Think About Love

by Vanessa Grant

  Of course he wouldn't touch her. Why was she even thinking it?

  "Why don't you tell people you want to be a doctor?"

  "My father says I'm too weak."

  "Are you?"

  "No!"

  "I believe you."

  The unexpected gentleness of his voice startled her.

  "I was sick when I was younger." She didn't want him to think of her as sick, but couldn't seem to stop herself telling him. "I had this thing—my leg. I was on crutches for a long time. Then I had operations."

  "Does this thing have a name?"

  She smiled shyly toward him. "Legg-Calve-Perthes disease. I'm fine now."

  She'd been in and out of hospitals; twice to Seattle for surgery. All that was in the past. The only thing left was the slight limp if she let herself get tired, but her father watched her like a hawk.

  "I want to help children who can't walk properly." She clenched her hands together in her lap. "I'll take a science degree at the University of Washington. Then, if my dad won't help me go on to the University's School of Medicine, I'll find a way on my own."

  "If you want something enough, there's always a way."

  "I hope you're right."

  The miles slipped away as they talked, and she forgot to glance at her watch or think of the angry father waiting for her until they reached the outskirts of the city and lights flickered through the interior of the car.

  "I've been talking too much."

  "I asked the questions."

  They were almost at her house. In a minute she'd be inside and he would be gone. She might see him when she was with Paul, but that would be public. Tonight they were friends driving through the dark. She could tell him anything and he would listen. She studied his face, harsh in the glow from the dash lights. She felt as if she'd known him forever, deeply and in secret.

  "I want to know about you," she whispered.

  "You're almost home."

  She saw her corner, her house.

  "Don't pull in the driveway!"

  He made an impatient sound. "You want me to hide around the corner?"

  "You must think I'm juvenile."

  "I think you're afraid of your father."

  She liked the way he smiled and wondered if his smile would show in his eyes. What color were his eyes? She didn't even know what color his hair was. It could be anything from light brown to dead black and she wouldn't know. He was all shadows and silhouettes.

  She scrambled out of the car.

  He got out, too, and she opened her mouth to tell him not to, but couldn't get any words out. Somehow she was standing in front of him, staring up at him, her heart pounding with a fierce desire to kiss him.

  The feeling from inside the car was gone. This was no intimate friend. He was a stranger and her blood was heavy with pulsing suspense. His lips would be hard. His body...

  She jerked and stepped back with a gasp.

  "What about Paul?" he demanded harshly.

  Warm panic crawled along her veins. If her father looked out, she'd be in trouble, leaving with one boy and coming back late with Graham MacKenzie.

  Gray's gaze dropped to her throat. When his fingers touched her chin, her heart went crazy and his face turned even harsher.

  "Are you serious about Paul?"

  She shook her head mutely.

  "Then stop seeing him."

  "Are you saying I'm not good enough for—"

  The husky whisper of her voice broke when his thumb brushed the underside of her chin. "Don't be stupid, Emma. You know damned well I want you."

  "Graham?"

  "It's Gray. Not Graham." He released her and turned away. She saw him put one hand on the hood of his car, then her glasses slipped down her nose and she couldn't seem to move to push them up.

  "Gray... will I see you?" Her own voice sounded frail on the night air.

  "Paul's my best friend."

  From the house, her father called out, "Emma! Get inside right now!"

  Graham MacKenzie wanted her, and he meant more than dancing and Friday theater dates. He meant touching, things she'd never let any other boy do. She was still standing there when his car turned the corner, leaving behind the echo of his engine revving too high.

  If she was going to be a doctor she had to remember every minute that she had a purpose, that he wasn't the kind of boy a girl let near if she wanted to keep control of her own life. She'd be crazy to let herself become involved with Graham MacKenzie.

  Crazy or not, she broke up with Paul the next weekend.

  Chapter 1

  Twenty years later…

  Emma was in the examining room with Jenny Davidson when her beeper went off. Jenny was seven months old, gurgling as Emma probed her left leg.

