“No. Never,” she said vehemently. Then, because he didn’t seem convinced, she added, “Please, Mark. You have to believe me. Our relationship happened in spite of Ned, not because of him.”
“Sorry, but I don’t quite believe you. Know this. Trust is a two-way street and right now I don’t trust you any more than I trust Ned.”
A stabbing wouldn’t have hurt nearly as badly as his words did.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said stiffly. “But perhaps my trust in you was misguided as well. I should have known you’d operate under a double standard.”
“I do not—” he protested.
She cut him off. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to finish my work for the day so I can leave. For good.”
“Fine.”
Dixie blinked away the tears brimming in her eyes. She wouldn’t let him see that he’d crushed her spirits to a fine powder. She had her pride, too, and she drew the remnants of it around her like a tattered cloak. Before she could stride past Mark, a familiar voice stopped her in her tracks.
“Well, now, this looks like a happy gathering.”
She gazed at the man standing in the doorway, hardly able to believe her eyes. “Ned?”
“In the flesh.” He waltzed in, impeccably dressed, his light brown hair neatly trimmed and combed. Standing next to Mark, however, she realized that he didn’t measure up to the man she loved in either stature or character.
“The prodigal has returned,” Mark commented dryly.
“Absolutely.” Ned addressed Dixie. “Thanks for covering for me, Dix. I’ll take over now.”
“Covering?” she sputtered. Why, he made it sound as if this had all been planned.
“Sure. I appreciate you filling in. Now you can go back to Chicago and your stabbings and shootings. I’m sure life in Hope was pretty dull for you.”
“It wasn’t dull,” she ground out. “As for filling in—” Mark interrupted, his voice surprisingly even. “Where’ve you been all this time, Ned?”
Ned glanced at Dixie. “Why, didn’t you tell him? I went to Mexico. This little mission down there was desperate for medical expertise, so I volunteered at the last minute.”
“Mexico. Really?” Mark sounded interested, almost impressed.
Dixie’s mouth dropped. How could Ned have thought up such a crazy story? He had plainly dismissed her ultimatum, and from the single glare he shot at her before he turned on his charm he clearly expected her to support his charade.
Well, she wouldn’t.
“Ned, be honest. We all know—”
“I never thought you were interested in helping Third World villages,” Mark said in a tone that suggested he was only toying with his colleague. “I’m sure they’ll be happy to hire you for full-time duty.”
“Oh, but I couldn’t.”
Mark shrugged. “If you can’t, you can’t. Either way, you’re not working here.”
The surprise on Ned’s face was priceless, and if Dixie hadn’t felt so whipped by her encounter with Mark, she might have laughed. “I’m not?”
“No. Although I suspect that serving a village’s medical needs is far better than being in prison.”
“What?” From the way Ned glanced at Mark, then at Dixie and back again, he could have been watching a tennis match.
“We know about your alcohol problem,” Mark said. “And I know about the money.”
“I’ll pay you back,” he said sulkily.
“If you want to stay out of jail, you’ll take care of your debt before you leave.”
“You can’t fire me. That’s discrimination.”
“I’m not terminating you because of your addiction. We could have worked around that. As for the money, we could have worked something out for that, too, but we’re not. And do you know why?” He didn’t wait for Ned to answer. “Because you weren’t honest, and as a result I can’t trust you. A lie, whether intentional or by omission, is still a lie.”
Dixie winced at Mark’s accusation. Why couldn’t he understand her position? She’d only been trying to do the right thing for Ned by staying out of the middle. Instead, she’d ended there anyway.
“You have until noon to clear out your things.” Mark’s gaze went from Ned to Dixie, and she knew that she was included in his order. “That gives you a couple of hours. I suggest you use them wisely.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
MARK stormed into his office, furious by what he saw as Dixie’s perfidy. She’d claimed to trust him to do the right thing, and yet, when the chips had been down, she’d still insisted on protecting Ned.
To think he’d asked her to move in with him. To think that she was different than Andrea. To think that they could have had a future. He’d been such a fool to fall for another pretty face and a winsome smile.
A brisk knock at the door brought him out of his mental tirade. “Come,” he yelled.
Miranda marched in. “What’s all the ruckus? Everyone in a two-block area can hear you.”
“I fired Ned and Dixie is leaving. End of story.”
“That might be the end, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Jane and I heard every word.”
“Then if you know, why ask?”
“Because you need to talk about it—get whatever is eating you out of your system.”
“Dixie lied to me. She knew where Ned was and didn’t tell me.”
“So?” she said bluntly. “What purpose would it have served? Wouldn’t you have accused her of bailing him out? Of protecting him so that he wouldn’t have to acknowledge his own actions?”
He opened his mouth to disagree, then closed it with a snap. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I do. That’s exactly what you would have done. She was placed in a no-win situation. If the truth be known, I’ll bet her aunt put a ton of pressure on her.”
From Dixie’s description of her family, Mark didn’t doubt it. However, her aunt’s threats still didn’t excuse her actions, he thought irritably.
