Saving Dr. Ryan Read online

  “How’re the kids doing?” Cal asked.

  “What? Oh, fine.” Maddie made a big show out of dragging out her list, then heading for the rice and beans aisle. She’d done a ham the other night; the leftovers would make a real good ham-and-bean crockpot. Then she had to pick up a few things for Mildred Rafferty—she’d taken over doing the grocery delivery for the old woman, who now looked forward to seeing Maddie and the kids every Tuesday afternoon. She glanced over, decided Cal really was like a great big dog. One you wished would just go on back home. “Is there something you want, Cal?”

  “Now, Maddie, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to give me the brush off.”

  “And you would be right.” She tossed a bag of navy beans into the cart. “Your brother warned me about you, you know.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Uh-huh. And from what he’d said, Hootch Atkins is an amateur compared to you.”

  Cal’s grin grew even more smug. “Hey, you’ll get no arguments from me on that score. But actually, I was thinking…what about bringing the kids out to the farm on Saturday? Think they might like that?”

  “They probably would. I wouldn’t.”

  “Oh, come on. I had a mare foal a couple weeks ago. And maybe the kids’d like to pick out a few pumpkins from our patch.”

  “Uh-huh. And what’re you trying to pick out?”

  He laughed. “My intentions are completely honorable, Maddie,” he said gently. “I swear.”

  For some reason, she believed him. “Well…you sure the kids wouldn’t get in the way?”

  His brows lifted. “Of what? The pumpkins? I’m crazy about kids, Maddie. And I’m boarding a pony right now that’d be just right for them to take a ride on, if they want.”

  She picked up a can of creamed corn and pretended to study the label. But instead of ingredients and nutritional values, all she saw was Dr. Logan’s scowl.

  With a bright smile, she looked up at Cal. “Sure, that sounds like fun. What time?”

  “I’ll call you,” he said. Then he swung one arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick hug. “All I can say is, I’m just sorry I didn’t see you first.”

  Then he left, swaggering down the aisle, his basket banging into his thigh.

  Oh, Lord.

  After she finished up her shopping, she picked up the kids, then Amy Rose from Ruby’s, took everybody home and fed them, then put them all down for a nap before they went out to Mildred’s. When she was sure they were all asleep, she went on into the office so she could get in a couple hours’ work.

  Dr. Ryan was at his desk, frowning so hard through his glasses at the journal he was reading he didn’t notice her standing there in the doorway. He still had on his white coat, which made his shoulders look broader than usual; his hair was sticking up funny, like he’d been plowing his hand through it. As usual, classical music was playing on the small clock radio set in front of him.

  Something heated and scary and familiar trickled through Maddie as she stood there, watching him. All those men, some of whom really were very sweet—including the doctor’s no-account brother, she thought with a half smile—and not a single one of them made her pulse kick up like this. This man, however…

  She’d gotten her hair cut almost a week ago. He hadn’t mentioned it once.

  The doctor looked up. Maddie’s thoughts scattered.

  “Oh.” He squinted at the clock. “It’s later than I thought.”

  “I can always come back—”

  “No, no, that’s okay.” He got up, tucking the journal underneath his arm. If the man wasn’t tending to patients, he was reading up on how to tend to them. He’d said once that the older he got, the more often he ran across some study or other that totally disproved a theory previously taken as gospel. “Educated guesswork,” he’d said one evening. “That’s all this is.”

  Well, that’s all life was, wasn’t it?

  “You can change the station if you like,” he said.

  “No, no…it’s fine. What is this, do you know?”

  He stopped in the middle of slipping off his lab coat to listen. “Tchaikovsky. His sixth symphony. Do you…like it?”

  “I’ve heard worse.”

  He chuckled.

  As the doctor hung the coat up on a hook on the back of the office door, Maddie sat behind his desk to begin sorting out the morning’s work. The wooden seat still held his body heat; the air, his scent. Nothing she could define, certainly—well, other than a hint of Old Spice—but an aroma that was uniquely his, just the same. She breathed deeply, shivering a little.

