Her Kind of Doctor

by Stella Bagwell

  “Everything looks nice. And homey.” In fact, it looked very much like the little house he’d grown up in back in West Virginia, he thought. The home he’d not really appreciated until his parents had died. After that the tiny rooms and basic furnishings had been little more than bittersweet memories to him.

  “Thanks,” she said. “That’s just the way Grandfather and I want it to be—homey.”

  Following the scent of cooking food, Paige reached for his hand and led him into the kitchen. The overly warm room had a high ceiling and walls that were papered with a design of trailing wisteria. A tall man with a mix of gray and red hair stood chopping a stalk of celery at the painted white cabinets. He was dressed in faded bib overalls and a gray chambray shirt, while his lace-up boots were the sturdy sort worn by men who worked outdoors.

  “Here he is, Grandfather. Come meet Luke.”

  The older man turned away from the cabinet and Luke stepped over to shake his hand.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. McCrea.”

  The man’s rough hand was strong as it pumped Luke’s up and down in a hearty shake.

  “Call me Gideon,” he insisted, then cast his granddaughter a teasing smile. “So this is your Dr. Sherman. He looks like a regular kind of guy to me. I thought he was going to have horns or fangs.”

  “Grandfather! Don’t you dare start that nonsense of yours!” Paige quickly scolded, then tossed Luke a pleading look. “Don’t listen to him. He’s full of Irish blarney.”

  “Now I’m going to get down to the real truth,” Luke said to Paige, then turned his attention back to Gideon, “Call me Luke, sir. I’m not Dr. Sherman today.”

  “Luke it is,” the older man said with a cheerful grin, then pulled out a chair at the wooden table. “Have a seat. We’ll have everything on the table in just a minute.”

  “I hope you don’t mind eating in the kitchen,” Paige said. “We don’t have a dining room.”

  “Well, hell, Paige, the man can see that for himself,” Gideon scolded her. “And I’m betting he doesn’t care where he eats as long as it tastes good. Right, Luke?”

  “That’s right,” Luke said as the image of his enormous dining room popped into his thoughts. It was beautifully furnished with a long mahogany table that could easily seat twenty people. Along with the table, there was an intricately carved buffet table to match, plus an enormous china cabinet filled with delicate dishes and silverware. The heavy drapes at the windows could be pulled to show off a spectacular mountain view of the lake. During the past five years, he’d held three dinner parties there for a few fellow physicians and their wives. Other than those three times, the room remained empty and useless.

  “Maybe you’d like to freshen up before we eat,” Paige suggested to him. “I’ll show you to the bathroom.”

  Excusing himself to Gideon, Luke followed Paige out of the kitchen and into a tiny hallway.

  “The house was built in 1940 and when Gideon bought it, there wasn’t an indoor bathroom. That was somewhere around 1958, I think. He built this one himself. That’s why it’s way back here at the back of the house,” she explained, then smiled. “I think you’ll find soap and towels and whatever else you need.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be right back.” He started toward the bathroom, but before he could take another step, she caught him by the arm. “Was there something else?”

  Her smile wavered and as her gray eyes studied his face, he got the feeling she could see right through him.

  “I only wanted to tell you how happy I am that you’re here. I have to be honest, Luke. When Grandfather first suggested that I invite you out to dinner I… Well, I had reservations.” Her gaze dropped to their feet. “I didn’t know what you would think of the place. I was afraid you’d look down on us—on me. I realize that was awful for me to think such a thing.” Her gaze returned to his face and Luke thought he could discern a haze of moisture in her eyes. “Forgive me, Luke, for thinking you could be that sort of person.”

  His throat tight, he cupped a hand alongside her cheek. “No. I’m not that sort of person. I could never look down on you. Not for any reason.”

  A happy light returned to her eyes and Luke suddenly felt like that same arrogant bastard who’d ordered her out of the ER. Try as he might, he couldn’t be the truly good man she believed him to be, and that thought filled him with an incredible weight of disappointment. More than anything he wanted to make Paige happy. To keep her happy. But what would that cost him?

