Wild Honey (18 page)

It had been on his mind constantly. So much so he was now doing what once would have been unthinkable. Imagine!
He was considering returning to medicine.

Not surgery, of course, heart or otherwise; that still held all the pitfalls that had driven him away before: a demanding schedule, with long unpredictable hours at the hospital, impossible pressures that kept a man away from his family. And of course, an unyielding father’s insistence that his son follow in his sanctified footsteps.

But what about pediatrics? He’d always loved kids. What could be more fulfilling than devoting a life to helping ‘them? And pediatrics was a different game from surgery. Not that pediatricians didn’t work hard, but the hours didn’t have to be as crazy. He knew. Leon Rosenfeld, his roommate in med school, was now one of the foremost pediatricians in the D.C. area. He and Leon had kept in touch; in fact, were still close friends.

Pulling over to the side of the road, Travis picked up his car phone and punched out a number.

“T
HANKS
, L
EON
.” Smiling, Travis clapped a hand on the shoulder of his old college roommate. “I ‘preciate your makin’ time for me this mornin’.”

Leon, founding partner of a thriving practice he shared with three other pediatricians, snorted. “Time, schmime! Is that any way to talk to an old friend? It was terrific seeing you again, Travis. Only next time, don’t make it so long till you show your face, huh? A person could grow old already!”

Travis ran his eyes over Leon and grinned. Standing fivetwo, weighing perhaps 110 pounds soaking wet and sporting a shock of unruly red hair and freckles, Leon still looked like a kid. He was one of those people who never seemed to age. This had been a trial to him at Harvard, where he’d received a lot of good-natured kidding about it. The only thing, he used to wisecrack, that spared him total disgrace was his class rank. He’d been number one.

“You? Grow old?” Travis said. “When’s the last time you got carded, Leon?”

“Last year, at my son’s bar mitzvah, but don’t tell anybody. And speaking of bar mitzvahs, his brother’s making his in October, and Sherry says she’s putting you at the top of the guest list.”

“Tell her I’m honored.”

“Hah! You better make this one, pal. My wife doesn’t understand baseball. With Sherry, it’s two strikes and you’re out!”

Travis gave a rueful chuckle. He’d been out of the country on assignment during their older boy’s spiritual comingof-age, and he’d deeply regretted having to miss it. “Tell Sherry to keep her socks on,” he said as Leon walked him to the door of his office. “I’m not in the field much these days. It’s becomin’ more ‘n’ more of a desk job all the time. If the invitation arrives early enough, I should have no problem makin’ time for your shindig.”

Leon slapped his forehead with his palm. “A shindig, he calls it! May the rabbi never find out!”

They both laughed, but when Leon paused at the door, his face sobered. “A desk job, huh? Doesn’t sound like much fun. Maybe you oughtta give our talk some careful thought.”

Travis nodded, smiling at the sounds coming from the “well child” waiting room down the hall: high-pitched voices punctuated with laughter, a toddler’s exuberant shout. “Yeah, ol’ buddy,” he said, his face dead serious as they shook hands, “I intend to do just that.”

B
EHIND THE WHEEL
of his Alpha Romeo, Travis made good on his intention. The talk with Leon had clarified much of what had been on his mind.

He smiled to himself as he maneuvered the car into the stream of traffic. A sense of rightness had settled in the region of his gut. It could work. As a pediatrician, he knew he’d work hard, but he could still have a life, time for a family.

Leon was a family man. He adored his wife and four children, and spending time with them was a priority. Yet he also enjoyed a successful fulfilling career in pediatrics.

“The trick,” he’d told Travis, “is to set up a practice with partners. With partners—all selected for compatibility and competence of course—you share the workload. And the hours. Sure, we each work some evenings, but not
every
evening. And we’re each on call only one weekend a
month. Also, remember, my partners’ names are Vitelli, Whitson and Chen. Since we have different ethnic backgrounds, spending holidays with our families is seldom a problem. I tell you, Travis, it’s the only way.”

The only way. It made sense. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? Or had he been too caught up in defying the old man to think clearly? Had an immature need to rebel blinded him to viable alternatives?

But then, nothing about the practice of medicine had called to him in those days. Certainly nothing like the strong pull he’d felt following the crisis with Matt.

A strong pull, all right. Just like the other thing he kept coming back to in his mind. Another pull he found himself unable to ignore. Randi.

What was it about her? Okay, the lady was beautiful, but so what? He’d known scores of beautiful women in his time, a number of them intimately. Yet not one had remained on his mind after they parted company. Fact was, he’d be hard put to recall most of their names.

