Trading Secrets

by Christine Flynn

  The narrow road was deserted except for the two of them—and the hundred or so dairy cows in the meadows on either side. Thinking how lovely the quiet suddenly was, she tipped her head, gave a small shrug. “I just did what you told me to do.”

  “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Short-change yourself,” he muttered not caring at all for the way she tended to minimize her efforts. “I couldn’t have done that without you.”

  “Well, I don’t know how you do it all.” Grasping the tailgate with both hands, she lifted it up. Metal creaked in the bucolic stillness. “Stay so calm like that, I mean. In a crisis, my first reaction is to fall apart.”

  “It might be your first reaction, but it’s not what you do. You did fine out there. And you didn’t fall apart when I showed up at your door,” he reminded her. “I have the feeling you didn’t fall apart with all you went through in Boston, either.”

  Her glance moved to his. He towered beside her, lifting the gate with her, his expression as matter-of-fact as his tone.

  He was right. She hadn’t. She’d just gone numb.

  “I mean inside,” she explained, wondering if that’s what he did, too. Numbed himself. They gave the tailgate a shove, metal clanking as it locked into place. “I don’t know how you stay so calm inside.”

  A hint of defeat underscored her tone. Hearing it, Greg let his glance skim her profile. He already suspected that she wasn’t doing as well as she was letting on to every one else. But, then, no one else knew what she’d gone through. Outwardly, she seemed fine. At least she did when there were people around to see. There were times, though, when she’d thought no one was watching that he’d caught a certain weariness about her.

  He caught a hint of it now.

  “Calm is a relative term.” In an emergency, with adrenaline pumping, his mind going a mile a minute, he felt anything but peaceful. “It’s more of a detachment that comes with the profession.” Greg suspected that ability had come easier to him than to most people. Detaching himself had been what he’d done most of his life. It had been how he’d survived.

  He didn’t feel that sense of disconnection just then, though. Not with her looking at him so puzzled and the silk of her short hair blowing in wisps around her head.

  “How? Is there a course in medical school? Composure 101 or something?”

  “It’s more seat-of-the pants than that. After a few months in an inner city E.R. you learn to separate the injury from the person. If you don’t, you jeopardize patients because emotion can interfere with the ability to make decisions.”

  She seemed to deliberate that as she considered him. As she did, he found himself studying her back. He couldn’t believe how she’d distracted him as he’d worked on his patient, how totally she distracted him now.

  She still wore the blue scrub smock that hid her slender shape from him. But he had no trouble visualizing her curvy little body, the length of her legs. Everything from the blue of her eyes to the freckle on her left ankle had burned itself into his brain.

  What he wanted to do to everything in between hit with force of a sledgehammer.

  She had way of looking at him that did nothing to shake that betraying, dismaying desire. She seemed to trust nearly everything he said or did. He doubted she would even move from him now if he were to reach for her. She might seem bewildered or surprised, but he knew she wouldn’t move.

  All he had to do to test his theory was slip his hand along the side of her face and tip her head to his. In a matter of seconds, he would know for certain if her lips were as soft as they looked. He would know her taste. He would know if she felt the same heat he dutifully denied nearly every time they smiled at each other.

  The tension flowing through him felt infinitely different from what he normally battled. Reining it in along with his thoughts, he stepped back before he could kiss his common sense goodbye.

  The last thing he needed was to lose the ease they had with each other. He knew how badly Brent had burned her. He knew she was aware of Elizabeth and his plans to move on. Crossing the line with her would do nothing for their working relationship, or help rebuild her badly battered sense of trust in herself or other men.

  He held out his hand, motioned with his fingers for the keys.

  “I’ll drive.” If he was occupied with driving, he’d keep his hands where they belonged. Where they did not belong was anywhere on Jenny Baker. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that touching her would only complicate the growing uncertainty he felt about Elizabeth and his relationship with her. Elizabeth was a good, beautiful and intelligent woman. Everything a man should want in a partner. Business and otherwise. She deserved his loyalty.

