The GP's Valentine Proposal

by Jessica Matthews

  “I’d also like to come back tomorrow to clear out Ned’s desk.” Once again, she looked him in the eye and mentally dared him to deny her request.

  He didn’t. “Be my guest. Someone’s usually here at eight o’clock to unlock the doors, but we don’t officially start until nine.”

  He sounded matter-of-fact, so Dixie assumed he was simply being helpful rather than implying that he wanted her in and out before his patients arrived. Little did he know that she didn’t plan to dump everything in a box and haul it home. For one thing, she couldn’t carry a lot and, for another, she wanted to run into people who knew Ned and might shed some light on where he’d gone. If the locum wouldn’t arrive for forty-eight hours, she intended to spend as many of those hours in this office as possible.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said. “How much of this is his?”

  “Everything, except the furniture.”

  She eyed the room. The bookcase lining one wall was filled with medical textbooks, magazines and newsletters. Although she hadn’t identified everything in his desk, her first glance had revealed drawers crammed with an assortment of items from bottles of aspirin to throat lozenges with zinc. If that weren’t enough, notebooks, notepads, tons of tourist brochures, and folders of more paper added to the variety. All in all, there was more than enough to keep her busy for days while she looked for a clue buried somewhere in this mess.

  “I’ll ask Jane to find some boxes for you,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  He hesitated at the door. “If you need help…”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Yell if you do.”

  Surprised by his gruff offer, which was probably as close to an olive branch as she would receive, she nodded. “I will.”

  As soon as he left, she popped one of her pain pills into her mouth, swallowed it with a gulp of water from the bottle she’d bought at the convenience store when she’d arrived in Hope, and propped her leg on a chair she’d pulled toward the desk. If Ned was getting the proverbial boot to his backside, then every second she spent in this practice counted.

  Hoping to find a lead in his month-at-a-glance appointment book, she flipped to the January tab and stared at the page. Other than Aunt Cora’s birthday on the fifth and a dentist appointment on the eighth, the squares were eerily blank.

  Where in the world are you, Ned?

  Trouble. With a capital T. That’s what he had in more ways than one, Mark thought as he sank into the padded executive chair behind his walnut desk.

  Not only was Ned gone during the height of the viral illness season, but he himself had stretched the truth about Ned’s replacement. He’d contacted the locum agency and was waiting to hear if they could accommodate his request. He’d already been warned that the firm’s staff was stretched quite thin with the influenza outbreak all over the country. He didn’t have a good chance of hiring a short-term physician, but they’d promised to do their best, which was all he could ask.

  As for interviewing candidates for both available medical staff positions, he’d only received a single nibble for his advertising trouble. That, too, wouldn’t have been so awful if the applicant had shown some potential. The man had made more demands than concessions, and even if Mark had ignored his instincts and invited him to join his practice, he had the sneaking suspicion that he wouldn’t have been much better off than he was now. Better for him to work night and day than to work with someone who didn’t suit.

  His only hope was to talk the locum, should he be lucky enough to find one, into staying indefinitely as he’d claimed he would. If not, well, the viral epidemic sweeping through town this winter had to end some time, didn’t it?

  You could always ask Dixie.

  No, he told himself as he toyed with his pen. Dixie Albright, in spite of being quite attractive with her delicate features, tawny curls, and a mouth that seemed immensely kissable, had one major strike against her. She was Ned’s cousin, which, after the stunts he’d pulled, wasn’t a favorable recommendation. If he was foolish enough to let her fill in for her cousin, he knew what would come next. She’d turn those beautiful big brown eyes on him and spend the next few weeks convincing him to give Edward Bentley another chance. She’d trowel on the guilt like a heavy-handed mason until he finally gave in.

  Well, it wouldn’t happen. He’d stand firm. A man had to be accountable for his actions and Mark had already given Ned two chances. That, in itself, was two more than he would have given a year ago.

