Miss Joan came at her own pace, giving each a warm, approving smile. He got the feeling that the woman was not above playing matchmaker when the spirit moved her. She was in for a surprise if she did. He wasn’t about to remain here any longer than necessary and he definitely wouldn’t make any commitments, no matter how attractive the woman was.
“You two need something else?” Miss Joan asked when she reached them.
“Just the bill, Miss Joan,” Dan said, taking out his wallet. “Dinner was very enjoyable.” He couldn’t help glancing in Tina’s direction as he said it.
Miss Joan frowned and pushed his hand back. “Put that away, Doc,” she told him sternly. “Your money’s no good here. This was on the house.” She’d been the one who had written a plea for a doctor to come to Forever and she was determined to be the one instrumental in making the doctor stay. Feeding him was just one of the pieces of her plan.
Dan had grown up with money and one of the lessons he’d learned was that people with money generally wanted more of the same. He sincerely doubted that anyone in this town that all but reeked of the work ethic could be viewed as wealthy, or even mildly well-to-do.
“Refusing money isn’t exactly good business sense, Miss Joan,” he advised her tactfully.
The woman appeared unfazed. “Wasn’t thinking of it as business,” she replied. “More like giving a friend something to eat as a way of paying him back for tending to a little boy I’m very fond of.”
Friend.
The word shimmered in his head. It was way too early for that kind of a label to be bandied about so cavalierly and applied, he thought—unless Miss Joan was talking about Tina.
He grasped at a straw. Maybe Miss Joan was just including him because he was here with Tina. But somehow, he doubted it. Still, he had a feeling that if he pressed the matter, he’d somehow be guilty of insulting the woman and he really didn’t want to do that.
Especially when he saw the warning look in Tina’s eyes as she turned her head in his direction. So he put his wallet back into his pocket and thanked Miss Joan for the meal and her hospitality.
“I’ll see you tonight,” Tina said to Miss Joan as she rose to her feet.
Hair the color of bright flame bobbed up and down with a measure of feeling before Miss Joan turned away and walked back to the counter.
“You’re coming back here later?” he asked Tina, his curiosity mildly engaged.
Why would he ask that? “No.”
But she’d just told Miss Joan she’d see her later. He didn’t understand.
“Then why—” He let his voice trail off, deciding that perhaps he was prying too much into this woman’s life. He needed to back off—for both their sakes. He didn’t want her getting the wrong idea and thinking that he was interested in her in any other capacity than someone who could help him during his stay here.
“I live with Miss Joan,” she explained as they walked toward his car.
A lush, warm darkness enveloped them, promising no relief from the hot day that had come earlier. He would have to see about getting an air-conditioning unit put in, Dan thought. The night ahead at the clinic promised to be a sticky one.
“After Olivia and Rick got married, I didn’t think it was right for them to have a sister-in-law and her baby hanging around, intruding in their space. Rick said that he was all right with having me live with them, but I think he was just being nice. Newlyweds need their privacy,” she added with a touch of humor. “Lucky for me, Miss Joan volunteered to let me stay with her. Said she was tired of just hearing the sound of her own voice at night.
“So far, she hasn’t gotten tired of hearing mine. But even so, I am saving up to get a place of my own.” She had no idea why it was so important to her that he know that, but it was. She didn’t want him thinking that she was one of those women who just let life happen to her. She meant to be in charge of her destiny—hers and Bobby’s—from now on.
Dan walked even slower, nodding at what she’d just said. He used it to his advantage. “You can save faster if you take me up on my offer to come work at the clinic,” Dan reminded her.
She’d been considering it—and leaning toward saying yes. For the most part, the different small business owners who were currently her accounting clients could all be juggled from home. She could work on their books at night or in her spare time. Keeping their accounts in order really didn’t require that much time from her, she thought. And who knew, this could be a good opportunity for her to advance herself.
Working with the handsome, sexy doctor—who appeared to be unaware of just what kind of signals he sent off—was a good move, maybe for more than one reason.
Placing her hand in his, she said, “Okay, Doc, you’ve got yourself a deal.”
She intended for it to be nothing more than two people shaking hands, closing a deal the old-fashioned way. Instead, she felt she’d opened the floodgates for something else. Something that, down the line, she might not be able to exercise control over.
Overwhelmed by her thoughts, she pulled her hand away as if she’d touched fire.
Because maybe she had.
Chapter Ten
Graduating from a first tier medical school, Dan was fairly secure in the belief that he was a good doctor with more than a reasonable amount of learning to fall back on. As a resident, he’d not only survived, but done well in one of New York’s top hospitals. The experience had made him overconfident.
Almost from the beginning, Dan found himself learning things here. Each day his ego was whittled down a little more.
Being a doctor in a small town like Forever wasn’t the same as having a practice in one of the larger cities. In hospitals like the one where he and Warren had done their residency, there were a myriad of rules to follow, a hierarchy to always be mindful of. Here it was more comparable to being in an improvisational theater. He found himself flying by the seat of his pants and making things up as he went along. The by-product of that was experiencing a great deal of satisfaction whenever he was right.
