by Ann McMan
“I really don’t think you could,” Maddie said.
“As for this particular program,” Lizzy continued, “I love the fact that I’d be getting in on the ground floor, and that I’d have a role in helping structure it to do the most good. And that’s especially true during the early phases, while we’re scouring around for permanent funding. You don’t know this, but I’m a pretty determined cheerleader for the things I believe in. I think I could be a real asset to you as you try to embed this program in the minds and hearts of the people controlling the purse strings.”
Maddie nodded. “I freely confess that I royally suck at raising money.”
Lizzy laughed. “So, if you hired me, it appears that we would already be starting off with a good division of labor?”
“You might say that.”
“So?”
“So?” Maddie replied.
“So—how about you? I won’t deny that I did a bit of Google research on you to prepare for today. How on earth did someone with your stellar background end up in an area like this?”
“Oh, there’s not much mystery to that. I’m a local. I came back here two years ago to take over my father’s practice.”
“Oh, I see. That makes sense, then. Do you like being back here? You were at Presbyterian in Philadelphia, weren’t you? That makes Nashville look like Mayberry.”
Maddie laughed. “It’s not quite that dramatic. But, yes, I was at Presby. I did my residency there, and then stayed on to work in the ER. This, though . . .” She paused as she considered her words. “This grows on you in ways you wouldn’t expect.” She looked up to meet Lizzy’s brown eyes. “At least, in ways I didn’t expect. I’ve been practicing medicine for over ten years now, but I can honestly say that I only really became a doctor about eighteen months ago.”
Lizzy nodded. “I know exactly what you mean.”
Maddie continued to give her an intent look. “I think you do.”
They sat for another moment in silence, and then Maddie patted her knees and got to her feet. “So, when would you like to go visit the clinic and see your new office?”
Lizzy looked at her with a stunned expression. “I’m hired?”
“Yep.”
“Just like that?”
“Yep.”
“Holy cow.” She looked up at Maddie with amazement. “You’re serious?”
“Usually.”
Lizzy laughed. “My sister is gonna freak out.”
“Fortunately, you’ll soon be licensed to prescribe antidotes for that.”
“Don’t think that hasn’t occurred to me.” They smiled at each other. Lizzy shook her head in wonder. “Surely you’re at least going to call my references?”
“I already have,” Maddie replied. “And don’t call me Shirley.”
Lizzy snorted as she got to her feet. “Oh lord, another Airplane! junkie. This is getting way too weird.”
“I think you might be right.”
They walked toward the hospital lobby and made plans to meet the following morning at Maddie’s clinic in Jericho. Maddie smiled to herself as she headed back toward the ER. Tom Greene was an old letch and a royal pain in her ass, but his little arm-twisting scheme to entice her to manage his fiefdom during his convalescence had certainly just paid off for the county. Big time. Things were definitely looking up.
IT WAS FRIDAY evening, and activity in the library had slowed to a crawl. The local high school basketball team had a home game that night, and most of the teens and half the adults in the county were planning on attending. Roma Jean and Jessie were playing in the school’s pep band, so Syd was staffing the place by herself. Her last patron of the day sauntered away from the circulation desk, carrying a stack of fat Chilton manuals. She smiled to herself. Somewhere in town, a late-model Dodge pickup was in for a serious overhaul. She watched him leave, and her eyes drifted again to the poster of Danica Patrick that hung on the wall next to the street door. I need to move that damn thing.
She hadn’t seen or talked to Maddie in nearly ten days, and she had used that time to good advantage. Through careful and honest introspection, she had managed to dissect her . . . attraction to the other woman. She now understood it as a somewhat surprising, but reasonable response to her emotional isolation. In the four months she had lived in Jericho, Maddie had all but shattered her self-imposed barriers, pulling her out of herself and into a warm circle of light that was populated with a quirky and amazing ensemble of friends.
And those friends now were her friends. It was an incredible turn of events, and it made sense that her gratitude toward Maddie would overflow and morph into something richer and more indefinable. It made sense. Didn’t it?
