by Linda Turner
At the sight of the antique diamond brooch nestled on a bed of cotton inside the small box, she murmured, “Oh, Hannah, it’s beautiful! But I can’t possibly accept it. It’s too valuable.”
She tried to hand it back, but Hannah would have none of it. “You gave me the only thing I wanted—a visit with my son before I died. It would give me great pleasure if you would accept it.”
Since it was put that way, Janey couldn’t refuse her. “I’ll treasure it always. Thank you.” Leaning down to hug her, she chided, “But what’s all this talk about dying? You don’t have time for that. William will be back next weekend. I think you’re going to be seeing a lot more of him now, so you have to stay strong and healthy. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said with a smile. “I’ll try.”
There was no doubt that she would. Of all of Janey’s patients, Hannah was the one who never gave up, the one who hung on despite the odds. She had a will that went soul deep, and it was that will that had kept her alive so far. Still, she and Janey both knew she was running out of time.
It was a quiet night, and Janey was glad of it. After Reilly had driven her home last night, it had taken her hours to fall asleep. She’d gone to work exhausted, and the day had not only been long, but emotionally draining. When her shift ended, she would have liked nothing better than to go home, fall into bed and sleep around the clock, but she couldn’t. It was Thursday night, and that meant she had to spend the evening at the fire department, working rescue.
She could have called Red Hawkins as she’d planned to, and he would have been happy to take over for her as long as she needed him to. But her mother had talked to Reilly, who had reassured her that Dan was doing well enough that Janey didn’t need to change her plans, so she’d reported to the fire department, as scheduled, and the powers that be must have known she needed a break. There hadn’t been a single call yet, and her shift was half-over already. Two more hours and she could go home.
“Hey, Janey, how about a game of poker?” Scott asked. Seated at the game table, where he’d been playing solitaire, he grinned and shuffled the cards temptingly. “I’m feeling lucky tonight. How about you?”
Wanda, who’d just finished doing the dishes after the three of them had eaten a simple supper of soup and sandwiches, rolled her eyes. “Men,” she sniffed. “I swear you’re all blind as bats. Can’t you see the woman’s out on her feet. What happened, Janey? You have a rough day?”
“Actually, it’s more a combination of two late nights and not enough sleep,” she admitted. “I’ll be fine once I catch up on my sleep.”
“You want to go upstairs and stretch out on one of the bunks?” Wanda asked with a frown. “There’s not much going on, and we’ll call you if we need you.”
Tempted, Janey almost took her up on her suggestion. There were bunks upstairs for the firemen and EMTs, and with no effort whatsoever, she knew she could be asleep in five minutes flat. The problem was, she wasn’t one of those people who hit the ground running when she woke up. It took her a while to wake up, especially when she was as tired as she was now, and she couldn’t risk not being fully alert if an emergency call came in.
“Thanks, but I’m okay. Maybe a game of poker will help,” she added, grinning when Scott let out a whoop of delight. “It just might be my lucky night.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” he drawled, winking at her as he shuffled the cards like a card shark. “I’ve got my rabbit’s foot with me. You know what that means.”
It meant that he was one lucky devil. They played three quick hands, and he won every one. “Where’s that rabbit’s foot?” Janey demanded, trying and failing to appear stern as he raked in his winning cache of M&Ms. “Nobody wins with a pair of threes. You must have marked the cards somehow.”
“I did not! I swear—”
Caught up in their usual card-playing banter, they never noticed they had a visitor until Reilly cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said, when the three of them looked up, startled, “but I need to talk to Janey for a minute, if that’s all right.”
Already pushing back from the table, Scott said, “Of course, Dr. Jones. Wanda and I need to check supplies in the ambulance, anyway. Take your time.”
“No! Wait!” Her heart in her throat and a sick feeling of dread spilling into her stomach, Janey knew this wasn’t a social visit. Reilly wouldn’t seek her out at that time of night unless there was some kind of emergency. Suddenly horrified that something had happened to someone she loved, she pushed to her feet. “My mother…something’s happened to my mother, hasn’t it?”
“What? No! She’s fine. As far as I know, your whole family’s fine. So is Dan.”
“Then why are you here?”
Even as she asked, she knew. Her heart sinking, she pressed her hand to her chest. “It’s Hannah, isn’t it? Oh, God, I should have known! She said she couldn’t die until she saw William, so what did I do? I harassed the man until he showed up—and took away her last reason for living.”
“My God, Janey,” Scott exclaimed, scowling, “you can’t think this is your fault!”
“You loved that old woman,” Wanda said indignantly. “Don’t you dare blame yourself. If not for you, she would have died a long time ago.”
“She’s right,” Reilly said quietly. “You know she was fading fast, Janey. It wasn’t her need to see her son that was keeping her alive. It was you.”
Pain squeezing her heart, Janey knew they all meant well, and she appreciated it. But they didn’t understand. She was the one who’d bullied and cajoled and finally pulled a guilt trip on William Starks to convince him to do the right thing and visit his mother. And now she was the one who was feeling guilty.
“I should have minded my own business,” she murmured. Suddenly chilled, she turned away to hug herself. “She’d still be alive.”
