by Peggy Webb
“I don’t know what got into me,” Janet said. “If I can’t stand to be around kids for one afternoon, then maybe I’m in the wrong profession.”
“Cut yourself some slack, Janet, and have another cookie.” Clemmie put two more chocolate chip cookies on her plate.
“Chocolate is not the cure for everything, Clemmie.”
“I know.” Clemmie smiled. “But it sure does help.”
“Dan sounds like he’s a great as Reeve with kids.” Belinda said, her face shining. “Of course, he’s great at everything.”
“Belinda, I need to write an article for the medical journal that we’ve missed the mark with face lifts. All women need to do is fall in love and they’ll look ten years younger.”
“It’s true, Belinda.” Clemmie got up and poured more tea in their glasses. “Janet, you’ve always said you wanted to marry and have children. Dan sounds like the perfect family man.”
“He wants six children.”
“You’ve already talked about children!” Belinda clapped her hand. “This is just peachy!”
Janet loved that for all Belinda’s new sophistication, she was still the same sweet woman who still found wonder in the simple pleasures and who used old-fashioned phrases like just peachy.
“How in the world could I be a full time doctor and take care of six children! Let alone give birth to them.”
“Think of all the fun you’d have getting pregnant,” Belinda said, and they all burst out laughing.
“I take it Virginia is having a good time?” Janet said.
“She’s not talking.” Belinda grinned. “But I will. OMG, sex is the most remarkable thing!” She grabbed Janet’s hand. “Don’t you dare miss out on it, Janet Hall!”
“Agreed.” Clemmie lifted her tea glass. “A toast. To sex.”
They were still laughing when they clicked glasses. Janet felt as if she’d traveled backward to a little cabin in the woods where seven little girls had solved all life’s problems with four simple rules.
“I’ve got to go, Clemmie. Have you got some biscuits for my pockets?”
“OMG, the rules!” Belinda got tickled all over again. “What was that second one?”
“Say your prayers,” Clemmie said. “You never know when the camp counselor is watching, let alone God.”
“I like the last one best,” Belinda said.
“You would!” Clemmie and Janet told her in chorus.
“Oh, Janet. I just want you to be as happy as I am.”
They did a group hug goodbye, and then Clemmie sent them off with covered paper plates laden with cookies.
It was a beautiful afternoon for driving, and Belinda talked about her new family all the way home. But Janet listened with only half a mind. The other half was thinking of a big man with a charming smile and four little children.
Chapter Nine
After soccer practice Dan took the children to McDonald’s, their favorite restaurant, and then they rented three Walt Disney movies.
Back in his house on Church Street, they all settled in for an evening of movie watching. Cinderella was a big favorite with the children, but Harvey loved Bambi best. All his hunting instincts came out, and he pranced and postured around the room, sniffing and whining at the television screen, and looking so ridiculous that Dan and the children couldn’t watch the show for laughing at him.
They took a popcorn and let-off-steam break at eight o’clock. Little Samuel fell asleep, his curly head nodding down toward his plastic popcorn bowl, and Dan carried him off to bed. Afterward Dan and the other three children settled back around the television set and he put the last tape into the VCR.
Halfway through Snow White little Butch began to complain.
“Uncah Dan, I feel funny.”
Dan leaned over the child and felt his forehead. He’d had enough experience with Betty June’s children to know how a feverish child felt. Butch didn’t feel hot. “Do you hurt somewhere, Butch?”
“No.”
Dan had also had enough experience to realize that finding out a child’s ailment took extensive detective work and infinite patience.
“Does your head feel funny?”
“A little.”
“Does your stomach hurt?”
“No. It growls.”
“I’m going to let you lie on the couch while I get a cool cloth for your head.” He tucked a coverlet around the small child and placed him on the sofa. Harvey padded over and lay down on the floor beside the little boy, whining his sympathy. Then Dan went to his bathroom for a cool, wet cloth. By the time he got back into the den, Butch was bending over, vomiting on Harvey. Merry and Peter were squealing with excitement and Harvey was looking a bit insulted.
It took Dan twenty minutes to clean up the mess and get Butch into bed. Meanwhile Peter and Merry and a newly scrubbed Harvey had lost interest in the proceedings and settled back down to watching the movie.
Dan kept a close vigil on Butch, and an hour later when the child had drifted off to sleep he thought the crisis was over. At nine-thirty he declared bedtime for Merry and Peter, who loudly protested that they didn’t have a bedtime, that on weekends they could stay up forever if they wanted to.
Dan wasn’t conned by them. He knew two sleepy children when he saw them, and fifteen minutes after their heads touched the pillow Merry and Peter were fast asleep.
But Butch was awake and being sick all over his sheets. Dan began to get alarmed. He’d blamed the first sickness on something Butch ate, but twice might mean it was something serious.
It was too late to call the druggist and not serious enough to alarm Betty June in Memphis. Dan washed Butch’s face, changed the sheets and then left the bedroom and called Janet’s cell phone.
She answered on the second ring.
“Hello.” She sounded cool and professional. He felt better just hearing her voice.
“Janet, I’m sorry to call you so late.”
