by Baker, Fran
If, if, if! He clenched his teeth as strongly as he clenched the fist that loudly thumped the chair arm, fighting to keep from sinking back into a black pit of self-pity.
“What was that?” Dovie threw open her bedroom door and peered anxiously around the jamb.
He practically jumped out of his skin. “What was what?”
“I heard a noise, and I thought …” Truth was, she’d thought she heard him slam the front door on his way out and she’d panicked.
Ruefully, he relaxed his fist.
For no logical reason, Dovie’s skin rippled sweetly when Nick uncurled those long bronze fingers. She looked away, wetting her lips nervously. “Sorry if I disturbed you.”
He smelled her attar of roses drifting across the room and lied through his teeth. “You didn’t.”
“Ah, good.” She told herself that her jittery nerves were the natural aftermath of her accident. But she knew that some of her tenseness had to do with standing in her dry bra and panties only a few feet and a partially open door away from Nick. She drew back. “Well—”
“Don’t shut the door.” He hadn’t planned to say that. It’d just popped out.
She was half-dressed; he was all man. Keeping the door open while she finished putting on her clothes would invite a new and potentially hazardous intimacy between them. But closing the door when he’d asked her not to would be tantamount to slamming it in his face.
“I thought maybe we could visit.” Suppressed emotion roughened Nick’s voice as he tried to make light of his request. “Besides, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”
Sensing the enormity of his need, Dovie acted on impulse. She puffed up her chest, propped her hands on her hips, and adopted a comic Mae West drawl. “I hate to tell you this, Doc, but you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”
From the living room came the heartiest laugh she’d ever heard. “Cheeky little broad, aren’t you?”
“So I’ve been told.” Warming to the game, she gave her cotton-covered bottom a resounding whack with the flat of her hand.
As naturally as night follows day, so compromise flowed from camaraderie. Dovie left the door open but carried her clothes into the half-bath off her bedroom. Nick agreed to speak up loud and clear, something he did almost immediately.
“I like your house.” Stiffly starched curtains at the windows and oil-soaped oak floors made it aromatic, while the crackling fire and this comfortable chair he was sitting in made it cozy. All told, he felt a sense of home here—a feeling that had been missing from his life for a long, long time.
“Thanks.” She smiled, thinking it was a good thing she’d gone ahead with her annual Christmas cleaning even though she wasn’t expecting company for the holidays. “I call it ‘the house that hope built.’ ”
“Why is that?”
“Because Pop built it hoping that three bedrooms would be enough to sleep his family.” Dovie slipped on the black scrap-wool pullover she’d knitted during a long rainy spell the past fall. Pushing the sleeves of her sweater back to her elbows she added, “Eight kids later, he finally abandoned hope of keeping up with the birthrate around here.”
He gave a low whistle. “Eight?”
“It got so I was afraid to ask, ‘What’s new?’ when I came home from school!”
He laughed. “All grown and gone?”
She paused in the midst of zipping up the matching black pants she’d made on Mama’s old treadle-operated sewing machine, a faraway look on her face as she answered, “All gone … except for me.”
The hint of sadness in her admission hit Nick squarely in the solar plexus. Somehow he knew the answer to his next question even before he asked it. “And your parents?”
“Mama died of childbed fever after Arie, our youngest, was born.” She’d forgotten socks. Padding barefoot into the bedroom, Dovie finished telling him about her parents. “Pop died four years later, in a sawmill accident.”
“Who raised you kids?”
She swallowed, her heart threatening to explode, her eyes to flood. “I did.”
Of course. People from these parts traditionally took care of their own. In the relatively short time he’d known her, Nick had had no reason to think Dovie would do any less.
“And I did a darn good job of it, if I do say so myself!” Tossing her head proudly, she reached into the far corner of her top drawer for that pair of metallic-gold-and-cardinal-red sport socks that her little sister in Chicago had sent her for Christmas last year.
