by Janet Dailey
The traffic around her was traveling slowly but smoothly. Not taking her eyes from the congested lanes of the interstate highway, Lanna leaned sideways to reach down and untie the shoelaces of the white leather oxford on her left foot. The shoe slipped easily off her white, nylon-stockinged heel. While her left foot took possession of the accelerator, she removed her right shoe and wiggled her cramped and tired toes.
“Ah, that’s better,” she sighed aloud at the instant sensation of relief that flowed through her aching feet.
The traffic ahead slowed to a crawl and Lanna braked to match their reduced speed. It was still five miles to her exit, and two more after than to her apartment. At this rate, it would take her another half-hour to get home.
With a grimace of resignation, she lifted a hand to her hair, sleeked away from her face into a smooth French coil. Searching fingers found the hairpins that secured the restrained style and began plucking them out and slipping them into the handbag on the seat beside her. A combing rake of her fingers sent her shoulder-length hair tumbling free. It was a mink-brown color that gleamed with a rich luster.
A smile lifted the corners of her generously curved mouth. Sometimes Lanna felt like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis when she shed the disciplined trappings of her nursing profession. Not that the white uniform did all that much to conceal her obvious physical assets. On the contrary, its staid, tailored lines emphasized her curved figure and the nipped-in slimness of her waist.
The combination of summer heat and driving rain made the enclosed air of the car oppressively close. Rolling down a window for circulation would just admit the driving rain. Not for the first time, Lanna wished for air conditioning in her car. In Denver, it had seemed a luxury she couldn’t afford, but here in Arizona, she was learning it was virtually a necessity. She unbuttoned the top two buttons of her white uniform and lifted the sticky nylon material away from the valley between her breasts. The only relief she derived from it was in her mind.
Off the road on her right, Lanna glimpsed the flashing red taillights of a stalled vehicle. Seconds later her headlights illuminated the yellow pickup truck parked on the shoulder of the highway. As she slowed the Volkswagen to pass it, the door on the driver’s side opened and a tall, stockily built man stepped out.
In that brief moment when the car lights illuminated him, Lanna glimpsed the bowed shoulders beneath a light tan jacket, white peppered hair below the wide brim of a western hat, and the sagging jowls of a tired face. On the side of the truck was a sign that read FALCON CONSTRUCTION and an emblem showing the black silhouette of the head of the predatory bird. Then she was past the pickup and its driver. Her gaze lifted to the rearview mirror, where she could see the elderly man start out walking, his head bowed against the driving rain.
Lanna hesitated only an instant before she flipped on her turning signal and eased the Volkswagen out of the traffic lane onto the paved shoulder of the highway. Leaving the motor running, she leaned across the seat and rolled down the window on the passenger’s side.
When the old man swung out to the right to skirt her car, Lanna shouted above the clapping thunder, “Want a ride?”
The man paused in apparent surprise, then bent down to peer in the passenger’s window. Rainwater streamed from the rolled point of his hat brim. Beneath thick, iron-gray eyebrows, a pair of pale blue eyes studied her. The accumulation of years had grooved lines in the rugged, sun-tanned face, giving it a certain leather toughness, but Lanna wasn’t frightened by what she saw.
“Get in,” she invited again with a faint smile.
He hesitated for a split-second, then opened the passenger’s door. “Thanks.” The gravelly quality in his voice seemed to match his rough exterior.
“It’s pretty wet out there. You’re already soaked to the skin,” she observed as he tucked his big frame into the small car and rolled up the window.
“Yeah, I noticed.”
Lanna shifted the car into forward gear and eased it back into the slow-moving traffic. She stole a sideways glance at the big man filling her small car. Crowfooting lines splayed out from the corners of his eyes, relating an impression of deep sadness. There was something about the man that reminded Lanna of an aging Teddy bear masquerading as a silver-tipped grizzly. As if sensing her curious inspection, he turned his head to look at her. Lanna swung her gaze back to the rain-swept interstate lane.
“Didn’t your parents ever teach you not to pick up strangers on the road? It’s a dangerous thing for a young girl to do—or didn’t they ever tell you that?”
This prompted a soft laugh from Lanna. She was being reprimanded by the very man to whom she’d given a ride. “Yes, they warned me all about hitchhikers and strange men,” she told him with lilting assurance. “But they also told me the story of the Good Samaritan. I guess that appealed to me more. What happened to your truck?”
“The points got wet, I guess.” He sounded disgruntled as he answered her question.
Lanna glanced at the green road sign for the approaching exit. “I can’t remember if there is a service station at this exit, but I know there is one at the next.” It was the off-ramp that she would take. “I can give you a lift that far. They can probably tow your truck in for you.”
There was a rustle of wet clothing. Out of the corner of her eye, Lanna saw him glance at the watch on his left wrist. “A couple of blocks from the second exit is a construction site. I’m supposed to be there in fifteen minutes. Would you mind dropping me off there?” he asked. “I can ask somebody to go back for the truck.”
“Is that the new medical complex that’s being built?” Lanna sent him a questioning look.
“Yeah.” He nodded.
