The M.D. Courts His Nurse Page 9

  She might fall in love with him, but he might not want a nurse with a cramped apartment and no status. And she had to accept that, as she had accepted Brian’s rejection.

  “I’m ready to drive you to the office,” she replied, more coolly than she wanted to.

  He stared at her.

  When he kissed her one last time before they went outside, she thought she felt him holding back a little.

  And it was only appropriate behavior, she told herself. They needed to cool out and be practical. Nothing had changed. He was still destined to see Louise Wallant his next weekend away, and she was still a single girl.

  Nothing had changed.

  Yet in her heart she feared everything had changed.

  From the sublime to the awkward is but a step, Rebecca lamented as she drove John back to town.

  Outwardly she was calm and at peace, even glowing. But inwardly she alternated between sadness and bewilderment as she grappled with what they had just done and what it meant.

  It wasn’t that he’d turned into a beast or anything blatant like that. But then she had felt her heart sink like a stone when he mentioned her answering machine. When the world intruded, she knew it would end, and the world intruded quickly, like the opening of the floodgates.

  A tumult of silent misery swept through her. Next to her in the car, the good doctor was still being affectionate but growing distant. Perhaps what they’d done weighed heavily on him, too. Along with regret.

  After all, it was one thing to grab a quickie when the opportunity was presented, another altogether to let it interfere with one’s day.

  What was it Hazel had called Louise? A target of opportunity.

  And now she had become one, too.

  “Lo’s still here,” she commented as they wheeled into the clinic parking lot, speaking mainly just to break the awkward silence between them. “There’s her car.”

  “Thank God one of us has a work ethic,” he quipped.

  He’d obviously meant it for a joke, but she couldn’t even force a small laugh. She sat with the motor idling, waiting for him to get out and agonizing at the awkwardness of the moment.

  His arms began to lift, as if he meant to embrace her. But then a shadow seemed to cross his face, and he ended up simply bussing her cheek quickly.

  “See you tomorrow at work?” he asked, the casualness of his remark crushing her.

  She could only nod. Tears were already stinging her eyes and throat. But as she pulled out of the lot, she resolutely defeated her self-pity.

  She had often wondered what it would be like when she finally “did the deed.” And she was never exactly sure just what she expected to feel when it was over or what she expected to happen. Certainly not something as old-fashioned as a proposal or a promise of eternal love; then again, neither had she expected this odd letdown, as if she’d simply had her ears pierced and nothing more.

  “You fool,” she muttered, her eyes flicking to the rearview mirror. “You impulsive little fool.”

  Her biggest mistake was the belief that the bad experience with Brian had immunized her against such vulnerable feelings as she felt now. It was just the opposite—the old wounds had been ripped open all over again, more painful than ever.

  Her other mistake was to believe she could manage it all. Blind to her true vulnerability, she had played a stupid game: how close could she get to the fire without being burned? Fool that she was, she’d gotten more than close—she’d leaped headlong right into the inferno.

  Despite her resolution against self-pity, a tear welled onto her eyelash, trembled there a moment, then splashed onto her cheek, warm and tickly as it zigzagged down. She swiped it quickly away, determined anew not to start feeling sorry for herself.

  “If he thinks I’m going to guilt trip him,” she promised her reflection in the mirror, “he can just get over it. I can manage this. I can.”

  She’d learned to expect nothing more from any man than he was willing to give. She hadn’t once begged Brian to take her back after he unceremoniously dumped her as a hindrance to his lofty career. And she wasn’t about to glom on to John Saville, either. Apparently, the number-one challenge for young and good-looking, self-centered doctors, was to keep gold diggers and small-town nothings from blocking their flight paths.

  Well, they didn’t have to worry about her. She was happy to stay well out of their way.

  It occurred to her that she didn’t want to return home right now—not when the sense of his presence was still so strong there. She glanced over her shoulder at the stack of overdue library books on the back seat. Right now any excuse would do.

