“OK, so maybe I have a few too many goals. Dr. Anderson even said something to that effect, but I know what it’s like not having any goals, not having anything to look forward to day in and day out. So a few extra goals are good.”

“If you don’t get so caught up in achieving goals that you miss something else.”

“What would I miss?”

“What is it they say about stopping to smell the roses? Well, sometimes it’s nice to stop and smell the aftershave, too.”

“You’re not talking about…?”

Gabby shrugged. Smiled. Didn’t comment.

“Well, for your information, he doesn’t wear aftershave. I smelled soap on him, that’s all. And the only thing I want to smell is the scent of pine trees when I’m called out on a rescue operation. So, I’m going to audit his class. Sit in the back row so I don’t even have to smell soap on him, and learn what I need to know so I can apply to the next class… one he won’t be teaching.”

“You smelled soap on him?” Gabby teased. “How close, exactly, were you?”

Angela shook her head. “Were you listening to anything I said?”

“OK, so I got sidetracked. But you’re so… so animated. It’s the first time since Brad that I’ve seen you react this way to a man, and it just seemed to me that…”

Angela held out her hand to stop her. “He’s grumpy. He keeps to himself. He’s not friendly. What, in that description, makes you think I’d have anything to do with him?”

“Well, for what it’s worth, he’s had a very rough couple of years.”

“And you and I haven’t? You’ve had two babies and survived an avalanche. I had one baby, a cheating husband, and I survived that same avalanche. That’s all rough, Gabby. But we’re not grumpy.”

“But I have Neil, as well as Bryce and Mary. You have Sarah. Whatever we went through was worth it to get everything we have. And we do have a lot, Angela. We’ve both been blessed in so many ways I can’t even describe it. But Mark…” She trailed off and shrugged.

“You’re right,” Angela whispered, thinking about Sarah again. “We do have everything, don’t we?”

“Neil and Eric brought him here to White Elk because he lost everything.”

“Mark?”

Gabby nodded. “It’s really not my place to say anything, except he walked away from something that made what you and I’ve gone through look like a picnic, and at the end of his road there was nothing or no one waiting there for him. So he may be a little grumpy right now, but I suppose if anyone has a right to be…”

“OK, so maybe I won’t hate him. But that doesn’t mean I have to like him, does it?”

“Just consider him a means to your end. Audit his classes, learn everything you can from him because, from what Neil tells me, he’s an amazing trauma doctor. Then, at the end of eighteen months, ask him to give you a recommendation to the next class.” Gabby grinned. “Who knows? Maybe he’ll do it. Maybe you’ll even enjoy smelling the soap by then.”

About the soap, no. Definitely not. But maybe he would give her the recommendation. Or maybe, after eighteen months, when she’d proved herself to be just as good as anyone else he was training, she’d present his words to him on a silver platter and ask him to eat them. It was certainly a satisfying image, one that made her want to run straight to her sister’s shelf of medical reference books and start reading. “I brought you a nice fresh fruit salad. It’s down in the kitchen. Want some?” she asked Gabby.

“With strawberries?”

“Lots of strawberries.” Angela pushed herself up out of the chair and headed downstairs. On the way to the kitchen, though, she stopped in the den and took a look at all the medical volumes belonging to Gabby and Neil. Dozens and dozens of them, all well past anything she could read and understand. But tucked into a corner was an old paperback medical dictionary. Words… medical words with meanings. That was as good a place to start as any, and she was anxious to ask Gabby if she could borrow it. Her fingers were almost trembling as she pulled the book from the shelf. “This is where we begin it all, Sarah,” she whispered, as she tucked it under her arm and continued on to the kitchen. “One word at a time.”

With, or without, Mark Anderson’s help.

CHAPTER TWO

“STAT, from the Latin statim, meaning immediately,” Angela said as Mark hurried by her in the corridor.

He stopped, turned round. “Excuse me?”

“I said stat, from the Latin statim, meaning?”