“Sure, I can drop you there,” she agreed. “I have to drive right by it on my way home.” Her gaze slid curiously over him. His clothes, his advanced years, and the need to be at a construction site after working hours all told Lanna that he must be the night watchman. “You should have an easy time tonight if this rain keeps up.”
“What?” The thick brows furrowed together in a frown.
“Weather like this keeps people inside, instead of pilfering material and equipment from construction sites. It makes your job much easier, I should think,” she said, explaining her reasoning.
He turned away, an amused smile touching his mouth for the first time as he realized she thought he was a night watchman. “Yeah, that’s right. It will,” he agreed.
“When is the building supposed to be finished?”
“The first of October if there are no delays.”
“That long?” Lanna sighed. “I have my fingers crossed that I can get a job there when it’s completed so I won’t have so far to drive to work.”
“Do you work in a doctor’s office now?” His blue eyes took note of her white uniform.
“Yes. A pediatrician, Dr. Fairchild,” she answered. “Depending on the traffic—and the weather—it’s about a thirty- to forty-minute drive from my apartment.”
“Are you his receptionist?”
“I’m a registered nurse,” Lanna corrected.
“There’s a hospital not far from here. They always seem to have openings for nurses. Can’t you get on the staff there?”
“No, thanks.” She shook her dark head in firm negation. “I’m not working in any more hospitals.”
“Why?” His curiosity was aroused by her absolute assertion.
“A nurse isn’t supposed to get involved with the patients. Unfortunately, I don’t possess that necessary emotional objectivity to take care of the sick on a day-to-day basis. I let myself become too close to them. So …”—she shrugged—“… I got out of that emotional wringer. Now I work in a doctor’s office, where my contact with the patients is very brief and very limited.”
“Do you miss it—working in the hospital?”
“Sometimes,” Lanna admitted. “I miss the camaraderie of the large staff—doctors, nurses, technicians, aides—all working together. But now
I have a lot less heartache. The hours are better and I always have the weekends off.”
“Married?”
She felt his gaze reach to examine her left hand, but she wasn’t wearing any jewelry, a holdover from her nurse’s training when all was forbidden. Ever since, Lanna never wore jewelry while she was in uniform.
“No, I am not married.” There was the faintest suggestion of sadness in her smile. “I have just about decided that the state of holy matrimony is not my destiny.”
“Now, I find that hard to believe,” he chided dryly. “A lot of men would be attracted to a beautiful woman like you.”
“In my twenty-five years, I have received innumerable propositions, but not a single proposal,” she confided with a self-mocking smile. “There is something about me that attracts the good-time Charlies of this world.”
“I think I detect a note of disillusionment”—the man smiled—“which usually means an affair went bad.”
She laughed, surprised at how accurately he had read between the lines, and a little surprised at the personal turn the conversation had taken. What kind of risk was she taking by discussing her love life with a total stranger? Lanna took another look at her passenger. She was simply too comfortable in his presence to feel threatened by him.
“You are very astute,” she remarked.
“It comes from years of experience,” he told her. “What happened? Did he leave you for another woman?”
“You could say that,” Lanna admitted, able to smile about it now. “Of course, the other woman was his wife. For two years, I waited for him to get a divorce before it finally sank into my thick skull that he was never going to get one. Why should he when he had the best of both worlds?”
After their easy exchange of conversation, the dead silence that followed her rhetorical question was heavy. Lanna sliced a curious glance at the man staring out the windshield. He looked sad and very grim.
“Did I say something wrong?” she asked with a puzzled frown.
“What?” he asked blankly, as if he hadn’t heard her question, then recalled it. “No, of course you didn’t. This is the exit just ahead.” He pointed and changed the subject. “Years ago this area around here was nothing but cactus and sage. Look at it now.”
Lanna sensed it was a deliberate change of subject, but she didn’t object. “Are you originally from Phoenix?”
“No. I was raised in northern Arizona, up around the Four Corners. How about you?”
“Colorado. Denver.” She turned the car onto the exit ramp, following a stream of traffic taking the same route.
“How long have you been here, Miss———?”
She hesitated, but after all she had told him about herself already, her name seemed a minor inclusion. “Lanna Marshall. I’ve been here less than six months.”
“Do you like it here?” he asked.
“It’s hot,” Lanna replied with an expressive arch of an eyebrow.
“So is hell.” The man laughed and the sound had the same rasping texture as his voice, but equally pleasant to hear.
“I guess I miss the mountains, the snow—and trees,” she admitted, after giving it some thought. “Of course, Flagstaff isn’t far away. I can always drive there if I get too homesick.” She waited until the traffic cleared the intersection before she turned the car onto the major cross-street.
“Have you made many friends since you came here?”
“A few.” Very few, actually, but Lanna didn’t want to sound as if she was feeling sorry for herself. She was naturally outgoing and made friends easily. She simply hadn’t been in the city long enough to become well acquainted with many people.
The construction site was just ahead on her right. The shell of the medical building was nearly complete. Lanna slowed the Volkswagen as they approached the construction area.
“You can drop me off at that construction shack.” The man nodded toward a long trailer parked on the site.
