The Good Doctor

“When she looks at me with her big brown eyes, she about breaks my heart. She needs somebody to care about her, maybe visit her. Until after her surgery, it’s only fifteen minutes on the hour, but it’ll be something. I thought maybe since you have time on your hands—”

Violet felt herself going cold all over. She stood stock-still when Peter moved to one of the cubicles.

He glanced over his shoulder. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m…I’m not sure you should have brought me here.”

“Why not?”

“Because maybe I don’t want to get involved.”

Quizzically he studied her. “Because of the patient you lost,” he guessed perceptively.

“That’s part of it. Since then I’ve…pulled back.”

“You mean you’ve detached yourself from your patients,” he guessed.

“I haven’t seen that many patients since it happened.”

“Celeste is six years old and she’s all alone,” he said simply. “Reading a story to her now and then, just talking to her could do her a world of good.”

“The mind-body connection?” Violet asked, knowing some doctors believed in it and some didn’t.

“Absolutely.”

Peter was obviously a doctor who did.

He was studying her with far too much intensity. She felt turned inside out and didn’t like it, but she knowingly couldn’t walk away and somehow he’d guessed that.

“Where is she?” Violet murmured.

He gestured toward cubicle number two. When he pushed the button on the wall, the glass door slid silently open. He crossed the threshold first and Violet hesitated only for a moment, then she stepped inside, too. The door closed behind them.

Equipment beeped and buzzed—monitors, the dispenser for the IV, the blood pressure cuff.

“Dr. Clark?” a small voice asked.

“You’re supposed to be asleep,” he scolded gently as he went to the head of the bed and switched on a small night-light.

“Read me a story?” Celeste asked in a sweet, childlike voice that wrapped itself around Violet’s heart.

“I think it’s too late for a story, but I brought someone to meet you.”

Stepping up beside him, Violet looked down at Peter’s small patient. Her eyes were dark brown and huge under her bangs. Her shoulder-length hair was absolutely straight. Violet longed to brush it for her, to soothe her, to somehow make it all better. But that was the problem. Doctors couldn’t always make it all better. She’d found that out the hard way too many times.

Leaning close, Violet laid her hand on the little girl’s, the one that didn’t have an IV line. “I’m Violet,” she said softly. “Dr. Clark tells me your name is Celeste. That’s a beautiful name.”

“My mommy and daddy picked it out,” the little girl said proudly. Tears came to her eyes. “Mrs. Gunthry told me they’re in heaven. I want to go to heaven, too.”

A lump formed in Violet’s throat and her heart felt as if it were cracking.

From behind her, Violet heard, “Mrs. Gunthry is Celeste’s social worker.”

Leaning a bit closer, gently brushing Celeste’s bangs aside, Violet said, “I’ll bet your mommy and daddy are very proud of you.”

Celeste’s eyes grew a little more focused. “Why?”

“Because you’re being a very brave little girl. I’m sure they’re watching over you and hoping you’ll get better.”

“How?”

From Violet’s dealings with children in her practice, she knew they had endless questions and she didn’t always have the answers. Violet lightly touched the little girl’s chest. “They’re always going to live in your heart and help you be strong and good and successful.”

“Will they help me walk again?”

This time Violet looked at Peter since she didn’t know Celeste’s prognosis.

“You’re going to walk again, Celeste,” he said with determined certainty. “And they’re going to be watching you do it. It might take a little while, but you’re going to have lots of help.”

“You?” she asked, her eyes drooping again.

“Me and other nurses and doctors and therapists.” Peter checked his watch. “Violet and I are going to go now and let you sleep.”

“Don’t go,” she whispered.

“I’ll be back,” Peter promised. “I have to take Violet back to her car, but then I’ll come in and sit with you for a while. Okay?”

“’Kay,” Celeste murmured as her eyelids closed.

Violet couldn’t help but touch the little girl’s cheek. There was a longing in her heart to do something for Celeste, and she knew she’d be back to visit.

Outside the cubicle, Peter explained, “The medication makes her sleepy. That’s best under the circumstances.”

“She is a heartbreaker,” Violet admitted, her voice catching. As she walked down the hall, she asked, “Are you really coming back?”

“I always do what I say I’m going to do.”

The assurance in Peter’s voice made her believe him. She didn’t know when she’d last met a man like him. He was kind…as well as downright sexy.

