Читать книгу A Family Practice - Gayle Kasper - Страница 6

Dr. Luke Phillips leaned his big silver Harley into the curve, racing the wind, and sometimes winning. It was the only pleasure he allowed himself.

He’d left the interstate behind somewhere south of Flagstaff, Arizona, preferring the solitude of this two-lane road to nowhere. Flowering cacti, the brutal sun and red rock kept him company. Dry red dust peppered his face and arms. He tasted its grit.

At the moment he’d sell his soul for the sight of a shade tree—or what passed for shade in this part of the country. Not that his soul was worth a whole hell of a lot these days.

He’d left who and what he was behind in Chicago forever.

Then a short distance ahead he spotted a small sliver of shade produced by one scrawny pine tree. He coasted the bike to a stop at the side of the road and dismounted.

Soon he’d have to consider traveling at night and sleeping by day. The afternoon sun could be relentless, even dangerous to the uninitiated. And he supposed he was that, despite the deep tan the last thousand miles or so had given him.

He sprinted across the dry bed of an arroyo and scaled the rocky mesa, intent on reaching that shade tree. A twenty-minute power nap and he’d be as good as new.

But a short distance from the tree he paused, finding the scenery had just improved—in the form of one very feminine, denim-clad fanny raised to the sky. The woman was leaning out over the edge of the rocky ledge, reaching for something a distant grasp away, oblivious to his approach behind her.

He wondered if the view from the front was half as intriguing. His gaze remained riveted on her, his breath caught halfway to his lungs as she leaned out farther over the lip of the rock.

Damn!

One stiff breeze could send her over the side.

He stood stock-still, not wanting to startle her into taking a misguided plunge. He didn’t mean to gape, but since any sudden movement could bring on disaster, what else did he have to do with his time?

Time—he had plenty of that.

The entire remainder of his life, in fact.

He wasn’t going back to Chicago. There was nothing there for him anymore. The medical center and trauma unit would do well without him. They had good doctors, the best.

Luke should know.

He’d been one of them himself—until two months ago.

A knot formed in his throat, but he fought it down, fought down the damning memories, as well. Life went on. It just went on without him now.

But that was the way Luke wanted it.

He didn’t know how many miles he’d ridden, how many highways he’d taken. All he knew was that not one of them had brought him the solace he desired, the amnesia for his soul.

The unrelenting sun beat down, making him eager for that quick siesta in the shade, but he didn’t dare move until the woman with the provocative fanny quit her trapeze act and righted herself. Besides, did he want to miss that first glimpse of her when she got up from her knees and turned around?

He wondered if her eyes were brown and earthy. Or maybe the azure-blue of the Arizona sky overhead. He imagined high cheekbones caressed by the sun, lips that curved gracefully into a smile, or maybe a feminine pout.

Just then she inched back from the mesa’s precarious edge and stood up. Her hair was dark and silken and tumbled over one shoulder in a long, loose braid. In her right hand she held a plant, its roots dangling with red soil and rock, small reddish blossoms sprouting in profusion, protected by pale, spiny leaves.

“You risked your life for a damned flower?”

She spun around to face him.

He’d been wrong. Her eyes were green—and at the moment, wide with surprise at the sight of a stranger in front of her.

She obviously hadn’t expected to find company out here in the middle of solitude. She drew the flower closer to her body, clutching it as if she expected he might snatch it from her.

Her frame was slight, her legs long and straight, the kind of legs that could make any red-blooded male dream of them wrapped around him during a night of hot passion.

His hands could span her tiny waist and cup the modest fullness of her high, firm breasts. The sun had given color to the tip of her nose, and a smudge of red dirt decorated the tip of her fighting chin. She nervously moistened her full, lower lip and eyed him warily.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said gently.

He didn’t want her to bolt like a frightened deer. He’d be happy to go on looking at her until this time tomorrow.

Or a month from tomorrow.

One thing he was certain of, they didn’t grow women this earthy back in Chicago. Maybe it was something in the water.

Or the red dust.

