The Men of Medicine Ridge

by Diana Palmer

  As they ate dinner, Natalie carefully maneuvered the conversation toward the vocational school, so that Vivian could join in. Vivian was livid and getting more upset by the minute. Natalie could have kicked Mack for putting her in this position. If only he’d let Vivian invite Whit over unconditionally!

  “Why didn’t you go to college to study computer programming?” Whit asked Vivian, and managed to make it sound condescending.

  “The classes were already full when I decided to go,” Vivian said with a forced smile. “Besides, I’d never have met you if I’d gone to college instead of the vocational school.”

  “I suppose not.” He smiled at her, but his attention went immediately back to Natalie. “What grade do you plan to teach?”

  “First or second,” Natalie said. “And I have to leave very soon, I’m afraid. I have exams next week, so I expect to be up very late tonight studying.”

  “You can’t even stay for dessert?” Whit asked.

  “Nope…sorry.”

  “What a shame,” Whit said.

  “Yes, what a shame.” Vivian echoed the words, but the tone was totally different.

  “I’ll walk you out to your car,” Mack said before Whit could volunteer.

  Whit knew when he was beaten. He smiled sheepishly and asked Vivian if she’d pour him a second cup of coffee.

  It was pitch black outside. Mack held Natalie’s arm on the way down the steps, but not in any affectionate way. He was all but cutting off the circulation.

  “Well, that was a disaster,” he said through his teeth.

  “It was your disaster,” she pointed out irritably. “If you hadn’t insisted that I come over, too—”

  “Disaster is my middle name lately,” he replied with halfhearted amusement.

  “He isn’t a bad man,” she told him. “He’s just normal. He likes anything with a passable figure. Sooner or later, Viv is going to realize that he has a wandering eye, and she’ll drop him. If,” she added forcibly, “you don’t put her back up by disapproving of him. In that case, she’ll probably marry him out of spite!”

  He stopped at the driver’s side of her car and let her arm fall. “Not if you’re around, she won’t.”

  “I won’t be around. He gives me the willies,” she said flatly. “If I hadn’t had this shawl on, I’d have pulled the tablecloth over my head!”

  “I told you not to wear anything low-cut.”

  “I only did that to spite you,” she admitted. “Next time, I’ll wear an overcoat.” She dug in her evening bag for her car keys. “And I thought you said he was a boy. He isn’t. He’s a teacher.”

  “He’s a boy compared to me.”

  “Most men are boys compared to you,” she said impatiently. “If Viv used you as a yardstick, she’d never date anybody at all!”

  He glared at her. “That doesn’t sound very much like a compliment.”

  “It isn’t. You expect anything male to be just like you.”

  “I’m successful.”

  “Yes, you’re successful,” she conceded. “But you’re a social disaster! You open your mouth, and people run for the exits!”

  “Is it my fault if people can’t do their jobs properly?” he shot back. “I try not to interfere unless I see people making really big mistakes,” he began.

  “Waitresses who can’t get the coffee strong enough,” she interrupted, counting on her fingers. “Bandleaders who don’t conduct with enough spirit, firemen who don’t hold the hoses right, police officers who forget to give turn signals when you’re following them, little children whose shoelaces aren’t tied properly—”

  “Maybe I interfere a little,” he defended himself.

  “You’re a walking consumer advocate group,” she countered, exasperated. “If you ever get captured by an enemy force, they’ll shoot themselves!”

  He started to smile. “Think so?”

  She threw up her hands. “I’m going home.”

  “Good idea. Maybe the English expert will follow suit.”

  “If he doesn’t, you could always correct his grammar,” she suggested.

  “That’s the spirit.”

  She opened the door and got into the car.

  “Don’t speed,” he said, leaning to the open window, and he wasn’t smiling. “There’s more than a little fog out here. Take your time getting home, and keep your doors locked.”

  “Stop nursemaiding me,” she muttered.

