Visualizing her breasts, he was sure they would be pale and full. Her nipples—probably pink, sweet, and tasty. All-day suckers… Strawberry. He’d always had a preference for strawberry-flavored suckers…
He swore. There was a stirring in his groin. He muttered a stronger curse as the picture filtered through his mind again. He’d better get a grip on things before tomorrow, because if he didn’t, and she showed up, he was going to have one hell of a time explaining why he laughed every time he looked at her below the waist, and his mouth watered when he looked at her chest.
Chapter Four
The Queen Anne fret-carved mirror reflected Rachel’s image. Worrying her lower lip between her teeth, she glanced at her gown. The red and white floral design against the deep blue background seemed to wash her out today. She pinched her cheeks, then stood back, studying her reflection. It would have to do. She couldn’t deny that she was nervous about going back to the doctor’s office. Maybe he really meant for her to forget about the job, and would tell her to disappear. But that was a risk she’d have to take. She needed the job, and she needed it badly.
He’d picked up on her flaw immediately, asking her why she apologized for everything. And he’d been so sarcastic. Just what part of the sentence didn’t you understand? she mouthed sassily into the mirror. Oh, for the courage to tell him then and there that she could dissect the sentence as deftly as she wanted to dissect him! But that was always her problem—finding the clever thing to say hours, or even days, too late.
She shook her head, remembering that he’d been upset because she’d cleaned his office. And here she thought she’d done him a favor. She’d been cleaning up after someone ever since she moved in with her aunt and uncle. It was a hard habit to break. And all the other men in her life, her uncle, her father-in-law, and Jeremy, had expected it of her. How odd to run across a man who didn’t. Yes, she thought, worrying her lip some more, how very odd. She sighed, concentrating on pinning up her hair so she wouldn’t have to remember the old hurts.
As she straightened her room, she thought about what the doctor had said to her the morning before. I treat whores, drunks, and Indians… She shuddered, suddenly uncertain that she could go through with it. Although she desperately needed the job, she wasn’t sure she could actually touch an Indian if she had to. And no doubt, if she was going to assist him, she’d have to.
A funny tingling passed over her skin. Something else bothered her. It had caused her to lie awake much of the night. The doctor frightened her. And it wasn’t just because she was a timid person, although that was something she was certainly going to have to work on, for she knew that it annoyed him.
He simply made her uneasy. He was so tall and, yes, handsome in a dark, mysterious way. And those eyes… His gaze left her breathless.
She shivered, remembering how she’d felt he could see through her clothes to her bare skin. Though why she thought that, she didn’t know. There was no reason to believe that he found her the least bit attractive or interesting. After all, she wasn’t a “looker,” as her uncle had constantly pointed out. And that was fine. The only thing she had to prove was that she was a capable assistant. As she twirled away from the mirror and crossed to the dressing table, she realized she’d have enough trouble convincing him of that.
It wouldn’t be like working with her uncle; at least she hoped it wouldn’t. She just had to try not to preface everything she said with “I’m sorry.” Sucking in a deep breath, she realized that wouldn’t be easy; she’d always been that way, as if she were responsible for every plague and pestilence since the beginning of time.
Her silver-framed wedding picture on the bedside table caught her eye. She picked it up, wiped off the thin layer of dust, and frowned as she looked at the two of them. She vividly remembered wanting to smile for the picture that day.
The idea of marrying Jeremy Weber had been a dream come true, although she’d even admitted to herself back then that she was surprised when he’d asked her. She’d loved him from afar, like half the other girls in town, but she hadn’t thought he knew she existed. She’d been so eager to leave her uncle’s house, she hadn’t cared that she and Jeremy had moved directly in with his parents. As she stared down at Jeremy’s boyishly handsome face, some of the sadness she’d experienced since his death returned.
