and Rick should still be eating dessert.”

“We never got to dessert,” Rebecca assured her, placing ironic emphasis on the last word. “In fact, we never even got into the main course. I just now popped some three-day-old quiche Lorraine into the microwave. I'm starving.”

Hazel's voice took on a steel edge. “Don't tell me Rick stood you up, hon? If that—”

“Oh, heavens, Hazel, that would've been wonderful if he did that. The man's a walking trivia handbook. Did you know that?”

“Now you mention it,” Hazel replied evasively, “maybe Larry said something about that.”

“Maybe?” Rebecca repeated ironically, still suspecting that she'd been “wrangled” by a master rancher.

“Oh, it couldn't've been all that bad. It seems harmless enough, don't you enjoy a little escapism?”

“Hazel, I mean it, say anything and he starts spouting facts. But he's got no use whatsoever for a conversation, he's all boring monologue. I thought you said he was a lot of fun?”

“No, dear, I told you his brother Larry said that. Family loyalty, I guess.”

“I s'pose,” Rebecca agreed, not quite believing her friend but lacking any solid evidence against her. “Well, that's the last time I take an accountant's recommendation on romance. Hazel, are you sure this date was on the up-and-up?”

“Why, what's got into you?”

Briefly, Rebecca summed up the fiasco that ended in a flat tire and a ride home with John Saville.

“And I'll just bet,” Hazel said, “that you were snotty with your boss, weren't you?”

For a moment Rebecca remembered his strong-jawed profile as he drove, felt his hand brushing her leg, the pulsing throb of the car's engine. It wasn't
him,
she thought crossly—the physical reactions to his nearness were just my body reminding me I've been a virgin for way too long now.

“I was rather…crisp with him, yes,” she admitted. “But there's no other way to deal with him. I tried to be nice, and he jumped all over me. See? He's more like Brian than I could have imagined. I guess I'm just not upper-crust enough to deserve any respect. He treats me just the way all the other doctors—”

“Oh, phooey, Paul Winthrop didn't treat you that way, and you know it. I'm not one to love doctors, girl, 'cause at my age I go to way too many of 'em, but there's good in them. You just can't see it anymore because you got your heart broke.”

Rebecca sighed. “Once burned—well, you know the phrase, Hazel. But I'm better off for the scars. Now I can see where I'm going to get into trouble, and John Saville is definitely the heartless type. There are way too many women chasing after him. And boy, can he turn on the charm when he wants to. You should have seen the grin he had on his face when Louise Wallant arrived one day. And she wasn't there for a physical, either. She strolled right into his private office and shut the door. I hear the whole town's burning up with gossip about the two of them—and they're a perfect match. She's just what I would have pictured for the ‘real' Brian. She looks just right on Dr. Saville's arm, too.”

“You're wrong, Rebecca. Why, even
you
said he jumped all over you.”

“You know I didn't mean that literally.” Rebecca rolled her eyes and smiled. “So I'll ignore that one. But, look, if he
likes
me now, I'd hate to get on his bad side.”

“I'm not pushing you at him,” Hazel assured her. “You're a big girl. You make up your own mind. But I don't expect a catch like him to be available forever.”

“Oh, don't worry about that. He won't stay single long—the first eligible woman who's high enough in the social registry will snap him up. God knows plenty of them are finding excuses to come to the office.”

After the slightest pause Hazel said, “From what I heard today at Selmer's Bakery, that may already have happened. A rich woman snapping him up, I mean.”

Rebecca was surprised, then dismayed, at the keen sting of disappointment these words caused her.

“With whom?” she inquired, hoping her tone was casual.

“Louise Wallant, of course.”

Louise Wallant
…just hearing her name sent a bile taste into Rebecca's throat.

“Could be the same saloon gossip you heard, is all. But Edna Beck claims Louise is the reason he chose Mystery to practice medicine.”

Rebecca recalled his angry words:
I didn't just stick a pin in the map. I picked this town.

“Edna says John came to this area for a rock-climbing vacation while he was still in medical school. Claims he and Louise had a summer fling. But then, Edna's not one to worry how reliable her sources are. It could be a bunch of bull.”

“If it is true, as I said before, they're the perfect match,” Rebecca pronounced dismissively.

Louise was rich, pretty and spoiled rotten. All through high school she had tried to steal away any guy who showed interest in Rebecca, mainly to punish her for not joining the Louise Adoring Fan Club. But she was more than welcome to Dr. Dry-As-Dust, Rebecca tried to convince herself.

“Nonsense,” Hazel scoffed at her. “I can believe the summer fling story, of course, considering Louise's looks and body. She's what my cowhands call ‘a target of opportunity.' But John would never in a million years fall in love with her type. He has more sense than that.”