  “I must have been crazy when I called you inhuman.” She smacked a kiss on his cheek, then pushed him toward the bathroom. “Go. I’m hungry!”

  After Luke made quick use of the bathroom, he returned to the kitchen, where the table was already loaded with a platter of fried chicken, several side dishes and tall glasses of iced tea. Paige directed him to sit next to her, while Gideon took a seat at the end.

  Once everyone was settled, the older man said the blessing and began to pass around the dishes of food.

  Paige said, “I told Grandfather that I’ve never seen you eat fried food, but he thinks it’s not Sunday dinner if we don’t have fried chicken.”

  Luke forked a piece of the chicken onto his plate. “Doctors cheat, too. Especially when he knows his nurse isn’t a tattletale.”

  Gideon chuckled as he continued to pass the food in Luke’s direction. “Paige tells me you live over by Tahoe. What do you think about all this farmland of ours?”

  “I was surprised to see it. This is the first time I’ve ever been in this area. I wasn’t expecting it to look so green and fertile.” He looked at Gideon. “Have you always been a Nevadan?”

  “Yep. I was born in Virginia City. My great-great-grandfather helped build the Virginia and Truckee Railroad back in 1869. The next two generations of McCrea men worked the railroad, too. Until my dad came along. He worked in the silver mines—back when silver was still worth digging for.”

  “I came from mining country back in West Virginia,” Luke told him. “Coal.”

  “Never been back east myself,” Gideon remarked. “Only time I was ever away from Nevada was when I served in the army.”

  “Grandfather is a war veteran—Vietnam,” Paige said proudly. “He got a Purple Heart for his service.”

  “Paige! Don’t be boring Luke with stuff like that. I didn’t do anything special. Just happened to get wounded, that’s all.”

  Paige looked over at Luke and winked. “He’s modest. Until the subject of women comes up and then he thinks he’s a specialist.”

  Gideon let out a hearty laugh and suddenly Luke was thrown back in time. Instead of Paige and her grandfather, he was seeing his mother at one end of the table and his father at the other. Across from Luke, his sister, Pam, was making faces, trying to make him laugh. The food was never the healthiest, but his mother had always made it taste good.

  Not until today. Not until this moment had Luke realized the importance of those times in his life. Those were the days he’d felt loved. Really loved. Now his parents were gone and his sister had become little more than a distant relative. He could never go back. Could never recover what he’d lost.

  “Luke? Are you okay?”

  Paige’s voice penetrated his dark trance and he looked at her blankly.

  “I’m sorry, Paige. What did you say?”

  Frowning with concern, she touched a hand to his face. “Luke, you’re sweating! Are you getting ill?”

  At the end of the table Gideon lowered his fork. “It’s hot as hell today. Go turn the air conditioner to a cooler number, Paige. Luke’s probably not used to the house being this hot.”

  Paige started to rise to do her grandfather’s bidding, but Luke grabbed her arm before she could. “No. Uh, that’s not necessary. I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure?” Paige asked.

  He did his best to give her a broad smile. “I’m a doctor, remember. I’m not ill—only hungry.”

  Hungry for things that wasn’t included in his plans. For a
love that didn’t fit. But today he wasn’t going to dwell on those problems. Today he was going to try to be the man his parents had always wanted him to be. A regular guy who followed his heart.

  Chapter Eleven

  Although Paige argued with her grandfather about washing the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen, Gideon insisted he was going to do the chore, while she showed Luke around the place.

  As they left the house by the way of the back porch, Paige wrapped her hand around his arm. “Are you sure you’re up to this, Luke? You still look a bit peaked to me.”

  He gave her a big smile. “Nonsense. I feel fine. But if you’d like to take my pulse, you may.”