Clutching the picture to her breast, she sank down on the bed. There just wasn’t time to mourn. At least not the kind of mourning that took so much from her that she had nothing left with which to fight for her own survival. And, she thought, a little peeved as she recalled Jeremy’s debts and his theft of her brooch, even in death he’d found a way to make her life miserable.
Stop it. She felt a deep twinge of shame at her selfish thoughts. Jeremy couldn’t help the way he was. She’d known when she married him that he’d been a pampered child, just by the way his mother had treated him as an adult. But he’d still been the most handsome man she’d ever known…
Heaving a long, sad sigh, she put the picture back on the table and rose from the bed. Maybe things would have been different if they’d had a child. Maybe…
Don’t think about it.
She shook off her maudlin thoughts, taking the advice of the little voice in her head as she pulled on her heavy black cape. As she left her room, she squared her shoulders and crossed her fingers, hoping that the doctor wouldn’t toss her out on her behind.
“Don’t touch them, Dusty, not yet.”
Rachel tentatively stepped over the threshold and peered into the room. Dr. Gaspard and a young boy of about five stood with their backs to her, the young boy on tiptoe, his head bobbing excitedly as he watched something in a box on the table.
“Look!” he exclaimed. “She’s lickin’ on ’em.”
Stepping closer, Rachel could hear the familiar faint squeals of newborn kittens. A floorboard squeaked under her feet, and Dr. Gaspard turned, studying her with his brooding, cavalier gaze. It affected her strangely. She tried to hold his stare, but she finally blinked and looked away.
“So,” he said, “you’ve changed your mind.”
“I’m s—” Catching herself, she replied, “I didn’t turn down your offer, Doctor.” She was going to add that he’d withdrawn it, but thought it best not to remind him.
His gaze drifted over her, stopping briefly just below her waist. Thinking that perhaps she’d spilled something in her lap during her hasty breakfast, she looked down, but saw nothing. When her gaze met his again, he was watching her. He quickly looked away.
“After I mentioned who most of my patients are, I thought I was going to have to pick you up off the floor.”
“I was… I was merely exhausted,” she lied. “And it had been a while since I was in a sickroom. How’s the marshal?” She slid her cape off her shoulders and hung it on one. of the oak hall trees that stood by the door.
“He’s resting,” he answered, giving her a good once-over before turning back to the kittens. “Go back and check on him if you’d like.”
The little Indian boy continued to stare at her with big near-black eyes. Scolding herself, she swallowed a shudder. Even the gaze of an Indian child sent fear and a stab of hatred up her spine. She fled to the back room.
Tully grinned at her from the cot, and she smiled back. “No ill effects from my nursing?”
“Naw,” he scoffed, his grin widening. “Doc Gaspard might be one hell of a doctor, but sometimes he has the bedside manner of a polecat. I missed yer gentle touch, Rachel.”
Rachel laughed softly. “Of course you did,” she answered, humoring him. The dressing had been changed. She pretended to check it for blood.
“Does he have a large practice?.”
Tully shrugged. “Fair. A lot of the townsfolk head over to Redland when they need major doctorin’.”
Rachel looked up, puzzled. “Why is that?”
“Oh, I guess they’re used to old Doc Hillman.” When Rachel met his gaze, he
just grinned again. “ ‘Never trust a doc who’s young enough to be yer grandson,’ and all that, y’know.”
No, she didn’t know. She’d have given anything to see some young competition for her uncle. In the months before he died, he’d gotten lazier and lazier in his treatment of his patients.
The doctor stepped into the room. “Could you give me a hand, please?”
Rachel caught a reassuring look from the marshal before she followed the doctor into the other room. Her steps faltered and her pulse raced when she saw the two unsmiling, stone-faced Indians sitting on the cot, their arms crossed over their chests.
One, the younger of the two, had deep-set black eyes that drilled into her the minute their gazes met. The other, considerably older, had a bulbous nose, bobbed gray hair, and wrinkled, squinty eyes. Rachel knew that had they been wild coyotes, her response couldn’t have been any stronger. Her heart boomed in her chest and she was breathless. She was as close to fainting as she could be without actually falling to the floor.
