Evan stopped breathing for a moment. Take over. Be a doctor in Red River? He reached for the cup of coffee on the table in front of him and wished he could spike it with something. “I’m flattered you thought of me, but this really comes as a shock. I mean, I’d entertain the idea of family practice, maybe if I had a wife and child, if I needed to settle down. And you do have some great people.” He tried to push the thoughts of all his mundane patients today out of his mind before continuing. “But I just don’t know if I’m ready for that kind of commitment now. The rush of the ER would be gone. I mean the biggest rush in Red River is…” His voice trailed off, and he couldn’t think of a damn thing…well he could. The biggest rush was Grace in lingerie. But he couldn’t exactly say that aloud. And it was a purely normal, male reaction he surmised after thinking about her for the fiftieth time in a day. It wasn’t personal.
Morgan chuckled. “True. It’s a different pace. One of the biggest joys of my practice, though, is the people. You become a part of their lives. You witness the beginning of families, the birth of children, you watch them grow. I have shared in their joy and pain and I have truly helped people that I have come to care deeply for,” Morgan said, his voice thick with emotion, his faded blue eyes glistening with tears.
Evan cleared his throat. The idea of what he was saying was interesting, but it also scared the hell out him. He didn’t want to know people. He didn’t want to get close to anyone and their families, their children. He wanted to be the best. And a small-town doctor wasn’t the best.
Morgan leaned forward. “You know, rumor has it that Red River is a top contender for getting that new regional hospital.”
“I didn’t know that,” Evan said, placing his coffee down. That interested him—mildly. But still. Red River wasn’t Toronto.
“And you owe me. Didn’t my secretary of thirty-five years quit after only one week with you?” Morgan asked, unruly gray eyebrows arched.
Evan shifted in his seat. “Sorry about that. I really didn’t want her to leave. I think she just had some trouble keeping up.”
Morgan snorted. “She came over here fit to be tied, said you were a slave driver. But I’ll tell you a little something, Son, she was ready to retire, and you gave her the perfect excuse. We sort of grew old together.”
“Well, I think you’re going to love your new receptionist. She’s extremely competent, energetic, and great with the patients. Every single person that walks into my office can’t stop gushing about her.” He had been shocked by that. And he didn’t know how many times he’d seen Grace laughing with patients and speaking to them as though she’d known them for years.
“Good, good. I looked over the résumé you dropped off and was quite impressed. You know I trust you. I also think how nice—a new secretary and a new doctor… I’m sure those brothers of yours would love to have you back in town with them. And what about your adorable nephew and niece?”
Evan ducked his head. Of course he missed Jake and Quinn. And his sisters-in-law. And the kids. But he saw them fairly often anyway, even when he’d worked in the city. He didn’t need to seem them every single day. “You know how to hit hard, don’t you, Morgan?”
“And your parents, they would have loved to see you as a family doctor in their beloved town,” Morgan pushed.
Evan grit his teeth. No, his father would have said that practicing medicine in a tiny town like Red River wasn’t good enough. The only thing that would be good enough was being the best. The top.
Morgan smiled, taking another sip of his coffee. “I’m sensing it’s now or never for you. I made a promise to myself—I wouldn’t retire if I didn’t have complete confidence in the new doctor. I owe these people, and I love them, and I can’t leave them under the care of just anyone. I need a doctor with heart,” he said.
Evan didn’t know how to tell his friend the person he was describing was not him. He had no idea how Morgan would have ever thought Evan would be the right replacement. He stared out the window, trying to feel the impact of what Morgan had told him. And he couldn’t.
“As much as I’d like to be, I’m not your man. I’m pretty much a shoo-in for heading up the new Medcorp clinics.”
Morgan’s white brows snapped together violently. “What?”
Evan nodded. He knew this wouldn’t go over well. “I’d worked with Lambert in the past, and the opportunity practically fell into my lap—”
“But plastic surgery in a private clinic? Evan?”
