by Peggy Webb
Flour drifted to the floor as Janet turned to face him. “There’s a man who thinks I’m not his type, and I’m bound and determined to prove him wrong.”
“The proof is in the baking, is it?”
Janet thought about that for a while; then she raked the raw cookie dough off her fingers and crossed toward the kitchen sink to wash her hands. Of course the proof was not in the baking. All the things Dan thought he wanted in a woman were superficial. One could buy perfectly delicious cookies at any bakery. And hand-knit sweaters could be purchased by the dozen from flea markets and craft shops. What made a woman the right type for a particular man was something much more subtle, much less easily defined. For want of a better word, she called it sparks.
Smiling, she turned to Mr. Jed. “How did you know?”
“It’s the wisdom of age, my dear.”
“I think I just have time to run down to Kroger’s deli for cookies before I have to leave for hospital rounds.”
“I’ll be waiting right here.”
By the time Janet had changed her clothes, gotten the cookies, shared a small snack with Mr. Jed and finished her hospital rounds, the sun had faded from the sky and a light drizzle was falling. She glanced at her watch. It was still early, and if she hurried she might catch the veterinary clinic open.
Ducking her head against the drizzle, she dashed for her car.
o0o
It was raining in earnest by the time Janet arrived at the clinic. Through the haze of rain she could see several vehicles. That meant the clinic was open.
She parked as close to the door as she could and stepped out into the rain. If she had paid more attention to the weather report and less to burning cookies, she might have known to wear a raincoat and carry an umbrella.
She made a quick dash for the front door and ran solidly into a very large man.
“Excuse me.” She looked up to see Dan Albany.
“As I live and breathe. If it’s not the good Dr. Hall.” He brushed rain off her jacket and tucked a wet curl behind her ear. “How are you, Doc?”
“Wet. Do we have to stand out here in the rain talking?”
“I play better on a wet field.” He brushed the back of his hand lightly across her damp cheek.
Shivers climbed up her spine. “Are you aiming for a goal, or is this merely a pass?”
“That depends on the receiver.”
He cupped her chin, and she tried to blame her shivers on the weather. She glanced around, half hoping for a timely interruption, but they were the only two people crazy enough to stand in the rain outside the clinic door.
“Don’t underestimate your receiver, Coach. l can handle anything you can toss my way.”
“Then shall we try for a small pass?”
Cupping her face lightly between his palms, Dan bent down and kissed her. Her lips were cold and wet with rain.
He had meant the kiss to be a small play, a diversionary tactic to throw her off guard. But his heart got in on the act. And suddenly the game plan changed.
Sliding his hands down her shoulders and around to the small of her back, he pulled her closer. Janet felt of damp wool and female softness. She smelled of rain and jasmine and faintly of hospital disinfectants, as if her profession were some inborn part of her.
Feeling warm inside and slightly shaken by her easy ability to get under his skin, he released her and stepped back.
Except for the high color in her cheeks, she still looked every inch the unflappable doctor.
Janet ran her hand lightly over her face to brush away any lingering drops of rain, but mainly to give herself time to regroup.
“Well, Coach. Since the game is over, I suggest we go inside to see our dog.”
“The game isn’t over, Doc. It’s merely intermission time.” He held open the clinic door. “After you.”
“What’s this? A sudden attack of manners?”
“I get these attacks every now and then.” Grinning, he leaned down to whisper in her ear. “A few more kisses like that, Doc, and I’ll forget my manners entirely.”
“I’m equal to the occasion.”
Dan assessed her with boldness of a seasoned coach checking out the opposing team.
“I do believe you are, Doc,” he aid softly.
Janet was saved by the arrival of Billie Jean Haskins. Having fully recovered from her blunders on their previous visit, she approached them with all the vigor and enthusiasm of an army sergeant facing a roomful of new recruits.
“Dr. Hall, don’t you look as pretty as a picture?” She glanced at Dan. “And Mr. Albany, I’m glad to see the two of you here together. I guess that means you made up.”