  Jenny’s expression went suddenly cautious as she handed him the keys.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, apparently concerned with the way his jaw had locked.

  “Yeah. Fine.” Keys jangled as he found the one for the ignition. “How about you? Are you ready?”

  He’d withdrawn from her. Jenny had no idea why, but she felt it as surely as she had the hard bump of her heart against her ribs when his glance had settled on her mouth.

  Truck doors slammed. Seat belts snapped into place. The engine roared to life. But the silence between them as he pulled onto the tree-lined road and headed for Maple Mountain felt as awkward to her as it had in the moments after they’d worked together on his shoulder.

  Loathe to let that silence lengthen, she glanced toward Greg’s preoccupied profile.

  “Bess said no other doctor had been willing to come here,” she confided quietly. “But I’m glad you did. Those boys were lucky you were there for them.” She looked down at her slacks, brushed slowly at the dirt clinging to her knees. “The whole town is lucky to have you.”

  It’s just too bad you have to leave, she thought, but couldn’t bring herself to say it.

  Greg looked to where she picked at a small tear below her knee. The sincerity in her tone added a dose of guilt to his mental tug of war. He knew she felt grateful to him. He could see it sometimes in her eyes. But he didn’t want her gratitude. And he definitely didn’t want her to have any illusions about him.

  “I don’t deserve anyone’s thanks, Jenny.” His reasons for being there were far from altruistic. Pure necessity had led him to Maple Mountain. “Just between you and me, I hadn’t cared where I went as long as my medical school loans got paid. Maple Mountain had simply been first on the list.”

  His indifference caught Jenny by surprise. As involved as he had become in the town, as accepted as he had become, she would have thought for certain that he had deliberately sought out the very sense of community he’d found there.

  “You might have started out not caring,” she allowed, though she didn’t believe that, either, “but I don’t believe for a minute that you don’t care about the people here. I’ve seen you with your patients. I know what you do for Amos Calder. You even made sure another doctor was lined up so you don’t leave everyone stranded when you go.”

  She’d seen a copy of a letter in Rhonda’s Rural Health Corps file. The one where he’d extolled the virtues of the town and its people to Dr. Cochran and offered to help any way he could to get the man to come to Maple Mountain.

  “Someone who didn’t care wouldn’t get so edgy when he has to deal with something about his departure, either.” She smoothed the little rip, carefully so as not to tear it farther. “I imagine you’re excited about all your plans for when you leave here,” she murmured, thinking of how eager she’d been herself those four long years ago, “but I can tell that part of you doesn’t really want to go.”

  For a moment, Greg said nothing. Of all he’d had on his mind, he truly hadn’t considered how he would feel leaving the little town behind. With the mental upheaval of the past few months, his only thoughts about moving had concerned his reluctance to deal with his father’s estate and a growing fear that mixing his professional and personal life with Elizabeth was a mis
take.

  Those were the reasons he felt so restive all the time. Leaving had little to do with it. And she’d missed by a mile on the excitement part.

  “How can you tell?”

  Beneath pale blue cotton, her shoulder lifted in a faint shrug. “You get kind of…tense…whenever something comes up about going.”

  He wasn’t at all accustomed to a woman being so sensitive to him.

  “I just want to make sure my patients are taken care of,” he insisted, feeling the exact tension she’d just referred to. He was going to Cambridge in a week. He couldn’t avoid it any longer. “I just don’t like loose ends.”

  He leaned forward, reached toward the radio. “Which do you want to listen to? Music or the farm reports?”

  Jenny glanced from his strong profile. She didn’t know which bothered her more just then; the sense that she might have overstepped herself, the indifference he professed, or that she had just caused the very edginess she’d mentioned. All she knew for certain as she quietly told him he could choose and that edge began to fade was that when it came to changing the subject, the man was anything but subtle.

