The Most Eligible Doctor

by Karen Rose Smith

  It was the hunger that stopped him—the soul-deep, aching hunger that he knew he could never satisfy. He couldn’t use Brianne as a Band-aid. He wouldn’t take advantage of her. He shouldn’t become involved at all.

  Tearing away from her, controlling the mind-drugging sensations of holding her, tasting her and kissing her, he shifted until there was space between them.

  He waited until he saw the sensual haze in her eyes dissipate a bit. “That was a mistake that won’t happen again.”

  Her cheeks were flushed, and she looked embarrassed and vulnerable.

  “We have to work together,” he added. Then, as if he needed more reasons to keep his distance, he continued, “And I’m much older than you are. I’m not looking for an involvement.”

  “I see,” she murmured, studying her hands now, rather than him.

  He stood. “I’d better see to that snowblower. Your room is the one at the top of the stairs. I put towels on the bed.”

  Trying to act casual, she repositioned a sofa pillow. “Do you think we’ll be able to get out in the morning?”

  “I’m hoping the plow will come through.”

  Finally her gaze met his. When he looked into her eyes, he remembered the kiss and saw she was remembering, too. He’d been an idiot to give in to the moment. He wouldn’t do so again.

  As he turned away from Brianne, he tried to shut off everything that kiss had stirred up inside him. But as he left her staring into the fire, took his jacket from the closet and went out into the swirling snow, he felt as if a locked door had been opened.

  And he might never be able to lock it again.

  The mattress was lumpy, but that wasn’t the reason Brianne couldn’t sleep in the simple pine bed. Her nose and hands and feet were cold. To distract herself, she thought back to the memory of Jed’s kiss. Why had she let it happen? Why hadn’t she backed away? He’d given her time. But she’d been overcome by curiosity, by a sense of adventure she’d never experienced before.

  The howl of the wind sounded through the window, and she shivered.

  There was a knock on the door to her room, then it opened. “Brianne?”

  She recognized Jed’s voice immediately. “I’m awake.”

  When he came into the room dressed in a white T-shirt with gray sweatpants, he was carrying a flashlight. “Now our power is out, too. The temperature in the house has dropped. Do you want to come down and sleep on the sofa by the fire?”

  “What about your dad?”

  “He’s sound asleep and snoring. I laid a down-filled quilt over him and that should do the trick. But we only have one of those.”

  “What time is it?” she asked, unable to see her watch.

  “It’s three. If you get warm, you could still catch a couple of hours of sleep before you have to get up.”

  “All right.” Suddenly she realized the predicament she was in. “Can you turn around while I dress?” She’d crawled under the covers in her slip. Her sweater and skirt lay over the chair.

  His gaze went to the clothes and then back to her. “I’d go on down, but you’re going to need the flashlight. Just tell me when you’re finished.” Then he turned and faced the door.

  Brushing her tousled curls off her forehead, Brianne realized her hair was an absolute mess. But without her comb, brush and curling iron she really couldn’t do anything about that. Quickly, she got out of bed, slipped on her skirt and sweater. “Ready,” she told him, not feeling ready at all.

  With a glance over his shoulder, he beamed the flashlight out in the hall. “I have an oil lamp lit downstairs, but I don’t want you to fall, so take your time. The steps are narrow.”

  Jed waited for her at the top of the stairs and descended slowly. She almost bumped into him when he stopped at the bottom. As he turned, his face was very close to hers. “Do you need anything before we get settled?”

  I need to be held in your arms, she thought illogically, then dismissed the irrational longing. Jed was her boss! And hadn’t she learned that getting close to anyone eventually hurt?

  “No. I’m fine,” she managed to answer. She could see the muscles under his T-shirt. Black hair curled in the vee. Awareness zipped between them, and she swallowed hard.

  He cleared his throat and motioned toward the living room. “You take the sofa. I’ll sleep in the recliner.”

