by Nora Roberts
Jo carried her equipment over, stacked it neatly at the far edge of the blanket he’d spread over the ground. “You sound a little nervous, Nathan.”
“No, just hungry.” He handed her the wine, took a deep gulp of his own before sitting down and diving into the basket. “So, what do you have to eat?”
Jo’s muscles tensed. “Did something happen with Lexy?”
“Something? Happen?” Nathan pulled out a plastic container of cold fried chicken. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Her eyes narrowed at the all-too-innocent look on his face. “Oh, don’t you?”
“What are you thinking?” When you didn’t want to defend, he decided, attack. “You think I ... with your sister?” Insult coated his voice, all the more effective from the desperation that pushed it there.
“She’s a beautiful woman.” Jo slapped a covered bowl of sliced fruit down on the blanket.
“She certainly is, so of course that means I jumped her at the first opportunity. What the hell kind of man do you take me for?” Temper snapped out, some of it real and, Nathan felt, all of it justified. “I go after one sister in the morning and switch to the other for the afternoon? Maybe I’ll give your cousin Kate a roll before nightfall and make my points off the whole family.”
“I didn’t mean—I was only asking—”
“Just what were you asking?”
“I . . .” His eyes were dark and hot, fury streaking out of them. The jitter of alarm came first, which surprised her, then it was smothered quickly by self-disgust. “Nothing. I’m sorry. She was baiting me.” Annoyed with herself, Jo dragged a hand through her hair. “I knew she was baiting me. She knew I was coming up here with you, and that I’ve been seeing you, more or less, and she wanted to get a rise out of me.”
She blew out a breath, cursed herself again for not keeping her mouth shut. “I wasn’t going to mention it,” she went on when Nathan said nothing. “I don’t know why I did. It just slipped out.”
He cocked his head. “Jealous?”
She would have been relieved that the heat had died out of his eyes, but the question tightened her up all over again. “No. I was just ... I don’t know. I’m sorry.” She reached for his hand, closing the distance. “I really am.”
“Let’s forget it.” Since he had her hand, he brought it to his lips. “It never happened.”
When she smiled, leaned over and kissed him lightly on the mouth, he rolled his eyes skyward, wondering if he should thank Lexy or throttle her.
SEVENTEEN
KIRBY checked Yancy Brodie’s temperature while his mother looked on anxiously.
“He was up most of the night, Doc Kirby. I gave him Tylenol, but the fever was right back up this morning. Jerry had to leave before dawn to go out on the shrimp boat, and he was just worried sick.”
“I don’t feel good,” Yancy said fretfully and looked up into Kirby’s eyes. “My mama said you were gonna make me feel better.”
“We’ll see what we can do about that.” Kirby ran a hand over four-year-old Yancy’s straw-colored tuft of hair. “Did you go to Betsy Pendleton’s birthday party a couple of weeks ago, Yancy?”
“She had ice cream and cake, and I pinned the tail on the jackass.”
“Donkey,” his mother corrected.
“Daddy calls it a jackass.” Yancy grinned, then laid his head on Kirby’s arm. “I don’t feel good.”
“I know, sweetie. And you know what else, Betsy doesn’t feel good today either, and neither do Brandon and Peggy Lee. What we’ve got here is an outbreak of chicken pox.”
“Chicken pox? But he doesn’t have any spots.”
“He will.” She’d already noted the rash starting under his arms. “And you’ve got to try really hard not to scratch when it starts to itch, honey. I’m going to give your mom some lotion to put on you that will help. Annie, do you know if you and Jerry ever had the chicken pox?”
“We both did.” Annie let out a long sigh. “Fact is, Jerry gave it to me when we were kids.”
“Then it’s likely you won’t get it again. Yancy’s incubating now, so you want to keep his exposure to other kids and adults who haven’t had it to a minimum. You’re quarantined, buster,” she said, tapping Yancy on the nose. “Tepid baths with a little cornstarch will help once it breaks out, and I’m going to give you both topical and oral medications. I’ve only got samples here, so you’ll have to get Jerry to fill some prescriptions over on the mainland. Tylenol for the fever’s fine,” she added, laying a cool hand on Yancy’s cheek. “I’ll drop by your place in a few days to take a look at him.”