Of course it did.
She reminded herself of what Michael said the day they talked. None of this changed anything about who she was. It wasn’t that uncommon to confuse gratitude with . . . something else. And god knows, she’d been alone long enough to realize that she was sitting on a stockpile of suppressed sexual energy that could probably light up a small town. She felt sometimes like one of the dams on the river south of town. If she didn’t stop holding it all back, she’d risk cracking into a zillion pieces and flooding everything in her path. God. Even the new manager at the tire store was starting to look good to her. It was no wonder she was such a mess. But at least she hadn’t had any more of those dreams.
Well. Not many more.
At six-fifteen, Syd locked up the library for the night. She climbed the stairs to her apartment and unlocked her door. Her cell phone rang.
“Hello?” she said, as she closed the door and dropped her keys on the kitchen table.
“Howdy stranger.” It was Maddie. “Remember me?”
Syd smiled. “Barely. How are you?” She pulled out a chair and sat down.
“Want the truth?”
“Of course I do.”
“Exhausted.”
“I’m sure you are. I ran into Peggy today at Freemantle’s, and she said you were burning the candle at both ends—running back and forth between the hospital and the clinic.”
Maddie sighed heavily. “Normally, I’d deny that, but this time she’s telling the truth. I should have my head examined for agreeing to take this on. When I got home last night, Pete actually growled at me. I don’t know if he’s mad at me for ignoring him, or if he simply didn’t recognize me when I got out of the car.”
“Poor baby.”
“Thanks.”
“I meant Pete. I think I’d probably growl at you, too.”
“Have I been ignoring you, too?” Maddie’s voice sounded genuinely penitent.
“I’m nowhere near selfish enough to complain that you’ve been ignoring me—not when I know the reasons why you’ve been so out-of-pocket.”
“Really? And here I was kind of hoping you’d say you missed me.”
“I do miss you.”
Syd’s candid response hovered in the air between them for a moment.
“I miss you, too,” Maddie said quietly. “But, hey? In three more weeks, Tom Greene will be back in the ER, and I can return to my life of simple lassitude.”
“I’ll let the lassitude comment slide, since I know you’re probably not firing on all twelve of your normal cylinders right now. But do you really think you can last three more weeks?”
“Oh, yeah. Especially now.” She sounded excited.
“Why now?”
“I had something wonderful happen today, and selfishly, it’s something that promises to make my life a whole lot easier.”
Syd was intrigued. “Care to enlighten me?”
“Sure. But first things first—have you eaten dinner yet?”
“Dinner? No. I just left the library.”
“Great. Wanna split a pizza with me?”
Syd smiled. “I think I could be persuaded.” She looked at her watch. “When and where do you want to meet?”
“How about at your street door in thirty seconds? I’m turning into your parking lot right now.”
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Syd jumped up from her chair and walked to the front window in time to see Maddie’s silver Lexus pull into the library parking lot. She felt a rush of excitement as the car pulled to a stop and the driver-side door opened.
“So what would you have done if I hadn’t been at home?” she asked, trying to keep her voice neutral, although what she was feeling was somewhere on the opposite side of neutral.
There was a flash of blue as Maddie climbed out of the car and then reached back inside to remove a flat, white pizza box. “I’d have used the five pounds of pepperoni on this thing as bait to buy myself back into my dog’s good graces.” She shut the car door and stood there, tall in her hospital scrubs, looking up at the window where Syd was standing with the cell phone still pressed to her ear. She smiled up at Syd and held both the pizza box and her cell phone over her head like offerings.
Syd shook her head and smiled back at her as she closed her cell phone and waved her toward the stairs.
They met at the door. Maddie smiled sheepishly, and Syd knew she probably had a stupid grin on her own face. They regarded each other in silence for a moment before Maddie scrunched her eyebrows together.
“I know it’s been awhile, but have you grown . . . shorter?”
