Just What the Doctor Ordered Read online

  Matt’s temper snapped. “I’m a good kisser, but I’m better in bed. I’m not serious about anyone, but I’ll be damned if anyone is going to spread me out on a sheet. Now, where is my lunch, or did you just get me in here to ask X-rated questions?”

  Matt was shocked by his own response. He’d never reacted like that before. Salome’s insanity must be contagious. Something had to account for it.

  Liz chuckled all the way home. She would never forget the look on Matt’s face when Salome told him he’d look good spread out on a sheet. It had been all she could do not to snicker at him. She didn’t know why Matt was so stiff, but if Salome couldn’t take the starch out of him, no one could.

  Still, he would look nice on a sheet. Liz had been thinking about him since she’d first seen him. Now that Salome’s remark had focused her imagination on one particular image, she doubted she would be able to get the picture out of her mind. Its being a very agreeable picture made it that much more difficult.

  Liz stopped in the middle of the gravel path. She was as bad as everybody else who couldn’t stop speculating about each stranger who came to town. That’s exactly what she’d run away from so many years ago.

  She picked up her pace. If she didn’t hurry, she’d be late fixing lunch for Rebecca and Ben. She’d made that part of her agreement when she took the job. Today was the first time she wished she could have left the children to Naomi. She would love to have taken Sadie up on her oft-extended invitation to have lunch with them.

  Liz didn’t fool herself that it had anything to do with Sadie or Salome. No, it had everything to do with one very handsome “Dr. Beefcake.” She laughed aloud. She had to agree with Salome’s opinion he could have his own calendar if he wanted.

  Liz gave herself a mental shake. Just minutes ago, she’d decided not to indulge in idle speculation, and now she was imagining Matt sprawled out for a calendar photo shoot. She should be appalled at herself. Instead, her mental images made her slightly warm all over. Maybe she should marry Ethan. She was definitely in need of some male attention.

  Only Ethan never made her feel like this. But if he loved her, and she liked him an awful lot, why should he leave her cold while a virtual stranger shifted her imagination into overdrive?

  For the same reason movie stars and rock singers had been driving women crazy ever since Rudolph Valentino. Charisma. It was nothing more. She would be over Matt Dennis three days after he left. She was certain he would go. A man like him would never spend a minute longer in Iron Springs than he had to.

  She thought of the fax she’d found in her machine that morning, a belated notification that Dr. Matt Dennis had been assigned to replace Dr. Jane Lumas. If it had come sooner, she would probably have withdrawn her offer of rooms, she would never have met Matt, and she wouldn’t now be worried about his effect on her. Though she was certain her life would have been much smoother without this interruption, she couldn’t entirely regret it. Matt might stay no more than a few weeks, but his presence promised to give the people of Iron Springs something to talk about through the long winter.

  And her? Well, a daydream now and then didn’t do any harm. Besides, if she thought very much about that calendar, she might not need her electric blanket.

  “I’m hungry,” Ben announced.

  “Me, too,” Rebecca said. “How long do we have to wait?”

  “Just a few more minutes,” Liz told her children as they stared hungrily at food getting cold. “If he’s not here by six-thirty, we’ll eat without him.”

  Where could Matt be? She’d told him dinner was at six. She was certain there hadn’t been an accident. In a community this small, she’d have heard about it in less than five minutes. No, he was just plain late. There was no point in waiting any longer.

  “We’ll eat now,” she said.

  Ben immediately started spooning mashed potatoes into his mouth.

  “Aren’t we going to wait?” Rebecca asked.

  “I’ve changed my mind. He’s too late already.”

  “I think we ought to wait. He might come in.”

  Now that she’d been given permission to do what she’d been begging to do for the past twenty minutes, Rebecca didn’t want to begin eating. Ben looked up, a spoonful of potatoes halfway to this mouth, a worried expression on his face.

  “You can wait if you want, but Ben and I are hungry. He might be very late.”

