“Yes. Come. It’s on the table.”
Unable to quit grinning, Natalie took his arm. “I’ll show you to the dining room, Johnny.”
In the dining room, Brett sat to Anna’s right at a linen-covered table that could have accommodated fourteen people. Anna, of course, sat at the head of the table with Natalie on her left. Clara sat beside Brett, and as she handed him each dish, she gave him the particulars of its preparation.
One of the best things about the dinner was the food. Clara was one hell of a good cook. The baked chicken, drizzled with a cheese sauce made from Clara’s own recipe, tasted heavenly, along with sweet and spicy green beans and French onion scalloped potatoes. He told Clara it was the best food he’d had in ages, and he wasn’t lying.
The other good thing about dinner was that Anna didn’t say much. Thank God. She ate quietly and with excellent manners.
Between bites, he and Natalie had engaged in perfunctory conversations regarding their classmates. He filled her in on what he’d heard or knew about some of them. Occasionally, her gaze locked with his, and her expression was easy to read.
I told you so.
Silently, he conveyed his own message. So I’m dressed like Johnny Cash, drive an old car, and didn’t know who Imhotep was. Hey, that may be three strikes, but don’t count me out yet.
“I’ll get dessert,” Clara announced when everyone had finished with dinner. She returned pushing a kitchen cart, topped with bowls of banana pudding and a slice of lemon meringue pie, one of his favorites.
“Doctor Harris.” Clara set a bowl of banana pudding before him. It was a big bowl.
He glanced across the table at Natalie, whose smile grew wide. “You remembered.”
“I’m thoughtful like that,” she assured him as Clara handed her the piece of lemon meringue pie.
It figures. He shoved his spoon in the pudding and took his first bite. It was thick, rich, and flavorful compared to what he recalled from the school cafeteria. “This is delicious. Wow.”
Clara glowed. “It’s made from scratch. I never use those prepackaged pudding mixes. This is my great-grandmother’s recipe.”
He took a couple more bites. “I’m assuming no one here is a diabetic.” He made the remark in jest, but he was actually fishing for an opening to talk about medicine.
“We are all quite healthy here,” Anna said. “Do you know my brother-in-law, Doctor Sheldon?” Anna dabbed her mouth with her napkin. “He married our baby sister, Lorraine. I’ve always wondered what she was thinking when she married him. He’s such a bore.”
“Oh, Anna,” Clara scolded. “Sheldon is just quiet-natured. You’ve never liked him because he’s a doctor. Anna hates doctors.” She gave Brett’s forearm a tap. “Don’t pay any attention to Anna. She’s had it in for doctors ever since she was a kid.”
“Please, Clara.” Anna frowned. “That is not true.”
“When we were kids, she got a briar stuck in her rear end. Mama couldn’t get it out, and it got infected. So she sent for the doctor. Back then, the doctors made house calls.
“Anna hid in the closet. I remember Daddy having to drag her out of there. She was kicking and screaming like a wildcat. Mama held her legs, and Daddy pinned her shoulders while the doctor dug that briar out of her bottom. I think it scarred her for life.”
“I don’t even recall that incident,” Anna countered. “I have nothing against doctors, but the good ones are all gone. Years ago, when we went to the doctor, we only went to one doctor, like Doctor Gaskey. He treated everything.
“If you broke your arm, he set it. If you had a baby, he delivered it. If you had gall bladder problems, he did surgery, and if you had the flu, he put you in the hospital and he came to see you every day. Now that is a doctor. Sheldon pales in comparison.”
“Doctor Sheldon is a neurologist.” Brett defended the chief of staff. “He’s a fine doctor, and I have great respect for him. I understand that fifty years ago, most doctors, especially the only doctor in a small town, had to treat everything. But things have changed. Medicine is much more advanced and complicated now. Specialties are required.”
“People still break arms, have babies, and get gall bladder problems, don’t they?”