  Rather than return to her apartment and ensure the continued laceration of her heart, she decided to visit the county library. She could return the books and spend some time in the periodicals room. That had long been a refuge when she desperately needed to stop her thoughts for a while. Right now she desired nothing more.

  “Rebecca! Yoo-hoo, Rebecca!”

  She hesitated halfway up the black granite steps of the county library, not immediately recognizing the voice that was calling her—nor liking it, either. It was shrill and unpleasant, like a crow squawking.

  She turned around and saw a trim, attractive woman in her fifties wearing a navy two-piece pant set. Rebecca’s stomach went leaden with dread when she recognized—of all the rotten, ironic luck—Barbara Wallant, Louise’s mother.

  Politeness made her wait for Barbara to catch up even as Rebecca groaned inwardly at the cruel timing.

  “Becky O’Reilly, what brings you to the library in the middle of the afternoon?”

  She bit back the temptation to reply sarcastically, A 1990 Ford Bronco brings me.

  “I thought you were working for John Saville?” Barbara added.

  “Hi, Mrs. Wallant. I am, it’s just, um, we were called out last night to an accident scene. It kept us pretty late, so today is an unscheduled day off.”

  Obviously Barbara had not seen the TV news yet or she would already know about the Copper Mountain tragedy. She glanced at the books Rebecca carried.

  “Well, it’s wonderful, Becky, that you’re trying to better yourself.”

  “They’re just mystery novels,” she replied dryly, but Barbara gushed on as if not hearing her.

  “You’re still so young,” she smarmed. “The whole world is your oyster, you know. Why settle for being an L.P.N. when you can earn an M.D. like John?”

  John. Well aren’t we chummy, she thought. And that last remark was precisely what she did not need to hear right now. Barbara’s tone implied that nursing was on a par with flipping burgers for a living. But then, it was typical of the woman, whose tone and manner toward her, ever since Rebecca’s mother had died, conveyed a sort of friendly, up-beat pity that had always irked her.

  Barbara was never so uncouth as to openly boast about having snared a rich husband herself. But smug superiority oozed from her tone: Poor little orphan Becky, her mother dead, her father might as well be for all the good he is. Why, Hazel McCallum is practically the poor thing’s only parent.

  “As for me, I came to research the county archives,” Barbara explained without being asked. “You may have heard that the governor’s wife has asked me to give the annual address to the state historical society.”

  “How nice,” Rebecca responded mechanically.

  “Isn’t it? But then again, I cannot really claim that I’m all that surprised. The Wallants, you know, were among the very first pioneers to settle the valley.”

  “Yes, I do know that,” she replied, keeping the sarcasm out of her tone only with an effort. She felt the real point of the comment: the O’Reillys, in sharp contrast, didn’t arrive until the 1930s, penniless trash driven west by the Great Depression.

  “Hazel mentioned to me that your husband’s family worked for the McCallums way back when,” Rebecca added with secret pleasure at the momentary frown crumpling Barbara’s brow. Edgar Wallant owned several thriving sawmills and like h
is wife hated the fact that even today the McCallum name was worth more than theirs—and better respected. After all, Hazel hadn’t denuded the area of timber to make her fortune.

  Now go ahead, Rebecca thought bitterly. Here’s your chance to really make my day. Bring up Louise and rub my face in her success. It’s what you’re waiting to do. And don’t forget some catty little remark about John and Louise while you’re at it.

  But Barbara didn’t cut to the kill that quickly. She fell in step beside Rebecca and entered the library foyer with her, a glassed-in expanse decorated with metal sculptures and trees in tub planters.

  “Where did you study nursing, Becky?”

  Barbara’s smile showed too many teeth, and Rebecca realized Louise had inherited her horse grin from her mother. Also, however, good looks and a remarkable body.

  “Colfax Community College,” she replied, wishing this tiresome woman would just leave her alone.

  “Well, it’s quite affordable, I suppose,” Barbara patronized her. “And conveniently located within driving distance. I’ve heard some people say that community colleges are nothing but high schools with ash trays. But that’s unfair. You know, we sent Louise to Stanford. Personally, I think those big-name colleges are overrated. If you’re smart, you’ll do well anywhere, right?”

