by Jane Toombs
They reached the rural clinic just before twelve. Several cars were in the parking lot and, when they entered, Jade saw patients sitting in the waiting room. When she approached the gray-haired receptionist, the woman smiled at both of them.
“I’ll bet this is Tim,” she said.
Somewhat to Jade’s surprise, Tim nodded.
“I’m Betty Nichols,” the woman said. “Doctor wants you to wait in his private quarters on the second floor until he finishes here.” She rose and beckoned them to follow her through a door she’d unlocked. “Right up those stairs,” she said. “Just make yourselves comfortable.”
Tim insisted on climbing the stairs himself rather than being carried. At the top an open door led into a good-sized but sparsely furnished living room. From the corner of the couch a stuffed green frog surveyed the room with black button eyes. Tim made a beeline for it, climbed onto the couch and touched the frog with a tentative finger.
He looked at Jade for approval, and when she nodded, he lifted the frog—a somewhat battered one, she noted—into his arms, hugging it close. Since he hadn’t wanted any of the stuffed animals in the toy store, she wondered why he’d chosen this one. True, there’d been no frogs—so that must be the clue. For some reason, frogs appealed to him.
With Tim content for the moment, Jade’s curiosity about Nathan got the best of her. She wandered around the room, alert for anything that might reveal what kind of person he was. The few pictures on the walls were desert or mountain scenes, obviously of Nevada.
At the accident scene, when she’d demanded to know if Nathan was really a doctor, he’d mentioned something about Illinois boards. A transplant from the Midwest?
She saw no personal photos in the room, no knickknacks. The magazines scattered on the coffee table were all related to medicine. Drifting to the stereo unit in a far corner of the room, she picked up a few CDs to check the labels. Country-and-western fan, apparently. She pressed the power button and blinked when she heard music. Mozart, if she wasn’t mistaken. Eclectic tastes, the man had. Shutting off the stereo, she glanced at Tim who was now examining the frog intently.
Jade wandered into the kitchen. Basic appliances, all new. She ventured along a short hall leading to a bedroom that contained a king-sized bed, made up neatly, although it hadn’t a spread to cover the blanket and sheet.
A framed photo of an older man and woman sat on a chest of drawers. Probably his parents. Next to it was a photo of a pretty but unsmiling young woman who appeared to be in her twenties. Who was she? On close examination, Jade decided she vaguely resembled the older woman in the other picture. Possibly Nathan’s sister? Or did she only want to think so?
Jade frowned, annoyed at herself. Why should she care who the woman was? She turned her attention to a small stack of books on the bedside table. A medical text, a popular legal thriller and Moby Dick. What was she supposed to deduce from that? If anything.
A sound from the living room made her start, then hurry from the bedroom. Tim, now sitting on the floor with the frog in front of him, was talking softly to it But not in English. She had no idea what language he used, although she suspected it was Asian.
When he glanced up and saw her, he stopped abruptly, cringing in fear.
“It’s all right,” she assured him, upset that he might think she’d harm him. “I don’t mind. I’m not going to hurt you no matter what words you say.”
Seeing his frog book on the couch where he’d left it, she added, “Why don’t we sit together and read your book to your new frog friend?”
Which is what they were doing when Nathan walked into the room.
Taken aback by his strange reaction of how right they looked sitting on his couch, he shrugged the feeling away. He couldn’t help noticing, though, that Jade’s green shirt was the same shade as her eyes—a devastating combination, especially considering how she filled out the shirt. Okay, so she was gorgeous. That didn’t make her any less manipulative.
The boy, clean and wearing obviously new clothes, no longer looked scruffy. Okay, so she cared about the kid. Did that change her basic personality? Despite the overreaction of his hormones and his approval of her treatment of Tim, he’d better not lose sight of the fact that Jade was a bad choice for himself.
“I see you’ve met Frederick Ferdinand Frog,” he said.
“Tim took to him right away,” Jade said. “Frogs seem to be his thing.”