She seemed to be one with the land, comfortable with it, mistress of it, and he found he liked that.

She took his measure, too, assessing his strong-built body, the width of his square shoulders, then glanced quickly in the direction he’d come, spotting the big Harley he’d left by the side of the road.

“I stopped to find some shade,” he explained, not entirely sure why he was doing so.

Her eyes darted back to him, roaming over his wind-burned face, settling finally on his mouth curved in a crooked half smile he hoped passed for friendly and nonthreatening.

It seemed to.

She gave a soft, returning smile. “There’s not much shade around here. You have to find it where you can.”

Her voice was low, soft, innocent—and it did dangerous things to his libido.

Luke didn’t reply, only continued to watch her with steady deliberation, taking in her earthy beauty, her quiet ways—and liking what he saw.

Just then she reached for the brightly woven basket at her feet and dropped the flower into it, a basket he noticed contained other plants and what looked like a jumble of old roots and bark.

“I…I should go,” she said finally. “Goodbye. Enjoy your shade.”

“Wait—”

She glanced up, and her gaze locked with his, one feminine brow raised questioningly.

He didn’t want her to leave, disappearing from his life as if she’d been nothing more than a mirage in the desert. “You didn’t answer my question—what’s so special about a flower you have to lean out over the edge to dig up?”

She glanced down at the basket she held and toyed with a delicate bloom. “It’s not really a flower. It’s wild germander, an herb—and rare in this part of the high country.”

“And rare makes it special enough to risk falling off the side of a mesa?”

He thought he saw a shadow of pain cross her delicate features. Luke knew about pain, both personally and professionally, knew how it ate at a man’s soul.

His soul.

She pinched off a blossom and raised it to her nose, sniffing its scent. “It’s special for its…medicinal value,” she said, then her chin rose. “I really do have to go.”

She took a step, but again Luke stopped her. “What’s your name?”

She hesitated as if trying to decide if it were proper to introduce herself to a man she met on a mesa in the middle of nowhere. After a moment trust won out. She gave him a slight smile. “Mariah,” she said.

“Mariah.” He repeated it after her, liking its lilt, its music. It would slide easily off a man’s tongue during a night of lovemaking. “I’m Luke,” he offered. “Luke Phillips.”

He deliberately didn’t mention the doctor part. He wasn’t sure he could claim the right—or that he wanted to. All his finely honed skills had failed him the one night they had mattered the most.

Now they were of no use to him.

“Hello, Luke Phillips,” she answered. There was a slight hesitancy to her soft voice, something he could understand, given the circumstances.

But there was something quiet, serene, about her. Something that gave him peace somehow. Was it a part of who she was? Or something she had perfected? Whichever, he liked that about her—and wished he could find some for himself.

“Tell me about its medicinal value, this…this wild germander.”

Mariah Cade studied the man in front of her. She wasn’t afraid of him—though she had been at first. Just a little. Or maybe she’d just been surprised at seeing him. She seldom ran across another living soul when she was out gathering her herbs.

It was her quiet time—time to take stock of her life, perhaps wish things could be different, better. Better for Callie. She’d do anything to find the right herbs for her daughter, whether they grew on the side of a mesa or the far side of the moon.

She considered how best to answer the man, whose very shadow dwarfed her with its size. He had shoulders as wide as a mountain, a broad, densely muscled chest, lean hips and a strength, a potent masculinity that emanated from him like shimmers of heat off the desert plain.

His face commanded a woman’s attention, with its strong Nordic features that hinted at a ruthless Viking or two in his ancestry—steel-blue eyes, a straight proud nose, square chin and a mane of brown hair, tipped blond by the sun. His skin, too, showed the kiss of sunshine, his body glistening like gold dust.

“It’s an herb with many uses,” she said, not sure she wanted to reveal more to this stranger. Perhaps she was protecting Callie, perhaps herself.

She hadn’t missed the smile that had played at the edges of his mouth, a smile that played there now, as if he might be mocking her and her simplistic ways.

