Buch lesen: «How to Marry a Doctor»

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Anna Adams parked her yellow VW Beetle in Jake Lennox’s driveway, grabbed her MP3 player and took a moment to make sure it was loaded and ready to go.

She was about to hold an intervention and music—just the right song—was the key component of this quirky job.

Today, she was going to save Jake, her lifelong best friend, from himself. Or at least from drowning in the quicksand of his own sorrow.

This morning, Celebration Memorial Hospital had been abuzz with rumors that Jake’s girlfriend, Dorenda, had dumped him. Anna might’ve been a little miffed that she’d had to hear about his breakup through the nursing staff grapevine, but the sister of one of Dorenda’s friends was an LPN who worked the seven-to-three shift at the hospital and she’d come in positively brimming over with the gossip.

Jake had been scarce today. He hadn’t been around for lunch. Another doctor had done rounds today. When she’d tried to phone Jake after work, the call had gone to voice mail.

The radio silence was what made Anna worry. She hadn’t realized that he’d been so hung up on Miss Texas. That’s what everyone called Dorenda, even though no one was sure if she’d actually held the title or if she’d gotten the nickname simply because she was tall and beautiful and looked like she should’ve worn a crown to her day job. Poor schlubs like Anna did well to make it to their shifts at the hospital wearing mascara and lipstick.

Anna wasn’t sure what the real story was. When Jake had a girlfriend, he tended to disappear into the tunnel of love. Or at least he never seemed to bring his girlfriends around her. And Dr. Jake Lennox usually had a girlfriend.

Anna didn’t celebrate Jake’s breakups, but she had to admit she did relish the intervals between his relationships, because, for as long as she’d known him, that was when she’d gotten her friend back. Sure, they usually saw each other daily at the hospital. It was not as if he completely disappeared. But in those times between relationships, he always gravitated to her.

She would take the spaces in between any day. Because those spaces ran deeper than the superficial stretches of time he spent with the Miss Texases of the world.

Anna rapped their special knock—knock, knock-knock, knock, knock—on Jake’s front door, then let herself in.

He never locked the door, but then again, they never waited to be invited into each other’s homes. “Jake? Are you here?”

Really, she wasn’t surprised when he didn’t answer. In fact, she had a pretty good idea of where he was. So, she closed the door and let herself in the backyard gate and followed the mulch path down to the lake, the crowning jewel of his property.

Yep, if he was back here brooding, it clearly called for an intervention or, as they’d come to call it over the years, the Sadness Intervention Dance.

It was their private ritual. Whenever one of them was blue about something, the other performed the dumbest dance he or she could come up with for the sole reason of making the other person smile. The dance was always different, but the song was always the same: “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin.

Jake had invented it way back in elementary school. Gosh, it was so long ago—back when the song had just hit the airwaves—she couldn’t even remember what she’d been upset about that had compelled him to make a fool of himself to jolt her out of it. But it stuck and stayed with them over the years and now, even though they were both in their thirties, it was still their ritual. The SID was as much a part of them as all those New Year’s Eves their families had rung in together or all those Fourths of July at the lake they’d shared. Back in the day, the mere gesture was always enough to push the recipient out of his or her funk. Or, on the rare occasion that it didn’t, the SID was the kickoff of the pity party and the guest of honor was officially put on notice that he or she had exactly twenty-four hours to get over whatever was bringing him or her down. Because whatever it was, it wasn’t worth the wasted emotion.

Nowadays, it was usually performed at the end of a love affair, as was the case today and the time that Jake had basically saved her life when her marriage had ended—metaphorically speaking, of course. But then again, he was a doctor. Saving lives was second nature to him.

Love was no longer second nature to Anna.

Sure, once upon a time, she’d believed in true love.

She’d believed in the big white dress and the happily-ever-after. She’d believed in spending Saturday nights snuggling on the couch, watching a movie with her husband. She’d believed in her wedding vows, especially the part where they’d said ’til death do us part and forsaking all others. From that day forward, the promises she and Hal had made were etched on her soul.

Then it all exploded right in front of her face.

After nearly four years of marriage, she discovered Hal, who had also looked her in the eyes and made the same vows on their wedding day, had been sleeping with his office manager.