“Made up?” Janet had a sudden vision of romantic little Billie Jean Haskins peeking out the window while she and Dan had been kissing on the doorstep. The story be on the small town grapevine before she could sneeze. The next thing she knew, she and Dan would be Tupelo’s hottest topic.
And Dan made matters worse. He stepped close and put his arm around her shoulders.
“We certainly did, honey. I said to myself, now is that any way to treat a beautiful lady doctor?” He winked and squeezed her shoulders. “Besides, making up is always the best part of any relationship.”
Billie Jean beamed. “I think so, too. Why, sometimes I deliberately pick a fight with Wayne Earl—that’s my boyfriend, drives a truck for Viking—just so we can kiss and make up.” She flipped the book she was carrying until she found the name of their dog. “I guess you two came to see Harvey. Follow me.”
As they fell into step, Janet looked at Dan across the top of Billie Jean’s head. “What relationship?” she mouthed.
“Opponents.”
Billie Jean jerked her head around. “Did you say something, Mr. Albany?”
“I said, it’s almost upon us, this visit with our dog.”
She beamed at him again, obviously content that she had handled her job to perfection this time. No blunders and attacks of acute embarrassment.
“It sure is.” She pushed open a door and swept through. “You two wait right here. I’ll get Harvey for you.”
They sat on straight-backed chairs designed for torture. Janet, who never fidgeted, couldn’t sit still.
“Something wrong, Doc?”
“You might show a little remorse about spinning tall tales for poor, gullible Billie Jean.”
“Maybe it’s not a tall tale.” He winked. “You never know, Doc. We could turn out to be Tupelo’s answer to Prince William and his Kate.”
“More the musical Kiss Me Kate, with one big exception. You’ll neither woo nor tame me.”
He laughed so loud, a hound dog coming in with his owner started baying.
“See,” she said. “Even the dog agrees with me.”
“Woo and tame, is it?” He winked again. “I do believe you’re turning into an old fashioned woman.”
“In your dreams!”
Billie Jean came back carrying Harvey, who spotted his people and started wagging his tail.
Janet jumped out of her chair, and to her dismay felt a lump in her throat. Like all doctors, she’d schooled herself to keep her emotions in check around sick patients. Still, this was her dog. She stroked his fur and petted his head. “How are you, old boy? Feeling better?”
Dan didn’t try to hold back his emotions. He leaned down and nuzzled his head against the big dog’s head.
“Harvey, do you have any idea how much I’ve missed you? You old cuddlebum, you’ve had me worried half to death.” He took the dog’s face between his hands and bent toward him, nose to nose. “You’ve got to get well so I can get you out of here, boy. Do you know how many hot dogs I’ve had to throw away since you’ve been gone? And there’s not a soul around to eat the steak bones.”
Janet was touched. Dan’s eyes had the suspicious gleam of tears. She envied him. Just this afternoon on her hospital rounds she had felt like leaning her head on one of her sickest little patient’s pillow and crying.
>
She cleared her throat and stepped back from the table. She felt as if one tear, one word too sympathetically spoken, would release a flood of emotion that she might never dam up again.
“He looks good, Dan. I think he’s going to be fine.”
Dan turned and gave her a piercing look.
“Is that your professional opinion?”
The way he said it, clipped and cool, made the question sound like an accusation.
“That’s what I am, Dan. A doctor.”
“Is it also who you are, Janet?”
He usually called her Doc. And he was usually either playful or teasing or passionate. Now he was deadly serious. The humor was gone from his face and his eyes were the cold blue of winter lakes in an ice storm.
Suddenly it was too much—Harvey, medical school, the hospital, and Dan turning her inside out and upside down.
“You can tell Harvey goodbye for me.”
She left quickly, her high heels making sharp staccato sounds on the tile floor. She got through the reception room and into her car, then had to pull herself together before she could start the car.
