Buch lesen: «The Doctor's Perfect Match»

Chapter One

Even in Buffalo Creek, Texas, with the bright sunshine streaming down and the utter absence of wind, January meant chill temperatures. Still, the willowy blonde had found a unique way to gather a crowd for her sales demonstration. Beneath the awning that she’d erected beside her minivan, she chattered and joked, flipping her long, straight butter-yellow hair, winking her big catlike eyes at her laughing onlookers, the colorful scarves draped about her person waving languidly. All the while she worked, she pressed bits of string and wood, gravel and broken glass into a damp clay disk, which she would presumably then bake in a small microwave oven at her elbow.

As tired as he was, Dr. Brooks Leland would have liked to have paused and joined in the fun, but he’d promised his best friend, Morgan, that he wouldn’t be late to dinner. For once. Besides, since the untimely death of his pretty blonde wife, he avoided women—especially blondes—like the plague. Oh, he would do it again, go through all the pain and the grief, just for those two short years with Brigitte. He would not, however, risk that kind of loss for anyone else, let alone stand in the cold just to watch a lovely woman try to sell unusual objects of art created on the spot.

Hurrying past the crowd, he crossed the parking lot to the entrance of the grocery store. Once inside, he picked up the multigrain bread requested by his hostess and, on impulse, grabbed a bouquet of flowers.

He’d given up trying to make his old buddy jealous. Not that he’d ever had any real interest in Lyla Simone anyway, but it had taken a mighty shove to make the confirmed bachelor professor tumble into love with his comely graduate student, and Brooks had been only too glad to deliver the blow. Once he’d fallen, Morgan Chatam had fallen hard. He was not a man to give his heart lightly, as Brooks understood all too well. It did Brooks’s heart good to see his old friend so happy after all these years, and for that reason alone he would take Lyla Simone flowers forever. The joy of having a goddaughter—Lyla and Morgan’s child—suddenly thrust into his life only gave him more cause. They’d named her Brigitte Kay, after Brooks’s late wife and one of Morgan’s aunts. She was an adorable little thing, happily and unabashedly spoiled, and in truth, she was the one thing Brooks envied his old friend.

Brooks made it through the checkout line, but before he could take his change, a teenaged male by the name of Jason Crowel burst inside, yelling for him.

“Doc Leland! Doc Leland! She fell down, and blood’s all over!”

Leaving everything behind, Brooks bolted for the door. He saw the crowd as soon as he hit the parking lot. Brooks sighed inwardly. It would be the blonde. Jason caught up to him, bouquet and grocery bag clutched in his hands. The sides of Brooks’s overcoat flapped like wings as he sprinted across the pavement. Digging into the pockets of his dark slacks, he found his car keys and plucked them out as he drew near the van, Jason at his heels. He set off the car alarm so the young man knew which car to go to, then tossed the keys to Jason.

“Leave the groceries and flowers, grab the medical bag off the backseat.”

“Yessir.”

Elbowing his way into the crowd, Brooks asked, “What’s happened here?”

Several people began speaking at the same time.

“She started talking gibberish and just toppled over.”

“Hit her head on the pavement before anyone could catch her.”

“Splattered blood all over.”

The woman sat up, blinking at Brooks in confusion, blood streaking her pale hair. He checked her pulse, which was rapid and erratic, while speaking in a calm, reassuring tone.

“I’m Dr. Brooks Leland. You’ve taken a nasty blow to the head. Try not to move. Can you tell me your name?”

She lifted a hand toward her head. He caught it and gently pushed it down again, repeating his question.

“Can you tell me your name?”

“Tharestershestersaben,” she babbled.

Jason returned with the medical bag, and Brooks took out his penlight, instructing firmly, “If no one has already done so, please call an ambulance.”

He made a quick examination, determined that her pupils were unequally reactive and that she needed stitches in her scalp, at the very least. Moreover, she seemed painfully thin, despite a suspiciously shapely figure beneath a heavy black leotard and all those artfully draped scarves. After applying a compress to staunch the flow of blood from the laceration to her scalp, he glanced around him.

“Any idea who she is?”

Murmurs of denial went through the crowd before someone said, “License plate on the van is Missouri.”

Not a local girl, then, though even with Texas license plates, she might not be known. Texas was a big state, and the eight-million-strong Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex sprawled just thirty-five miles to the north of Buffalo Creek, which itself boasted some twenty thousand souls.

