A Doctor in His House

He really would have preferred to take her direct to Mitchum Medical Center, but her brother was a doctor and hadn’t insisted on the need for urgent medical attention, so he deferred to the expert opinion.

Dr. McKinley’s house was only a mile or two from here, in the oldest part of the town, a street of grand old Victorians dating from when nearby marble quarries gave Radford a vibrant economy. The street had gone through a period of decline at one point, and Daniel vaguely remembered from early in his childhood that some of these places had been pretty run-down, divided into cheap apartments or lived in by families who couldn’t afford to keep them maintained.

They weren’t run-down anymore. He passed a bed-and-breakfast place, an architect’s office, an upscale hair and beauty salon, each with a professionally painted sign swinging on pieces of chain hanging from a wooden stand planted in the lawn.

Dr. McKinley’s wouldn’t have a sign. Which of the elegant houses was it? He had the number, but glanced sideways to see if his passenger might point it out.

She wouldn’t.

Couldn’t.

She still had her head pressed onto the dash, with her forearms folded above. As he’d noted before, she looked too thin, as if she hadn’t been eating properly or as if she burned all her calories in stress. Suddenly there seemed something familiar about her. He couldn’t place it, but realized that he easily might have seen her up here before if coming to visit her brother was a regular thing.

No, he thought. It wasn’t that kind of familiarity. It had been triggered by seeing her beside him in the car, as if he’d had her as a passenger in his vehicle before.

He couldn’t think about it now … 2564 … 2570 … This was Dr. McKinley’s house right here, nicely done up but not too feminine or fancy. Cream and dark green paint, newly stained timber on the front porch.

He turned into the first of two driveways. “Do you have a key to your brother’s house?”

“No, but I know where he keeps one. Could you … get it for me?”

“If you tell me where it is.”

She described the location, somewhat less obvious than under the doormat or sitting on top of the frame. Fourth planter pot to the left of the driveway, under the dark gray rock. She waited in the car while he unlocked the front door—the big Victorian was divided into two apartments, and he guessed that Andy’s was 2572, not 2572A—then he had to come back to help her out. She clung to him and leaned on him as if he was the only fixed point in the whole universe, but at least she was walking on her own, this time.

Suddenly, holding her in his arms once again, recognition came. It elbowed its way past the changed hair color and style, the pale face beneath the large sunglasses, the weight loss, and came fully into focus.

It was Scarlett.

Scarlett Sharpe.

Shoot! Damn! It really was!

Scarlett Sharpe was Andy McKinley’s sister?

Daniel didn’t know if she had recognized him. He thought she was probably in such bad shape that she hadn’t. He must have said his name to Andy, but had she been listening? Had she made the connection? Did she remember? What had he said? Too much?

He felt a wash of anger and embarrassment and regret and yearning and vivid memory, as well as a sense of unfinished business. He fought to keep any of it from showing then realized that she wasn’t going to be picking up on those kinds of emotions, when she was struggling to take one step in front of another.

“I can’t leave you alone here,” he said, trying so hard to keep the reluctance from coloring his voice, so that it ended up sounding completely wooden instead.

“Andy won’t be long.”

“All the same.”

“I’m okay. I just need to drink some water and lie down.”

He was torn by a level of uncertainty and indecision that didn’t happen nearly so often anymore, but which had once been very familiar. How much to give away? How much to trust? What to offer? What to say?

He’d been twenty-four years old when he and Scarlett had known each other before. Six years on, twenty-four seemed like it was just a couple of years beyond boyhood. In so many ways back then he’d been older than his years. In other ways, far out of his depth, with his emotions so powerful and simple that they frightened him.

Lord, he didn’t enjoy some of those memories …

Which was good, because memories weren’t relevant right now.

“I’m going to wait with you until your brother arrives,” he told her, making a decision he didn’t intend to change.

Scarlett didn’t reply.

They made it up the steps and through the door. “Where do you want to go?” he asked.

“Couch.” Apparently because she didn’t think she could make it any farther, even though he was carrying her again.

He helped her to lie down, finding a red silk pillow for her head. “Could you close the drapes?” she asked weakly. “The light is so bright.”

