“You were out early, Doctor.” Theresa Frank came in as he was preparing to make his rounds.
“Yes. An accident.”
“I heard about it.”
“Sheriff Carroll will be by for the death certificate. I was about to make my rounds. Anything you need to tell me?”
“Mr. Case is better. You may want to consider dismissing him. He’s worried about the cost of being here.” Theresa consulted her chart. “Mrs. Warren has developed large welts on her body and her lips are swollen. We should check and see if she’s allergic to some of the medication.”
“Check to see if the medication she’s been taking has codeine in it.”
“I did that, and it does.”
“That could be the cause. Take her off it.”
“I told Dale to hold off giving it to her until I talked to you.” Theresa continued with her report. “Mrs. Smothers is in the reception room, insisting on seeing you right away. She says that her legs are swelling. We have a patient with an infected toenail and a six-year-old girl with tonsillitis. Marie Fleming is here with her brother, who poked a nail in his hand. She thinks he needs a tetanus shot.”
“He won’t need me for that. You give better shots than I do.”
“I don’t know about that, but I’ll give it.”
Theresa was certain that Marie Fleming would be disappointed at not seeing the doctor. She had noticed how the girl had looked at him during the open house. She was young, pretty, and her daddy was rich—surely Jude had been aware.
“How about Miss Henry?”
“She refused to eat the oatmeal, but drank the coffee. She’s fussing for a cigarette and calling for your brother to come get her out of here.”
“Pete will be along soon. He sat up with her half the night.”
“She’s taking the oral sedatives, but soon she’ll need something stronger. Her breast is swollen and draining. She did let me put a pad over it.” Theresa folded her arms over the charts and held them against her. “If we have a few minutes, I’d like to talk to you about something.”
Jude saw the concerned look on Theresa’s face and backed up to sit down on the edge of the desk. He rubbed his aching thigh.
“What is it? You’re not going to quit, are you?”
Theresa smiled. “No, I’m not going to quit.”
“That’s a relief. You scared me for a minute. How’s Ryan? I’ve not seen him for a while.”
“He’s fine. He likes going to Mrs. Ramsey’s and says he’s going to marry Emily when he grows up.” Theresa’s eyes brightened when she talked about her son.
Theresa Frank had had a hopeless crush on Dr. Jude Perry since the day she met him. He was the kindest, most thoughtful man she had ever known besides being so darn handsome it almost hurt her eyes to look at him. She was realistic enough to know that when he took a wife, it wouldn’t be a dumpy nurse with a four-year-old child. But she daydreamed, and went on crash diets trying to look thin and desirable. In the meanwhile, she helped him in the only way she knew, by being the best nurse possible.
“Now, what is it that you wanted to talk about?”
Jude studied the woman who stood a short distance from him. He liked what he saw. She was pretty, quiet, and dependable. He wondered how many hours she spent washing and ironing her uniforms. They were always fresh. The starched cap was carefully perched on top of her soft brown hair, and she had a complexion some women would give five years of their lives for.
Most of all Jude liked who Theresa was: her attitude toward life, her compassion for the ill, her dedication to service, and her love for her child. She was just what he thought a woman should be—far from the sluts he had grown up with down on Mud Creek.
“It’s about Dale Cole.” Theresa’s voice broke into Jude’s thoughts. “I’m sure she had been crying when she came in this morning. I asked her what was wrong and she tried to assure me that nothing was wrong, that she just had a headache.”
“Maybe that was true. Did she take some medication?”
“She took some because I was watching her. That’s not all, Doctor—”
“Can’t you call me Jude when we’re alone? I call you Theresa.”
“Yes, but you’re—the doctor. I’m only the—”
“—Very important part of my practice. I want us to be friends as well as associates.”
“I—want that too.” Theresa’s cheeks turned rosy red.
Jude laughed. “You’re blushing, Theresa.”
“I am not!” she insisted, but knew that she was. “Sometimes you get me so—flustered.”
“I do?” He looked surprised. “I thought that you were—unfluster—able.” They both laughed at his difficulty in pronouncing the word. “I’ll not interrupt again. Tell me about Mrs. Cole.”
“She has bruises on her neck. She tried to keep them covered just as in the past she has tried to keep me from seeing the bruises on her arms.”
“We can’t draw any conclusions from that,” Jude said slowly.
“You may not be able to, but I can. I think that coldeyed husband of hers is mean to her.”
“Has she ever said anything?”
“No. She talks about him as if he was the most wonderful man in the world.”
“Humm— What do you think we should do?”
“There probably isn’t anything we can do as long as she keeps denying it. There’s one more thing that has caused me to come to the conclusion that her husband abuses her.”
“All right, Sherlock Holmes, what is it?” Jude enjoyed teasing her.
“Dale’s son, Danny, stays with Mrs. Ramsey after school until Dale gets home. He was playing with Ryan and got pretty rough. He put his arm across his neck and held him against the wall. When Mrs. Ramsey got after him, he said he wasn’t hurting Ryan, his daddy did it all the time.”
“Did Mrs. Ramsey tell you this?”
“Yes, but she assumed Mr. Cole did this while playing with Danny. She didn’t think it was the thing for a father to do even in play.”
