Just What the Doctor Ordered Read online

“I don’t think it’s right for him to be so familiar with the children,” Ethan said. “What will they do when he leaves?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s the first chance they’ve had to have a man around, and they love it.”

  “I’m around,” Ethan said.

  Matt knew that wasn’t the same as having their real father. He also knew Ethan didn’t have the same feeling for Liz’s children that he had for Liz. The man who married Liz had to want to be Ben and Rebecca’s father just as much as he wanted to be Liz’s husband. Matt knew what it was like to be unwanted. He didn’t want that to happen to anyone if he could help it.

  Liz locked the door to the clinic and headed home at a fast walk. She had to relieve the emergency baby-sitter. Her cousin had had a crisis that morning and couldn’t keep Ben and Rebecca, so Liz had left them with a sleepy-eyed Matt. She hated to ruin his Saturday morning, but all he had to do was keep one eye open until the camper Aunt Marian was sending over arrived. After that he could go back to bed.

  Things had been hectic at the clinic. It had taken all her people skills to convince patients to see the substitute doctor rather than cancel and make an appointment to see Matt the following week. She wondered if he had any idea how much faith people had in him.

  No. He saw himself as delivering good medicine, but he was oblivious to the people. She thought she’d mistaken him, that he was a real softie after all. She’d been wrong. He wasn’t the granite pillar he thought himself, but neither was he the marshmallow she wanted. He was good, he was concerned, he cared, but he wasn’t getting involved. It was obvious that when the time came to leave, he wanted no ties with this town.

  She worried about the effect his leaving would have on her children. She hadn’t wanted them to become so attached to Matt, but it had happened before she realized it. One minute he was a stranger at her door, the next, her children couldn’t eat a meal, get ready for bed or play a game without him. She admitted she’d been too happy for the kids to want to stop it. Now she wondered if she had made a big mistake.

  Despite knowing Matt didn’t mean to stay in Iron Springs a minute longer than he had to, Liz was finding it harder and harder to think of his leaving. She had gotten used to having him around. They didn’t seem able to agree on much, but they liked each other anyway. It was an odd thing to say, but they were comfortable together. She wondered why.

  She wasn’t as comfortable with Ethan these days even though they had much the same interests, likes and dislikes. She was even less comfortable since he proposed to her after the firemen’s picnic. It must have been the dozenth time. She hadn’t kept count. He had poured out his heart to her, telling her all the reasons they ought to get married, what he wanted to do for her, what he wanted to do for her children. Much to her chagrin, she kept wondering what Matt and Ben were doing in the bathroom.

  When Ethan had pressed her for an answer, she’d said she had to settle things with David before she could even think of getting married again. When he offered to handle David for her, she told him she wasn’t helpless, that she could handle her own affairs.

  But as Liz turned into her own yard, she realized there was something more here than not being ready to think about marriage. She had started comparing Ethan unfavorably with Matt. She’d better set herself down and figure out exactly what was happening before she did something stupid. She’d better make up her mind about Ethan. If things were going in the direction she feared they were, she would have to tell him right away. After all his kindness, it would be unthinkable to let the first hint come from someone else.

  Liz expected to hear loud noises from the yard, to see toys scattered all over the house, to find a frazzled teenager struggling to keep up with her two little terrors. The yard was empty, and the living room and hall were clear of stray toys, clothes, and shoes.

  Just as she decided Aunt Marian must have taken them up to the camp, she heard voices coming from the kitchen. She walked in to find Ben, Rebecca and Matt seated at the table having lunch.

  “Hi, Mommy,” Rebecca called with her mouth half-full. “We saved a place for you.”

  Four places had been set, complete with napkins. A sandwich and potato chips on one plate, apple slices on another and a glass of milk made up almost exactly the kind of lunch Liz would have fixed.

  “I didn’t want Aunt Marian to do this,” she said as she went to the refrigerator to get herself a glass of water. “I told her I’d feed you when I got home.”