“I’d like to come back and visit her.”

A smile played on his lips. “I was counting on it.”

“You think I have too much free time on my hands?”

“Don’t you?”

“I don’t know. It’s been nice not to have to adhere to a rigid schedule.”

Stopping when they reached the elevator, he pressed the button. “You’re young to have the reputation you’ve gotten. You’ve been working plenty hard.”

The interior of the elevator seemed intimately confining when they stepped inside. As Peter glanced at her, their gazes locked and the current between them could have lit up the whole hospital for at least a week. She didn’t know why she was having this reaction to him and that frightened her as much as excited her. Fortunately, their ride was brief. The lobby was empty.

As they approached the double glass doors, Peter remarked, “The party at the hotel should still be in full swing.”

“I hope Ryan makes some excuse to go home and get a good night’s sleep.”

Peter nodded. “Putting up a good front takes a lot of energy. He might decide to stay until everybody leaves just to prove to Lily nothing’s wrong with him.”

“We’ll know tomorrow.”

After they came out of the hospital, Violet saw a bench to the side of the portico and asked, “Can we sit here a few minutes? I want you to tell me Celeste’s prognosis.”

They could have had this discussion in Peter’s SUV, but something about that was unsettling. Here in the open air, Violet was less distracted by his cologne…by his sheer male presence.

If he thought her request odd, he didn’t show it.

When she sat on the black, wrought-iron bench, a gust of wind reminded her that fall would be slipping into winter soon. She shivered.

Peter must have noticed because he shrugged out of his tuxedo jacket. Before she could assimilate the almost intimate gesture, he slipped his coat around her and she caught the lapels. Now she could feel the tangible evidence of his body heat. Now his scent almost made her giddy.

Finally seated beside her, his knee grazing hers, he explained, “Her prognosis is up in the air, not because of her injury as much as because of her circumstances. I’m afraid she won’t try to get better. She needs support and affection and people who really care about her.”

“Is the social worker trying to find her another family?”

“Trying is the operative word. It’s hard enough to place older children, let alone children who require the care Celeste will need. Her foster father not only drove drunk, but through an investigation Mrs. Gunthry discovered the couple left her alone a lot, too. Celeste has a great-aunt, but she’s in her sixties, arthritic and apparently wants nothing to do with caring for a child. Especially since Celeste didn’t inherit anything but a few pieces of secondhand furniture.”

A great-aunt who had only financial concerns in mind would never be a good parent. Caring about Celeste already, Violet insisted, “Give me Celeste’s best-case scenario.”

The wind blew Violet’s hair across her cheek and she brushed it away. When Peter’s gaze followed the course of her hand, his eyes seemed to turn a darker, more mysterious green. How she wished she knew what he was thinking.

“In the best-case scenario, I’ll fuse her spine. It’s fractured at the L4-5 level. The cord is bruised, not severed. She’ll spend ten days to two weeks in the hospital, then be transferred to a rehab facility. There she can get the therapy she needs to walk again. That could take anywhere from two to five months—some of that in outpatient therapy. You know nothing about this is absolute. That’s why her state of mind is so important.”

His shoulder was touching Violet’s now. As she looked up at him, she murmured, “I’ll spend some time with her, for as long as I’m here.”

“Your attention and support will help.”

“Actually, I think she’ll be helping me as much as I’ll be helping her. Medicine has become too rote for me—diagnosing conditions I can slow but not cure, making judgments, suggesting decisions that can have dire consequences as well as successful ones.”

“You were trained to make judgments and suggest decisions.”

“Yes, I was, wasn’t I? But apparently I wasn’t trained well enough to remove myself from my patients. I’ve got to learn how to do that.”

“No, you don’t.”

Her gaze collided with his and she saw such certainty there.

“I’m not removed from Celeste. You saw that. Should I be?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so. If I were removed, I wouldn’t be as invested in the outcome.”

“I don’t know, Peter,” she said with a sigh.

“Maybe you’ll figure it out while you’re in Red Rock.”

“Maybe, or maybe I’ll have to return to my practice and figure it out there.”

When Peter studied her again, she felt warm in spite of the night chill. She felt so excited, her breath caught. Like a teenager on her first date, Violet was uncertain where the evening would lead. All of it could lead to trouble, she knew. After all, she didn’t indulge in recreational affairs. She never let hormones overrule her head. She didn’t look for relationships because she’d found out at a young age what loving the wrong man could do to her life, to her heart, to her future.

