by Dianne Drake
Gabby blended into one of the waves of people sloshing its way toward a central corridor outside Pediatrics, but when she got there, she was shocked to see at least three-hundred people packed in, shoulder to shoulder. “Come up front with the staff,” Fallon called to her. “We’re going to have photos taken.”
Neil was standing front and center when she reached the front of the room, looking very uncomfortable about the whole thing. People were mingling, smiling, laughing and he was standing alone, not talking, not smiling, definitely not mingling.
“You don’t like these kinds of things?” she asked him, feeling as out of place here as he looked.
“It was a nice gesture, donating the money, but there’s no need for all the fuss. Just hang the damned plaque and be done with it.”
Not only did he look uncomfortable, he was downright grumpy. And it wasn’t about the plaque, she guessed. She wanted to ask, or at least inquire which face in the crowd belonged to Neil’s brother, but the mayor superseded her by stepping up to the microphone and thanking the crowd for coming. “As you are all aware, a generous endowment has been given to this hospital, for the purpose of establishing a state-of-the-art pediatrics ward.”
The crowd applauded, and Neil looked even more agitated.
“It is with great regret that our generous benefactor is no longer with us…”
As in dead? Gabby wondered. Or maybe he didn’t live in White Elk now. A quick look at Neil’s face didn’t reveal the answer. In fact, as the mayor droned on for another few minutes, the tight expression on Neil’s face stayed fixed. She wasn’t even sure he blinked.
“And with no further ado, I’d like to ask Neil to unveil the plaque.”
The audience applauded again, but Neil didn’t budge.
“Neil?” the mayor prodded.
In response he gave a curt nod of his head, then walked, with all the stiffness of a robot, across the tile floor to the wall with the still-draped plaque on it. And just as stiffly, he reached up and pulled the drape away, letting the burgundy fabric slip straight through his fingers to the floor.
People applauded as the bronze letters set into marble were revealed, and it took Gabby’s eyes a few moments to shift from Neil’s face to the plaque, where the words The Gavin Thierry Pediatrics Ward simply didn’t sink in at first. So she blinked twice, looked again, gasped for breath, and stumbled backwards…her head spinning, her immediate world growing dim…dimmer…
The last thing she heard was the collective gasp from the crowd as she pitched backwards.
CHAPTER FOUR
“GABRIELLE?”
The voice sounded distant, but she knew it wasn’t.
“Gabrielle, can you hear me?”
There was light shining in her eyes. Bright light. She could feel the intensity of it even though her eyes were shut.
“Come on, Gabrielle. Look at me.”
Someone was holding her hand, too. It was Neil. Even without looking, she knew that. Knew the tingle he caused…
“Open your eyes, Gabrielle.”
She wanted to, but there was something she didn’t want to see. Something she couldn’t quite remember.
“How’s her blood pressure?”
Now, that was a voice she didn’t remember. Nice, deep, rich. Not as nice as Neil’s voice, though.
“A little high. Not enough to cause her to faint.”
Ah, Neil’s voice. The nicest voice she’d ever heard.
“Well, the fetal heartbeat is strong. Nothing going wrong there, as far as I can tell.”
The other voice again. Nice enough voice, but Neil’s was better. More soothing.
“It’s a good thing I caught her. She could have hurt herself on the marble floor,” Neil said.
Yes, Neil’s voice was the nicest. It made her feel…safe.
“Blood sugar’s normal. Oh, and, Neil, I’m having the lab run a full blood panel.”
“Thanks, Eric.”
“Has she mentioned any kind of past medical history? Or has she been exhausted?” Eric Ramsey asked, looking down at Gabrielle. “She’s not particularly pale, not underweight.”
“She eats a lot. Fallon did a physical on her, and nothing came to light. Gabrielle’s a really staunch defender of women working through their pregnancy if they feel well enough to do it, but now I’m wondering if she has some underlying condition she doesn’t know about. Or something developing…”
Eric scratched his head. “Well, whatever it is, she sure picked a dramatic moment to faint.”
