Читать книгу What The Cowboy Prescribes... - Mary Starleigh - Страница 9

“Sunshine needs a doctor.”

Meg Graham jumped at the desperate words and her heart thumped hard against her ribs. Cal Bradford’s scared face stared back at her. She stood and grabbed her medical bag. “Who is it?”

“Erin Waldron.”

Meg pushed past Cal, sprinted out of her office and clinic, and down the sidewalk to the Sunshine Café.

Out of breath, weary, and fighting a feeling of dread, she pulled the door open and rushed into the restaurant. A stranger was kneeling beside Erin. The man’s dark gaze was filled with concern and he was patting the healthy but frightened child.

Meg steadied herself by inhaling deeply.

“Listen, little guy, you choked because you didn’t take your time chewing.”

The man’s compassionate tone filled Meg with relief.

Erin nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

“Thank you.” Sue Waldron was standing close by her son. “Erin and I were on our way to get feed for his horse…and we just stopped…thank you so much.”

Sue’s voice broke, and Meg slid an arm around her shoulders.

The stranger stood and gazed down at Meg. He towered over her. “Erin’ll be fine. I’ve checked him.”

“Come on, Erin, we’d better get home,” Sue said.

Mother and son collected their belongings and headed for the door. Erin turned around and waved. “Thanks, mister.”

A smile and deep emotion graced the man’s face for a quick moment, then vanished.

Meg gripped one of the Sunshine’s red plastic chairs. “I can’t thank you enough. I’m Meg Graham, Jackson’s only doctor.” She stepped forward and extended her hand.

“No problem.” He nodded, shook her hand quickly, then turned and walked to his table. After placing a few bills by his check, he shrugged into his jacket and headed for the door.

“Hey, wait a minute. I’d like to know your name,” Meg called as she crossed the room.

As if not hearing her, he opened the door, stepped outside and pulled it closed behind him. Meg stared at the door for a moment, then grabbed the knob. She yanked it open and walked out into the Texas sunshine.

The man pivoted back toward her. Furrows gnarled his forehead and a look of pure aggravation darkened his handsome face. Chestnut hair, the color of a wild horse she’d ridden once, was combed back from his forehead. A black turtleneck accented his tanned skin and was tucked neatly into new jeans that had been pressed to a knife’s edge.

Her hand found his arm, and the rich, soft cashmere of his jacket. “At least tell me your name so I can thank you properly. Are you a doctor?”

“I was.”

“And your name?”

“Steve Hartly.”

His dark, smoky voice wove a spell around her. “Are you just passing through Jackson?” she pressed.

“I stopped for lunch.”

The color of his eyes, like dark Texas earth, again reflected the strong emotion she’d seen inside the café, when he was comforting the child.

Meg’s hand dropped to her side and she took an exhausted breath. “Thanks for stepping in and helping Erin.”

Steve studied her for a moment, then jammed his hands into his pockets. “You’re welcome. But there’s no need to thank me. It was a simple procedure.”

Before she could say anything else, he turned to leave.

Her hand flew to his arm again. At the touch, his biceps hardened, and butterflies fluttered in her stomach.

He turned back. “I need to get going.”

Meg caught a glimpse of their reflections in the mirrorlike, plate-glass window. Steve was at least a head taller, and the painted yellow heart on the café’s sign was accenting both their shimmering images.

Another fluttering of butterflies assaulted her.

“It’s tough being the only doctor in town,” she blurted. Now why had she said that?

Silently he studied every inch and curve of her body, then glanced into her eyes. “You look like you can handle just about anything.”

As if on the wild horse again, Meg felt her stomach flip-flop.

“Well…y-yes,” she stuttered, confused at her physical reaction to the stranger.

“I’ve got to be on my way.”

For some crazy reason, she didn’t want Steve to leave. “Sorry your lunch was interrupted.”

“No problem.” His right brow arched slightly, making his face more asymmetrical, yet more handsome.

