A DOCTOR'S VOW

by Christine Rimmer

  But she held the words back. What would they mean to him, but some sort of threat? Emotional pressure, applied strategically: My house is ready now; I can leave here now…

  She knew he didn't want her to leave.

  What she feared deep in her heart was that he wanted her to stay. Right here. In the little house. His guest.

  And his lover.

  And nothing more.

  It was an immature, insecure little fear, and she knew it. A fear born of the child she had once been, the one who had never really belonged. The one who existed on the edges of other people's lives, the one who, once her mother died, had never been the center of anyone's world.

  Ryan said, "This Sunday is Pizza Pete's day."

  She idly threaded her fingers through the crisp mat of hair on his chest. "Right. The monthly family event."

  "And we won't miss this month, even though I'm up to my ears in meetings, grant applications and fund-raising speeches. I want you to come, too."

  "You do?" She felt guilty, for her own childish fears. Of course, Ryan wanted her in the center of his life. And he was showing it every way that he could.

  He stroked her shoulder, his hand trailing down beneath the covers. "You'll love Pizza Pete's. Lots of loud video games and kids screaming. And you can get right up and refill your own soda when it runs out."

  "Sounds delightful."

  "So. You'll come." He kissed the top of her head, a sweet and chaste gesture that didn't even hint at the things his hand was doing under the covers.

  Ronni moaned.

  "Is that a yes?"

  "Umm…"

  "I can't hear you."

  "All right. Yes. I will definitely—" she moaned again "—come…"

  Drew must have been watching for her in the front window, because he ran out the door and down the steps as Ronni pulled into the driveway the next evening. She rolled her window down.

  "Ronni, we have to talk…"

  Lily appeared in the open front doorway. "Andrew! What are you up to? You've left the door open—and get back in here this minute, you don't even have a sweater on!"

  "I'm coming!" He tossed the words over his shoulder, then turned back to whisper urgently at Ronni. "Get parked and come to my house. I'll get rid of Griff and Lizzy. Then you, me and Grandma can talk."

  "About what?"

  "About Sunday."

  Lily commanded, "Andrew! Now."

  He glanced over his shoulder again. "Coming…" Then turned back to Ronni. "Please…"

  "Okay, I'll be right over."

  The minute Lily let Ronni in the back door, Drew rushed over and shut the door to the central hall.

  Lily planted her hands on her hips. "What is going on?"

  "I don't want Griff and Lizzy to hear." Drew spoke in a theatrical whisper. "And we have to hurry. Lizzy's reading a book to Griff. You know how long that's gonna last."

  Lily pulled out a chair for Ronni, gestured her into it, then demanded of her grandson, "What don't you want Lisbeth and Griffin to hear?"

  "About Sunday…"

  "What about Sunday?"

  "Grandma, if you'll quit asking questions and let me just talk, I'll explain everything."

  Lily marched over to a chair opposite the one she'd given Ronni and sat down herself. "All right, young man. Explain."

  Drew shifted from one foot to the other.

  "Do you have to go to the bathroom?" Lily demanded.

  "No! I just want to talk. And I want you to listen."

  "We're listening."

  "Okay. Dad told me this morning that he invited Ronni to come with us to Pizza Pete's this Sunday and—"

  Lily's head whipped around. She pinned Ronni with a glare. "Ryan invited you … to Pizza Pete's? But that's strictly a family activity."

  Drew tried to cut in. "Grandma, come on. We don't have that much—"

  Lily whirled on her grandson again. "I certainly didn't hear your father tell you he'd invited Ronni for Sunday afternoon."

  "You were upstairs, fixing Lizzy's braid, or turning Griff's shirt right side out, or something. It doesn't matter. What matters is, she's supposed to go, and so am I. And we can't go, not this time. Because we need to be at the Superserve Mart raising money for the new wing."

  "But are you sure your father said he invited Ronni?" Lily sounded like a stuck record.