As an intern and then a resident, he was never on his own. Securing basic medications and ordinary supplies were not his concern. His job was to apply the wealth of his knowledge to the situation and the patient’s needs and then move to the next patient. On those occasions when a case baffled him, there were always other doctors, residents as well as specialists, to turn to and consult with.
Here he had no one. Not to consult with or even to tell him where he could obtain the basic things he needed to ply his craft.
Well, he amended, that wasn’t strictly true. He had Tina, who, although not a medical professional on any level, seemed to be operating purely by common sense rather than experience. Tina was the one to point out that he needed more supplies and medications than he’d brought with him.
And she was the one who reminded him that should he be called upon to have a patient taken to the nearest hospital, a hospital located in Pine Ridge some fifty miles away, he needed to have been granted privileges at that hospital to begin with.
Which was why they were currently on this odyssey today. He’d put a closed sign on his front door and had left with Tina for Pine Ridge the minute she was ready to go. It hadn’t occurred to him to leave without her.
Because she’d been verbally reviewing all the things they needed to pick up once in Pine Ridge, he heard himself asking her, “You studied medicine?”
She certainly sounded as if she had, at least in some capacity. After a couple of weeks in the woman’s company for the eight-hour plus shifts he found himself putting in, Dan felt that nothing about Tina Blayne would surprise him. She seemed very capable no matter what she turned her hand to.
Tina smiled, leaning back in the passenger seat. They were technically on a short business trip, but this was the first time she had kicked back since she, Olivia and Bobby had moved to Forever and she was making the most of it. It wouldn’t last long.
“Not really,” she replied.
“Just what does that mean?” he asked.
“It means whatever knowledge I have, I picked up by being on the other side of it.”
That only made things more obscure, he thought as he looked over at her. There were miles and miles of nothing before them so he felt rather confident taking his eyes off the road for a second.
With a careless, dismissive shrug, Tina gave him a quick summary. She had no intention of dwelling any longer on a past she was trying to forget.
“When I was in the car accident, the medical transport that came for me took me to the hospital in Pine Ridge. I got to watch the action up close and personal—when I was finally awake,” she amended. It was only now, after the space of a good nine months that she was able to divorce herself from the situation and keep it at bay well enough not to allow it to affect her—at least, not so that anyone would really notice. Unless they really knew her.
She’d been through a near-death experience—and survived. That kind of thing changed a person, lingering in the recesses of their mind, waiting for an unguarded moment in order to haunt them.
Questions gave birth to more questions. Usually, he wasn’t the curious type. He chalked it up to boredom. “Were you unconscious for a long time?”
Tina nodded. “Almost a week, so they tell me.” A sympathetic smile curved her mouth. “Drove poor Olivia almost over the edge. She’d put up with a lot from me. In her place, I doubt if I would have been that forgiving—or that patient. The point I’m getting at is that the doctors even in a relatively small place like Pine Ridge have their protocol to follow. You don’t have those kinds of restrictions.” As if reading his mind, she added, “You also don’t have that kind of support system.”
She had that right. Sparing her another lengthy glance, he smiled. “Then it’s lucky I have you.”
She had no idea why that simple sentence or the sentiment should warm her the way it did. But she could feel the heat traveling up and down her limbs and shimmying along her spine.
With a shrug, she murmured “We’ll see,” trying to deflect any further attention from herself before he noticed she was trying not to blush.
And barely succeeding.
Once they reached Pine Ridge’s hospital, leaving Dan’s sedan on the ground floor, they went to Human Resources. The department turned out to be hardly more than a small office dominated by a large computer and an even larger woman whose fingers seemed to fly across the keyboard with only slightly less speed than a brand-new Boeing 797.
The woman entered his name into the databank and promised to send him papers to sign once she was able to verify his background and a few other pertinent, important details. She also gave him a heads-up as to where to secure some much needed supplies. Dan was down to his last precious antibiotics and had only one syringe left.
As they made their way to the proper area on the ground floor, Tina and Dan crossed paths with a tall, gray-haired physician in a flowing lab coat. In a hurry, he abruptly stopped when he passed them and, for all intents and purposes, executed a double take.
“Tina?” the doctor asked uncertainly.
When she turned to look at the man, it took her less than a few seconds to place a name to the face and also to remember where she knew him from.
She’d never forget.
“Dr. Baker,” she cried warmly, giving him a quick hug before stepping back. “Hi.”
The man who had treated her when she’d been brought in by the hospital ambulance, broken, bleeding and in a coma, seemed pleased to see her.
“How are you?” He clasped her hand between both of his, his eyes sweeping over her as if to make sure that she had indeed made a complete and full recovery. “You look wonderful.”
“Thanks to some exceptional doctoring,” she acknowledged, “I am wonderful.”
