Читать книгу Rescued By Marriage - Dianne Drake - Страница 8

* * *

She’d cried all the way from Miami to Boston. Sniffled off and on, and a couple times broken into out and out sobs. It had got so bad the man sitting in the seat next to her on the airplane had asked the flight attendant for another seat. Then she’d cried at the baggage claim, at the taxi stand and all the way up the coast to Connaught, the tiny little harbor town where she’d caught the boat over to Redcliffe.

Naturally, she’d cried all the way over to Redcliffe, too, and now, as they approached the island, and her face was bloated and red, she was afraid the people there would take one look at her and send her back. But, damn it, she already missed Meghan. She’d missed her even before her last goodbye kiss. And it wasn’t like the Riordans wouldn’t take good care of her. They adored her and they would take very good care. But Meghan wasn’t theirs to care for, and leaving her behind with them was the hardest thing Della had ever done in her life. It hurt far worse than losing her husband had, but by that point in the marital relationship she had been practically void of feelings for him anyway. She would have been totally void of feelings had she known then about all his proclivities and what they would cost her.

She looked out to the dock. About a dozen people were mingling there. “They wouldn’t happen to be waiting there for someone else to arrive, would they?” she asked Cecil, the captain of this boat. He was an older gent, weather-beaten face, bushy beard, genuine smile.

“They’ve been anxious ever since they heard you’d agreed to the offer. It’s not always convenient to go across the water to the doctor, especially when the weather turns bad. Makes a body sicker than it was just to get there and back. So they were mighty glad when you accepted.”

Twenty-two hours ago had been when she’d accepted. She hadn’t taken much time to think it over because it was this or, well, she didn’t know what. Something else would have turned up eventually, but there was no predicting how long eventually would have taken. And six months minus three weeks wasn’t an awfully long time in which to start over and make a go of it. So she’d accepted, spent the evening at Meghan’s kindergarten play then packed up and stepped onto the airplane. “What happened to the last doctor?”

“Went to the big city. New York, I think. I didn’t talk to him myself, but I heard he didn’t like being isolated all the way out there by himself. Not married, no one around…”

“He didn’t live in the village?”

“No, ma’am.”

He said that like she should have already known it, and suddenly she wondered what else Foster Armstrong had failed to mention. Or perhaps hadn’t known to mention.

“Is it awfully far from the village?” Suddenly, she was seeing the village at one end of the island and her house all the way at the other, with nothing but wilderness in between. That was a very sobering thought for a city girl. Sobering and daunting.

Cecil chuckled, and his beard bobbed up and down. “No, ma’am. Nothing on the island is far from the village as long as there’s a good road to take you there.”

“Would there happen to be a good road to take me where I’m going?”

“Nice little road, actually. Used to be well traveled when Doc Bonn lived out there. Even when Docs Beaumont and Weatherby were there. I expect it grew up some over the years.”

“Three years since the last doctor,” she stated.

“More like three and a half, if I recall.”

Curiosity was getting the better of her now. “How long was he here before he left?”

“Don’t rightly remember for sure, but I think five, maybe six…”

“Years?”

He shook his head. “Weeks. Not quite as long as Doc Weatherby. He lasted three…”

“Years?”

“No, ma’am. Months. Three months, give or take a few days.”

“And it took Dr Beaumont all this time to sell his practice?”

“Funny how that turned out, because it took Doc Weatherby almost that long, too. Both times the island finally resorted to pitching in.”

Della looked down at the boat deck to see if her heart had just sunk through the boards, because it sure felt like it did. Then she started to cry again as they chugged slowly into the harbor.

* * *

She wasn’t what he’d expected. Not at all. Somehow, he’d pictured the next doctor on Redcliffe to be a large woman. Stout. Rough and tough. But she was tiny. Barely five feet, blond hair. Delicate. Sam Montgomery stepped back into the crowd awaiting her arrival and watched Dr Della Riordan step off Captain Cecil’s boat and take a good, long look at her surroundings. She wasn’t at all sure of herself, either. And…was that a horrible allergy going on with her? Her face was red and puffy, her eyes swollen, and she was blotting her nose like she belonged in bed, under the covers, vaporizer going, sipping hot chicken and noodle soup. She had to be sick, and other than the fact that she looked like someone who needed an IV and oxygen, she was probably very pretty.

Poor thing. She was about to be mobbed and the doctor in him wanted to do something to help her out of that spot. But the doctor in him was also charged to stand back and simply observe. Then report. He wasn’t to be obtrusive, wasn’t to be particularly helpful. Some involvement was acceptable but not so much that he actually had a say, or a way in how the new doctor would set up her practice. All that because the previous medical practices here had such a spotty history, the medical board was keen to see this one done to proper standards. In other words, it was a test that came about because of prior bad experiences—a protection for the residents who could be too eager to accept a doctor who might not serve their best interests. They did have that history here, taking in a doctor who didn’t suit them.

So, according to the area health commissioner, the only thing Sam was supposed to do was make sure the new doctor set up her clinic to standard. Or provide enough evidence to shut her down if she didn’t. Simple task, and that’s what he did now. No more patient care. All observation and reports. Which made his life quite simple.

But, damn it, the islanders were hoisting this poor doctor up onto a platform and asking her to say a few words, when she looked like she wanted to do anything but that. It was amazing they hadn’t hauled out a brass band for the occasion. And she looked so…he wasn’t sure what. It wasn’t fear, wasn’t even fatigue. Sadness, maybe? “So I suppose I should rescue the doctor in distress,” he muttered, stepping through the nearly fifty people who had now gathered for the welcome.