  “How’d your visit go with Ned?” he asked, leaning one hip on the front of the desk. On office hour days, they’d spend twenty minutes or so together sorting through the files and what-all, so he wouldn’t get behind again.

  “Better.” She opened the first file. “I figure in twenty, maybe thirty years, he might not even growl at me anymore. Honestly, you have the world’s worst handwriting.” She flipped the file around. “What’s this say?”

  The doctor squinted a little—he’d taken his glasses off and apparently didn’t want to bother putting them back on—then tapped the page. “Remove stitches. No charge.” Then he said, “You know what they say about old dogs.”

  Maddie entered the notation in the journal she’d started keeping. “I’m not much for old wives’ tales, Dr. Ryan. And as far as I can tell, most grouches are that way because they’re unhappy.”

  “And you’ve decided you’re the one to change that.”

  What was that she’d told herself about the foolishness of trying to change a man who doesn’t want to be changed? Now she shrugged, picking up the next file. “I didn’t say it would be easy. But I can’t help it. I took this personality test once in a magazine, and it said I was a ‘fixer’. You know, one of those people—”

  “I know what a fixer is,” he said. “My mother was one. Wait—is that Luke Hawkins’s file?”

  “What? Oh, yeah.”

  “That’s a credit, not a bill. I’m still working off the new roof he put on the house two years ago.”

  Maddie made a note and set the folder aside to put away later. But her heart was just a rat-tat-tatting inside her, mainly because Dr. Ryan didn’t usually talk much about his personal life. He didn’t usually talk to her this much, period. She didn’t know what it meant that he was now—if it meant anything at all—but she sure as heck wasn’t going to do anything to break the spell.

  “So…what do you mean? Your mother was a fixer, too?”

  A smile turned up the corners of his mouth as he picked up one of the folders, scribbled something inside it. “Just that she couldn’t stand to see folks at odds with each other, whether it was the neighbors squabbling over whose property a fence was on or the church membership about to come to blows over what color the new carpet should be.” He glanced at her, then back at the folder. “What you’re trying to do with Ned reminds me a lot of her. Not that she was always successful. Especially when it came to my brothers and me.”

  She tapped her pen on the blotter for a moment, then said, “Speaking of your brothers…I ran into Cal at the Homeland.”

  “Oh?”

  So much weight for such a small word. “Yeah. He really does think he’s God’s gift, doesn’t he?”

  Dr. Logan returned his attention to the chart in his hand. “Just…be careful, Maddie. That charm of his can be lethal.”

  “And underneath that charm,” she said, not looking at him, “is a really nice guy. Which you’d know if you two spent a little more time together.”

  “Forget it, Maddie. If my mother couldn’t get us to see eye to eye, I seriously doubt you can.”

  She’d just picked up a stack of insurance claim forms, which she now laid flat on the desk. “Why not?”

  “Oh, Lord…” He gave her a long-suffering look. “I let myself in for that one, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did. Well?”

  “Look, i
t’s not as if we hate each other or anything. It’s just…we’re just all real different. There’s that big age difference between Cal and Hank and me, for one thing. Hank and I were closer when we were young, I guess. But then we hit junior high and he discovered sports.” He grimaced. “And girls.”

  Maddie cocked her head. “You didn’t like girls?”

  “Oh, I liked ’em all right. They just didn’t like me.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  He shrugged. “You wouldn’t if you saw a picture of me at sixteen.”

  She shuffled things around for a good five seconds, then said softly, “You’re not sixteen now.”

  Even more time passed while the very air molecules seemed to hum between them, as Maddie sat there listening to her heartbeat twang against her sternum. Then, finally, Dr. Logan said, “No, I’m not,” then stood, brushing the palms of his hands together. “Any other questions before I go?”

  She quickly sifted through the remaining folders. “None that I can see.”

  “Good. Then…I guess I’ll see you later.”

