by Sandra Brown
Key immediately went on the defensive and raised his voice to match his mother’s. “What are you yelling at me for? I wasn’t caught humping her, Clark was.”
Jody rose slowly to her feet and leaned on the table, bearing down on her younger son over bottles of catsup and Tabasco sauce. “How dare you speak that way about him. Don’t you have an ounce of decency, a smidgen of respect for your brother?”
“Clark,” Key shouted, rising and squaring off against Jody across the table. “His name was Clark, and what kind of respect do you pay him by not even speaking his name out loud?”
“It hurts to talk about him, Key.”
“Why?” He rounded on Janellen, who’d timidly made the comment.
“Well, because… because his death was so untimely. So tragic.”
“Yes, it was. But it shouldn’t cancel out his life.” He turned back to Jody. “Before he died, Daddy saw to it that Clark and I shared some good times. He wanted us to be close in spite of you, and we were. God knows Clark and I were poles apart in everything, but he was my brother. I loved him. I mourned him when he died. But I refuse to pretend that he didn’t exist just to spare your feelings.”
“You aren’t fit to speak your brother’s name.”
It hurt. Even now it cut him to the quick when she said things like that. She left him no recourse except to lash back. “If he was so bloody perfect, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, Jody. There would never have been a Lara Porter in our lives. No bad press. No scandal. No shame. Clark would have remained the Golden Boy of Capitol Hill.”
“Shut up!”
“Gladly.” He shoved the crutches under his arms and headed for the back door.
“Key, where are you going?” Janellen asked in a panicked voice.
“I’ve got a doctor’s appointment.”
Defiantly he glared at Jody, then let the door slam behind him.
Lara had spent a restless night. Even under the best of circumstances she wasn’t a sound sleeper. Frequently her sleep was interrupted by bad dreams and long intervals of wakefulness. She listened for cries that she would never hear again. Sorrow was the basis of her habitual insomnia.
Last night, meeting Key Tackett had made sleep particularly elusive. She had awakened with a dull headache. Encircling her eyes were dark rings, which cosmetics had helped to camouflage but hadn’t eliminated. Two cups of strong black coffee had relieved the headache, but she couldn’t cast off the disturbing thoughts about her late-night caller.
She hadn’t believed it was possible for any other man to be as attractive as Clark Tackett, but Key was. The brothers were different types, certainly. Clark had had the spit-and-polish veneer of a Marine recruit. There was never a strand of his blond hair out of place. His impeccably tailored clothes were always well pressed; his shoes shone like mirrors. He had epitomized the clean-cut guy next door, the all-American boy whom any mother would love her daughter to bring home.
Key was the type from whom mothers hid their daughters. Although just as handsome as Clark, he was as dissimilar to his brother as a street thug to an Eagle Scout.
Key was a professional pilot. According to Clark, he flew a plane by instinct and put more faith in his own judgment and motor skills than he did in aeronautical instruments. He relied on technology only when given no other choice. Clark had boasted that there wasn’t an aircraft made that his brother couldn’t fly, but Key had opted to freelance rather than work for a commercial airline.
“Too many rules and regulations for him,” Clark had said, smiling with indulgent affection for his younger brother. “Key likes answering to no one but himself.”
Having met him and experienced firsthand the compelling allure of his mischievous smile, Lara couldn’t imagine Key Tackett dressed in a spiffy captain’s uniform, speaking to his passengers in a melodious voice about the weather conditions in their destination city.
Sitting in cockpits a great deal of the time had left him with attractive squint lines radiating from his eyes—eyes as blue as Clark’s. But Clark had been blond and fair. Key’s eyes were surrounded with thick, blunt, black eyelashes. He was definitely the black sheep of the family, even in physical terms. His hair was thick and dark and as undisciplined as he. Clark had never sported a five o’clock shadow. Key hadn’t shaved for days. Oddly, the stubble had contributed to, not detracted from, his appeal.
