by Becky McGraw
This wasn’t about helping Brock or Lucy, it was about helping that child find some relief or answers. Her conscience just wouldn’t let her not help him if she could—and she knew she could. If she found something, she’d just pass off that information to Brock, and he could relay it to the doctors treating his son.
That thought quieted the edginess inside of her, and after a wide yawn, she padded back to the bed, stripping off her clothes as she walked. With the window left open, it should cool it off enough for her to sleep, she thought, as she threw back the chenille bedspread to crawl under the sheet naked. Unless her dreams were filled with Brock Cooper like they had been constantly when she was a teenager.
In her dreams now though, Melanie knew instead of the tall, teenage jock with amazing blue eyes and thick, wavy hair who owned the world both on and off the football field, she’d see the new and improved version. The cowboy version, which she’d definitely developed an appreciation for since living in Texas.
This new man would wear a black Stetson that shaded his brooding blue eyes, making him appear mysterious, dangerous. He would be just a bit taller, but a lot more muscular than his teenage counterpart. He’d still carry himself with cocksure arrogance, but it would be accompanied by a sexy, snarky attitude. That image, that man, was entirely too dangerous for her adult peace of mind. Almost dangerous enough to make her want to push him at the diner just for the pleasure of having him frisk her.
Melanie skimmed her fingers over the tips of her breasts and shivered when they puckered. She smoothed one hand down her stomach and as it moved south, she closed her eyes to focus on that image, because she also knew her adult dreams wouldn’t be of kisses under the bleachers after a game, since she wasn’t a sixteen-year-old virgin anymore.
***
The sun tinted the white curtains in Brady’s bedroom orange, as Brock hugged him tightly and rocked him as he moaned. With every whimper, his insides clenched tighter until he wanted to moan too. Last night he’d been up twice to go to the bathroom, once to throw up again. Brock lifted his hand to smooth back the hair from his sweaty brow and his insides froze when a clump came off between his fingers.
“You’re going to have to stay home today, kiddo. I’ll go by the school and talk to your teacher—explain that you’re sick. She’ll let you make up the test.”
Or Brock hoped she would.
Mrs. Lawrence was getting frustrated, as was the principal, with the number of days Brady had missed so far this year. As smart as he was, as good of grades as he earned, he might have to repeat the first grade if he couldn’t make it to school the state required number of days to make a full year. They’d have no choice but to retain him is what they’d said at the last parent-teacher conference. Brock just could not make him go though—he was too damned sick.
He and Dr. Melanie Fox were going to have a chat this morning. Brock needed some help, because it seemed the twenty or so doctors that Lucy had brought Brady to see didn’t have a clue what was wrong with him.
Melanie Fox would know. She was just about the smartest person he’d ever met in his life, crazy smart, and he had no doubt she was an excellent physician. He knew if she couldn’t help him, she could at least point him in the right direction to find some help. Maybe recommend a specialist they could take him to see.
The question was—would she help him?
After the way he’d treated her at the diner when he stopped her last night, he wasn’t sure. But her condescending, superior attitude had rubbed him the wrong way. Brock was desperate, so he’d apologize, take her sour attitude and condescension—he’d take whatever the hell was required to get answers for his son. He wished he could take whatever sickness it was that was causing his child this misery for himself.
The bedroom door opened, and Lucy stood there in a see-through short red nightgown. Her blonde hair was artfully messed on her head, and from the lipstick on her mouth it was obvious she had been up for a while and there was no reason for her not to be dressed. Other than she wanted him to see her in that damned nightgown.
“Morning, baby,” she said, making a big production of stretching her hands over her head, so her breasts stretched the lacy fabric of her nightgown. “I made your cereal, so get up and get dressed.”
“He isn’t going to school today,” Brock grated, pushing Brady off of his lap. “He’s going to the doctor, and I’m going with y’all. Get an appointment, Lucy.”