  “You do it to me all the time,” he pointed out.

  “You don’t take care of yourself,” she replied quietly.

  “Why should I bother, when you’re so good at doing it for me?” he queried.

  She was losing the battle. It did serve to keep her mind off the way he’d held her earlier, the touch of those strong hands on her bare flesh. She had to stop thinking about it.

  “Keep next Friday night open,” he said unexpectedly.

  She frowned. “Why?”

  “I thought we might take Vivian and the professor over to Billings to have dinner and see a play.”

  She hesitated. “I don’t know…”

  “What’s your exam schedule?”

  “One on Monday, one on Tuesday, one on Thursday and one on Friday.”

  “You’ll be ready to cut loose by then,” he said confidently. “You can afford one new dress, surely?”

  “I’ll buy myself some chain mail,” she promised.

  He grinned. It changed him, made him look younger, more approachable. It made her tingle when he looked like that.

  “We’ll pick you up about five.”

  She smiled at him. “Okay.”

  He moved away from the car, waiting until she started it and put it in gear before he waved and walked toward the porch. She watched him helplessly for several seconds. There had been a shift in their relationship. Part of her was terrified of it. Another part was excited.

  She drove home, forcing herself not to think about it.

  That night, Natalie had passionate, hot dreams of herself and Mack in a big double bed somewhere. She woke sweating and couldn’t go back to sleep. She felt guilty enough to go to church. But when she got home and fixed herself a bowl of soup for lunch, she started thinking about Mack again and couldn’t quit.

  The rain was coming down steadily. If the temperature had been just a little lower, it might have turned to snow, even this late in the spring. Montana weather was unpredictable at best.

  She got out her biology textbook and grimaced as she tried to read her notes. This was her second course on the subject, and she was uncomfortable about the upcoming exam. No matter how hard she studied, science just went right through her head. Genetics was a nightmare, and animal anatomy was a disaster. Her professor warned them that they’d better spend a lot of time in the lab, because they were going to be expected to trace blood flow through the various arteries and veins and the lymphatic system. Despite the extra hours she’d put in with her small lab study group, she was tearing her hair out trying to remember everything she’d learned over the course of the semester.

  She’d been hard at it all afternoon when there was a knock at the front door. It was almost dark, and she was hungry. She’d have to find something to eat, she supposed. Halfway expecting Vivian, she went to the door barefooted, in jeans and a loose button-up green shirt with no makeup on and her hair uncombed. She opened the door and found Mack there, dressed in jeans and a yellow knit shirt, carrying a bag of food.

  “Fish and chips,” he announced.

  “For me?” she asked, surprised.

  “For us,” he countered, elbowing his way in. “I came to coach you.”

  “You did?” She was beginning to feel like a parrot.

  “For the biology exam,” he continued. “Or don’t you need help?”

  “I’m considering around-the-clock prayer and going to class on crutches for a sympathy concession from my professor.”

  “I know your professor, and he wouldn’t feel sorry for a dismembered k
itten if it was trying to get out of his exam,” he returned. “Do I get to stay?”

  She laughed softly. “Sure.”

  He went into the kitchen and started getting down plates.

  “I’ll make another pot of coffee,” she volunteered. She felt a little shy of him after the night before. They had such intimate memories for two old sparring partners. She glanced at him a little nervously as she went about the ritual of making coffee. “Wasn’t your science fiction show on tonight?” she asked, because she knew he only watched one, and this was the night it ran.

  “It’s a rerun,” he said smoothly. “Have you got any ketchup?”

  “You’re going to put ketchup on fish?” she asked in mock surprise.

  “I don’t eat things I can’t put ketchup on,” he replied.

  “That lets out ice cream.”

  He tossed her a grin. “It’s good on vanilla.”

  “Yuck!”

  “Where’s your sense of adventure?” he taunted. “You have to experience new things to become well rounded.”

  “I’m not eating ketchup on ice cream, whether it rounds people out or not.”

