by Diana Palmer
Just as she made it to the corner, a carload of bored teenage boys pulled up to the curb, with the windows open, and began to make catcalls.
She tried ignoring them, but they only got louder, and the car began to follow her. She wasn’t frightened, but she might yet have to go back to the theater. It would be the perfect end to a perfectly rotten date.
Furious at her predicament, she whirled and glared straight into the eyes of the boy in the passenger seat. “If you want trouble, you’ve come to the right place,” she assured him. She dug into her pocket for a pencil and pad and walked right to the back of the car to write down the license plate number.
When they realized what she was about to do, they took off. One of the real advantages of living in a small town was the fact that most cars were instantly recognizable to the local police; and they knew where the owners lived. A license plate number would make the search even easier. But these guys weren’t too keen to be located. They left rubber on the street getting away.
She stood staring after them with her eyebrows raised, the pencil still poised over the blank paper. “Well, well,” she murmured to herself. She made a check on the paper. “That’s one for my side.”
She turned the corner and walked briskly to the alley that cut between one street and another. It took her right to her apartment house. She went inside and up to her small apartment, muttering furiously to herself all the way. Some great date, she thought furiously. Not only had her date ignored her, but she’d been catcalled on the street like a streetwalker.
“No wonder Amazons only used men for breeding stock,” she told her door as she inserted the key in the lock.
She went into her lonely apartment, locked the door and unplugged the telephone. She had a small glass of milk and went to bed. It was barely nine-thirty, but she felt as if she’d worked hard all day.
Somewhere around eleven she heard knocking on her door, but she rolled over and pulled the pillow over her head. Guy Fenton could stand there until hell froze for all she cared.
The next morning she went to church, surprised to see Drew Morris there. He went to the same church, but he didn’t often attend services, due to his erratic schedule. Several times she’d seen him check his beeper and leave right in the middle of the offering. A doctor couldn’t be certain of any sort of normal social attendance, especially a family doctor who specialized in pediatrics. It must make his weekends nerve-racking, she thought.
After the service, he stopped her on the sidewalk, his face somber.
“What happened last night?” he asked abruptly.
Her eyebrows arched. “What?” she exclaimed, shocked.
“I saw you,” he said impatiently. “You were walking—no, you were running—down an alley, alone, about nine-thirty last night. Where was Fenton?”
“Enjoying his date. Sadly it wasn’t me.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“He likes Millie,” she explained. “She was sitting in front of us, and she’s much more interesting to talk to than I am. She actually likes rodeo.”
Her tone tugged a corner of his mouth up. “Imagine that!”
“I hate cattle,” she said.
“Our economy locally would suffer if we didn’t have so many of them,” he said pointedly.
“Oh, I know that, but I thought we were going to see a movie,” she muttered. “It was a fantasy movie,” she recalled wistfully, “with a computer-created dragon that looked so real…” She flushed at the amusement in his eyes. “I like dragons,” she said belligerently.
“I’m partial to them myself.”
She shrugged. “I’ll see it another time,” she murmured. “It wasn’t important.”
He barely heard her. He was amazed to find himself outraged on her behalf. Kitty wasn’t bad-looking at all. She had pretty legs and a neat little figure.
She was intelligent and she had a fine sensitivity that was refreshing.
Millie, on the other hand, was a born flirt and something of a man-eater. She had a reputation locally for stealing men away from their girlfriends. She and Guy Fenton were a match made in heaven. Poor Kitty.
“I have to go,” she said with a quiet smile.
She walked to the small used foreign car she drove, patting its white hood affectionately before she got in and started the engine. Dr. Morris was so nice, she thought, smiling as she watched him get into his Mercedes. He was a handsome man, too, and despite his impatience and sometimes unexpected bursts of temper, she liked him. If she wasn’t careful, he could become very important to her, and that would never do. He lived with a beautiful ghost. No mortal woman could ever compete with his Eve.
She spent an uneventful day watching old movies on television and went to bed early. Guy Fenton didn’t phone. She didn’t really expect him to. She decided to write him off as a bad experience and get on with her life.
She learned the office routine slowly but surely as the summer ended and autumn began. As the weeks slipped away, her filing improved, too. So did her people skills. She got to know the patients who came in regularly, and as the holidays approached, she found herself on the receiving end of all sorts of delicious recipes for turkey and dressing and pies.
She noticed that Guy Fenton didn’t come back to have his cast off and mentioned it to Nurse Turner, to be told that he’d gone to the emergency room for the procedure. She supposed he’d been too embarrassed about their disastrous date to come to the office. It was history, anyway.
She accepted jars of preserves with enthusiasm. She didn’t bother to put any of her own up, as she had nobody to cook for except herself. Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went and she spent them alone, having no close relatives to consider. Dr. Morris, as usual, went to his late wife’s family for both occasions.
Winter turned slowly to spring and Kitty began to feel like part of the office furniture, in the nicest possible way. Dr. Morris had started calling her “Kitty Cat,” to the amusement of some of his smaller patients who wanted to know if she could purr.