In the note accompanying the package, Arie had suggested the glitter socks might “jazz up” Dovie’s winter wardrobe. Now, looking from her chiffonier to her closet to her reflection in the cheval mirror, she realized she was sick and tired of wearing black or navy blue all the time.
Defiantly she sat down on her bed and drew those gaudy red socks on. Then she stuck her foot out and rotated the ankle this way and that, admiring the look and feel of Arie’s gift. Just because a woman was a few birthdays beyond the age of consent, she didn’t have to dress like Whistler’s mother!
“You’re the oldest.” Nick stated the obvious.
“Yes.” Dovie went on to name her seven brothers and sisters and to brag a little about all their different accomplishments, but he barely listened.
For the first time since he’d lost his eyesight, he was interested in a woman. And not just physically, either, although he freely admitted that her generous curves had him going in circles. No, this was something different. It wasn’t merely the flesh he found himself liking about Dovie, but her personality, a staunch spirit in the face of adversity, an ability to take the negatives in life and make them positive.
Nick closed his eyes and clenched both of his hands into fists, cudgeling back a wealth of frustration. The hell of it was, he had nothing to offer a woman anymore. Especially one who’d already seen her share of sorrow. So where did that leave him? Ready to cut his losses and run, that’s where!
“If you’re hungry,” she offered as she came out of the bedroom, “I could make us some hash.”
His whole body went still. The hunger he felt had nothing whatsoever to do with food. “That’s not necessary.”
“Have you eaten?” Dovie crept cautiously across the living room toward the laundry room, trying not to fall on her recently waxed floor. Her boots weren’t dry yet, and her new red socks were slippery on the bottom.
“No.” As though to remind him that the trout breakfast he’d planned on hadn’t worked out, Nick’s stomach growled. “But don’t go to any trouble on my account.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble.” She threw their wet clothes in the dryer and set the timer for an hour, then made her way on cat’s feet to her small Shaker sewing rocker, opposite Nick’s chair. Funny, how she suddenly considered it his chair. “Really! I always cook enough to feed an army—habit, I suppose—and you’re more than welcome to join me.”
“Homemade hash?” His deep tone sounded so wistful that Dovie couldn’t help but smile. “With potatoes and onions and a poached egg on top?”
“Is there any other kind?” she teased as she lowered herself into the rocker with a heartfelt sigh of relief.
He remembered all those canned goods lining his kitchen shelves back at the cabin and the remaining vestiges of his reluctance vanished. “Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind—”
“Pish tosh.” Sitting and chatting with him in front of the fire like this, she felt a momentary pang for what might have been had she chosen to marry. “I’d love the company.”
“And I’d love a decent meal for a change,” he confessed with a disarming smile. “Harley is a terrific driver but a terrible cook.”
“Harley?”
“My houseman.”
“Oh, right.”
Nick stood at the same that that her Seth Thomas mantel clock chimed half-past eight. “Which reminds me, I’d better give him a call and tell him about the change in plans. He was going to pick me up on the river road at nine.”
&n
bsp; “The telephone’s in the kitchen.” Dovie saw him stiffen defensively and realized her mistake.
Ignoring her first instinct, which was to take his arm and lead him across the room, she sat perfectly still and added, “Turn right and take about”—she studied the muscular length of his legs, trying to calculate—“five steps. It’s a wall phone. You can’t miss it.”
“Wanna bet?” he grumbled good-naturedly. By following her directions to the letter, though, he did find the telephone.
“We’re in a different area code than Richmond.” Naturally she assumed he wanted to call his home there.
“It’s a local call.” He met the truth head-on as he reached for the receiver. “I’ve rented a cabin about a half mile west of where we were fishing this morning.”
She looked at him, stunned. “You lied to me about where you live?”
“I didn’t lie.” He dropped his hand. “I really do live in Richmond.”
“Silence can be a lie.”