“Of course,” Brett took a sip of water, “and specialists provide those patients with much better medical care than in the past. An obstetrician can save a high-risk mother and baby, whereas a doctor in the fifties might have lost that patient. Medicine has evolved, and doctors have had to evolve with it. But I’m happy to say that with modern drugs and the latest techniques, we’re saving more lives than ever.”
“Have you ever heard of digoxin?” Anna inquired.
“Of course. It’s a very common heart medication.”
“My husband took it for years. God rest his soul,” Anna said. “Have you ever given it to any of your patients?”
“Yes. I use it to treat congestive heart failure and abnormal heart rhythms in some of my patients.”
“You know, I find it quite interesting that you use digoxin.”
“You do?” Brett looked surprised.
“Of course. Digoxin is derived from Digitalis lanata. That’s the scientific name for a pretty garden flower, the foxglove. I’m rather fond of foxglove, but it is extremely lethal.”
Natalie looked across the table at him. “Nana is a botanist.”
“Really?” He cleared his throat. He had a bad feeling about that. “I know digitalis comes from a plant.” He had never sounded more stupid in his life.
“It was a British doctor who discovered that digitalis could be used to treat heart conditions in seventeen eighty-five. As we all know, he was successful in discovering a heart medication that’s still used today. Correct, Doctor Harris?”
“Yes,” Brett agreed.
“That means you still use a medication that was discovered over two hundred years ago despite your opinion that modern medicine is so superior nowadays.” She gave him a bored glance. “Doctor Harris, do you always contradict yourself so easily?”
Unnerved, he glanced at Natalie. I could use a little help here, Miss Piggy.
Natalie held a fork full of lemon pie. “Brett performs heart procedures every week, which help people live longer.”
He tried not to wince.
“If I ever have to have heart surgery, I’ll go to the heart center at UAB,” Anna said. The University of Alabama Medical Center in Birmingham contained one of the most renowned heart treatment and transplant centers in the South.
Brett smiled as confidence blossomed inside him. “I completed my fellowship in interventional cardiology at UAB. Their program is excellent. I don’t think I could have gotten better training and education anyplace else.” Meaning I totally know what I’m doing.
“And you chose to come back to Lafayette Falls to work?”
“It’s where I grew up, and I have a lot of good friends here. I’ve been here more than two years now, and as far as I’m concerned, I’m home.”
“Anna,” Clara said. “You should let Doctor Harris check your heart out. Your heart beats too slowly. That’s what Sheldon says.”
“We all know Sheldon is a quack,” Anna said.
Brett shot Natalie a smug glance. Get ready to warm up that backseat, babe.
“Mrs. Layton, I’d be happy to see you. It will only take a couple of simple tests to analyze your heart function and determine the best method of treatment.”
Out of nowhere, the thug cat jumped on top of the table. The white tablecloth wrinkled, and the wineglasses wobbled. “Oh, Pharaoh. Here.” Anna stood and walked to the other side of the table to fetch her pet.
With the cat in her arms, she said, “I appreciate your offer, Doctor Harris, but you are far too inexperienced.”
“Mrs. Layton.” Brett pushed back his chair. “I’ve been treating patients for several years. You shouldn’t put off medical treatment. Tomorrow is Sunday. I could meet you at my clinic in the afternoon. There’ll be no
waiting in the lobby. I can have a nurse there, and it will take less than an hour.”
Disdain carved new lines on her face. “My beloved friend Edith Latta was one of your patients, Doctor Harris. She died.”
That left him speechless.
“Good heavens, Anna.” Clara scraped the bottom of her desert bowl. “Edith died of old age. She was almost a hundred. You have to go sometime.”
Anna shrugged. “Natalie, darling, enjoy the rest of your evening.” She paused and gave Brett a pointed look before she exited the room like a queen going back to her chambers. “Do remember to lock the front door after you let him out.”
Brett pounded down the porch steps to the walkway, with Natalie following. “She made it sound like I’m a dog. Do remember to lock the front door after you let him out,” he mimicked Anna’s drawl.
“Brett—”
“Don’t say it.”
“Say what?”
He didn’t break his stride until he reached the Road Runner, parked in the drive. “Don’t say I told you so.”