“It’s not late. And I’m glad you called. I’ve felt guilty about turning down your offer.”
“There’s no need. I understand... Janet?” He suddenly felt uncertain about what to say. Doctors were highly paid professionals, busy people. He didn’t know of any of them who made house calls anymore. Taking advantage of friendships had never been his style, and yet Butch was his nephew.
“Dan, what’s wrong?”
“Butch is sick.”
“I’ll be right over.”
She arrived within ten minutes. Dan was waiting at the front door.
As always, her first impact on him was staggering. Tonight was the same... until he saw the black bag. It was a sobering sight. Even when he’d visited her at the hospital and seen her in the white lab coat, he still hadn’t had a clear vision of her as a doctor. But when she came through his door carrying the black medical bag, he was suddenly very much aware of Janet Hall as a doctor. His emotions warred within him: at the moment he needed her as a doctor, but he also needed her as a warm and sympathetic woman.
“Tell me about Butch, Dan.” She was coolly, strictly professional.
“He vomited shortly after eight and again around nine. He doesn’t appear to have a fever, but I thought twice in an hour’s time was too much to be a simple upset stomach because of something he ate.”
“Where is he?”
Dan led the way down the hall to one of his guest bedrooms. Butch looked tiny and fragile in the large cherry four-poster bed. Janet hesitated slightly in the doorway, looking from the sick child to his worried uncle. Dan went straight to the bed and hovered over his nephew, concern and fear etched in his face.
Never had keeping her professional distance been harder for Janet. She wanted to rush to the bedside and take both child and uncle into her arms, to soothe them with soft words and tender touches. This is why doctors can’t care for their own children during times of illness, she thought.
The child was sick. Now was not the time for sentiment. Taking a deep breath she opened her bag and took
out the things she needed—thermometer, stethoscope, blood-pressure cuff.
“Dan, will you sit over there in the chair so that I’ll have more room to work?”
He obeyed her quiet command, settling into the rocking chair and watching as she ministered to his nephew. But he didn’t watch quietly. Dan was not the type to sit by in silence when someone he loved was facing a crisis.
“Do you think it’s something he ate, Janet?”
“Possibly. Did he complain of stomach cramps?”
“No. He said his stomach growled.”
Janet smiled. “That’s a typical child’s way of describing a queasy stomach.” She took the thermometer out of his mouth. “Temperature’s normal.” She put the pressure cuff on him.
Butch opened one drowsy eye and murmured sleepily, “That feels funny.” Then he drifted back to sleep.
“Betty June will never forgive me if I let something happen to Butch.”
Janet read the pressure before she answered him. “There’s no need to panic, Dan. It’s probably a simple stomach virus.”
“Are you always this calm?”
She wasn’t as calm as she appeared, but she was glad Dan couldn’t see her turmoil. Distraught parents and guardians would not be served by panicked doctors, and neither would the patients. She trained her stethoscope on Butch’s small chest and answered Dan. “Yes.”
“I guess I should be glad.”
She straightened up and looked at him. “I’m a doctor, Dan. This is my job.”
“Then, Doc, what’s your diagnosis?”
“Butch is a healthy three-year-old with a common childhood ailment—what most people describe as an upset stomach.”
“What will we do about it?”
“We will hope that he doesn’t vomit again. If that continues, however, we will use suppositories, which will be immediately effective in stopping the problem.” She snapped her bag shut.
Dan had never been more aware of her career than at that moment. He was deeply grateful to her, and at the same time he was angry.
“You make it all sound so clinical.”
“It is.”
“No, it isn’t.” Dan left his chair and went to the bedside. “This child is my nephew, my flesh and blood.”
Janet reached out and touched his arm in a gesture of compassion. “I know that, Dan. But I have to think of him objectively, otherwise my emotions might hamper my judgment.”
Dan covered her hand with his. “Intellectually, I understand what you’re saying, and I am truly grateful to you for coming here tonight.”
“But?”
“What?”
“I sense reservations, Dan.”
“Reservations, yes. And conflicting emotions.” He squeezed her hand. “Tonight I needed your skills, your medical knowledge. But I also needed... wanted...” He took his hand away. “Hell, I don’t know what I wanted.” In a gesture of frustration, he ran his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Doc. I stood you up, then dragged you out of your house and deprived you of your free evening—and now I’m lecturing like some depraved idiot.”
She gave him a small smile. “I’m accustomed to distraught parents, Dan.”
“But?” When she didn’t immediately answer, he looked deeply into her eyes. “I hear reservations in your voice, too, Janet.”
“What happens to us, Dan?”
He knew what she meant, and he wasn’t sure he wanted it put into words. Instead of replying, he reached out and ran his fingers lightly down her cheek.
She shivered. “Don’t.”
His fingers hovered there, not leaving but not touching. “Why?”
“This...whatever you want to call it—conflict, misunderstanding, lack of trust. You know what I’m talking about, Dan.”
“Yes.”
“It’s always there between us.”
“I don’t want it to be.”
“Neither do I.”
They faced each other in the bedroom and it was almost as if the sleeping child had floated off the bed and positioned himself between them. They stood that way a while, separated by a chasm that had many names.