Syd yanked the pizza box out of her hands. “Gimme this and get in here before I change my mind.”
Maddie chuckled as she followed her up the stairs and into the tiny apartment. She put her cell phone and her keys down on the kitchen table, took off her leather jacket, and hung it over the back of a straight chair.
Syd set the pizza down on the countertop and walked to the stove to turn the oven on. Then she faced Maddie. Maddie did look exhausted. She had dark circles under her eyes, and there was an uncharacteristic droop to her shoulders. Before she could think better of the idea, she went to Maddie and kissed her on the cheek.
“I really have missed you. And you look like hell.” She backed up a step. Maddie was plainly tired, but her blue eyes were sparkling. “Why don’t you go collapse in a chair, and I’ll bring you something to drink?”
Maddie squeezed Syd’s elbows before turning toward the living room. “That’s the best offer I’ve had in days.” She walked across the room and sank down onto the sofa. “Whatcha got? Something alcoholic, I hope. This is the first night in two weeks I haven’t been on call.”
“Can do, Doctor. Beer or wine?”
“Surprise me.” Maddie kicked her shoes off and propped her feet up on Syd’s fat ottoman.
Syd opened the refrigerator and pulled two bottles of Corona beer and a lime out and set them on the counter next to the pizza. “Do you want to eat right away?”
“No. Why don’t we relax and have a drink first—if that’s okay with you?”
“It’s more than okay. Let me stick this in the oven to keep it warm.” She lifted the pizza out of the box and arranged it on a baking sheet before sliding it into the oven and setting the timer. Then she opened the beer and stuck a narrow wedge of lime into the top of each bottle. She went to Maddie and held out one of the bottles.
Maddie took it from her gratefully and then patted the sofa cushion beside her. “Sit down here so you can prop me up. If you don’t, I won’t remain upright long enough to eat.”
Syd dutifully walked around the barriers created by the ottoman and the coffee table, and sat down on the couch beside her. They angled their bodies to face each other and clinked bottles.
“Here’s to Friday-fucking night. At last.” Maddie took a long pull from her bottle and half-collapsed against the cushion at her back. “God, I needed that.”
“So, tell me what this good news is before you end up comatose on my floor.”
Maddie laughed. “Well, I just hired the county’s very first full-time Nurse Practitioner.”
Syd sat up straighter and regarded her in amazement. “No way.”
“Way.” Maddie met her gaze with a smug expression. “Her name is Elizabeth Mayes, and she’s going to start in two weeks. I’m showing her the clinic tomorrow.”
“Oh, Maddie. That’s wonderful news. You must be beside yourself.”
“It is wonderful news.” She paused. “But I’m not really beside myself.”
Syd was confused. “You’re not?”
“Nuh uh. I’m actually beside you, and given the choice, the view from here is a whole lot better.”
Syd knew that Maddie was just teasing her, but that didn’t stop her heart rate from accelerating—nor did it short-circuit the blush that she felt creeping up her neck.
“Why do you do that?” she blurted, before she could stop herself.
“Do what?”
“Say things like that to embarrass me.”
“Is that what I’m doing?” Maddie’s tired blue eyes seemed to bore into hers.
“You mean it’s not intentional?”
Maddie raised her arm to rest along the back of the sofa and opened her mouth to answer, but was interrupted by the sound of the oven timer beeping.
Syd looked toward the kitchen and sighed. “One slice or two?”
Maddie closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the sofa cushion. “Make it three. Maybe it’ll help us both out if I have something to stuff into my mouth besides my foot.”
SYD ENDED UP bringing the entire pizza into the living room, and they made short work of it, sitting side by side on the sofa and resting their plates on the coffee table. While they ate, Maddie filled her in on the details of her candidate search and her decision to hire Lizzy Mayes.
“She’s going to be a godsend to the people who live in the higher elevations around here. We’ll be able to extend the services of the clinic to populations who now rely entirely on the ER for routine medical care. It’s a win-win scenario: they get better preventative health care, and Tom Greene’s budget takes less of a hit on Medicaid expenditures.”