  And Ronni was experiencing a number of conflicting emotions—exasperation and frustration first among them. Still, she spoke gently, "Ryan asked me to go last night. I said I'd enjoy it. I hope you'll be coming with us, too."

  Lily made a small, disapproving sound. "I never go to Pizza Pete's. It's for Ryan and his brother and the children—and of course, Patricia, when she was alive."

  "Well, this time, I'll be going, too."

  Drew stamped his foot. "Will you guys quit talking about what we already know and help me try to figure out what we're going to do?"

  Ronni looked at him and spoke as gently as she had to his grandmother. "I think we're just going to have to skip the fund-raising Sunday—or maybe we can go a little later, after we're finished at Pizza Pete's."

  "We can't skip it. We only get two days a week. We can't miss any of them. And I bet we won't be able to go later. On days when we go to Pizza Pete's, Dad almost always comes home for dinner, so we're not gonna be able to go, that's all, not without him finding out what we're doing."

  "Then maybe you'd better just tell him what you're doing."

  "No, I don't want to do that. I want it all done when I give him the money. I want to show him that I can really help."

  "I can understand that. Truly, I can. But you only have two options that I can see. You can skip it for one day—or tell your father what you're doing."

  "Ronni's right." Lily spoke up at last, albeit somewhat grudgingly. "You'll have to do one or the other."

  "No, I won't. That's why I wanted to talk to you guys."

  "Drew," Ronni said, "there's no other choice."

  "Yes, there is. We could tell Dad I'm sick."

  Both Ronni and Lily demanded in unison, "What?"

  "No, wait." Drew bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. "Let me explain. I could act sick, see? And then I could stay home. And then as soon as you're all gone, Grandma and me, we could still do the fund-raising. It wouldn't be as good as having you there, Ronni, in your lab coat and everything. But you said it was mostly up to me, anyway. I'm the one that goes up to the people and asks for the money. And I could still do that. And then we could get back to the house before you guys come home. And I could go back to bed, and keep being sick for the rest of the day. And then, by Monday, I could be well and everything would be back to normal again." He glanced from Ronni to his grandmother and back to Ronni again. Then he raised both hands, palms up. "That's it. And I know it would work."

  Ronni shook her head. Lily was doing the same.

  "Andrew," Lily said. "That would be a lie."

  "But it would be for a good reason! It would be to help with Dad's new wing. And anyway, I'm already lying for a good reason, because I'm not telling him what I'm doing."

  Lily was not convinced. "That's different."

  "It's not different."

  Ronni didn't envy Lily right then. It was inevitably a losing proposition, to argue ethics with a nine-year-old.

  Lily said, "Do not push your luck, young man. Keep talking. You'll convince me that we have to tell your father what you're up to right now, after all."

  "No, we don't have to tell him. There's nothing wrong with surprising him. It's good to surprise him—even if it is a lie. It's a good lie, just like me pretending to be sick would be a good lie."

  "No," Lily said. "Absolutely not. I am not going to allow you to fake being sick—not even for a good cause. It's just … not acceptable."

  "But I have to!"

  "No, you do not. Ronni and I have told you what you can do." Ronni actually felt a twinge of gratification. For once, Lily considered the two of them on the sam
e side. Lily finished, "You can skip it for a day—or you can tell your father what you're up to."

  "But that's not fair!" Drew grabbed a chair by the back, yanked it out from under the table and dropped down into it, hard.

  "Gramma, Gramma, Griff spit on the book!" It was Lisbeth, calling from the other side of the door to the hall.

  "She stopped reading!" Griff shouted. "Drew said she has to read to me!"

  With a long sigh, Lily rose to let them in.

  Ronni left about ten minutes later, by which time Griffin and Lisbeth had been sent to take their baths, with strict orders not to fight anymore—or else. Drew was still sulking. When Ronni said goodbye to him, he turned his head away.

  Ronni returned to the little house feeling bleak.