  A blanket had been tossed on the sofa, along with a pillow. But she couldn’t keep her eyes off of Jed as he sank into the recliner and raised the leg rest, stretching out his long limbs on top of it.

  Wind blew against the house, causing the flames in the fireplace to crackle and leap. When Jed glanced at her, she made a point of pulling the blanket up and averting her gaze. The shadowed intimacy of the room made them more aware of each other instead of less. Brianne doubted if she was going to get any sleep, but at least she’d be warm.

  “Would you rather work for Dr. Olsen?” Jed’s deep voice carried an edge of tension.

  “Because of what happened?”

  The mantel clock ticked.

  “Yes. I never should have kissed you. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable. I can talk to Olsen about it—”

  “No. I don’t want to work for another doctor. I like working with you,” she insisted quickly, in spite of her own misgivings. She liked the way Jed handled patients, and she was learning a lot from him.

  The clock ticked loudly, marking off a few more seconds.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m very sure.” Her fingers played with the satin edge of the blanket and then she said, “Jed?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why did you leave a specialty practice to become a general practitioner?” It was the most tactful way she knew to pose the question. She wanted to know why he’d gone to Alaska…and why he’d come back here. She guessed something had driven him, and she needed to know what it was.

  “My reasons don’t matter anymore. They’re in the past. I’m happy with what I’m doing now.”

  It was a polite way of telling her to mind her own business. And she would…for tonight.

  Chapter Three

  Aware of the soft, restless sounds coming from the sofa, Jed shifted in the recliner, unable to let sleep overtake him. He was strung tighter than he’d ever been…ever since that kiss. Even running the snow-blower on the walks, letting the icy wind and the cold wrap around him, hadn’t diminished the effects from it. If he didn’t block the memory from his mind, it replayed over and over. He wanted to take Brianne in his arms, do things with her he hadn’t imagined since he’d had fantasies as a teenager.

  With an effort, he pushed thoughts of her away and tried to replace them with pictures of an SUV he might buy. Unfortunately, he pictured Brianne in the SUV with him!

  He blanked out the pictures the same way he did memories of Trisha, sealing them in a tight box he never willingly opened. But just as recollections of his daughter caught him unawares, just as a glance into a child’s eyes stirred up emotions he never intended to feel again, he knew the passion and innocence and surrender of Brianne’s kiss would gnaw at him until he acknowledged at least his physical need. Ever since the first moment he’d caught sight of her, his subconscious had let her slip into his dreams—her pretty face, the bouncy auburn curls shimmering like silk, that perfectly shaped mouth.

  He reminded himself again that she was too young and he was too old…too old for that kind of involvement.

  When he’d met his ex-wife, she’d seemed young and innocent, passionate and giving. It wasn’t until after they were married that he’d learned Caroline had had an agenda. She’d been protected and safeguarded by her parents all her life, but she’d learned to manipulate them and everyone else to get what she wanted whether it was a new car or a husband she could mold into her version of the ideal.

  Hadn’t Brianne come from the same lifestyle? Had she been raised to believe her money and beauty could get her whatever she wanted? He’d been wrong about Caroline. Somehow she’d
convinced him she was something she wasn’t. Was Brianne as sweet and compassionate as she seemed? Even if she was, he was too cynical to believe she’d stay that way.

  In the deep silence of the storm, the absence of the hum of the furnace magnified each and every one of the old house’s sounds—the crackle of the fire, the rustle of Brianne’s covers. Suddenly, though, her movements became more than a restless turning. In the glow of the fire, Jed could see her shaking her head back and forth.

  Her hands came up in front of her as if she were pushing something away. “No! No, you’re wrong,” she moaned. “It can’t be Mom and Dad. It can’t be.”

  The anguish in her voice tore at him. Jumping from the recliner, he quickly crossed the room and crouched by the sofa. “Brianne, wake up.”

  When she still seemed trapped by the nightmare, he said, “Brianne, it’s Jed. You’re safe. You’re in my house. Wake up.”