  “Matt fixed lunch,” Rebecca said, “and I helped.”

  “Me, too,” Ben said.

  “You did not,” Rebecca said. “You spilled your milk, and Matt had to clean it up.”

  “I helped,” Ben insisted.

  Liz couldn’t help staring at Matt.

  “How hard can sandwiches be?” he asked.

  “Where’s the camper Aunt Marian sent?”

  “She never came,” Rebecca said.

  “Why not?” Liz asked Matt.

  “I didn’t see any point in it since I was going to be here already,” Matt explained.

  “Your eyes weren’t open when I left.”

  “They were the minute the door closed behind you. Faced with being alone with the Terrible Tyke, it was pay attention or suffer the consequences.”

  “I’m the Fabulous Female,” Rebecca announced. “That’s a good name. Matt didn’t have to open his eyes for me.”

  Liz felt like she’d better sit down while she was still able to control her limbs. This stubborn man had just spent the morning with her children, fixed them lunch, for God’s sake, virtually had them eating out of his hands, and he thought people wouldn’t like him, would reject him because of his birth. This after she’d spent a whole morning trying to get his patients to see another doctor.

  Why couldn’t he see everybody was crazy about him!

  Because he’d convinced himself otherwise. Or the people of Gull’s Landing had done it for him. It may have even continued in college and medical school. She didn’t know, but after thirty years of believing he was a social reject, a few weeks of acceptance in a nearly invisible town deep in the mountains wasn’t about to change his mind.

  Yet here he was, the personification of the kind of man any sensible, red-blooded American girl would gobble up in one swallow. He was handsome, smart, had a great career ahead of him, and her kids adored him. For that matter, she was rather fond of him herself.

  But she had to call a halt before things got out of hand. She didn’t want her kids—or herself—to become attached to a man who was going to leave at the first opportunity, who had little understanding of the values that made her love Iron Springs and the people in it. It was crazy to let her liking for him go one step beyond wanting him because he was so impossibly good-looking.

  She poured a glass of water and came to the table, her place directly across from Matt. “If I’d known you could get along so well without me, I’d have taken Salome up on her invitation to go shopping. Maybe even taken in a movie.”

  “Take me to mobie,” Ben said.

  “Why don’t you?” Matt said.

  “Because I can’t leave you here with Terrible Tyke, even if you do have Fabulous Female to help you.”

  She took a bite of her sandwich. It tasted delicious. He’d heated slices of the picnic ham, melted cheese over it, used mayonnaise and lettuce. She’d let him fix lunch more often.

  “We’ll be just fine. We’ve got plenty to do.”

  “I wouldn’t think of it. I’ve got the garden to pick and—”

  “We already picked it,” Rebecca announced.

  “I picked cu-cumbers,” Ben managed to get out.

  “It’s better to pick vegetables while it’s still cool,” Matt said.

  “I helped shell the beans,” Rebecca related. “I don’t like it. It’s hard.”

  “They’re in the refrigerator,” Matt said when Liz turned her surprised gaze on him.

  “Can I hire you?” Liz said, unable to think
of anything safe to say. “Picking and shelling is the part I hate.”

  “Matt had to bend way down,” Ben said.

  She dreaded going to look at her garden. She was sure every bush was broken, every row trampled down.

  Liz leaned back in her chair. “What else did you do? Or were you too exhausted from your labor in the garden to do anything else?”

  “Show Mommy your surprise,” Matt said to Ben.

  The little boy lifted his leg and put his shoe on the table. “Matt teached me.”

  The knot in his shoelace was in danger of falling out any minute, but it had definitely been tied.

  “Did Matt really teach you to do that?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He put that foot down and brought up the other one. “See.”

  “How did you do it?” she asked, turning to Matt. “I’ve been trying for months.”

  “He’s left-handed. So am I. In effect, you were trying to teach him to tie his shoes backward.”