“It’s only seven-thirty, so they’re not open yet,” she replied, her lower lip pouting. “What’s wrong, Brady?”
“The same thing that’s been wrong with him for three years!” Brock shouted, as he stomped to the dresser and jerked out a drawer to pull out sweatpants and a t-shirt for Brady.
“That new doctor in Mountain Ridge has a two-week waiting list. I could try the one he saw over in Homer?” she suggested.
“Call all twenty or so he’s seen if that’s what it takes—just get him a damned appointment or I’m taking him to the hospital!”
Ask me before it’s too late.
Brock ground his teeth as the stupid vision that had haunted him all fucking night reappeared. He couldn’t ignore it anymore. That’s exactly where he was going right now—to Merry Fox’s house to ask Melanie to help him.
“Better yet, let’s get you dressed, Brady—I’m taking you to see a doctor.”
“What doctor?” Lucy asked, her eyes narrowed.
“Melanie Fox,” he replied, tossing the clothes to Brady. “Put those on.”
“Hooty?” she asked, shaking her head. “She’s in California, isn’t she?”
“She’s back in town to take care of her mother and aunt. That woman I stopped at the diner yesterday was Melanie Fox.” Brock scanned the floor and found Brady’s tennis shoes at the end of the bed, then helped him sit on the bed and put them on.
“That was Hooty?” she asked, her voice shocked. “Good gawd, she must’ve had an entire body lift done in California. She needed one.” The nasty snigger that punctuated her words raked over every nerve in his body.
“Yeah, she looks damned good, doesn’t she?” Brock asked, and enjoyed seeing the smile wilt from Lucy’s face. “She’s also a doctor now, so I guarantee she’s smart enough to figure out what’s wrong with him, or find me a doctor who can.”
Lucy’s indignant gasp was music to his ears as he tied Brady’s shoes. When he finished, he looked at Lucy and she wore a worried, sour expression, which he knew wasn’t because Brady was sick and that pissed him off. She’d become more and more blasé about their son’s illness over the last year. That expression was solely because she now saw Melanie as competition.
But what Lucy didn’t realize was there was no competition. Melanie Fox had always been ten times the human being as Lucy or any of her friends. Brock had just been too damned shallow to look past the glasses and extra weight to see that.
But, unlike Lucy and her buddies, he’d never been intentionally cruel to her. In fact, when her sister informed him tongue-in-cheek that the shy, self-conscious bookworm had a crush on him, Brock had done everything he could to let her down easily.
Her sister, on the other hand, had spread it through the entire school so Melanie had become even more introverted. He’d broken up with Maddie shortly after that.
Melanie certainly wasn’t shy or introverted now, he thought. She wore self-confidence now like a two-hundred-dollar suit, which is what he estimated hers to cost yesterday. Somewhere in California she’d found the beautiful, self-assured woman she was always meant to be. Found the greatness she was always meant for. And he was damned glad for her—for him too—since he thought she might be able to help his son.
“I don’t have time to chat, Lucy—get me the keys to your van,” Brock demanded.
“Just wait for me to get him an appointment,” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest and lifting her chin. “I don’t want her examining him.”
“Well, that’s too damned bad, because she is going to examine him.�
� Brock grabbed Brady’s hand and walked to the bedroom door. “Now, get me the damned keys or I’ll carry him to town.”
CHAPTER SIX
Melanie replaced the lid on the fifth cardboard filing box she’d been through and lifted the lid on the box beside it. It appeared to her that Dr. Carter hadn’t hired administrative help after she left town. The man was a brilliant diagnostician, but just about as disorganized with his paperwork as a man could be. It was obvious he’d loaded the files into these boxes.
At least he’d organized them by year in the storage room so she wouldn’t have to go through twenty-five-years worth of medical records to find the one for Brady Cooper. She didn’t know if Lucy and Brock were married, didn’t think they were from the vein of the conversation between them at the diner, but even if they weren’t, she assumed the woman would give her son his father’s name. Just in case though, she was searching for both Cooper and Morris.