That was when Anna had stopped believing in just about everything. Well, everything except for the one person in the world who had ever been true to her: Jake Lennox.

Jake had been her first friend, her first kiss, and the first guy to stick around after they realized they were much better friends than anything more.

He’d never stopped believing in her.

After finding out about Hal’s infidelity, the only thing Anna had wanted to do was to numb the pain with pints of Ben and Jerry’s and curl up into the fetal position in between feedings. Jake, however, was having none of that. He’d arrived on her doorstep in San Antonio and pulled her out of her emotional sinkhole and set her back on her feet. Then one month ago, after the divorce was final, he’d come back to San Antonio, single-handedly packed Anna’s belongings and moved her to Celebration. He’d even helped her find a house and had gotten her a nursing job at Celebration Memorial Hospital.

But before he’d done any of this, he’d done the SID.

There he stood: a tall, handsome thirty-four-year-old man doing the most ridiculous dance you could ever imagine to “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”

Was it any wonder that Anna felt duty-bound to be there for him on a day like today?

It was her turn to perform the SID. As humiliating as it was—well, that was the point. Anna was fully prepared to make a colossal fool of herself.

The gardenia bushes were in full bloom. Their heady scent mixed with the earthy smell of the lake perfuming the humid evening air. She swatted away a mosquito who had decided she was dinner.

Instinct told her she’d find Jake on the dock, most likely sitting on the ground with his feet in the water and a beer in his hand. Her intuition didn’t let her down.

There he sat, with his back to her, exactly as she had imagined. His lanky body was silhouetted by the setting sun. She could just make out his too-long brown hair that looked a little mussed, as if he’d recently raked his fingers through it. He was clad in blue jeans and a mint-green polo shirt. A symphony of cicadas supplied the sound track to the sunset, which had painted the western sky into an Impressionistic masterpiece in shades of orange, pink and blue.

A gentle wind stirred, rippling the lake water and providing welcome relief to the oppressive heat.

Obviously, Jake hadn’t heard her coming.

Good. The element of surprise always helped with the SID.

She took advantage of the moment to ready herself, drawing in a couple of deep breaths and doing some shoulder rolls. With one last check of the volume on her MP3 player, she pushed Play and Bobby McFerrin’s whistling reggae strains preempted the cicadas’ night song.

Jake’s head whipped around the minute he heard the music. Then he turned the rest of his body toward her, giving her his full attention.

Anna sprang into action attempting to do something she hoped resembled the moonwalk. Thank goodness she didn’t have to watch herself and the shameless lengths she was going to tonight.

Once she’d maneuvered off the grass and was dancing next to him on the dock, she broke into alternate moves that were part robot and part Charleston and part something...er...original.

As she danced, trying her best to coax a full-on smile from him, she tried to ignore the sinking feeling that maybe he’d been more serious about Dorenda than the others. That his most current ex had sent him into a Texas-sized bad humor.

She reminded herself that was exactly why she was here today. For some quality time with her best bud. To bring him out of his post-breakup funk. She knew she looked ridiculous in her pink nurse’s scrubs that were slightly too big and clunky white lace-up shoes, but Jake’s initial scowl was beginning to morph into a lopsided smile, despite himself. She could actually see him trying to fight it.

Oh, yeah, he was fighting it, but he couldn’t fool her. She knew him much too well.

In fact, it only made her unleash the most ridiculous of her dance moves: the sprinkler, the cotton-swab, and the Running Man. Dignity drew the line at dropping down onto her stomach and doing the worm. Although that move hadn’t been below Jake a month ago when he’d been there after she’d signed her divorce papers.

That intervention had been a doozy and a true testament to the depth of their friendship.

But he wouldn’t have to perform another intervention for her anytime soon.

After losing herself and getting burned so badly, Anna wasn’t in any hurry to get involved again.

For now, she was happy to serve as Jake’s intervener.

Sprinkler-two-three-four, cotton-swab-two-three-four, Running Man-two-three... She was just getting into a groove, ready to transition from the Running Man back to the robot when, in the middle of possibly the best sequence yet, her foot hit an uneven plank on the dock, causing her to lose her balance.

