Alden just hmmphed at that. And Ruthanne, his prune-mouthed daughter, was even more prune-mouthed than usual when she saw him to the door.
It seemed everywhere he went, somebody had a non-comment to make about Maddie’s relocation that said far more than an actual comment would have. What was most aggravating, though, was that their not actually saying anything one way or the other—pointed though the observations may have been—gave Ryan absolutely no opportunity to defend his position on the matter.
By Friday, he was grumpier than a bear with a thorn in its paw. So when Ned McAllister called him up and asked if he’d come see him since he’d been feeling poorly for a couple days, for the first time since he’d taken over Doc Patterson’s practice, Ryan found himself dreading making a house call.
“You sure you can’t make it into the office—?”
“Maddie ain’t here. It’s her morning over at the day care. So I have no way to get over there.” He coughed a couple of times for effect. “Hear that?”
“Yeah, Ned. I hear that.”
“Well, it sounds ten times worse in person, believe you me.”
Click.
“Must’ve cleared up within the last hour,” Ned muttered, warily eyeing Doc as he folded up his stethoscope and stuffed it back into his bag. Ned was sitting on his bed in his room, that screened-in porch at the back of the new house. It was light enough and all, but a little on the drafty side. Not near as bad as his old place had been, though. “But you yourself heard that cough—”
“Would you mind getting to the point, Ned? I do have other calls to make.”
Ned screwed up his face, buttoning his shirt back up. Now he remembered why he’d avoided getting sucked into other people’s business all these years. “Fine.” He finished with the last button, then planted his hands on his thighs. “I can’t believe you actually let Maddie walk away, boy.”
Ryan let out a mighty sigh. “Well, that certainly seems to be the sentiment of the week. Although, like everyone else, you seem to have missed the point that she left of her own free will. I told her any number of times she and the kids could stay.”
Ned blew out a sigh of his own. It was true, what they said about youth being wasted on the young.
“As what? Your guest? Your housekeeper?”
Well, would you look at that? The man looked downright pissed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, don’t play dumb with me. You’re forgettin’ one thing, Doc, which is that I’ve been watching the two of you for the past month. And you can’t tell me you’ve missed how much that gal cares about you.”
“I really don’t want to talk about this, Ned—”
“I’m sure you don’t. And unless I’ve gone blind as well as lame, you’re crazy about her, too.”
His arms crossed, Doc stared at Ned a long time. A real long time. Then he said, “And what if I am?”
“What if you are? What kind of damn fool answer is that? Are you or ain’t’cha?”
Doc walked over to where he’d set his bag on the nightstand, frowning so hard Ned thought for sure his face would set that way. “She certainly makes me crazy. Does that count?”
But underneath his smart-ass reply, Ned could hear something that set off an echo inside his own head. An echo he had the feeling he couldn’t ignore anymore. That maybe he didn’t want to.
“Lemme tell you something, boy,” he said softly, looking down at hands gnarled and spotted with age. Hands that knew how to fire a gun, to do things Ned still had nightmares about, sometimes. Hands that, at one time, had itched with wanting, just once, to touch the soft cheek of a pretty little redhead with silver-green eyes. He looked up at Ryan, fighting a sudden tightness in his throat. “I was younger’n you when I lost my heart to a woman, a woman who was in love with somebody else. I had no choice but to walk away and let her live her own life. You do have a choice. Don’t be an idiot and make the wrong one, because I’m here to tell ya, loneliness is a pain in the—”
“Uncle Ned—is everything all right?”
They both turned; Maddie stood in Ned’s doorway with that look women get on their faces when they catch you doing something they told you not to.
“What the Sam Hill you doin’ home so early, gal?”
“Only three kids showed up, including Katie. So Didi sent me home.” Her arms crossed over her chest. “Which you didn’t count on, did you?”
Standing on her porch, Ryan looked a real mess. Good, Maddie thought. Maybe there was some justice in the world, after all.