It wasn’t.

Not to his eyes, anyhow.

But he did as she’d asked, and it seemed to help her. She lay with her eyes closed, still wearing her sunglasses, and less tension stiffening her thin frame. She’d had more weight on her six years ago, for sure. He remembered how her body had felt in his arms, and it hadn’t been scarecrow thin like this, it had been lush and soft, almost plump in places. Recognition might have come sooner if she hadn’t changed so much.

“Can I fetch you the water you wanted?”

“Bottle or tap, I don’t mind. A big glass. It’ll help.”

He went through the adjacent dining room and into the kitchen and ran the faucet into a glass he found upturned in the dish rack, not wanting to check in the refrigerator or open the kitchen cabinets in someone else’s house. When he brought the filled glass back to her, she said in a thready voice, “Is it okay if I don’t try to sit?”

“It’s fine.” He brought the glass awkwardly sideways to her mouth, and it was such a personal action it gave him the jitters. Would she want this from him?

She seemed to prefer the drops spilled down her cheek to the thought of movement. “Thanks. You can go now. Please. Don’t feel you need to stay.”

Did she know who he was?

There was no reason for it to matter, not when she could barely move, and he wasn’t going to ask, or tell her. Not yet. Not unless it seemed truly necessary.

“I’m not leaving.”

She stayed silent for a long moment, as if assessing his determination, and whether to protest. Finally she told him, “Thank you.”

And then they just waited.

Chapter Two

This was Andy now, thank heaven. Scarlett heard his car, then the thump of hurried feet up the steps and onto the wide, wraparound apron of the porch. He barreled through the door and into the front room. “Daniel, thanks so much for staying. Scarlett, how’re you doing?”

“A little better,” she said, putting some chirp into her voice. “My vision is the main thing. Really can’t see.”

“Can I take a look?” She heard him sit on the coffee table in front of the couch. Daniel must be hovering in the background. She couldn’t hear him. They’d been silent together for probably fifteen minutes or more before Andy had showed up. She hoped Daniel put it down to the fact that she was feeling so bad. Hoped he still didn’t know who she was. But really she had no idea. She wasn’t in a position to discern anything about what he was thinking or feeling. He’d never been a man of easy words.

Right now, she was just glad that Andy was here.

“Open your eyes,” Andy ordered.

She did so, to be greeted by blurring and multiple images and blinding light.

“Your pupils aren’t contracting,” Andy said. “That’s why it feels so bright. You’re not focusing at all.”

“Tell me about it!”

There was a pause. “Still biting your nails, Scarlett?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” But she hid her raw-tipped little fingers in the curl of her hand, self-conscious.

“Migraine can be stress related.”

To head off a lecture, she just blurted it out. “I resigned, okay?”

“You what?”

“I resigned from the hospital.” She had to talk carefully and quietly, or her head hurt too much. “Dad doesn’t know. He thinks it’s just a vacation break. I’ll have a month here, as planned, but I’m not going back to City Children’s.”

“When will you tell him?” Andy knew as well as Scarlett did that Dad wouldn’t approve the decision.

“When I’ve worked out what I’m going to do next.”

“And you haven’t, yet? You have no idea?”

“That’s what the next month is about. I know he’s going to kill me. Or not speak to me for five years.”

“Wow.”

“What?”

“I didn’t think you’d actually do it. Thought you should. Didn’t think you would.”

“Neither did I.” She was a little scared about it, too. Was she giving up medicine completely? Giving up pediatric oncology? She didn’t know. All she knew was that being the smartest one in the family wasn’t making her happy, the way Dad was so sure that it should.

“Is a month going to be long enough?”

“Don’t know that, either.” Who was she, if she wasn’t a doctor? Who did she want to be?

He wasn’t going to let the subject go. “Do you have any concrete plans for how you’re going to spend your time up here?”

This one, she could answer with confidence. “Woodwork.”

“Woodwork?”