“I agree there. A little too much pressure could crush a windpipe.”
“Dale is a natural-born nurse. She’s dedicated, efficient, and soaks up knowledge like a sponge. I’m sure that with just a little study she could pass the nurses’ exam. She was just a few months from graduation when she married Mr. Cole.”
“Does she know that she’s got such a good friend?”
“Now, there you go again.” Theresa feigned annoyance.
“I like to tease you, Theresa. You’re so pretty when you blush.”
Theresa opened her mouth, then closed it. Her heart had jumped in her throat, making speech impossible. He was looking at her with warm, smiling eyes. He looked younger and less tired when he smiled. Determined to make light of the situation, she shoved the stack of patient charts in his hands.
“Go tell that to Mrs. Smothers. You may get her out of here in less than two hours.”
Chapter Twelve
Johnny stared at Kathleen when she answered his knock on her door. She was wearing the blue-silk negligee he had given her the Christmas before the baby was born. She appeared to be totally unaware of the effect it had on him.
“Johnny. Come in. Have you had breakfast?”
“Hours ago, but I’ll take coffee if you have it made.”
“It won’t take a minute to make it. Meanwhile you can have some toast and Mrs. Ramsey’s peach jam.”
“I forgot that you drink tea.” He followed her into the kitchen.
“Did you talk to Henry Ann?”
“She’ll be here in the morning about ten-thirty. Would you mind picking her up?”
“Of course I don’t mind. The bus stops at the Gazette office. I’ll go early. I like Henry Ann and have from the minute I met her. I bet she misses Aunt Dozie.”
“Aunty was like a mother to her and to me. I was on Bougainville in the Solomons when I got the letter that she had died. It shook me up. When I was a kid Aunty and Henry Ann were the only
two people in the world that gave a hoot about me.”
“I wish I had known you then.”
“Why? I had a chip on my shoulder the size of a boulder.”
“And I would have tried to knock it off. How many pieces of toast?” Kathleen struck a match and lit the waist-high oven on the stove.
“How many do you have?” He grinned when she rolled her eyes to the ceiling.
“We’ll start out with four, how’s that?” She buttered the bread, arranged it in a flat pan, and slid it beneath the flame. “Coffee will be ready in a minute or two.” She stood beside the stove, peeking at the toasting bread every few seconds.
Johnny was terribly conscious that all she had on beneath the negligee was her nightgown. Her feet were bare, and her hair was a mass of curls. He liked looking at her when her face was scrubbed and she wore not a trace of makeup. Lord, how he would like to tumble in bed with her and let her ease the ache as only she could. Thank God, he was sitting down and she couldn’t see the lump that had suddenly appeared in his jeans.
“Whoops! I’d better get it out.” Kathleen grabbed a potholder and pulled the pan from the stove. “A few seconds more and you’d have had burned toast.”
“What are you going to have?”
“A piece of your toast with peanut butter, while more bread is toasting.” When the toast was on a plate in front of him, she buttered more slices and slid them under the flame.
“It looks like I’m going to owe you a whole loaf of bread.”
“You can pay me back—sometime.”
When Kathleen sat down across from him, her knees came in contact with his beneath the small table. She moved them to the side and reached for the peanut butter. It seemed so natural to be sitting at the breakfast table with him.
Johnny, Johnny, what happened to the love we once shared?
He waited until they had finished eating before he told her about Gabe.
“You won’t have to worry about Gabe Thomas anymore. He was killed last night.”
“For goodness sake! What in the world happened?”
“He was taking parts off an old wreck of a car when it fell on him. Jude said it probably happened around midnight.”
“I hate to hear it. He wasn’t a very nice man, but he was someone’s loved one.”
“I was going to read the riot act to him this morning and threaten to break his neck if he came near you again. Fate stepped in and took care of it.”
“I don’t know what possessed the man to walk in here yesterday. It scared the life out of me to come out of the bathroom and find him in my living room.”
“Lock your doors. Especially at night.”
“We didn’t even lock the doors out on the ranch.”
“This is different. You’re a good-looking woman living here by yourself.”
“I don’t feel good-looking. I feel like a clock that’s running down. I’ll soon be thirty-three years old.”
“That’s not old?”
“But—I feel old. Where has the time gone? Life is going by so fast.” Tears came to her eyes. She blinked to hold them back, but they rolled down her cheeks. “Sorry—” Her eyes shone like stars.
“What’s the matter? Why are you crying?”
“I’m—crying because—I’m just a silly woman.”
Johnny was on his feet and reaching to lift her out of the chair. She wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him to her. He stood for a minute holding her, then moved to the chair, sat down, and pulled her down on his lap. Her arms went up and around his neck. She burrowed her face into a broad shoulder that was soon wet with her tears. It felt so luxurious to be in his arms that she melted against him, loving the familiar feel of his hard body.
“Shhh …don’t cry. Don’t cry, honey—”
Sensitive fingers played lightly with the curls over her ears, then plunged into the soft masses to work gently at the nape of her neck. When her sobs ceased, he tilted her face to his and kissed her tear-wet eyes.
“Are you all right now?”