“Sunshine has great food. You’ll have to…” The rest of her suggestion evaporated. What was she planning to say?

Steve brought his hand to his chin and studied her again.

“You might want…” Meg was finding it hard to complete a thought. “My office and clinic—” she pointed down the sidewalk “—right there.…”

She glanced back to the reflection in the café window. Why hadn’t she combed her hair earlier?

His brow arched again.

“Ever practice in a rural area?” she queried.

Steve shook his head.

“Well, it’s very interesting. Busy, though. Jackson’s a wonderful place.” She poised her hand on her hip. His eyes remained on her, and her mouth turned as dry as a Texas wind.

Darn it!

What was wrong with her? She’d felt so tired before she’d come down to the Sunshine, yet at the moment she was feeling so alive. Maybe all she needed was a good night’s sleep.

The sun came out from behind a feathery cloud, and Steve squinted a little. Tiny crinkles formed around his eyes and added to his attractiveness. There’d be no sleeping with this man around. Coming from out of nowhere, the thought jarred her.

Steve cleared his throat. “I should get going.”

Before she could say another word, he walked to a shiny black BMW sitting two parking spaces down from the Sunshine Café. His muscular legs carried his massive frame with ease.

Meg leaned against the concrete wall and crossed her arms. Steve opened the car door and climbed in. Through a lightly tinted windshield, she could see him settle himself against the seat and start the engine.

Then his attention shifted to her. His strong jaw accented his full mouth, and one dark brow arched higher than the other again, adding to his powerful, mysterious persona.

Meg’s stomach fluttered once more. She was either hungry or tired, and right now she couldn’t do anything about either state. She gripped her arms in a self-conscious hug, then raised her right hand and waved goodbye.

Steve didn’t smile, only nodded, then maneuvered the soundless automobile out of the parking space onto Main Street.

She chewed the inside of her cheek and shoved her hands into her pockets. Thank goodness that was over. But she was glad he’d been around to help Erin.

Cal Bradford opened the café door. “Hey, Meg, can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

“No thanks, Cal. I’ve got to get back to the office. How’s Donna?”

“She’ll be okay if I can keep her from working so hard.”

“You need to make her stay off her feet. It won’t be too long now until you’re a daddy.”

Cal smiled and then shook his head. “You know Donna when she makes up her mind.” He shifted his gaze to the street. “Good that guy was here.”

“Yes.” She gazed at the last trace of shiny black metal. “Don’t let Donna work too hard, Cal.” Meg nodded to him and started down the sidewalk to her office. She only managed to take a few steps before she glanced over her shoulder.

The black BMW had disappeared.

Hopefully, her afternoon and evening would be less disruptive than the past ten minutes had been.

Three hours later, Meg sat behind her desk, closed her eyes and wondered how long a person could actually go without sleep.

“You okay, Mego?”

She glanced at her cousin and held out the letter she was still holding in her hand. “My insurance company says I need another doctor for the clinic.”

“So go out and hire one,” James Dean Pruitt stated in his matter-of-fact way.

His innocence made her want to laugh, but the aching fatigue attacking her every muscle wouldn’t allow Meg even a chuckle. She shook her head. “I tried to find someone last weekend when Jackson almost fell apart without me.”

“Kate and I figured you went to Galveston for a long weekend. Not so, huh?”

Meg waved the letter again. “For weeks I’ve been trying to find a doctor who’ll work in Jackson. This bureaucratic memo from my insurance company gives me no choice now.”

“How so?”

“They’re demanding I find another doctor or they’re pulling my malpractice insurance.”

“Can they do that?”

“Sure. The suits at the home office claim that with my high doctor-patient ratio it’s unsafe for me to run the clinic.” From a tiny reserve of stamina, Meg found the energy to laugh. The entire situation seemed so ridiculous. Not one physician at the Rural Conference for Doctors in Dallas had been interested in practicing in her hometown.

Her head throbbed and her body ached. If she were her own patient, she’d order herself to go straight to bed for three days. Maybe this was how people really lost it—never getting a decent night’s sleep and then careering straight off the deep end.