  Matt didn’t come in until thirteen minutes of seven. Liz didn’t have to tell him he was late. The children did it for her.

  “You’re very late,” Ben announced. His very sounded more like worry.

  “We didn’t wait,” Rebecca announced. “Mama said maybe you didn’t like to eat with children.”

  Liz felt herself blush. Someday she’d learn not to say anything to the children she didn’t want repeated within five minutes. “I did tell you dinner was at six.”

  “I was studying patient records and lost track of time.” He tousled Ben’s hair. “Did you leave me any food, sport?”

  “Lots of food,” Ben chirped. “Everything cold.”

  Liz flushed again as she got to her feet. “It won’t take but a minute to heat it in the microwave.”

  “That’s all right. I can eat it cold.”

  “You can’t eat cold potatoes or peas,” she said. “Sit down. It’ll be ready in a minute.”

  “I’ll wash up.”

  He was back down just seconds after the food came out of the microwave.

  “Where are the children?” he asked as she served his plate.

  “Getting ready to go to Aunt Marian’s.”

  “I was looking forward to talking to them.”

  “Then you’ll have to get home earlier. They go to bed as soon as we get back.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to mess up your schedule.”

  Why couldn’t he be fat and ugly? Liz thought. That would make it easier to stay mad at him for being so thoughtless. Instead, he sat there looking like he’d just stepped out of that calendar she’d been thinking about all afternoon, and she couldn’t do anything but smile back at him.

  “It’s not that,” she said. “I can fix your dinner separately, but I can’t if you don’t tell me when to expect you.”

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  “It will if you mean to come in at all hours. The children need to keep to a regular schedule. I like to feed them at six.”

  “Then I’ll be here at six.”

  “You don’t have to. I can fix you something cold.”

  “After a cold breakfast and lunch, I look forward to a hot dinner.”

  “I fixed a hot breakfast.” She wasn’t going to let him push the blame for this off on her. “If you want a hot lunch, you’ll have to go to the hotel.”

  He looked reproachful, even angry, but he forced himself to smile. He was going to be agreeable if it killed him.

  “Being late twice in the same day is unpardonable. I promise I won’t do it again.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me,” she said. “But if you want hot food—”

  “Tell me when I’m to be at the table, and I’ll be here.”

  “Seven-thirty for breakfast, and six o’clock for dinner. If you can’t make it, let me know. I’ll try to—”

  “If I can’t make it, I’ll get my own. Now, don’t let me make you late to your aunt’s. If you’ll leave the water in the sink, I’ll wash my plate.”

  “We got dishwashers in Iron Springs years ago.” Did he think they were still bagging their dinner in the woods and dressing it in the backyard? “Just put your plate in and turn it on.”

  Ben and Rebecca came running into the kitchen. “Is the man going to Aunt Marian’s with us?” Rebecca asked.

  “Tie shoes,” Ben said, and thrust his foot at Matt.

  “Ben, you can’t—”

  “I’ll be happy to,” Matt declared. He got up from the table and knelt down on the floor.

  “Can’t tie shoes,” Ben announced.


  “Then I’ll teach you,” Matt said. “Give me your other foot.”

  Ben put his foot on Matt’s knee. Liz started to say something, but Matt calmly tied the shoe.

  “We’ll have to see about getting you some shoes with Velcro straps,” Matt staid.

  “What’s ‘well-crow’?” Ben asked.

  “Magic shoes,” Matt said.

  “Can I have magic shoes, Mommy?” Ben asked.

  “We’ll see. Now, we’d better hurry or we’ll be late.” She hoped he would forget the magic shoes. Shoes for three-year-olds cost more than thirty dollars.

  “You never said if you were coming,” Rebecca said to Matt. She might be only four, but she never forgot anything.

  “Maybe next time.”

  “Aunt Marian wants you to come. She says she wants to see what all the panting is about.”

  Liz silently vowed that in the future her children would be locked in their rooms the minute Matt set foot in the house.