  “Right,” Rebecca repeated woodenly, wondering why she had to endure this insufferable humiliation on top of everything else she’d already experienced today.

  “Well, anyway, I’d advise you to chat with Louise sometime,” Barbara confided proudly. “Just last weekend she opened her newest bed and breakfast in Deer Lodge. Her fourth, you know. She has some impressive contacts in the medical community, by the way. Perhaps she could steer you in some more…lucrative direction.”

  Barbara knew good and well that her daughter and Rebecca would rather eat live worms than converse with each other. The suggestion was just another catty swipe at her, punishment for daring to reject membership in the Lady Wallant Admiration Society. However, she also felt a little nubbin of hope—despite that crack about “contacts in the medical community,” at least Barbara wasn’t mentioning John as specifically one of them.

  “She hosted quite a celebration this weekend,” Barbara added, and Rebecca felt a new pang of despair. That was precisely how John had looked on Monday morning—as if strung out from “celebrating.”

  Fortunately, by now they had pushed through the turn-stile leading into the library proper. Since Barbara was still talking out loud, Rebecca pointed at the Quiet, Please sign.

  “Well, I better get going,” Rebecca whispered, heading quickly toward the return counter before Barbara could say anything else.

  She knew she’d pay somehow for rudely brushing off a high-and-mighty Wallant like that, but right now Rebecca just didn’t care. It was such a relief to be rid of her—an aching reminder of the “superior” people whose ranks were closed to her.

  She dropped her overdue books in the return slot after paying a small fine on them. Then she crossed to the periodicals room and scanned the nation’s major newspapers. Terrible drought in West Texas; crime down sharply in Los Angeles; alarming drop in the level of the Great Lakes…and terrible heartbreak in Mystery Valley, she thought in a welter of despair.

  I just lost my virginity, she said to herself in a daze of confused wonder. And here I am, sitting in the library.

  Is this it, then? For years you wonder what “it” will be like, and when it’s over, it’s over?

  Abruptly the headlines in front of her began to shimmer, then melt, as tears of bitter disappointment filmed her eyes and splashed down her cold cheek.

  Nine

  Try as she might, Rebecca did not succeed at diverting her thoughts to the day’s headlines. She gave up on the library and reluctantly headed back to her apartment.

  Her cell phone had been turned off earlier. She’d had no heart for conversations with anyone. Now it burred almost immediately after she turned it back on. She picked it up off the seat as she drove out of the library parking lot.

  “Hello?”

  “Well cut off my legs and call me shorty,” Hazel’s deep, mellow voice greeted her. “I was beginning to think maybe our little hometown heroine had absconded with her employer. You all right, Becky?”

  Oh, I’m just peachy, she thought in a moment of bitter self-pity. But she pushed that feeling aside and, with an effort to keep her tone normal, replied, “I’m fine. Just feeling those jet-lag blahs. We didn’t finish up till daylight, and I’m not used to sleeping during the day. I’m driving back from the library now.”

  All more or less true, Rebecca thought, if she didn’t count the lies by omission. However, Hazel must not have been entirely convinced.

  “You sound a little…put-upon,” the cattle queen suggested, fishing for the right word.

  “Oh, it’s nothing really, just lingering annoyance. I ran into Barbara Wallant at the library. You know how she can push my buttons.”

  “Shoo,” Hazel scoffed. “Barbara Wallant is all hat and no cattle, you know that. Always flapping her gums about how she’s a ‘true native.’ Native, my sweet aunt! Her husband’s kin go way back to the homestead days, true. But she came out here from Fort Wayne, Indiana, when she was a kid. That surgically firmed butt of hers has never sat in a saddle.”

  “I know she’s just a phony snob, but I just…well, I don’t like to call her a witch, Hazel. But that’s exactly what she is.”

  Rebecca’s tone had grown sharper as she spoke, revealing her strong feelings. Hazel seemed to pause, evaluating the voice, before she replied.