“I didn’t faint,” she finally said. “I just…just had a momentary syncope.”
“Isn’t that the same as fainting?” Neil asked.
His wasn’t the face directly over her when she did manage to open her eyes. In fact, when her blur came into focus she was greeted by a startling, handsome set of clear green eyes. Chestnut-colored hair, cut short. Angular face. A breath-taker for sure, but not her type. “We haven’t really been formally introduced, have we?” she asked, extending her hand upward to Eric.
Quite surprised by the gesture, he took it. “I don’t suppose we have.”
“And these aren’t the best circumstances for a proper introduction, but I’m Gabby Evans.”
“Eric Ramsey,” he replied, looking over at Neil, who looked almost like he was ready to pass out too. “And what I want to know from you, Gabby Evans, is what happened?”
“Odd thing about fainting. Most of the time you don’t really know what happened. One minute you’re there, the next you’re not.” She started to sit up, but Neil stepped up to the exam table and placed a hand on her shoulder.
“There’s always a cause, Gabrielle,” Neil insisted.
There was. She knew that. But how could she tell Neil what that cause was?
“I think I spun around too quickly, got light-headed.” Horrible lie. But it was the best she could do under the circumstances. “And I’m fine now. I heard you say that the fetal heartbeat is strong. That my blood sugar is normal. So, I’m ready to go.” She tried sitting up again but, like the first time, Neil stopped her.
“You’re going back to work, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Is there any reason I shouldn’t?”
“Other than you just fainted?” he snapped.
“Look, you two,” Eric interjected. “I need to go see a patient of my own, plus I think I’ll look in on the patient Gabby’s had waiting for half an hour. Gabby, it’s nice to finally meet you officially, and I’m glad you’re feeling better. Neil, her blood work should be back shortly. If you need anything…” Eric slipped out of the exam room without another word, his absence barely even noticed by Gabby and Neil, who were staring at each other like two rancorous tomcats ready to have a go at each other.
“I’m fine,” she insisted. Truth was, she wanted to get away from him. Right now! Wanted to think, to figure out how this could have happened. She was pregnant with Neil’s brother’s baby, of all the incredible coincidences. Incredible and, she had a feeling, not in a good way. “And I’ll take it easy the rest of the day.” Except her hands were shaking now, and she was so cold she was shivering. Shock, followed by a faint had a way of doing all that. And Neil wasn’t missing a symptom, which meant he wasn’t going to let her go anywhere. “Neil, I’m really fine,” she managed, as another cold chill came over her. “I just got a little claustrophobic, started to panic, with all those people standing around. I’m not a great one for being in crowds. So I spun around, got light-headed, and…”
“And scared the hell out of me.”
“Are you the one who caught me?”
“Caught you and carried you here.”
“Then I’m sorry to have taken you away from the dedicatory ceremony. Were you supposed to make a speech?”
“I was glad for an excuse to get away from there, but not for the reason that made it happen.” He picked up a blood-pressure cuff and wrapped it around Gabby’s arm. Then he inflated the ball, put the stethoscope earpieces in
his ears, and listened. Moments later, he pulled the earpieces out, and removed the cuff. “Normal.” Then he glanced at the fetal monitor and nodded. “That’s normal, too. So, do you want to tell me what this was really about?”
“I already told you, Neil. And when the rest of the lab results get back, you’re not going to find anything wrong in them. I’m fine. I just had—”
“I know. A little syncope. And just so you won’t go getting any crazy ideas that you’ll rest for another hour, then go back to work, I’ve scheduled you out for the day. You’re going back to the cabin and going straight to bed. Orders from your doctor, orders from your boss.”
His tone made it clear he would take no argument. To be honest, though, she didn’t want to argue. Didn’t know what she wanted to do except get away from the hospital, away from Neil. “My patients… It’s only my second day here, and I need to—”
“We’re covered, Gabrielle. Eric and I can cover, so can John Ellis, another family practitioner. And Fallon’s certainly capable of seeing patients if the need arises. So we’re good here.”