“I want to learn to do something with my hands, something practical and creative.” Something sensual, almost, but she didn’t feel comfortable using this word out loud. Wood? Sensual? It sounded weird. She went on, “But I’m not—you know, much into fabric or yarn. I’ve been in contact with a man up here, Aaron Bailey, who makes fine furniture and he’s happy to have me as an unpaid intern for as few or as many hours a week as I want.”

“Scarlett, that’s great!”

“I know.” No, don’t nod. It’s painful and dizzying. “I’m looking forward to it. I’m giving myself a few days and starting with him on Monday. I’ve told him I’ll start with sweeping shavings off the floor and just see how far I get. Maybe it will tell me something about my life.”

“Seriously, Scarlett, I think that’s a really great idea!”

“Thank you,” she drawled at her brother. “I do have them occasionally.”

She registered that Andy had said her name a couple of times now, and that this time Daniel Porter couldn’t possibly have misheard, as he was standing in the room, probably looking right at her. Even though he hadn’t said it, he must know who she was, despite the fact that she was thinner and had long ago abandoned her brief exploration of short and blonde.

Did he know that she knew him? Did he know that she knew that he knew that she knew?

It was more dizzying than the state of her brain.

It was weird.

“I’ll get a stronger painkiller for your head,” Andy said. “And what do you feel like eating? I can go to the store.”

“You’re driving down to the city this afternoon,” she reminded him. “I’m supposed to be moving in next door, to your vacant rental, not collapsing on your couch and having you take care of me.”

“I can postpone the trip till you’re feeling better. I’ll head down tomorrow or Saturday.”

“I’m not letting you do that. Claudia is expecting you. She needs you. She wants you. Go today.”

She knew how important the trip was to him. He’d worked the past two weekends in a row, covering for colleagues who would in turn cover for him, for the next six days while he went to New York to spend time with his girlfriend, Claudia.

Claudia was starting back part-time at work this coming Monday, three days a week, and despite this reduction from the full-time hours she’d once planned, she was very jittery about leaving her three-month-old baby in day care. Andy wanted to be there for her, there for baby Ben, and then they would both come up here again next Thursday before Claudia needed to head back to the city the following Sunday afternoon.

Yeah, it did sound overcomplicated.

Since Claudia was the best thing that had happened to Andy in a long time and he was quite adorably in love with her, if you could ever consider an older brother adorable in any context, Scarlett absolutely did not intend to ruin their plans.

She didn’t think this dividing-their-time-between-New-York-and-Vermont thing was going to work for them for long. Not when there was a baby involved. And she couldn’t bear the idea of being responsible for them having less time together, instead of more, until they worked out a more concrete future. They were exploring several options, she knew. The one thing they were both certain of was that they wanted to be together, and to make it work.

“So you’ll manage on your own,” Andy said, delivering the words with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

“I’ll be fine in a few hours.” But she knew this was too optimistic. Her last migraine, less severe than this, had required two days off work. She’d spent a further day gritting her teeth and pushing her way through the aftermath of a weak body and a woolly brain. Being here on her own, even with stronger painkillers, wouldn’t be fun.

Silence from Andy.

She could feel his hesitation. He wanted so badly to be in New York, this minute or sooner. “I can’t leave you on your own yet.” The words dripped with reluctance. “I could see if Mom could drive up and—”

“Not Mom.” Because then Dad would get involved, and Dad didn’t believe in stress-related migraine, not in the McKinley family. And she absolutely didn’t want to have him find out yet that she’d left City Children’s Hospital, because she knew that even if he understood and forgave her at all—and she was sure he wouldn’t—he would still push her to make decisions about the future right now, and she knew she wasn’t ready.

McKinley medics were invincible, as far as he was concerned, and Scarlett didn’t want to have to confront him on the subject until she was actually feeling invincible. With answers. And certainty.

Dad had reacted badly enough to the little she had said. He’d spent weeks trying to talk her out of this break. As the youngest daughter and only girl, she should have been the one he spoiled and doted on, and okay, she was, but Dad’s form of doting had always been a little different. IQ tests and puzzle books and mathematical challenges, prizes for perfect grades, summer science camps and father-daughter museum trips. She’d felt all the love and pride and pressure, and she felt it still.