The brothers were fine specimens of the human animal. Clark had been a domesticated pet. Key was still untamed. When angered—or aroused—Lara imagined he would growl.
“Good morning.”
She jumped as though she’d been caught doing something she should feel guilty for. “Oh, good morning, Nancy. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I’ll say. You were a million miles away.” The nurse/receptionist placed her handbag in the file case and put on a pastel lab coat. “What happened to the telephone in the examination room?” She had come in through the back door before joining Lara in a small alcove where they kept supplies, beverages, and snacks. The kitchen of the attached house remained for Lara’s personal use.
“It was flimsy, so I decided to replace it.”
Because she hadn’t yet sorted out her feelings about Key Tackett’s visit to the clinic, she wasn’t ready to discuss it with Nancy. “Coffee?” She held up the carafe.
“Absolutely.” The nurse added two teaspoons of sugar to the steaming mug Lara handed her. “Are there any doughnuts left?”
“In the cabinet. I thought you were dieting.”
Nancy Baker found the doughnuts and demolished half of one with a single bite, then licked the sugar glaze off her fingers. “I gave up dieting,” she said unapologetically. “I’m too busy to count calories. And if I dieted from now till doomsday, I’d never be a centerfold. Besides, Clem likes me this way. Says there’s more to love.”
Smiling, Lara asked, “How was your day off?”
“Well,” Nancy replied, smacking her lips, “all things considered, it was okay. The dog’s in heat, and Little Clem found a pair of his sister’s tap shoes, put them on, and wore them all day long on the wrong feet. When we tried to take them off, he screamed bloody murder, so it was easier just to let him wear them and look goofy. Tapping feet I can live with, screaming I can’t.”
Nancy’s stories about her chaotic household never failed to be entertaining. She complained good-naturedly about her hectic routine, which revolved around three active children, all of whom were going through a “stage,” but Lara knew her nurse loved her husband and her children and wouldn’t have traded places with anyone.
Nancy had responded to an ad Lara had placed in the local newspaper, and Lara had hired her after their first interview, partially because Nancy was her sole applicant. Nancy was well qualified, although she’d taken time off from nursing to have Little Clem two years ago.
“Now that it’s time to potty train him,” she’d told Lara, “I’d rather go back to work and let Granny Baker do the honors.”
Lara had liked her instantly and was even a little jealous of her. She’d had chaos in her life, too, but it hadn’t been the crazy, happy kind that Nancy experienced daily. It had been the life-altering kind, the kind that wounded and left deep scars. Her calamities had been irrevocable.
“If it weren’t for Clem,” Nancy was saying as she finished her second doughnut, “I’d have killed the dog, possibly the kids, too, and then pulled my hair out. But when he came home from work, he insisted we drop the kids at his mother’s house and go to dinner by ourselves. We pigged out on Beltbusters and onion rings at the Dairy Queen. It was great.
“After Little Clem went to sleep, I hid the tap shoes in the top of the closet so he wouldn’t be reminded of them today. This morning Big Clem dropped the dog off at the vet, where she’ll either get laid or spayed. By the way, if they’ve got a willing sire available, do you want dibs on a puppy?”
“No, thanks,” Lara said, laughing.
“Don’t blame you. I’ll probably
be stuck with the whole damn litter.” She washed her hands in the sink. “I’d better go check the appointment book to see who’s coming in today.”
Both knew that the appointment book wasn’t filled. There were far more empty time slots than confirmed appointments. She had been in Eden Pass for six months but was still struggling to increase her practice. If she hadn’t had a savings account to fall back on, she would have had to close the clinic long before now.
Greater than the financial considerations were the professional ones. She was a good doctor. She wanted to practice medicine… although she wouldn’t necessarily have chosen to do so in Eden Pass.
Eden Pass had been chosen for her.
This practice had been a gift handed to her when she least expected it, though it facilitated a plan she’d been formulating for some time. She had needed a viable excuse to approach Key Tackett. When the opportunity to place herself in his path had presented itself, she had seized it. But not without acknowledging that being the only GP in a small town would be a difficult transition for her.
