“Maybe,” he allowed. And then he heard himself say something that left him wide open to a whole array of things that he had told himself he was trying to avoid. “When do you leave here?”
She didn’t understand the question. “I’m sorry?”
I don’t know about you, but I know I might be.
Still, Mitch knew he had to follow this thought through to the end. “In the evening, do you leave at a set time or whenever you want to, or...?” He allowed his voice to trail off, leaving her space to jump in any time.
“Probably more like ‘or,’” she told him. When he looked at her questioningly, she elaborated. “There’s no real set time. I usually leave when things settle down and the mothers who have jobs come back in time to eat with their kids, help them with their homework if the kids are old enough to attend one of the local schools. In a nutshell, I go home when I’m not needed.”
“Oh.” He looked at her. Mitch was beginning to think that she really was an amazing woman. “Then you pretty much stay here all the time.”
His subtle response tickled her and she laughed. “Is that a compliment?”
“Did sound like one, didn’t it?” Mitch seemed to marvel right along with her, turning his comment around to absorb it.
She was still examining his words from all angles, as if they were a rare Christmas gift. “I think that’s the first compliment you’ve given me.”
He didn’t doubt it. He wasn’t the type to be lavish with his praise. It was both his strength and his shortcoming, he thought.
“Probably.”
“Any particular reason you’re trying to pin me down to a schedule?” she asked him.
He might as well have it all out in the open, Mitch thought. “I guess I’m trying to ask you out to dinner.”
“What happened to coffee?”
“Dinner’s better,” he told her.
Her mind was on expediency. “We could eat here in the dining hall.”
“Or we could eat somewhere less crowded, where everyone wasn’t watching our every move and counting the number of times we actually spoke to one another.”
She would have loved to have gotten an updated tally on that, she thought. Melanie grinned for the first time that day.
“I guess you might have a point.”
“I always have a point,” he told her with total conviction. Then, realizing that he sounded rather stiff and formal, he did his best to lighten up a little. “So, when are you free?”
She glanced at her watch. It was a little past four. Barring an emergency, things would be winding down for the day very soon. Half an hour, tops. She could be ready to leave in half an hour.
Tell him no. You don’t want to set yourself up, Mel. Been there, done that, remember? Make the right choice. Say no.
She took a deep breath, very aware of the miniwar going on inside her. “I’ll have to get back to you about that,” she told him.
“Sure,” he told. “That’s fine. Whenever.”
Maybe this was for the best. He didn’t want to start something that he might wind up regretting. Relationships were draining—or so he’d heard.
He knew his mother would have loved to have a daughter-in-law, grandchildren—the whole nine yards. But that wasn’t his dream. He just wanted to continue doing what he’d been doing—being a doctor who made a difference.
Any other words they might have wanted to exchange on the subject were quickly tabled when they heard someone shouting in a loud, angry voice that threatened to haunt some of the younger children’s nightmares for several months or more.
“I said, Where is she? I know she’s here so tell me if you know what’s good for you!”
By the sound of it, the man’s fury seemed to increase with every word.
Before he had a chance to ask Melanie if she had any idea what was going on, she’d taken off for the front of the shelter, where the voice was coming from.
He was right behind her and got to the main entrance at the same time that she did. The man doing the shouting was there, screaming and berating the shelter’s director. To her credit, Polly appeared steadfast and unfazed, despite the man’s considerable height and girth.
In his mid to late forties, the angry man was muscular and formidable looking. He also seemed as if he was the type who could beat anyone to a pulp who had the nerve to get in his way. At the moment, he was towering menacingly over the director.
Polly was standing her ground but it was anyone’s guess for how long.
“If you’re going to behave this way, I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave. You’re scaring the children,” Polly told the man just as Melanie and he entered.
“Oh, like I give a damn about them,” he snorted. Going toe-to-toe with Polly, he went on to rant, “I’ll leave. Sure, I’ll leave—as soon as I find that whore and my kid!” He started to push Polly aside.
“You get away from her!” Melanie shouted at him, rushing to get between the man and Polly.
Mitch snapped to attention, realizing that Melanie was going to try to shield the director from the man’s ham-like fists.
Was she out of her mind?
Grabbing Melanie by the arm, he pulled her back and then rather than getting in front of her, he put himself in front of the angry man.
“Looks like it’s unanimous,” Mitch told him in a calm voice that belied what was going on inside of him. “The ladies would like you to leave.”
“Like I give a damn what the hell they want,” the man spat. “What about you, tough guy? You want me to leave, too?” the man sneered at Mitch.
“Please, leave. We don’t want any trouble,” Polly was pleading, but neither man was listening. Like two lions, they sized one another up.
“I think it would be a good idea, yes,” Mitch told the other man, never taking his eyes off him.
“Oh, you do, do you?” the man jeered. “Well, the hell with what you think and the hell with you!” he raged. Pulling back his right forearm, he fisted his hand and was about to throw a punch that threatened to bring the verbal exchange between them to a quick, painful end.