“No. I’m—getting old—and I—”
“Hush. You’ll never get old. When you’re sixty, you’ll be as fiery as you are now.” The words were murmured against her ear in such a tender voice that she cried again.
“But—I’ll be alone—Johnny.”
“No, honey—”
His mouth slid over hers. Kathleen closed her eyes and felt her lashes scrape his face before feathery kisses touched her lids, then moved across her cheek, searched for her mouth, found it and melted her lips to his. After the first deep pressure of his mouth he lifted it.
“Oh, God! Oh, God, honey—”
Then he made tender, adoring love to her mouth with warm lips and exploring tongue. He nibbled, licked, caressed until they both felt they were slipping into oblivion. He pulled on the bow at the neck of her nightdress, his hand burrowed inside to cup her naked breast, his thumb stroking the hard point. Kathleen’s blood, suffused with fire, flooded riotously through her body. It suddenly wasn’t enough and she wiggled to get closer.
“Be still, honey,” he muttered urgently. “Be still or I’ll not be able to stop. Dear God. It’s been so long. I want to crawl inside you, feel every inch of you.” He buried his face in the curve of her neck and took deep, gulping breaths. Their hearts beat together in thunderous pounding.
Kathleen wriggled again on the part of him that throbbed so aggressively beneath her hips.
“Don’t stop. Please don’t stop. I’ve dreamed every night of being with you like this. I love you. I’ll always love you—”
“We—can’t—” Desperately Johnny tried to fight down the desire that spiraled crazily inside him. “To hold you, touch you like this drives me crazy,” he said in a strange, thickened voice, his mouth at her throat, then sliding up to close over her mouth hard and seeking. The searching movement parted her lips and he drank thirstily.
“Please, Johnny—”
“God help me for being such a weak son of a bitch,” he snarled and stood with her in his arms. Long strides took him to the bedroom, where he placed her on the unmade bed and lay down on top of her, his mouth feasting on hers. The weight of him felt so good! She had missed, so much, the way he made her feel. This way, together, they relinquished control, and flew away into the sensuous world where there were only their hands, their lips, the hard strength of his male body and the softness of hers.
He wanted her, ached with the wanting.
“I shouldn’t—I’ll hate myself, but I have to—”
“I’m glad. I’ve never been anyone’s but yours. Love me. Love me like you used to do. Make me forget everything but you.”
“You’re like a fire in my blood. I only have to think of you and I get like this.” He brought her hand down to the hard and throbbing erection that was straining for release.
“I want to feel it. I want it in my hand—”
“I don’t have a rubber—”
“It’ll be all right—”
Between chopped breaths, he cursed with frustration. His desperation to be with her, inside her, made his hands clumsy. But finally, his jeans lay on the floor and he stretched out beside her, groaned, and rubbed his erection against her belly. She reached down and touched him, made a gentle fist with her hand, caressing, sliding, in the motion he taught her years ago.
He uttered a hoarse cry and burrowed, hard and urgent into the softness of her. He hesitated with momentary surprise at the tightness of the passage, then gave a swift thrust and embedded himself inside her with absolute possession. The pleasure was acute. The heat fierce. With his hands beneath her buttocks, he clutched her desperately, and made a moaning sound.
“I’ve missed you—missed you. Oh, Lord—”
She made a small helpless sound. “Open your eyes. Look at me. I love you—”
Dark eyes stared into blue ones. “Jesus! What am I doing to you?”
“Loving me. Don’t stop.” She raised her hips to meet his plungin
g strokes.
“I can’t get enough of you,” he groaned. “I can’t get enough,” he repeated.
Then, locked together they clung helplessly and surrendered to the sensuous void. The pleasure rose to intolerable heights, and she lost consciousness of everything but the powerful body that was driving her toward weightlessness. Her stomach clenched in fierce panic. She spun crazily, cried out wildly, and clung to the only solid thing in her tilting world.
Hands gently stroked her taut body. Soothing words calmed and reassured her. Her heart settled in to a quieter pace as the tension left her. Still joined to the man who had taken her heart, she began to cry.
“I’m sorry, honey. I’m sorry. I wanted you so damn bad—”
“Please—don’t be sorry.” She held his face in her hands and kissed him frantically. “I wanted you, too.”
He withdrew from her, loosened his arms, and sat up on the side of the bed. “Go on. Go use the bathroom.”
Kathleen slid out of the other side of the bed. She knew what he wanted her to do—sit on the toilet and let his sperm slide out of her in the hope that she wouldn’t become pregnant. He needn’t fear. She wouldn’t be so lucky.
They had been married two years before she had conceived. At first Johnny had insisted that they use contraceptives because of their financial situation. But their appetite for each other had been so voracious that they had made love sometimes twice during the day and they didn’t always take the necessary precautions.
Kathleen was elated. This was a new beginning. Johnny hadn’t said that he still loved her, but his tender loving of her said that he did. She washed, put a touch of toilet water behind her ears, and opened the door—to an empty bedroom. She hurried to the window to see Johnny’s car going down the street.
She put her hand around her throat to ease the terrible ache there. She must not cry. If once she let herself weep, she would never stop.
After the Parade Page 14