  “Salome’s been talking,” Liz explained, hurrying Ben and Rebecca out of the house before they could say anything else to embarrass her.

  She started to ask them to be careful what they said, then realized it would be impossible. Besides, it wasn’t their fault if adults didn’t know any better than to utter every foolish thought that came into their heads in front of them. Maybe this would help her think before she spoke.

  But what could anybody do about Salome Halfacre?

  Chapter Four

  “I ought to run around the mountain before I go to the clinic,” Matt said. “If I eat this much every morning, I’ll soon need a complete new wardrobe, and I can’t afford that.” He pushed his chair back from the table, which had been laden with dishes of scrambled eggs, sausage, grits, toast and warm peaches in milk.

  “The children need a big breakfast,” Liz said.

  “I know. I just have to learn not to try to outeat Ben.”

  “I hope they didn’t bother you too much.”

  “Nothing I can’t get used to.”

  They had been boisterous but well-behaved. Ben had been too concerned with eating to pay much attention to Matt. Rebecca had asked him if she’d have to take out people’s insides if she became a doctor. When he said no, she’d asked about the brain. She’d laughed merrily when he said she had a gruesome imagination.

  Liz sent the children off to wash up and get ready to go to Naomi’s.

  “I’ve talked about everything from dissecting cadavers to bowel resections over breakfast, lunch and dinner,” Matt said to Liz. “This morning was the first time I realized they didn’t make very suitable table conversation. Do they always stay with your cousin?”

  “There’s no day care in Iron Springs.”

  “Surely other women work. Who keeps their children?” She looked slightly uneasy. He wished he hadn’t said anything.

  “I’m something of a scandal in Iron Springs. A divorced woman. The only one.”

  “Surely they don’t think...” Unsure of what he wanted to ask, he swallowed the last of his sentence.

  “I know exactly what they think. You always do in a place this small. They didn’t approve of my marrying a Yankee and moving to New York. But having made my bed, as the saying goes, I was expected to lie in it.”

  “But it had too many lumps?”

  “That’s one way to put it. Now that I’ve let you stay here, they’ll have more food for gossip. They’ll probably decide I’m chasing you.”

  Matt set the coffee cup he’d just raised to his lips back down.

  Liz laughed. “Don’t look so startled. People have to have something to talk about. Besides, there’s something predatory about divorced women. Everyone knows it takes virtually nothing to turn us into man-eaters.”

  The tension eased, and Matt felt himself grin. “What about big-city doctors? Are we wolves in sheep’s clothing?”

  “They haven’t made up their minds about you, but generally they blame this sort of thing on the woman. If she chases a man, she’s a tramp. If he chases her, he’s just doing what she wanted him to do. Really, you men have no will of your own.”

  He didn’t know why this amused him. “You’ll have to keep me up on the latest.”

  “Speculation will probably die out in a week or two. Since we both work at the clinic, people will get used to seeing us together. After they realize Sadie and Salome have nothing to tell them, they’ll find something else to talk about.”

  “That reminds me,” Matt said, “who hires the staff at the clinic?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you replace them, as well?”

  Any appearance of friendliness vanished from Liz’s expression. “If necessary, but I haven’t had to consider that. Things have gone very well since I hired Salome.”

  “So you did hire her?”

  “Yes. Is anything wrong?”

  “Do you think she’s a proper receptionist for a public clinic?”

  She gave him a look that had bulldog determination written all over it. “Are you talking about her liking for brightly colored lipstick?”

  “That, and her calling me Dr. Beefcake in front of the patients.”

  “Anything else?”

  The steely look she directed at him didn’t encourage him to be entirely frank. “I’m used to a more professional atmosphere.”

  “Does that include Sadie? You might as well tell me now, because I hired her, as well.”

  “Why didn’t Dr. Evans do it?”

  “Because it’s my job.” Her gaze narrowed dangerously. “Or don’t you think I’m qualified?”