But his memories of Randi Terhune just wouldn’t quit. Yesterday he’d run into a ballet dancer he’d once dated, and all he’d been able to think about was how Randi’s walk was even more fluid and graceful. This morning he’d awakened with an image of her face in his mind, her incomparably lovely face and that special way her eyes slanted and caught the light when she laughed. And last night he’d gone to sleep thinking about the way she felt in his arms. Hell, he grew hard thinking about it, and he hadn’t even slept with her!

Maybe that was it. Maybe it was just the challenge she presented. The challenge of a sexually frightened woman, and he the one man who could set her free….

He gave himself a shake. No way. He’d never been one of those males who were obsessed with the challenge of the chase. Who were concerned with scoring, for God’s sake. The very notion made him sick.

And when he considered Randi’s history and her very real and understandable fears, when he recalled the terror in her eyes when she’d run from him, all he could think of was how desperately wrong that was. How she deserved better. God, how it haunted him!
She
haunted him.

Maybe it was time he did something about it.

“C
AN I GET YOU
something from the kitchen, sis? Jill peered at Randi from the doorway of their family room. “That brie’s finally ripe, and I picked up some great gourmet crackers this morning.”

Randi glanced up from the book on her lap and smiled weakly. “No thanks, love. I’m really not hungry.”

But you hardly ate any supper,
Jill wanted to say, yet held her tongue. Randi had lost weight—pounds she couldn’t afford, since she’d always been on the slender side. Her appetite had been off for some time, and none of Jill’s coaxing had had any effect. She also seemed listless, and there were smudges under her eyes; she hadn’t been sleeping well. Something was troubling her, and Jill wished to heaven she knew what it was.

But she had her suspicions.

Randi had been this way since returning from the Eastern Shore. At first Jill had thought it was a mild case of posttraumatic shock. Fallout from the ordeal with Matt. Now she wasn’t so sure.

Her first clue had come shortly after they’d returned. Randi would hurry to grab the phone whenever it rang, only to look disappointed to learn who was on the line. Then, after four or five such calls, she’d questioned Jill—in a nonchalant manner Jill suspected was feigned—about Travis; she’d wanted to know if he’d mentioned any future plans.

Omitting any mention of that confidential discussion she’d had with McLean, Jill had merely told her what he’d said regarding Matt: that if Matt ever needed him, he was
only a phone call away. She’d shown Randi his card, which was now stuck to their refrigerator door with a magnet, along with their emergency numbers.

But Randi’s subsequent behavior had been telling; whenever Jill saw her pass the refrigerator, Randi’s gaze would move to Travis’s card, then she’d sigh forlornly and walk away.

Damn the man! A couple of weeks had passed since they’d returned home. But had he contacted them? He had not. And Randi was upset because of it. Hurting, even, judging by the look in her eyes whenever Matt mentioned the man, which he still did, though not as frequently as before.

Well, Randi wasn’t the only one who was upset. Jill, too, wondered about his withdrawal. Worse, she wondered if she’d made a mistake revealing those intimate details of their background to him.

Had the ugly facts of her and Randi’s past so disturbed him he couldn’t handle the situation? Is that why he’d backed off? If so, she’d greatly misjudged his character. Yet she’d have sworn…

Too late for second-guessing now. She ran troubled eyes over her sister. Randi wasn’t reading the book she held, but simply staring off into space.

Muttering an oath under her breath, Jill stalked into the kitchen. Stopping by the refrigerator, she glared at his business card.
McLean, I promise you,
she fumed silently,
if you ever do call or show your handsome puss around here, you’re gonna answer to me!

Little did Jill know, her chance to make good on that promise would come the next day. She was working alone in her home office, coordinating paint with fabric swatches for a client, when the doorbell rang. With Randi at work and Matt playing with Robbie next door, she was forced to answer it herself.

“Okay, okay, I’m coming!” she grumbled as the bell
rang a second time. Figuring it was a delivery man with some samples she was expecting, she was unprepared for the ecstatic yelp that was unmistakably Matt’s as she opened the front door. “What on earth…?”

The query died in her throat. An explosion of male laughter competed with Matt’s giggles as Travis McLean tossed his jubilant son in the air. When he caught him and wrapped him in a bear hug seconds later, Matt shrieked with delight.

“You came!” the four-year-old crowed as he hugged the man he resembled. “I knowed you would! I just knowed it!”

“Did, did you?” Travis asked with a chuckle. “Well, that just shows how smart you are!” He was still holding the boy tightly against his chest, showing no inclination to set him down. In fact, Jill thought as she took in her nephew’s happy face, the pair of them looked as if they’d never let each other go.