Tina was well aware that her recovery, as extensive as it was given the circumstances, was nothing short of a miracle. She’d both accepted it and reveled in it. The alternative was too dark even to contemplate.
Inherently modest, Dr. Baker was quick to share the credit for an operation that had taken well over five hours.
“And a miracle or two.” His destination temporarily placed on hold, the doctor paused just to digest the sight of her. “What are you doing here?” Dr. Baker asked her. “The last I heard, you and your sister were heading back to Dallas.”
They had gone back. For all of two weeks. And then Olivia broke down and admitted that she missed the sheriff. Missed him with an unshakable passion. About to pack up to go down to Forever, they were surprised by a knock on their door—Rick was on the other side, ready to do what it took to make Olivia part of his life.
What it took was moving to Forever.
“We live in Forever now,” Tina told the physician. “We both decided that there was a huge advantage to living in a place where everyone’s not rushing right over you so much.” Suddenly remembering she wasn’t here alone, she inclined her head toward Dan. “We finally got a doctor of our own in Forever. This is Dr. Daniel Davenport.”
“Baker,” the other physician said, shaking Dan’s hand with feeling. “Nice to meet you.”
Before Dan could say anything, Tina interjected. “Dan’s here applying for operating privileges at the hospital,” she explained.
Baker appeared delighted by the news. “Excellent. We could always use another good surgeon. Anything I can do to help?” he offered.
The smile in Tina’s eyes quickly reached her lips. “As a matter of fact—”
Which was how, after transferring Tina’s verbal list onto paper and then stopping for a quick bite to eat at the cafeteria, Dan and Tina wound up with a trunkful of supplies.
Driving back, Dan noted that the woman sitting in the passenger seat was still grinning from ear to ear fifteen miles into their return trip.
“You’re looking pretty happy with yourself,” he observed, amused.
She was. Very. For perhaps the first time since she and Olivia had come here to live, she felt as if she was finally giving a little back to the town that had embraced her.
Her eyes danced as she asked cheerfully, “Shouldn’t I be?”
She would get no argument from him. If not for her connection, they might still be trying to secure the supplies. Hospitals guarded their wares zealously, especially from outsiders which, technically, he still was. Being part of the staff for all of two hours didn’t exactly place him in the realm of the inner circle.
“You’ve got every right,” he agreed, then, after a beat, brought up another subject. “Baker looked pretty taken with you.”
Tina waved away the remark. “He was just admiring his handiwork. He was the one who put me back together again after the accident. If it hadn’t been for Dr. Baker, who knows what condition I might be in? Or if I would even be around.”
She tossed the remark off without allowing herself to speculate. There was no point in going down that road. She was the first to acknowledge that she’d been lucky and she intended to make the most of her second chance. Make the most of it and also continue to pass on kindness whenever she could.
“If I didn’t mention it before,” Dan said, and he knew he was pretty remiss when it came to expressing gratitude, “I appreciate you coming with me today.”
They were getting closer to Forever. He glanced to his left. The scene caught his attention as it registered. The sun was making a huge production out of setting, rendering the kind of breathtaking scene that few in the city knew they were missing out on unless they happen to be lucky enough to be out in the desert—or the country—at just the right moment.
And even then, this sunset was in a class by itself.
“No need to thank me.” She brushed off his gratitude. “After all, you’re the boss,” she reminded him.
He doubted if she actually believed that. The woman was probably just humoring him, having been told that male egos need stroking. His didn’t need stroking—but he did like her company. “You could have taken
the day off,” he pointed out.
A day off would have meant doing nothing. She shook her head. “Doesn’t appeal to me. I like working, keeping busy.” And then, out of the blue, she suddenly ordered, “Pull over.”
“What?”
Tina repeated her instruction, this time with more urgency. “Pull over.”
There wasn’t much of a shoulder to the two-lane highway, but he did as she asked, pulling over to the highway’s right shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
The expression on her face was the last word in serenity. Wouldn’t she have looked agitated if something was wrong?
The next moment, she reassured him. And explained.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Tina remarked calmly. Then, before he could demand to know why she had him pulling over if nothing was wrong, Tina pointed to the view to his left. “Look,” she urged. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked in almost a hushed whisper.
So he looked. And saw a round, crimson-gold ball sinking in the distant horizon. Slowly disappearing by inches as it prepared to pay a visit to another part of the world.
Dan also looked at the woman who pointed all this out to him. Her face was almost transfixed. As radiant as the sunset she was so intent on showing off. For his money, she was the wonder of nature to appreciate, not another sunset, something that had been taking place since the world began.
He studied her, fascinated despite his silent resolve not to be. Her features were lightly kissed by the rays that reached out long, spidery fingers one final time before the sun finally sank from view—only to begin the process all over again tomorrow night.
“Magnificent,” he murmured in agreement. But he wasn’t looking at the sunset.
The tone of Dan’s voice slipped into her consciousness, drawing Tina’s attention away from the sight she wanted him to appreciate.
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