Hank snorted. “Mama had to cut the pillowcase away, as I remember.”
“You still think it’s funny, don’t you?”
“Hell, yeah. Damn! How long’s that needle, anyway?”
Ryan grinned.
Several minutes later, when the Lidocaine had done its thing and Ryan started to suture the gash, Hank said, “So. You ever get hold of those people you were trying to find? For Maddie?”
As if he didn’t have enough on his mind.
“Yes, as a matter of fact—hold still, you idiot!—a few days ago,” he said evenly. “The foster mother said she’d be out as soon as there was a break in the weather.”
“Does Maddie know?”
Ryan carefully tied the first suture. “No.”
Hank’s brows lifted, but that was all. Then he said, “She’s gone, isn’t she?”
“Yep. Few days ago.”
“Thought it seemed awfully quiet.” Relaxed quite nicely now, Hank watched Ryan stitching up his arm with something akin to interest. “How you feel about that?”
Ryan wasn’t sure which surprised him more, the question itself or that Hank seemed to genuinely care about the answer. Determined to keep a neutral expression, Ryan asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Hank lifted one shoulder. “Whatever. Although I guess it’s easy to get used to having a woman around. One like Maddie, anyway. Gal sure can cook,” he said, frowning down at his half-stitched up arm.
Ryan grunted. Hank went on.
“So I guess you’re probably relieved that she’s gone. Must’ve been hard to deal with that kind of temptation, day in and day out.”
Needle poised in midair, Ryan fixed his gaze in his brother’s. Hank smirked. “Oh, I’m not talking about that kind of temptation, don’t go getting your drawers in a knot. What I’m talking about is the kind of temptation that makes a man forget why he’d rather stay single, that getting involved just sets you up for trouble down the road. And who the hell needs it, right?” He nodded toward his arm. “How many more of those you gonna do?”
Ryan frowned, tying off a stitch. “Two, maybe three. And this has nothing to do with me. It’s Maddie I was thinking about. What she needs.”
He could feel Hank’s gaze riveted to his face. “You are so full of it, you know that? We’re all full of it. Oh, we tell ourselves, and women, that we’re afraid of commitment, because what can they say to that? But what it boils down to is that we’re afraid, period. Of getting dumped. Of being rejected. Of being found…lacking in some way.” His heavy brows nearly met. “Of being the one left behind.” He lifted his gaze to Ryan’s. “The pain’s not worth it, Ry. You’re better off this way. Damn sight better off.”
His thoughts churning, Ryan tied off the last stitch, then dressed the wound. His brother’s bitterness over his fiancée’s death had skewed his perspective about everyone and everything, a condition only exacerbated by his reclusivity. Not that Ryan didn’t understand where his brother was coming from. He just didn’t see his situation in the same light.
Nor was he going to get into that with Hank. Not tonight.
Ryan gave Hank his tetanus shot, then said, “You want something for the pain? Cause that thing’s gonna hurt like holy hell when the local wears off.”
“I imagine I’ll live,” Hank said, carefully rolling down his sleeve over the bandage. “Can I go now?”
“Not in this storm, you’re not.”
“I can drive in the damn snow, Ryan. Besides—” he carefully maneuvered her arm through his coat sleeve “—storms mean stranded travelers. With any luck, a few of ’em might even blow my way. Duty first, y’know?”
Yeah. He knew.
Early January saw a series of snow and ice storms that paralyzed most of Arkansas, Oklahoma and a good part of east Texas as well. Nobody went anywhere unless it was a real emergency; Maddie couldn’t help but fret about Ryan and that old truck of his, knowing he didn’t have the luxury of staying put just because the weather was nasty. Eventually though, the weather cleared, the kids went back to school and day care, and Maddie got back into her work routine. Ryan, however—unfortunately—insisted on tagging along in her head.
More than once, she had to stop herself from taking him dinner, reminding herself the man had survived just fine before she came along; it was highly unlikely he’d starve to death now. Still, she couldn’t help but feel—
Stop it, Maddie Mae.