A spate of canine barking drew their attention to the blue Alpha Romeo parked at the curb. Robbie Spencer stood beside it, grinning up at the open window where a shaggy pup had both paws hooked over the edge and was announcing his presence to the neighborhood.

“A puppy!” Matt exclaimed as Travis set him on his feet. “Is…is that ‘Lysses?”

“Sure is, Tiger,” Travis told him as Matt caught his hand and pulled him toward the car. “You ‘n’ your friend wanna meet ‘im?”

“Wow—yeah! Hey, Robbie! This is my friend Travis I told you ‘bout, ‘n’ that’s ‘Lysses. Travis says we can…”

Both irritated and fascinated, Jill watched as Travis McLean stepped comfortably into the role of father to the son he barely knew. Or perhaps “hero” was a better term, judging by the adoration on Matt’s face. In a matter of minutes, man, dog and two jubilant youngsters were cavorting on the lawn amid shrieks of boyish laughter.

I may as well be invisible,
she groused to herself,
for all the attention they’ve paid me.
Yet her eyes remained glued on the scene. Or more specifically, on her nephew.

She hadn’t seen Matt this happy in ages. He shared his romp with the dog, giving Robbie equal time, as he’d been taught; yet it was clear that between Matt and the shaggy pup, it was love at first sight.

Travis took a Frisbee from the back of the Alpha. He spent a few moments showing the boys how to throw it, but Ulysses needed no demonstration. He lunged and caught it easily, no matter who threw it. Yet every time he retrieved the plastic disc, it was Matt he chose to surrender it to.

“There’s somethin’ magical that happens when you put a boy ‘n’ a dog together, isn’t there?”

Intent on her nephew’s amazingly deft Frisbee arm, Jill hadn’t seen Travis approach. Her gaze swung to his. “Not as magical as a certain party’s appearing out of thin air after weeks of unexplained silence!” she snapped.

“Uh-oh,” he said, taking in her tightly drawn lips. “Looks like we’d better have a talk.” He glanced at the Frisbee game, still in full swing. “Uh, is there a backyard where it might be safe for them to—”

“Be my guest,” she interrupted coldly, gesturing at the gate to the fenced backyard.

When Matt and Robbie were safely ensconced there with Ulysses, she led Travis into the house. “Okay, McLean,” she said as they entered the kitchen, “talk. And it better be good.”

R
UNNING HER FINGERS
through hair she’d freed of her nurse’s cap, Randi grabbed her purse and headed for the elevator. It had been a long grueling day in the ER: six cases of elderly people with heat stroke, one of them fatal; a teenager who’d likely never walk again after diving into a shallow pond, cracking several vertebrae and injuring his
spinal cord. Plus the more usual injuries. Everything from an accidental poisoning of a toddler from a carelessly left can of drain cleaner to an assortment of broken limbs.

Then there was the woman they’d brought in, half-dead from a beating at the hands of her live-in boyfriend. And the poor thing insisting she’d merely fallen down the stairs! But her neighbors had told the police a different story. Randi and her crew had done their best to patch her up, but the fear in the woman’s eyes wouldn’t leave Randi alone; this was something their skills couldn’t heal. Well, the woman was in the hands of Social Services now; maybe they had some answers.

The elevator let her off at the ground floor. She waved tiredly to a knot of coworkers gathered in the hallway, then headed for the door to the parking lot. The Cherokee was being serviced, so Jill was picking her up. It was only seven o’clock, yet all Randi wanted was to go home and fall into bed.

And pray that this night would be free of the nightmare that had been haunting her for weeks.

She shivered, despite the blast of hot humid air that hit as she left the air-conditioned building. It was always the same—the footsteps in the hallway drawing nearer, the sound of the door to Jill’s room creaking open…All of it too horribly familiar.

Only, something was wrong in the dream as it appeared lately. Something that made it different from the nightmares of her adolescence. Now it was
her
door that was pushed ominously ajar. Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong! That wasn’t the way it had been, and—

”Hi, Mom!” Matt’s voice pulled her back to blessed reality. Shaking off the confused and frightening remnants of her thoughts, she looked around. Where was Jill’s car?

“Over here!” Matt called again, and she followed his voice to a blue Alpha Romeo parked at the curb. And stopped dead in her tracks.

Travis.
Sitting at the wheel of the car, wearing a confident grin. And Matt, belted into his familiar car seat behind him. Her son’s grin was the spitting image of his father’s, and she felt a tug of something sweet and at the same time painful. She was dangerously close to tears and didn’t know why.