“Yes. All right.” It might have been his imagination but he thought for a moment, there, she actually looked grateful.
She followed him through the security door to the inner hallway between exam rooms. He opened the first door and gestured for Maggie to go inside, then he closed the door to the exam room behind them so they were out of Carol’s earshot.
He wanted to kiss her again. The need to touch her once more, to taste her, burned inside him.
He forced himself to push it aside. She hadn’t been thrilled the first time he did it. If he tried it again, she’d probably stab him with the nearest surgical instrument.
“Okay, what’s the story with the cruches?” he asked.
Her pretty mouth tightened. “In case it slipped your attention, I’m missing half my leg. Crutches are sometimes a necessary evil.”
He ignored her sarcasm. “You’re having problems with the prosthesis, aren’t you?”
“Nothing a good trash compactor couldn’t take care of for me.”
“What’s going on?”
He thought for a moment she wouldn’t answer, but after a moment she sighed. “I’m having a little continuing irritation. After a conference call between my prosthetist and one in Idaho Falls, I’ve been strongly encouraged to go back to wearing it without weight bearing for a while.”
His sorrow for what she had to deal with was a physical ache in his chest. He wanted so much to take this struggle away from her, and he hated his helplessness. What was the point of twelve years of medical training if he couldn’t ease this burden for her?
Some of his emotions must have shown in his expression because her eyes suddenly turned cool. She didn’t want anything from him, apparently, especially not sympathy.
“Let’s get on with it. Since I’m being blackmailed to be here, you might as well give me the tour.”
She was pushing him away, and he knew he could do nothing about that, either.
“This is one of six exam rooms.” He opened the door and walked down the hall, measuring his steps so she could keep up with him on her crutches. “We have one trauma room that can double as an operating room for minor emergency procedures. Just as under Doc Whitaker, we’re part first-aid station, part triage center and part family medicine practice.”
“And your free clinic?”
“We started doing it once a month on what is supposed to be my half day off, to try meeting some of the medical needs of the underserved populations. It’s open to anyone without insurance but we especially encourage agriculture workers and their families. Examinations are free, and lab work is available at reduced cost through a foundation we set up here at the clinic.”
“Very philanthropic of you.”
“But shortsighted. We quickly learned we’d underestimated demand and a monthly clinic just wasn’t enough. We’re doing it bimonthly now, and even that is always full.”
“What kinds of patient care do you typically give?”
“A little of everything. Prenatal care, diabetes management, well-child visits. A wide gamut.”
Carol called down the hall, interrupting him. “It’s showtime. Three cars just pulled up in the parking lot. You ready to go?”
“Where’s Jan?”
His nurse popped her head out of the reception area. “Right here. Sorry, I was late getting back from lunch. The diner was packed. Let’s rock and roll.”
“Jan, this is Maggie Cruz. She’s going to translate for us today.”
“Cool. Nice to meet you.”
Tall and rangy, with short-cropped blond hair, Jan Sunvale was a transplant to Pine Gulch from Boston. She was an avid hiker and climber who had moved West looking for room to breathe. He considered her one of the clinic’s biggest assets and praised the day she decided to make a pit stop in Pine Gulch and ended up staying.
He turned back to Maggie. “I don’t want you to overdo it today. If you need to rest or you’ve had enough altogether, let me know. None of this foolish-pride crap, okay?”
Her eyes flashed. “I’ve already got a mother, Dalton. I don’t need another one.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Believe me, the last thing in the world I want to be is your mother.”
She blinked a little at his low words, but before she could respond, the reception area began to fill with patients.
Chapter Six
Ten patients later Jake finished his exam of a young girl of about six and pulled his stethoscope out of his ears, smiling broadly.
“Tell Señora Ayala that Raquel’s lungs are perfect, with no more sign of the pneumonia. I can’t hear any crackles, and the X-rays look as clean as a new toothbrush.”
She made a face at him and translated his message—without the last metaphor—to the girl’s worried-looking mother. The mother beamed and hugged first the little girl and then Jake, who gave a surprised laugh but returned the embrace.
“¡Gracias! ¡Gracias por todo!” She appeared overcome with gratitude but Jake simply smiled.
“De nada,” he answered. “Tell Señora Ayala she is the one who did all the work and deserves all the credit. She took wonderful care of her daughter. I wish all my patients’ parents were so diligent about giving meds and following advice.”
Maggie dutifully translated his words to Celia Ayala, who’s dark eyes filled with tears as she hugged her daughter again.
“Raquel had to spend a few nights in the hospital,” Jake informed Maggie. “But she’s been home for two weeks now and is doing great, aren’t you, sweetie?”
The little girl apparently spoke much more fluent English than her mother. She nodded at Jake’s words and smiled at him. “You made the bad cooties go away.”
“I didn’t do that, your body fixed itself. Remember, I just helped all those good cootie-fighters you already had with a little medicine to make them stronger.”
“It tasted icky but Mami made me take it, anyway.”
“That’s just what she was supposed to do. And now you’re all better. You can go back to school and play with your friends and all the things you did before you got sick.”