“Somebody here to see you.”
She jumped, having not heard Ned’s thumping into the kitchen. Glancing over from the pot she was filling at the sink to cook the potatoes in for dinner, she said, “Me? Who on earth would be looking to speak to me?”
“Don’t rightly know. Ain’t never seen her before.”
She turned off the water. “And it didn’t occur to you to ask her name?”
“Well of course I asked her name, gal—what do you take me for? But she wouldn’t tell me. Said it was a surprise.”
By now thoroughly puzzled, Maddie wiped her hands on the dishtowel hanging underneath the sink, forked her hand through her hair, then made her way out to the living room. The woman, a tallish, thin figure in a blazer and nice pants, her blond hair cut short, was standing with her back to Maddie, looking at the Wal-Mart picture of all the kids she’d just hung on the wall the other day.
“May I help you?”
The woman turned. Maddie’s breath caught in her throat.
“Oh, my sweet Lord, Maddie,” Grace Idlewild said, grinning from ear to ear, even though Maddie caught the tears shining in her brown eyes. “I’d just about given up hope of ever laying eyes on you again. Come here, sweetie,” she said, flinging her arms wide. “Come here and let me give you a big old hug.”
“You’ve learned to make real good coffee, honey,” Grace said a few minutes later, seated at the kitchen table.
“Thank you.” Maddie was still somewhat in a state of shock, a condition she imagined she’d be dealing with for some time to come. Although she hadn’t had to fabricate her needing to start the meat loaf, since it was getting on to five o’clock as it was, she was just as glad she had something to keep her mind occupied. “You say Dr. Logan contacted you?”
“Got my number off the Internet White Pages, he said. Left a message on my machine. Except didn’t figure he’d call the one time in God knows how many years I’d gone out to Idaho to visit my brother and his wife.”
Her back to Grace, Maddie poured a can of tomato sauce over the meat and bread crumbs in the glass bowl. If she didn’t have to see her—Maddie had yet to get used to Grace’s newly-slimmed figure, her youthfully styled, colored hair— Maddie could almost imagine herself back in Grace’s kitchen in Fayetteville.
“Why…why didn’t you call first?”
“You know, I told Dr. Logan this was risky, but he insisted on doing it this way.” She hesitated, then said, “Takes a very brave man to do something he knows full well could backfire on him. So my question is…did it?”
Maddie reached over for her salt and pepper. Shook her head.
“Well, that’s a relief,” Grace said on a laugh, her coffee mug clunking back on the table. “I can’t believe you have three children!”
Maddie reached up, flicked a tear off her cheek. “S-sure do. A boy and two girls. The baby’s just a little over three months old.”
“Where are they?”
“Noah’s at a friend’s house until six. Katie Grace and Amy Rose are both napping. They’ll be up soon, I imagine.”
“Katie…Grace?”
Nodding, Maddie sank both hands into the meat loaf concoction to smush it all together, her throat tightening when she heard Grace get up and walk over to stand beside her. “Why didn’t you get in touch with us, honey? You know we would’ve helped you out if you needed it.”
Maddie kept her attention on the meat loaf. “It’s like I told Ry—Dr. Logan. Didn’t seem right to ask you and George to bail me out of the mess I only had myself to blame f
or.”
“I see.” Grace reached up, pinching a dead leaf off the little African violet Mildred had given Maddie for Christmas. “So you assumed we’d written you off?”
“You didn’t exactly hide your feelings about me marrying Jimmy.”
“We were concerned for you, honey,” she said gently. “You know we’d hoped you’d go on to college, make a real life for yourself. Wait a few years to get married.”
“To somebody besides Jimmy.”
After a long moment, Grace said, “Would you want one of your daughters to marry someone like Jimmy Kincaid?”
Her words brought Maddie up short. Still, several beats passed before she said, “I’d be tempted to lock her up someplace first.”