“Not necessarily,” Reilly argued. “It was her time—her heart just gave out on her. But instead of dying with regrets, she had the one thing she wanted—a visit from her son. Thanks to you. You made her last hours happy ones.”
When she just stood there, half-turned away from him and grief etching her face, Reilly said impulsively, “I’m on call at the hospital tonight, but I think I can take some time for coffee and pie at Ed’s. How about you? You’ve had a shock. You could use a break.”
“That’s a good idea,” Wanda chimed in, frowning at her worriedly. “Take the rest of the night off. There’s not much going on, anyway, and if something comes up that Scott and I can’t handle, we’ll swing by Ed’s and pick you up. Take your beeper.”
“And your purse,” Scott said, digging it out of a closet to hand to her. “If you don’t hear from us in an hour, go on home. Jacob Hopper always comes in early on Thursdays, so he should be in by then. Between the three of us, we can take care of anything that crops up.”
Not giving her time to so much as open her mouth in protest, he handed her her purse, gave Reilly her jacket so he could help her on with it, then ushered her and Reilly out the front door of the fire station. Just that easily, she found herself walking to Ed’s with Reilly by her side.
Chapter 7
“You should have seen it. I was this young, still-wet-behind-the-ears intern working the emergency room of L.A. General for the first time, and I was scared to death. And I had a right to be! Talk about trial by fire. There was a full moon the first night I worked, and no one warned me that that really did bring out the crazies. My first patient was a seventy-two-year-old woman who thought she was Cleopatra and needed to be treated for a snake bite.”
“Oh, no!”
Reilly grinned. “I didn’t find out until later that she came in every Friday night, claiming to be some famous woman in history who needed help.” Shaking his head over that, he chuckled. “She was a sweet old lady, just lonely for some attention. And then there was George Peabody.”
Watching his eyes twinkle, Janey felt her own lips twitch into a smile. “I’m afraid to ask what his pr
oblem was.”
“Well, I don’t know if I’d call it a problem,” he replied solemnly as he tried and failed to suppress a grin. “You see, he had these false teeth, and sometimes, when he was excited and talking too fast, they’d just fly out of his mouth—”
“You’re making this up!”
Holding up his hand as if he was swearing an oath, he said, “If I’m lying, I’m dying. He brought in four people on different occasions who were struck by his flying teeth. It got so bad, the nurses starting wearing helmets with face guards whenever they saw him coming.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“Really,” he insisted. “If you don’t believe me, call L.A. General. Everybody there knows George Peabody.”
He was lying through his teeth and enjoying every minute of it, and Janey couldn’t help but smile. She knew why he was doing it, of course. He was trying to take her mind off Hannah’s death, and for a little while, at least, he’d done that. When he’d ordered coffee and a slice of Ed’s famous chocolate pie for each of them, she’d been sure she couldn’t eat a bite. But then he’d started telling her stories about his days in medical school, and somehow, she’d not only eaten her pie, but he’d actually made her laugh. And he didn’t have any idea how much she appreciated that. “I don’t think I need to make any phone calls,” she said dryly, grinning. “I believe you.”
He would have gone on with more stories if she’d needed him to, but now that she’d gotten past the first shock of Hannah’s sudden death, she realized that Reilly was right. Hannah had only lived as long as she had by sheer will. She was old and had suffered from heart disease for years, and it was that, and not her son’s visit, that had killed her.
Before he could launch into another story, she said quietly, “Thank you.”
He didn’t pretend not to know what she was talking about. “I know how difficult it is to lose a patient, espe cially one you’ve grown fond of,” he replied. “I’m glad I could help.”
By unspoken agreement they decided it was time to go, and after paying for their pie and coffee, Reilly walked with her to the fire station at the end of the next block, where she’d left her car. “If you don’t feel like driving, I can take you home,” he said gruffly as she pulled her keys out of her purse. “You’ve had a rough night, and it’s not that far out of my way.”
Staring up at him in the darkness, Janey was shocked by how badly she wanted to say yes. But he’d driven her home from the decorating committee just last night, and she hadn’t forgotten that moment when he’d pulled up before her house and her heart had started to pound like a schoolgirl’s. He’d just been being kind, and she’d let her imagination run away with her. Still mortified, she was determined not to let that happen again. Which meant she was driving herself home.
“Thanks for the offer,” she said, “but I’m fine. Really.”
There was no doubt that she was back in control of her emotions. Although there was still a lingering sadness in her eyes, there was no trace of the tears he’d seen there earlier. Relieved, he should have wished her good-night and ended the evening right then. It would have been the right thing to do. But his mind suddenly shut down, and impulsively he took a step toward her and leaned down to kiss her on the cheek.
It was meant to be a simple kiss, the kind friends exchanged all the time without a second thought. But when his lips brushed the petal-like softness of her skin, suddenly, nothing was simple at all. Something kicked him in the chest, something awfully similar to what he’d felt last night, only stronger, and when he drew in a quick breath of surprise, his senses were instantly filled with the clean fresh scent of her. Between one heartbeat and the next, his body was humming.