  "Good girl," said Emma, lifting Jenny upright. To Jenny's mother, she said, "Her left leg is almost as strong as the right. The bone has healed, and the muscles are gaining strength rapidly." She smiled and received a tremulous grin in return. "Keep taking her to physical therapy. I'll see her again when she starts walking."

  "Walking?" Jenny's mom was breathless.

  "Within six months. It's okay, Jenny's doing great."

  When Emma left Jenny and her mother, she slipped into her office and called the number displayed on her pager. Her eyes searched the surface of her desk for a pink message slip telling her Chris had called, but there was no message.

  Chris was supposed to call today. August twelfth at the latest, he'd promised.

  "Dr. Garrett," she announced when the hospital answered her call.

  "Dr. Kent wants to know if you can attend in the E.R."

  * * *

  Dr. Alexander Kent met Emma as she left the elevator.

  "Nine-year-old boy," he said, "Timmy Jones. Skateboarding on Heather Street, shot out from the stop sign. The guy who hit him never saw him coming. Left ankle and foot. I've got pictures. They're prepping O.R. Two for you."

  "Parents?"

  "His dad's on the way over. They found him at work. Timmy's diabetic, but his blood sugar's not significant. I just ran it."

  Timmy was conscious, big brown eyes in a white face. She touched his shoulder, felt the tension. "Hi, Timmy. I'm Dr. Garrett."

  "My leg hurts."

  "I'm going to fix that for you." She placed her hand on Timmy's shoulder and asked Alex, "Has he had anything for pain?"

  "Demerol, forty-five milligrams, five minutes ago."

  She squeezed the boy's shoulder. "Timmy, I'm just going to look at the pictures of your leg. Then I'll see about fixing it."

  She stepped over to the illuminated panel to study the X ray. The picture showed the tibia and fibula shattered in conjunction with the tarsal bone. It would be a long reconstruction.

  Beside her, Alex announced, "Timmy's father's here."

  "I'll see him with you. We'd better forget our dinner date."

  It took two hours and three titanium screws to do the reconstruction on Timmy Jones. When she came out of the operating room, she found Timmy's mother and father in the waiting room. She assured them Timmy would probably regain full use of his ankle, but it would be some time before he could play hockey.

  Seven-thirty.

  She called her office and used her code to retrieve two messages her secretary had left before she went home for the day. Her one o'clock for the next day had canceled, and a pediatrician from Farley Bay wanted to consult on a ballerina with scoliosis.

  She called the house.

  No messages. Of course, it was nowhere near dark. In mid-August, it was light here in Seattle until almost nine. Night would fall even later up north in Prince Rupert where Chris was.

  She went into the physicians' lounge and found Alex studying a medical journal, his feet up on a coffee table.

  "Timmy okay?"

  "Three screws," she said. "It was a mess, but it should heal well."

  "Ready for dinner?"

  "Chris hasn't called yet." Two boys kayaking north through British Columbia's Ins
ide Passage. Both Chris and Jordy were experienced with kayaks and the wilderness, but what if something had happened to them? "I think I'd better go home."

  Alex folded his journal. "Don't they have a cell phone? You could call."

  "Cell phones are useless where they are. Too many mountains."

  "Right, then. We'll go to your place, order pizza and wait for Chris to call."

  "I'll cook us something."

  Chris must be in Prince Rupert by now, busy organizing a place to stay for the night. Or maybe they'd pitched their tent at a campsite where there was no phone.

  Outside, the sun lay low in the sky, nestled between two towers in the financial district. Emma pulled her keys out of her purse. As they parted, heading for separate cars, Alex said, "I'm sure Chris is fine."

  "Of course he's fine," she agreed, but with the hospital at her back she could think of a dozen things that might have gone wrong. She voiced none of them, because she'd vowed she wouldn't be an overprotective parent like her father, and she'd fought from Chris's birth to keep the fears suppressed.