  Chapter Six

  Visitors filled the diner over the weekend, crowding out the locals who preferred to stay home, anyway, when there were so many outsiders around. Jenny worked both days, saw Greg only briefly when he came in for breakfast, stopped for a quick visit with Rhonda to greet precious, little Amy Lynn Pembroke and spent her evenings nailing down loose porch boards and peeling off wallpaper.

  She dutifully ignored the tiredness nagging her, along with the faint queasiness she sometimes felt from lack of sleep. She knew from the sleepless nights she’d spent when she’d first been implicated in Brent’s scheme that emotions and fatigue could make a person feel rotten. She just hated that her attempts to work off the feelings of betrayal haunting her weren’t working as well as she’d hope. Staying busy was the only defense she had.

  Fortunately, keeping occupied wasn’t a problem. The weekend flew by. So did the following week. It helped enormously that she began to settle into a routine. What helped most, though she would have admitted it to no one, was being with Greg. When she was around him, she was more aware of his tension than her own, more easily distracted from the ball of anxiety in her stomach that had yet to go away.

  He wasn’t an easy man to understand, but he was easy to work with, patient with her questions and, as she had learned at the quarry, quick to praise. By tacit agreement, neither spoke of anything personal. Yet, in many ways he was also becoming a friend.

  Every evening before she closed the clinic, he poked his head around the front office doorway and told her not to work too late, or that he’d see her later at the diner. Every morning he asked, over the coffee she made extra strong, how she was progressing on the house.

  He seemed genuinely pleased for her when she learned two days after meeting with the electrician that she wouldn’t have to spend a penny for new wiring. The old wiring was actually in good shape, since some had been replaced by Mrs. Baker. Because no repairs were needed, she could have electricity by the end of the week. Knowing how much debt she had, Greg was also totally sympathetic when she found out how much a new roof would cost.

  She liked his interest, liked the little rituals. They gave a sense of normalcy and routine to her life, and heaven knew she craved both.

  She missed his little habits when they were gone, too. At least, she told herself that was what she missed—and not Greg himself—when she went four days without seeing him at all.

  Greg had his usual rounds on Thursday, then took Friday off to spend a long weekend in Cambridge. It had been on the tip of Jenny’s tongue to ask if he was going to see his friend. But she’d bitten back the question because the answer had seemed obvious. What hadn’t seemed so apparent was why she’d felt so little enthusiasm when she told him she hoped he had a nice time.

  Jenny heard Greg before she saw him when he walked in the back door of the clinic Monday morning. Afraid that it really had been him she’d missed and not just their little routines, she made herself stay by her desk.

  “I smell coffee,” he announced, his footsteps heavy in the hall. “Thank you, Jenny.”

  “You’re welcome,” she called back, only now letting herself head for the hallway.

  She barely caught a glimpse of his yellow oxford shirt and tan slacks as he disappeared into the break room. Beyond the impressive width of his shoulders, what registered most was that the sling was gone.

  “Good morning,” she heard him say to Bess.

  “Morning, yourself, Doctor.” Standing by the coffeemaker, Bess handed him a white ceramic mug and went back to adding milk from the little refrigerator to her coffee. “How was your weekend?”

  The phenomenon was interesting, Jenny thought. Greg had glanced toward her as she’d walked in, his easy smile meeting her own. At Bess’s question, the light in his eyes died like a candle flame snuffed by the wind.

  He turned to the coffeepot, picked it up.

  “It was fine.” His enthusiasm clearly dead, he splashed coffee into his mug. “How was yours?” he asked, trying to resurrect it again as he slid the pot back into place. “Did you get your tomatoes canned?”

  “Squash. It was squash this weekend. I left a loaf of zucchini bread on your desk for you.”

  A hint of curiosity emerged. “With or without that white frosting?”

  “With.”

  “You spoil me, Bess.”

  “Can’t say anyone ever accused me of that before.”