Shocked, he only had to take one look at her to know that she felt the kick of that innocent kiss, too. She wasn’t like the sophisticated women he’d known in L.A. who knew how to play games. She never thought to hide her emotions, and they were all written right there in her face, in plain view for him to see. Surprise, need, trepidation. Caught in his gaze like a deer in the headlights of an on-coming car, she hesitated, not sure whether to step closer or turn and run for her life.
And it was that, more than anything, that brought him back to his senses. Because he felt the same way, and that was the last thing he expected to feel for her or any other woman.
Hastily stepping back, he deliberately broke the spell that had fallen over both of them and did what he should have done in the first place. He took another step away from her and said gruffly, “Good night.”
For a moment she didn’t move, then she seemed to realize that she was staring at him as if she’d never seen him before. She blinked as though she’d just come out of a daze, and suddenly she couldn’t look him in the eye. “It is getting late, isn’t it? Thanks again for the pie. Good night.”
She was gone before he could give in to the need to call her back, and he knew it was for the best. Because if she hadn’t left when she had, he was afraid he would have given in to the unexpectedly strong need to grab her and kiss her. And that could have been nothing but a mistake.
He still loved Victoria. He would always love her. There was no place in his heart for another woman.
Over the course of the next few days, he told himself that over and over again, until it became a mantra in his head, but it didn’t help. Every time he turned around, he ran into Janey, and it wasn’t just at the hospital or nursing home. He stopped for bread at the grocery store, and there she was, picking up a few things for her elderly patients at the nursing home. She was in line at the bank and gas station, and when he dropped by Ed’s for dinner because he was tired of cooking for himself, there she was with a nurse from the hospital. It was enough to drive a man crazy. And make him more than a little paranoid. It was almost as if fate was throwing them in each other’s path.
And it didn’t stop there. Every night after work he drove out to the McBride ranch to check on Dan, and every night he came face-to-face with Janey. To her credit she acted just as she always did. There were no stilted conversations or wary looks. She was at ease and friendly and treated him as if she’d known him all her life.
If he’d have been a less confident man, he might have wondered if he’d imagined the way her breath had caught in her throat when he’d kissed her on the cheek or the sudden sexual tension that had throbbed between them that night. But then his eyes would lock with hers, and he knew he hadn’t imagined anything. He didn’t have to touch her, kiss her, to feel the sparks that flew between them. They were there whenever they came within twenty feet of each other.
And it scared the hell out of him.
He didn’t understand what was going on, dammit! Victoria had only been dead a little over eight months. He shouldn’t even have been thinking about another woman. But he couldn’t get Janey out of his head. Thoughts of her drifted in and out of his head at all hours of the day and night, and that made him feel incredibly guilty. How had this happened? How had he let it happen?
It had to stop, he told himself. He had to put some distance between them and avoid her until he was able to get his head on straight. But how was he supposed to do that when they worked together and his partner—and patient—was staying in her family home? It wasn’t possible, dammit!
And then there was the Christmas festival, which was Friday night. Just last night Dan had asked him and Janey to take over the booth he and Sara had been scheduled to work, and Reilly hadn’t been able to find a way to turn him down. So now he was committed to spending the entire evening with Janey, trapped inside the small confines of a booth, running the water-shooting gallery where festival goers would compete for stuffed animals. To make matters worse, he was the one who’d suggested that he and Janey might as well drive into town together since he needed to check on Dan before the festival started, anyway.
He must have been out of his mind, he decided. He couldn’t, in good conscience, go back on his commitment to work the booth, but he could take steps to make sure
that working the festival didn’t turn into a semidate. And to do that he would have to fib a little. He hated doing it, but he had no other choice.
Refusing to even consider the possibility that he was panicking, he stopped at the nursing home on the way to his office Friday morning and tracked down Janey at the nurses’ station in the east wing. “We need to talk about tonight,” he said by way of a greeting.
In the process of going over her patients’ charts to make sure there’d been no changes in their regular morning meds, she looked up in surprise. “Oh, good morning, Dr. Jones. You’re out and about early this morning. So what did you want to talk about?”
Her smile was easy, her tone the same friendly one she used with just about everyone. And for some reason that irritated him to no end. It seemed as though there should have been more between them than friendliness, dammit!
Stiffening at the thought, he frowned and said bluntly, “I’ve got some late consultations at the hospital, so I think we’re going to have to go in separate cars. That won’t be a problem, will it?”
“No, of course not. What about Dan, though? I have to go home to change after work, so I can check in on him for you, if you like.”
Feeling guiltier than ever, he almost told her the truth then—that there weren’t any consultations, that he was just afraid that tonight would turn into something a lot more complicated than working a booth together at a festival if he picked her up and that he wasn’t ready for that. He didn’t know if he’d ever be ready for that.
But the words just wouldn’t come. Disgusted with himself, he said instead, “He’s doing much better than I expected, so I don’t think it’ll hurt anything if I don’t check him tonight. Just to be on the safe side, I’d appreciate it if you could take his vitals, though. Unless there’s some kind of problem, I’ll meet you at the booth at seven.”
“Then I’ll see you then,” she said with an easy smile. “It should be fun.”