“Fall in love? What, John Saville? Hazel, a golden boy does not succumb to passions. Mating is an investment strategy like—like—opening an IRA.”

“Dear,” Hazel's tone scolded, “you're way too young to be so bitter. You're turning into a grizzled old cynic.”

“Don't forget I just barely survived a date tonight.”

“I'll run my traps, dear, find out which good catches are out there. You'll see, we'll do better next time.”

“Forget it. No more dating surprises for me, thanks. The next guy I date will submit a résumé and psychological profile tests.”

Rebecca hung up feeling irritated and vaguely suspicious. Hazel bragged about being a Cupid, but tonight's dating disaster proved even Cupid could blow it in a big way. She owed Hazel a lot, but she would
not
be the lab rat for another experiment in wretched blind dates.

Soon, however, her irritation at Hazel gave way to unwelcome thoughts about Louise Wallant. The successful young entrepreneur maintained one house in Mystery, another in Deer Lodge, a tourist mecca nestled amidst beautiful national forests in some of the state's most pristine country. Her success in the bed-and-breakfast business, however, was not due so much to merit as to wealthy parents who constantly covered her financial butt.

Rebecca was sick to death of constantly hearing everyone around town talk about Louise this and Louise that as if she were a celebrity. All because she had a “perky” manner and one of those fake smiles as big as Texas—a smile that showed too many teeth, in Rebecca's opinion.

She ate a few bites of her by now lukewarm quiche, then
lost her appetite. She cleaned up in the kitchen before selecting a good novel and curling up on the sofa with a crocheted afghan draped over her shoulders.

However, it was no use. The words on the page kept squiggling out of focus as her thoughts were diverted.

She recalled one of the last things John Saville did today at the office. He changed the message on the answering machine, which usually gave his home phone number in case of emergencies. The new message said he'd be out of town all weekend and referred all calls to Dr. Brining in nearby Lambertville. He had told her and Lois, when he first took over his new practice, that he'd be out of town every other weekend “until further notice.”

She had joked to Lois that he was probably sneaking away to be alone with a mirror. Now she couldn't help wondering if he was keeping a tryst with Louise.

“What do I care?” she said out loud, ignoring her novel.

“Serves each of them right.”

In fact she hoped they
were
an item: Dr. Dry-As-Dust and his toothy little profit princess. They could breed a bunch of perky and pretty little snobs to carry on their narcissism.

When it came to cattle breeds Hazel was sharp as a dagger. But when it came to judging men, Rebecca decided, Hazel was too easily tricked by a pleasing exterior. No question John Saville looked like a young Greek god. Unfortunately, like Dr. Brian Gage he had an ego far bigger than his heart.

“O
ur young doctor looks plenty tuckered out,” Lois confided to Rebecca shortly after the office had opened on Monday morning. “And he's got two surgeries scheduled today. Have you caught wind of the story Edna Beck's been peddling?”

Rebecca, busy preparing a pickup for the lab courier, only nodded. No doubt the John and Louise rumor had already raced through the valley. She tried not to succumb to a sudden flaring of irritation at yet another reminder that poor girls who drove used cars were not marriageworthy for the great doctor.

“Good,” she retorted, not even bothering to lower her voice. “I hope they boffed like bunnies the entire weekend. Maybe that'll take some of the meanness out of him.”

Lois, who was adding toner to the office printer, looked askance at her co-worker. Rebecca had been snappish and out of sorts ever since she arrived. Luckily John Saville's
first patient today was Lauren Ulrick, a motormouth who never let anyone get in a word edgewise—even from the nearby exam room the doctor wouldn't likely overhear Rebecca's caustic barbs.

“Let me guess,” Lois told the younger woman. “You had a disastrous date on Friday night?”

“Actually the entire weekend was a washout,” Rebecca informed her. “All I got out of it was two days older.”

“You can afford two days,” Lois assured her. “To me you're still a junior miss. Just wait till you're staring down the road at forty, baby-cakes. It stares right back.”

Yeah, Rebecca thought disconsolately.

At the rate she was going, she'd be the town's resident old maid by forty. She could just see her pathetic personal ad in
Valley Singles:
“Middle-aged virgin desperately seeks any more-or-less desirable man.”

Lois studied her friend's preoccupied face and gave her an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

“Cheer up. Romance is a wheel of fortune—after it spins you down, it has nowhere to go but right back up.”

“It sure takes a long time to revolve,” Rebecca carped as she disappeared into the stock room to finish the quarterly drug inventory.

However, between entries on her clipboard, her mind kept returning to one thought like a tongue to a chipped tooth: John Saville on Friday night, the way he looked and moved and his manner with her—he had seemed almost…dangerous and exciting, far different from the humorless and rigid man she worked with.