She ran a finger down a long entwined root, secure in her knowledge that this would help Callie, which was the important thing. The only thing, she thought as her daughter’s bright smile flickered through her mind.

Callie was her life, had been from the moment she’d been conceived. They were bound together as tightly as two people could be.

“Plants can cure,” she said, her voice low and wispy. “And sometimes they bring peace and calm.”

Peace.

Calm.

Luke could use a little of both in his life—and he wondered if this small slip of a woman had somehow cornered the market on them both, if she held the key there in her basket of jumbled roots and flowers.

He was tempted to stick around and find out—but he lived in a world of reality. A painful reality. And the only cure for it was to keep moving. Where, he didn’t know. Or care. Anywhere would do, if it eased his pain; if it made him forget—even a little.

His gaze skimmed over her, taking in her appealing curves in her dusty jeans and soft red blouse. Small Indian beads dangled from her earlobes in a spill of silver and bright color—and he longed to reach out and touch them.

Touch her.

If only to assure himself she was real—and not a dream his tired mind had conjured up.

Her shoulders were slight, her spine straight as a new sapling, and he had the feeling she could move over the terrain as easily as the white-tailed deer he’d glimpsed from the road as he’d passed through this high-desert land.

“So, are you off to gather more plants?” he asked, wondering if she took a siesta to escape the afternoon heat—or if she were somehow immune to it.

She checked the level of the sun, judging her time from it the way others would consult a watch. “Yes—for a little while yet.”

She turned to leave. Again Luke wanted to keep her with him, but he had no reason to, at least no logical reason. He was merely passing through and their paths had crossed.

He watched her go, tripping off down the trail in her soft moccasins. He wondered what—or who—might be waiting for her at home.

A husband?

A child?

But that, he knew, was none of his business.

At least for a little while she’d made him forget his pain. And that was something no one had been able to do for him these past dark, empty months.

A few hours later Mariah’s basket was full to overflowing. Indian fig, wild licorice, comfrey root. Mariah was pleased to have found them all. It had been a good day. She now had enough herbs to last for a while.

She turned and started back toward the ancient truck she’d parked down by the stream that flowed briskly in the spring, fed by the snowmelt from the high mountains.

When summer came, it would dry up to dust and rock, but for now there was enough cool water to splash over her face and arms before she began her drive home.

She’d strayed farther than she’d intended today, but the hope of finding more plants had lured her on. Many of the herbs she needed were scarce in this high-desert region, but Mariah would search until she found that one lone plant. And when she couldn’t find what she needed, she’d substitute.

Una Roanhorse had taught her well. The old Hopi woman’s eyes were failing now—she could no longer gather roots and plants for herself, so Mariah shared what she had with her. In return, Una looked after Callie. It was a good arrangement. Callie loved the older woman, loved the Hopi tales Una often told her, the same tales Mariah had heard as a child growing up on the land of her people.

Mariah’s father had been a bahana, a white man. She didn’t remember him, though. He hadn’t bothered to stay around. Her mother had died many years before, and Mariah had strayed from the native ways—not feeling like a bahana, not feeling entirely Hopi, either.

She’d known very little about the plants and herbs the earth gave, or how beneficial they could be. Not until she’d needed them—for Callie.

Mariah was grateful to Una for sharing her knowledge. The herbals helped Callie as nothing else had been able to do.

Certainly not the doctors’ medicines.

Una had become a friend when Mariah moved here two years ago. Mariah’s marriage to Will Cade had ended, probably even before he’d left for California and the new life he wanted for himself.

A life without the responsibilities of a wife or child.

A sick child.

She’d been frightened then—and alone. Except for Callie. Una had made her feel welcome, even taken her under her wing until Mariah was able to recover her pride and put her life on a steady footing.

She seldom thought of the past now, her marriage, or the man who’d abandoned them with so little regard for their welfare.

The herbs that she gathered for Callie soon became a source of livelihood for her, a way to support herself and her daughter. She began by preparing and packaging the extras she collected and selling them to the local people. Last year she started her own mail-order business, reaching even more people with her natural medicines.