Noting the look of distress on Annie’s face, Kirby smiled, touched her arm. “He’ll be fine, Annie. The three of you are in for a couple of tough weeks, but I don’t foresee any complications. I’ll go over everything with you before you take him home.”
“I just . . . could I talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure. Hey, Yancy.” Kirby removed the stethoscope from around her neck and slipped it around his. “You want to hear your heart go thump?” She eased the earpieces in place, guided his hand. His tired eyes went big and bright. “You listen to that for a minute while I talk to your mom.”
She led Annie into the hallway, leaving the door open. “Yancy’s a strong, healthy, completely normal four-year-old boy,” she began. “You have nothing to worry about. Chicken pox is inconvenient, irritating, but it’s very rarely complicated. I have some literature if you’d like.”
“It’s not . . .” She bit her lip. “I took one of those home pregnancy tests a couple of days ago. It was positive.”
“I see. Are you happy about that, Annie?”
“Yeah. Jerry and me, we’ve been trying to make another baby for the best part of a year now. But ... is it going to be all right? Is it going to get sick?”
Exposure to the virus during the first trimester carried a slight risk. “You had chicken pox when you were a child?”
“Yeah, my mother put cotton gloves on me to stop me from scratching and scarring.”
“It’s really unlikely you’d contract it again.” If she did, Kirby thought with a tug of worry, they would deal with that when it happened. “Even if you did contract the virus, the odds are the baby will be fine. Why don’t you let me run a backup pregnancy test now, just to confirm? And give you a quick look. We’ll see how far along you are. And go from there.”
“It’d make me feel a lot better.”
“Then that’s just what we’ll do. Who’s your regular OB?”
“I went to a clinic over to the mainland for Yancy. But I was hoping you could take care of things this time.”
“Well, we’ll talk about that. Irene Verdon’s in the waiting room. Let’s see if she can keep an eye on Yancy for a few minutes. Then I want the two of you to go home and get some rest. You’re going to need it.”
“I feel better knowing you’re looking after us, Doc Kirby.” Annie laid a hand on her stomach. “All of us.”
BY one o’clock, Kirby had diagnosed two more cases of chicken pox, splinted a broken finger, and treated a bladder infection. Such, she thought as she grabbed a jar of peanut butter, was the life of a general practitioner.
She had thirty minutes before her next appointment and hoped to spend it sitting down and stuffing her face. She didn’t groan when her door opened, but she wanted to.
This was a stranger. She knew every face on the island now, and she’d never seen this one. She tagged him immediately as a beach rover, one of the type who popped up on the island from time to time in search of sun and surf.
His hair was streaky blond and skimmed his shoulders, his face was deeply tanned. He wore ragged cutoffs, a T-shirt that suggested she sun her buns in Cozumel, and dark-lensed Wayfarer sunglasses.
Late twenties, she judged, clean and attractive. She set her sandwich aside and returned his hesitant smile.
“Sorry.” He dipped his head. “Have I got the right place? I was told there was a doctor here.”<
br />
“I’m Doctor Fitzsimmons. What can I do for you?”
“I don’t have an appointment or anything.” He glanced at her sandwich. “Should I make one?”
“Why do you need one?”
“I just have this, ah ...” He shrugged his shoulders, then held out a hand. The palm was badly burned, with a red welt across it oozing with blisters.
“That looks nasty.” Automatically she stepped forward, taking his hand gently to examine it.
“It was stupid. Coffee was boiling over and I just grabbed the pot without thinking. I’m down at the campground. When I asked the kid at check-in if there was someplace I could get some salve or something, he told me about you.”
“Let’s go in the back. I’ll clean and dress this for you.”
“I’m horning in on your lunch.”
“Goes with the territory. So you’re camping,” she continued as she led him back to the examining room.