He knew she was right. He’d deceived her by his silence, hoping to keep her at arm’s length. But in the long run he’d outsmarted himself. He took a hard breath. “What can I say? I was—”
The telephone rang, cutting him off in mid-sentence. As though it were the most natural thing in the world, Nick answered it. “Hello.”
“Who’s this?” the caller asked point-blank.
Rudeness begat rudeness as Nick replied in kind. “Who wants to know?”
“Curtis Lee Brown, that’s who!” His booming declaration carried clear across the room.
At that, Dovie catapulted from her rocker and fairly skidded across the highly polished floor in her stockinged feet.
“Now, who the hell are you,” her brother all but bellowed, “and what are you doing in my sister’s house at eight damn thirty in the morning?”
“Maybe you’d better explain it to him,” Nick said, handing her the receiver.
“Dovie Ann, are you all right?” Curtis demanded.
“Of course I’m all right.” Anger ripped through her voice as she released some of her pent-up pain on her brother. “And where do you get off calling up here and lighting into my guest like that?”
“I was just surprised, that’s all,” he admitted, then added tactlessly, “I mean, it’s not every day a man answers your telephone.”
Honestly, she thought, she wanted to reach through the telephone wire and strangle him! “It’s not every day I fall in the river, either.”
“What?”
Both the sting of Nick’s rejection and the shock of his deception began to fade as Dovie described her fall and the way his quick action had saved her life. She left nothing out. Quite literally he’d given her a second chance. In return she gave credit where credit was due.
Nick lazed back against the wall, feeling guilty as sin as he listened to Dovie praising him to the skies. He’d badly misjudged her and he owed her an apology—no two ways about it. But he wasn’t good at making apologies. Never had been, and probably never would be.
Her intense tone suddenly piqued his professional interest. “Did you call your doctor? Do you need to borrow my car to drive her to the hospital?… What does he mean, it sounds like flu? How can he sit in an office fifty miles away and tell flu from labor?”
Dovie drew in a deep, calming breath then. “Well, it’s not going to do either one of us any good to get mad, but it’s at times like this that I wish the plans for our clinic hadn’t fallen through.… Tell you what. Come get my car and take Linda into Richmond so the doctor can examine her properly.”
On the other end of the line, Curtis lowered his voice to a confidential level.
“Right,” she replied softly.
While Dovie waited for her brother to relay her message to his wife, she directed her attention to Nick. “Curtis said to tell you he’s sorry he yelled at you a moment ago, but with no doctor nearby and his first baby showing signs of being born two weeks early, he’s just about reached the end of his rope.”
“No hard feelings.” Nick shrugged nonchalantly, thinking he could certainly tell her a thing or two about hanging on by a thread. Against his better jugement he asked, “How far apart are your sister-in-law’s pains?”
“They’re not really pains per se,” Dovie admitted reluctantly. “Curtis said she woke up shivering, with a splitting headache, and now she’s complaining of mild stomach cramps.”
Obeying an impulse that was overwhelming for all that it remained nameless, Nick pressed on. “Is she spotting? Has her water broken yet?”
“No. But when Mama went into labor with our twins, Merle and Mary, she had symptoms similar to Linda’s.” Dovie put her hand over the mouthpiece, Nick’s sudden interest sparking an idea. “If Linda were your patient, what would you suggest she do?”
“She’s not my patient!” he rebuked her rawly, shoving himself away from the wall to stand with his back to her, his head bent while he rubbed his neck. “And don’t ask me to second-guess her physician!”
Shocked and hurt by his outburst, she stared at him. “You initiated this conversation, Nick, not I.”
“Damn!” He cursed the darkness that engulfed him, hating it more with each passing day. Still, he didn’t come right out and say he was sorry. “I didn’t mean to snap at you, Dovie, but—” He bit off his sentence and turned to face her, grim lines bracketing his sensuous mouth. His shoulders were tense, braced against the terrible impact of his memories. “It’s just that obstetrics was my favorite part of practicing family medicine—the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak.”