He glanced back at Natalie as he fished the car keys out of his pocket. She stood at the end of the walkway, where the solar pathway lights shone yellow in the darkness.
“Come on,” he ordered. He didn’t have the patience to wait another minute at this cavern of a house that reeked of opulence and conceit. His face grew dark.
Natalie remained on the walkway. “Nana is strong-willed and difficult when she wants to be.”
“I guess Imhotep worked miracles and all kinds of shit, but I don’t.”
“Brett.”
He shrugged. His shot at becoming the chief of cardiology had just hit a speed bump. This wasn’t going to be as easy as he thought. Anna Layton could very well be described as a living nightmare.
His gaze roamed over Natalie, who was still standing at the edge of the walkway. In the mix of light from the moon and the lampposts, she looked enticing in the Elvis dress. He needed enticing. He needed a diversion. He needed sex really bad.
“Come on, we’ll go pick up the Camaro. It’s yours for three weeks.”
Her smile disappeared. “No. That’s all right. I was just joking about the car.”
“Hey, we had a bet or whatever you want to call it. We kissed on it,” he reminded her, hoping she hadn’t forgotten the kiss. He opened the door to the car. “You won. I’ll take you to the Thunderbird and let you celebrate if you want.” Then they could go over to his place and finish what that kiss had started earlier.
Quiet, she gave him an even gaze.
He stood beside the open door of the blue Road Runner. “You’re not coming with me?”
“I—” She hesitated. “Thanks for the invite, and it’s not that I don’t like you—”
“Hey,” he cut her off. The last thing he needed at the moment was some half-assed excuse why he just wasn’t suitable. “I get it, and it’s no big deal to me.”
He slammed the door of the Road Runner and left the princess standing in front of her castle. Some things were not meant to be. Not yesterday or today or tomorrow.
He steered the classic car down the driveway with one hand. When he reached the end of the drive, he braked and glanced in the rearview mirror. Natalie, in her backless red dress, entered the lofty mansion, which was both impressive and intimidating.
As he reached for the gearshift, he considered the truth of the situation.
Despite all the time that had gone by, not one shitty thing had changed.
Chapter 10
The next morning, Natalie stood in front of a Victorian vanity and put on her makeup, concealing the dark circles beneath her eyes. The last thing she wanted to do was go downstairs looking like she had been up all night. Of course, there were no secrets in this old house.
Nana and Clara were probably aware that she had stood at the parlor window, watching the lights of his car disappear. And that she had kept standing there for a long time, gazing outside until her legs were as weary as her heart.
But she had not doubted her choice.
She went to her bedroom, certain of the decision she’d made over the course of the evening. The red dress pooled on the carpet. It was the kind of dress a woman wore for a man, and she had worn it for him. When he stroked the bare flesh of her back, sensations of intimacy and longing raced through her body, and she realized choosing to wear the dress had been deliberate.
She knew the hunger inside her would make for one of those heady experiences where you couldn’t get your clothes off fast enough and all you wanted to do was lose yourself in passion. It was all about hot sex in the heat of the moment.
She had thought a lot about the heat of the moment as she sat at the dinner table with Brett. Sometimes his expressions had been priceless and entertaining. She loved it when he accepted the banana pudding and shot her a vengeful smile. It was all about their connection and their history, both past and present, which created a soft spot in her heart for him. And the thing about the heat of the moment was you had to face yourself in the morning when everything had gone cold. Her choice to forgo temptation had been the right thing to do. For herself and for him, too.
That’s what she had told him last night when he called her at midnight.
The band had been playing at the Thunderbird, so he had stepped outside to talk to her. “I’m not giving up,” he said. The clink of ice cubes followed as he took a sip of his drink.
“I didn’t think you would.” He had probably never given up in his life. He was a fighter to the end and at the moment, one who sounded like he’d had enough to drink. “I’ll talk to Nana. She’s not always so haughty.” Tonight had been surprising even to Natalie.
“Why didn’t you come with me?” he asked in a bitter voice.