“And anyhow, Mom couldn’t get here before nightfall, so you’d still lose nearly a whole day,” she told her brother, with difficulty.

Daniel Porter hadn’t said a word, but now he cleared his throat. Scarlett heard a creak as he shifted his weight. “I can stay till she’s feeling better, Andy.”

“I can’t— I don’t—” Andy began.

“Listen, what are we talking about? The rest of today? Overnight at most? I don’t have to be back in court till ten tomorrow morning. And I owe you over that arrest back in March.”

“That was professional. This is personal.”

“Might not get the opportunity to return a professional favor for a while.”

Andy went silent again. So did Daniel.

Then Andy’s phone rang.

Claudia. Even in her impaired state, Scarlett could hear the heat and softness in his voice. “No, there’s been a delay,” he said. “I’ll be a little later than I wanted, I’m so sorry.” He listened for a moment, then controlled a sigh. “Hopefully before dark.”

He’d made the decision. It was settled. Daniel Porter was staying.

“Yeah, me, too, can’t wait …” Andy said. He was grinning, she could tell. He ended the call and his tone changed. “Dan, thanks. I really appreciate it. Can I make a list of errands? I’ll pick up the script for her medication and drop it back here, but if you could shop for something to eat?”

“Whatever you need,” Daniel said. “Scarlett—” he cleared his throat again, and again she heard a floorboard creak as he made a shift in his weight “—help me make a list.”

He most definitely knew who she was. It was clear, now.

He felt as awkward about it as she did, she could tell even with her eyes closed and her head throbbing, and the fact of her migraine was almost convenient in masking the odd, complicated feeling in the air, but it still wasn’t enough. “Soup,” she said. “And toast.”

“Yeah, let’s talk about what you’ll need to do.” Andy sounded so much more cheerful, in a hurry to get everything sorted and take to the road.

“For a start, her car,” Daniel answered. “I can head back to the station and get someone to drive me down to Route 47. It’s not far. Then the store. I’ll run home and change, too, grab a couple of things.”

“Okay, let’s check what I have on hand.” Both men began to move, heading toward the kitchen. It was a relief to Scarlett to be left on her own, with their voices in the background, working out the details.

“She can sleep here tonight,” Andy said. “Doesn’t make sense for her to move next door to the rental apartment, where the refrigerator and pantry are both empty.” Scarlett heard the sound of his refrigerator door opening as he checked its contents. “We need milk and bread.”

“I’ll write it all down.”

“This is great, Daniel. I really appreciate it,” Andy repeated. “When you don’t even know her …”

Oh, but he did.

He stayed silent about it, and so did she.

Andy left after about five minutes, apologizing to Scarlett and Daniel and thanking them all the way out the door, saying he’d drop the medication in before he left for the city, probably in an hour or so. They both listened—or at least Scarlett assumed Daniel was listening—to his car backing out of the driveway, and then another eerie and uncomfortable silence fell.

“Please turn on the TV,” Scarlett eventually said.

“What would you like to watch?”

“Nothing. But you must be getting bored.”

“I’m reading. Found some crime fiction.”

“Right, okay, then, sorry.” He must have given the book a flourish, because she could hear the riffle of the pages.

“You should try to rest, shouldn’t you? Sleep?” She heard the creak of the adjacent armchair where he must have sat down.

Sleep was a thousand miles away. “I’ll try,” she lied. Time passed, stretched out and endless the way it had seemed in her car before Daniel had stopped. “Please can we have the TV?” she said at last. “I need the distraction.”

She heard him stand. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize.”

“It’s okay.”

He picked up the remote, swore under his breath a couple of times as he pressed the wrong buttons, but then the sound came on. She heard snatches of music, gunfire, voices shouting, canned laughter, a newsreader’s measured words, and guessed he was surfing the channels. “What do you feel like?”

“Keep pressing. Stop for a little on each channel. I’ll tell you.”

He surfed some more. How many channels did Andy get? She heard weather and more news, a cooking show, an old Western, then Angela Lansbury.

“Stop there,” she said.

“Murder, She Wrote?”

