Gee. Oreo barf in front of her, Uncle Ned behind her. What a choice.
Why was it again she’d thought this would be such a good idea?
The rest of the morning passed with relatively few additional traumas, however, so that by the time the guests started to arrive at twelve-thirty, Maddie—in a new beige turtleneck sweater and matching leggings—actually felt more or less in control. The turkey was out of the oven and “resting,” the gravy was made, the mashed potatoes were done (and not too lumpy), and everything else was either finished or ready to go.
And the table…well, it did look pretty darned good, if she said so herself. Even if the chairs didn’t all match. But with the lace tablecloth and Ivy’s mother’s china and a new set of Oneida flatware Ryan had bought at the Wal-Mart…
“Eat your heart out, Martha Stewart,” she muttered under her breath as she set two of those pretty floral tubs of margarine on either end of the table.
“I don’t know which I like more,” Ryan said behind her, making her jump. Again. She turned to find him leaning against the wide doorway between the dining room and the living room, his hands stuffed in his khakis’ pockets, wearing a blue shirt a bit darker than his eyes. He wouldn’t exactly meet her gaze, but at least he was smiling. Sorta. “The way it smells in here, or the way it looks.”
She beamed. Well, shoot, she couldn’t help it. Then she looked back at the table, frowning a little. “You think folks’ll mind the plastic cups?”
“With all that food you’ve got in there,” Ryan said, nodding back toward the kitchen, “I somehow doubt anyone’s going to notice.”
Silence jangled between them for several seconds.
“I really am sorry for what happened earlier this morning,” he said.
Which is where she should have said, “Don’t worry about it,” or “Me, too” or something equally reassuring. Instead she opened her mouth and out pranced, “Well, I’m not.”
Took her a second or two to realize the loud booming in her head was the sound of her heartbeat. Or maybe it was Ryan’s, since, judging from his poleaxed expression, his heart was probably chugging along quite nicely, too.
“I m-mean,” she said, wondering what on earth was going to come out next since she didn’t have the slightest idea what she meant by that, “um, it’s, uh, just been a long time since I’ve been kissed, is all.”
Then she tried a “see—nothing to worry about!” smile.
“Hot damn, it sure smells good in here!” boomed from just outside the dining room, making both of them jump. Looking taller than ever in jeans, an open-necked flannel shirt and a corduroy jacket, and grinning as usual, Cal clapped Ryan on the shoulder, then strode over and gave Maddie a big hug. And a bunch of yellow and bronze chrysanthemums.
Out of the corner of her eye, Maddie caught Ryan’s glower.
“Cal! These for me?”
“Well, they sure aren’t for anybody else, sugar.” He gaze drifted to the table; shaking his head, he let out a low, long whistle. “If this doesn’t bring back memories, I don’t know what does,” he said softly. His lips moving, he counted the places, then frowned. “Eleven places? Who all did you invite?”
“Oh, we’re having a couple extras,” she said casually, fiddling for the hundredth time with the centerpiece she’d pulled together from the backyard.
And wondering for the hundredth time if a person could die from good intentions.
Some three hours later, she was still wondering.
“All in all,” Ivy said, handing Maddie the turkey platter to dry, since the dishwasher was too full to cram in one more thing, “I’d say it didn’t go too badly.”
Maddie just managed to tamp down a semihysterical laugh. “Other than Cal and your daughter’s fiancé nearly coming to blows, you mean?”
“Every holiday needs some entertainment. And Hank showed up,” she added softly.
“For what? Twenty minutes?”
“It’s a start, honey. No, actually, it’s a miracle. One you can take full credit for.”
Suddenly too tired to move another inch, Maddie set the platter on the counter and collapsed into one of the kitchen chairs, smiling when Katie Grace came over and crawled into her lap. It had been a day and half, that was for sure. She smoothed down Katie’s flyaway hair before resting her cheek on her daughter’s head. On the positive side, she’d pulled off the cooking part of things without a hitch (even Ned, she noticed, had eaten too fast to grouse about anything). Katie was fine after the too-many-cookies-in-the-tummy episode and there’d been no further child-related disasters, and Amy Rose had gone down for her afternoon sleep, good as gold.