“Nobody wants to come to Jackson?” James Dean’s question shifted her attention. He frowned.

“Not one. I’m still the only doctor for seventy-five miles.” She brought her hand back to the desk and thumped the golden oak with her knuckles. “I even paid my own way to Dallas. Do you have any idea how much hotel rooms cost in that city?” She brought her hands to her face and rubbed her temples with the tips of her fingers.

James Dean rose from his chair, stepped over to her desk and rested his large palms on the only space not covered with papers. “Mego, you’re gonna wear out real quick.”

She inhaled a defeated breath at his realistic words and cradled her chin in laced fingers. He was right. In the past few weeks, she’d made mistakes from sheer exhaustion. She’d caught them all, but it was starting to spook her.

“I still can’t believe John left…and for money. I’m trying to take care of his patients and mine. One human being can’t do it all.” Being a small-town general practitioner gave new meaning to the word busy.

“Something has to give,” James Dean said.

“A lot of things will give. If I don’t find someone in a month, I’m going to have to close the clinic.”

Her cousin straightened, crossed his arms and stared down at her. “You can’t do that. We need you.”

“And I can’t run the clinic without insurance. That would be professional suicide.”

“Folks aren’t going to like driving to Fort Worth. How about Charlie’s asthma?”

“I know,” Meg whispered. She massaged her temples again. She’d treated James Dean’s son many times for a mild case of asthma. “Too bad the doctor I met at the Sunshine Café isn’t sticking around.”

“What?”

“Erin Waldron choked on a piece of hot dog down at the café. A doctor who had stopped for lunch helped out.”

She’d sign Steve Hartly up in a minute. A laugh slipped from her lips. She wondered how he’d like working in a run-down, dusty Texas town.

“Something funny?”

“No. Just thinking about a man I met.”

“About time.” James Dean’s eyes gleamed.

“It’s not like that.” But with only the brief memory of Steve Hartly, the silly butterflies were back. To fight them, she turned her attention to the letter on the desk. “What am I going to do?”

“If it’s money…Kate and I could scrape up a few bucks.”

She looked up at James Dean, loving him for the offer. “It’s not the money. That’s the least of it. I need a warm, breathing body attached to a medical license, someone who just happens to be living in Jackson.”

Steve stared at the cracked kitchen sink, then turned, walked into the living room and glanced around. Every window in the house had been broken out.

He owned a certifiable, unlivable dump.

That hard fact, on top of the emergency in the café during lunch, grated on his nerves. He’d vowed never to touch another patient again, but when he’d seen the child choking, how could he not help? And the doctor he’d met after had thanked him so nicely.

An image of Meg Graham paraded through his thoughts. Her open, pretty face and expressive, chocolate-brown eyes still grabbed at his gut. The desire to see her again oozed through his body like warm syrup.

Steve danced the beam of the flashlight over the walls of the living room to distract himself from thoughts of Meg.

Why did I have to stop for a meal where there was a medical emergency?

An autumnlike breeze whipped through the broken windows and fanned across the living room to the kitchen, causing the screen door to squeak.

He wasn’t even sure where to begin repairs. The Realtor had said it was a fixer-upper. Spending the past five years of his life as an emergency-room doctor had prepared him to repair broken bodies, not plumbing or drywall.

Steve crossed the carpetless floor and stepped onto the small front porch. He gazed at the orange-streaked sky spreading to the far horizon. Its beauty was foreign to him. In Houston he’d never had time to enjoy sunsets.

The sound of a car and the flash of headlights coming down the lane brought his gaze around. A GMC utility vehicle kicked up pebbles as it turned into the only other driveway on the small stretch of road.

Must be his neighbors coming home. Maybe they’d know someone he could hire to replace the windows in the house. Then, at least, he wouldn’t have to sleep in his car for more than a few nights.

Taking the three small steps all at once, Steve lunged off the porch, hoping his new neighbors were friendly.