She stood in her open front door, hugging herself against the cold. “I can’t believe Ned did that.”
Ryan shrugged it off. “Forget it.” Then he looked at her, good and hard. “So. How’re you settling in?”
She’d already arranged with him not to go back to work until after New Year’s. “Good,” she said, trying not to shiver. “You getting enough to eat?” she asked.
He sort of smiled. “Finished off the ham last night.” Then he nodded toward her door. “You better get inside before you freeze to death.”
“Yeah. I suppose. Well. See you Monday afternoon.”
He touched the brim of his hat and turned away. Maddie told herself watching him leave would have been childish and dumb.
And besides, she had an old man to chew out.
“You’ve got no right, none, to meddle in my life!”
“Dammit, gal, somebody had to say something—”
“And just what good did you think that would do?” She poured hot water into Ned’s mug for his tea, trying to keep her hand from shaking. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe this is between Ryan and me? Or that—” she plunked the mug down on the kitchen table, wincing when the hot tea sloshed over the rim and burned her fingers “—or that this isn’t something that’s even fixable?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But you and Doc are the only two people in the world who ever gave a damn about me, and…and it just kills me to see the two of you letting an opportunity pass you by like this.”
“Says the man who’s let more than a quarter of a century pass by without telling the woman he loves how he feels!”
They stared at each other for several seconds. Ned blinked first. “And you know what?” He slapped his hand on the table and struggled to stand up. “You’re absolutely right. I’ve got no right tellin’ you and Ryan how to run your life if I don’t have the wherewithal to follow my own advice.” He held out his hand, palm up. “So give me your car keys. Seems to me I’m about twenty-five years late for an appointment.”
As startled as she was by this abrupt turn of events, Maddie still had the presence of mind to snatch the car keys off the counter where she’d dumped them earlier and hide them behind her back. “You’re nuts!”
“I would be if I tried to drive my truck. But the Impala’s an automatic, right?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Then I reckon I don’t need my left foot. Right one works just fine. So give me the damn keys.”
“Forget it.”
He lowered his hand and gave her that blamed puppy dog look again. Lord above, she was growing to hate that look. “Maddie Mae, I’m seventy-five years old. Mildred is seventy-three. Time is of the essence here. Besides, if I wait, I’m liable to lose my nerve.” Then he slanted his head at her. “And it’s not like you haven’t been angling for me to do this for some time.”
He had her there. But there was no way she was letting him drive himself. “Okay, okay, fine—just…let me find somebody to pick up the kids and keep an eye on ’em for me. Then I guess I’ll drive you out there.”
Now that he’d won, Ned sank back into the chair, his cheeks nearly the same shade as his beard. “What if she says she’s not interested? What if she laughs in my face? What if—”
“Welcome to the world, Uncle Ned,” Maddie said, dialing Ivy’s cell phone. “Fun, isn’t it?”
Forty-five minutes later, they pulled up in front of Mildred’s trailer. Ned
stretched out his neck, fussing with the knot in his tie. Maddie hadn’t known he had a tie, let alone a fairly decent-looking sports jacket and pants. They were old as the hills, but it was the thought that counted.
“Ain’tcha gonna ask me if I really want to go through with this?”
“Nope.”
“Oh.” He peered out the windshield, like he could tell from the way the sun was shining on the side of Mildred’s trailer what his chances were. Then he frowned at Maddie. “Might make it kind of awkward if you’re there.”
“I’m not planning on going in there with you, Uncle Ned. I’m strictly the chauffeur.”
“Oh.” Another peek out the windshield.
Maddie hefted a sigh. “Uncle Ned. Go on up there, tell the woman you’ve come to court her, tell her you’ve come to visit, tell her…well, what the Sam Hill do I care what you tell her? I may as well go on to the Wal-Mart and get some shopping done, I’ll come back in an hour. It’s not like she’s gonna make you sit outside on the steps or anything.”