  Why she’d bother taking up her cousin’s cause was anyone’s guess, although that was what people did for their relatives, even the undeserving ones. If he was in trouble, the entire Cameron clan would rally around him, but the difference between him and Ned was that Mark didn’t make his own trouble. And if Dixie was familiar enough with Ned’s routine to know that he kept a spare house key in his top drawer of his desk, then Mark would lay odds that this wasn’t the first time she’d flown to her cousin’s rescue.

  No, Dixie could pack up Ned’s possessions and he would chalk this episode up to experience. If nothing else, he’d learned that disobeying his instincts was a prescription for disaster, which was another reason for refusing her offer.

  And yet…she had spunk, he grudgingly admitted as he stared through his southern-exposure window at the scrawny pin oak tree he’d planted last summer. No wilting lily, that was for sure, not to mention a body that oozed pure woman. Her blue sweater wasn’t tight by any means, but it hugged her form well enough to reveal the curves underneath. Her long skirt had draped trim hips, and even though he could see the bulkiness of her knee brace, it didn’t require much effort to imagine shapely legs and slender ankles.

  And miles and miles of soft skin.

  In all fairness, if Ned wasn’t part of the picture, Mark still wouldn’t have hired Dixie because she was too great a distraction. Actually, he was quite surprised to realize that; he’d worked with countless women before and had never seen them as anything more than colleagues.

  Dixie, however, was different, and he couldn’t explain why. He only sensed that he’d never focus on his work if she was within hailing distance. Crazily enough, he’d spent five minutes in her presence and her light, fresh scent still haunted him. Too much of her could change his goals from building his practice to building a family.

  Oh, he didn’t have anything against getting married. He always thought he would at some point, provided he met the right woman at the right time in his life. Even though his brush with death in last summer’s plane crash had made him rethink a lot of things, marriage included, this week was definitely not the best time. Trying to provide for the medical needs of three times his usual number of patients didn’t allow the time or the energy to think past each day. His top priority was to get his practice back on an even keel, and until that happened everything else in his life would have to wait its turn.

  All of which meant that while he might be attracted to Dixie, he wouldn’t do anything about it. For one thing, pursuing a woman who, as far as he could tell, wasn’t his type was foolhardy at best. He wanted someone who was as driven as he was, who shared his vision of success and would work hard to achieve those goals. If Dixie spent her time rescuing her cousin, then she obviously gave up her own commitments and responsibilities to do so.

  “Dr Cameron?”

  The familiar voice of his nurse, Miranda Joyner, shook him out of his thoughts. “Yeah, what’s up?”

  Miranda, a woman who was his mother’s age and tended to scold him as if she were his mother, stood in the doorway, her normally happy face grim.

  “We have a problem.”

  He shrugged. “What’s new?” he asked tiredly.

  “I’m serious,” she insisted. “Rosy Valesquez is here.”

  Mrs Valesquez was a Mexican national whose husband was employed at a nearby poultry farm. She was nineteen, pregnant with her first child, and couldn’t speak a word of English, which presented a challenge on the best of
days. They’d gotten around it before because Ned’s nurse knew enough Spanish to give basic instructions. Unfortunately she’d taken advantage of Ned’s absence to travel to Arizona with her businessman husband. Without her, they had to find someone else to interpret.

  “Did she bring someone to translate?”

  “No, but translation is the least of our worries,” Miranda said darkly. “She’s in labor.”

  First babies took a while, so he wasn’t particularly excited. He’d count himself lucky if she delivered within the next twelve hours. “We’ll check her to see how much she’s dilated and if she’s far enough along, we’ll send her to the hospital. What’s the word for hospital?”

  Miranda shook her gray head. “I don’t know and if I did, it’s too late. She’s crowning.”

  Crowning? Even if he called an ambulance, she would probably deliver before the crew arrived.

  “OK,” he said, resigned to turning an exam room into a delivery suite. “Ask Jane to call for an ambulance and I’ll see how much time we have.”