“Okay, cowboy,” Nathan said to the boy, “Freddie is all yours. He’s been looking for a good home, complains I don’t pay enough attention to him.”
Tim stared from Nathan to Jade, a question in his dark eyes.
“Dr. Walker means he’s giving Freddie the Frog to you,” she said. “Just like you gave Hot Shot that ball from the toy store.”
“Freddie?” Tim asked.
“That’s the frog’s name,” Nathan said. “My sister, Laura, used to call him Frederick Ferdinand when she owned him. I changed it to Freddie when I acquired him by default after she replaced him with Yonni the blue dragon.”
“Oh, you have a sister?” Jade asked.
Why the hell shouldn’t he? he thought as he nodded.
Tim stroked the frog’s head. Without looking up, he said, “Dragons’re supposed to be green like Freddie.”
Nathan and Jade looked at each other, eyebrows raised.
“If you say so, cowboy,” Nathan agreed. “I’m through downstairs, so what say we take a quick look at your ankle and then have lunch? Heard you like hot dogs. I’ll be grilling some in the backyard for anybody who wants one. Or even two.”
Tim flashed a quick glance at Jade.
“We didn’t expect lunch, but hot dogs sound good to me,” she said, pleased Nathan had remembered Tim’s food preferences.
Once in the clinic, Nathan replaced the boy’s elastic bandage with a new one. Jade picked up the discarded one and rolled it, saying, “I’ll wash this and use it as an extra.”
“Good idea—waste not, want not, as my grandmother used to say, trying to convince Laura thriftiness was next to cleanliness as a virtue.”
“You didn’t need convincing?” Jade asked.
“I’m a pack rat. Or used to be.”
Noting how his tone had flattened on the last few words, Jade wondered why. Apparently the change hadn’t been pleasant.
“Drillers don’t throw anything away,” she told him. “You never know when an odd length of pipe will come in handy.”
“I noticed the drilling sign on your truck. You’re connected to the outfit?”
“I run the firm. In the office and in the field.” A hint of both pride and challenge tinged her voice.
He smiled. “Explains the work boots you had on when I met you. Ready to eat?”
Tim, who’d hardly flinched at all when Nathan touched him, nodded vigorously.
Nathan led them out the front door and around the house through a gate to the fenced backyard. “I haven’t gotten as far as thinking about what to do about landscaping,” he said.
Jade saw what he meant. There was a large cottonwood tree in the yard whose shade had discouraged most of the grass. A few scraggly bushes grew near the fence, one a lilac with a few blooms left on it, their sweet perfume carried by the breeze.
An outdoor staircase coming down from the second floor ended in a screened porch. She could see a door in the screen leading to a small stone patio where the grill was set up.
“Be careful, that’s hot,” Nathan cautioned as Tim edged closer to the grill. “I lit the charcoal before I came to collect you two. Want to help me get the hot dogs, cowboy?”
Tim stared at him apprehensively.
“I’m going to put Jade to work, too,” Nathan added. “She’s in charge of the buns.”
After reassuring himself Jade was following directly behind, Tim trailed Nathan through the screen door to the porch. Inside was a picnic table with two benches. Nathan took hot dogs from a small refrigerator placed against the house wall.
Jade smiled at Nathan’s nonsense, aware it was gradually disarming Tim. “We can give Freddie the book to take care of,” she put in.
Tim’s “Okay” made her happy the boy was beginning to feel it was safe to talk to them. Maybe eventually he’d be willing to answer the questions that needed to be asked. Now definitely wasn’t the time, because probing might destroy the fragile beginnings of trust.
Nathan’s somewhat charred hot dogs were a great success with Tim. Eating one reminded Jade of family barbecues at Zed’s ranch, of happy times with her brothers and their wives and children. Next week Zed’s wife’s brother would be at the ranch, so Zed was planning to have the first outdoor get-together of the year.
Sitting on the bench next to Tim with Nathan across from them, Jade was surprised to realize how much she was enjoying herself. Whatever her reservations about Nathan, he was an easy man to be with.
