“Yes. It’s been a hard day, that’s all.”
“Trouble with a patient?”
“I don’t talk about my patients.” Ilsa’s hands stilled on his lower back, lifted away a fraction. He didn’t need to see her face to know that his abrupt answer had offended her. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault that I’m in a bad mood.”
He’d been looking forward to this afternoon since the moment he’d left her side last week. Reuniting with Ilsa, having a chance to get to know her again, was the one good thing about this entire, godforsaken town. He might not have it in him to make witty repartee right now, but he could at least stop acting like a lion with a thorn in its paw.
He cleared his throat. “So. How long have you lived here?”
If the abrupt change in topic surprised her, she recovered quickly. “Almost five years.”
“And have you worked for Mrs. Sterling all that time?”
“I have. She’s the best employer in the world,” she said without a moment’s hesitation. “And she’s my friend.”
“Ah. That’s good.” Would he ever be able to inspire that kind of instant, unconditional loyalty? He rather doubted it.
“It is,” she agreed. “Do you think you’re ready to try stretching that knee out again?”
“I suppose there’s no worming out of it at this point. Do your worst.”
The process was just as painful as he’d remembered; by the end of the second count of ten, he felt as if each individual muscle fiber and tendon was on fire. Mortifyingly, his leg began to shiver with involuntary little contractions. There wasn’t a woman alive who could admire a man who trembled like a baby fawn after twenty seconds of carefully bending his knee.
When they’d finished the fourth endless count of ten, Ilsa released her hold. She began to smooth both hands down his thigh and calf, over and over, as if she were gentling a nervous horse. “Take a moment to breathe. Then for this last count, let’s try to go to twelve. Do you think we can do that?”
He only managed a disgusted groan in answer. “Wonderful,” she replied, as if he’d given a far more enthusiastic affirmative. “We’ll start on three. One. Two. Three. Breathe for me, Theo.”
He was a sweaty, shaky mess by the end. And yet. As he sat up on the tabletop, there was definitely more range of motion in his left leg. Despite the burn of the stretching and a lingering deep ache, the leg felt less like dead weight. He swung it back and forth gingerly and then with more confidence.
Ilsa was grinning hugely at him. It was a lovely smile, warm and reassuring, but not the one he longed for. Instead of the carefree, flirtatious smile she’d given Nils Barson, her expression reminded him of the look you’d give a toddler taking his first steps.
“Thank you,” he managed. “I almost hate to admit it, but this seems to be helping.”
“High praise,” she replied as she handed him his shirt. “I’ll try not to let it go to my head.”
“I mean it, though. Thank you. For . . . for everything. You didn’t have to do any of this for me.”
“I’m just happy I can help.” God, the expression on her face was so very close to pity. It twisted in his gut, and he looked away to concentrate on buttoning back into his clothes.
He might as well make this easier on both of them and get everything out in the open. “Ilsa. I know we have . . . a past.” He tested his weight carefully as his feet met the floor, putting the width of the treatment table between them. “But I’m glad you have a home here. I’m glad you’ve moved on, and I hope you know that I’ll never stand in the way of that. And if Mr. Barson makes you happy, I’ll be happy for you both.”
For the first time in his memory, Ilsa did not have a ready response. He nodded respectfully as he let himself out of the little room and went down to the dressing room to make himself presentable again. His whole body pulsed with soreness, and every step he took jarred his muscles mercilessly. The pain throbbed in counterpoint to a growing headache, more than likely caused by his brain wrapping around itself in knots of jealousy and insecurity. Good thing he had already booked up to next month and didn’t have to manage small talk to the woman at the front desk. He gathered his hat and cane and left Wilson’s without another word to anyone.
As he made his way along the boardwalk, he began to walk faster. The chilly November air felt good. He put more weight on his bad leg, taking a savage pleasure in the stabs of discomfort he was inflicting on himself as he made his way back to his velvet-upholstered monk’s cell in the St. Alice.