Somebody had obviously moved her apartment. It took forever to get there, and by the time she did, she’d developed a horrible a headache. Tucking her head against the rain, she hurried into her apartment, then just stood there dripping water on the rug. In a perfect world she’d have handled the encounter with Dan Albany differently. There would be no kiss, no sparring, just a neighborly hello. In a perfect world, she could whistle, and the asprin would jump out of the bottle.
o0o
Dan felt lower than a worm. He stood, watching Janet walk out the door. When it closed behind her, he walked back to the table and patted the big dog’s head.
“My God, Harvey. I can’t believe I said that. Did you see the look on her face?” He cuddled the dog some more, taking comfort from the thumping tail and the soft whines. “Heck, I used to think I knew more about making women happy than any man in the world. Some expert I turned out to be.”
Dan stared into space for a while and tried to think what to do.
He gave Harvey’s head an absentminded pat. “Do you mind if I cut this visit short, old boy? I have some tall apologizing to do.”
He left Harvey with Billie Jean Haskins and drove across town. The lights were on inside Janet’s apartment. He sat in his pickup for a while, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and whistling a tuneless song. Now that he was here, what in the world was he going to say? He felt like a fool. Was he really the same man who had only recently bragged about the joys of making up?
Still whistling nervously between his teeth, he got out of his truck and punched the dinky little buzzer, and then in a fever of impatience he lifted his hand and banged loudly on the door.
It swung open, and there was Janet, wearing a soft-looking pink robe belted at the waist and a towel wrapped around her hair. Backlit by the glow of her lamps, she looked like something he’d imagined in one of his more erotic dreams.
“Won’t you come in?”
She was cool and formal, like a schoolteacher talking to an unruly child.
He stepped inside and was immediately struck by the differences between his home and hers. Her apartment was immaculate. Most of the furniture looked second hand but if he didn’t miss his guess, that was a Ming vase.
“I suppose you came to tell me about Harvey,” she said. “Won’t you sit down?”
Everything in this small apartment looked about the size of his niece’s doll house. He felt big and awkward.
“Well, actually, no.” He cleared his throat and looked around for a chair that might be big enough to support his weight.
Janet was amused by his obvious discomfort. Amused and touched. Standing there dripping on her cheap rug, his wet curly hair plastered to his head, his face a study in wicked innocence, Dan Albany tugged at her heartstrings. She decided to put him out of his misery.
“Why don’t you take that big chair by the fireplace? Don’t worry; it’s sturdy enough to hold an elephant.”
“I’m hardly an elephant.” Laughing, he eased himself into the chair. “But I am a jackass.”
“Always?” She smiled as she sat on the sofa and tucked her legs under her.
“Not always. Only when I’m around you.”
“I see.”
“Do you?”
Her smile got bigger. “I believe I’m hearing an apology.”
“You are.” He stretched his long legs toward the cold fireplace, made a careful tent of his fingers and propped them under his chin. He gazed at her thoughtfully for a while. It was a comfortable silence. Neither of them felt the need to fill it with words.
Finally Dan spoke. “I’m not good at this, you know.”
“That makes it all the more charming.”
“Charming?”
“Sometimes.”
He smiled at her. “I’d be willing to make a jackass of myself again to hear you tell me that.”
“Surely other women have called you charming.”
“No one who counts.”
There was a stillness in the room, a breathless waiting, as if some long-anticipated event were about to take place.
Janet felt a pleasant heat seep into her bones. She leaned her head against the back of the sofa, never taking her eyes off Dan’s.
“I truly am sorry, Janet.” His voice was as soft and rich as a blues song, and just as mesmerizing. She let the melody wash over her. “I had no right to judge you or your profession. Each person feels pain and joy and... love differently.”
She noticed his slight hesitation on the word love. For some reason, it gave her pleasure.
“Thank you, Dan.”
“This is getting easier all the time. You accept apologies very graciously.”
She gave him a wicked grin. “Would you like to make up now?”