An impulsive invitation sprang to her lips. “Would you like to come to my brother’s ranch in Carson Valley next Saturday for a family barbecue?”
The invitation surprised Nathan, but he took care not to show it. “If I’m able to arrange my schedule so I can get there, I’d like to go.”
As he listened to her giving him directions, he kept wondering why she’d invited him. He hadn’t thought he’d made enough of an impression on Jade for her to ask him anywhere, much less to a family gathering. If she were Gloria, there’d be a hidden agenda in her asking, and she’d certainly reminded him of his ex-wife when she made that phone call to the judge. Stay wary, Walker, he advised himself. Don’t get to believing she’s fascinated by your personality. She wants something, count on it.
“Have you heard how—?” Jade glanced at Tim and stopped.
Nathan knew what the question was. “She’s still unconscious but stable.”
“No answers yet, then.”
He gave her a questioning look, inclining his head toward Tim. Had the boy told her anything more?
“Nothing,” she said.
“Jade’s got a cat,” Tim put in unexpectedly. “His name’s Hot Shot and he likes me.”
Though Nathan was warmed by this show of acceptance from Tim, he hid his feelings, as he’d done most of his life. His father had never liked displays of emotion. Becoming a doctor and then living with Gloria had reinforced Nathan’s tendency to keep how he felt to himself.
“If you’ve made a friend of a cat,” he told the boy, “that means you’re an honorable person.”
Tim pondered this for a time, then said, “Jade told me my name is hon-or-able. What’s it mean?”
“To be honorable is to be a great kid,” Nathan said, unsure Tim would be able to cope with anything more profound. “Now you’ve got three of us—me, Jade and Hot Shot—who like you and think you’re a great kid.”
Tim blinked, glancing uncertainly from him to Jade and back. “Hon-or-able,” he repeated, almost under his breath. “Do big people get to be that?”
“Some do, some don’t,” Nathan said. “And some try but don’t quite make it. How about more potato chips, cowboy?”
Tim nodded, so Nathan poured some chips onto his paper plate. The boy began eating them, frowning a little. Still trying to digest the concept of honorable probably. Not an easy task for many people a lot older than Tim.
The boy had obviously been neglected and abused by those he lived with. Worse than criminal in Nathan’s book. Yet kids were resilient—if he became a part of a warm, loving family it wasn’t too late for Tim.
He watched as the boy tugged on Jade’s shirt-sleeve, saying, “Maybe Alice tried to be hon-or-able.”
Jade stared at him. “Alice? The woman in the van you were riding in?”
“Yeah.”
“Know her last name?” Nathan asked.
Tim shook his head. “Just Alice.”
“I’m glad you remembered her first name,” Nathan told him. “It’ll help the doctors who are taking care of her in the hospital.” He glanced at Jade. “I’m going in to call Washoe Med and let them know. The last I heard they’d found no ID at all for her. Even unconscious, patients sometimes respond to hearing their name.”
Jade watched him push open a door and enter the lower level of the house. She’d been annoyed to discover he was even better-looking than she remembered, and it didn’t help to realize he moved with an athlete’s easy grace.
But a person would swear the man didn’t own an emotion. How could he not react positively to Tim’s sudden, if tentative, acceptance of him? He knew the boy was afraid of men and was making an exception for him. She’d been ready to jump for joy, but Nathan hadn’t so much as smiled.
Not that he wasn’t good with the boy. Of course, it could have been his gift of Freddie the Frog that made Tim decide Nathan might be trusted.
Difficult to know where you stood when a man revealed so little of himself. Not that she really cared, in this case.
Turning her attention to Tim, she said, “If you’re through eating, we can start cleaning things up for Nathan.”
“He cooks good hot dogs,” Tim said.
Thus proving the way to a boy’s heart, as well as to a man’s, was through his stomach?
As he helped her throw the dirty paper plates and napkins into a wastebasket, Tim asked, “Do you like Nathan?”
Jade hesitated before nodding.
“Is he hon-or-able?”