• • •
After her last appointment—thank God there was only one more after Theo—Ilsa flew through dinner and the end-of-day chores. She barely took time to nod at Jo and the girls as she crammed her little chip-straw hat on her hastily re-pinned hair, and she half ran past the buildings that stood between Wilson’s and Doc Stryker’s Saloon.
Once inside the tobacco-hazed bar, she found her quarry almost immediately. When he was in town, Nils was nothing if not predictable: same single tumbler of whiskey, same corner bar stool, every night for as long as she’d known him.
The big blond man jerked in surprise as she thumped him on the shoulder. “What did you say to him, you big oaf?”
“Ow! What did I say to who?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. To Dr. Whitacre. He came in today and told me that he’s glad I’ve ‘moved on’ and that he won’t stand in the way of our love. What did you say, Nils?”
“I barely even talked to him. I walked with him on his way to his appointment. I told him that I saw you most days at Wilson’s. Look, I told you I wasn’t going to be any good at ‘flirting.’” He rolled the word around awkwardly, as if it had filled his mouth with marbles. “You want to scheme, get Owen or Doc to help you.”
“Owen is too married and Doc is too old. And it was just for that one night at the dance. I never told you to keep after him!”
“Aw, don’t pout like that.”
She pouted harder out of spite.
“Can I make a suggestion?”
“No. You already admitted you’re terrible at this.”
Nils raised his eyes to the ceiling, as if the stamped tin could grant him supernatural patience. “You could try talking to your doctor yourself.”
“He’s not ‘my’ doctor. And we did talk, that night. All he ever does is talk. Getting him to talk isn’t the problem.”
“Fair enough.” He took a slow, considering swallow of his drink. “I could accidentally lock both of you in the pump house for a couple of hours.”
Ilsa made a very unladylike scoffing noise in the back of her nose. “You men are all alike. If that’s what I wanted, I could arrange it myself, and probably a lot better than you would.”
“So you don’t want to talk, and you don’t want to, um—.” One of Nils’s more endearing traits was the ease with which he blushed. “You got his attention and made him apologize for acting like a fjols. What else do you need, exactly?”
It was an excellent question. She had been very successful at avoiding thinking about its answer for weeks, and she could probably manage another night or two. She shrugged.
“For starters? I want a drink.”
Chapter 8
Harold Morse, the owner of the St. Alice, held court in the hotel’s penthouse suite. Theo cursed him silently as he emerged onto the third floor landing of the main staircase. The climb had undone all of Ilsa’s hard work from a few days earlier; his muscles and knees were seizing up in protest, and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead: certainly not the way he’d hoped to meet his employer for the first time.
He mopped his face with his handkerchief and shook out his cramping right hand before knocking lightly at the polished oak door marked Owner’s Suite: Private.
Morse opened the door himself. He was a surprisingly young man, perhaps in his very early forties, and rather undistinguished looking. Brown hair, brown eyes, medium height, wearing a brown suit of good cloth and only average tailori
ng. Theo had expected something a bit more dashing from the owner of a hotel as ostentatious as the St. Alice.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you properly, Dr. Whitacre,” Morse said as he shook Theo’s hand. Oh good God, had they met before? Theo made an effort to keep his expression blandly pleasant as he raced through his recent memories. They had probably been introduced at that awful Welcome Doctor dance-that-wasn’t.
And now he had waited too long to answer. Morse had released his hand and was looking at him expectantly.
“Oh,” Theo blurted. “Yes, of course, a pleasure.”
Morse let that pass without comment. “Step into my parlour, Doctor.” Theo followed him into a room furnished as a combination of office and club lounge. A heavy desk and chairs sat directly in front of a large window with a stunning view of the lake and the mountains beyond it, framed on either side by tall bookshelves filled with large, leather-bound ledgers. Morse didn’t head to his desk but veered left towards a pair of sueded leather chairs facing the room’s large fireplace. Much like its owner, the room wasn’t what Theo had expected. This inner sanctum was . . . cozy wasn’t quite the right word. Comfortable, in a roughly masculine way.