God, she wished he was here to help her. Walking into the musty smelling office had been like walking into a time capsule. The only thing missing was her mentor.
During breakfast and coffee with Mrs. Carter, Melanie found out that Jonas died here in this office last year. Even though he’d officially retired, he still took on emergency patients and he’d gotten a call on a Saturday morning to see a patient who obviously never showed up. When he wasn’t home by dinner time, Mrs. Carter got worried so she called the sheriff and they found him unconscious in his office. He died from a massive head bleed before they got him to the hospital.
Who tripped over a rug and hit their head hard enough on the corner of the desk to kill themselves? Jonas was a hale and hearty man, no health problems at all—for him to die in such a freakish accident robbed the world of a good man, and a talented doctor.
Melanie worked her way through two more boxes, then froze when she found a file she thought was Brady’s—but it was Brock’s. No, you can’t, she told herself, even as she slid it out of the box and opened it. She glanced at the open doorway, then back at the file as she flipped through the patient intake data and his childhood health and sports physicals to get to the good stuff. There was a six-year gap from his last sports physical at eighteen to a visit for a pain prescription renewal for a torn ACL.
She really should not be looking at this, but couldn’t help herself as she read through Jonas’s notes to see Brock had played four years of college football and one year of pro football for the Carolina Cougars where he sustained the injury. Although she knew he had a football scholarship at Georgia Tech when he left town the year before she did, Mel had no idea he’d played professional football because she hated football. The only reason she ever went to high school games was to watch him play.
Flipping back to his intake information, she found his latest address and recognized the remote county road outside of town which was mostly agricultural properties. Was he a farmer or rancher now in addition to being sheriff? That would explain the sexy cowboy hat and dusty boots, she guessed, along with the added muscle. A little thrill shot through her, remembering her dream from last night. It got very hot in her room before sunrise.
Stop this—that man is old news! Slamming the file shut, she wedged a corner of the folder back into the stuffed box.
“You adding breaking and entering to your list of offenses, ma’am?”
Melanie froze as the familiar deep voice rumbled through her, and she fought back a shiver as her eyes shot to the doorway. The sexy smile that ticked up the corners of Brock’s firm mouth warmed her insides and other body parts as he leaned casually against the doorframe with his thumbs tucked into his front pockets. The fact that his fingers framed the bulge in his tight jeans did not escape her attention.
“I, ah, got a key from Mrs. Carter, so, um, I’m not breaking and entering,” she muttered, dragging her eyes up to his.
She sounded just like sixteen-year-old Melanie right then and it pissed her off that she felt blood rush up to her face. This man had always had that effect on her—he put her off balance, made her self-conscious.
Or it could be because he’d almost caught her spying on him, examining his confidential medical records to figure out what he’d been doing since she’d been gone and was mortified he might figure that out. With a forceful push, she shoved the file back into the box and her hand shook as she replaced the lid. She stood then rubbed the dust from her hands on her jeans.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, his eyes sliding along the row of boxes before meeting hers again.
“I, ah…” Oh, God—she couldn’t tell him that either! Somehow she didn’t think her telling him she was looking for his son’s records would go over any better than telling him she’d been looking at his. “I was looking for my old medical records so they don’t get lost if Mrs. Carter ever sells this office building.”
Whew—that was a reasonable answer, and it looked like he bought it.
“I need a favor,” he said quickly, and Melanie relaxed.
“What do you need?” she asked, her heart doing a stutter-step.
His smile faded, he swallowed hard and pushed off the door jamb to stand. “I know you don’t owe me a damned thing, and I’m sorry for being an ass yesterday—but I need you to look at Brady and tell me what the hell is wrong with him.”
“I was an ass too, and I apologize.” Melanie took a step toward him, feeling relieved that he was asking for her help so she wouldn’t be intruding. “I’d be happy to examine him but my medical licenses are for Texas and California, so I can’t treat him. I’m an emergency medicine specialist, not an internist, so I don’t know how much help I’ll be either.”