It wasn’t a lot of money—her only large account was a health-food store in Phoenix—but it was enough to provide a modest living for them. And even a few extras now and then.

Just then she neared the place where she’d encountered the man on the mesa, the man with the golden body and the storm-blue eyes.

Luke.

She wasn’t sure why he intrigued her, but he had. She wondered where he’d come from—and where he was headed on that big cycle of his. Not many people strayed this far from the interstate. She might have asked him, but she’d needed to get on with what she was doing. She didn’t like to be away from Callie too long.

She glanced down the road, shading her eyes, curious to see if his cycle was still parked where it had been, but it was gone. She denied the quick pang of disappointment she felt, calling herself foolish for the weakness. She was no longer a schoolgirl with silly ideas in her head, but a woman, a mother—with a child who needed her.

She shifted the basket to her other hip and continued on, but Luke Phillips wasn’t easily dispelled from her mind. Sunrise was a town that had been forgotten by time, passed over by the tourist trade, though it could well boast of some of Arizona’s most breathtaking scenery. They didn’t get very many strangers passing through—but that was no reason this man should have such a hold on her.

Perhaps it had been that indefinable look she’d glimpsed in his eyes, as if he, too, carried a pain he found difficult to bear, a pain that tore at his heart.

The way Callie did hers.

Then over the next rise Mariah stopped in her tracks. There’d been an accident. The shiny silver of a motorcycle glinted back at her, looking like a fallen warrior as it lay on its side in the center of the road.

Where was Luke?

Was he hurt?

She swiftly scanned both sides of the road, then spotted him sitting under a lone cottonwood a few yards away. “Luke,” she called out to him. “What happened? Are you all right?”

He turned at the sound of her voice and she approached warily. The right side of his face was dirty and bloody. The denim of his right pant leg was ripped and he’d stripped off his black T-shirt and tied it around his thigh to stop the bleeding that was already beginning to soak through the fabric.

Her gaze slid over his bare, muscled torso, not missing the scrape across his right shoulder and the ugly purple color already starting to darken the skin.

“Damned armadillo,” he cursed.

She met his scowl. “Armadillo?”

“Yeah.” His scowl deepened. “I swerved to miss it and the bike went spinning out of control. Know what’s the worst of the deal? It just lumbered on past me without a glance, off into the damned sagebrush.”

“And left you in a mess, it seems.”

“And the bike unridable,” he added. “Don’t happen to know a good mechanic around here, do you?”

Mariah’s gaze swept over him. “Right now I think it’s more important to get you seen to. Some of those cuts and scrapes look serious.”

Luke didn’t agree. He was a doctor—at least enough of one to know that the wounds were mostly superficial. But what he’d done for the last ten years of his life was not something he wanted to reveal to this woman. It would only bring on the inevitable questions, questions he didn’t want to answer.

“Look, I’m fine,” he said. “The only thing seriously damaged is my pride. No man wants to admit he was brought down by a miserable armadillo.”

His answer didn’t dissuade her from her concern, though it did prompt a smile, a smile that could pump a little daylight into the dark reaches of his heart—if he allowed it to.

He tried to forget the brightness in her smile, but it wasn’t as easy to ignore her touch when her fingers brushed his shoulder softly, gently, probingly.

She knelt in front of him and examined the wound in his leg, loosening the makeshift dressing to make her own assessment of the damage. Her touch was as confident as any surgeon’s—and damningly sensual. That last thought had him sucking in a breath.

She glanced up. “Sorry—does that hurt?”

There was innocence pooled in her green eyes, the kind that could make a man believe in the world again. But that would be a tall order for Luke.

“Would a macho guy like me admit it if it did?” he returned.

That brought another smile to her pretty lips, and for one dangerous moment he wanted to crush those lips with his own, feel them part for him, taste their sweetness and that all-fired innocence of hers. There was something so natural about her, nurturing, and a serenity he envied.

“Look—we’ve got to get you cleaned up,” she said as she retied the dressing on his leg. “My truck is parked nearby. Sit still, and I’ll go get it. We can load the cycle in the back.”