Dan reached out and swiftly pulled her into his arms. One hand braced her head and the other tucked her hips closer to his.
“Dan, we can’t keep solving our problems this way.”
“I know. But right now I don’t want to think of another way.” He lowered his head, and when his lips were only a fraction of an inch from hers, he whispered, “I need you, Janet.”
His need pulsed through him like vintage wine, heating his blood, warming his heart. Everything he was feeling communicated itself in his kiss.
Janet took all his need and his turmoil and transformed it into an exquisite tenderness.
Finally Dan lifted his head and gazed down into her eyes. “You always do that to me, Doc.”
“What?” she whispered.
“Distract me.”
She ran her hands over his face, caressing the high planes of his cheekbones and his sculpted lips. “Do you think we could live a life of distraction?”
Her wistful question hung in the air for a moment. From the bed, Butch sighed in his sleep. Somewhere in the house the grandfather clock struck the hour. Eleven-thirty.
“If I had a magic wand, I’d stop time right now. I’d capture this moment so that we could be this way forever. Just you and me. Two people holding each other.”
“That’s a beautiful thought, Coach.”
His smile was both wise and sad. “Sometimes I wish I weren’t an intelligent creature who knew better.”
“So do I.”
“It’s getting late. You should be in bed.”
Some of the old playfulness came back, and she smiled wickedly. “Your bed?”
Dan lifted one rakish eyebrow and then sobered. “If I ever get you there, Janet, I’ll never let you go.”
“I would never want to go, Dan.”
“Perhaps we could shove our problems under the bed.”
“They might make such a big hump that the mattress would be one-sided and we’d slide off onto the floor.”
“Ahh, Doc... my beautiful Doc...” He ran his fingers through her hair. “We’re not that far apart. I won’t let us be.”
She closed her eyes and fought her desire to close her medical bag forever, to shove it into a corner of a closet, climb into Dan Albany’s bed and never look back. Instead, she did a sensible thing. “It’s getting late.”
“I’ve kept you up. I’m sorry.”
“I’m glad I could be here for you.” She pulled reluctantly away and reached for her bag. Smiling at him over her shoulder, she said, “Don’t tell a soul that I made a house call.”
“Seal my lips, Doc.”
She moved back to him for a brief, hard kiss. And when it was over she felt almost as if she had told him goodbye. “I’ll see you, Dan.”
He took her elbow and escorted her out of the bedroom and down the hallway. “I wish I could drive you home. It’s late.”
“I’m used to being on my own, Dan. And although I am female, I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.” She didn’t know why she’d said that, when a simple thank- you would have done. She guessed she felt some perverse desire to call attention to their problems. It was almost like having an open wound that wouldn’t heal because it was constantly being poked and prodded.
To make amends, she added, “Call me again if you need me. I can be here in ten minutes.”
Dan propped one hand on the wall behind her. “I’ll always need you, Janet.”
He touched her lips in a kiss so filled with pent-up passion she thought she would burn from the fire racing through his blood. When it was over they exchanged a long, deep look.
“Call me, Dan,” she whispered. Then she backed swiftly through the door, turned and hurried to her car.
o0o
Sunday morning came in an ordinary way, with the sun rising in the east, melting away the veil of darkness that had s
hrouded the earth. Everywhere in Tupelo lights came on and people stirred from their beds.
In the Victorian house on Church Street, Harvey rose early, his ears pricked and his sap rising. He padded past the sleeping children and peered out the window. Across the way, that gorgeous poodle was sniffing the air as if she felt something great and wonderful had been let loose and she didn’t want to miss it.
Harvey stretched leisurely, taking time to feel the vibrant glow of good health, and then he puffed out his chest in a show of male ego. Lifting his head, he sniffed. Something wonderful was in the air. And he knew precisely what it was.
Ordinarily he loved to go into Dan’s bedroom and poke his nose under the covers, just to be absolutely sure his master didn’t oversleep; but this morning he had more important things on his mind. Without waking a soul, he padded quietly through the house and through his doggie door. In the backyard he strutted and preened. Gwendolyn, that foxy lady next door, came to the fence and peered through. She whined. Harvey woofed softly.
And then they both began to dig. The hole was soon big enough for Gwendolyn to slip through. Once she was in his yard, Harvey took his time, courting her like the perfect Southern dog he was. A true lady like Gwendolyn came along once in a lifetime, and he had more sense than to spoil it with rash behavior.
She succumbed to his courtly manners, just as he knew she would, and soon they sought a lovers’ retreat in the shelter of a big hydrangea bush that guarded Dan’s back door.
Harvey decided that being in love was the best thing that had ever happened to him. With a curvaceous canine like Gwendolyn, he might even consider settling down. He was definitely going to have a little fling.
At his urging, Gwendolyn followed him to the gate and watched in admiration as he nosed aside the latch. The gate swung open, and together they headed down the street to great and wondrous adventures.
o0o
Dan didn’t immediately discover that Harvey was missing. He had too much on his mind. He’d spent most of the night in a chair beside Butch’s bed, watching and waiting. When he had finally decided the crisis was past and had gone to his own bed, his sleep had been restless and broken by frequent dreams.