He tipped his hat back, put his hands on his hips and held her eyes. “You’re just about the smartest woman I’ve ever met and I’m tired of wasting time with the doctors Lucy has taken him to. I know you can figure it out.”
A strange liquid sensation, pleasure at his words, washed through her and the corners of her mouth lifted. Get a grip, Melanie, you’re not begging for scraps of attention from this man anymore.
Brock’s eyes got glassy and he swallowed hard. “This is an emergency, because he’s getting sicker by the day and I can’t stand to watch it anymore.” His eyes softened, pleaded with her as he stepped forward, and put his hand on her forearm. “Please just say you’ll try.”
“Of course I’ll try to help.” The words flew from her lips before she could stop them.
He smiled and his hand grazed up her arm leaving a trail of goosebumps to her bare shoulder before he cupped her face in his warm palm and she fought the urge to snuggle her face into it.
“I should’ve gone for the smart girl, because I’d have been a lot better off. Especially since she’s the prettiest girl now too. It’s my loss because I was such a knucklehead back then.”
Melanie didn’t know what to say, but her whole body buzzed when his eyes dropped to her mouth, before his hand fell away. It still buzzed as he stepped back from her and smiled.
“It’s convenient you’re here, because Brady is in the van. I’ll get him,” he said as he turned and walked out leaving her stunned and staring behind him.
The electricity and water wasn’t even on in this office. She didn’t have her stethoscope. But she was sure, like the other equipment she’d seen in the exam room, Dr. Carter’s was probably still in a drawer somewhere too. Maybe in his office, she thought, walking out of the storage room. When he wasn’t using it, he usually kept it in his right desk drawer.
Melanie hadn’t gone into his office when she arrived, because knowing he died in there made her stomach ache. Opening the door, she forgot about the electricity and automatically flipped on the light switch like she’d done a million times before. His office was always the darkest room in the building because of the blackout drapes on his window, and Jonas said he liked it that way.
Well, she needed to be able to see so she walked to the window and shoved back the curtains. Dust particles floated through the air and Melanie
fought back a sneeze, but finally managed to get them tucked behind the chair next to the window.
She went to the desk and sat down and grabbed the right drawer but stopped when her eyes fell on the open folder on Jonas’ desk. At the top of the very thick folder she saw the patient’s name—Brady Cooper—and a chill snaked down her spine.
Had Brady been the patient who he’d come in to see the day he died?
It would seem so, since that particular file was open on his desk. His silver pen sat beside the folder, and a sheaf of papers was under it. Lifting the folder, she saw the papers were computer printouts on vitamins and minerals.
Did Jonas think Brady had a vitamin deficiency?
The only way to know would be to read through this voluminous chart and that would take hours. Since Dr. Carter’s last contact with the child would have had to be when he was four years old, her time would probably be better spent getting current information from Brock, and doing an initial assessment. Reading the file first could cloud her judgment anyway.
“Dr. Fox, this is my son Brady,” Brock announced as he stood behind him in the doorway, his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to introduce you to him yesterday, but we were a little preoccupied.” Brock urged him into the office and followed.
Melanie got up, walked around the desk and the end of her sandal hooked on a wrinkle in the carpet. She gasped as she lost her balance and the corner of the desk came at her fast, but Brock was faster because he caught her shoulders to hold her up. Melanie wished he’d have been here to save Jonas the day he probably did the same thing.
“I see your transformation didn’t take away your clumsiness,” he said with a laugh, as his fingers dug into her flesh. “I’m glad, because it’s kind of cute and reminds me you’re still the same girl under that shiny new exterior.”
A funny thing about that clumsiness. Melanie had only ever been afflicted by it when she was around Brock Cooper, who seemed to make her trip over her own feet. But she wasn’t going to tell him that, she thought, as she stepped back and his hands fell to his side.