She saw the fall coming in slow motion and she would have face-planted if not for Jake’s quick reflexes. Instead of kissing the dock, she found herself safe in the strength of his strong arms, looking up into his gorgeous blue eyes.

* * *

Anna smelled good.

The kind of natural good that made him want to pull her closer, bury his face in her neck and breathe in deeply.

But this was Anna, for God’s sake.

He couldn’t do that.

He respected her too much and owed her so much more than that.

Especially after she’d gone to such crazy lengths to cheer him up. Did he dare tell her that he really didn’t need cheering up? Not in the way she thought he did. Sure, Dorenda had ended things, but the breakup had come as more of a relief than anything.

Before he did something stupid that would be awkward for both Anna and him, he set her upright and took a step back, allowing both of them to reclaim their personal space.

“That was graceful,” he said, hoping humor would help him regain his equilibrium.

“You know me,” Anna said. “Grace is my middle name.” Actually, it really was. “I aim to please. How are you doing, Jake? You okay?”

Her long auburn hair hung at her shoulders in loose waves. Her clear, ivory skin was virtually makeup-free. She had this look in her blue eyes that warmed him from the inside out.

He tried not to think about the strange impulse he’d had just a minute ago, an impulse that lingered even if he was trying not to acknowledge it.

“I’m great,” he said. “Want a beer? I’d like to toast your latest choreography. You’re getting really good at it. I’ll give your Running Man a nine-point-five. I have to take off a half point since you didn’t stick the landing.”

She swatted him and quickly crossed her arms in front of her.

“Yes, I’d love a beer. Thank you. I need one after that.”

He smiled. “Come on. Let’s go back up to the house. I have five of a six-pack in the fridge.”

She was eyeing him again. “Well, good. I was afraid that maybe you’d been at home all day drowning your sorrows.”

“I was seeing patients all day. In case you haven’t noticed, I usually don’t take off midweek to go on a bender.”

He and Anna both worked at Celebration Memorial Hospital, but she was an OB nurse on the third-floor maternity ward and he was a hospitalist on the general medical-surgical floors. Unless they sought each other out, their paths usually didn’t cross at work.

“I must say, you’re taking this awfully well,” she said.

“What?”

“The breakup. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that you were fine.”

“Do I act like I’m not fine?”

“Well, no. That’s what I just said. You seem remarkably unfazed by Miss Texas’s departure. Sorry, by Dorenda’s breaking up with you.”

He pulled open the back door for her and stepped aside so she could enter the house first.

“Dorenda was a great woman, but our relationship had run its course. I’ll miss her, but it was time to move on.”

He shrugged and stepped inside behind her.

“Are you telling me that you broke up with her?”

Throwing her a glance over his shoulder as he walked toward the kitchen, he said, “No, she’s the one who dropped the bomb. Actually, it was more of an exploding ultimatum. I saw it coming a mile away.”

He reached into the fridge, grabbed a beer and twisted off the bottle cap.

“She gave you an ultimatum? Really? Well, but then again, how long were the two of you together?”

“Four or five months or so. Do you want a mug? I have some in the freezer.”

“Yes, please. Had it really been five months? I mean, I’ve only been back a month.”

He nodded as he poured the beer down the inside of the mug, careful to create just the right amount of foam on top. “She reminded me of that more than a few times last night. She was talking five-year plans that involved marriage and kids and bigger houses. She kept saying she needed some assurance about our future, needed to know where we were going. I’m not going to lie to her. I enjoyed her company, but I wasn’t going to marry her.”

He handed the beer to Anna.

“Why not?” Anna asked. “She was beautiful. You seemed like you were really into her.”

Jake nodded. “She was nice. Pretty. But...I couldn’t see myself spending the rest of my life with her. That’s the bottom line.”

Anna squinted at him, her brows drawn together, as she sipped her beer.

“What’s wrong? Is the beer not good? You don’t have to drink it if you don’t like it.”

She set down the mug on the kitchen counter. “No, I like it. But I have two questions for you.”

“Okay. Shoot.”

“First question. If you’re fine with everything, how come you let me keep dancing and make a fool of myself?”