Evan leaned forward in his chair. There was nothing anyone could say to sway him from his goal. He wanted this position at Medcorp. The meeting with Lambert needed to go flawlessly. By the time he walked into the gala, his position as CEO would be secure. “I’ve wanted this for a long time. I know you may not agree—”
“Of course I don’t agree. How satisfying will your career be? You still wouldn’t be a surgeon. Is that really what you want? Is that what you dreamed of doing?”
Evan ripped his gaze from Chalmers and looked out the window. “Morgan, with all due respect, this is a career move that will give me back some of what I lost—”
“Ah, so this is about ego. The brilliant surgeon at the top of his game is desperately trying to be at the top again. Well, speaking from the mouth of an old man who’s made many mistakes, I’ll tell you this—smoke and mirrors. That job will bring you no fulfillment. It’ll line your pockets, but you will never be emptier. You will be nothing like the young boy that came into my office every day. Nothing like the young boy who tried to rescue all sorts of insects and animals. You wanted to heal. That job will take you away from your roots, from the beliefs that I know you still have somewhere deep inside, Evan Manning.”
Chapter Seven
Grace crossed “buy new purse and portfolio for gallery interview” off her To-Do list. She’d managed that purchase on her lunch break today. Now all she needed was to get through the actual interview. And if that interview went as well as Evan’s was no doubt going right now, she would have fulfilled one of her biggest goals.
She almost fell off her chair as a pounding on the front door shattered the silence in the quiet office. She looked over at Christopher who was seated in one of the waiting-room chairs playing a game Evan had downloaded for him on his phone. Grace had been shocked when he’d handed Chris his phone and told him he could use it for the duration of his meeting with the man from Medcorp. And then of course she’d added “smart phone” to the growing list of things she was going to soon be able to afford, thanks to this job. When she’d tried hinting at more information about Evan’s involvement with Medcorp, he’d just evaded the question. He just said he was entertaining a new career option. It hadn’t been her place to ask. And it reminded her of her role here—fake fiancée and receptionist. Nothing more.
She frowned and glanced at the clock on the wall, when the knocking grew louder and even Chris was drawn from his intense concentration.
She glanced down the hallway—Evan’s office door was still closed. His important meeting was in full swing, and so far, Chris had behaved wonderfully. She’d been nervous about having the meeting run so late and overlapping with Christopher’s time at the office. But Evan had reassured her that Mr. Lambert was a family man, so her son would be welcome. Still, it was imperative nothing went wrong and that she made a good impression. She needed to act like she thought Evan’s fiancée would act: sophisticated, intelligent, and slightly anal.
“Who’s that, Mom?”
Grace groaned. “I have no idea.” She jogged over to the front door when the pounding continued. A young man in jeans and a checked shirt was standing there. His face was red, and beads of sweat dripped down his acne-marred face. His thin arms were weighted down by large cages in each hand. Grace’s eyes widened as she recognized chickens inside the cages.
“Chickens!” Christopher whispered loudly…and with reverence.
Oh, this was going to be bad. Her Spidey-senses were tingling. She squeezed her eyes shut praying
for a second that he’d just go away. She jumped when he banged on the door again. Nope. He definitely didn’t go away.
She unlocked the door, and the man began frantically speaking in a rather high-pitched voice, “You gotta help me. My truck died right outside, and it’s a freaking heat wave today. I called the mechanic, and it’ll take him at least half an hour to get out here. I can’t leave the chickens back there for that long. They’ll die.” He held up the cages and thrust one in her direction.
She took a step back and shoved Chris behind her as he made an attempt to grab a cage. “I’m sorry, but—”
“Please just help me get the cages into your place. I’m filling in for my brother, and he’ll get fired if I screw this up—”
“I can’t,” she said, looking over her shoulder, grateful that Evan hadn’t heard any of the commotion.
Chris wrapped himself around her calf. “Mom, you have to—”
“This is a doctor’s office. What about trying one of the other—”
“I have. Everything is closed already, except the restaurants, and they won’t take in animals!” The young man’s voice was climbing higher and higher. He was right. Weekdays in downtown Red River meant everything closed early. She squeezed the door handle. She couldn’t allow this man to bring in chickens to the office. Especially today of all days.