The little girl appeared to have mixed feelings about this. “Does that mean I will not come to see you anymore?”
“Of course not.” He grinned. “Anytime you want to have a shot, I can probably find one for you. You just come talk to me.”
Raquel giggled. “No. No more shots!”
“Are you sure?” he teased. “I can give you one now if you think you need one.”
She shook her head vigorously, then slanted him a look under long eyelashes. “I colored a picture for you.”
Tongue between her teeth, she reached into the backpack she had lugged into the exam room with her and pulled out a paper.
Maggie wasn’t an expert at interpreting children’s artwork but even she could figure out this one. A stick figure of a girl with dark hair and braids lay on a bed. Beside her, another stick figure in a white coat wore what was either a snake or a stethoscope around his neck and held a bunch of brightly colored balloons in one hand. A red-crayon heart encircled the whole picture.
“This is you,” Raquel pointed to the doctor figure. “When you came to see me in the hospital.”
Jake studied it as closely as an art critic preparing to write a review. “I love it! You know what I’m going to do? When we’re done here, I’m going to hang it in my office, right where I can see it.”
“Why do you not hang it now?”
“Now, that is a great idea. Maggie, do you think you’ll be okay for a moment here?”
Since he was already halfway out the door, she didn’t know what else to do but nod. He hurried out, leaving her alone with the little girl and her mother, who was looking confused at their exchange.
Maggie apologized for her lapse in translator duties and quickly explained to the woman where Jake was headed.
The little girl listened to their exchange, swinging her legs on the exam table and studying Maggie curiously.
“Are you married to Dr
. Jake?” she asked after a moment, switching to Spanish.
“No! Absolutely not!”
“Good. Because I want to marry him.”
Maggie had to smile at the determination in the girl’s voice, the almost belligerent way she crossed her arms and gave Maggie a look that dared her to contradict.
“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to hear that, but I’m afraid you might have to wait a little while. Don’t you think you need to finish kindergarten first?”
“Do I have to?”
“Yes,” her mother answered firmly.
Raquel looked so disappointed by this that Celia and Maggie shared a smile.
“She loves Dr. Jake,” Celia said in her mellifluous Spanish. “He was so kind while she was sick and drove to the hospital in Idaho Falls every morning and evening to check on her. I caught a cold while she was in the hospital and one night I was too sick to stay with her and my husband had to work. We could not find anyone else. When Dr. Jake heard, he insisted on staying all night at the hospital so she would not wake up and be afraid.”
For one silly moment Maggie wanted to shove her hands over her ears and start blabbering to block out the woman’s words.
She didn’t want to hear all this, didn’t want to know anything that contradicted the cold, heartless picture she had created in her mind of him and the rest of his family.
“Everyone in the Latino community loves him,” Celia Ayala went on, her expression suddenly sly. “Especially the señoritas. ¿Sí?”
To her dismay, Maggie suddenly couldn’t think about anything else but that sizzling kiss they’d shared. She could feel heat creep over her cheekbones and had to hope Señora Ayala didn’t notice.
If the señoritas knew how the man kissed, they would be camping out on his doorstep.
“I wouldn’t know about that,” she said, her voice brisk. “I’m just helping out today.”
Before the other woman could respond, Jake returned to the exam room. Maggie could feel her face heat up another notch, though she knew there was no possible way he could know they’d been talking about them.
Jake smiled at the trio of females, and Maggie thought for one insane moment that something deep and tender flickered in his gaze when her looked at her, though it was gone so quickly she was certain she must have been mistaken.
“I found a place of honor for your picture,” he told the little girl. “You need to come see it.”
Raquel jumped from the exam table eagerly. “Please, Mami? Dr. Jake wants me to see the picture.”
Celia nodded, and the girl slipped her hand into his.
“We’ll be back in a minute,” Jake promised.
After they left the room, Señora Ayala turned to Maggie. “He likes you, I can tell.”
Maggie stared at the woman. “That’s crazy. He does not!”
The other woman shrugged, an unmistakable matchmaking light in her dark eyes. “You can say that but I always sense these things. And you like him too, no?”
“No,” she said firmly. “Our families are neighbors but that’s all. I’m only helping him today because my mother volunteered me. I’m absolutely not interested in Jake Dalton that way.”
The other woman studied her for a moment, then shrugged. “Too bad. He’s a good man. My husband works hard but his job does not pay for doctors. Without Dr. Jake, we would have nowhere to take our children when they are sick.”
Again she wanted to tell the woman she wasn’t interested in a Jake Dalton testimonial, but she had no idea how to make her stop.
She didn’t want to know any of this. She preferred to picture him as the arrogant rich boy playing at doctor, not as the caring, compassionate physician she had witnessed the past two hours.
She was finding it very difficult to nurture her anger against the Daltons since she’d returned to Pine Gulch. How could she continue to detest the lot of them when at least one member of the family had done nothing but confound her expectations since she’d been back?
She didn’t like it. Things had been easier, cleaner, when she could lump the whole family in with their arrogant SOB of a patriarch.