  That explanation had never occurred to Liz.

  “He promised to teach me how to play paddle ball,” Rebecca said.

  Liz considered it a silly game, but Rebecca had wanted to learn ever since one of the campers who was a wiz with a paddle and ball baby-sat them early in the summer.

  “He said he would buy me one as soon as Hannah gets one in her store. She’s all sold out. We went over this morning and looked.”

  “You shouldn’t have asked Matt to buy you a paddle ball,” Liz said, embarrassed.

  “She didn’t. I volunteered,” Matt clarified.

  “You still shouldn’t have.”

  “It’s a small thing.”

  “Small things add up.”

  Now, why had she said that? Was she talking about him or herself? “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I just feel guilty imposing on you.”

  “Don’t worry. When I get tired, you’ll know. Now I’ve promised the kids a game of football if they take their naps without a fuss.”

  “Is Rebecca going to play?” Rebecca hated football. She always refused to play.

  “Sure. She’s our quarterback. Did you know she’s got a wicked arm? I asked her to throw an overgrown cucumber into the compost pile. She pitched it thirty yards without even trying.”

  Liz turned to Rebecca, who grinned with pride.

  “Quarterback, huh?” Liz said.

  “I have to play,” Rebecca explained. “You can’t play football with just two people.”

  “Your Dr. Andrews had better get you recalled soon,” she said to Matt. “If you stay here much longer, I won’t know my own children.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t mind coming with us?” Liz asked. Josie had had one of her attacks of indigestion at the last minute and had insisted Ethan take her to Dr. Kennedy. Ben and Rebecca had begged Matt to go with them to the Wolf Gap Recreation Area for their picnic.

  “That must be the tenth time you’ve asked me the same question,” Matt said. “I didn’t mind an hour ago, and I don’t mind now. Why do you keep asking?”

  “I guess I feel guilty taking up your Sunday like this. You could be sleeping, or visiting friends in Charlottesville, or wherever you go when you disappear.”

  The children were now playing by themselves on the swings. After wearing both Liz and Matt out with games of tag, hide-and-seek, kick ball and general roughhousing, they’d been forbidden to utter their names for at least an hour. Matt and Liz relaxed in the shade of an old maple, the remains of their lunch long since abandoned to a pair of brazen cardinals.

  It was a peaceful, lazy summer afternoon. An overnight rain had cooled the temperature to the low eighties. A light breeze wafted through the trees, rustling leaves overhead. The surrounding woods were noisy with the chattering of greedy squirrels searching for food and arguing over favorite resting spots.

  “I’m glad you came,” Liz said. She sat up, her arms around her knees, which were drawn up under her chin. Matt sat next to her, their shoulders almost touching. “The kids would have moped for days.” She looked to where they were now chasing each other around the car. “Well, hours at least.”

  “Do they ever get tired?” Matt asked. “If I kept going like that, I’d be dragging for at least a week.”

  “They’ll collapse into bed tonight, sleep for twelve hours without turning over, then be as good as new tomorrow.”

  Matt shuddered. “I can’t imagine I was ever like that.”

  Liz wondered what his life had been like as a little boy, shuttled from one foster home to another, shunned by some, wanted by none. Had he been quiet, a loner, or had he been boisterous and outgoing? He must have been cute. Nobody could grow up to be this handsome and not have been a darling little boy.

  She was certain all the little girls had had crushes on him. It wouldn’t matter that he was illegitimate, a foster child or constantly in trouble. That would only have added to his attraction. She wondered if even now some young woman, happily married to her safe and dependable husband, didn’t occasionally remember a handsome little boy and wonder what had happened to him.

  She would have.

  “Did you play football in high school?” she asked. He never talked about his past.

  “Sure. We were a small school. It took everybody we had just to field a team.”

  “What did you play?”

  “Quarterback.”

  “Were you good?”

  “Not particularly. I was too worried about my hands. Even then I knew I wanted to become a surgeon.”