“I’m not sure I can be trusted.”
She chuckled. “Over a plate of cookies.”
“Ahh, Doc. How you disappoint me!” His exuberant, teasing, good humor returned. “Cookies are second best, but they will be an acceptable substitute.”
“Good. You wait right there.”
“Are they chocolate chip?”
“No. Peanut butter.”
“One of my favorites.”
“I’ll be right back.” Janet escaped to the kitchen and leaned against the counter until she could regulate her heartbeat. Dan wasn’t just a man sitting in her apartment: he was a presence that filled it. A woman could get used to having a man like that around, a big, vibrant man who wore life like a charm around his neck.
She left her resting place at the kitchen counter and took the bag of cookies out of the pantry. Just like home-baked. That’s what Mr. Jed had said about them.
Suddenly she smiled. Why not? She arranged the cookies on a platter and threw the bag into the garbage can. Then she poured two big glasses of milk and went back into the sitting room.
“Here you are, Dan. Freshly baked today.”
“You baked cookies?”
“Yes. This afternoon.” Her conscience twinged only a little bit. She had baked cookies. Four batches. All of them unspeakably bad. But Dan didn’t have to know that. She was out to teach him a lesson.
He took a handful and settled back in his chair with his glass of milk.
“Hmm, these are delicious.”
“I thought so, too.” She sipped her milk and watched him over the rim of her glass.
“There’s nothing like home-baked cookies on a rainy day to make a man feel good.”
“You’re very easy to please.”
He ate two more cookies. “Not every woman can make cookies like this.”
“I agree.” Wholeheartedly. She was one of those women who couldn’t. She suppressed her smile and egged him on. “I spent all afternoon baking.”
He held up one perfect cookie. “Doc, these are worth an afternoon’s work. Don’t you agree?”
“A
bsolutely.”
He took another bite. “Hmm. Pure gold. I’d give these cookies a blue ribbon.”
She couldn’t hold back her laughter any longer. It spilled out in a merry peal.
“I knew you’d be pleased with the compliment, but I didn’t know you’d be that tickled.”
She wiped tears of laughter from her eyes. “You should see your face.”
“My face? What about my face?” Suspicious now, he set his glass of milk aside and stood up.
“You look so smug, and I-told-you-so.”
“About what?”
“The cookies.”
“Well, Doc. I think you did a great job baking them.”
“I didn’t bake them.”
“You said you did.”
“No. I said they were baked this afternoon and that I baked all afternoon.”
The light was beginning to dawn. He sank back into his chair and looked at the cookie in his hand. “You didn’t bake these?”
“No. These were made by the experts at Kroger’s who make their living baking cookies for people like me who are both too busy and too inept to provide goodies for themselves.”
“I see.”
“Not yet, you don’t.” She got up off the sofa and took his hand. “Come with me.”
In the kitchen she opened the pantry door and pulled out her garbage can. Then she whisked off the lid and pointed dramatically. “There. The results of my first and only attempt at home-baked cookies.”
Dan eyed the pile of burned crusts and broken crumbs and soggy dough. As he gazed into the garbage can he had a sudden vision of Doc in the kitchen with flour on her nose, trying to make sense out of recipes and mixing bowls and baking pans. All that must have been as foreign to her as performing surgery would be to him. And yet she had tried. For him.
His heart jumped into his throat and his eyes misted over. “Doc, I am truly humbled.”
She had meant to give him a pert reply until she saw his face. “Oh, Dan.” She reached out and softly caressed his cheek. “I’m sure some dream women can bake cookies, but I can’t.”
He covered her hand with his. “Home-baked cookies don’t seem to matter anymore.”
They stood that way for a while. Finally Dan backed off. Tonight Janet was too much temptation for him. Maybe she couldn’t bake cookies, and maybe that was all right with him. But still she was a doctor and he was a coach. It was not a match made in heaven, and he’d do well to remember that. The knowledge made him extraordinarily blue.