  After he’d left, Maddie blew a stream of air through her lips. It was just as well she’d be leaving soon. Otherwise, she thought as she switched the radio station, the man would drive her completely nuts.

  “Hey, Logan! Wait up!”

  Just at the hospital’s front door, Ryan turned at the sound of Nelson Burrell’s voice booming behind him. He forced a smile for the large-boned, dark-haired man, one of the doctors who’d been pestering him for some time about joining forces in a clinic to serve the area.

  “Hey, yourself,” he said, shaking hands. He had nothing against Nelson, whom he’d known for years. Or Trudy Mason, either, the third doctor in the conspiracy. They were both fine physicians and good people. He just didn’t agree with some of their philosophies, was all. Ryan also knew if he stayed in Nelson’s company for more than thirty seconds—the time it took to exchange observations about the weather and inquire after Nelson’s new wife as they both headed out to the parking lot—the other doctor would start in on him again. This, on top of his hair still standing on end from the crackling going on between him and Maddie earlier this afternoon, he did not need.

  Apparently Nelson sensed Ryan’s apprehension. Dark eyes twinkling, he said, “You can breathe now. I’m not going to get on your case about the clinic.”

  “Oh?” Ryan crossed his arms. “And when did the sun start coming up in the west?”

  Nelson’s stomach jumped when he laughed. “Oh, Trudy and I haven’t given up on wanting you to join us. Just on bugging you about it.”

  “Nels, you know I think it’s a fine idea. For you and Trudy. Not for me.”

  Nelson’s hands lifted, his shiny new wedding band glinting in the fall sunlight. “You don’t have to justify your reasons. Hey, I felt exactly the same way, before I finally stopped fighting the inevitable—how would I be able to give my patients the same kind of personal care they expect? And deserve? So far, so good, I have to say. And it’s amazing how quickly a body gets used to actually having a night off now and again.” He chuckled. “Might even find the time now to make that baby Ellie and I’ve been thinking about. It’s pretty nice, feeling like you’re part of the rest of the human race.”

  “Who says I’m not part of the human race?”

  “Yeah, well…” Nelson shrugged. “Don’t know about you, but I got damned tired of being lonely. Busy as hell, but lonely.”

  Ignoring the twist in his gut, Ryan said quietly, “I’m happy for you, Nelson. I really am. But I happen to like things the way they are.”

  “Fine, fine, suit yourself.” The other man clapped Ryan’s shoulder before turning to walk to where his own vehicle was parked. “You change your mind, though,” he shouted over his shoulder, “you let us know, okay?”

  Ryan waved, then hunched down against a sudden cold wind as he trudged over to his truck. After he got in, however, he just sat there, thinking. Or ruminatin’, as his mother used to call it. I swear, Mary Logan used to say—often—I never did see a boy think things to death the way you do.

  Damn, his mind was one scary place these days. Should be a sign stamped on his forehead: Enter At Your Own Risk.

  Well, he did like things the way they were. Had been, anyway, before Maddie Logan and her kids had wriggled into his house, his life. So he was a creature of habit. Was that such a bad thing? He’d just never seen much reason to change how he did things simply for the sake of change. Not that he was so set in his ways that he’d hang on to an outdated treatment method if a better one came along. He just had to be convinced the new way was better, since nine times out of ten, it wasn’t. Different didn’t always mean improved.

  So yes, he balked at most things that threatened the comfortable rut he’d carved for himself over the past few years. He was happy, his patients were happy—so why monkey around with something that didn’t need fixing?

  Like Maddie and her hair. He’d liked it just fine, the way she’d had it before. Now it was so short, it hardly moved at all. Of course, it did set off her eyes better this way, he had to admit….

  Oh, yeah, like he needed to see her eyes better. Especially that…pitying look she got in them from time to time. What in tarnation was it about him that made women look at him like he needed saving? Especially that woman? Didn’t she have enough on her plate, trying to straighten out her own life?

  And why was it no matter what path his thoughts took, they always managed to end up in front of Maddie Kincaid?