  “A witch with a snap-on halo,” she agreed. “But I remember when she was younger. Edgar Wallant’s high-toned wife has been kissed under the bleachers plenty of times. Tell me, though—is it really Barbara who gets your dander up? Or is it Louise?”

  “They can both dry up and blow away for all I care. Thank God Louise is hardly ever around town anymore.”

  “What do you care about those two ditzes? You’re a hometown hero.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly. I just did my job.”

  “That right? Did nursing school require you to rappel down a cliff, or—”

  “Hazel, I didn’t ‘rappel’ down anything.”

  “The news broadcasters claim you did.”

  “Nobody even talked to us. I guess we left before they could swarm.”

  “We?”

  “John and I.”

  “Mmm. So he’s ‘John’ finally. Good, that’s progress. Somehow I suspect he’s also stopped calling you Miss O’Reilly.”

  Some innuendo in Hazel’s tone made Rebecca glad the older woman wasn’t there to see her flush.

  “Anyway,” Hazel went on, “they’re still showing a clip of you and him coming up over the berm with that poor lady. She’s doing fine, by the way, in case you haven’t heard.”

  “Good,” Rebecca said, meaning it. But when she failed to add anything else, Hazel’s voice became suspicious again.

  “How,” she probed carefully, “are you and John getting along?”

  “All right, I guess,” Rebecca offered reluctantly. She had never been good at fibbing to Hazel, so she cast about for something to say that was quite truthful. “Less friction lately. In fact, last time I saw him, we were both very civil to each other.”

  “‘Civil,’ huh?” Hazel didn’t sound too impressed. “Honey, I’m ‘civil’ to IRS agents. Are you two at loggerheads over something?”

  Rebecca’s best effort to keep her cool just wasn’t enough. Bitter resentment, rising like flood water over a dam, seeped into her tone. “Just how could we be at loggerheads, Hazel? I mean, if we were fighting with each other, that would kind of imply that we were having some kind of relationship, wouldn’t it? And we’re not. I’ve given up on dating doctors after Brian. They’re no good for me and that’s that. Besides, don’t you know that the code of noblesse oblige requires the royalty to refrain from bickering with their inferiors?”

/>   Her sarcastic emphasis on royalty left no doubt as to just whom she meant.

  “Royalty? Sweet love, John Saville hasn’t got one elitist bone in that buff body of his.”

  “Surely you jest? I’m just glad I don’t believe in reincarnation, or I’d be convinced I was his scullery maid in an earlier life. This time around I’m up to nurse.”

  “You headstrong young fool,” Hazel told her, her tone kinder than the words. “John no more considers himself royalty than I consider myself a belly dancer.”

  “No offense, Hazel,” she replied archly. “But I’m the one who’s around him all day. I think I can tell an elitist snob when I’m constantly snooted by one.”

  “Oh, yeah, you’re sharp as a bowling ball, all right,” Hazel gibed. “Must be all those men you’ve had.”

  Anger gripped her, and Rebecca said nothing. She’d never hung up on Hazel in her life, but she was close to it now.

  However, her friend added mercilessly, “How long have you been in love with him?”

  That tore it for Rebecca.

  “Oh, sure, of course,” she said into the phone. “I mean, how could I not be in love with Mr. Perfection? After all, who am I to resist the young Adonis, God’s gift to women? Why—I should be grateful for every crumb!”

  “He is Adonis,” Hazel retorted, “and you are Aphrodite. The kids you two are going to have someday will be so good-looking they’ll be traffic hazards. I hope you both work through this lovers’ spat. Toodle-oo, hon, I’ve got yard work.”

  Hazel’s audacity, as usual, left Rebecca speechless.

  But it didn’t matter, because the rancher had already hung up.

  “Lovers’ spat,” she repeated aloud, her tone dripping irony. Hazel used to be so perceptive about people. Perhaps age was finally starting to muddle her thinking. The kids you two are going to have someday…