She marveled at the change in Dr. Morris’s treatment of her. His gruff, abrupt manner at first had given way to a casual friendliness that stopped just short of affection. He was forever dressing her, though, unfastening buttons and doing them up the right way, righting hair bows, grimacing when she wore one dark blue sock with one dark green one because she couldn’t see the difference between dark shades.
“I can’t wake up on time,” she muttered one day when he was rebuttoning her patterned blazer on a nippy day. “I’m always in a rush when I leave home.”
“Go to bed earlier,” he advised.
“How can I? The neighbors below me have one of those monster sound systems,” she muttered. “They like to listen to it until the wee hours. My floor vibrates.”
“Complain to the landlord,” he persisted.
“The landlord lives in Kansas City,” she said irritably. “He doesn’t care what they do if they pay the rent on time.”
He smiled wickedly as he finished the buttons and dropped his hands. “Buy a set of drums and practice constantly. Better yet, get bagpipes.”
Her eyes brightened. “But I have a set,” she said, laughing at his amazement. “They belonged to my father’s cousin, and we inherited them when he died. I never learned to play them.”
“No better time to practice.”
She chuckled. She hadn’t thought of her taciturn boss as a kindred spirit. “I’ll get them out tonight and see if the moths have eaten them.”
“Do you have Scottish ancestry?” he asked suddenly.
“Yes. Clan Stuart.”
“My mother’s forebears were Maxwells,” he mused. “They came over just after the Revolutionary War.”
“I don’t know anything about mine,” she replied. “Dad was too busy talking about wars to care much about ancient history. He was a retired colonel in the Green Berets. He served three tours of duty in Vietnam.”
He searched her eyes quietly. “You poor kid.
”
She flushed. “Why do you say that?”
“Your mother died when you were in grammar school, didn’t you say?”
She nodded.
“Just you and the colonel and the war,” he pondered aloud, dark eyes narrowing. “I’ll bet he scared hell out of any prospective dates.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” she murmured, recalling some fraught encounters. “He tried to teach one of my dates a hand-to-hand combat move.” She grimaced. “He accidentally threw him out the window instead. Fortunately it was open at the time and on the first floor. He actually left his car, he was in such a hurry to get away.”
He tried to smother a laugh. “I get the idea.”
“Dad loved me, in his way,” she continued wistfully. “And I loved him. But I didn’t like growing up like a soldier.”
“Taught you everything he knew, I’ll bet.”
“Oh, I could win medals in target shooting and karate,” she agreed. “But it would have been so much nicer if I could have learned to cook and sew. I liked those ‘sissy’ hobbies, even if he didn’t. I had to sneak over to my girlfriend’s house to knit, for God’s sake!”
“But you miss him, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” she confessed. “Every day. But he was a horrible father.”
“I’m not surprised.” He checked his watch and grimaced. “I’ve got to get going. I’ll be late for rounds, and there’s a hospital board meeting tonight.”
“You’ll be medical chief of staff one day,” she said proudly.
He chuckled. “Not if I start being late for meetings.” He heard her sigh—actually heard it, with its accompanying wheeze.
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Used your preventive medicine?”
She gaped at him. “What?”
“Your nedochromil sodium,” he replied, and then added the brand name she was prescribed.
“Yes,” she said shortly. “That and the albuterol as well. Religiously. I don’t like ending up in the emergency room.”
“See that you keep using them properly. You’ve got a wheeze.”
“Cold nights and warm days for a week,” she said.
He shrugged. “Yes. I’ve noticed the increase in my little asthmatics’ visits.” He picked up his jacket. “Is the medicine giving enough cover?”
His concern touched her, but she wasn’t going to let him know. “Yes, sir.”
“Good.” He checked his watch, nodded and left her in the waiting room as he went out the back way to his car. She felt a warm glow at the personal conversation they’d had. Nothing in their relationship had been the least personal until now.
But when she realized what she was thinking, she clamped down hard on her wandering attention. She’d have to be crazy to let Dr. Morris get under her skin. Even crazier than she’d been to go out with Guy Fenton.
Dr. Morris was just being the ideal boss, concerned for his workers’ welfare, she told herself. So she’d better concentrate on just doing her job and not trying to make intimate comments out of impersonal observations about her health. He was a doctor, after all. It was natural for him to be concerned with someone’s health.
Chapter 2
In the months since their disastrous date, Kitty had put Guy Fenton out of her mind. She knew that he and Millie had a brief fling together, of sorts, but it didn’t seem to last long. And not because of any interference from Guy’s ex-girlfriend. In fact, there were rumors that she was seeing someone else.
Kitty hadn’t expected Guy to ever apologize for his behavior on their one and only date, but he did, when he came to have a routine physical for a new insurance policy, long after his cast had been removed—a procedure that she remembered he’d had done at the hospital rather than at Drew’s office.
“Letting you leave the theater that night without even noticing was a low thing to do, and I’m sorry,” he told her. “I love bulldogging. Millie was hanging on every word, and I’d been sweet on her for a long time. But that was no excuse for ignoring you until you left and went home alone at night. I’m really sorry—several months too late,” he added with a sheepish grin. “To tell you the truth, I was too ashamed to call you afterward.”