“Possibly half a day? I could go home for the rest of the morning and rest, then this afternoon…” She wasn’t sure why she was arguing when she really did want to leave. Was it to impress Neil, show him that she could work, no matter what? Was it to prove the same to herself? She was afraid that he might decide to let her go altogether. Maybe he thought she was weak, she was a burden, he didn’t need her. Horrible, horrible thought, since a little speck of optimism deep inside was telling her White Elk could be the place.
Neil shook his head adamantly at her suggestion. “You’re not staying. And one of the good things about being the owner is that you get to boss people around.” He smiled. “I kind of like it.”
“Except you’re not the bossy type.” He didn’t have a bossy bone in his body.
“Maybe not under ordinary circumstances, but this isn’t an ordinary circumstance.”
“Will you let me come back? When the blood tests reveal that nothing is wrong with me, and after I’ve spent the day resting, will you let me come back tomorrow?”
For a moment he looked surprised. Then his surprise was overcome by a generous smile. “I’m not going to fire you, Gabrielle. But I’m going to caution you the way you caution your patients, by telling you to use common sense. You, better than anybody else, know what you can do, and what you cannot do. And if that doesn’t work, I have one magic word that will do it.”
“What?”
“Bryce.” He chuckled. “Was I right? Did that do it?”
“You were right. That did it,” she conceded, not even resenting him for knowing how to get to her. Honestly, it was nice having someone care for her, and while Neil was only a casual acquaintance, he still did make her feel cared for. “Can I at least borrow some medical journals to take with me?”
“Wouldn’t you rather be reading articles on how to decorate a baby’s nursery?”
“Maybe I would, if the baby had a nursery. But he doesn’t.” And maybe he wouldn’t here in White Elk after all. “So, the journals, please?”
“How about I bring them up to the cabin, along with some lunch and the results of your blood work in a couple of hours? You can rest until I get there, OK? Oh, and our security guard, Ed Lester, is waiting outside to drive you home right now, so you go on, and I’ll be up in a while.”
“You don’t have to do that, Neil. I can take care of myself.”
“Maybe I want to.” His voice was tender, sincere.
A voice she could get used to.
As Neil helped Gabby first into a wheelchair, which, of course, she protested, then into Ed Lester’s car, Gabby wondered why Neil was so willing to do so much for her, and she was still wondering the same thing five minutes later when Ed Lester stopped the car in front of the cabin, and helped her out. “Did you know Neil’s brother very well?” she asked the gray-haired security guard, who had a firm hold on her as they walked up the cabin’s wooden steps.
“Who, Gavin? We all knew him. Grew up right here in White Elk, practiced here until he and Neil…” He paused. Frowned. Didn’t finish his sentence.
So Gabby asked, even though the way her heart was thudding told her the answer before Ed Lester could. “His name was Gavin? Gavin Thierry?” Even though she knew, she wanted to make sure.
The man nodded solemnly. “Damn shame what happened to him. He was a good doctor. Probably as good as his brother.”
Gabby fought back a hard lump in her throat as she entered the cabin, and went straight to the rocking chair next to the fireplace. A fire would have been nice, but she lacked the physical energy to lay one. Lacked the emotional energy to do anything other than sit there and rock, and hope the numbing squeak of the rockers would keep everything else out of her mind. Because, right now, she truly didn’t want to think.
But eventually confused thoughts started popping and, try as she may, she couldn’t push them away. What had Ed Lester meant when he’d said Gavin had practiced here until he and Neil…? He and Neil what? Of all the times for the small-town gossip to quit on her! Especially when it concerned her, indirectly.
Which brought her to another weighty thought. Should she tell Neil about her involvement with his brother? She was, after all, carrying Gavin’s son, Neil’s nephew. “I don’t know what to do, Bryce,” she said on a heavy, discouraged sigh. “I was prepared to tell your father about you, but now that he’s gone, I’m not sure what to do beyond that. Especially since…” Since what? Since she really liked Neil. Since she might be developing feelings for Neil, crazy as that seemed in two short days. “Like it would even go somewhere if I weren’t pregnant,” she muttered.