  She parked at her small Cornwall Street house ahead of Alex, then unlocked the front door and went inside. No blinking red light on the answering machine, just Marmalade curled on the chair beside the telephone table.

  Emma scratched gently under the cat's chin, evoking a soothing purr. Then she picked up the phone and called her answering service, although she knew Chris would have called the office or the house, not her service.

  When Chris had promised to call by the twelfth, he would have meant before midnight. It was only eight now. Two healthy boys—young men, really—traveling north in a kayak. They'd be telling the tale of their journey to someone at the docks in Prince Rupert. Then, soon, Chris would phone.

  She walked to the kitchen, careful not to trip on Marmalade, who jumped down to twist around her ankles. Emma opened the freezer and pulled out frozen lasagna and a foil-wrapped loaf of frozen garlic bread. She set the oven and put the lasagna in, then turned the timer to thirty minutes to remind her to add the bread.

  Then she opened a tin of food for Marmalade.

  When she heard the doorbell, she called out, "In here, Alex."

  He knew the way.

  They'd known each other ever since Emma joined the Green Children's Clinic after finishing her residency, four years ago. They consulted frequently in the course of their work. Alex was the clinic's general pediatrics specialist and frequently referred children to Emma for orthopedic surgery.

  After Paul died, Alex had asked Emma to dinner a few times over the years, always casually, never pushing it or making her uncomfortable.

  She hadn't needed a man in her life. She'd had Chris, and her mother who had joined their household after Emma's father died. The three of them made a complete unit.

  Then, abruptly, the house emptied. First Chris moved into a dorm at the university last September. Too young, she'd thought, but he'd finished high school a year early and she knew she couldn't hold him back. Then, at Christmas, Emma's mother had married the widower next door and headed for Florida in a motor home.

  After six months of living in an empty house, working too late and growing increasingly exhausted, Emma began to accept Alex's invitations.

  "I wish Chris would phone," she said, as she tore the lettuce into shreds.

  "He'll call." Alex slid onto one of the stools in her breakfast nook. "He'll be fine."

  "I know, but I'll be antsy until he calls. Don't try to talk me out of it."

  "All right, I won't." He picked up a piece of lettuce from the bowl and ate it. "I think we should get married."

  "What?"

  "Married, a ceremony at the courthouse, then I move in here or you move into my place. Your place is bigger."

  A strand of blonde hair fell across her eyes. She shoved it out of the way. "You're trying to distract me so I won't worry about Chris. I know it's not time to worry yet. He's seventeen, almost eighteen. He's been taking Outward Bound wilderness excursions since he was fourteen. He knows what he's doing, and I really don't think anything's happened. It's just—"

  Alex stood and walked around the end of the counter, took her shoulders in his hands and turned her to face him. "If he doesn't call tonight, it will be because the weather turned foul and he's sensibly huddled in a tent with that friend of his."

  "Yes, you're right." Of course he was right. "Jordy's with him. If anything happened, surely—I think I'll call the Coast Guard and check the weather forecast for the north coast."

  She saw the smile in his eyes, realized what a nice man he was, and tried to relax. Chris wasn't overdue, wouldn't be for at least three hours.

  "I do think we should get married." He squeezed her hands. "You're alone. So am I. We like each other, enjoy spending time together. We're both accustomed to beepers going off and canceled dinners."

  "You make it sound like a recipe for a sensible dinner." She withdrew her hands. "What about mad love and undying passion?"

  "Affection and comfortable lust are better."

  She'd liked him from the first time she met him, but perhaps never more than in this moment, as he watched her with humor in his eyes and waited for her answer. If she said no, he'd be disappointed. She didn't want to disappoint him.

  In the silence, a beeper went off and her hand went to her waist.

  "Mine," he said, "I'll call."

  He went into the next room and picked up the phone. Mechanically, she finished tearing lettuce for the salad. Chris would call tonight, or he'd call tomorrow to say the weather was foul and they'd been fogged in somewhere, huddling in their tent with the kayaks high on a beach. Everything would be fine.