Then there were the negatives.
The Hank business, for one thing. True, he showed up, halfway through dinner. But how much of a miracle that was, she didn’t know, seeing as he barely said three words to anybody—other than to compliment Maddie on the meal—and then left before dessert.
As for her big plans for Ryan and Noah’s teacher…well, the one thing she hadn’t taken into account was Cal, who moved in for the kill before Ryan even got a chance to say “hi.” Not that it wasn’t perfectly obvious to everybody in the room that Cal only made eyes at Taylor for Dawn’s benefit. Or—more likely—Dawn’s boyfriend Andrew. Who she’d caught tsking at the plastic cups.
And yes, Ryan did get called away.
About ten minutes before Hank arrived.
Aware that Katie Grace had become a snoring lead weight in her lap, Maddie struggled to her feet, whispering to Ivy that she was just going to lay her down for her nap, she’d be right back.
There really was no accounting for how balled-up she felt inside. Wasn’t like she didn’t know how messy life could be, or how often plans fell apart. And Ryan had warned her that he’d probably not be able to stay. It was just…
Her unformed thought fizzled out on a weary sigh.
As Maddie passed by the living room, she caught sight of Noah and Uncle Ned sitting side by side on the sofa in front of a football game on TV. Their faces were creased in almost identical scowls; their arms both crossed tightly across their chests. Mildred Rafferty, all gussied up in a frilly blue dress that Maddie guessed was a good thirty years old, sat primly in the wing chair nearby, waiting for Ivy to take her home. The old woman asked a question about what was going on; Ned swatted at her, told her to hush until the commercial. As Maddie headed upstairs with Katie, she heard Mildred tell Ned in no uncertain terms he was a rude old man and should be ashamed of himself.
Maddie glanced over the banister just in time to see Ned’s scowl deepen even further.
When Ryan got back around ten, damned if Maddie wasn’t mopping the kitchen floor, of all things. Just the thought of it made him tired.
“It’s amazing how much mess a body can make just cooking a single meal,” she said, her voice more gravelly than usual. Then her mouth pursed as she scrubbed the life out of one particular spot near the stove.
“Um…that’s been there ever since I can remember,” Ryan said.
“Then it’s high time it came off.” She glanced up, swiping her hair out of her face with the back of her hand. “For heaven’s sake—sit down before you fall down.”
He didn’t argue. Couldn’t have if he’d wanted to.
“Hank came,” she said quietly, and Ryan nearly jolted out of his skin.
“You’re kidding?”
“Nope. Didn’t stay long, though.” She squatted down, scraped at something with her thumbnail for a second or two, then stood again. “Maybe next time he’ll actually make it all the way through dessert.”
Before Ryan had a chance to wrap his head around this bit of news, Maddie said, “You were gone a long time. What happened?”
Ryan let a yawn come, then knuckled the hollow at the base of his neck. “Took longer than I expected, too. Had to go out to Sam Frazier’s. Widower with six kids, has a farm out near Cal’s place. One of his cows kicked him hard enough to break his leg. His oldest girl, Libby, w
as the one who called me. The break was far too complicated for me to set here, so I had to get him to Claremore as well as find somebody who could keep an eye on the kids, since Libby’s only twelve herself.”
Big gray, empathetic eyes fastened to his. “And how old’s the youngest?”
“A toddler. Two, maybe? Jeannette, his wife, died from a freak aneurysm last year. She was my age. Sat next to me in Mr. Fry’s Biology class in high school, in fact.” A strange ache spread through his chest. “She and Sam’d been sweethearts since they were kids.”
“That’s so sad.” Her brow creased, Maddie let out a sigh, then, shaking her head, went to rinse the mop in the sink. “Still. I bet it’s a comfort to that poor man, thinking about the time he did get to spend with his wife.”