  He finally got around to starting up the truck. It’d be close to six by the time he got back. Supper time. They’d had pot roast last night, although he’d barely been able to get it down before Darryl Andrews had shown up with Darryl, Jr., who fallen off his skateboard and broken his wrist. Ryan silently thanked Doc Patterson for his foresight in getting an X-ray machine for the office, which had saved many a wounded soldier from an unnecessary trip to the Claremore E.R. And Darryl, Jr., was damn lucky that his break was simple enough for Ryan to set.

  He frowned, thinking about some of the high-tech equipment Nelson had said they were planning to get for the clinic, thanks to some wealthy local benefactors. Still wouldn’t be a full-service facility by any means, but it sure would be an improvement over what Ryan had on hand.

  He rubbed the base of his neck, trying to massage out a budding headache. Too much to think about, too much. And his stomach was growling. He’d seen a package of pork chops in the refrigerator, defrosting.

  He bet Maddie did a real good job with pork chops.

  Then he frowned, wondering why thinking about pork chops should be making his headache worse?

  About ten minutes from town, however, his cell phone rang. “Got two mamas ready to pop at the same time,” Ivy said. “Which one you want?”

  Ryan sighed. So much for those pork chops.

  When he finally got home around nine-thirty, he heard Maddie talking to the baby, out in the living room. Too bushed to even take off his boots, he went up to the doorway leading from the hall, propping one forearm on the jamb. She was facing away from him, sitting with her back against the sofa arm, talking a mile a minute to Amy Rose who was bolstered against her thighs. The baby had on a little white sleeper with flowers or something all over it, her tiny brow furrowed in concentration as she clearly tried to make sense of those sounds coming out of her mama’s mouth.

  “Who’s my pretty girl?” Maddie kept saying. “Who’s my smart little girl?”

  Ryan felt his lips curve as Amy Rose frowned even harder. She’d gotten through the red and wrinkled phase all right, but now her thick, black hair stuck up in tufts all over her tiny head, her thin features and oddly pointed nose making her look more like a little old lady in a bad wig than a month-old baby.

  And every time Ryan saw her, or touched her, or smelled her, he thought his chest would explode.

  Maddie suddenly twisted around, then sat up cross-legged on the sofa, lifting the baby to
her shoulder. “Hey,” she said softly, only to assume an expression much like her daughter’s. “You look ready to drop.”

  Ryan skimmed a hand over his hair. “Good call.”

  “What was it?”

  He’d called her, let her know he’d be late. And why. “A boy,” he said with a smile. “Eight and a half pounds.” He paused. “Sorry I missed supper. Again.”

  She gave him one of her would-you-please-get-over-yourself? looks. “There’s a plate for you in the fridge. Just stick it in the microwave for a couple minutes.”

  “Thanks.” He got as far as the armchair next to the sofa. Dropping into it, his eyes locked on the baby. Maddie laughed.

  Ryan smirked. “Anybody ever tell you it’s mean to laugh at a man who can’t feel his feet anymore?”

  She got to hers, lowering the baby into his lap. “Tell you what—why don’t you hang on to Miss Stuff here, and I’ll go warm up your supper?”

  “No, it’s okay—”

  But she was gone before he found the energy to finish his damn sentence.

  To better hold the baby, Ryan skootched down in the chair, hooking the sole of his boot up on the coffee table. “So, Miss Amy—learn any new tricks today?”

  As if on cue, the baby’s lips quivered, then spread into a crooked, toothless smile. Without warning, tears burned Ryan’s eyes. Because a baby’s smile was always a miracle, he told himself. Because he was so blamed tired, he could hardly think straight. Because there was a crazy, generous woman in his kitchen, warming up his supper, who didn’t even seem to mind that he’d missed it.

  Because…

  Pain sliced through his heart, no duller now than it had been five years ago. Ryan tucked the tiny, scrappy baby against his chest, under his chin, shutting his eyes against memories of things he’d had no power to prevent.