Her voice was stern.

He laughed out loud. He couldn’t help it. “Are you kidding? Watching you was the most fun I’ve had in months. No way was I going to stop you. For the record, you didn’t make a fool of yourself. You’re adorable. In fact, you’d been away so long down there in San Antonio, I’d almost forgotten how adorable you are.”

She rolled her eyes, but then smiled.

“So happy to have cheered you up,” she said.

“What’s the second question?” he asked.

She looked at him thoughtfully for a long moment.

“Why, Jake? Why do you keep dating the same type of women? I don’t mean to be judgmental and I know I haven’t been around for the last decade or so. But think of this as tough love. You keep dating the same type of women, expecting to get different results, but it always turns out the same way. Always has, always will.”

He crossed his arms, feeling a little defensive, but knowing she was right. Sometimes her friendship felt like the only real thing in the world. But still, he didn’t want to get into this right now.

“I don’t exactly see you out there blazing trails in the dating world,” he countered.

She sighed. “The divorce has only been final for a month.”

“But you were separated for nearly two years.”

“This isn’t about me, Jake. This is about you. What are you looking for?”

He shook his head.

“Company. Companionship? That’s why, when I know the relationship has run its course, I end it. Or in today’s case, I let Dorenda do the honors. I don’t string them along.”

“But you do sort of string them along. You dated Dorenda for four months. That’s a significant amount of time in the post-twenties dating world.”

Overhead, the fluorescent lights buzzed. He glanced out the kitchen window. Inky dusk was blotting out the last vestiges of the sunset.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Anna.”

“Say that you’ll let me fix you up with a different type of woman.”

Different?

“Define different.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but maybe you should consider women who are a little more down-to-earth than the Miss Texases of the world.”

He knocked back the last of his beer and debated grabbing another, but his stomach growled, reminding him he really should think about getting some food into his system first.

“Down-to-earth, huh? I wouldn’t even know where to begin to look for someone down-to-earth.”

“Exactly. That’s why I want you to let me fix you up.”

“I don’t know, Anna. Blind dates aren’t really my thing.”

He returned to the fridge, pulled open the door and surveyed the meager contents.

“When was the last time you went on a blind date?”

“Better question,” he countered. “When was the last time you even went on a date?”

He looked back over his shoulder to gauge her reaction. She didn’t seem to like being in the line of fire any more than he did.

“This isn’t about me, Jake.”

“It’s been nearly two years since you and Hal broke up. So, while we’re on the subject, it’s high time for you to get back in the saddle and try again.”

She put her hands on her hips and shook her head, looking solemn. “Okay, you’re changing the subject, and I don’t know if I even want to date. You, on the other hand, obviously do like getting involved. I know you so well, and if you’ll just let me help you, I’ll bet I can make it a much more rewarding experience for you. Or at least one that has the potential to last, maybe even change your mind about marriage. Come on. Be a sport.”

“Why are women always trying to change me?”

“The right woman wouldn’t change you, but she might make you want to see other possibilities.

He took out a carton of eggs, some butter, various veggies and the vestiges of a package of turkey bacon. It was all he had. When all else failed, breakfast for dinner always worked. It was his favorite go-to meal when the pickings were slim. He really should go to the grocery store later tonight. The rest of his week was busy.

“You’d really wager that you could fix me up with someone who is better for me than my usual type?”

She raised her chin. “You bet I could. In fact, I’ll bet I could introduce you to your soul mate if you gave me a fair chance.”

He chuckled. “You are the eternal optimist. Do you want to stay for dinner? I’ll make us an omelet.”

She put her hand on her stomach. “That sounds great. I’m starving. We can talk more about this wager. How can I help with dinner?”

“You can wash and dice the onions and red peppers.”

She stepped up to the sink to prep the peppers, but first she began by putting some dirty dishes into the dishwasher and hand-washed several pieces of flatware.

“You don’t have to do that,” he said. “I didn’t have time to clean up this morning before I left for work. I’ll do those later when I clean up the dinner dishes.”

“Actually, it’s sort of hard to wash the peppers with dishes in the way. I don’t mind, really. You are fixing me dinner. And we’re going to need forks to eat with.”