“I know what it means,” he said. “But what I’m wondering is why you feel the need to tell me that you know what it means.” She arched her eyebrows at him and what he noticed was that they were perfectly sculpted, a lovely frame for the sparkling eyes beneath them. Eyes he stared at for the span of a full five seconds. When he realized that he was staring so intently, he forced a hard blink that shattered the rising sizzle of the moment. Crazy thoughts, he scolded himself. Crazy and stupid.

“No particular reason.”

The heck there wasn’t. She was serious about auditing his class, and if he were a betting man, he’d bet a week’s pay that she was memorizing a medical dictionary or something as equally bizarre. “I have a hard time believing that you do anything without a reason, Mrs. Blanchard.”

“Call me Angela. You’re going to be seeing enough of me over the next few months that I don’t think we need the formalities standing between us.”

“Then you’re really serious about this?” As if he didn’t already know. Angela Blanchard exuded determination. One look said it all. She squared her shoulders, held her head high, and plunged right into the middle of whatever she wanted, and he doubted an army could stop her. “You’re really going to spend the next year and a half of your life sitting in the back of my class, only to reap no benefit?”

She laughed. “Depends on how you define benefit, doesn’t it, Mark?”

A chill, caused by the way she’d said his name, shot up his arm. Her pronunciation had been crisp, deliberate… rolling off lips he didn’t want to look at but caught himself staring at like he’d stared at her eyes an instant ago. And her voice, with just a hint of huskiness… What was it about her that was drawing him? Certainly, she wasn’t his type. He liked them long, slim, blond… she was short, rounded in ways he didn’t want to think about, athletic. So, after a year or so without a woman, that’s all it could be. His retreat into self-imposed celibacy. He was out of his comfort zone, not that he’d had much of a comfort zone lately, and Angela was… tempting. Any man would admit that, and that part of him wasn’t in retreat quite as deeply as he’d thought. Although he’d been happier when he’d believed it was.

But he could deal with this like he dealt with everything else these days… with indifference. God knew, he’d practiced that to perfection. “Benefit, in practical terms, is the certificate I’ll be issuing that will validate eighteen months of study and hard work, that will enable its recipient to become an advanced member of the mountain rescue team and even coordinate rescues on his or her own. Which is a benefit you won’t be reaping.”

“Your choice, not mine.”

“Ah, we finally agree on something.”

“Trust me, we don’t agree on this. But that will change.”

“As in you’ll finally come around to my way of thinking?”

She shook her head. “I spent eight years of my life chasing around Europe after a man who, like you, thought I’d come around to his way of thinking. And, foolish girl that I was, I did after a while. So count on my words when I tell you that the last thing I intend on doing now, or ever again, is coming around to your, or anybody else’s, way of thinking. It isn’t going to happen. For me, now, it’s all about my way of thinking, and doing what I need to do to make a better life for my daughter.” She smiled sweetly, her nose wrinkling as the corners of her lips crinkled up. “And I’m really good at that. Better than I ever thought I could be.”

Fire and sass. He liked that. In spite of himself, he liked Angela Blanchard. She wasn’t put together like any woman he’d ever known up close and personal, and while he definitely wasn’t in the market for anything up close and personal, not for a long time to come, he was surprised to discover that he appreciated the contentiousness in her. It had been a long time since anything, or anyone, had challenged him the way she did, and it felt good. Made him feel… almost alive again. “So you’re going to content yourself with spending a year and a half that won’t produce the outcome you want? Is that your way of thinking, to waste your time that way?”

“I’m going to content myself with learning, which is never a waste of time. Whatever happens after that happens.” She thrust a packet of papers into his hand. “In the meantime, read this. I’m working on a hospital-sponsored camp for children with diabetes. It’s in the last planning stages, and I’m looking for staff support for when I present the final ideas to Neil and Eric. A word from you, in favor, would be appreciated. They’re going to listen to my presentation tomorrow afternoon, and if things go well, I’ve already lined up the means to launch the trial run of the camp in a couple of weeks. Take a few kids out and see what works, and what doesn’t. The plan was conditionally approved weeks ago and now everything is in place but the hospital’s final consent for the trial run, so I’d appreciate you being there to speak up for what a good idea it is.”

He smiled—something he hadn’t done much of lately. “And you’re assuming that I’ll support this program?”