Syd nodded. “Will she also be available to see other patients of yours?”
“Oh yeah, on a limited basis. It’s going to make it much easier for me to do things like the Richmond trip next month, and I might actually get a weekend off now and then.”
“In that case, I think it’s an even better idea.”
Maddie smiled and sat back, rubbing her temples. “Me, too. I could really use a break.” She laughed quietly. “Not to mention, the vacuum cleaners are really starting to pile up on my workbench.”
Syd watched her in silence for a moment. “Got a headache?”
“Yeah. It’s been hanging around all day. I can’t seem to shake it.”
Syd picked up a throw pillow and placed it across her lap. “Here,” she said, tapping the pillow. “Lie down and let me give you a head rub.”
Maddie opened one eye and regarded her. “Are you serious?”
“Do I not sound serious?”
“I just want to be sure before I collapse on top of you.” She was already shifting her six-foot frame around. “I’m an unabashed hedonist when it comes to head rubs.”
With an audible sigh, she leaned back and rested her head on Syd’s lap. Her long legs draped over the arm at the opposite end of the sofa. Syd hesitated for only a moment before she slowly raised her hands and moved them into Maddie’s dark hair, using her fingertips to make slow circles along the sides of her forehead. Maddie closed her eyes and moaned in pleasure, and Syd began to think that maybe this wasn’t the brightest idea she’d ever had. She kept the soothing motions up and tried to ignore her body’s visceral response to touching Maddie in this innocent and well-intentioned way that suddenly wasn’t feeling all that innocent.
Maddie’s thick hair was surprisingly soft, and its sweet fragrance mingled with the unmistakable scent of antiseptic soap that permeated her blue scrubs. She felt Maddie relax under her touch, and after a few minutes, she realized that the sound of her breathing had deepened. Looking down at her with surprise, she realized that Maddie had fallen asleep. Smiling, she continued with the gentle touches and tipped her own head back against
the sofa cushion, content just to enjoy their quiet proximity and not think too deeply about it. There would be plenty of time for that later.
Lots of time, she thought as she closed her own eyes. Lots of time.
MADDIE SIGHED DEEPLY and shifted her long frame. Her back was beginning to cramp from sleeping too long in one position. She’d obviously fallen asleep on the sofa again, but this time, she really didn’t want to get up. Her head was cradled in a soft nest that smelled faintly of lavender, and the sensation created by the hands moving slowly through her hair was luxurious and sensual.
Her eyes flew open. Holy shit. She started to sit up, but immediately felt Syd’s hand on her shoulder, calming her. “Oh, my god. I fell asleep, didn’t I?”
Above her, Syd sounded amused. “Um hmm.”
Maddie rubbed her eyes. “How long?”
“About an hour.”
“Jesus. I’m sorry, Syd.”
Syd smiled down at her. “Don’t apologize. But at least tell me that your headache is gone.”
Maddie struggled up into a sitting position. “Oh, yeah—it’s way gone.” She raked her fingers through her long hair, fluffing it out into some semblance of order. “Wow. You’ve got some kind of magic in those fingers of yours.”
“As much as I’d like to take the compliment, I think you just needed a nap.”
“A nap and a lap?” Maddie chuckled. “I’ll have to remember this prescription.”
“Homeopathic remedies are often the best.”
“You’ll get no argument from me there. And your lap is a lot more inviting than Pete’s. His is much bonier, and he usually has gas.”
Syd rolled her eyes. “You say the most romantic things.”
“I try.” She gazed at Syd, wanting nothing more at that moment than to crawl back onto her lap and sleep the rest of the night. “I really have missed this—missed you. It’s been a rough couple of weeks.”
“For me, too,” Syd said quietly. “It’s like something has been out of sync. Of course, my social network is a tad more confined than yours, so I rely on you for stimulation.”
Maddie raised an eyebrow. “Oh, reeaaalllly? You find me stimulating?”