He dangled a cage in her face, and the poor chicken made a panicked cluuuuuuuck. Grace squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t do this. What would Evan’s fiancée do? She racked her brain frantically… Evan’s fiancée would politely shut the door and lock it. Then she would tell Evan over some candlelight dinner about her brilliant disaster aversion skills, and he’d thank her profusely for not caving like an idiot and letting chickens into Chalmers’s practice during the most important meeting of his career.
Grace hung her head as the clucking increased in volume. She was caving like said idiot. She couldn’t very well just allow innocent animals to scorch in the heat while she sat in the nicely cooled doctor’s office.
“Please, lady, I just need you to help me out until the mechanic gets here and can get the AC working in my truck. It’s been out for over two hours. I need to get them cooled down. It won’t be long. I’ll get out of your way real fast.”
Maybe it was the panic in his eyes. This man was all alone, and he needed help. How many times had she been alone and in need? Surely Evan would understand. He had, after all, saved her and her son from a burning car. He couldn’t just stand by and let the chickens die. Grace took a deep breath and opened the door wider. “Okay listen, you get the chickens from the truck, and I’ll give you twenty minutes. That’s it, or I’ll be the one who’s fired,” she hissed.
“Deal. Thanks, lady!”
The young man ran to his truck, and Grace glanced down at her son. He was grinning at her with a mix of adoration and anticipation.
Ten minutes later, she drummed her fingers on her desk. She picked her pen up, waiting to cross off “Get chickens out of office before your ass is toast” from her list. Her gaze darted in regular intervals between the chickens, the clock, her list, and her son. Chris was pacing the cages and then peeking down the hallway for her. Every so often, he’d give her the thumbs-up, indicating Evan’s office door hadn’t opened.
She reached for her third tissue in minutes, anticipating a sneeze. She had a sneaking suspicion she was allergic to chickens. After sneeze number five, Evan’s office door creaked open, and Christopher whispered a frantic, “Mom.”
Crap. She was toast. She bolted around the corner of her desk, not really knowing what the hell she was going to do. Evan was going to kill her. Or fire her. Or both. She yanked Christopher over to her, and they stood in front of the dozen chicken cages, stoically, as though there was a chance in holy hell that Evan or Mr. Lambert weren’t going to notice that the pristine office had now been turned into some sort of farm-animal rescue center.
“Don’t worry, Mom. Dr. Evan is really cool and—”
Even Christopher knew he should stop talking when Evan and Lambert appeared in the doorway. Evan’s victorious smile melted faster than soft-serve ice cream in a heat wave. He closed his eyes for a second, and Grace presumed he was hoping that when he opened them again, this would all be some sort of nightmare. She smiled feebly when his eyes opened, and he looked at the cages that were still there and then at her.
It was not the same look he’d given her when they’d been locked in the changing room.
The dense, frantic flapping of wings reverberated through the empty office. Grace tried to open her mouth, but her voice failed her. Instead frantic clucking began. Christopher slapped his hands over his face and shook his head. She heard him mumble “Doomed.”
Grace cleared her throat. “I…um, there was a bit of an emergency situation—”
Her son stepped forward heroically. “Mom’s a chicken-rescuer. They were all going to explode from a fiery truck—”
Grace knew the only one who was going up in flames was her at this moment. She wrapped her arm around Chris, her hand patting his overly chatty mouth until he stopped talking. Dr. Lambert frowned, his gaze following something above her. Grace looked up and swallowed her scream. She jetted her arm out to capture the feather floating in the air. She didn’t dare look over at Evan.
“Where is this burning truck?” Evan asked, his voice sounding thick and strained. And so very, very, pissed.
Grace cleared her throat. “It’s not exactly on fire—”
“The chicken man is back!” Christopher yelled as the young man whipped open the door. She breathed a sigh of relief.