A light gleamed from a tiny, square window at one end of the trailer. Below the word OFFICE stenciled on the door was the further identification of Falcon Construction Company. Two yellow pickups, like the one the man had been driving, were parked near the trailer, and so was a dark-colored Cadillac. Lanna stopped her car next to the curb.
“Here you are,” she announced unnecessarily and sent the elderly man a warm smile. It had been a welcome change to have someone to talk to. The drive hadn’t seemed nearly as long.
His hand was on the door latch, but he didn’t immediately open it. He returned her smile, a warm light chasing away the sad shadow in his blue eyes for a moment. “Thanks for the ride. But the next time you see a stranger on the highway, let somone else play the Good Samaritan,” he advised her.
“I’ll try to remember,” she promised. “Don’t you have a raincoat or something? You are going to get soaked making your rounds tonight.”
He laughed huskily. “If I catch cold, I know just the person to call to nurse me back to health.” Then he was opening the door and stepping out quickly into the rain. “Take care of yourself,” he said as he slammed the door.
With a wave, he turned and trotted, head down, toward the construction trailer. Lanna waited until the trailer door was opened and a rectangular patch of light streamed out. The man disappeared inside as she drove away from the curb.
For the rest of the week, each time Lanna drove past the construction site on the way to or from work, she thought about the night watchman. Old didn’t seem a fair word to describe him, although admittedly, the man was in his sixties. Yet he possessed a healthy vigor with a certain ruggedness that was appealing despite his years. It was odd the way the memory of him lingered so vividly—his gruffness, his gentleness, and the unhappiness that haunted his eyes.
Lanna shrugged it aside, convinced she thought so often about the man simply because she knew so few people in Phoenix. It was natural that a friendly stranger would leave a lasting impression.
It might be more truthful to admit that she missed her father, and the gentle gruffness of the stranger had reminded her of him. Her mother had died when Lanna was eleven. She and her father had grown very close after that. She knew they had begun drifting apart when she had moved away to attend college. It had all been so new and exciting, the first feeling of independence. When her father had met a young widow with children and fell in love with her, Lanna had been delighted for him. She still was.
Only now they were no longer the center of one another’s existence. Each led an individual life separate from the other. Lanna didn’t want to turn back the clock, yet there were times when she missed the easy companionship, the reliable shoulder to lean on, and the sense of being needed by someone. Someday she’d have a home and family of her own, and that empty place in her life would be filled. Of course, after that last disastrous affair, she wasn’t anxious to rush into a new romance. In the meantime, she had her career to occupy her time. Lately, she’d been giving some thought to getting into the administrative side of nursing, maybe taking some night courses at one of the local universities. She hadn’t decided definitely.
Setting the basket of freshly washed clothes on the hall floor—the laundry was a regular part of her Saturday morning routine—she reached into the pocket of her white shorts for the apartment key. She unlocked the door and held it open with a sandled toe to pick up the basket of clothes.
The apartment was small and sparsely furnished. At the moment, it was all she could afford. This was the first time she had lived alone. Always before she had shared an apartment with a fellow nurse. She missed the companionship of a roommate, but it was rather nice to have to pick up after no one except herself. Lanna was considering keeping the small apartment and fixing it up to suit herself, give it a feeling of permanence.
It was a thought that reasserted itself as she stacked clean towels in the bathroom linen closet. She made a face at the gaudy blue fish that swam in the room’s wallpaper. They would be the first to go.
She was startled by a knock on her apartment door. She hurried to answer it, lifting damp tendrils of hair away from her forehead and smoothing them into place. Caution made her slip the security chain into position before she opened the door a crack.
“Hello!” There was both surprise and wary alarm in her voice as she recognized the night watchman standing in the hallway outside her door.
“I’m glad you have a chain on your door,” he observed with a wry smile.
“What are you doing here? I mean … I’m glad to see you, but … did you leave something in my car?” She couldn’t find the right words to ask why he was there.
Her gaze swept over the tall man. This time he was wearing a white shirt and khaki-colored pants. She noticed his boots were polished, the pointed toes gleaming. There was a turquoise-studded silver buckle at his waist. He was holding something behind his back. Her hazel eyes widened when he brought his arms around to the front to offer her a bouquet of pink roses.
“I wanted to say ‘thanks,’” he said.
“They’re beautiful,” she responded inadequately as the sweet fragrance of the flowers drifted near her. But there was still confusion when she looked at him. “How on earth did you know where I lived?”
“There was only one Lanna Marshall in the phone directory,” he explained.
It was so obvious Lanna laughed, still a little speechless. Then she realized: “I don’t know your name.”
His hesitation lasted only a split-second. Afterward, Lanna thought she had imagined it. “John Buchanan.”
“What can I do for you, John Buchanan?” She was still hesitant about unchaining the door despite the lure of the flowers.
“I thought … I’d like you to have lunch with me. Do you like Mexican food?” John Buchanan didn’t give her a chance to answer. “There’s a little restaurant not far from here. It doesn’t look like much on the outside, but the food is great.” He noticed her continuing hesitation and smiled. “If it would make you feel safer, you can follow me there in your car.”