With a chuckle, Grace looped one arm around Maddie’s shoulders. “I don’t think there’s a woman alive who hasn’t felt the pull toward a man like Jimmy. A man who seems to exemplify everything magic and hopeful and exciting. And true love is magic, sugar, no doubt about it. Just not the kind of magic the Jimmy Kincaids of the world seem to think it is. But that doesn’t mean you did wrong by loving that young man. And you didn’t do wrong by sticking with your marriage when the going got tough, either.”
“How do you—?”
“Your Dr. Logan told me what he knew.” She lowered her arm, then leaned against the counter. “That man thinks the world of you, Maddie. It’s a rare thing to find a…friend like that.”
Grace was fishing and Maddie darn well knew it. Her cheeks heating, she sprayed a loaf pan with Pam, plopped the meat loaf mixture into it and changed the subject. “How’s George doin’ these days?”
After a moment, Grace said quietly, “He’s been gone for nearly two years, honey. Went peacefully in his sleep, just two weeks shy of this seventieth birthday.”
Maddie’s mouth fell open on a soft “Oh” of genuine regret. “I’m so sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. We had a lot of wonderful years together.” She smiled. “Mixed in with a few not-so-wonderful years, but that’s the way it is when you’re married—”
“I’m in love with him.” The words popped out of her mouth like erupting lava. “Dr. Logan, I mean. I’m in love with a man who…who’s completely convinced himself he’s doing the ‘honorable’ thing by pushing me away.” Her eyes burning, she finally looked at the one woman she’d always been able to talk to. Would have been able to talk to, she now realized, even when she’d thought she couldn’t. “And I have no idea what to do.”
The corners of Grace’s mouth turned up as she lifted a hand to cup Maddie’s cheek. “I could hear the love in his voice, honey. And I wondered what on earth was going on.” Then she shrugged. “Unfortunately sometimes the only thing you can do is wait. Other times…” Another shrug. “You gotta light a little fire under their butts.”
Maddie smirked. “And how in tarnation do you propose I do that?”
Grace’s laugh startled her. Maddie turned to find herself facing an impossibly smug grin. “You know, one of two things is gonna happen here. Either your Dr. Ryan is going to rue the day he left that message on my machine…”
“Or?”
The grin grew broader. “Or he’s not going to be able to find words to thank me.”
Chapter 14
It turned out that Grace Idlewild had any number of ideas on the subject of male butt-burning, none of which Maddie could bring herself to implement. At least, not right off. Not that she wasn’t tempted—it was perfectly clear that Ryan was nearly as miserable as she was, but she didn’t think anybody would be any less miserable if the issue were forced. If his mind was made up, it was made up and that was that. So Maddie took the chicken’s way out, only going into the office when she pretty much knew he wouldn’t be there, otherwise letting things lie, through the rest of January…through February…and March.
And oddly enough, life didn’t come to a halt during those long, miserable weeks. Her foster mother stayed with them for a full week before going back to Arkansas, with promises to return in the spring. It snowed three more times, once bad enough to close school, and they had one crazy warm spell where it reached the seventies for three days in a row and all the daffodils started coming up.
Katie Grace turned four and learned to write her name.
Amy Rose sprouted three more teeth, learned to roll from her tummy to her back, and let Maddie know in no uncertain terms she was done with breast-feeding.
Noah got so caught up with all the new friends he’d started to make, he eventually forgot that Maddie was the enemy.
Ned and Mildred went to the senior citizens’ annual winter dance together and were thus declared an official “item.”
Maddie borrowed an old Singer from Didi Meyerhauser and made blue and white checked curtains for her kitchen, added custard pies to her repertoire, turned twenty-five without telling anybody and passed the first anniversary of Jimmy’s death without telling anybody about that, either.
Ruby and Jordy bought a new sofa and gave Maddie their old one.
Ryan gave her another raise. Maddie figured it was out of guilt, but she accepted it anyway.