“Drink?” Morse asked, pausing by a mahogany and brass sideboard.
“No, thank you,” Theo replied. Morse nodded, poured himself a splash of something amber into a tumbler, and gestured for Theo to have a seat.
“So. How are you settling in?”
“Quite well, I think,” Theo lied. “The facilities here are surprisingly modern. Um. Surprising for the region, I mean.”
“You were expecting log cabins and whale oil lamps?” He couldn’t tell if the question was a joke or a sign of Morse taking offense. Maybe he should have accepted Morse’s offer of a drink—it was the middle of the day, but it would have given him something to do with his hands during these awkward pauses. “This may not be Manhattan or Paris, but that’s the charm of the place,” Morse said. “We’re selling frontier vigour and clean mountain air, only with electric light and private bathrooms.” Theo nodded. “That’s part of why I brought you on. Along with Dr. Greyson, of course. The hot springs are well and good, but the St. Alice needs to attract patrons who are used to a certain level of polish, especially during the off-season.”
He was window dressing, then, like the marble floors and the grand piano. An upper-class name for visiting Vancouverites to write home about: “You’ll never guess who prescribed for my cough, dearest!” Theo smothered a sigh as Morse took a slow, deliberate swallow of his drink.
“At any rate. Glad you’re enjoying the work and so on. Not really why I asked to see you, though. I’m afraid, Doctor, that we have to straighten out your habits outside of the office.”
Theo stopped fidgeting with the handle of his cane and went quite still. “My habits?”
“Yes. This is a very small town, you know. You’re the subject of quite a bit of speculation. And it’s been brought to my attention that you’ve been patronizing Wilson’s Bathhouse.”
“Is that a problem? It seems to be a reputable establishment.”
“Oh no, quite respectable. But it is a bathhouse.”
“I’m afraid I still don’t understand your objection.”
Morse gave him the kind of condescendingly patient smile Theo had learned to detest over the years he’d spent as an invalid. “You are an employee of the St. Alice. And not just any employee, but the house doctor. It reflects poorly on all of us if you prefer to pay for services from Wilson’s when you have access to those same services, free of charge, in-house. People will talk. They already are. The hotel and the town aren’t the distinct worlds some people imagine them to be.”
Theo felt like a first-year student again, being called out in front of the class for failing to do the reading. “I don’t know that it’s anyone’s business where I go on my own time.”
Morse’s smile dropped away, revealing the shrewdness in his muddy brown eyes. “It’s my business, Dr. Whitacre. And while you remain on my payroll, it stays my business.”
Theo set his jaw. This was familiar territory. He’d had two decades of experience listening deferentially to variations on the tune of “as long as you’re under my roof.”
“I can’t blame you for a misstep,” Morse continued, lightening his tone again. “You’re a medical man, not a businessman. And in a big town like Vancouver, nobody cares where you go or what you do. But as I said before, this is a small town, and people do care here.”
“I see. I wasn’t aware of the local politics.”
Morse made a little grunt. “Politics. You’re not wrong there, Whitacre. Don’t take offense, but this isn’t really about you. Our competition is the town’s golden boy and mayor, and believe me when I tell you that’s a tough needle to thread. Can’t run the place out of business, but can’t let it get too big either. And a little thing like where the hotel’s doctor gets the knots worked out of his back can wreck that balance.”
Theo grudgingly acknowledged the point. “If it’s really that much of an issue, I’ll cancel the appointments.”
“Good.” Morse drained the last of his tumbler and rose, their interview clearly at an end. “I should let you get back to your patients. And please, see about scheduling any work you need done with the concierge here. May I have your word on that?”
Theo levered himself up from the chair and shook the hand Morse proffered. “You have my word. Good afternoon, Mr. Morse.”
Going down the stairs was almost as exhausting as climbing them, and by the time he’d made it back to his own room, he was sweating again. The physical discomfort paled in comparison to the larger irritation of Morse’s condescension. He’d finally found something to enjoy in Fraser Springs, and he couldn’t even have that without committing some kind of crime against capitalism and basic decency.