  Jenny thought he’d tease Bess a little. Maybe tell her he promised he wouldn’t say anything to anyone and spoil her reputation.

  All he said was, “Thanks, anyway.”

  He glanced toward Jenny. Because he had done it every other morning, she expected him to ask how her house was coming along. At the very least she thought he might inquire about the power, since he knew it was to have been turned on last Friday.

  She was ready to tell him about the paint she had picked up Saturday morning in St. Johnsbury and to tell him that the best part about having electricity was having running hot water. It had taken forever for the rusty old water heater to heat and Bud Calder had told her she’d probably have to replace it before too long, but she was now living as one of the civilized.

  Greg said nothing. His features a study in stone, he walked right past her with his mug trailing steam and headed for his office.

  Bess leaned an ample hip against the counter. Her voice lowered along with her brow. “Wonder what that was all about.”

  “Me, too,” Jenny all but whispered back. It was as clear as a specimen slide that Greg hadn’t cared to share anything about his weekend. It had also been as obvious as the cords in his neck that something about his weekend had not gone well.

  “Trouble in paradise?” Bess ventured.

  Jenny hadn’t a clue.

  He was seeing the last patient of the day, however, when she got one.

  Bess had taken the files and supplies she would need for her rounds the next day and gone home at four. With no other patients expected, Jenny was finishing the billing so she could stay and finally complete the grant application when the tinkle of the bell over the front door drew her glance to the reception window.

  She had never met the stunning blonde entering the waiting area. Yet she knew even as she took in the woman’s tailored gray pantsuit and the stylish, casual upsweep of her gleaming hair that she was the woman in the photograph in Greg’s office.

  “Hi,” his friend said, her voice as cultured as the pearls in her ears. She didn’t bother with a smile. She simply gave Jenny a glance that immediately dismissed her as nothing more than office help and stopped at the window. “I’m Dr. Brandt. Is Dr. Reid in?”

  “He’s with a patient.”

  “Oh, don’t interrupt him,” she said, as if she thought Jenny might actually do that on her account. “I’ll just wait in his office.”

  Jenny was
n’t sure what the protocol was here. The woman clearly had a personal relationship with Greg. But his office was his private space.

  Surprised by the surge of hesitation she felt, determined to believe it nothing more than professional protectiveness, Jenny did as she would have done at the brokerage. Her boss there would have had her head if she’d let anyone he wasn’t expecting into his office alone without his permission.

  Not sure Greg wasn’t expecting her, she forced some of the starch from her spine.

  “If you’ll wait here for a moment?” she asked and turned before the woman could open her beautiful gloss-shined mouth.

  She rapped her knuckles softly on the exam room door. “Doctor?” she quietly called and opened the door far enough to see that the privacy curtain had already been pulled away.

  Seven-year-old Josh Hill sat on the exam table, vigorously rubbing his arm where Greg had just vaccinated him. The Hills ran a dairy farm in North Stratford thirty miles away. His mom stood beside the little boy stroking his hair and telling him how brave he’d been.

  “Dr. Brandt is here to see you,” she said, her tone all business. “Shall I have her wait in your office?”

  His brow slammed low. “She’s here?”

  He hadn’t expected her. No question.

  “In the waiting room.”

  “My office is fine,” he said, regrouping. “It’ll be a few minutes though.”

  She gave a nod and left him to finish his appointment. Moments later she opened the door to the waiting room.

  Elizabeth stood in the middle of the well-used and uninspired space, her arms tightly crossed and her expression mildly preoccupied. Or maybe mildly annoyed. Jenny knew that Rhonda thought the woman “all right” and that Bess had called her “pleasant enough,” but Jenny’s impression wasn’t so favorable. Dr. Elizabeth Brandt looked to her as if she were none to pleased to be in her present surroundings. She also gave Jenny the feeling that she didn’t care to so much as touch anything in the place.

  “If you’ll follow me?” Jenny asked.

  Elizabeth turned on her pretty-but-practical pumps.