And it might have, if he had been able to follow through with that punch and connect with his intended target.
But to his stunned surprise, the man he obviously looked upon as an easy knockout turned out to be faster than he was.
Faster, more accurate and, as it turned out, had a one-two punch that was far more lethal than he’d counted on.
The first punch landed in the man’s solar plexus, the second went straight to his jaw. The lumbering hulk was facedown on the floor in a matter of seconds without having landed so much as a single punch.
Taking no chances, Mitch kept a wary eye on the unconscious, would-be assailant. “Call 911,” he told Polly, raising his voice to be heard above a chorus of childish cheers.
The children seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, descending upon the tight circle of angry men like invading locusts, just in time to have witnessed Mitch reduce the irrational assailant to a lump of inert—for now—flesh. The children, drawn by the shouting, had seen the rather quiet doctor who gave them pain-free shots behave like a hero and save Miss Polly—and maybe them, as well—because despite their tender ages, they had all seen that sort of craziness in their short lifetimes and they knew enough to get as far away from the unconscious man as possible.
“Already doing it.”
The response came from Melanie, who had her cell phone out and against her ear. Covering the other ear, she turned away the second she heard her call being answered on the other end.
* * *
To everyone’s relief, the police arrived quickly. The assailant, who turned out to be the ex-boyfriend of one of the shelter’s new residents, was still out cold and thus offered no resistance when he was handcuffed and carried off to the patrol car.
Statements were taken down quickly. Since the assailant had taken the first swing—as well as having threatened Polly—he was brought down
to the precinct to be booked for assault and disorderly conduct among other charges.
Melanie had held her breath throughout most of the ordeal. She waited until the arresting officers had left with their semiconscious prisoner and Polly had voiced her thanks, which Mitch, in typical fashion, had brushed aside.
Melanie also waited until the children—excited by the act of heroism they had witnessed—had been herded off, as well.
Eventually, after enough time had passed and the activity had wound down, it was just the two of them standing alone in the foyer.
Aware of the fact that she had remained standing at his side during the entire time, Mitch looked at her now and read between the lines—or tried to.
“Well, say it,” he urged. “Get it off your chest. You’re obviously waiting to say something to me.”
He had a feeling that Melanie was probably one of those women who hated physical fighting for any reason.
“Your knuckles are bruised,” Melanie finally told him.
He looked at her, stunned. “That’s it?” he asked in disbelief.
“No.” She took him by the hand—gently—and began to lead him back to the exam room. “You need someone to take care of that for you. I’ve watched you work long enough to be the one to do that for you.”
“I just have to wash my hands,” he said, dismissing her concern.
The way he saw it, the condition of his knuckles didn’t need any sort of attention or special treatment to be dispensed. Just some clean soap and water, and maybe a little time.
“No, you need to have that wound disinfected. I wouldn’t doubt that that man has rabies. At any rate, you can never be too careful.” She stopped to give him what amounted to a stern look. “Physician, heal thyself,” she instructed firmly.
“I don’t need anyone hovering over me. I can ‘heal’ myself,” he insisted.
Melanie slanted a silencing glare in his direction. “Maybe, but I can do it better.”
With that, she continued to lead him back to the exam room, steering him and taking charge as if he were a willful child who needed to be cared for.
Chapter Ten
Mitch was beginning to realize that the only way he was going to be able to leave the shelter with a minimum of difficulty was if he just gave in and allowed Melanie to see to the abrasions and bruises on his knuckles. So he allowed her to lead him into the very same room where he normally treated the shelter’s residents.
“Take a seat,” Melanie said, indicating the exam table.
He slid onto it. “I know the drill.”
As she took out the necessary items, Melanie flashed a smile at him in response. “Good.”
He sat there, watching her work, and Mitch had to admit that he was surprised at her efficiency. Obviously the woman had been paying more attention than he thought she had these past few weeks.
Melanie moved quickly and competently, disinfecting the two cuts across his knuckles. One of them went a lot deeper than he’d realized. The sharp sting surprised him and he’d almost winced, but managed to catch himself at the last moment.
Once she’d gotten the cuts cleaned, she liberally applied a salve to both areas and then covered them with two flexible bandages. Both had cartoon squirrels on them.
“Sorry about that,” she apologized as she secured each one at a time. “We seem to be out of regular bandages.”
The corners of his mouth curved ever so slightly in amusement as he regarded the end results. “Not bad,” he pronounced.
“I told you I’ve been paying attention,” she reminded him. After putting the items back into the first aid kit, Melanie closed the lid and set the kit back into the cabinet where it belonged. Locking it, she turned toward him and said, “Okay.”
“Okay?” Mitch repeated the word, puzzled. He had no idea what she had just agreed to. He would have guessed that she was telling him that he could go home, but the inflection in her voice didn’t match that scenario. “Okay what?”
She shifted so that she was standing right in front of him as she gazed up into his eyes. For just a split second, the very vivid memory of his single transgression rose up like a hot wave, drenching him before it receded again.
