“Just fine,” Neil repeated as if reciting the two words like a prayer.
His eyes never left her face.
Ellie could feel her heart pounding in her throat now, threatening to take away her very last fragment of air.
“Maybe this party the sheriff threw for you is a good thing,” she told him breathlessly. “You obviously don’t get out very much.”
But Neil had a very different opinion on the matter.
“You don’t have to sample every single cookie in the box to know if the one you have is extremely sweet and the best tasting one you’ve ever had,” he told her, his voice so low that part of her thought she was imagining the words rather than actually hearing them.
If her heart began pounding any harder, it was going to create a hole in her chest and just fall out, she thought. Even in the darkness, she knew it was only a matter of seconds before he became aware of what it was doing, how hard it was beating.
And why.
She needed to save herself before it was too late.
“Maybe we should go in,” she told him.
“Maybe we should,” Neil agreed.
Instead of doing that, Neil slid his fingers along her cheek, tilting her head ever so slightly. And then he slowly inclined his head and his lips met hers.
Just like that, time stood still as the kiss between them blossomed and grew until it couldn’t be measured in any breadth and scope.
Ellie’s mind stop protesting; stopped attempting to put the brakes on. Instead she allowed herself to be wildly, breathlessly, swept away down an uncharted river she had never even imagined in her wildest dreams existed.
Rising up on her toes, she slid her arms around his neck, felt herself eagerly responding to the heat of his body. Not just responding, but finding herself wanting more.
Eagerly.
Where had this come from? And why, in heaven’s name, now?
And why with a man who couldn’t possibly want to stay in this small town once his job was done—which would be very, very soon?
It just didn’t make sense, Ellie silently argued. She had always been so sensible, so practical, far more levelheaded than her years. Her behavior now was totally against type.
And yet, she realized, it didn’t have to make sense. Not really. It just had to be.
This had to be.
Oh, Lord, Ellie thought, she was losing her mind. All that time she had spent up in the air was unraveling her.
The worst part was, she didn’t care. She wanted to grab whatever happiness she could for however long she could.
* * *
Neil had come here looking to help, to make his life mean something. Maybe he was even looking for answers... But he hadn’t come looking for this, certainly not this. And he knew that he hadn’t come to Forever with any plans for remaining in this tiny dot of a town outside the length of time it took to get that old woman back on her feet and in her customary fighting form. Finding love—certainly not a soulmate—or even finding “like” had never entered into the picture.
So what was he doing out here in the shadows, with his lips pressed against hers and his pulse all but going into orbit?
This was insane. This was ridiculous.
This was—
Heaven.
Nothing but sheer, unadulterated heaven in its purest form. And he could see why someone could become addicted to it, give up everything as long as it could be assured that, in the end, this would be waiting for him.
He kissed Ellie harder.
For the first time in his life, he could understand the term “head over heels.”
But understanding and allowing were two different things and he had to remember that he had responsibilities and obligations. And those came first, before his own indulgences, he silently insisted.
Even so, all he wanted was to get one more minute with her. Just one more...
Chapter Fourteen
“Hey, Neil, you out here?” Dan called out. He had stepped outside of the saloon and was standing in front of the entrance, squinting into the darkness and trying to make out a lone, tall figure that might, in all likelihood, be his friend.
Hearing Dan, Ellie drew back, creating a small space between herself and Neil. “I think you’re being paged,” she told him.
Neil sighed. It was just as well, he thought. Right now, Ellie was far too tempting and part of him was worried that if he didn’t rein himself in, he could easily get carried away. There was just something about this adventurous pilot that he found exceedingly attractive.
He sighed and drew back. “So it would seem,” he agreed. Raising his hand, he called out to Dan. “Over here.”
Dan immediately started walking toward the sound of Neil’s voice. He only stopped short when he realized that Neil wasn’t alone.
Well, this is interesting, Dan thought. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I interrupt anything?”
Ellie thought fast and came up with a cover story that she felt saved all three of them from any embarrassment.
“Your friend wore me out with all his fancy dancing, so I came out here to catch my breath. New York training had the Doc feeling I shouldn’t be out here alone, so he volunteered to come with me.” And then Ellie deftly changed the subject. “Is everything okay?” she asked. Her mind immediately went to why Neil was in Forever in the first place. “It’s not Miss Joan, is it?”
Dan laughed. “Only if you’re referring to her being in rarer, sharper-tongued form than usual. No,” he continued, glancing at his friend, “I came out here to find Neil because it was nearly time for me to give the toast.”
“The toast?” Neil repeated suspiciously. In his opinion, enough attention had been sent his way. This had to be about his patient, or at least he hoped so. “You’re talking about the one for Miss Joan, right?”
“No, I was referring to the one that is intended to include both of you. Actually,” Dan confessed, “I can’t take credit for this. The toast is more Rick’s idea than mine. And he’s the one who’s going to be giving it,” he explained.
Neil was already shaking his head. “I think, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll pass.”