Still, Morse wasn’t entirely wrong. People didn’t come to Fraser Springs to rub elbows with miners and loggers. And reputation mattered, regardless of the town’s size. Dr. Greyson had built a very lucrative career on the strength of social connections and was now enjoying an equally lucrative semi-retirement. His mother would never have allowed Greyson within an inch of her precious baby boy otherwise.
This kind of politicking was merely a fact of life, and one he needed to abide by. A few massages, no matter how effective, weren’t reason enough to risk ending his career before it began. Ilsa would understand that.
He dashed off a quick note to Mrs. Sterling to cancel his remaining appointments, rang for the bellboy to run it down the boardwalk, and tramped back down to the office to see to another round of hypochondriacs and hangover victims.
Theo barely spoke to Dr. Greyson over dinner. Not that the good doctor noticed: their conversation was one-sided at the best of times, and the old man seemed tickled to have the floor entirely to himself. He was a sentence or two into yet another anecdote of medical disaster heroically averted when their waiter reappeared to clear their dessert plates. Theo stood abruptly, confessed to feeling unwell, and fled to his room. He kicked the door shut and hissed as pain shot up to his hip.
He was about to kick the door again—to teach it a lesson—when he was startled by a loud knock. He jerked the door open, ready to snap the head off of whichever unfortunate maid or bellboy he found on the threshold.
His terrible luck refused to take a break today: he was frozen in place, facing down five feet and four inches of Ilsa Pedersen. And she did not look pleased.
“You cancelled your appointments.” It was a statement, not a question. That hadn’t taken long. Morse was obviously correct about how quickly news traveled in this town.
“Good evening to you, too. Would you like to come in?” He wouldn’t normally invite a woman into his room, but it seemed preferable to having whatever argument Ilsa was ready to have out in the hallway.
She swept past him and then spun on her heel to stare him down, skirts flaring around her ankles. “Those sessions were working.”
“They were,” he agreed, closing the door. “It’s not . . . ” He leaned against the doorjamb. “It’s nothing personal.”
“Then explain.” She crossed her arms and shifted her weight onto one foot, jutting her hip out. If she weren’t so clearly angry with him, she would be adorable.
“I had a talk with Harold Morse today.” That surprised her—her mouth even dropped open a little.
“But he never talks to anyone.”
“Well, he talked to me today. And he told me that it doesn’t look good for the hotel if its house doctor is patronizing a competitor. Apparently, there’s already been some talk.”
“There’s always some talk.”
He shrugged.
“So what’s the plan now? You’re just going to hobble around in pain because it will make the St. Alice look bad if you don’t?”
Put like that, it did sound foolish. “It’s not up to me. I’m on the payroll here, so I do what the boss says.”
She huffed an unamused little laugh. “As if you even need the money.”
“It’s not about the money,” he shot back.
“Lucky you. You can tell Morse to mind his own business.” Her anger intensified the faint Scandinavian accent of her childhood and gave her words an almost musical quality. Theo shook the observation away as unhelpful.
“That’s not how it works. I gave him my word already. I cancelled everything at Wilson’s. It’s done.”
She glared at him in silence for a long moment. “Nothing’s changed with you, has it?”
She was baiting him, but he responded anyway. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Someone gives you an order, and you roll over and show your belly right away. Who cares what you want, eh, as long as you don’t get in trouble? Teddy’s such a good boy.”
His skin flared with an itchy tingle. “Don’t call me that.”
“What? Teddy? Teddy, Teddy, Teddy.”
“Stop it. You’re being childish.”
“No. I’m all grown up. You’re the one who’s still trying to keep Mommy happy, no matter how much it hurts.” And her voice wavered a little, right there at the end, and his chest suddenly felt hollow. A little of the fight seemed to go out of her, too. Her eyes were a little less narrowed, her voice a little less snappish, as she said, “So you’re not coming back, then.”
The Infamous Miss Ilsa Page 9