Remembering the girl she’d once been didn’t happen often. She didn’t want the picture to play in her mind now, either. With a quick shrug, she escaped the warmth of Peter’s jacket, gathered it and offered it to him.

“Thanks for letting me use this. I think I’d better get back.”

His focus narrowed slightly but he didn’t try to convince her to stay. Standing, he accepted the jacket and tossed it over his arm. Without another word, they walked to his car.

After he drove to the hotel in silence, he found his parking spot still empty.

Exiting his SUV, Violet said, “I’m not going inside. I’m going to drive back to the Flying Aces.” She didn’t feel like answering questions about where she’d been, why she’d left with Peter, why she’d outbid every other woman in the room for him.

“I’ll walk you to your car.” It wasn’t an offer or a request. It was a matter-of-fact statement that told her he wouldn’t change his mind.

“I’m not afraid of the dark,” she said in a teasing tone.

“Maybe you should be.”

Since she lived in New York City, her attitude wasn’t cavalier. She’d taken a self-defense course. Yet as she pointed out where she’d parked, she wasn’t concerned about her safety as much as she was concerned about her attraction to Peter Clark.

Opening her purse, she took out her keys. After she pressed the remote control button, the car beeped. She stood at the driver’s door not knowing exactly what to say to Peter. It had been an unusual evening.

She settled on, “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow morning. I worry about Ryan driving if this is more than tension headaches. I told him I’d meet him outside the Double Crown and follow him to your place.”

“Did Ryan tell you I’d like to leave by 6:30 a.m.?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Will your brother question where you’re going?”

“With me living at the pool house, we hardly notice each other’s comings and goings. Miles doesn’t watch over me as closely as Clyde does. He won’t miss me.”

The parking lot lights cast a combination of glow and shadows. Peter’s gaze held hers. She couldn’t seem to look away and neither could he. The awareness between them had her senses raised to a fever pitch.

When Peter bent toward her, she was afraid to breathe. She was afraid she’d break the spell. She was afraid his pager might interrupt or else he’d change his mind. In spite of warning bells clanging in her head, she wanted to feel his lips on hers. She wanted to taste him. She wanted to find out if the excitement between them was real.

At the moment his lips touched hers, she knew it was. One of his strong arms went around her and she lifted her lips into the kiss, telling him she wasn’t going to pull away. The sexual tension that had been humming between them since they’d met had needed an outlet, but the kiss was much more than that.

Heat flashed through Violet, making even her fingertips tingle. Coherent thoughts vanished as her body simply responded to Peter’s. His tongue was making her crazy with need. When her arms went around his neck, she pressed into him, and his taut body told her he was as aroused as she was. This kiss was so different from the inexpert kisses of her teenage years, so different from awkward first-date kisses, so different from the maybe-I’ll-try-this-again kisses that had left her cold. She was going up in flames with Peter and she wondered where they could possibly go from here.

She never got the chance to find out. Suddenly the kiss ended as he dropped his arms and stepped away. When she glanced up at him, she was still trembling all over, but he looked as composed as he had all night.

He said, “That was probably not one of the more intelligent things I’ve ever done.”

Her pride kept her from asking why, from showing him the effect he’d had on her. Her pride was something she could hold on to, wrap around herself and rely on.

“It was just a kiss,” she said lightly as if it hadn’t mattered at all.

When he cocked his head, she felt as if he were trying to see right through her, yet she knew he couldn’t. She’d been building walls around herself all her life—since she’d been fifteen, pregnant and more alone than she’d ever felt in her entire existence. There was no way Peter could see into her heart, mind or head.

Opening the car door, she quickly slid inside and closed it. She did not roll her window down to say a final goodbye. Rather she started the engine, shifted the car into gear and backed up. She didn’t even glance in her rearview mirror as she drove away.

Tomorrow morning, when she saw Peter again, she’d be prepared. They’d consult professionally about Ryan, then go their separate ways. End of story.

But her lips still felt as if they were on fire from his kiss, and her insides still quivered. When she felt tears come to her eyes, she took a deep breath and banished them. She was Violet Fortune, strong and independent. She didn’t need a man.

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