“Funny, those are more or less the same words that Miss Joan used a few minutes ago,” Dan told him. “If you ask me, you two are a match made in heaven. You think alike.”
“Nobody’s asking,” Neil commented pointedly, frowning at the idea of being the focus of a toast.
That was the point when Ellie decided she needed to step in. “C’mon, Doc,” she urged, slipping her arm through his and tugging him toward Murphy’s. “You can’t insult everyone by not going in and listening to them tell you how grateful they are that you came. That’s what this whole thing is about, you know.”
“Sure I can,” Neil countered.
Her eyes met his with a silent challenge. “Then how do you expect Miss Joan to go along with everything if you, the reasonable, big-city surgeon, doesn’t?”
Dan laughed, tickled by the way Ellie had managed to turn the situation around. “She’s got you there, Neil,” he told his stubborn friend.
Neil sighed, mentally surrendering. He found Dan’s choice of words rather appropriate as he left the shadows and began to walk toward the saloon. “Yes,” he agreed with a sigh that seemed to come from the very depths of his soul as he glanced in Ellie’s direction, “she does.”
Ellie was positive that she was reading far too much into his words than he’d ever intended, but she still couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to them than was implied strictly on the surface.
The moment the door to the saloon was opened, everyone inside turned to the three people who were entering.
Applause and cheers greeted Neil and he found himself being separated from Ellie and Dan and tugged toward the center of Murphy’s. All those bodies in one place made t
he atmosphere feel a great deal warmer than he had anticipated.
He had been brought in and placed right next to Miss Joan.
Her hazel eyes went over him slowly, pinning him in place.
“I see they got you, too, sonny,” Miss Joan said. “I would have thought someone as clever as you would have been able to make good his escape,” she commented. “Maybe you’re not as clever as I gave you credit for.”
Miss Joan’s husband sidled up to Neil. “Don’t let her get to you,” Harry whispered to him. “She just doesn’t know how to deal with all this attention being showered on her.” He smiled fondly at his wife. “You’d think she would have gotten used to it by now.”
“Sure I know how to deal with it,” Miss Joan contradicted. “I just walk out on it.” But when she moved to do so, she found herself surrounded by well-wishers who blocked her path. Miss Joan pursed her lips in a disapproving frown. “You’d think that grown people would have better things to do with their time than drink and give aimless speeches.”
“Right now,” the sheriff said, coming up between the two guests of honor, “I can’t think of a single one. Everybody—” Rick raised his voice to address the room “—lift your glasses high and give your heartfelt thanks to Dr. Neil Eastwood,” He turned toward Neil. “Dr. Neil left his cushy Sixth Avenue life to come out here and make sure that Miss Joan continues giving us her sharp-tongued commentary on everything we’re doing wrong.” He raised his glass a little higher as he declared, “We don’t know what we’d do without you and we hope it’s another fifty years before we have to start worrying about finding that out.”
And then he positioned himself between the two and looked out into the crowd. “To Dr. Neil and Miss Joan!” the sheriff declared.
Anything else he might have said was drowned out as a resounding chant of “To Dr. Neil and Miss Joan!” was loudly declared at just the right intervals to sound like an uncoordinated cacophony of high and low voices, some melodious, some shrilled, none of them blending harmoniously.
The only thing they all had in common was the love that was woven through them.
* * *
The party went on for more than another two hours. The time was filled with good conversation, good food and just enough drink to make it all go down easily.
The sheriff, who had helmed the entire event from start to finish, was there to help when it came time to close the party down, as well. Rick was there predominantly because he didn’t want to take any chances that either party would be too inebriated to oversee the various tests scheduled for the next morning or too unable to take said tests in the first place. What he was looking to prevent was a problem with the readings.
Rick was afraid that if Miss Joan became intoxicated, the true readings that would be necessary to make an accurate determination wouldn’t be able to be taken.
“Well, I guess I should thank you for this,” Miss Joan muttered. Her eyes swept over the sheriff as well as two of the three Murphy brothers, Matt and Liam, as she and her husband had begun to make their way slowly over to the door.
Rick waved away her thanks. “There’s no need,” he told her.
Miss Joan eyed him with an annoyed air. “Well, you boys might have been raised in a barn, but me, I was raised with old-fashioned manners. You always say ‘thank you’ to the person who went out of their way for you—even if you didn’t want them to in the first place,” the woman added pointedly.
Rick smiled. “And we call that a backhanded compliment,” he commented to his sister, Ramona.
“You’re free to call it anything you want,” Miss Joan informed him.
Placing his still powerful hands on Miss Joan’s shoulders, Harry tactfully ushered her toward the door. “I’d better get her home before she stops being so humble and nice.”
“Watch your step, Old Man, or you’re sleeping out in the henhouse tonight,” Miss Joan warned. “With the chickens.”
Unfazed, Harry merely laughed. He’d heard it all before. “That’s the price I pay for wanting fresh eggs in the morning,” he told Neil with a wink as he and Miss Joan left the premises.