The ambulance arrived within five minutes, but in that time he managed to stop the bleeding from the scalp wound. His patient remained remarkably composed, though she said not a single coherent word. He suspected a stroke and feared that she might be bleeding inside her skull. He made a phone call.

“Morgan, I’m afraid I’m going to be late for dinner, after all.”

* * *

Eva recognized the tap-tap-tap of typing even before she opened her eyes. The room swam for a moment, refusing to come into focus and seeming much too bright. She automatically lifted a hand to shield her eyes, which ached with a ferocity that alarmed but also reassured her.

The light flickered out just as a pleasantly masculine voice said, “Welcome back. You’ve been sedated.”

She remembered all too well struggling to get up off the X-ray table and telling them over and over again that she categorically refused to have pictures made of her head, but of course they hadn’t understood a word she’d been saying. Still, the sedation had been a dirty trick. Reminding herself that they had merely been trying to help, she cleared her throat, swallowed and attempted to speak.

“That’s a relief.” The greater relief was that the words had come out clearly. Flush with success, she quipped, “For a minute I thought it was one of those deals where I’d had so much fun I’d forgotten.”

“Your speech has cleared. You experienced expressive aphasia. That’s a condition where—”

“My brain was speaking English, but my tongue was talking Martian. Yeah, I got that.”

“Is your head hurting?”

“On a scale of one to ten, if a plastic doll is a one and Marilyn Monroe in her prime is a ten, let’s go with Marilyn,” she gritted out, gingerly fingering the heavy bandage on the back of her head. At the same time, she realized that most of her clothes were gone, replaced by a hospital gown, though she still wore her leggings and socks. “So did I crack the bone?”

“Just your scalp, thankfully.”

“How many stitches did I wind up with?”

“About twenty.”

“Yowza. Did they have to shave my head?”

“We did,” he answered.

“But your hair’s so thick it will cover up the bald spot nicely,” said a reassuring female voice. At the same time, movement to Eva’s left drew her attention to a nurse adjusting the drip on a saline bag.

“That’s good,” she muttered. Wouldn’t want to leave an ugly corpse.

“You almost certainly have a concussion,” the doctor went on smoothly. “Your pupils are not equally reactive. I really did not want to have to sedate you.”

The nurse added, “You gave us no other option. Doctor hasn’t left your side since, though.”

Eva closed her eyes and carefully turned her head in his direction, gasping despite her best efforts to deny the pain. “It’s the ICP,” she murmured.

“Intracranial pressure,” he said. “Yes, that would be my guess. Are you a medical professional? You seem familiar with the terminology.”

“Worked as a transcriptionist.”

“I see. Well, I’ve already administered IV medication that will reduce the swelling,” he told her, “and now that you’re awake, I can give you something to help with the pain. Are you allergic to any drugs?”

“Nope. None I’ve ever tried, that is. Hey, that’s not a confession, by the way, just in case you’re a DEA agent in deep cover.”

She heard him chuckle as he tapped. Then he moved around, supposedly injecting something into the IV line as he spoke. “Not a DEA agent. Just a doctor. That should take effect soon.”

“Not soon enough.”

“I’ve ordered an EEG, and—”

“No,” she said.

“An EEG will tell us—”

“It won’t tell you anything of significance,” she said, forcing open her eyes.

After the first flash of pain, her vision cleared and the pounding inside her skull settled to a survivable throb. He was even more handsome than she remembered, ridiculously so. She tried to focus on the black slacks, white shirt and black tie worn beneath an immaculately white lab coat, but she couldn’t ignore the tall, fit, broad-shouldered man inside them.

Coal black hair brushed straight back from a high forehead with strokes of silver at the temples looked very distinguished on a square-jawed face. A perfect nose, wide, spare mouth that showed a decided tendency to smile and a healthy tan added up to the ideal masculine blend. The eyes were what did it, though. Tawny-gold to go with the silver streaks, they all but shouted, “Treasure! This man is a treasure!” They declared his intelligence and a depth of character that seemed out of place in a man well shy of fifty. She’d be surprised, in fact, if he was much past forty, despite the threads of sliver at his temples.