“And are you sure that she wouldn’t have told you?” Miranda asked. “She’d set her time limit for Dr Bentley to contact you at noon. One thing about Dixie—she stands by her word.”
He didn’t answer. In the short time he’d known her, Dixie had never done anything to suggest otherwise.
“In case your watch is broken, she still had a few hours to go,” she added. “If you ask me—”
“I’m not,” he said dryly.
“Too bad, because you’ll hear my opinion anyway. Dixie crawled under your skin and into your heart, but you’ve been waiting for her to betray you like Andrea did.”
“I have not.”
“Maybe not consciously, but deep down I think part of you expected something like this. Now that it has happened, or you think it has, you’re using this minor incident as an excuse to break off your relationship.”
“It isn’t minor. She promised not to keep any secrets. That whatever she discovered she’d tell me.”
“She said she would have if Ned didn’t, and I believe her,” Miranda said simply. “You can’t expect her to trust you if you aren’t willing to trust her.”
She paused. “And here’s something else for you to consider. I don’t think you’re as angry with her as you pretend to be.”
“I’m not pretending.”
“OK, so you’re angry. But Dixie’s silence isn’t the real reason behind it. You’re angry with yourself for not seeing what lay under your nose the whole time. You worked with Ned for six months and didn’t suspect a thing, did you? It’s easier to make Dixie your scapegoat than to admit your own failings.”
He started to protest, then stopped. He couldn’t deny that he felt like a complete failure at judging character, but was he blaming Dixie to protect his own ego?
“If you want to spread the responsibility around, then you’d better include Jane and myself. We never suspected a thing either, and we worked with him every day, like you did. Believe me, if I’d entertained even the slight
est inkling that he was pickling himself every night, I would have told you.”
Mark remained silent.
“Let me give you one last opinion. Letting Andrea go was tough, but you survived. If you send Dixie packing, you’ll be sorry for the rest of your natural-born days.”
Mark rose, unwilling to admit that he felt Dixie’s loss keenly after only twenty minutes. “I need some air.”
Miranda nodded. “Good thinking. Maybe freezing your butt outside will cool off your hotheadedness.”
He glared at her, irritated that she simply glared back. “As soon as I get back, I’ll expect my patients to be lined up and ready to go.”
“Impossible.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jane and I rescheduled your morning appointments.”
“Why did you do that?”
“You didn’t need the town as your audience,” she said. “When things got hot and heavy, we told everyone to come back this afternoon.”
Unsure if he should scold Miranda or thank her, Mark strode down the hallway, intent on reaching his private entrance. He didn’t take his coat—he only intended to stay outside until his body to grew as numb as his emotions. Maybe then he could function for the rest of the day…for the rest of his life.
Approaching Dixie’s office, he dared himself not to notice the floral scent that always hung in the air. Determined to stride by without giving the occupants a second glance, he started past, then froze at the harsh words being spoken.
“I don’t understand how you could have screwed things up,” Ned informed Dixie.
Dixie stared at her cousin, incredulous. “How I screwed things up?” she said. “I had nothing to do with you walking away from the practice without a word, stealing Mark’s money, or refusing to be honest when you did come back.”
“I wasn’t stealing. I was borrowing.”
“Borrowing without permission is stealing,” she said. “You’re a smart man. You should know the difference.”
“I was going to pay it back.”
“With what?”
“I intended to borrow it from you. Once the shrinks finished my evaluation, I was going to come home and replace the money before anyone knew it was gone.”
“But you didn’t get out, did you?”
“No. I was a little worried when I realized I was stuck in Seattle, but I hoped you’d come to the rescue.”
“Yeah. Just call me Dixie Do-right,” she muttered sarcastically to herself.
“And when Mom told me that you were here, I knew you wouldn’t let me sink.”
“Do you know what’s really sad, Ned?” Dixie said, feeling as disgusted with herself as she was with him. “Until ten days ago, I wouldn’t have. For the record, I bailed you out as much as possible.”
“How?” he demanded.
“Mark was ready to fire you on the spot and I convinced him to listen to your side of the story before he decided your fate.”
“He didn’t listen, though, did he?”
“Yes, he did,” she said hotly. “If you hadn’t spouted off about helping underprivileged people in Mexico when he knew you weren’t there, he would have given you a second chance.”
“Mark would have given you a second chance,” he singsonged in a falsetto voice. “He certainly would have if you’d paid him off like Mom asked you to.”
“I did, but he gave it back.”
“Then you should have paid him something else.” His eyes turned speculative. “As friendly as you two are, maybe you did.”
“What are you implying?”
“On second thoughts, you can’t have been quite good enough. Maybe if you had been, he would have been more lenient.”
So incensed was she by his crude comment, she slapped him. Her hand burned from the force she’d applied, but her heart hurt far worse. Did Mark think along those same lines? That she’d spent her days and nights with him as a form of bribery?
Had he lumped her in the same category as his former fiancée, the one who had only been interested in using him to further her own needs?