  “Did you date the head cheerleader or the homecoming queen?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I didn’t have money or a car. Other boys had both.”

  That was thoughtless. Common sense should have told her that.

  “I’m sure they were sorry. You must have been twice as smart as anybody on the team and three times as good-looking.”

  Matt chuckled. It was a delicious sound, the first time Liz could remember anyone other than the kids making him laugh. It pleased her greatly that she had.

  “Maybe, but it never worked to my advantage. People don’t like to be around somebody who’s able to outdo them in everything.”

  “I don’t see why not. I would. I mean, what’s the point of having a husband who’s average, or even below? I’d want a man who was better than I was, at least in most things. Then when something came up I couldn’t handle, I’d feel confident I could turn it over to him and he wouldn’t screw it up worse than I would.”

  This time Matt’s laughter came from the belly, full and totally spontaneous.

  “I wish I’d thought of that argument. It would certainly have improved my social life.”

  “You shouldn’t have had to come up with any kind of argument to convince those girls to go out with you. They must have been remarkably silly. Did they wear glasses? Probably too ignorant to go to the doctor and get them adjusted. They probably saw two of you and figured you’d have twice as many hands they’d have to fight off.”

  “Would you have gone out with me?”

  “Certainly. I have very good eyesight, and I’ve fought off boys with more hands than an octopus.”

  Without warning, Matt leaned over and kissed her.

  Chapter Eleven

  Startled, Liz pulled back. It wasn’t because he’d kissed her but because of her reaction to his kiss. She wanted him to kiss her again, and that realization shook her very badly. It had been a quick kiss, almost innocent, yet it made her want to forget every restraint, every scruple that kept her from kissing him back. Liz couldn’t understand how one kiss could affect her so profoundly. Yet in the space of a moment it had caused the basis of their entire relationship to shift.

  “Why did you do that?” she asked.

  “Every beautiful woman should be kissed.”

  “You think I’m beautiful?”

  “Everybody in Iron Springs thinks so. Solomon Trinket told me so the day I arrived.”

  “I�
��m not asking about everybody. I’m asking about you.”

  “Yes, I think you’re beautiful. I think you’re beautiful when you’re dressed in your power suit, being the efficient manager of a very small county medical clinic. I think you’re beautiful when you pull out your frills to go to church and risk another encounter with Josie Woodhouse. But I think you’re most beautiful right now, when your hair is up in a ponytail and you’re wearing a halter top, very skimpy shorts and tennis shoes without socks. That way I can see the absolute most of you.”

  Liz felt a warmth spread through her that had nothing to do with the sunlight peeking through the maple leaves. For the first time since learning David had been cheating on her, she actually felt beautiful. She wanted to stretch and preen and lie languid before him like a Siamese cat. She wanted to luxuriate on satin sheets, to lie nearly submerged in scented bathwater, to wash with soft sponges. She felt wholly sensual and alive.

  She wondered why Ethan couldn’t make her feel like this. He constantly told her she was beautiful, but he hadn’t touched her half as deeply as Matt had with a simple kiss.

  “You’ll get into trouble if you make a habit of kissing every attractive woman you meet,” Liz said. “Some of them are bound to have husbands who wouldn’t understand you were just paying homage to Nature’s handiwork.”

  “In your case, they’d be right.”

  Liz got to her feet She wasn’t exactly running away, but she was afraid to let herself stay, afraid of what she might do if she did. Matt followed.

  “I shouldn’t have kissed you,” he said. “It was unfair. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “Not unfair, just unexpected.”

  “You’re dating Ethan.”

  “Yes.”

  “I should have known that put you off limits.”

  It did put her off limits, but she knew with total certainty she didn’t want to be off limits to Matt.

  “Let’s walk,” she suggested.

  “You don’t have to run away.”

  “I’m not running away.” She was, but not from him. “The children are playing in the stream. I want to be close to them.”