“John Hart needs his dressing changed. Do you think you can manage that?”
His heavy-handed sarcasm wasn’t lost on her. She swallowed and cleared her throat, gripping the edge of his desk for support. “What—” She cleared her throat again. “Where is his wound?”
“John,” the doctor said to the younger man, “drop ’em.”
John Hart closed his eyes and gave his head a violent shake. “Not in front of her.”
Rachel felt the blush roll up her neck into her face.
“For godssake, John, she’s a nurse.”
John shook his head again. “Not in front of her.”
My sentiments exactly. Rachel’s heart was in her throat as she pretended to tidy up the doctor’s desk. She kept stealing furtive glances at the two Indians. Oh, Lord—what had made her think she could actually do this?
Suddenly, the older man grinned at Rachel, showing wide pink gums. “I’ll drop mine,” he said, his voice crackling with age. With that, he hopped off the cot, untied the cord he used as a belt, and let his trousers drop to the floor.
Rachel gaped and gasped. The blush that had already stained her cheeks flared into her head, and she felt it to the very roots of her hair. The man wasn’t wearing any underwear.
“Joseph!” The doctor swore, rushed to the old man and whisked his trousers up over his skinny legs and his shriveled privates.
Rachel couldn’t speak. Her voice had fled. She repressed an urge to follow it.
“Father, shame on you,” John Hart scolded softly. He looked at the doctor and tapped his finger against the side of his head. “This has been happening more and more.”
Turning back to his father, he said, “How many times do I tell you to wear that other thing?”
The old man pushed the doctor’s hands away and tied his rope around his pants. “I do not like it. It smothers my skin. My skin is old, it must breathe. I lived seventy winters in the mountains with little to wear but a blanket. I won’t wear the white man’s underwear. It strangles me everywhere.” He looked at Rachel regally. “That is all I have to say.”
John Hart’s eyes were warm as he looked from his father to the doctor. “Next month he is doing the Ghost Dance at the Big Head. Will Two Leaf be there?”
A strained look passed over the doctor’s face. “I’m not sure. Do you expect trouble?”
John Han tossed Rachel a hard glance. “I think we’re safe this time.”
The doctor looked at Rachel too, as if what they were talking about had something to do with her. Heavens, she didn’t even understand what they were saying. Two leaf? Big head? Ghost dance? They might as well be talking voodoo.
“John,” the doctor said, “if we don’t look at your wound, you might not live long enough to enjoy the next ceremony.”
The man glowered. “I do not want a White looking at my wound.”
Rachel was startled by the acrimony in the man’s voice.
“She’s my nurse, John. You might as well get used to seeing her around. She might save your life one day. Her name is—”
“I know who she is,” John interrupted, giving her a hard look of contempt. “She will probably ‘save’ me like ‘Oily Fingers’ saved the reservation.” He shook his head again. “She will not touch me.”
Rachel turned away again, intensely embarrassed and confused. The Indian blatantly disliked her, and made no attempt to hide it. But why? She’d never seen the man before.
She heard the doctor heave a sigh behind her, obviously giving in to the man’s whim.
“Rachel?”
Pulling her face into a bland expression, she turned around. “Yes?”
He gave her an apologetic look. “Maybe Earl needs something,” he answered, glancing toward the back room.
She nodded and scurried away, knowing full well that her eyes were brimming with gratitude.
An hour later, Jason was at his desk, writing in John’s chart when Rachel tiptoed in from the back room.
She began straightening the equipment. “He didn’t like me. Why?”
Jason looked up. “John Hart?”
She nodded. “It can’t just be me. I… I’ve never seen the man before.”
Jason stifled a sigh. She evidently didn’t understand who “Oily Fingers” was. “John had an unhappy experience with your husband.”
Rachel frowned as she plumped up the pillow on the cot. “Really? What happened?”