And, long about the beginning of April, Maddie suddenly realized the hole in her heart, if not healed, had at least scabbed over enough to stop hurting quite so much. Which meant when Hootch Atkins asked her out for the fourth or fifth time, she accepted, ignoring the little voice in her head that was going, “Uh, uh, uh…”
In the weeks and months that followed that first snowy week in January, Ryan diagnosed twenty-three cases of the flu, five strep throats, removed no less than a half-dozen foreign objects from children’s assorted orifices—including an adventurous roly-poly from Timmy Frazier’s ear—set four broken bones, and lay awake half the night wondering if he was losing his mind.
He also found himself standing in the middle of his empty living room a lot, imagining he could hear Maddie’s laughter spilling down the stairs as she gave the kids their baths. Or he’d come home and could almost smell fried chicken or pork roast or spaghetti cooking. Or worse, much worse, he’d find himself looking for her, just to talk to, on those days when he’d had to break bad news to a patient, on those days when his best simply wasn’t good enough.
He missed her nagging him.
He missed hearing her country music.
Well, maybe he didn’t miss that. But he sure as hell missed her, just as he knew he would that day in October when she’d gone out to Cal’s. Even though he still saw her several times a week, when she’d come in to work for him, or when he was out on his rounds and would run into her someplace or other. It wasn’t the same as having her around, though.
Not the same at all.
But when a man’s in a rut as deep as Ryan’s, it takes some time before he figures out just how cramped it is in there. Maybe even two—or three—months. And during those two—or three—months, Ryan chewed over Ned’s and Hank’s words until there was nothing left of them but the truth, which was that he’d been expending a lot more energy these past few years saving his own hide than he had been saving his patients.
There was a shocker. And here was another one: in no way, shape or form was Ryan better off without Maddie, no matter what Hank thought.
Only about the time he decided he needed to do something with this revelation, he also decided he needed a haircut. And it was while he was at the barber’s that Coop Hastings let it slip that Hootch Atkins had been bragging over at the hardware store that Maddie Kincaid had finally agreed to go out with him.
Maddie had made it crystal clear to Hootch—or so she thought—that he was not to read anything serious into her acceptance, that they were just going out as friends. He’d assured her that was okay by him. And for the first part of the evening—he’d taken her to a popular bar and grill out near Pryor—he’d been a perfect gentleman.
Until about halfway through their meal when it became evident that the man couldn’t hold his liquor worth spit. Three beers and the man was drunk as a sku
nk. And although Maddie knew she could call any number of people to come get her—no way was she letting Hootch drive her home—she wasn’t sure how to extricate herself from her predicament without embarrassing the man.
“Hootch. Hootch!” Maddie reached over and poked him in the arm. “I’m askin’ the waitress to bring you some coffee.”
He looked at her long and hard, like he was trying to place her. Then a frown settled across his face. “Don’ wan’ coffee,” he said, batting at the waitress, who ignored him and poured him a cup anyway. Then he sighed, crashed his elbow onto the table hard enough to make the silverware jump, then leaned his cheek in his palm so that his left eye nearly closed. “You sure look pretty in that dress, Maddie.”
It was one of the two she’d bought with the gift certificate Ryan had given her, a simple short sleeved jersey, purple with tiny white flowers. It was far too prissy for a place like this where the fashion statement ran more to fringe and cleavage. Since she had neither, this had been her only choice. She was about to say “thanks” when Hootch slurred, “But I bet you look a lot prettier out of it.”
“Drink your coffee, Hootch.”
“Don’ wan’—”
Maddie leaned forward and said in a low, I-mean-now mother voice, “Either you drink that coffee or I’m outta here. Is that clear?”
He blinked several times with the effort to process her words, but eventually hand connected with cup and cup lifted to lips. Then she sighed. Land sakes, men were pathetic creatures. Next time, maybe she’d listen to the little voice. Except then a very unlittle voice cut through the music and the laughter, saying, “Maddie? You okay?”
Her heart nearly flew right out of her chest. She twisted around to see Ryan standing there like some avenging super-hero, arms crossed over his chest, glowering so hard at Hootch she was surprised the man hadn’t disintegrated on the spot. And Hootch, who was not so drunk that he couldn’t sense an affront to his manhood, got shakily to his feet, fists clenched, and Maddie thought, Oh, no.
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