“Read the information. It makes sense because it’s all about putting the children in charge of their physical condition and their choices. Teaching them to be smarter about their diabetes than the people around them. So, after you’ve read the literature, you’ll support it.” A devious little glint flashed in her eyes, and she added, nearly under her breath, “If you’re as good a doctor as everybody says you are.”

Again, that attitude. There was so much of it contained in such a tiny package. He was almost on the verge of finding it sexy. Almost. “I’ll read the information if I have time. No promises.”

“Fair enough.” With that, she walked away. No goodbye, no other arguments, and Mark caught himself watching her practically march her way down the hall, almost disappointed when she turned the corner and disappeared from his view without turning back and challenging him one more time.

“Staring at something interesting?” Eric Ramsey asked, coming towards Mark from the opposite direction.

“Not interesting so much as unusual.”

“Well, she’s certainly a force to be reckoned with. I married her sister, and they’re just alike in that aspect. And once you get hooked—”

“Not hooked,” Mark interrupted. “And not going to get hooked.”

“Just as well, because Angela’s living off the list, and there’s not a man on it.”

“The list?”

“A list of things she wants to accomplish. When she was a chef, she ran her kitchen with the same precision, which is why we wanted her here, in charge of our dietary department at the hospital. She lives by her lists, and she doesn’t get sidetracked.”

A result of those years she’d followed some loser of a man through Europe? He could definitely imagine Angela living by the list, but what he couldn’t imagine was the carefree Angela who’d followed the man she’d loved all over Europe for years. Admittedly, that was a side of her he found intriguing, a side he wouldn’t mind having a peek at. “We all get sidetracked,” he said, half to himself. “Sooner or later, we all get sidetracked.”

Eric patted him on the shoulder then hurried off to tend a case of bronchitis in exam three, while Mark grabbed up the next patient chart in the stack. Stomachache. Damn, he wanted to be somewhere else other than in exam three, treating a case of nausea.

“Long day?” It was well after what would be considered normal working hours as Mark took the seat on the opposite side of the staff lounge. He chose that spot not because he didn’t want to sit closer to Angela but because he wanted room to stretch his legs. Also, from this distance, without his glasses, he couldn’t see her eyes as well. Wouldn’t be so distracted.

“I’m used to it. When I worked at the lodge, I had a staff of a twenty-three in the kitchen, not to mention all my other employees out front, yet I seemed to be the one working eighteen hours a day, seven days a week. Until I had Sarah. Then it changed, at least as far as I was concerned. But not as far as the lodge was concerned. They still needed those hours from me, and I had a nice, very competent sous chef who was more than eager to step up into my position when I could no longer give them what they wanted, or needed.”

“Do you miss it?” he asked, trying hard to keep the conversation limited to neutral topics. He was too tired to argue with her right now. In his frame of mind, she’d probably win.

“Some. I mean, my duties here are so different from what they were at the lodge. I’m doing a lot of administration work and planning, as well as coordinating individual diet plans and doing consults, which means I’m not going to get to cook as much as I did. And I really love cooking. But my job here is… important. It makes a difference. Besides, I have a friend who’ll turn over her restaurant kitchen to me any time I feel the hankering to get back to my basics. Catie Lawrence, from Catie’s Overlook. Have you eaten there yet?”

“Catie knows me pretty well already,” he replied, pulling a chair up in front of the one in which he was seated then propping his legs up on it. “I’m a regular for breakfast every morning, and a semi-regular for dinner. Nice place.” Translated to mean nice place to be alone. He sat at an isolated table, didn’t have to see people or be bothered by them. It was a situation that suited him just fine since he wasn’t in White Elk to make friends, which seemed to go against the unspoken motto of just about the friendliest place he’d ever been in his life. Everybody here wanted to make friends. They radiated sincerity and caring, and he sure as heck didn’t want all that mishmash coming near him.

“White Elk is filled with nice places. But what’s good at Catie’s is that while I’m cooking, she’ll look after Sarah for me. In fact, she’s set up a little nursery in her office for whenever I stop by, or Gabby Ranard stops by with her babies.”