He leaned back in his chair and looked at her. In between the high neck and the snug waist of her dress was her full bosom, and below it, the rest of her. He mentally peeled away her clothes and pictured the lollipop nipples and the flowered delta at the apex of her thighs. His mouth watered and stinging need burst in his crotch.
Swearing to himself, he slammed the chart on the desk and pushed back his chair. Imagining daisies between her legs had been funny yesterday, but today it was something else. Soon after she’d walked into the office, he’d tried to see the humor in it, but what he conjured up wasn’t a bit funny. Somehow he knew that under all of her clothing her thighs would be smooth and white, and the tuft of hair crowning her sweet sex would be a dark, rusty red.
“Is… is it really that bad?”
He looked at her, momentarily confused. “What?”
“What happened between Jeremy and that… that man?”
He shook off his erotic musings and straightened the stack of files in front of him. It wasn’t his duty to tell her what her husband had been up to. If she stuck around, she’d find out soon enough. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to whitewash the bastard, either. “Your husband had some problems communicating with the Indians.” He almost choked on the understatement.
“But,” she answered, running nervous fingers over the sheet on the cot, “that has nothing to do with me.”
“Are you afraid of Indians?” His question was blunt.
Her eyes widened and her hand went to her throat. “I think… I think you know I am.”
He studied her. Yes, he knew she was. She was afraid of him, at any rate. He wondered just how much to tell her. Finally, because she was such a frightened little mouse, he said only, “Maybe John Hart is afraid of Whites.”
She turned away then, confusion pinching her features. He continued to watch her while she straightened up the office, wondering if she would ever believe the things her husband had gotten involved in. Suddenly, he realized that he was beginning to believe in her just as Ivy and Earl did. He doubled his fingers into his palm and counted to ten, restraining himself from smashing his fist against the wall.
The Reverend Toland ushered Rachel and Jason into the small, tidy parlor. “Thank you so much for coming. Birgit didn’t want you to go out of your way for her, Doctor, but I knew you wouldn’t mind.”
“How is she today?” Jason dug through his bag, searching for something.
A little girl of perhaps three peeked around the corner, then ra
n and hid her face in her father’s lap.
“She’s feeling a little stronger.” Reverend Toland lifted his daughter onto his lap. “Is Mama ready for the doctor?”
The child nodded, then glanced at Rachel, and smiled. But her eyes went immediately to Jason, who was still rummaging in his bag.
“Are you waiting for your medicine, Gwennie?” Jason asked.
Little Gwennie’s big blue eyes clung to Jason. “Yes, Dr. Gaspard.”
Jason’s face was stern. “Well, it should be here.”
Gwennie looked at Rachel and pointed. “Maybe she took it.”
“Hmmm.” Jason frowned. “Nope,” he said, discovering something at the bottom of his bag. “It’s right here.”
Gwennie jumped off her father’s lap and ran to Jason with her hand outstretched.
“What do you say, Gwen?”
The child dug her bare toe into the worn rug and swung shyly from side to side. “Please, Dr. Gaspard?”
Jason grinned and held his hands behind his back. “Which hand?”
“That one,” she answered, pointing to his left. Jason handed her a cherry lollipop.
“Thank you,” she chirped. “Now I’ll take you to Mama,” she said, taking his hand and skipping from the room.
Rachel watched, fascinated.
“It’s a ritual,” Reverend Toland explained with a warm smile. “Each time Dr. Gaspard comes to visit Birgit, he and Gwen go through the same little scene.”
Rachel didn’t know what to say. Jason was absolutely charming when he wanted to be. “I… I hope your wife is better.”
“If anyone can help her, the doctor can.” He seemed to notice her surprise. “I have more faith in him than in any doctor I’ve ever met.”
“He… he doesn’t seem to have many patients,” Rachel commented.
Heat of a Savage Moon--The Moon Trilogy--Book Two Page 7