She had also known it would be an even greater adjustment for the townsfolk who were accustomed to Doc Patton and his small cluttered office in the clinic. She had earned the diplomas now adorning the walls. The medical books on the shelves belonged to her. But the office still bore the former occupant’s masculine imprint. As soon as it was economically feasible, she intended to paint the dark paneling and replace the leather maroon furniture with something brighter and more contemporary.
These planned changes would be only cosmetic. Changing the minds of people would take much more time and effort. Before his retirement, Dr. Stewart Patton had been a general practitioner in Eden Pass for more than forty years and in that time he had never made a single enemy. Since taking over his practice, Lara was frequently asked, “Where’s Doc?” with the same suspicious inflection as Key Tackett had used when he posed the question to her last night, as though she had displaced the elderly doctor for self-gain.
Dr. Lara Mallory had a long way to go before earning the same level of confidence as Doc Patton had held with the people of Eden Pass. She knew she could never cultivate the affection of her patients that Doc Patton had enjoyed, because she was, after all, the scarlet woman who’d been involved with Clark Tackett. Everyone in his hometown knew her as such. That’s why her arrival had taken them by surprise. Lara had wishfully reasoned that once they recovered from the initial shock and realized that she was a qualified physician, they would forget the scandal.
Unfortunately, she had underestimated Jody Tackett’s staggering influence over the community. Although they’d never met face to face, Clark’s mother was crippling her attempts to succeed.
One afternoon when she was feeling particularly despondent, she’d brought it up with Nancy. “I guess it’s no mystery why people in Eden Pass are willing to drive twenty miles to the next town to see a doctor.”
“Course not,” Nancy said. “Jody Tackett has put out the word that anybody who comes near this office, no matter how sick, will be on her shit list.”
“Because of Clark?”
“Hmm. Everyone in town knows the scintillating details of y’all’s affair. It had almost been laid to rest when Clark died. Then you showed up a few months afterward. Jody got pissed and set her mind to making you an outcast.”
“Then why are you willing to work for me?”
Nancy took a deep breath. “My daddy was a pumper for Tackett Oil and Gas for twenty-five years. This was years ago, when Clark Senior was still head honcho.” She paused. “You know that Clark—your Clark—was a third-generation Clark Tackett, don’t you? His granddaddy was Clark Senior and his daddy Clark Junior.”
“Yes. He told me.”
“Okay, so anyway,” Nancy resumed, “there was an accident at one of the wells and my daddy was killed.”
“Did the Tacketts admit culpability?”
“They did what they had to do to cover themselves legally. Mama got all the insurance money she was entitled to. But none of them came to the funeral. Nobody called. They had the flower shop deliver a big spray of chrysanthemums to the church, but none of them saw fit to visit my mama.
“I was just a kid at the time, but I thought then, and still think, that it was rotten of them to be so standoffish. True, Daddy’s death didn’t make a ripple in one barrel of their filthy oil, but he was a loyal, hardworking employee. Since then I’ve had a low opinion of all the Tacketts, but particularly of Jody.”
“Why particularly of Jody?”
“Because she only married Clark Junior to get her greedy hands on Tackett Oil.” Nancy inched forward in her chair. “See, Clark Senior was a wildcatter at the height of the boom. He struck oil the first time he drilled and made a shitload of money virtually overnight, then kept right on making it. Clark Junior came along. His main ambition in life was to have a good time and spend as much of his daddy’s money as he could, mostly on gambling, whiskey, and women.”
She sighed reminiscently. “He was the best-looking man I ever laid eyes on. Women from all over mourned his passing. But Jody sure as hell didn’t. When he died she got what she’d wanted all along.”
“Tackett Oil?”
“Total control. The old man was already dead. When Clark Junior slid off that icy mountain—in the Himalayas, I think it was—and broke his neck, Jody rolled up her shirtsleeves and went to work.”