“You’ve been a single mom for a while?” He already knew the answer to that, but asking seemed like the next logical step in the conversation.

“He left me when he found out I was pregnant. But Sarah and I are doing pretty well without him. It wasn’t what I’d planned, but life happens, doesn’t it? When the bottom drops out of it, you replace it and start over. Being a single mom works quite nicely for both Sarah and me, and I have a lot of support here in White Elk. So, do you have any children?”

“No,” he said too quickly, too gruffly. “One marriage on the rocks, no children.” And no desire to talk about it either. Just to let her know, he folded his arms tightly across his chest, leaned his head against the chair back, and shut his eyes. This conversation had already gone much further than he’d intended, bordering on private things he didn’t get into with anybody, not even with his best friends, and he wanted to end it before it went any further. So, nothing like some nice, rigid body language to convey the message.

“You’re not very subtle, you know,” Angela said.

“About what?” he asked, instantly regretting that he had. Because asking would lead to more conversation, which he didn’t want. Not with anybody, but especially not with Angela. She made him think too hard, made him come too close to the edge of wishing for something he couldn’t let himself have. Or even dream of.

“About what you don’t want to talk about. You’re the one who brought up the subject, in case you’ve already forgotten that.”

He refused to open his eyes, refused to unfold his arms. “How did I bring up the subject?”

“You asked how long I’d been a single mom. Which led to me asking if you had children. It’s a natural flow to the conversation we were having, Mark. If you don’t want to talk about it, I’d suggest you don’t initiate the topic.”

Damn, she was a spitfire! Soon to be a thorn in his side, too, if he wasn’t careful. “I was making pleasant conversation. Not trying to bring up any particular thing. Saying the first thing about you that came to mind.” Well, that was a whopper of a lie. Over the course of the day too many things about Angela had come to mind. Things that had no business being there in the first place but, apparently, had implanted themselves pretty deeply anyway. “You know, trying to be polite.”

“Well, your definition of pleasant conversation and mine sure don’t agree, because mine doesn’t end with my conversation partner turning all grouchy on me, the way you’ve done.”

She just wasn’t going to give up. “That might be the case if I were your conversation partner. But I’m not. I’m just a doctor who came in here to put his feet up and rest for a few minutes. Not to be disturbed.”

“But—”

“Not to be disturbed,” he interrupted.

“All I was going to say was?”

“Not to be disturbed,” he repeated. Eyes still closed. Arms still folded. “Disturb. From the Latin disturbare, meaning to break up the quietness or serenity of. In other words, break up the quietness or serenity of… me!”

Rather than taking offense, Angela laughed as she pushed herself off her chair. “Look, Sarah is spending the night with her cousins since I’m getting off way past her bedtime, and I’ll be headed down to Catie’s Overlook in a while. I’m going to cook for a couple of hours, testing my recipe for Chilean sea bass puttanesca with seared fingerling potatoes. Catie’s thinking about adding it to her menu. So, if you’re not quite so disturbed by then, feel free to come and have dinner with me. My treat. Actually, you’ll be eating by yourself, but you will be eating my cooking. Which will probably suit you rather nicely, since you’ll be dining undisturbed.”

“Is that a dinner invitation?” he asked, ready to turn her down.

“As in a date for two people, no. As in, if you’re hungry, I’ll have food, yes. That’s an invitation. And normally after my Chilean sea bass puttanesca, no one stays grouchy.”

He opened his eyes to respond, to turn her down good and proper, in such a fashion that she’d leave him alone from now on, but she was already gone. Which was just as well. Because he had no intention of more interaction with Angela Blanchard, since interaction seemed to lead to… thoughts.

“Damn,” he muttered shutting his eyes, then opening them immediately, when the first image that popped into his mind was…“Damn.”

“It’s crazy,” Angela said, handing the diaper bag to her sister, who was already holding onto Sarah for dear life as the toddler struggled to get loose. Which was being encouraged by the twins, Paige and Pippa, who flanked their mother’s side, literally bouncing up and down with excitement. Six years old, and they had more energy than Angela had ever seen in any one spot. “He’s barely even nice to me, and what do I do? I invite him to Catie’s for dinner.”