  Matt opened his mouth, then shut it. How could she be expected to know how to staff a public medical facility? She hadn’t even finished college, much less had any medical training.

  Liz regarded him with a penetrating look that made him uneasy.

  “Answer me.”

  “No.” There was no point in evading it. It had to be said.

  Her gaze didn’t waver. “And I don’t think you have the experience to know what kind of staff a clinic like this needs to run smoothly.”

  He couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d said she wanted to have sex with him in the middle of the kitchen floor. “Are you questioning my medical knowledge?” No one ever had, not in college or during his residency.

  “No. I know you graduated at the top of your class at the University of Virginia. I also know you won the most prestigious residency in the state, that you’re considered a brilliant surgeon, and a bright future in some great hospital is widely forecast for you.”

  Surprise caused him to momentarily forget Salome. “How do you know all that?”

  “This may be a tiny town in a tiny valley in the mountains, but we have telephone lines. And faxes. I had your complete history in my hands before lunch yesterday. How did a wunderkind like you ever get sent to a place like Iron Springs? You must have made someone really mad.”

  Matt didn’t know what made him more angry, that she questioned his knowledge, that she had found out his whole history without his permission or that he was in this dead end village in the first place. It hardly mattered. Each was enough to cause him to blow a gasket.

  “Did you find out what I like best for dinner, my hobbies, the age at which I reached puberty?”

  “No, but I’m sure if I ask...you’re not making a joke, are you?”

  “No.” How could having his entire life history at the fingertips of the rest of the world be a joke?

  “I didn’t get any information that isn’t available to everybody else in the medical community. I felt I needed to know something about you. After the way you clammed up the day you arrived, I didn’t expect you’d tell me.”

  He wouldn’t have, but now it seemed like wasted effort. “How long have you had this job?”

  “Two years.”

  “So you’ve only worked with Evans. As far as you know, every doctor could be exactly alike.”

  “I know enough of human nature to
know that will never be the case.”

  She was a slippery character, one not easily gotten around.

  “But you don’t know whether another doctor would mind working with Salome.”

  “No. I just know that Dr. Evans didn’t.”

  “Did he say so?”

  “Not in so many words. He did say he didn’t want to pay for fancy degrees as long as I could find somebody willing and able to do the work. He wanted all available money used for supplies he could hand out to people who couldn’t afford them.”

  Matt’s collar suddenly felt too tight. He had been climbing on his medical high horse only to have it knocked out from under him by Dr. Evans’s humanity.

  “I wasn’t aware that patients couldn’t afford to buy what they needed.”

  “You would be if you looked at the price of the drugs you prescribe.”

  It had never occurred to Matt to think of the cost of the drugs he used, just their effectiveness. It had been someone else’s job to see that the patients got them.

  The children raced into the kitchen.

  “I got here first,” Rebecca said, flashing an ear-to-ear grin. Everything they did seemed to be a competition.

  “Make sure you put all the toys you want in your bag,” Liz said to the children. “I’ll be ready in a minute.” She turned to Matt. “Anything else you want to say?”

  “No.” He had to admit that his first day in the office had gone without a hitch. Everyone had been cheerful, the patients had been on schedule and properly prepared, charts and equipment ready and waiting for him. He’d never gotten the wrong chart or equipment—not even the wrong room.

  “Are you going to the clinic now?” Liz asked.

  “I think I’ll stay here and work on charts until about eight forty-five. That’ll keep me out of your way while you get things ready.” It would also keep him out of the range of Salome’s tongue. The mere word beefcake was enough to set his teeth on edge.

  Matt didn’t like mountains, but he had to admit they made an idyllic backdrop rising behind the clinic, mist curling up out of the trees. But not even the refreshing fifteen-minute walk from Liz’s house could make him feel the least bit idyllic. He wanted to punch each doctor in the nose who’d voted to send him here. No, he’d rather force them to work here instead. He couldn’t think of a more suitable revenge.