Jake wasn’t very much like his father. He never had been, she acknowledged. Hank had been brash and forceful, the kind of person who sucked all the oxygen from a room wherever he went.
Even in the years before he had double-crossed her father, Jake’s father had always made her uncomfortable. His voice was loud, his hands were as huge and hard as anvils, and he had always seemed so different from her own smiling, gentle papa.
The three Dalton boys had been a part of her life as long as she could remember. She didn’t remember much about Jake’s older brother, Wade, simply because the age difference between them was wide—six years. But Seth had been her age and they’d shared classes together from kindergarten on.
Jake, on the other hand, had only been three years older than her and Seth but he had always seemed closer to Wade’s age than theirs.
She remembered him as quiet, studious, never without a book open in front of him.
While they waited for the bus at the little enclosed bus stop her father constructed at the end of their driveways, she and Seth would sometimes play tag or catch. Jake rarely joined in, though she knew he was athletic enough. He had been an all-state baseball player and she knew he worked just as hard as the other brothers on the Cold Creek ranch.
He had been a quiet, serious boy who had grown into a dedicated physician with quite a fan club.
She sighed and shifted her leg to a more comfortable position. She could sense her feelings about him were subtly changing and she wasn’t very thrilled about it.
It had been much easier to dislike him on principle than to face the grim truth that a man like Jake Dalton would never be interested in her now. Before her accident, maybe. She knew she wasn’t ugly, and she used to be funny and smart and interesting before her world fell apart.
The bombing in Kabul had changed everything. She was no longer that woman, the kind of woman who could interest a man like Jake Dalton.
He had kissed her, though.
If he wasn’t interested in her, why had he kissed her, that puzzling, intense kiss she couldn’t get out of her head?
In the four days since their heated embrace, the memory of kissing him seemed to whisper into her mind a hundred times a day. The scent of him, the taste of him, the strength and comfort in those arms holding her close.
She couldn’t seem to get her brain around it. She had tried to analyze it from every possible angle and she still couldn’t figure out what might have compelled him to kiss her like that.
“If you like him,” Celia said, yanking her from that sunny afternoon and back into Jake Dalton’s comfortable exam room, “you should do something about it before some other lucky chica comes along.”
Some other chica with two feet, no doubt, and a healthy, well-adjusted psyche.
She was saved from having to respond by the return of Jake and Raquel to the room.
As she translated his final instructions for the girl’s follow-up care, Maggie determined again that she had to figure out a way to put a stop to this ridiculous arrangement her mother had suckered her into.
She wasn’t sure what was worse—dealing with him at the ranch, in his faded jeans and thin cotton tractor T-shirts, or watching him interact with his patients, and the consideration and compassion that seemed an inherent part of him.
Right now both situations seemed intolerable.
He shouldn’t have manipulated her into this.
Jake studied Maggie out of the corner of his eye as he finished examining Hector Manuel, a sixty-year-old potato factory worker with a bleeding ulcer. After three hours of clinic—and with an hour’s worth of patients still sitting in the waiting room—he couldn’t for the life of him figure out how to tell Maggie he didn’t want her there anymore.
She had been an incredible help, he had to admit. This week’s clinic had run more smoothly than any he’d done yet.
With the improved communication, he’d been able to see more patients and he felt as though the advice he’d been able to give had been better understood and would be better followed.
She had translated in at least two-thirds of his cases today, and he couldn’t figure out how they had ever gotten by without her. Her fluency with both Spanish and the medical jargon had been a killer combination, enormously helpful.
At what cost, though? he wondered.
Although she was doing her best to hide it, she looked beat: her eyes had smudges under them that hadn’t been there when she walked in; her shoulders stiffened tighter with each passing hour; and every few moments she shifted restlessly on her chair trying to find a better position, though he was sure she had no idea she was doing it.
Even if he told her in no uncertain terms to go home, somehow he knew she wouldn’t quit until every last patient was treated.
He could almost hear her argue that she was sticking it out as long as necessary, if only to avoid giving him the satisfaction of watching her throw in the towel.
She was stubborn and contrary and combative. And he was crazy about her.
With a barely veiled wince, she shifted her prosthesis again, and he frowned as he listened to Hector’s heart. She should be home taking it easy, not sitting in his cramped exam room. He should never have come up with this ridiculous plan.
On the other hand, if she wasn’t here, where else would she be? Probably riding a horse or driving the tractor at Rancho de la Luna. At least here he could keep an eye on her.
With a sigh, he turned back to Hector. “I’m going to prescribe some pills that should help but like I told you last month, you’re going to have to lay off the jalapeños for a while until things settle down a little.”
Maggie dutifully translated his words into Spanish. He listened to her, pleased that he could understand most of what she said.
Listening to her fluid words was a guilty kind of pleasure. How pathetic was he that he could be turned on listening to talk about ulcer advice in Spanish?
Somehow the words seemed lush and romantic when she spoke them in her low, melodic voice.
Dancing in the Moonlight Page 8