  Sure enough, Miranda was right. The Valesquez baby would arrive in the next few minutes with or without his help.

  Miranda quickly opened an obstetric pack and prepared the field while Mark nodded encouragingly at his patient and promised her that it would soon be over. As he gowned and gloved, he doubted if she understood him, but a soothing tone of voice transcended all language barriers.

  “I wonder why she came here instead of heading for the maternity ward?” he mused, fixing his mask in place. “She’s been taking Lamaze classes.”

  “Couldn’t tell you. For all we know, she didn’t understand her instructor during her childbirth preparation sessions. Or maybe she was just too rattled to remember.”

  Miranda bustled past him to lay out the few supplies they had available. His office, though well equipped, wasn’t designed to handle emergencies of this sort. He didn’t have the drugs or equipment if something should go wrong, although it was nice to know the arriving ambulance could help fill in some of the gaps.

  Provided it arrived in time.

  Mark nudged a stool forward with his shoe, then sat down at the foot of the exam table.

  “Don’t push,” he told Rosy, although he had no idea if she understood him or not. He knew a few Spanish words, but for the life of him he couldn’t think of a single one at the moment.

  Jane appeared in the doorway. “The ambulance is on the way.”

  “Did you find someone across the way who could translate?”

  His small building stood alone, as did the other buildings that formed the Hope City Medical Complex. While he was the sole occupant of his facility, the others housed two general surgeons, three internists, and two pediatricians. Surely someone within walking distance was bilingual.

  “Everyone’s still at lunch.”

  It figured. “In that case, you can be my assistant.”

  Jane sounded horrified and her face blanched. “Me?”

  “Yes, you.”

  “Sorry, Doctor.” She waved her hands for emphasis. “But blood and I don’t mix.”

  “They will today,” he said grimly. “Miranda has to look after the baby, so I need you to be my go-fer.”

  “I have a better idea. I’ll get Dr Albright.”

  “No. You can do it,” he insisted. “I’ll walk you through everything.”

  “If I’m on the floor, you won’t,” she muttered. “I know my limitations and delivering babies is way beyond that.”

  “If you want my opinion—” Miranda began.

  He didn’t, but knew he’d hear it regardless.

  “It would make more sense to have Dr Albright standing by,” Miranda said matter-of-factly. “Do you realize how long it’s been since I’ve assisted in a birth? We can use all the experienced professional help we can get.”

  “Don’t forget, she has a bum knee. Besides, delivering a baby is like riding a bike. It’ll come back to you,” he said over Rosy’s wail and a flurry of Spanish while he concentrated on easing out the baby’s head.

  “Are you willing to risk it if it doesn’t?” she persisted. “We’re already working under less than ideal conditions.”

  He was more aware of that than she realized, but it grated on him to ask for Dixie’s help.

  “As for her knee,” Miranda continued, “why don’t you let her decide if she can handle the job? If nothing else, she can serve in an advisory capacity and look over my shoulder.”

  As much as he wanted to find fault with Miranda’s defense of Dixie, he couldn’t. If something went wrong…If Ned were here, he wouldn’t hesitate to ask for his assistance, so why did he balk at asking Dixie for the same thing?

  Before he could send Jane to find the spare doctor in the house, the soft, lilting voice that would haunt his dreams for weeks to come drifted into the room.

  “I heard the commotion. Can you use an extra pair of hands?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “EAVESDROPPING?” Mark asked.

  Dixie didn’t want to admit that while she hadn’t been standing outside the door, she had been monitoring the situation from a distance. She’d been delighted when the receptionist had tracked her down and saw it as an opportunity to convince him to keep her around. “Jane said you might need some help.”

  “I didn’t know she’d left,” he groused.

  Uh-oh. Jane had obviously acted without his authorization and she tried to protect the receptionist. “I would have come even if she hadn’t asked,” Dixie added mildly. “Doctors don’t deliver babies in their office every day. Unless, of course, you do things differently here.”