“Yeah, I was planning on heading down to the Keys, doing some work. I’m an artist.”
“Oh?”
He sat in the chair she indicated, then frowned at his palm. “I guess this will put the skids on work for a couple of weeks.”
“Unless you want to paint left-handed,” she said with a smile as she washed up, snapped gloves on.
“Well, I was thinking about hanging out here longer anyway. Great place.” He sucked in his breath as she began to clean the burn. “Hurts like a bitch.”
“I bet it does. I’d recommend aspirin. And a potholder.”
He chuckled, then set his teeth against the pain. “I guess I’m lucky there’s a doc around. This kind of thing can get infected, right?”
“Mmm. But we’ll see that it doesn’t. What kind of things do you paint?”
“Whatever strikes me.” He smiled at her, enjoying her scent, the way her hair swept down gold over her cheek. “Maybe you’d like to pose for me.”
She laughed, then rolled her chair over to a drawer for salve. “I don’t think so, but thanks.”
“You’ve got a terrific face. I do good work with beautiful women.”
She glanced up. His eyes were hidden by the lenses. Though his smile was wide and friendly, there was something around the edges that made her suddenly ill at ease. Doctor or not, she was a woman and she was alone with a stranger. One who was watching her just a little too closely.
“I’m sure you do. But being the only doctor on the island keeps me pretty busy.” She bent her head again to coat the burn with salve.
Foolish, she told herself. She was being ridiculous. He had a second-degree burn on his hand and he was letting a stranger treat it. And he was an artist. Naturally he was watching her.
“If you change your mind, I guess I’m going to be hanging here for a while. Jesus, that feels better.” He blew out a long breath, and she felt his hand relax in hers.
Feeling even more foolish now, she offered him a sympathetic smile. “That’s what we’re here for. I want you to keep this dry. You can put a plastic bag around it when you shower. I wouldn’t try swimming for the next week. The dressing should be changed daily. If you don’t have someone around to help you with it, just come in and I’ll do it.”
“I appreciate it. You’ve got good hands, Doc,” he added as she wound gauze around his hand.
“That’s what they all say.”
“No, I mean it—not just good doctor hands. Artistic hands. Angel hands,” he said with another smile. “I’d love to sketch them sometime.”
“We’ll see about that when you can hold a pencil again.” She rose. “I’m going to give you a tube of salve. And I want you to check in with me in two days unless you leave the island. In that case you’ll want to have it looked at elsewhere.”
“Okay. What do I owe you?”
“Insurance?”
“No.”
“Twenty-five for the office visit and ten for the supplies.”
“More than fair.” He got up, tugged his wallet out of his back pocket with his left hand. Gingerly he plucked bills out with the fingers of his wrapped hand. “Guess it’s going to be awkward for a while.”
“They’ll help you out at the campground if you need it. It’s a friendly island.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
“I’ll get you a receipt.”
“No, that’s all right.” He shifted, and she felt that little jolt of nerves again. “Listen, if you’re over that way, maybe you could stop in. You could see some of my work, or we could—”
“Kirby! You back there?”
She felt a warm rush of relief, so fast and full it nearly made her giddy. “Brian. I’m just finishing up with a patient. You be sure to keep that gauze dry,” she said briskly and pulled off her gloves. “And don’t be stingy with the salve.”
“You’re the doctor.” He sauntered out ahead of her, then lifted his brows at the man who stood in the kitchen with a bloody rag around his left hand. “Looks like you’ve got a problem there.”
“Good eye,” Brian said dryly and glanced at the gauze-wrapped hand. “Looks like I’m not the only one.”
“Busy day for the doc.”
“The doc,” Kirby said as she walked in, “hasn’t had five minutes to—Brian, what the hell have you done?” Heart in her throat, she leaped forward, grabbed his wrist, and quickly unwrapped the rag.
“Damn knife slipped. I was just—I’m dripping blood all over the floor.”
“Oh, be quiet.” Her heart settled back when she studied the long slice on the back of his hand. It was deep and bleeding freely, but nothing had been lopped off. “You need stitches.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do, about ten of them.”