Thinking of him, however, naturally brought her mind back to Louise Wallant. It was probably true about the two of them being involved. Involved in
what
—a casual affair or something more than that—she wasn't very clear about. Whatever it might be, it certainly wasn't her business. He had been very closemouthed to her and Lois about those
weekends when he wouldn't be available, but that was his right. He had no business in her love life, and she had no business in his.

The talk means absolutely nothing to me, of course, she assured herself. It's just morbid curiosity. A lover's tryst twice a month…perhaps Louise would even have some other lover, too, for the doctor's off weeks. But Rebecca suspected twice a month just might be sufficient for a disciplined man like Dr. Saville.

And just how would you know, she chided herself, how much sex would be sufficient for anyone. Better to ask a duck about survival in the desert.

Across the hall the door to the examination room swung open.

“Mother always wanted me to be a model.” Lauren was boasting as Dr. Saville escorted her out. “I won several most-beautiful-baby contests, you know.”

Rebecca aimed a covert glance at her employer.

As usual he was fully attentive to his patient, even though Lauren's egocentric jabbering and constant fishing for compliments could vex a saint. Lois was right, she decided. He does look a bit bedraggled this morning. Or as Rebecca used to mispronounce the word for years:
bed
-raggled. His normally neat hair was slightly tousled, as if he'd just run his hand through it and not bothered with the comb. Also, there was a heaviness to his eyelids, a rather sexy heaviness that drew Rebecca in at first glance.

She couldn't get the thought out of her head that that was how Dr. John Saville would look in the morning after a long night of lovemaking. That was how his lover would see him when she first opened her eyes, the tousled dark hair, the sleep-heavy gaze, and then his mouth that would…

She startled herself out of the reverie. Going down that road was insane, and she would not do it. Never. Absolutely never.

Worried, she knelt down to count bottles of medicine stored on a low shelf.

Preoccupied, she didn't hear Lauren leave, nor did she realize John Saville stood in the doorway watching her.

 

For a moment, seeing her, he completely forgot what he meant to say. Rebecca's cotton velour skirt had slid up high on her thighs when she knelt. She had gorgeous legs, well formed and nicely muscled. And at this angle her V-neck blouse gave him a tantalizing view of her breasts.

Abruptly he became aroused by the unexpected sight. And just his luck, she chose that same moment to glance up and catch him ogling her.

Way to go, Saville, he berated himself. You give the woman stern lectures on professionalism, now here you stand before her with a tent in your trousers.

It brought back all the memories of being called to the blackboard in high school right in the middle of erotic fantasies.

He lowered the patient chart in his hand, hoping she didn't notice what he was hiding.

Rebecca quickly stood up, smoothing her skirt.

“Is there something you need, Doctor?” she inquired.

The irony of her words made him feel like a thief caught in the act. This woman was wonderful with the patients, he thought. She was confident, intelligent and warm. With him, however, she always had a cold manner. Her frostiness toward him belied the red in her hair and the pearly allure of her complexion.

“Yes, Doctor?” she repeated, and her haughty tone plus his consternation at being caught scoping her out made him defensive.

“I just wanted to say,” he practically barked at her, “that I accept the apology you tried to make on Friday night.”

He had intended to be more gracious about it. Now his good intentions backfired. He watched red splotches of anger leap into her cheeks.

“Well, thank you very much,” she replied coldly. “It's so nice to be forgiven.”

The deep, frowning crease was back between his eyebrows. “Fine,” he snapped back, his insides churning like molten metal.

He disappeared, and moments later his office door shut with a resounding slam.

Lois now ventured back from the front of the office. She looked in at Rebecca, who was still flushed with anger, and shook her head.

“You two are going at it already?” she asked her friend.

Rebecca fumed. “There are other jobs, you know.”

“Simmer down, hon,” Lois soothed. “That vein over your temple looks like a hyperventillating worm.”

“I can't help it, Lo. He gets me so agitated.”

A faint smile lifted one corner of Lois's mouth.

“Yes,” she agreed with a knowing little glimmer in her eyes. “He certainly does, doesn't he?”

 

Rebecca's eyebrows arched in surprise when, toward the middle of the afternoon, Hazel arrived unannounced requesting a drop-by appointment with Dr. Saville.

“You were just here last week,” she reminded the older woman.

“Honey, I'm not
quite
senile yet. I know that.”

“What's the problem?”

Hazel poked a hand inside her big raffia tote and produced a brown bottle. “It's these new vitamins I want to try,” she explained. “Mitty Ames swears by them. I want the doctor to look at the label and tell me what he thinks.”

“Hazel,” Rebecca said suspiciously, “you're practically
an expert on vitamins. Dr. Winthrop used to send patients to
you
for advice.”