Regardless of those eyes and all they proclaimed, she frowned. She disliked handsome men on principle, especially those who knew they were handsome. And he knew it. As if challenging her to deny it, he grinned, displaying rascally dimples, a double set, twin grooves that slashed deeply into his cheeks on either side of his mouth and bracketed his even, white smile.

Turning away from the computer terminal mounted on the wall beside the bed, he pulled over a rolling stool with his foot and sat. He was a tall one; at least three inches over six feet, she judged. Being a tall woman—five feet nine-inches—she appreciated a tall man, especially one tall enough that she didn’t have to wear flats as a sop to his vanity. She liked heels, spike heels that showed off her long legs, not that it mattered anymore. Not much did.

“I introduced myself before,” he said, putting out a square-palmed, long-fingered hand, “but it may need repeating. Dr. Brooks Leland. I was in the grocery store when you collapsed.”

“Lucky me,” she said, shaking his hand.

“If you believe in luck,” he returned, inclining his head.

“You don’t?”

“No.”

She lifted an eyebrow, her hand still in his. “What, then? Fate?”

“No. And you still haven’t told me your name.”

The medication was beginning to work and work well, so she inched closer, as if prepared to confide in him. “Don’t you know that all the most attractive women are mysterious by nature?” she whispered. The nurse snorted and tried to cover it with a cough.

He bent closer still and said, “The most attractive women eat healthy diets. When was the last time you ate?”

As if to remind her that it had been far too long, her stomach rumbled loudly. She hid her embarrassment behind a sultry smile and a smoky tone of voice. “Complaining about my figure, Doc?” she asked, squeezing his hand.

He let go of her, sat back and said to the nurse, “Bring her a full meal tray, please. Right away.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

The nurse swept instantly from the room, his word apparently being law.

The door hadn’t bumped closed before he leaned his elbows on the bed rail, looked down at Eva and bluntly stated, “The breast implants do not hide the fact that you are much too thin. I don’t see signs of bulimia or anorexia, so I have to conclude that you simply haven’t been able to eat regularly. Now, I ask you again, when was the last time you ate?”

She sighed and looked at the peaks of her toes beneath the blanket. “It’s been a day or two.” She could feel his unrelenting gaze boring into her. “Okay, it was day before yesterday.”

“Because?”

“Duh. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get good caviar?” she cracked sarcastically. When he didn’t laugh, she added, “I’m broke, all right?”

Her money had been running short even before the van had broken down. Thankfully, they’d gassed it after making the repairs in Lancaster. Considering what they’d charged her, they should have done that and more. She’d be out of here shortly, though where she’d go she had no idea. The old jalopy ought to have enough juice to get her to Waco, though.

“That explains the art show in January,” the doctor muttered.

A male technician pushed a cart into the room just then, announcing, “EEG.”

“I’ve already told you, no EEG,” Eva insisted.

“Why not?” Dr. Leland wanted to know. “The machine’s already here. Doesn’t take long. You can be done before your dinner arrives.”

“What part of broke don’t you get?” she demanded, rolling her eyes at him. “I can’t afford it. Okay? Besides, it’s not going to tell you diddly. Anyone who knows me can attest that my brain function has never been normal. Trust me.”

“And where would I find these people who can attest to your abnormal brain function?” he asked lightly.

She opened her mouth to tell him, realizing only at the last moment what she’d be giving away. “Ah, ah, ah,” she scolded, wagging a finger. “I hate to stiff you, Doc. I really do. But a billing address won’t do you a bit of good. You can’t get blood out of a turnip, as the saying goes. Besides, I didn’t ask to be brought here.”

He just smiled. “You weren’t in any condition to ask, and this hospital takes all patients, regardless of their ability to pay.”

“Oh. Cool. Well, I’m on my way out of here as soon as I eat and change, anyway. I appreciate the tailoring.” She waved a hand at the bandage. “But I’ve got places to go, Doc, things to do.”

He held up his hands, waved away the technician and said, “I’ll cancel the order.”

The tech shrugged and wheeled the cart out of the room.

“You are a very stubborn young lady,” he said, getting up and going back to the computer.

“Thank you!” she chirped, grinning. “I haven’t been called a young lady in ages.”

He chuckled. “Just how old are you anyway?”

She didn’t see any reason not to tell him. “Thirty-four.”

“You look younger.”

“Sweet. How old are you?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Forty-four.”

That, she decided, worked perfectly. “You look forty-four.”