“You’re cooking tonight?” Dinah asked.

“Later, after I get off work from the hospital. Trying out a recipe for her.”

“So it’s not like you two would be sitting down, having a meal together, would it?”

“The two of us can barely be in the same room together, so I don’t think we’d survive a meal sitting at the same table. But, no, we won’t be together. In fact, we won’t even be in the same part of the restaurant. Which is why this will probably work, if he decides to come. He’ll be in the dining room, I’ll stay in the kitchen, there’ll be walls and doors between us. A beautiful start to what’s destined to be a rocky relationship.” Laughing, she tossed a bag of Sarah’s toys at the twins. “Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, I could take Sarah down to Catie’s with me. You know how she loves watching her, and she does have the office set up.”

“No, Aunt Angela!” the twins cried in unison.

“They’ve been waiting all day for this. They want to play dress-up with Sarah. I think they also have big plans to decorate the crib as a castle for a fairy princess. And to be honest, I need some baby time. It’s nice just… just holding her. And she’s not going to tolerate that for too much longer.”

“Are you.?” Angela indicated a swollen belly, so not to say the word pregnant where the twins would hear.

“Not yet,” Dinah said wistfully. “So I think it’s the time. If Eric ever has time to slow down a little. That’s one of the reasons he brought Mark here, to take up some of the slack while he and Neil spend more family time.”

One of the reasons. Gabby had hinted at something else, too, and she wondered if her sister knew. Now wasn’t the time to ask, though. Not while the twins were within earshot and Catie was expecting her any minute. “Well, when you do, you know you can count on me for anything.”

“For what?” Paige piped up. “What can my mom count on you for?”

“A nice fruit tart I intend to make tonight.”

“Me too,” the twins cried together.

“You too,” Angela said, then gave each of her nieces kisses and hugs. Her nieces. Dinah was a lucky woman, married to a man like Eric who had two such great little girls. They were a good family and she did envy them their family structure. It’s what she’d thought… deluded herself into thinking she’d have with Brad, but that hadn’t turnd out to be the case. “Fruit tart for everyone. And now I’ve really got to run.”

She paused long enough to give Sarah a kiss. “I’ll be back tomorrow, sweetie,” she said. “Aunt Dinah is going to take good care of you and I think your cousins have a lot of plans for the evening.” She’d spent nights away from her daughter before, but it was never easy. Not even when it was her own sister taking care of Sarah. One more kiss sufficed, though, before the trickle of tears started, then Angela scooted out the door and hurried to her car.

She was already well into her recipe prep, almost two hours now, and as far as she knew Mark hadn’t come into the restaurant. Two more hours of work at the hospital after she’d dropped Sarah off and she hadn’t seen him there. Now she’d caught herself craning to have a quick look through the pass-through more than she should have, then being oddly disappointed when she didn’t see him. But what did she expect? He didn’t like her, and while she wouldn’t go quite so far as to say she didn’t like him, she did recognize that their relationship was strained. Actually, it wasn’t even a relationship. More like a walking, breathing case of antagonism that crept up on them whenever the two of them happened to be in the same place at the same time.

He fascinated her, though. She didn’t know why, couldn’t explain it, and maybe didn’t want to. But, yes, he did fascinate her. Which was why, deep down, she’d hoped he would come tonight. No date intended, of course.

“Who would you be looking for?” Catie asked.

“No one.”

“Which is why you’ve been glancing longingly through the pass-through every five minutes for the past hour and a half.”

“I invited someone to taste my sea bass, but I haven’t been glancing longingly,” she snapped.

Catie laughed. “Must be a man, the way you’re all riled up.”

“A colleague from the hospital.”

“Tall, dark and handsome? Likes two eggs over easy, dry wheat toast, a bowl of fruit and black coffee for breakfast every morning?”

“Every morning?” Angela asked.

“Every morning. No variations on a breakfast theme. Not ever.”

“Sounds boring.”

“Sounds like you’re trying to dodge my question,” Catie countered, chuckling. “But that’s OK. Everybody’s entitled to some privacy.”

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