  “Suit yourself.” He put fish and chips onto the plates, fished out two napkins and put silverware at two places on the small kitchen table.

  “I gather we’re eating in here,” she murmured dryly.

  “If we eat in the living room, you’ll want to watch television,” he pointed out. “And if you can find a movie you like, the studying will be over.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  “I want you to graduate. You’ve worked too hard, too long to slack off at the eleventh hour.”

  “I guess you know all about genetics?” she sighed, seating herself while the coffee finished dripping.

  “I breed cattle,” he reminded her. “Of course I do.”

  She grimaced. “I love biology. You’d think I’d be good at it.”

  “You’re good with children,” he said, smiling gently at her. “That’s what matters the most.”

  She shrugged. “I suppose you’re right.” She studied his lean, dark face with its striking black eye patch. “Are you still half buried in Internet college courses?”

  “Yes. It’s forensic archaeology this semester. Bones,” he clarified. His eye twinkled. “Want to hear all about it?”

  “Not over fish and chips,” she said distastefully.

  “Squeamish, are you?”

  “Only when I’m eating,” she replied. She glanced at the coffeemaker, noted that the brewing cycle was over and got up to fill two thick white mugs with black coffee. She put his in front of him and seated herself. Neither of them took cream or sugar, so there was no sense in putting them on the table.

  “How’s Viv?” she asked as they started on the fish.

  “Fuming. Lover boy went home without asking her for another date.” He gave her a curious look. “She thought he might have phoned you.”

  “Not a chance,” she said easily. “Besides, he’s not my type.”

  “What is? The Markham man?” That was pure venom in his deep voice.

  “Dave is nice.”

  “Nice.” He finished a bite of fish and washed it down with coffee. “Am I nice?” he persisted.

  She met his teasing glance and made a face at him. “You and a den of rattlesnakes.”

  “That’s what I thought.” He munched on a chip, leaning back in his chair to give her a long, steady scrutiny. “You’re the only woman I know who improves without makeup.”

  “It’s too much work when I’m home alone. I wasn’t expecting company,” she added.

  He smiled. “I noticed. How old is that blouse?”

  “Three years,” she said with a sigh, noting the faded pattern. “But it’s comfortable.”

  His gaze lingered on it just a little too long, narrow and vaguely disturbing.

  “I am wearing a bra!” she blurted.

  His eyebrows lifted. “Are you really?” he asked in mock surprise.

  “Don’t stare.”

  He only smiled and finished his fish, oblivious to her glare.

  “Tell me about blood groups,” he said when they were on their second cup of coffee.

  She did, naming them and describing which groups were compatible and which weren’t.

  “Not bad,” he said when she was through. “Now, let’s discuss recessive genes.”

  She hadn’t realized just how much material she’d already absorbed until she started answering questions on those topics. It was only when they came to the formulae for the various combinations and the descriptions of genetic populations and gene pools that she foundered.

  They went into the living room. She handed him the book. He stretched out on the sofa, slipping off his boots so that he could sprawl while she curled up in the big armchair across from him.

  He read the descriptions to her, made her recite them, then formulated questions to prompt the right answers. She couldn’t remember being drilled so competently on a subject before.

  Then he took her lab report and had her point out the various circulation patterns of blood through the body of a lab rat the class had dissected. He drew her onto the floor with him and put the book in front of them, so that she could see the diagram and label the various organs as well as the major arteries and veins.

  “How does he do this on the exams?” he asked. “Does he lay out a diagram and have you fill in the spaces?”

  “No. He usually just sticks a pin in the organ or vein or artery he wants us to identify.”

  “Barbarian,” he muttered.

  She grinned. “That’s what we call him when he isn’t listening,” she admitted. “Actually, we have a much more thorough course of study in biology than most of the surrounding colleges, because most of our students go on to medical school or into nursing. Biology is a real headache here, but none of our students ever have to take remedial courses later on.”