  Paige chuckled, but underneath she had the uneasy feeling that something was wrong. Or maybe she was only imagining he wasn’t being quite himself. Either way, she desperately wanted him to enjoy this day with her. She wanted him to see her home through her eyes and appreciate its beauty as much as she did.

  “Okay, let’s go. But if you get shaky, tell me.”

  He curled an arm around the back of her waist. “If I get shaky just take me to a dark corner of the barn and…resuscitate me.”

  “Hmm. I think you’re fully recovered,” she said teasingly. “Come on. I’ll show you the chicken yard first.”

  They walked across a short backyard and out a gate toward the farmyard. As they moved toward the chicken house and surrounding pen, Luke said, “The chickens are running loose. You don’t always keep them penned?”

  “When I gathered the eggs this morning, I left the gate open. They like to roam and pick up whatever worms and bugs they can find. We only keep them up at night to keep them safe from coyotes.”

  “I see. Do you have many coyotes around here?”

  “Yes. But Samson thinks he’s tough. He chases them away with that gruff bark of his. When we get him a girlfriend he’ll have help. He’s going to enjoy that.”

  He slanted her a faint smile. “You’re excited about getting another dog, aren’t you?”

  “Of course! I’m always excited about getting another animal on the farm. When you see me come into work with bleary eyes it’s because I’m spending time out here with the animals, rather than getting my sleep.”

  “I thought it was because you’d been spending too many late afternoons with me,” he said huskily.

  She shot him a provocative grin. “That, too.”

  After showing him inside the chicken house, where there were roosting racks and rows of straw nests where the hens laid their eggs, she guided him over to a large goat pen.

  “Now the goats have to stay inside the fence,” she informed him. “Otherwise they’d just keep going and eat everything in sight. So our neighbors wouldn’t be too happy about that. Except for Rob Duncan. He probably wouldn’t say anything. Grandfather says the man would marry me in a minute if I’d only say yes.”

  He stopped in his tracks and stared at her. “Marry you! Are you kidding me?”

  Paige groaned. “I shouldn’t have said that. It just popped out. Rob is—He’s a nice guy and all that. He’s a farmer, too, and great about coming over and helping Grandfather with the tractor and that sort of thing. But I—He’s not my type.”

  A slight frown creased his forehead and Paige wondered if Luke might actually be jealous. But she seriously doubted it. A person had to be in love to be jealous and she didn’t think Luke had ever reached that kind of feeling about her. She wanted to believe that might change, but so far he wasn’t talking about love, much less spending his life with her.

  “Just what does this farmer look like?”

  Shaking her head, she opened the gate to the goat pen and ushered him through it.

  “Rob is in his late thirties. He’s a big, rawboned farmer. Stout as an ox with a wholesome face. He’ll make some woman a good husband. Just not me.”

  “Because you don’t plan on getting married again?”

  His question took her by surprise. Marriage was a word that rarely entered Luke’s conversation.

  “No. I’d like to get married again—someday. But to someone I’m truly in love with. And that isn’t Rob Duncan.”

  He smiled at her, but Paige could see the expression didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  “I’m glad to hear I don’t have competition.”

  Competition for what? she wondered. Her heart? Or a place in her bed? The questions burned the tip of her tongue, but she left them unspoken. This was the first time Luke had visited her home and she wanted it to be an enjoyable day for him. It was hardly the time to be pinning him down for answers that he clearly wasn’t ready to give.

  Changing the subject completely, she pointed to a caramel-brown nanny goat standing atop a small lean-to shed. “Frieda is doing her daily circus act. She loves to climb. Or she thinks she’s the queen when she’s standing over the rest of the herd,” she added with a laugh.

  “She looks pregnant,” Luke observed.

  “She’s due pretty soon. She nearly always has twins. Now Gertrude, the spotted nanny over by the fence, is a real producer. She sometimes gives birth to triplets. Come closer,” she invited. “The girls love to be petted. The billy is independent, though.”

  “Do you sell the offspring?”