She took a step forward. “Dr. Manning, Dr. Lambert, I’m so sorry for the mess… I just couldn’t stand by and let these…innocent chickens die.”
“Thanks, lady,” the man said, quickly grabbing a few cages. Christopher ran over to hold open the door for him. Evan hadn’t moved. Not a square inch of that hard body had so much as twitched. But Lambert was grinning and watching her.
“Well, we all have to do our part in this world, don’t we?” he said with a hearty chuckle.
Grace breathed a sigh of relief as the older man winked at her. “Grace it has been a pleasure meeting with you and your son. Evan,” he said, extending his hand, “this visit has been an enlightening one for me. Thank you. I’ll be in touch.”
Grace gave him her most professional smile and tried not to gasp in horror as the young man almost crashed into Mr. Lambert with one of the cages. Once Mr. Lambert left the building Grace walked over to Evan who still hadn’t moved. “Evan, I’m so sorry—”
“Lady, thanks again for helping me out. You saved my butt and my brother’s. I knew it was going to be a bad day when I pressed snooze on my alarm.”
Evan looked over her shoulder to address the young man. “If you value employment, I suggest you don’t press snooze.”
The young man’s face grew a deep red. He backed up a step and nodded quickly, scrambling to retrieve the last cage. Evan stared the man down, and Grace took a step back from Evan’s scary-controlled-but-enraged body. The second the door shut behind him, Grace told Christopher to sit down and play a game quietly. Chris glanced at Evan then at Grace and quickly nodded.
“Evan,” she whispered as he began walked down the hallway, away from the waiting room. He slowed and she caught up with him, her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”
He looked down at her, and she swallowed hard. He was gorgeous up close. The blue in his eyes became more intense… Then again, that could have been because they were filled with carefully controlled anger. The lines of his perfectly chiseled face, the premium bone structure was even more enticing with the five-o’clock shadow he was sporting. Or it could just be the fact that the premium bone structure was being highlighted by the rhythmic clenching and unclenching of his jaw.
“You do realize those chickens were in that truck most likely on their way to the slaughterhouse—”
She shook her head vehemently. “No�
��”
Evan rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the ceiling for a minute. “Yes. Why else was this guy driving a bunch of chickens around? You didn’t save their feathered asses; you just prolonged their agony.”
She sputtered out a huff and then lifted her chin. “I did what I felt I needed to.”
“Fine, Grace, fine. You did what you needed to, and so did I. I’ve got at least an hour’s worth of test results to look through. Good night.” He turned around in the direction of his office. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. She had royally screwed up. She had been hired to help him out, not add to his problems. And whether or not the man lacked compassion for chickens, he was her employer. There was nothing stopping him from canning her. And then where would she and Christopher be?
“Evan?”
He stopped, but didn’t turn around.
She cleared her throat. “You’re, um, not going to fire me are you?”
There was a brief pause, during which she didn’t dare breathe.
“I can’t very well fire my fiancée, can I?”
And then he walked away, leaving her in the midst of the feather-filled waiting room.
…
He was being an ass. But the second he’d seen those chickens squawking around the waiting room, all he could think was how he’d just blown this opportunity with Medcorp. And after his meeting with Lambert, he’d thought it was practically a done deal. They got along well, saw eye to eye on how the clinics should be run, and Evan knew in his gut he was the top contender. Lambert loved family through and through, and he wanted a man who had the same beliefs. Evan fit the bill—personally and professionally.
And then when they’d walked out…to see how unprofessionally the office was being run, Evan had been pissed. But now he was more pissed at himself. Or Red River. Yes. He’d blame it on being back here and all these people screwing with his plans. A couple weeks ago, there had been no complications. He knew he wanted to be the CEO of Medcorp. He wanted out of Red River. He’d achieve his new career goals, and he’d be happy. Done. Now…now lines were being crossed and blurred. Now, he wondered if his career goals were merely prompted by some subconscious need to be the best for his father. But he loathed his father now that he knew the truth, so following his words…didn’t make sense.
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