“No harm done,” she’d told him.
“Lucky for me,” he added vaguely. “Your, uh, boss had quite a lot to say about it.”
She was shocked. “Dr. Morris?”
“The very same. He dragged me out of bed in the bunkhouse at the ranch the day you told him and read me the riot act for ten minutes in front of the whole crew.” He quirked an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t have taken it from anyone else, but he had a point. I should have checked to see where you were when you didn’t come back with popcorn. Anything could have happened to you.” He stuck his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “There’s another reason I stayed away. I thought he might have designs on you.” He noted Kitty’s sudden color. “My mistake. I guess he only felt responsible for you since you work for him.”
“Yes,” she said, her head whirling, “I suppose so.”
He glanced at her with amusement. “I don’t suppose you’d like to try going out with me again? Even if I swore I wouldn’t talk rodeo with anybody in a nearby seat?”
She smiled pleasantly. “No, thanks.” She looked at the intercom and saw the light flashing. “You can go in now.”
He hesitated, but then he gave her a rueful smile and walked on down the hall. They had too little in common to make many waves together, anyway.
Later she was curious enough to ask Dr. Morris about what he’d said to Guy.
He gave her one of his blandest looks. “You could have been assaulted, walking around town alone at night, even in Jacobsville. Somebody needed to put him straight.”
“Shades of my dad,” she murmured.
Something changed in his expression. He studied her far longer than he meant to before he shrugged and turned away. “Just the same, pick your dates more carefully in the future, would you? I’ve got better ways to amuse myself than play nursemaid.”
“Such as?” she blurted.
He stared at her blankly.
“What better ways do you have to amuse yourself?” she persisted. “You work all day and then you help out in the emergency room if you don’t have late hours, which you mostly do. On weekends, you cover for doctors who are going on vacation or spending time with their families. I doubt you’ve dined out, taken in a movie or gone bowling in the past five years.”
He was clouding up again, like a thunderstorm waiting to crash down on her head. “My private life is no concern of yours,” he said pointedly. “Just do your job.”
She searched his hard face quietly, seeing deep lines there, and the beginnings of gray at his temples. He’d been a little overweight when she’d first come to work for him, but he’d lost the extra pounds and now he was streamlined; probably from all the work he did.
“There’s a whole world out there that you can’t even see,” she said, thinking aloud. “Children playing baseball, old men talking about past glories on their bench in the grocery store, gardeners telling lies about their prize roses over the fences. You don’t see any of that because you run past it.” She saw him tense, but she didn’t stop. “Dr. Morris, the only thing you’re going to accomplish is to put yourself in the grave next to your wife.”
“Stop it.”
His voice cut like a lash. “I’m sorry,” she replied. “Nobody else seems to care if you kill yourself. Being a workaholic is fine, for a while, but it catches up with you eventually. You should already know that you’re a prime candidate for a heart attack. Or is that why you push yourself so hard?” she added softly. “Is life so unbearable without her that you’re trying…”
“I said, stop it.”
This time there was no mistaking the threat. Any minute now, she was going to be minus a good job.
She backed off mentally, holding up her hands in mock defense. “Okay, I quit,” she said. “I’ll be a model secretary-recep
tionist from now on, seen but not heard.”
“Great idea, if you plan to keep working here,” he said, putting what he felt into words. He didn’t need to. The black fury in his eyes was threat enough. “If you want something to worry about, try having someone sort your hose so that you can wear two of the same shade!”
He indicated her feet. She looked down and grimaced. Peeking out from under her charcoal gray slacks were a pair of knee-high hose so obviously different that she flushed.
She looked up, tossing her head. “Done on purpose,” she proclaimed triumphantly. “I’m setting a new fashion trend.”
He made an odd sound. His eyes twinkled but he turned away before the grin inside him got loose.
“Get to work,” he muttered.
“Yes, sir!”
She whirled and headed back to her office, so flushed that Nurse Turner stopped her and felt her forehead.
“I’m fine,” she assured the middle-aged nurse. “I’ve just been rushing again.”
She glanced back toward the doctor and said loudly, “You’ve got workaholitis. It’s contagious!”
“There goes your Independence Day bonus,” he called over his shoulder without breaking stride.
Nurse Turner made a face at him.
“I saw that,” he called from his office without looking back.
“See?” she told Kitty. “You can’t win.”
“I already knew that.”
Nurse Turner took her by the arm and pulled her into the receptionist’s cubbyhole, closing the door carefully behind her.
“Don’t mention his wife, ever,” she cautioned gently. “He tends to brood around the time she died. It makes things worse for him.”
“When did she die?”
“Six years ago tomorrow,” the nurse said in a quiet tone. “The first year after it happened, he ran his car into a tree. Fortunately he was only mildly concussed. After that, Dr. Coltrain started keeping an eye on him. They’re friends, you know. Dr. Louise Blakely went out with him a time or two, and people began to wonder if he wasn’t getting over his wife, but then she married Dr. Coltrain. He’s been a real hermit ever since she married.”