“Oh. Well, yeah. I suppose you’re right.”
“Good.” She got out of the car, went around to get his walker out of the backseat. “Now get your ornery backside out of my car and go woo your ladylove before the pair of you ossify.”
His brows shot up, then he let out a loud laugh. She helped him maneuver his long, creaky legs out of the car, emitting a little “oh!” of surprise when he leaned over and brushed a dry kiss on her cheek. “That fool boy don’t know what he’s missin’,” he said, getting himself adjusted in the walker. Then he awkwardly pivoted and slowly made his way up to Mildred’s front door.
Maddie waited by the car until she saw Mildred open her front door, her mouth dropping open in an expression of startled delight.
Well, good. High time somebody got it together around here.
Ryan almost didn’t recognize Suzanne. But then, the last thing he expected was to run into her at the Homeland, where he was trolling the frozen food aisles in search of something to keep him alive.
It was New Year’s Eve tomorrow. All day long, the sky’d been trying to make up its mind about whether it wanted to snow, rain or sleet; at the moment, it was a mixture of all three, and now coming up on dinnertime, the roads were becoming more deadly by the minute. And the store more and more crowded. Ryan had already endured any number of curious, matronly stares, to the point where he started flinging things into his basket, just to be done with this infernal shopping and get the hell out of there. So he wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders when he went careening around the corner and crashed his shopping cart right into Suzanne Potts’s. Or whatever her married name was now.
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. No less than ten people stopped whatever they were doing to stare. Until Ryan, taking a page from his older brother’s book, scowled at them hard enough to make them rethink their rubbernecking. When he returned his attention to his former fiancée, he noticed twin dots of bright red staining paper-white cheeks.
“Ryan!” She gave a nervous laugh, her thin lips pulling up into a half smile. Her light hair, once worn nearly to her waist, was shorter now, pulled back into a severe ponytail with no bangs or stray waves or anything to soften the austereness of it. Just as she wore no jewelry to brighten her somber outfit of dark pants, sweater and carcoat. Still, even unadorned, Suzanne Potts had the kind of perfectly balanced features and wide, guileless blue eyes that used to suck Ryan’s breath right out of him.
Used to being the operative term here.
“My goodness,” Suzanne said, her cheeks still flushed. “I don’t know why it just never occurred to me that… Well.” She cleared her throat.
“So. What brings you home, Suzie?”
A smile flickered across her mouth. “The holidays. It’s been a while since the kids and I’ve been back. Mama and Daddy always came to see us, you know…” She seemed to run out of steam, her eyes darting around as if she couldn’t quite decide if it was okay or not to look right at him.
“How…how old are your kids?” he said, sympathetic to her obvious discomfort.
Again, the smile made a brief appearance. “Toby’s three and Amanda’s just turned two. Mama’s sitting while I’m here picking up a few things before it gets any worse out.” She jerked her cart over to let several other shoppers squeeze by. “Which I suppose accounts for why half the town’s in here right now, too.”
Ryan smiled a little. “Yeah. I suppose.”
“So.” She lifted a hand to swipe back a stray hair that wasn’t there. “I hear you’re still the doctor of choice around here?”
“Looks that way.”
“Are…you happy, Ry?”
Loaded question. “Can’t complain. You?”
“Oh…I’m doing okay.” She hesitated a moment, then said quietly, “I got divorced last year, though.”
“Damn, Suzie…I’m sorry to hear that.”
Her mouth twisted. “Don’t be. It was…more a matter of rectifying a mistake than anything else.” She worried the baby strap in the cart for a few seconds, then dropped it.
The moment dragged on, painfully empty, until she said, “So. How are your brothers doing?” which was at least enough to get the conversation airborne for a minute or two.
And when they finished saying what little they had to say to one another and wished each other well the way people do who have a history together but no future, and Ryan paid for his groceries and trudged back through what was now a full-fledged snowstorm and got into his truck, it hit him just how little they’d had to say to each other, that the sum total of all they’d meant to each other after six years of being a couple could be boiled down to a few stilted sentences.