Nancy needed no encouragement to talk.
“She’s tough as boot leather. Came from a poor farming family. Their house got blown down by a tornado. They all got killed except her. A widow lady took her in and finished raising her.
“Jody was as smart as they come and got a scholarship to Texas Tech. Straight out of college she went to work for Clark Senior. He was a land man and acquired some of his best leases even after everybody thought all the oil in East Texas was spoken for. The old man liked her. Jody was everything that Clark Junior wasn’t—responsible, ambitious, driven. I think Clark Senior was the one behind the marriage.”
“What do you mean?”
“The story is that Clark Junior had knocked up a debutante from Fort Worth. Her daddy had mob connections and, for all his money and social standing, was nothing but a glorified pimp. Clark Senior wanted no part of that, so he rushed Clark Junior into marriage with Jody.
“I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s possible. Clark Junior loved to party. He could have had his pick from hundreds of women. Why would he agree to saddle himself with Jody if not to get out of a scrape with a mobster?
“Anyhow, they got married. Clark the Third didn’t come along for years. The nastier gossips said it took Clark Junior that long to work up a hard-on for Jody, who never was a beauty. In fact, she goes out of her way to be plain. I guess she thinks that brains and beauty cancel out each other.”
“Didn’t she mind Clark Junior’s womanizing?”
Nancy shrugged. “If she did, she didn’t let on. She ignored his philandering and concentrated on running the business. I guess she didn’t care about him nearly as much as she did the price of crude. Left to him, he probably would have bankrupted Tackett Oil. Not Jody. She’s prospered when others have fallen by the wayside. She’s a ruthless businesswoman.”
“I’m getting a taste of her ruthlessness,” Lara said quietly.
“Well, you have to understand where she’s coming from about that.” Nancy leaned forward and lowered her voice, although there was no one around to overhear them. “The only thing Jody loved better than Tackett Oil was her boy, Clark. She thought the sun rose and set in him. I guess he never crossed her. Anyway, she had his future all mapped out, including a stint in the White House. She blames you for destroying that dream.”
“She and everyone else.”
After a reflective moment, Nancy said, “Be careful, Dr. Mallory. Jody has money and power and an ax to grind. That makes her dangerous.” She patted Lara’s hand. “Personally, I’m rooting for anyone outside her favor.”
Surely by now Key Tackett had discovered his blunder. Her name had probably ricocheted off the walls of the Tacketts’ house with the ferocity of a racquetball.
Let them curse her. She had come to Eden Pass with a specific goal in mind, and it wasn’t to win the Tacketts’ regard. She wanted something, but it wasn’t approval.
When it came time for her to demand of them what they owed her, she didn’t care if they liked her or not.
Relatively speaking, this was a busy morning. She was scheduled to see five patients before noon. Her first was an elderly woman who rattled off a litany of complaints. Upon examining her, Lara discovered she was as healthy as a horse, if a bit lonely. She prescribed some pills—which were really multivitamin tablets—and told the woman about the fun exercise classes at the Methodist Church.
Nancy ushered in the next patient, a cantankerous three-year-old boy with an earache and a fever of one hundred two. Lara was getting the specifics of his illness from his frazzled mother when she heard a commotion coming from the reception area at the front of the building. Returning the squalling three-year-old to the arms of his mother, she excused herself and stepped into the hallway.
“Nancy, what’s going on?” she called out.
It wasn’t her receptionist who came crashing through the connecting door, but Key Tackett. His crutches didn’t slow him down as he stormed toward her. Clearly he was furious.
Even though he came to within inches of her before stopping, Lara held her ground. “Your appointment isn’t until this afternoon, Mr. Tackett.”
The mother had followed Lara into the hallway and was standing behind her. The child’s wailing had risen to a deafening level. Nancy had come up behind Key, looking ready to do battle in Lara’s defense. She and Key were between them, but only Lara felt trapped.