He glanced at her slender body and decided the woman wouldn’t be of much use in the loading department.

“Don’t go anywhere,” she said.

As if Luke had anyplace to go in this wilderness.

As if he had anyplace to go at all.

He leaned back against the tree and watched as she disappeared on down the road. He should have asked her how far she had to go to retrieve that truck of hers. A mile? Ten miles? Luke had the feeling distance didn’t mean all that much to her, that she was well-accustomed to getting where she wanted to go—and under her own power.

He frowned at his now-useless bike and ran a hand over his jaw. How the hell had he gotten himself into this mess? But that wasn’t something he wanted to think about.

It was more than one nuisance armadillo in the road.

It was why he was on this road in the first place, what had happened in the trauma unit that one tragic night—and his inability to live with himself because of it.

He wasn’t sure how long he could keep on running from his pain—or if he could ever escape it. All he knew was that it had traveled with him every mile of his journey.

An unwanted companion on his ride to nowhere.

It didn’t take Mariah long to retrieve the truck from where she’d parked it. But there was no time for that cooling splash in the stream she’d planned on—not today.

Luke needed her attention.

Already she was thinking ahead to what herbs she had on hand to treat his cuts and bruises. That was, if he held still for her simple remedies.

He probably preferred modern medicine. But it was a long drive to the nearest clinic. She hadn’t wanted to tell him that. Or that it was an even longer drive to the nearest repair shop for his motorcycle.

The old truck started on the first try, which was something of a minor miracle. Usually she had to coax it to life, promising the metal heap she wouldn’t sell it to the first passerby.

Mariah patted the dashboard and smiled, then released the gear and turned the truck around, bouncing over the sagebrush toward the road—and Luke.

Visions of the man, minus his shirt, shimmered before her eyes. She hadn’t been able to draw her gaze away from him, from the smattering of dark, golden hair that arrowed enticingly down to his waist and disappeared beneath his low-slung jeans.

He was easily the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Not that she had seen that many handsome men—but growing up in the Hopi world, Mariah had learned to appreciate the beauty and form of nature.

And the man she’d left sitting under that spindly cottonwood tree was nature at its most perfect.

Her hands felt damp on the steering wheel, and her heart pounded way too fast. What was the matter with her? Luke was a patient, one who needed her attention. She should be concentrating on the man’s injuries, not his tempting body.

The truck coughed and sputtered over the next rise, then Luke came into view. He stood as she neared, shielding his eyes against the sun to watch her approach.

She stopped and executed a turn, backing the truck up in front of the cycle so it would be easier for them to load.

“That thing’s quite a relic,” he said, standing back to take in the truck with a slow, sweeping glance.

“At least it runs,” Mariah returned.

She lowered the tailgate with a rasp of metal, then dragged out a weather-beaten old board from the back end to use as a makeshift ramp.

“Look, you’re not exactly the weighty help I need to load this baby into the back end,” he said, running a critical eye over her smallish shape.

Mariah drew herself up taller. “That may be, but I don’t see anyone else lining up to offer his services, do you?”

Luke cursed inventively and ran a hand through his hair. He hated being at anyone’s mercy—especially a woman who heated his blood the way Mariah did.

He caught her soft scent, sweet and sun-drenched—like the flowers she collected in her basket. Her red blouse dipped just low enough at the neck to reveal the slightest hint of her delectable breasts beneath.

Her arms were bronzed by the sun, slender, capable; just not capable of raising his bike to the bed of her truck, though he had no doubt that she would try.

He had the feeling that she was accomplished at many things, that she had to be. Perhaps she was alone in the world, with no one to share the emotional and physical load she carried—or did she prefer to carry it all herself?

She made him curious, though he had no right to be anything of the sort. This was only a chance meeting of two people in time, one moment of accident that had brought them together.

He longed to feed his soul with her warmth, something he denied himself because of his failure that night in the trauma unit.

The night he couldn’t work his medical magic.

The night he failed to save his son.