She didn’t answer him as she walked over to the window seat in the turret. The rounded opening filled the right corner of the bedroom, where small roses and vines were printed on linen-colored wallpaper. She settled on the window seat, pulling a warm blanket over her because cold air slipped through the frame of an arched window in the turret.
“We need to leave it alone, okay?”
“Leave it alone?” He exhaled. “Why don’t you just say you’re not interested?”
She remained silent for a few moments. “I’m not interested. But not for the reasons you think.”
“Sure.” He knocked back his drink again.
“If there is one thing I have never been, it is a snob. You went to school with me. Surely you know that,” she said. “My mother taught me to treat everyone equally, with consideration and compassion. That always included you.”
“It shouldn’t have. I didn’t deserve it.”
“Yeah, you did. Now there were times when I wanted to break your neck. It wasn’t like I was in a state of constant adoration like . . .” She stopped to think. “What was her name?” She tried to remember the name of a girl who had shamelessly run after him. “Lisa Garrett or Garrison or something like that.”
He let out a groan. “Don’t remind me.”
“Did she really go into the boys’ bathroom with you?”
“I said don’t remind me.”
Natalie smiled as she watched the stars twinkle. “I’m happy you’ve done so well. I know it was no small thing.”
“But,” he stated. “I can hear the ‘but’ in your voice.”
“But I can’t be with you. Especially when it comes to sex.”
Wispy clouds wrapped around the dull moon as he fired back, “Listen, if you think sex is why I wanted you to come with me tonight, you’re wrong. Now I’m not going to say the thought didn’t cross my mind, because it did. Several times, but I don’t need you for sex. I can take no for an answer. Besides, if I wanted sex that bad, I could go inside and pick up a woman.”
After a silent pause, she confessed, “I wasn’t talking about you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
She heard the rattle of ice again as she drew a wavy line through
the condensation clinging to the cold windowpane. “A few years ago, when I was on my way to Syria, I stopped off in Rome to see an Italian chemist. He specialized in strictly black-market, James Bond stuff. I told him where I was going and that if the worst happened, I didn’t want to suffer a horrific death, so I needed something easy to conceal and fast-acting.
“He had some tablets and he told me all I had to do was swallow one or let it melt under my tongue. Within minutes, it would stop my heart. I kept them behind my ear hidden in a knit hair band. Just in case.”
“Natalie. For chrissakes.”
“That’s an example of how I lived. High octane. Adrenalin rushes. You never knew what to expect or what exactly you’d be facing when you went out with the troops or when you walked around a village. Most days were quiet and routine. On other days, all hell broke loose and you felt lucky if you were still standing when it was over.”
She drew an A on the window with her fingertip. “There were times when I couldn’t sleep, and I wasn’t in a good place emotionally. After I lost Aidan, I was empty inside. It was like my soul went with him.”
Her voice grew soft as she revealed a sad truth. “Occasionally, I hooked up with guys who didn’t matter to me at all. It was just a way to get through the night. I felt nothing for them.
“That’s what happened the night before the bombing. I met an American in the hotel coffee shop. I’m certain he was a contractor. He had that look about him. A former Special Ops guy with specific talents that got him jobs. Maybe CIA. He didn’t say, of course, and I never asked. I always called him Jackson because he had a twenty-dollar bill that he folded into a little ship. He said he learned origami in Japan.
“His real name didn’t matter. None of their names had ever mattered,” she admitted. “I never cared for the awkward ‘morning after,’ so I usually just disappeared at dawn and never looked back. But as fate would have it, Jackson and I had spent the night in my hotel room, and that morning he was there, and he’s the reason I’m still alive.
“It happened fast. We were up. Talking about breakfast. Then he turned from the window and grabbed me and said ‘Run!’ We ran down the hall to the stairwell. It was like something out of a movie. On the ground floor, he pushed me toward the rear exit and told me to keep running and not to stop. I did what he said. He went after the bomber. As I ran out the rear door, I heard an alarm. I think maybe he pulled a fire alarm.
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