  Alex returned to the kitchen carrying his jacket in one hand.

  "E.R. One of my babies came in with a high fever. I'm sorry."

  Dinner would have been pleasant. Now she'd be alone with too much salad, worrying needlessly about Chris.

  He touched her hair and brushed a light kiss on her cheek. "I do care about you, Emma. I think we could make a decent job of being married."

  "Yes," she agreed. "I will marry you."

  * * *

  Alex called at ten to say he'd admitted the baby to the hospital and to ask if she had heard from Chris.

  She hadn't.

  "Shall I come keep you company?"

  "I'd better sleep."

  "So long as you do. Remember, overdue doesn't mean lost."

  "I know. Thanks, Alex."

  She called Jordy's father at eleven and they agreed the boys were probably fine. If Chris hadn't called by morning, Emma would call the Coast Guard.

  She drank a pot of tea with the music on low so it wouldn't mask the ringing of the telephone. The night would have passed more quickly if her beeper had gone off, but the little black box remained silent.

  She couldn't possibly wait until morning.

  At two-thirty, she called the Canadian Coast Guard to report Chris Garrett and Jordon Sanger overdue in Prince Rupert. She made the call with a pen in hand, writing down details about Coast Guard procedure. A radio notice would go out to mariners, describing the boys, the kayaks, and their planned route. By morning it was possible someone would have responded with information.

  She drank part of a cup of warm milk, then poured the rest into a dish for Marmalade. Somewhere near dawn, she managed to sleep for half an hour.

  She'd been a single mother since Paul's death three years ago. Chris had always been an adventurous child, and she'd spent other nights worrying. She knew the images of storms and marauding bears playing out in her mind were probably just fantasies.

  She remembered another night when Chris hadn't come home, hadn't called. He'd driven into the mountains with Sherry Adamson for an afternoon's skiing. Sherry's mother had been certain they'd crashed the car, and Emma hadn't slept, either, because Chris was always so good about calling when he was late.

  Morning had come, and at ten Chris phoned to say that he and Sherry had driven down a s
ide road on the way home, exploring a frozen creek. Afterward, they couldn't get the car started and had wisely decided to camp in the car until they could walk out in the daylight.

  Emma got up at six, showered and forced herself to eat two pieces of toast and drink a glass of orange juice. She had patients, surgery this morning. No matter how worried she was, she must be alert and steady in the operating room.

  She called the Coast Guard again.

  "They're probably just behind schedule," a young serviceman said. "There's a lot of coastline in British Columbia, with villages few and far between. It's remote country with very few telephones. Don't worry, we'll keep the notice to mariners on. If they don't turn up soon, we'll start a full search."

  She got out the map on which she'd marked Chris's planned route. Miles of coastline and so few settlements. She needed to do something, but she didn't know the coastline, knew nothing about boats and wilderness. That had been Graham MacKenzie's world, and oddly, it was also the world her son loved.

  It never had been and never would be Emma's world.

  She set her answering machine, picked up her medical bag, and went to the hospital for morning rounds. Timmy Jones complained of pain, but his blood pressure and color were good, so she left instructions for physical therapy to get him up on crutches later in the day. This was Thursday, one of her O.R. days, so after she'd seen her other children, she scrubbed for a fractured femur on a ten-year-old boy.

  When Chris still hadn't called at noon, she spent ten minutes on the phone with the Coast Guard and learned Chris and Jordy had been seen on the weekend in southern Grenville Channel.

  "No one's seen them since? Something must have happened there."

  "Not necessarily," the voice explained in the calming tones she herself used when speaking to worried parents. "Southern Grenville Channel is narrow. Any boat passing a couple of kayaks would be bound to notice them. Further north, the channel widens and it would be easy to miss a couple of kayakers. They'd be paddling close to shore because there's been a north wind. They'd get some lee near the shore, and when the current's running against them, they'd want to catch the backwash."