“Okay,” she told him, “I’ll have dinner with you, Mitch.”
Well, that had certainly come out of the blue, he thought. “When?”
“Now,” she told him. “I just wanted to finish taking care of your hand.” She regarded her handiwork for a moment. “I didn’t know you were a southpaw.” She’d seen him work, and he always used his right hand. But when he’d turned out that rude man’s lights, he’d done it by using his left hand.
“I’m not. But the coach in high school got me to switch when I injured my right hand. Said that if I practiced using both hands, that gave me twice the staying power in the ring and that my opponents would never know what was coming.” He shrugged at the distant memory. “At the time, it made sense to me. I enjoyed the release that boxing afforded me, so I went along with anything the coach said.”
The man was just full of surprises, Melanie thought. “You boxed in high school?”
“Yes.” He saw the expression of disbelief on her face. “Why do you look so surprised?”
She’d always maintained that people weren’t two dimensional, that they were complicated. It was just that Mitch had seemed so aloof, she didn’t see him as having any sort of physical contact with other students.
“I guess I shouldn’t be, considering how much you like dealing with people,” she told him with a laugh. Punching out someone’s lights seemed to make sense in that context. Once she finished putting everything away, she turned around and declared, “There, all done.”
“Will I live, ‘Doctor’?”
Her eyes crinkled ever so slightly at the corners as she said, “I’m happy to say yes.”
“Happy?” he questioned.
Melanie raised her eyes to his. The doctor’s stock had gone up immeasurably in her estimation when he had come to Polly’s rescue like that, without any prompting from anyone. Especially doing it the way he had.
If anything, she would have expected Mitch to attempt to talk the man down, at the very least talk him out of his rage. She was familiar enough with the type to know that words would be wasted in that instance, but she hadn’t thought Mitch would be aware of that.
The bull of a man could have easily hurt Polly and anyone else who got in his way. Looking back, this was clearly a case of actions speaking louder than words and she was very, very impressed that Mitch had gotten the situation under control with a minimum of fuss.
She was also relieved that he had only sustained a couple of cuts on his hand. It could have gone a great deal worse.
Melanie smiled at the bemused expression on his face now.
“Yes, happy. It would be terrible if after saving Polly like that—not to mention that man’s poor ex-girlfriend and his child—you’d succumb to some microbe that can’t be seen by the naked eye.”
He didn’t bother pointing out that a microbe, by definition, couldn’t be seen by the naked eye. He just accepted her display of concern.
“Wouldn’t want that.”
Something else occurred to her. “Just out of curiosity, are you up on your shots?”
“Why?” he asked, intrigued. “What did you have in mind?”
But she wasn’t bantering right now. “Your tetanus shot,” she specified in all seriousness.
Mitch shrugged. Things like that were a regular part of his life, but as to when, well that was another story. “I think so.”
“You think so?” she questioned, surprised that he was so vague about it. “You’re a doctor, aren’t you supposed to know?”
“I’m a doctor, that makes me too busy to know,” he pointed out. Her concern had been almost sweet, but now she was carrying this too far. “I’m sure it’s in my records somewhere.”
“Somewhere?” She wasn’t about to let up. This could have serious implications
if his booster was out of date. One hand on her hip, she got in his way just in case he got it into his head that he was fed up and just wanted to take off. “Find out where.”
He should have gotten really annoyed by now and couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t. “You don’t let up, do you?”
Melanie moved her head from side to side, never taking her eyes off his. “Uh-uh.”
“Okay, I remember,” he said glibly. “I’ve had my shots.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “Not good enough. I don’t believe you.”
“Not my problem,” he told her. But when he started for the door, Melanie moved right along with him, blocking his path every step of the way. Mitch stopped moving. “You really are serious about this.” He was stunned that she could be so adamant about something that would seem so minor to most people.
“Totally.” She was dogged about him remaining well and didn’t see that as something to be ashamed of. “Call your doctor, or the hospital since they have to have your medical records,” she realized, “and just verify that you had a booster shot within the past ten years. You did a brave thing out there. I’m not going to let it all end badly because you’re just too stubborn to check a simple fact.”
The woman could definitely be a pain, he thought, though he still wondered why his indignation over this minidrama failed to take root.
With a sigh, he took out his cell phone and called the personnel director at Bedford Memorial. Fifteen minutes and two recorded menu choices later, he finally had a date to give the tenacious, blond-haired bulldog before him.
“Satisfied?” he asked after having rattled off the date.
Her intense expression faded. “Yes. I’m just being cautious,” she told him, putting away the booster serum she’d taken out—just in case.
“That’s one description for it,” he murmured, still trying to summon a little righteous indignation. But the truth was, no one had ever expressed this much concern over his well-being except for his mother. It did make him see Melanie in a totally different light than his initial perception of her.
Finally free to leave, he surprised her by remaining where he was.
Dr. Forget-Me-Not (Matchmaking Mamas) Page 10