  But then, three hours later, when Ryan came through the French doors, he was grinning.

  "Bioventure Pharmaceuticals has donated five million," he announced. "The ten million from the Community Fund went to the bank today. Tanner should have the money he needs by tomorrow—and on Monday, construction starts up again."

  * * *

  Chapter Twelve

  « ^ »

  Ronni let out a whoop and ran to him. He hoisted her high. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he spun them both around in circles until her head swam.

  They fell to the bed together, laughing and kissing and holding on tight. Then he was taking her sweater, tugging it over her head, tossing it away, unclasping her bra. And she was slithering his belt off, sliding his zipper down.

  He reached for the condom just in time. They were still half-dressed when he rose above her. She pulled him down, wrapping her legs around him, drawing him into her fully with a joyous sigh.

  Joined, they lay still, matching breath for breath. He braced his elbows on either side of her head, looked down at her, whispered on a ragged breath, "Tomorrow night. Not a single damn speech to give. We're going out, you and me. Like—" he groaned "—normal people do…"

  She pushed her hips toward him, pulled him tighter with her arms. "Sounds … lovely…"

  He kissed her. For a while, there were only soft moans, hungry sighs—and at last, one low, rough groan of release, followed by an answering feminine cry.

  The next night, Friday, was Ronni's night on call, but she managed to talk Marty into trading with her. She and Ryan went to the best steakhouse in town, where they ordered filet mignon.

  It was a lovely romantic evening, exactly the kind of evening Ronni had been waiting for: hours together, just the two of them, to talk and laugh, to make love—and to plan for their future.

  And they did talk. They laughed. Later, in the little house, they made beautiful love.

  She woke when he left her. He kissed her so tenderly before he slipped out the door. She lay there for a moment in the dark alone after he was gone.

  And then she sat up, switched on the light.

  They'd had such a perfect evening.

  But there had been no talk of the future. And no talk of love, either.

  And whose fault is that? she asked herself.

  At any time during the evening, she could have spoken up for her own needs; she could have made a few demands.

  She could have said, "I understand you're under pressure. That the main thing on your mind is all the money you still have to raise. But I don't want to go on like this forever. I want us to be really together. I want us to be man and wife…"

  She could have confessed, "Oh Ryan, today is the day my period was due. It didn't come."

  But she had said nothing.

  She was afraid to say anything. Afraid he might … what?

  Reject her?

  No, he would never do that. Ryan Malone was a man who always kept his promises, who lived up to his responsibilities.

  If she was pregnant, he would marry her.

  He would see no other choice.

  And that was what bothered her.

  If she was pregnant, and they married, she would never know with complete certainty if he really wanted marriage with her—or if he only felt obligated to make a commitment to the woman who carried his child.

  So she was waiting. Holding off on telling him that she loved him, that she longed to spend a lifetime at his side.

  She was holding off until she knew for sure about the baby.

  Holding off on the chance that it was a false alarm, that she could tell him of her love without simultaneously dumping another giant-sized responsibility in his lap.

  The whole situation tied her stomach in knots.

  Literally.

  Why she almost felt as if she might—Ronni sat straight up in the bed. She gulped, moaned, "Oh, no…"

  And then she tossed the covers out of the way and dashed for the bathroom.

  She made it just in time to lose her filet mignon dinner in the toilet bowl. When the retching finally stopped, she dragged herself to her feet, brushed her teeth and rinsed her face.

  "Tomorrow," she said to her pale, rather hollow-eyed reflection in the mirror over the sink, "you'll buy a home test and you'll take it." It still might come out negative at this point, even if she was pregnant. But a positive result would tell her what she needed to know.

  Ronni turned off the bathroom light and went back to bed, where she resolutely closed her eyes and called up a habit of her internship and residency—the habit of dropping off pretty much on reflex, of grabbing every minute of sleep she could get.