  Finally, her eyes flew open. They were wide with sadness and wet with tears.

  He’d been fooled by Caroline’s tears too many times to count, but he knew these were different. Nightmare tears were genuine.

  “I can’t get the policeman’s voice out of my head,” Brianne murmured. “I remember every word. He described the accident, and I see it over and over again. I thought I was getting past it. I haven’t had the dream for weeks.”

  Jed knew all about the kind of phone call Brianne had just dreamed about. He knew all about kindly officials who didn’t know what to say or do when they were giving bad news and tried to make sense of something that couldn’t possibly be real.

  Taking Brianne’s hand, he said, “It’ll get better. If it’s been a few weeks since your last nightmare, the next time might not be for a few months.”

  Almost angrily, she swung her legs to the floor. “Will it get better? I tell myself to grow up, to face reality, to accept the fact that my parents are gone. But my memories are so vivid. There are so many of them. They make me sad and yet…I want to hold on to them. Does that make any sense?”

  It made perfect sense to him. Too well, he remembered how Trisha’s black curls had dipped between her eyebrows. Too well, he remembered how her smile could make him feel higher than a kite. Too well, he remembered how her chubby little arms would come around his neck and he’d feel forty feet tall.

  “Separating the memories from the grief takes time,” he added, knowing it wasn’t grief that haunted him now, but rather blame and guilt for not making sure his daughter had been kept safe. At first he’d blamed Caroline, who’d been spending the afternoon with Trisha instead of getting her nails manicured or her golf game honed which was how she usually spent her time while a nanny tended to Trisha. But not long after, he’d decided the fault was his own for leaving that weekend when their nanny had other plans.

  “You sound as if you know all about it,” Brianne noted softly.

  Rising to his feet, he sat on the sofa beside her, fighting the urge to put his arm around her. Without giving anything away, he acknowledged, “I know about it.”

  After glancing at him, she fingered the pliant gold bracelet she always wore around her wrist. He’d noticed it before.

  With her head bowed, her attention on the bracelet, she murmured, “My dad used to say, ‘You can get over anything, Brianne. Life goes on so you have new opportunities to learn and to love.’ Then he’d make us mugs of cocoa and somehow everything would seem better.”

  Shoulder to shoulder with Brianne, the top of her head not six inches from his nose and her creamy skin only a touch away, Jed felt the stirring of desire. From the memory she had just shared, he could tell how much she missed her father. The last thing he wanted to be was a father figure, or a mentor or even a colleague.

  Physical need and Caroline’s beauty had drawn him into a relationship with her. He wasn’t about to let history repeat itself.

  The fire popped. Brianne’s gaze moved to the crackling logs. Jed used the small interruption as an excuse to end a conversation that had become too intimate, to end a night that had been too disconcerting.

  Shifting away from her, he glanced out the window. “It’s almost daybreak. I’d better split more firewood, since we don’t know how long the electricity will be out.”

  She looked startled, as if his words weren’t at all what she’d expected. Recovering, she nodded and smiled. “I’ll rummage through the cupboards and see what I can come up with for breakfast.”

  He wanted to stay. He wanted to pull her into his arms and curl up on the sofa, nuzzle her neck and kiss those curved lips. Her smile made him forget how old he was and that there was wood to be split. It almost made him forget the vow he’d made to himself after he and Caroline had divorced…before he left for Alaska. He’d vowed that he would never take on responsibility for anyone else’s happiness ever again.

  That vow had been life-changing. Now he turned away from Brianne, stood and went to the kitchen for his coat. Physical exertion would help. If it didn’t, he’d try something else.

  Brianne had combed her hair as best she could with her fingers, and freshened up. She was opening a can of baked beans with an old-fashioned can opener she’d found in one of the drawers when Al came in, walking stiffly.

  He wore a scowl until he saw her and then his expression brightened. “I must admit it’s nice seeing a pretty face in my kitchen in the morning.”