He laughed. “Thanks. I think.”

“What’s wrong with looking forty-four if you are forty-four?” she asked. “Especially if you’re a gorgeous forty-four.”

There was something freeing about losing the ability to filter what you said, freeing and frightening. Dr. Leland cleared his throat and said nothing, just pecked away at the computer keyboard. He finished and went out. A few minutes later, her meal arrived.

It consisted of a cold sandwich, a bag of chips, a banana, a cup of gelatin, a piece of carrot cake and a carton of milk. She chugged the milk and ate the cake, then went after the gelatin, saving the banana, chips and sandwich for later. Just a few minutes after pledging to save the banana for breakfast, though, she scarfed that down, too. She’d just laid aside the peel, feeling pleasantly stuffed, when Dr. Leland walked back into the room, accompanied by the nurse.

He glanced knowingly at the wrapped sandwich and chips cradled in her lap but said only, “I have some papers for you to sign.”

“Sure,” she agreed happily.

He produced the papers, a pen and a clipboard. She scrawled. He studied. After a moment, he lifted an eyebrow at her.

“Calamity Jane?”

She just shrugged, grinning. She should have known that if anyone could decipher her purposefully illegible penmanship, it would be a doctor.

“All right, Calamity, let’s have a look.”

The nurse turned on the overhead light. Eva smiled to let him know that the twinge of pain she felt was entirely manageable. While he listened to her heart, the nurse took a blood pressure cuff from a wire basket on the wall and wrapped it around Eva’s upper arm. Then she took Eva’s blood pressure while he checked her pupils. Next, he let down the side of the bed, took her by the wrist and had her sit up, swing her legs to the side and eventually stand. Finally he had her walk around. She felt perfectly steady on her feet, and while her head throbbed, it wasn’t fierce.

Holding up the sandwich and the bag of chips, she looked back over her shoulder at him and said, “Guess I shouldn’t skip quite so many meals, huh?”

He sent her an implacable look, saying nothing. Then he reached behind him and snagged a plastic bag from a chair against the wall.

Tossing the bag onto the foot of the bed, he said, “Get dressed. When you’re ready, I’ll drive you back to your vehicle.”

“Yea!” she exclaimed in a small, comical voice. “Or put another way...” She inclined her head regally, feeling just a twinge of pain. “Thank you for your hospitality, but I really must be going now.”

Shaking his head, he left the room again, opening the door for the nurse to leave ahead of him. Eva’s relief evaporated instantly. Sighing, she plopped down on the foot of the bed, with all that currently stood between her and starvation clutched to her chest. She looked at the cold wrapped sandwich in one hand and the bag of chips in the other then tossed them onto the pillow. What did it matter? What did any of it matter?

For a moment she entertained the notion of staying where she was and letting that too-handsome doctor tend her. But, no, she couldn’t do that. Eventually he’d figure out who she was and, if she couldn’t prevent it, how to contact those she’d left behind, which meant that Ricky would be put through the same horrific ordeal that she’d had to endure. That she could not allow.

Nope, better just to carry on to the bitter end. She’d heard there were some lovely spots in south Texas where she could winter. She’d get some money together, find a remote place where she could hide. With luck they wouldn’t find her until spring or even summer. By then Ricky would be well adjusted to her absence. Poor kid. He’d had some tough breaks, but this was the best of a bad lot of options that she could see. She hoped he could forgive her, but if not, so be it.

Shoving aside such maudlin thoughts, she got dressed. After pulling her black long-sleeved knit top over her head, she tied three shawls about her waist to make a skirt then draped a triangular scarf diagonally over one shoulder and knotted that at her waist. A second scarf went over the opposite shoulder, crisscrossing the other. She tied a third about her neck and tucked the point into the waistband of her leggings, letting the top drape loosely. Stacking up the final three colorful, silky shawls, she tossed them about her shoulders. They were amazingly warm, as generations of women throughout history well knew.

Her leather clogs were in the bottom of the bag with her cell phone. She dropped them to the floor and slipped her feet into them, adding over two inches to her height.

Taking the plastic bag, she dropped the sandwich and the chips into it. Then she helped herself to a pair of latex gloves and a small box of tissues on the counter before sitting down on the edge of the bed to wait. Barely had she parked herself before a knock sounded lightly, and the door cracked open.