Jake left her to do what she needed to do because God knew she would anyway.

He took a bowl out of one of the cupboards and began cracking eggs into it. “Since when did you become a matchmaker? And what makes you think you can find me the right woman? I’ve been trying all these years and I haven’t been successful.”

“That’s easy. A—I know you better than you know yourself, and B—you are attracted to the wrong women. Your judgment is clouded. Mine is not.”

She might’ve had a point. But after just getting out of a relationship, he wasn’t very eager to jump back into anything serious. So looking at it from that perspective, what harm would a few dates do? Other than take up what little free time he had away from the hospital. He could indulge Anna. She meant that much to him. Then again, could he ever really expect to find his soul mate or anyone long-term when he never wanted to get married?

That was something he’d known for as long as he’d had a sense of himself as an adult. He did not want to get married. Marriage was the old ball and chain. It took something good, a relationship where two people chose to be together, and turned it into a contractual obligation. He’d witnessed it firsthand with his parents. All he could remember was the fighting, his mom leaving and his father’s profound sadness. Sadness that drove him to seek solace in the bottle. Anna knew his family history. Sure, she’d have good intentions. She’d think she was steering him toward someone who made him happy, but what was the point?

Jake vowed he’d never give a woman that much power over him.

So he said, “Before we go any farther, I have a stipulation.”

“Jake, no. If we’re going to do this and do it right, you have to play by my rules. You can’t give me a laundry list of what you want. That’s where you get into trouble with all these preconceived notions. Maybe we can talk about deal breakers, such as must not be marriage-minded or must not want kids, etcetera, but we’re not getting into the superficial. You’re just going to have to trust me.”

He poured a little milk into the eggs, a shake of salt, a grind of black pepper and began to beat them. Even though they’d spent a lot of time apart, Anna still knew him so well. A strange warmth spread through him and he whisked the eggs a little faster to work off the weird sensation.

“I wasn’t going to get superficial. In fact, my stipulation wasn’t even about me. I want to propose a double wager. Since we both need dates to the Holbrook wedding, I’ll let you fix me up, if you’ll let me fix you up.”

The daughter of Celebration Memorial Hospital’s chief executive officer Stanley Holbrook was getting married in mid-July. Jake had his eye on a promotion and attending his boss’s daughter’s wedding was one of the best ways to prove to the man he was the guy for the job. Since Holbrook was a conservative family man, Anna’s offer to fix him up with a woman of substance wasn’t a bad idea.

She was looking at him funny.

“Deal?” he said.

She opened her mouth, but then clamped it shut before saying anything. Instead, she shook her head. “No. Just...no.”

“Come on, Anna, fair is fair. I know Hal hurt you, but you’re too young to put yourself on a shelf. You want to get married again. You want to have kids. There are good guys out there, and I think I know one or two who would be worthy of you.”

She stopped chopping. “Worthy of me?” Her expression softened. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone has said to me in a very long time.”

“Case in point of why you need to get out more, my dear. Men should be saying many nice things to you.”

She made short order of chopping the peppers, scraping the tiny pieces into a bowl and then drying her hands.

“Okay, I’ll make a deal with you,” she said. “We’ll do this until Stan Holbrook’s daughter’s wedding. Between now and then, I’ll bet I can match you with your soul mate and cure you of your serial monogamy issues.”

He winced. “What? As in something permanent?”

She shrugged. “Just give me a chance.”

“Only if you’ll let me do the same for you. Do we have a deal?”

She nodded.

“So what are we betting?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t really mean it as a serious bet.”

“I think making a bet will make this more interesting. We don’t have to decide the prize right away. Let’s just agree that the first one who succeeds in making a match for the other wins.”

Anna wrinkled her nose. “Knowing you, you’ll let a good woman go just to win the challenge. You’re so competitive.”

“But if you think about it,” he said, “who will be the real winner? One will win the bet, but the other will win love.”

“That’s extremely profound for a man who has such bad taste in women.” She gave him that smile that always made him feel as if he’d come home. He paused to just take it in for a moment.

Then Jake shook her smooth, warm hand, and said, “Here’s to soul mates.”