No need to hesitate over that. “Yes, I’d say he’s an honorable man.”
“What’s a bar-be-cue?”
Tim didn’t miss much. “It’s a lot like a picnic,” she said. “You cook the food outdoors and eat it outdoors.”
“Do I get to go?”
“Yes, of course you do. You’ll enjoy it just as you did this picnic and you’ll get to meet other kids.”
“I never been on a ranch.”
“My brother has ponies for kids to ride and there’s lots of room to run around and make a lot of noise and nobody cares if you do.”
“They don’t?”
“Not a bit. That’s what ranches are for.”
“Do the kids at the ranch go to school?”
“Two of them go three mornings a week. But not to what I’d call a real school ’cause they’re not five years old yet.”
“I’m five and I don’t go to no school.”
“Would you like to?”
“Not right now. Maybe sometime.”
“Every kid has to go to school sometime,” she told him. “But we won’t worry about it for a while.” It gave her a pang to think that Tim might not be with her long enough for her to place him in a school.
“Nathan’s coming,” Tim announced.
“I swear you have ears like a cat,” she said.
Tim beamed, the first genuine smile she’d seen on his face. Apparently he took her words as a real compliment.
A moment later, Nathan pushed the door open and reentered the screened porch.
“We were talking about school,” she said.
“You have no way of finding out Tim’s immunization record—they’ll want that.”
She frowned, aware he was right. Chances were the boy hadn’t had any of his shots. “I’ll manage,” she said tersely. Nothing was going to stand in the way of her doing what was best for Tim.
An expression of—could it have been distaste?—flicked across Nathan’s face and vanished. No, she must be wrong; she’d done nothing to account for a look like that. Had she?
“We’d best get going,” she said briskly. “We’ve taken up far too much of your day as it is.”
Tim picked up his frog. “Freddie’s really mine?” he asked.
“An honorable giver never takes back his gift,” Nathan told him.
“That’s okay, then, ’cause Jade said you’re an hon-or-able man. She likes you.”
For some ridiculous reason Jade reddened.
> Nathan grinned, annoying her.
“Do you like her?” Tim asked.
She noticed Nathan’s slight hesitation before he said, “Who wouldn’t like Jade?”
Equivocating, the miserable worm. “Plenty of people!” she snapped. “I’ve never been Ms. Popularity.”
Nathan eyed her assessingly. “I wonder why?”
“Because I say what I think.” Belatedly she remembered Tim had already told Nathan she liked him. Did she really? Certainly not at this moment.
Chapter Three
Jade awoke on Saturday morning in her own bedroom. Tim seemed content with Hot Shot’s company at night, so she’d deserted the guest room, leaving the two of them to share it. She opened the blinds and saw the day was sunny and promising to be warm, typical northern-Nevada May weather. Zed would have a great afternoon and evening for the barbecue.
Would Nathan be there? He’d called two days ago to ask how Tim was doing and to give her an update on Alice, still in a coma. The van she’d been driving had been reported stolen a day before the accident. Investigation of its Sacramento, California, owner showed no known connection to Alice or Tim.
Nathan hadn’t mentioned the barbecue, nor had she asked him if he was coming. It would, she’d decided then, make little difference to her one way or the other. The invitation had been offered during one of her impulsive—Zed called them rash—mo—ments, anyway.
The faint tinkle of Hot Shot’s come-and-feed-me bell, tied to the refrigerator door, told her where the cat, and probably Tim, were. Barefoot, she padded toward the kitchen, pausing in the archway.
Freddie the Frog was perched on one of the counter stools, ready for breakfast, while Tim sat cross-legged on the floor beside Hot Shot.
“Too bad you can’t go to the bar-be-cue,” Tim was telling him. “It’s ’cause you don’t like to ride in a truck. I used to ride on a motorbike when I was real little and I used to get wet. It was somewhere else, I don’t remember real good, but it rained a lot and frogs lived there.”
The cat stopped batting the toy and regarded him intently, barely glancing at Jade in the doorway.