“I’ve probably seen it.” Every episode, at least three times, late at night while winding down from a heavy on-call or a heart-rending session with the parents of a gravely ill child. She’d watched most every detective series over and over. “I can fill in the visuals from the dialogue.” She liked the old-fashioned, family-orientated crime shows, the less graphic and confronting ones, the ones with a nice twist and a lovable sleuth and a satisfying ending, nothing too confusing or clever or challenging. Comfort food on a screen.

“Okay. Murder, She Wrote, it is.”

“Sorry, it’s probably a lot less interesting than your book.”

“I’m not really getting into the book. So it’s fine.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem, Scarlett.”

I know you know I know.

But still they didn’t say it, and she felt horribly out of her depth about it, because of the fact that she couldn’t see.

Daniel had caught the beginning of the episode. After a few minutes, she recognized which one it was. The one with—

“Well, what do you know?” he said. “That’s George Clooney!”

Yes, she’d remembered it right. George wasn’t the murderer, just the clean-cut love interest for one of the other characters, mugging in the background with a top-heavy mop of 1980s hair.

“Funny where people start, isn’t it?” she said, before she thought. “And where they … end up?”

“Yeah, it is.”

Like the two of them, right now, in Andy’s house, with her unable to look at Daniel or move.

You know I know you know.

But we seem to be agreeing not to say it, now.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked. “Andy has fixings for a BLT, or grilled cheese sandwich.”

“No, thanks. Just … more water?”

“Of course.”

He went out to the kitchen and refreshed the glass. She opened her eyes and could just make out the dark, blurred bulk of his figure on its way through the door. She’d forgotten the size of him, and the big shoulders. She closed her eyes again, thinking that maybe, blessedly, the brightness had grown a little less extreme.

A minute later she heard him bend down to her, heard the sound of his clothing shift and slide against his body. His knuckles pressed lightly against her cheek while she took the same awkward sips as before, and something familiar came to her senses, a charge of awareness and need that she shouldn’t be feeling when her vision still churned and her head still pounded like this.

What did he look like now, beyond the blurred, broad-shouldered silhouette she’d been able to glimpse?

She had a sudden, powerful shaft of memory, from the first time they’d met, six years ago, and for a few blessed moments, the memory managed to override the migraine.

In her mind, she was back in the E.R., examining a child complaining of stomach pain, adding up the symptoms and thinking it didn’t look good. Even though the pediatric E.R. beds were in a separate area from the general beds, she could still hear the commotion nearby. A detoxing addict had turned abusive and violent. This one was apparently stronger and more persistent than most.

She finished her exam, and promised the parents that the senior doctor would be there soon to order some tests, then she left to return to the pediatric medical floor on level six …

And there was Daniel, strong-shouldered and intentionally intimidating in his uniform, responding to a call for security. She passed him just as he reached the knot of people caught up in the addict’s drama—passed him close enough to almost brush his arm, which was flexed big and hard beneath the dark gray shirt. Close enough to see the control and determination in his face.

Some security guards didn’t look like that. They looked as if they enjoyed the prospect of wielding power and force a little too much. They practically grinned in anticipation as they approached a potentially violent scene. Daniel, in contrast, seemed calm, businesslike, implacable.

Incredibly good-looking, too, in a way she didn’t usually notice, with his angular features and well-shaped head, close-cut dark hair and matching stubble, deep-set black eyes and powerful size. Until that point, she’d always gone for very smart, cerebral men, liking their intellect before she noticed their body.

Daniel was different, that first day and every day afterward.

Daniel was so, so utterly different from Kyle, the ex-husband whose last name she’d still been using back then. She was powerfully aware of it from the very first moment, when he glanced sideways at her and then ahead to the scene that awaited him.

She couldn’t help the turn of her head in his direction, couldn’t miss the moment when their eyes met, heard him say to the addict a moment later, “We’re done here,” and then that was it. She reached the swing door that led out of the E.R., pushed it open and left. The backward swing of the door blocked out sound and sight. She never learned the aftermath of the addict’s behavior, and the child with stomach pain turned out to have leukemia, which eventually went into remission and then cure.