She wanted to yell at Mark for jumping to the wrong conclusion, but he wasn’t in front of her. Ned was.
“How dare you?” she snarled. “Our relationship was something special. Quite unlike yours with Larissa. I love Mark Cameron, so don’t you dare say another word. About him or me…or anything. Now, get out. I’ll stop by the house to pack up my things and then I never want to see you again.”
She’d lost the one man she’d ever loved. The loss of a family who’d never loved her paled in comparison…
Mark stood still, unable to breathe and definitely unable to move after hearing Dixie profess her love for him.
Miranda’s whisper came at his elbow. “Who is she protecting now?”
In that instant everything gelled in his head and in his heart.
He slipped into the room. “I couldn’t help but hear you from the hallway, Ned.”
Dixie made a small sound in her throat but he didn’t glance in her direction. If he saw the pain in her eyes, he’d forget all about Ned—and he didn’t want to.
“This is a private conversation,” Ned remarked stiffly, his face red from a combination of fury and the handprint on his cheek.
“Can’t be too private if you’re yelling. And when you yell at the woman I admire and love, you can’t expect me to ignore you.”
Dixie gasped, but again his gaze didn’t waver from Ned.
“How fate gave you a relative like your cousin is completely beyond my understanding. You don’t deserve her. Nor do I understand why she’s knocked herself out all these years to gain your acceptance.
“So I suggest you do exactly as she said. Get out and stay out of our lives until you get your act together.”
Ned stormed past. Neither of them spoke until a door slammed in the distance.
“What did you mean by ‘our’ lives?” she asked softly.
“Just what I said. I don’t want him in our lives. Until he turns into a decent human being,” he added. “And the way he’s going, that may take until the next century.”
Her giggle suddenly turned into a sniffle and her eyes became suspiciously moist. “How much did you hear?”
“Enough.”
She smoothed her hair with a shaky hand. “Does this mean you’re not angry with me any more?”
He stepped close enough to touch her. “A smart and savvy woman told me that I was taking my anger with myself out on you. After you broke all ties with him, I realized how far you’d come and how much you were giving up to stick to your principles.”
It seemed tacky to mention how he thought that losing her relatives wasn’t any great loss, so he didn’t.
“I had no choice,” she said simply. “Not if I wanted to live with myself.”
Mark took her hands and tugged her closer, pleased that she didn’t resist. “I know how much family means to you. Would you be willing to share mine with me?”
“To share yours…? But—”
“You agreed to move in with me,” he reminded her.
“That was before all this happened.”
“The offer’s still open. Actually, I’m modifying it slightly.”
“You are?”
“I want it legal. With a ring and a ceremony and whatever other frills you can dream up.”
“Are you asking me to marry you?”
Her eyes glistened. “I don’t know what to say.”
He stared into those watery depths and hoped she’d see sincerity and love in his. “Say, ‘Yes, Mark.’ Or ‘Whatever date you want, Mark.’ Just don’t say no.”
She smiled, then flung her arms around his neck. “What if I say that I love you?”
“It works for me,” he said, clutching her close and sweeping her off her feet. “Because I love you, too.”
February 14
Surrounded by friends, Dixie sat at a gaily decorated table in the Hope Community Center and tapped her feet in time to t
he music. The dance had started a few minutes ago and only a few couples had been brave enough so far to go onto the dance floor, but it wouldn’t take long for everyone else to join in the spirit of the evening. For herself, she could hardly wait to be in Mark’s arms, even if all they did was stand in one spot and sway to the beat.
She glanced at the rest of the people there. Like the other women, she was wearing the fanciest dress she could find. In her case, it was a beaded red sheath that sparkled under the lights. She’d never felt more like a princess than she did at that moment.
Actually, it wasn’t the dress that caused her to feel that way. Mark’s admiring gaze did that all on its own.
He had never looked better either, in his dark suit and bowtie. No one else in the room held a candle to him and the room was filled with men who, as Miranda and her sister Mary had observed “cleaned up rather nicely.”
Trying to be heard over the noise of the band and the other party-goers, Dixie leaned over to speak in his ear. “This turned out better than I’d expected.”
He clutched his chest melodramatically. “You actually doubted our ability to throw a party? Just wait until you see what comes next.”
As if on cue, the music stopped and suddenly the band’s leader spoke into the microphone. “This next song is for all you lovebirds out there. Before we start, we want to recognize one special pair.”
Immediately, several spotlights clicked on. Their beams scanned across the crowd before all three focused on Dixie and Mark.
Slightly embarrassed by the attention, she nudged him. “What’s going on?” she asked.
He placed a small velvet box on the table in front of her. “Open it.”
She knew what rested inside without looking. Too caught up with emotion, she could only say, “Oh, Mark.”
“I asked you to marry me a short time ago,” he said, “but you never gave me an answer.”
She smiled at him, aware of the complete silence as everyone tried to listen to their conversation. “I thought I did.”
He shook his head, his gaze intent. “You never said the magic words.”
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