  She did go right to sleep. Unfortunately, it was a hospital kind of sleep. Not deep at all, with the expectation of sudden waking threading through her anxious dreams.

  Ronni bought the test on her way to the office the next morning.

  She picked Drew up at two. They were set up in front of Superserve Mart by two-thirty and they stayed until five, giving Drew an extra half hour to approach every customer who went through the big glass doors.

  One elderly man wrote out a check for fifty dollars. When they added that to the rest, they were well over a hundred just for that day.

  As they were driving home, Ronni said, "See? It all worked out. You've hit your weekly goal today. You can afford to go to Pizza Pete's tomorrow."

  He shot her a pouty look. "I'm still behind because of last week."

  She was beginning to become really irritated with him. "Oh, come on. You've made forty-eight, thirty-seven and one hundred and twelve—plus change. You add those three together and you get what?"

  His brow beetled up, then he grunted. "It's too big a problem to do just in my head."

  She did it for him. "You've made one hundred ninety-seven, plus the change. You seem to have set a goal of fifty dollars a day, right?"

  He grunted again. Apparently the bad-tempered sound was supposed to serve as an affirmative.

  "Fifty dollars a day, and if you'd had tomorrow, you would have had four days total."

  "I feel like I'm in math time at school."

  She went on, undeterred by the nine-year-old attempt at sarcasm. "The point is, you wanted to have raised two hundred dollars by tomorrow. And you've already raised one hundred ninety-seven as of today. That's less than three dollars short of your goal."

  "But I could be ahead."

  "Well, keep sulking. I'm sure that will help a lot."

  He hunched his shoulders, stuck out his chin. "You don't understand."

  "Sure, I do," she shot right back. "You're not getting your way—and you don't like that."

  "This is important. I can go to Pizza Pete's any day."

  "No, you can't. You only go once a month, and you go with your family and that's a special thing. When I was a child, I would have given just about anything to have had a family to take me to a place like Pizza Pete's."

  "I really hate when grown-ups start talking about when they were kids. That was a long time ago and it doesn't have anything to do with me."

  "Fine. You know your options. If you really want to raise money instead of spending the day with your family, just tell your fath
er what you're doing, and you and I will go to Superserve Mart."

  "I told you a hundred times. It has to be a surprise."

  "No, it doesn't. You want it to be a surprise, that's all."

  "You just don't understand."

  "I think you said that before. I also think you'd better let this go, because you are not going to get your way and that is that."

  He let out a long, wounded sigh and was fumingly silent for several minutes. But then, at last, he straightened in his seat. "Okay. You're right. We got one hundred and twelve dollars and thirty-three cents today and that's really good. It's excellent, even."

  "It certainly is."

  "And next week, we'll probably get a hundred more."

  "Right."

  "So I guess I'll stop being mad at you."

  "Good."

  He slid her a look. "Did you have a nice time going out to dinner with my dad last night?"

  "He mentioned that, did he?"

  "I heard him tell Grandma."

  She could just picture Lily's reaction: an expression of distaste and a muttered "All right, then. I won't prepare anything for you."

  "Well?" Drew prompted.

  "I had a wonderful time." And she had, even if they'd never quite gotten around to discussing love and marriage. Even if she'd thrown up after he left and had to buy a pregnancy test this morning…

  "Good." Drew sounded very satisfied, and that made her smile. She glanced over, met his eyes. He said, "We're having meat loaf tonight. You like meat loaf?"

  "Oh, no you don't."

  "Ronni. I can get her to ask you, I can."

  "You have excellent manners, Drew. And I know you've been taught to get an okay from your grandmother before you invite people to your house."

  "But you're not just people."

  "I think that was a compliment. Thank you."

  "I mean it. I can get her to ask—"

  "I think I've already made myself clear on this point. Not tonight. And in future, I want you to talk to your grandmother before you bring up dinner to me. Understood?"

  "Oh, all right."

  She turned onto their street and pulled into the driveway.