  “Yes. Otherwise, we’d be running over with too many goats from the same bloodline. But I love it when we have a bunch of little ones running around.”

  For the next few minutes Luke acquainted himself with the goats and then Paige suggested they visit the barn.

  “What do you keep in the barn?” Luke asked as they walked toward the weathered structure.

  “Farm equipment. Feed and hay. Things like that. And it’s home to five barn cats. Most of them are antisocial. Sort of like a doctor I used to know,” she teased, then looped her arm through his and glanced up at the bright sky. “It’s such a beautiful day. I’m so enjoying having you here on the farm, Luke. I hope I’m not boring you.”

  “You’re not boring me at all. I’m getting to see a whole different side of you,” he said. “And I like your grandfather very much. He actually reminds me of my father’s father. I was just a young boy when he passed away, but I remember him taking me fishing and teaching me about outdoor things.”

  “And your other grandparents?” she asked. “Are any of them living?”

  He shook his head. “Mom’s folks passed away when she was a very young girl. She was raised by an aunt and uncle. My other grandmother died a few years ago. She fell and suffered a hip fracture. After that her health went rapidly downhill. It didn’t help that Granddad wasn’t around to give her a reason to live.”

  “Yes,” Paige said softly. “We all need a reason to live.”

  “Paige!”

  The sound of Gideon’s voice calling her name had them both pausing to see the older man standing at the side of an older blue-and-white pickup truck.

  “Are you going somewhere?” she called to him.

  “Over to Hatti’s. They’re having bingo at the VFW hall and she wants me to take her. Dang woman, she could drive herself. But she’s stubborn. I’ll see you two later.”

  He waved, then climbed into the truck. Once he had the vehicle pointed toward the road, he tromped on the gas, sending a cloud of dust flying into the air.

  Luke squinted at the disappearing truck. “Does he always drive like that?”

  Paige laughed. “Always. There’s nothing slow about Grandfather.”

  A few minutes later, after Paige had given Luke a brief tour of the barn, they headed back to the house. Samson, his tail wagging, walked close to Luke’s side and she couldn’t help wondering how he really felt about the dog and everything else about the farm. He’d been smiling and saying all the right things, but she had the feeling that a part of him was far away.

  As they stepped up on the porch, she said, “If you’d like I’ll fix us something cool to drink and we can sit here on the porch.”

  Raking a hand through his hair, he hesitated, then glanced out to his
parked car. “I really should be heading back to Tahoe,” he said. “You know what a long drive it is. And I’m sure you have things to do.”

  He might as well have slapped her. “Are you serious? It’s still a few hours until dark. And Grandfather will be gone for ages. I thought…you’d want to spend some quiet time with me before you leave.”

  A sheepish look crossed his face and then he grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “Of course I want to be alone with you, Paige. But I—I’m not sure I’d feel right about it.”

  She frowned as uncertainty washed through her. “Feel right about what?”

  He groaned with frustration. “This is your grandfather’s house,” he said, as though that explained everything.

  “So? It’s my house, too.”

  He studied her for long moments and as she stood there looking up at him, waiting for some sort of reply, she realized she was seeing a different Luke. This wasn’t the same man who couldn’t wait to get her into his bed. Something had changed. Whether it was something she had said or done, or if it was simply the farm that had shifted his feelings around, she didn’t know.

  Her heart thudding heavily, she eased her hand from his and walked to the far end of the porch. “You’re right, Luke. Maybe you should go. I do have plenty to do before dark. The chickens have to be fed and penned. The goats will need to be fed and hayed and the kids separated from their mamas, so that I can milk in the morning. And there’s laundry to be done. Grandfather smeared wheel-bearing grease on the sleeves of one of his good shirts. I promised him I’d try to get the stain out. And—”

  Before she could finish, he came up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist.

  “Paige, honey, you know I want you,” he whispered roughly. “I can hardly look at you without wanting you. I just felt unsure about us being together…here.”