Ryan slouched back in the chair, his hands clasped on his stomach, watching Maddie’s strong, slender back as she wrung out the mop, the way her tiny hands soundly gripped the handle when she slung it back out onto the floor. “You’ve got a real romantic streak, don’t you?”
A beat or two passed before she said, her words coming out in breathless clumps as she scrubbed, “Depends on…what you mean…by ‘romantic.’ I sure don’t think of love…in terms of candy and…flowers and a fantasy world…where everything is perfect.” She hauled up the mop to slap it against the floor a few feet farther away. “To me, love—true love—is…carin’ enough for somebody to…ride out the bad times…together, as well as…the good.” She stopped, panting slightly, swiping the back of her wrist across her cheek. “Love means not being afraid to let somebody else see your flaws. And being able to live with somebody else’s.”
“In other words, being willing to hang on to the bitter end?”
One eyebrow lifted. “It means not bailing at the first sign of trouble, that’s for sure. It also means having the courage to be honest with somebody you love when the path he’s chosen isn’t doing him any favors. Which is where I made my mistake with Jimmy,” she said, a split second before the conversation veered off into a direction Ryan did not wish it to go. “There’s a difference between sticking by somebody and silently watching him destroy himself. I told myself I was just trying to keep the marriage together, for the sake of the kids, you know? Instead, all I was doing was contributing to its demise.” On a short, humorless laugh, she picked up the mop, plopping it back into the sink. “A mistake I won’t ever make again, believe you me.”
Again, he watched her back muscles bunch and shift through her baggy sweatshirt, tenderness flooding through him like irrigation water through a parched field.
“For what it’s worth,” he said to her back, “I don’t think I’ve had a Thanksgiving dinner that good in twenty years.”
Her movements hitched for a second, then she continued wringing out the mop. Not until she’d leaned it against the counter to dry did she finally say, “What you got of it.”
Tired or not, Ryan didn’t miss the edge to her voice. “I warned you—”
“I know you did.” She leaned back against the counter, her arms folded over her ribs. “And I’m sure that man and his children were grateful to you, for being there and getting them through that.”
“But you’re still ticked.”
She blew out a sigh. “Not because you had to leave. And certainly not because you’re devoted to your patients.” Her brows nearly met, she frowned so hard. “It just…doesn’t seem right, somehow, that you don’t have any life of your own.”
“This is my life, Maddie.”
“But it doesn’t have to be. Not this way. Not all day, every day, never knowing from one minute to the next whether you’ll even be able to finish a meal or get a solid night’s sleep.”
Irritation began to creep in, souring his earlier feelings. “That’s the lot of a country doctor. You know that.”
“I also know about the other doctors who’ve been after you about going into that clinic with them. Ivy told me,” she added at his lifted brows. “So it’s not like you don’t have any options. For whatever reason, you don’t want to make your life easier. Habit, is all this is, and don’t try denying it.”
His arms tightening across his chest, Ryan hooked Maddie’s gaze in his. “When these people call, they expect to get me. Somebody they know and trust. I’ve got no right to go changing the rules on them.”
“You know these other two doctors?”
He frowned harder. “Well, yeah…”
“You trust ’em?”
“They’re both fine physicians. What are you getting at?”
“That maybe you should give your patients some credit that they can learn to trust ’em, too. That maybe you taking a night off once in a blue moon wouldn’t bend folks out of shape as much as you think it would.”
“And maybe how I live my life is my business.”
Gray eyes met blue, unflinching. “Yes, I suppose that’s true enough. But like I said. From now on, I see a problem, I say something about it. You’re free to listen to me or not, I really don’t give a flying fig. So…are you hungry? ’Cause if you are, I could warm up some leftovers—”
“Dammit, Maddie!” He rocketed from the chair, even though he had no idea where to go after that. “No, I’m not hungry! And if I am, I can fix myself something to eat!”