It hadn’t escaped his attention, either, that she hadn’t asked him if he was married. For some reason, he found that mildly perturbing.
He’d just put his key in the ignition when a car horn went off beside him, startling him. He looked over to see Suzanne jump out of a blue Lexus, popping open one of those one-handed umbrellas before dashing around both vehicles to his passenger door. Ryan leaned over and opened it for her; smelling of wet wool and something floral, she climbed in, shaking the slush off the umbrella before closing it up and pulling it inside. Then she turned to him, her smile shaky.
“I can’t believe you still have this old truck.”
He patted the steering wheel. “Yeah, well, I don’t figure she’s ready to put out to pasture just yet.” Then he looked at his old girlfriend and said gently, “What is it, Suzie?”
She blew her breath into her cupped hands, letting them rest against her mouth for a second before saying, “It kind of threw me back there, running into you. Not something I’d planned on, you know? But…being home has given me some time to rethink a few things. And since the opportunity has presented itself…” Her breath left her lungs in a rush. “I just want you to know, Ry, I don’t blame you, at all, for what happened. I know it seemed like I did at the time, but I was confused and upset and just plain not thinking straight. Which I don’t suppose is much of an excuse, but…” She lowered her gaze to her hand, fiddling with one of her coat buttons. “I acted like an idiot, Ryan. But after…you know…I guess I just freaked. And by the time I realized what a fool I’d been…well. Sometimes, there’s no point in going back, is there?”
His heart torqued. Not for what might have been, or what he’d thought he’d lost, but simply…for her. “No. I don’t suppose there is.”
“Well…” She opened the door again, manning her umbrella. “That’s all I wanted to say.” But just before she got out, she added, “I just hope, for your sake, you made some better choices than I did.”
He was still chewing over what had just transpired when he pulled into his driveway a short time later, a frown consuming his features at the sight of Hank sitting on his porch in a rocking chair nobody ever used any more. His coat was only half on, and he was supporting his left arm with his right, around which he’d wrapped somethin
g light colored, like an undershirt or something.
Hank stood when Ryan came up the steps, still supporting his arm and wearing the look of a man in pain who refuses to let anybody in on that fact.
“What’d you do to yourself this time?” Ryan said, stomping snow off his boots, shaking it from his hat.
“Runaway screwdriver.”
“How bad is it?”
“Bad enough that I’m here.”
They were inside by now, heading straight for the exam room. After Hank shook off his coat, Ryan made him sit next to the exam table—he wasn’t looking any too good—then unwrapped the arm, shaking his head at the gash running a good five inches or so along the top of his forearm.
“Nice job.”
“Thanks.”
“Bleeding’s stopped, but now I have to open it up to clean it out.” He grabbed a couple gauze pads and the Betadine. “When was your last tetanus shot?”
“Beats me. Ten, eleven years ago? Guess I should have a booster.”
“Ya think? And I won’t bother asking how you managed to do this.”
Hank tried to grin, but it came out looking more like he was being tortured. “Talent.”
“Was the screwdriver at least clean?”
“Oh, yeah. I make a point of sterilizing all my tools before I start on a project.”
Ryan placed an absorbent pad on the exam table, had Hank set his arm over it to clean around and irrigate the wound. At Hank’s first wince through gritted teeth, Ryan said, “You can go ahead and cry, it’s okay.”
“Hell, no…I want my sucker—” He let out a five-star curse. “Son of a bitch, that hurts!”
“And just wait until I stick the needle in the wound to numb it.”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Just thinking back to that time you put airplane glue in my hair when I was asleep.”
“Damn, I’d forgotten that. How old were we?”
“You were old enough to know exactly what you were doing. I was old enough to know exactly how stupid I looked with a shaved head.”
Saving Dr. Ryan Page 23