“Look, just wrap it up and I’ll get back to work.”
“I said be quiet,” she snapped. “You’ll have to excuse me, I—” She glanced over, frowned. “Oh, I guess he left. Come into the back.”
“I don’t want you sewing on me. I only came because Lexy and Kate went half crazy on me. And if Lexy hadn’t been pestering me, I wouldn’t have cut myself in the first place, so just dump some antiseptic on it, wrap it up, and let me go.”
“Stop being a baby.” Taking his arm firmly, she pulled him into the back. “Sit down and behave yourself. When’s the last time you had a tetanus shot?”
“A shot? Oh, listen—”
“That long ago.” She washed up quickly, put the necessary tools in a stainless-steel tray, then sat down in front of him with a bottle of antiseptic. “We’ll take care of that afterward. I’m going to clean this, disinfect, then I’ll give you a local.”
He could feel the wound throbbing in time with his heart. Both picked up speed. “A local what?”
“Anesthetic. It’ll numb the area so I can sew you back together.”
“What is this obsession of yours with needles?”
“Let me see you move your fingers,” she ordered. “Good, good. I didn’t think you’d cut through any tendons. Are you afraid of needles, Brian?”
“No, of course not.” Then she picked up the hypo and he felt all the blood drain out of his face. “Yes. Damn it, Kirby, keep that thing away from me.”
She didn’t laugh as he’d been dead certain she would. Instead, she looked soberly into his eyes. “Take a deep breath, let it out, then take another and look at the painting over my right shoulder. Just keep looking at the painting and count your breaths. One, two, three. That’s it. Little stick, that’s all,” she murmured and slid the needle under his skin. “Keep counting.”
“Okay, all right.” He could feel the sweat crawling down his back and focused on the watercolor print of wild lilies. “This is the perfect time for you to make some snotty comment.”
“I worked in ER. Saw more blood during that year than a layman does in three lifetimes. Gunshots, knifings, car wrecks. I never panicked. The closest I’ve ever come to panicking was just now, when I saw your blood dripping onto my kitchen floor.”
He lo
oked away from the print and into her eyes. “I’ll mop it up for you.”
“Don’t be an idiot.” She grabbed a swatch of surgical paper to make a sterile field, then paused when he touched his hand to hers.
“I care too.” He waited until she looked at him again. “I care a lot. How the hell did this happen?”
“I don’t know. What do you think we should do about it?”
“It’s probably not going to work, you know. You and me.”
“No.” She picked up the suture. “Probably not. Keep your hand still, Brian.”
He glanced down, saw her slide the suturing needle under his skin. His stomach rolled. Taking another deep breath, he looked back at the painting. “Don’t worry about making it neat. Just make it fast.”
“I’m famous for my ladylike little stitches. Just relax and keep breathing.”
Since he figured it would be more humiliation than he could stand to pass out on her, he tried to obey. “I’m not afraid of needles. I just don’t like them.”
“It’s a common phobia.”
“I don’t have a phobia. I just don’t like people sticking needles in me.”
She kept her head bent so he wouldn’t see her smile. “Perfectly understandable. What was Lexy pestering you about?”
“The usual. Everything.” He tried to ignore the slight tug as she drew the edges of the wound together. “I’m insensitive. I don’t care about her—or anyone else, for that matter. I don’t understand her. No one does. If I was a real brother, I’d lend her five thousand dollars so she could go back to New York and be a star.”
“I thought she’d decided to stay here through the summer.”
“She had some sort of go-round with Giff. Since he hasn’t come crawling after her, she’s gone from the sulky stage—which was our big treat yesterday—to the nasty stage. Are you almost done?”
“Halfway,” she said patiently.
“Half. Great. Wonderful.” His stomach rolled again. Okay, think about something else. “Who was the beach bum?”
“Hmm? Oh, the burn. Tussle with a coffeepot. Says he’s an artist, on his way to the Keys. He may be over at the campground for a while. I never did get his name.”