  “I don’t.”

  Dixie didn’t think that he did. He was a by-the-book sort, which was good, but it was also bad because sometimes rules were meant to be broken.

  He continued. “Apparently Rosy here didn’t understand that she was supposed to go to the hospital when her labor pains were twenty minutes apart.”

  “Did you call an ambulance?” Dixie asked.

  “They’re on their way,” Jane interjected, back in the room.

  “Are you expecting any problems?”

  “No,” he said. “It should be a routine delivery.”

  “Then you have everything under control,” Dixie commented, aware that her services weren’t required or desired. Because she never stayed where she wasn’t wanted, even if she was exactly where she wanted to be, she turned toward the door. “I’ll leave you all to your fun.”

  “Wait.” He stopped to suction out the baby’s mouth and nose before he continued.

  “Miranda has decided she’s out of her league. If you want to make yourself useful, you can take care of the baby.”

  The glance he shot the older nurse suggested that he knew she was fully capable of handling whatever medical situation they encountered. She didn’t cower under his sharp gaze, but simply shrugged and looked innocent, as if she was so accustomed to his bark that it no longer bothered her.

  Inwardly Dixie smiled. Clearly, Mark’s staff was staging a mutiny. She’d thank them for their efforts later. Right now, she had a newborn to consider.

  “Provided,” he continued darkly, “you’re up to the physical strain.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she answered without hesitation as she propped her crutches in a corner. The room was small enough that she could maneuver quite well without them. As Miranda handed her a towel and showed her the section of counter where she’d set up the basic supplies to care for a newborn, Dixie asked, “What’s the situation?”

  “You mean, other than the obvious?” He turned to Rosy, although he knew she didn’t understand. “Easy now.”

  When Rosy grunted and bore down once again, he yelled, “No. No. Easy.”

  The girl let out a spate of Spanish words and Mark released his own frustration. “Where in the hell is a translator when you need one?”

  Suddenly realizing the problem, Dixie immediately spoke to the girl in her own language. Mark may have g
rudgingly accepted her for her medical skills but, whether he realized it or not, she now had an edge.

  And she intended to capitalize on it as much as possible.

  Although Mark didn’t understand what Dixie was saying to his patient, it was obvious that she was quite fluent and well able to get her points across.

  At once the girl stopped pushing and started to pant. Her face glistened with sweat and her hair hung damply against her forehead, but even from his position he could see the gratitude in her eyes as she listened to Dixie’s instructions.

  He delivered the baby’s left shoulder, then the right, as he listened to Dixie utter what he thought sounded like words of encouragement.

  A few seconds later the entire infant slid into his waiting hands.

  “A beautiful little girl,” he said as he placed the baby on Rosy’s stomach and cut the cord, while Dixie broke the news to their patient. An instant later the separation of mother and infant complete, he handed the newborn over to Dixie, who enfolded the baby in a fluffy white towel and carried her to another corner of the room.

  “Where’s Jane?” he asked.

  “She left again,” Miranda answered.

  The woman was like a wisp of smoke, he grumbled to himself. Here one minute and gone the next.

  “You couldn’t tell, but she was looking a little green,” Miranda commented. “I didn’t think you wanted her on the floor, so I told her she could go back to her phones.”

  “I wanted her to check on that ambulance.”

  “I’m sure she is.”

  While he waited to deliver the placenta, part of him was conscious of the quiet that had descended upon the room when there should have been a baby’s cry. A glance at Dixie’s corner showed her working on a baby that didn’t have the healthy pink skin tones he wanted to see. A deafening silence filled the next few seconds until he couldn’t contain himself.

  “What’s going on over there?” he barked.

  “Be patient.”

  He heard the unmistakable sounds of more suctioning before Dixie’s croon. “Come on, sweetheart. You have an impatient mama and a grumpy old doctor who want to hear your voice.”