“Well, my lands,” Hazel complained. “Is this Russia? I come with a simple request, and I get the third degree. Is a drop-by a problem? If he's too busy…”

“No,” Rebecca assured her, eyes cutting to the monthly appointment planner on Lois's desk. “I think he'll see you, Hazel. He'll be finishing up with a patient in a few minutes, and there's no one else scheduled today because he has to go to the hospital later for two surgeries. I'll ask him.”

“Thank you, sweet love,” Hazel replied, unperturbed by Rebecca's searching gaze.

Five minutes later Hazel and John Saville were once again alone in the examination room.

“Well, young lady,” he said, his eyes nearly as curious as Rebecca's had been, “what's this about vitami—”

“Oh, never mind the vitamins,” she said impatiently. “That was just a fib to get me past Rebecca. What is it you youngsters require nowadays—an electric cattle prod?”

He blinked as if she had spoken in Chinese. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, excuse a cat's tail, you hunka-hunka burning love. Just tell me straight up—John, are you attracted to Rebecca O'Reilly?”

He actually gaped in astonishment, unused to having his authority ripped right out from under him. “I, uh…that is…”

“Just spit it out,” she urged him. “Yes or no?”

He scrubbed his face with his hands and slacked into the chair beside her.

“I'll take that as a definite, unequivocal yes,” she told him.

He watched her, his handsome face a study in cloaking his emotions.

“So what are you waiting for, an embossed invitation?”

He smiled a bitter smile. “If you're thinking that Miss O'Reilly and I might hit it off one day, you can forget it. For starters,” he assured her, “she despises me down deep in her bones. Hell if I know why.”

“She's had her heart broken by your kind.”

He snorted. “What do you mean, by my kind? I may not have grown up in Mystery, but let me assure all of the townsfolk, I am the exact same species you are.”

Hazel shook her head at the folly of this younger generation. “You just remind her of the wounds she's had to lick. That's all.”

“We've all been wounded, one way or another. I can't make her heal,” he stated in a monotone. His dismissal was to Hazel like blood to a hound.

“Maybe she's not the one to heal,” Hazel said, her eyes narrowing. “Maybe it's the doctor who must heal thyself.”

He ran his hands through his hair in exasperation. The Matriarch of Mystery was way too close to the truth. Rebecca was out of his scope. She was too unpredictable and dismissive for him to approach her. The shallow socialites he'd been involved with in the past few years were just his type. Mercenary. He knew all about that. Too many beatings from a bitter father obsessed with never failing had taught him nothing about love but more than he needed to know about mercenaries.

“Young man, I'll tell you no lies,” Hazel said quietly. “What you see now as obstacles are really only speed bumps on the road to true love. You and Rebecca are a perfect couple.”

“Perfect couple? Frankly, Hazel, that's a little over the top for me. I can't even begin to fathom her mind, what she—”

Hazel waved his speech aside as if she were shooing a fly. “That's all your college and medical training confusing
you. Don't waste time analyzing Rebecca. Trying to figure out a woman's mind is like trying to figure out what came before once-upon-a-time. Accept what she is and enjoy it. She's an amazing creature.”

He greeted this with a long, fluming sigh. “I don't dispute you there. It's just…I mean, I don't…”

“I know what the problem is,” Hazel insisted, “you look at her and see all that red in her hair and you think, Fire. All red blazing fire. But deep inside, you believe there's nothing but ice inside you. She's so different from you that you can't even imagine the two of you ever getting along. Erotic fantasies, sure, but you can't imagine actually coexisting outside of bed. Am I right?”

He said nothing, damning himself with silence.

“I'm used to being right,” she said shamelessly. “You just take it from an old rancher and equestrian. Love is no different from learning to ride a horse. First you walk, then you trot, then you lope, then you canter, and
then
you gallop. One step at a time, and before you know it, you're
there.
”

Hazel rose.

John rose, too, watching her with a look of baffled amazement. She had cut to the deepest matters of his heart with the same surgical speed and precision he prided himself on.

“Hang in there like the man I know you are, and she'll crater,” Hazel insisted, using an old miner's term for caving in. “And don't ever worry about a woman being too ‘different' from you. That's why we're called the opposite sex, get it?”

He saw that she had pulled her checkbook out, and he waved it aside. “Put that back in your purse. If anything, you should send
me
the bill for today's visit.”

Hazel grinned. “No, I'll pay. You want Rebecca to think we're conspiring against her? You
will
have troubles then.
Tell you what. Just give me a long ride in that beautiful car of yours sometime, and we'll call it even.”

“Deal,” he agreed.

“Hang in there,” she repeated. “And good luck. You know, Rebecca's a little like a fine sports car herself. She's temperamental and a little complicated. But, mister, once you get her purring, I'll bet you're in for the ride of your life.”