Ellie couldn’t help the grin that came to her lips. “I’ll bet you don’t have anything like that back where you are.”
“No, we do not,” Neil agreed. He’d had a really good time tonight. Far better than he would have ever expected. “I’d better call it a night myself,” he told Ellie, although it was obvious to anyone paying attention that the surgeon was really reluctant to go.
“We should be going, too,” Dan agreed. He had one arm around Tina as he gently ushered his wife and children before him in the general direction of the entrance. “Big day tomorrow.” Slanting a glance at Neil, he added with a kindly grin, “No pressure intended.”
“Right,” Neil laughed. Like that changed anything. “None felt.”
“So, is the appointment for the tests still set for tomorrow at 9:00 a.m.?” Ellie asked, looking from Neil to Dan.
“We figured that would be a good time so that Miss Joan doesn’t decide to get a head start flying the coop,” Dan told Ellie. Neil nodded his agreement.
Ellie quickly reviewed her schedule in her head. She didn’t have anything for the morning and, even if she had, she knew it would be a simple enough matter to reroute a pickup flight to a later time.
She smiled to herself. That was what made currently being the only air service in town, however small it was, such a good thing.
“Need a cheering section?” she asked, looking from one doctor to the other.
It appeared that Ellie and Neil had taken to one another and Dan, for one, was quite happy about the idea.
“Sure,” Dan said, answering for his friend, and then specifying, “A quiet cheering section.”
“Never intended anything else,” Ellie assured Dan. She turned toward Neil, not wanting to horn in unless he gave his permission, as well. “How about you?”
“How about me what?” he asked, thinking he might have lost the thread of the conversation.
“Do you have any objections to my hanging around the medical clinic tomorrow while you run your tests on Miss Joan?”
“Objections?” Neil echoed with a dry laugh. “Hell, no. We might even need you to hold her down,” he said. “There’s a likely possibility that Miss Joan might change her mind about being so ‘agreeable’ by morning when the chips are finally down.”
Dan’s wife, Tina, had a different take on the situation. She had known Miss Joan longer than Dan had. “I think that if Miss Joan was going to disagree about anything,” she said, speaking up, “it’ll be about having a procedure done at all if those tests actually point to her needing surgery.”
Dan nodded. “Right, as usual, my love,” he said. But rehashing all this now was moot. They needed to wait until tomorrow, “Okay, let’s get these sleepyheads into bed,” he said to Tina.
With that, he bent down and picked up Jeannie. The little girl looked more than happy to rest her head on her father’s shoulder. She was asleep before he even managed to take two steps.
“I can remember doing that with your sister,” Eduardo whispered to Ellie as he and Addie walked by, on their way out. After meeting Neil, Addie had decided the doctor was more suited to her sister than to her and had quietly stepped back.
“Not with her?” Neil asked, looking at Ellie.
“Ellie?” Eduardo repeated incredulously as he laughed at the suggestion. “You are kidding, of course, yes? This one,” he told the cardiologist, nodding at his older granddaughter, “was much too independent to ever let on that she was too tired to walk. She would have continued walking home until she fell on her knees in an exhausted heap.”
“Your memory is going, Pop,” Ellie told him, trying to look stern, but the affectionate laugh gave her away.
Not playing along, Eduardo shook his head. “My memory is as s
harp and clear as it was on the day you came into my life.”
Neil would have enjoyed staying around these people and listening to their stories until well into dawn, but he needed a clear head for the morning and that required sleep. It wasn’t just that the woman he would be working on was so important—as far as he was concerned, every patient he dealt with was equally important... It was just that so many eyes would be trained on him, figuratively rather than literally, and he didn’t want to even remotely run the risk of something, however minor or unintended, going wrong.
As he had already told himself, every patient was important, but Miss Joan was especially important, which was why he had to be at his best. Neil couldn’t afford to just phone this in—not that he ever would—but this time he had to be even more vigilant than usual.
Belatedly, he focused on the present and announced, “I’ll walk you all to your car.” His words were intended not just for Ellie but for her family, as well.
Ellie answered first. “You don’t have to,” she told him. “I know where my Jeep is and so does Pop—and Addie,” she added belatedly when her sister gave her an annoyed look at the accidental exclusion.
“Old habits die hard, remember?” Neil asked her, reminding her of what he’d said when she had pointed this out the other day.
“Let him do what he feels is right, Ellie,” Eduardo gently prodded. “Nothing wrong with good manners.”
“I wasn’t inferring that there was, Pop,” she told her grandfather, further pointing out, “Just that he needs his rest, so he is free to skip this part of his ritual.”
“Now who’s acting like an overprotective mother hen?” Addie asked her sister with a knowing smirk.
Pop came close to telling Addie, “Leave your sister alone,” but he managed to bite it back at the last minute, aware that neither granddaughter would appreciate the comment for different reasons.
So instead, he paused to shake Neil’s hand. “Good luck tomorrow and remember Miss Joan’s bark is worse than her bite.”
Secrets of Forever Page 13