  “That says a lot for the quality of teaching.”

  She smiled. “So it does.”

  He went over the anatomy schematic with her until she knew the answers without prompting. But it was ten o’clock when she started to yawn.

  “You’re tired,” he said. “You need a good night’s sleep, so you can feel up to the exam in the morning.”

  “Thanks for helping me.”

  He shrugged. “What are neighbors for?” he asked with a chuckle. “How about a cup of hot chocolate before I go home?”

  “I’ll make it.”

  He stretched lazily on the carpet. “I was hoping you’d offer. I can’t make it unless I have something you just stir into hot milk. As I recall, you can do it from scratch.”

  “I can,” she said smugly. “Won’t take a jiffy.”

  She got down the ingredients, mixed them, heated the milk in her used microwave oven and took two steaming mugs into the living room. He was still sprawled on the carpet, so she sprawled with him, both of them using the sofa for a backrest while they drained the warm liquid.

  “Just the thing to make me sleep,” she murmured drowsily. “As if I needed help!”

  “Do you think you know the material now?” he asked.

  “Inside out,” she agreed. “Thanks.”

  “You’d do the same for me.”

  “Yes, I would.”

  He finished his drink and put the mug on the side table, taking hers when she emptied it and placing it beside his.

  “How do you feel about the other exams?” he asked.

  “That material, I do know,” she told him. “It was just a question of reviewing my notes every day. But this biology was a nightmare. I never thought I’d grasp it. You have a knack for making it sound simple. It isn’t.”

  “I use a lot of it in my breeding program,” he said on a lazy stretch. He flexed his shoulders. “You can’t get good beef cattle unless you breed for specific qualities.”

  “I guess not.” Her eyes went involuntarily to his high cheekbones, his straight nose, and then
down to that disciplined, very sensuous mouth. It made her tingle to look at it.

  “You’re staring,” he murmured.

  “I was just thinking,” she replied absently.

  “Thinking what?”

  She shifted a little and lowered her eyes, smiling shyly. “I was thinking that you’ve never kissed me.”

  “That’s a lie,” he returned amusedly. “I kissed you last Christmas under the mistletoe.”

  “That was a kiss?” she drawled.

  “It was the only sort of kiss I felt comfortable with, considering that my brothers and my sister were staring at us the whole time,” he said with a twinkle in his dark eye.

  “I guess they’d run you ragged if you made a serious pass at someone.”

  “I’ve made several serious passes at you,” he replied, and he didn’t smile. “You don’t seem to notice them.”

  She colored, and her voice felt choked. “I notice them, all right.”

  “You run,” he corrected. His gaze fell to her soft mouth and lingered there. “I’d enjoy kissing you, Nat,” he added quietly. “But a kiss is a stepping-stone. It leads down a road you may not want to walk right away.”

  She frowned, puzzled. “What sort of road?”

  “I don’t want to get married,” he said simply. “And you don’t want to have intercourse.”

  “McKinzey Killain!” she exclaimed, outraged, sitting straight up.

  “There’s another word for it.” He grinned wickedly. “Want to hear it?”

  “You say it, and I’ll brain you with your own boot!” she threatened, making a grab for one of the highly polished pair lying just past his hip.

  He was too quick for her. He caught her arm as it reached his abdomen and jerked her down on the other side of him, turning her under a long, powerful leg and arm with speed and grace.

  She found herself flat on her back looking into his taut, somber face. She’d expected laughter, amusement, even mocking good humor. None of those emotions was evident. He was very still, and his good eye held an intimidating expression.

  She could feel the powerful muscle of his thigh across hers, the pressure vaguely arousing. She could feel the hard, heavy beat of his heart against her breasts in their light covering. She could taste his breath on her mouth as he stared at her from point-blank range. She began to feel hot and swollen all over from the unfamiliar proximity. She didn’t know whether to try to laugh it off or fight her way off the carpet.