  She laughed and accepted the compliment as genuine. She had a feeling Al never said something he didn’t mean, and it was nice to be around someone like that. “I thought I’d warm up baked beans on the grate and try to make toast on the griddle. The fire’s burned low enough that it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

  “I’ll take care of pulling things in and out so you don’t get burned.”

  Al Sawyer was as chivalrous as he was old-fashioned, and she saw that same chivalry in Jed, whether he admitted it or not. He’d opened the door for her on more than one occasion, and he never took a seat unless she was seated first.

  “That’s fine with me,” she told Al. “I put canned fruit out in the snow so it will be chilled when we want that, too.”

  “Does Jed know how inventive you are?”

  She felt herself blush. “We haven’t known each other very long. We’ve only worked together for a week.”

  “Hmm.” After a few moments of silence, during which Brianne could feel Al studying her, he asked, “And just what do you think about my son?”

  Keeping her hands busy, she took slices of bread from the plastic bag and set them on the griddle. “I don’t know him very well.”

  “Jed doesn’t make it easy to get to know him, especially since…” Al shut his mouth tight and then tried again. “That boy has always been complicated.”

  “In what way?” Brianne impulsively asked before she could stop herself.

  Pulling out a chair with his booted foot, Al sank heavily onto it, then crossed his forearms on the table. “Did you know we’re descended from the Sawyers who founded Sawyer Springs?”

  “I wondered about that. Town history has it that they were adventurers but not very good at business. Was that true?”

  “Sure was. Theodore Sawyer staked his claim here and established a town around Sawyer Lake with the friends and family he brought with him from the East. Old Teddy and his buddies decided a textile mill would bring prosperity to the town along with the farming.”

  Al shook his head. “The truth was he had no head for business! He established the textile mill, all right. People came from all around to find work. It employed over half the town. But then it went downhill. Teddy Sawyer couldn’t cover his bills, and he couldn’t pay his workers. So he sold out to a big honcho in New York. That guy only cared about the bottom line, not about the workers or the condition of the mill. Teddy’s children inherited the money from the sale of the mill, and they squandered it. When they had nothing left, they took off for parts unknown. My own family, descended from Teddy’s brother, had put down roots here. My father was a fore
man at that mill and I became a foreman after him.”

  When Al paused, Brianne waited for more. Jed’s father didn’t disappoint her.

  “I always made enough to get by. It was too much of a risk to move and hope I’d find something better someplace else. At least I had a job. Lots of men didn’t. But the kids had to wear hand-me-downs,” Al admitted. “We bought furniture at the second-hand shop and there was never anything extra. Jed grew up wanting more. He knew the history of the Sawyers, and he’d seen what they’d squandered. He pretended he didn’t hear the jeers of the rich kids over in North Sawyer Springs, who wore fine clothes and had new bikes. Anything they wanted they got on a silver platter.”

  Brianne thought about all the advantages she’d had and how she’d never done anything to deserve them. When her parents had told her she was adopted, she’d felt as if she wasn’t really a Barrington. It wasn’t until after their death that she realized no parents could have loved her more than they had, and she was truly their daughter in all ways that mattered.

  “I guess it was only natural for my kids to want more than I had,” Al continued. “But Jed seemed to make it his mission to prove the Sawyers were worthy of being founding fathers. He was smart. Skipped the fifth grade. Finished college in three years instead of four and plowed into med school with scholarships, loans and grit. Actually, I don’t think he wanted success for himself. He wanted to give his mother everything I could never give her. But she died before he got that fancy practice out in L.A. Then when his marriage fell apart…” Al gave a heavy sigh.

  Brianne didn’t want to keep anything from Al. “My family lived in North Sawyer Springs.” She remembered now the way Jed had looked at her car. She’d been one of those kids who’d been handed everything on a silver platter. Did he believe the differences between them were too great to give them common ground? Or was something more than that going on, something that had to do with his life in L.A. and his divorce? Did she want to probe into it any further and become more involved?