He smiled, but Dovie realized it was merely a polite movement of his lips rather than an expression of humor. “As hokey as it sounds, I used to hold those small, squalling, squirming bundles of joy in my arms and think, ‘Maybe this one will discover the cure for cancer. Maybe this one will become President someday. Maybe this one will bring a lasting peace to the earth.’ ”
Tears filled her eyes as she noted the way Nick’s strong, sure hands sliced the air for emphasis. Law, she felt the loss as deeply as he did! Struggling for control, she cleared her throat. But before she could speak, her brother came back on the line.
“Linda says she’s feeling a little better now that I’ve turned up the thermostat and she’s had something warm to drink.” Curtis seemed a lot calmer. “She also says she doesn’t want to ride to Richmond in a snowstorm, then have to turn around and come home again, if it’s nothing more serious than the flu.”
“Well, don’t let it go on too long,” Dovie admonished. The memory of her mother’s untimely death haunted her.
“Dr. Rodgers is right on top of this.” Curtis voiced complete confidence in their family physician. “He’s always on call, even through the night, and I promised to notify him if there’s the least little change in her condition.”
“Joe Rodgers?” Nick asked when he heard the name.
“Yes.” Without so much as a second thought, Dovie turned to him for reassurance. “Do you know him?”
“We interned together. And if it relieves your mind any, I’d trust him with my life.”
“It does.” She perked up immediately. “Thanks.”
“Say what?” her brother asked.
“Here, ask him yourself.” Dovie handed the receiver to Nick so he could talk to Curtis, then went to put the coffeepot on.
Nick shook his head as he hung up the phone. “Is it always this hectic around here?”
“Not so much now that the kids are gone.” She removed a foil-covered package of leftover corned beef from the refrigerator. “But there’re still times I meet myself coming and going and wonder where I’ve been—especially when my nieces and nephews are here.”
He laughed and reached for the receiver again. “I hope I haven’t missed Harley.”
Dovie wanted to ask him why he hadn’t told her right off the bat about the cabin he’d rented, but she was afraid to rock the boat. He was entitled to his privacy. And he certainly didn’t owe h
er any explanations.
But if it was privacy he was seeking, she thought as she took a skillet from the drawer at the bottom of her stove, he’d come to the wrong place. Spicey Hill was home to the nicest, nosiest bunch of people she’d ever heard had existed on this planet. And she’d bet dollars to doughnuts, once word got out that there was a doctor in residence, even briefly, he’d be swamped with calls.
“Harley said the roads were getting slick, so I told him I’d meet him down by the river at ten-thirty.” Nick snapped the thread of her reverie with his report. After washing his hands at the sink, he asked her expectantly, “Is there anything I can do to help?”
She clamped her metal food mill to the edge of the counter top and began grinding chunks of corned beef onto a piece of waxed paper she’d spread. “You can set the table when it’s time to eat.”
“Fair enough.” He went to the stove and tested the heat of the burner by waving his hand over it. “Coffee’s done.”
“Here, I’ll pour us some.” She crossed to the hard-pine hutch where she kept the blue-marble enamelware that Mama had set up housekeeping with and got two cups.
“I’ll pour,” he insisted.
And to Dovie’s everlasting amazement, Nick did exactly that—filling the cups he’d taken from her without spilling a drop.
“I listen for the liquid to reach the right level and then I stop,” he explained, correctly surmising that she was dying of curiosity. Turning, he held out her cup. “Cream or sugar?”
“Will wonders never cease?” Her fingers brushed his when she took the cup, and she stood like a statue feeling the touch of a magic wand, suddenly imbued with life-giving current.
“I hope not.” Something good was happening to him, had been happening to him all morning. He was laughing again. Arguing again. Caring again. It was like opening an old wound that hadn’t healed properly and pouring antiseptic on it. Agonizing as hell. But worth it, if one could look beyond the pain.