She recoiled slightly, something like hurt swimming in her eyes for a moment before she took off for the door. Remembering all over again why he preferred living on his own, Ryan cut her off, her shoulders tense under his palms when he turned her around. She met his gaze, angry tears glinting in her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Maddie,” Ryan said on an exhaled breath. “I didn’t mean to yell. What with everything that’s happened today, I’m just on edge, is all. But for crying out loud, honey—your debt is long since paid. You’ve got to move past this thing you have about putting everybody else’s needs ahead of your own.”
Maddie let out a choked laugh. “Look who’s talking!”
He felt his mouth twist into a wry smile. “Okay, point taken. But it’s different for me—”
“No it’s not. You forget I’ve been watching you in action for more than two months now. You thrive on taking care of other people, same as me. It’s just that all I can do is cook and clean and maybe stick together a few branches to make a centerpiece. Making a home is all I know how to do. All I want to do—”
She clamped shut her mouth and twisted away, hugging herself and shaking her head.
“Maddie?”
For the space of several heartbeats, there was no sound except for the chink-chink-chink of the sweep hand of the clock, the hum of the refrigerator. Then finally she turned back around, her mouth twisted.
“See, when I got married, I was still all wrapped up in fantasies, about what love was supposed to be, about what married life was supposed to be. Only as we all know, it didn’t turn out that way.” She looked down at the toe of her shoe, then back up at him. “So I guess I was putting too much on this one dinner. I just wanted it to be perfect.”
Ryan didn’t completely understand, but since the next line was clearly his, he came up with, “It’s not up to you to fix the world, honey.”
“I don’t want to fix the world any more than you want to take care of everyone in it! I just wanted to have a nice holiday for once in my life!”
She sucked in a sharp breath, apparently startled at her own vehemence.
Ryan leaned back against the counter, bracing the edge in his hands. “Like the ones you used to have with your foster parents?”
Her gaze jerked to his. Then she nodded.
“That’s not such an unreasonable thing to want, honey.”
“I wonder,” she said on an exhaled breath.
“So tell me,” he said, because clearly his brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders, “did part of your wanting things to be perfect include inviting Noah’s teacher to dinner?”
He could see her pulse kick up in the hollow of her throat. “I told you,” she said at last. “She just didn�
��t have anywhere else to go—”
“And her being single didn’t have anything to do with it?”
Out went that damn chin. “Of course not.”
“Right. Maddie, I’ve been on the receiving end of far too many matchmaking attempts not to recognize them a mile off.”
Finally, on a sharp sigh, she said, “It was just a thought. Forget it.”
“I intend to. Besides, I don’t need anybody but—”
You.
The word caught in his throat like a chunk of wood, while farther down his heart hammered ferociously, desperately, against his rib cage—a prisoner trying to escape its cell.
“Myself,” he finished, finally, somehow.
She apparently found that humorous. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Ryan—anybody with one eye and half a brain can see how lonely you are.”
He nearly reeled. “Lonely? Hell, who’s got time to be lonely?”
Silence stuttered between them for several seconds before she turned to go, only to turn when she reached the doorway. “Ask yourself why you kissed me this morning,” she said, “and I think you’ll find your answer.”
Chapter 11
This time, Hank was in the motel office, standing behind the counter at his computer, his expression pretty much matching the stormy weather outside. Not to mention the Wagner opera blasting from inside his apartment. His dark eyes darted to Ryan when he came in, then back at the computer screen as he steadily clicked away at the keyboard with one hand.
“Wipe your feet. I just vacuumed.”
“Yes, mother.” Ryan plopped his soaked hat on the coat-rack by the door. “Weather’s sure a bitch today.”
Hank grunted, then said, “I take it you didn’t come by to give me a weather report.”
“No.” Already roasting—why’d Hank have the heat cranked up so high?—Ryan unbuttoned his shearling coat. “Heard you stopped by yesterday.”
Underneath a plaid flannel shirt worn open over a button-front T-shirt, one broad shoulder hitched. “Figured long as Maddie’d gone to all that trouble…”
Saving Dr. Ryan Page 18