“I’m glad to be here,” she said to the village mayor as he pumped her hand the way only a six-foot-seven mountain of a man could do.

“And we’re glad to have you here, Doc Riordan,” Mayor Bruce Vargas responded.

“Call me Della.”

“Doc Della,” he said. “The village of Redcliffe is anxious to have you set up and going, and we’re ready to do anything required to help you.”

“Dr Riordan and I have some medical matters to discuss,” Sam Montgomery said, stepping up to the platform. “I hate to break this up and I know everybody’s thrilled to have her here, but before she can start her practice we have some issues to go over about health-care requirements in Massachusetts.” Whatever that meant, since he really was quite far removed from the real medical world now. He looked directly at Della. “I’m Dr Sam Montgomery,” he said, extending his hand to her.

She nodded, and took his hand, but didn’t say a word.

“You look like you could use a cup of coffee.” Or a shot of penicillin and a week in bed.

She nodded. “That would be nice.” But she didn’t smile, and the only word he could think of to describe what he was seeing was heartbreak. Dr Della Riordan was suffering from a broken heart. No wonder she’d been so quick to accept this offer. Why else would anybody want to come to Redcliffe to practice medicine if they weren’t trying to get away from something?

* * *

The tiny bit of the village she saw looked nice enough. The main street was quaint, with its tidy Cape Cod style predominant in the architecture. The people here smiled at each other and exchanged pleasant greetings. The air was pure and crisp. And the ride over on Captain Cecil’s boat hadn’t been bad at all in the salty breeze—what she’d seen of it through the tears. All good signs, but none of them did anything to alleviate her pain. She already missed Meghan so badly she wasn’t sure she could survive the next five minutes away from her, let alone the next five months. But if she turned around now and went right back to Miami with even less than she’d had when she’d left there…No, that wasn’t an alternative. She had to make this situation work, no matter what it was she’d gotten herself into.

“I appreciate the coffee,” she said, sliding into the booth across from Sam as he waved for the waitress. “I’ve had a long twenty-four hours and I think it’s finally catching up with me. This time yesterday I’d barely even heard of Redcliffe Island except for what I’d read in the offer papers, and now I’m a resident here for the next five years. It’s a lot to deal with in the span of a day.”

“One of those strange twists of fate. This time yesterday I’d barely even heard of Redcliffe Island, either. And now everybody here knows my name.”

“They are friendly, aren’t they?” she said, her voice on the edge of a tremble. He seemed nice. Handsome, for sure. Wavy brown hair, dark brown eyes. Fetching build, too. Probably around six feet tall, he cut a handsome figure in his casual jeans and T-shirt, and she especially liked his relaxed smile. She thought about Anthony for a moment. Nothing about him had ever been casual or relaxed. He’d been the epitome of starched and polished perfection and he’d had quite the sharp edge to his beau ideal. She couldn’t recall ever having seen him in a T-shirt and jeans in all their years of marriage, let alone sitting in a cozy, comfortable diner, sipping coffee. No, he had been too upscale for such a thing.

“Would you like something to eat?” Sam offered. “A sandwich, maybe a cup of chowder?”

She shook her head. Truth was, it was easier not to eat. The way she’d felt so much of the time lately, there wasn’t much point since whatever she ate merely turned into a nauseated muddle in the pit her stomach. “So, what, exactly, do you do here? I was led to believe I was the only doctor on the island.”

“Technically, you are. But I’m here from the state health commission, basically to make sure your transition into your new practice is a smooth one. Redcliffe has a peculiar history with its doctors, so I’ll be around for a while to…to assist you where I can, I suppose you could say.”

“What, exactly, is this peculiar history, other than their doctors not staying?”

“You don’t know?”

She shook her head, although she wasn’t about to tell him she’d bought the practice on a whim. A very fast, possibly very foolish whim.

“Like you already know, nobody wants to stay. The people are nice, the island is a veritable Atlantic paradise, but I think the past few doctors have found the island to be a little more off the beaten path than they expected. Quite restrictive, I think. When you hear paradise you think of glamorous, and nothing here is about glamor. Also, the earning potential is not nearly as great as it might be on the mainland, just a few miles away. Personally, I think that’s a huge factor in the reason no one wants to stay. Then there’s the isolation…some people aren’t cut out for it. And it’s quite isolated, as you already know. Which is what surprises me about you coming here…alone. You are alone, aren’t you?”

“For now,” she said, sighing. “And I came here because I want to be off the beaten path.” That much was absolutely true. She wanted to set up her new life without the Riordans’ interference, and interference was a distinct likelihood if she did it under their scrutiny.

“Then you’ve come to the right place because I’m not even sure if there is a beaten path.”

“Speaking of the right place, I’d like to go find it and get myself settled in. Do you know where it is?”

He raised his eyebrows skeptically. “You don’t?”

“I’m not very good at directions.” That was a bit of a hedge, but there was no reason to include him in every little detail of her business transaction. Truth was, buying what she had, sight unseen, might seem a little strange to most people, and what she didn’t want was for word to get around that the new doctor was wonky in such affairs, because that could get back to the judge. So instead of admitting that quite possibly she was wonky, or worse, she merely smiled. “I get myself lost at the end of my driveway and right now I’m not even sure if I go left or right to get there.”

“Then we’ll go pick up your loaner car from the mayor, and you can follow me on out there.”

She wanted to ask how far on out was, but instead she took another sip of coffee. It didn’t matter anyway. However far it was, she owned it, and for the next five years it was going to be her home sweet home. In a little over five months, home sweet home for Meghan, too. That, and nothing else, was what mattered.