But she did wonder about her feelings. Naturally, she attributed them to her upsurge of hormones, and to a lesser extent the fact that she was alone and Neil was so…welcoming. So steady.
Leaning her head back against the rocker and shutting her eyes, the only thing Gabby envisioned was Neil, and in her images he was proving himself to be everything she’d ever wanted in a man. And that wasn’t the hormones talking. Or the misfit wanderings of a delusional mind. “But I’m not going to fall in love, Bryce. We’re fine, the two of us. No outsiders necessary. Right?”
What was she supposed to do, though, when that outsider was a blood relative to her baby? That was the question causing her hands to shake.
Slumping down into the rocker even more, Gabby sighed heavily again. Right about now she surely could have used some of her father’s sage advice. There was never a time she could remember that he hadn’t known what to do and say, and what had always amazed her about him had been how he’d utter just a few simple words that would make things crystal clear. She did miss him, and even now, after all these months without him, tears pooled in her eyes when thoughts of him flooded back. Daddy’s girl—not because he was her only parent but because she wanted to be daddy’s girl. His absence didn’t change that, and the ache of missing him was an ache that was softened only by knowing that, in the coming years, there would be so many wonderful stories to tell Bryce about his grandfather.
Why couldn’t life have been just a little less complicated right now?
“You know I haven’t done this before,” she said to Bryce, brushing away the tears with the back of her hand. “So you’re going to have to bear with me until I get it right.” And whether or not to tell Neil about his brother’s baby was something she had to get right.
Gabby sat and rocked for the next hour, wrapped up in a cozy blanket and also wrapped in her memories of the past and her hopes for the future. She deliberately avoided thinking about Neil, pushing those thoughts right out when they crept in. After a while, when she’d finally succeeded in not thinking about him every three minutes, a sharp knock on her cabin door brought all thoughts of him right back to the forefront of her mind. He was here now, bringing lunch. She’d almost forgotten his offer. Wished she’d called and told him not to come.
But she hadn’
t, so she had to face him. “We’re going to let the moment play itself out as it happens,” she told Bryce on her way to the door. As she passed the hall mirror she took a quick glance, saw that she was a little more tear-splotched than she wanted him to see, so she pulled open the cabin door, then ran immediately to the sink in the bathroom to blot water on her face.
“You OK, Gabrielle?” Neil called from the hall.
“Fine,” she called back, bent over the sink, cupping her hands under the water, then splashing it on her face. “Just washing my hands.” And trying to wash away so many thoughts. Another quick look in the mirror convinced her to run a brush through her hair and tint her lips with a little colored gloss. Hasty, but not so revealing now, she decided as she turned out the bathroom light and emerged into the hall, where Neil stood waiting for her, much closer than she’d expected him to be.
“That was a long hand wash,” he said, his face full of concern. “Unless you’re scrubbing for surgery.”
“I’m pregnant. I’m allowed to take longer doing things.”
“Sure you’re OK?”
She managed a smile, and a lie. “I’m OK.” Which she wasn’t. “And hungry.” Which she was, but not nearly so much as usual. “So, let’s eat.” Skip the chat, go straight to the food and hope conversation between them could be cut to a minimum, because she didn’t feel much like talking.
“Gabrielle, you look… Have you been crying?”
Neil reached out to take hold of her arm as she whisked by him, but as she slipped past, she grabbed the sack from his hands and hurried off toward the tiny cabin kitchen, anxious to get out of his gaze, lest he looked any deeper and discovered more. He was trying to diagnose her. She was sure of it, and if he thought he saw something, he wouldn’t let her work, which would mean she had no reason to stay in White Elk. Leaving here might be the easiest solution, but it wasn’t the one that felt good to her. And right now she truly needed to be back in the hospital, seeing patients and not being one. “Of course I wasn’t crying. I just washed my face, got a little soap in my eyes. So, what did you hear back from the lab tests?”