“Are you decent?”

“Well, I’m dressed,” she drawled. “Beyond that I make no promises.”

Dr. Leland backed into the room, wearing a suit beneath a long overcoat and rolling a wheelchair behind him. “What are you, a stand-up comedienne?”

“If the shoe fits,” she retorted cheerfully, holding up one foot.

“Ha-ha.”

She eyed the wheelchair reluctantly. “Do I really need that?”

“Depends. Do you want to walk back to that grocery store parking lot or ride?”

Sighing melodramatically, she got up and plopped down in the wheelchair. “And you say I’m stubborn.”

“If the other shoe fits...”

“Well, we know you are no stand-up comedian,” she quipped.

He rolled her out of the room. As they moved through the area, Eva couldn’t help noticing that nurses rushed to open doors, move carts and just generally smooth the way, always flashing smiles and coy looks at the doctor. Eva could stand it just so long before waving her arms and singing at the top of her lungs, “Hel-lo! Patient coming through. Doctor Luscious is just half the parade.”

“Will you behave?” he growled. “Or can you not help yourself?”

“Why should I?”

Then again, why shouldn’t she? After all, what did she care if all the nurses in the hospital cast lures at the man? He was someone else’s problem. Poor woman. She probably didn’t have a moment’s peace. Of course there would be someone, probably several someones. A man as good-looking as he, and a doctor no less, could have his pick. He could even be married, though she had noticed no wedding ring—and hated that she had noticed. Apparently impending doom did not produce wisdom any more than did hard experience.

He wheeled her through a waiting room and then a pair of automatic glass doors onto a covered sidewalk. A luxury sedan sat waiting at the curb. A uniformed security guard, female, slid out from behind the steering wheel and walked around to take the chair after Eva vacated it. Leland opened the passenger door for Eva, kissed the security guard on the cheek, reducing the hefty woman to giggles, and rushed around the front of the car to the driver’s side, his overcoat flapping with the force of his strides.

Eva was buckling up when he dropped down behind the steering wheel. He followed suit, tossed a wave at the still-tittering security guard and put the car in gear. Eva shook her head.

“You have no shame, do you?”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“You kissed the security guard! It’s not enough the nurses are all in love with you? You must have the security guard, too?”

He rolled his eyes. “For your information, she’s family.”

Eva blinked at that. “Oh. Well, in my defense, everyone’s wrong sometimes.”

Starting the engine, he shook his head. “She’s my late wife’s cousin, actually, and she’s married. And she has two grown children. And her husband is disabled.”

Those two words, late wife, rang inside Eva’s skull like a bell, reverberating repeatedly. Late wife, late wife, late wife...

“All right already,” Eva cried melodramatically. “I was wrong. So shoot me.”

“I’m just saying.” He hunched his shoulders.

Eva trained her gaze on the scenery passing by her window. Okay, she conceded silently, so he really was rather likable, when he wasn’t being all handsome and knowing and authoritative.

Several minutes passed before he spoke again. “And the nurses are not all in love with me. Actually, none of them are in love with me.”

She chanced a glance at him and found him scowling. “How do you know?”

“I just do.”

“O-kay.” A smile almost surprised her. She had to work at keeping it away. She got very interested in the scenery again.

A few minutes later he said, “You’ll need to have those stitches removed in about a week.”

“Will do.”

He pulled an envelope from inside his coat and tossed it into her lap. “Give that to the doctor who does it.”

She looked at the envelope but not at him. “All righty.”

Shifting in his seat, he added, “I suggest you get a good night’s sleep before you drive.”

Turning back to the window, she gave him a noncommittal answer. “Very well.”

After a few more blocks, he said, “Don’t throw that envelope away.”

“I won’t.”

“I mean it.”

She finally looked at him again. “I said I wouldn’t. What’s with you?”

“I tucked a few bucks in there, if that’s all right with you,” he snapped. Then, more mildly, he added, “You said you were broke.”

“Oh.” Surprised and truly chastened, she looked down at the envelope. “That’s very kind. Thank you.”

“No problem,” he muttered, staring straight ahead.

A few seconds later the comfortable car turned into the grocery store parking lot and stopped.

Eva looked around. So did Leland. Then they looked at each other.

“Uh-oh,” he said.

She chose a more colorful word. “Crud.”

Her van was gone.