The M.D. Meets His Match

by Marie Ferrarella

  She shivered, trying not to dwell on it or to let it get to her.

  She’d left the Salty after being there for the better part of three hours. She’d danced with more partners than she had fingers and toes, renewing old acquaintances and hearing herself tell the same story over and over again. Each new partner had seemed eager to catch up on her life. As if word of mouth hadn’t already done that. Her grandmother not only delivered the mail, but single-handedly delivered the news, as well, passing on what people told her.

  April was certain that every one of the men who danced with her tonight already knew all about her career, her growing success and that she was unmarried. But they’d asked and she’d told, in abbreviated statements that progressively became shorter and shorter as the evening lengthened. The only thing that had remained the same in her recitation from one end of the night to the other was that she was only here temporarily. Just long enough to get her grandmother on the road to recovery. And then she was taking the first road out of Hades, no offense, but thank you very much.

  After she’d finally decided she’d had enough personal narrative and dancing for the evening, she’d looked around for her grandmother. Her intent had been to take Ursula home with her. But her grandmother had been nowhere to be seen. Which meant that Max had undoubtedly taken her home on his way back to his house. They’d already agreed to that earlier.

  Flipping the light switch at the bottom of the stairs, April smiled to herself. There was a time when her younger brother would have closed down the Salty. But that was before he’d ever turned to law enforcement. The responsibility of the office had caused him to call it a night long before the last patron would leave the party. He’d mentioned something to her earlier about needing to be up early tomorrow to complete the monthly report that was due on some bureaucrat’s desk in Fairbanks come the beginning of the week.

  As unlikely as it seemed, given his rebellious teen years, her little brother had found his niche in the world. As had her sister, April thought.

  As had she, she added after a beat, coming to the head of the stairs. But for her, there was this restlessness she couldn’t seem to put to bed no matter where she was. This feeling that despite her travels and her career, things remained unsettled in her life.

  April couldn’t help wondering if Max and June were as restless within the niches they had carved out for themselves as she was within hers.

  She shrugged away the thought. She had a career, earning good money at what she loved doing, how much better did she expect things to be?

  Better, a small voice whispered within her.

  For a moment, while she’d been dancing in that doctor’s arms, she’d felt an attraction, a strong pull. And that same small voice inside her had said, This. What the hell that was supposed to mean, she had no idea. Probably that she was just tired and hearing things that weren’t being spoken.

  Even by annoying inner voices.

  She thought first of calling up to her grandmother, then decided against it. Undoubtedly, Gran had probably gone straight to bed when she’d come home. It was exhausting being around so many people. She felt a little drained herself.

  April paused, thinking. The very fact that her grandmother had left the party early obviously indicated that she was right about being concerned about the older woman. There had been a time when Gran had kicked up her heels with the best of them, dancing, drinking and laughing into the wee hours of the morning. The joke was that she’d buried three husbands because no man could keep up with her. And Gran had done nothing to dispel the notion. She clearly loved that kind of attention.

  And everyone, April mused, running her hand along the worn banister, clearly loved Gran. As did she. With all her heart.

  She hesitated by the older woman’s door, her hand raised to knock. But then, after a moment, she let her hand drop to her side. There was no light coming from beneath the door, which meant that Ursula might have dropped right off to sleep.

  Good, she needs her rest.

  Turning on her heel, April took the few steps to her room. She was about to go in, but something made her hesitate and she looked over her shoulder at her grandmother’s door again. Doubts and concerns began to nudge forward. Gran was probably completely worn out from tonight’s festivities. It wouldn’t hurt to just look in on her for a second to make sure she was all right. If she was quiet, April thought, she wouldn’t disturb Gran at all.

  Her own thoughts made her shake her head in amusement. Who would have ever thought she’d turn into such a worrier? Not her. All she’d ever wanted when she was growing up was to be footloose and carefree, moving from place to place without ties, without restrictions. Accountable to no one. But being accountable and worrying about someone were two very different things. Her mother had been neither. Not concerned about the three children she’d brought into the world and certainly not worried about being accountable for their welfare.

  If it hadn’t been for Gran…

  April shook herself free of the thought and returned to her grandmother’s door. Very slowly, she turned the knob and eased open the door. She held her breath, hoping that she wouldn’t wake the woman up.

  She didn’t.

  Her grandmother wasn’t there.

  The bed was still made up and hadn’t been touched since before they’d left for the party. A quick glance to the left showed April that the bathroom door was open, the room dark and unoccupied.

  “Gran?”

  There was no answer, just as she knew there wouldn’t be. There weren’t that many places her grandmother could have been in this small wooden building and she’d already passed through all of them.

  Where was she?

  April leaned against the door, not knowing what to think. She was sure she hadn’t seen her grandmother when she’d left the Salty. Just before leaving, she’d purposely made an entire sweep of the saloon, weaving in and out through the crowd that had begun to thin out, looking for her.

  She was almost positive that Ursula Hatcher hadn’t been anywhere. Her brother had been nowhere to be seen, either, so April had just assumed he’d taken her home. And since Gran’s all-terrain vehicle had been parked out back of the saloon while Max’s had been gone, she’d driven Gran’s ATV home.

  Steely skeins of concern began to knit themselves together in her head. If Gran wasn’t at the Salty and she wasn’t home, where was she?

  Maybe Max hadn’t driven their grandmother home, maybe he’d driven her to the medical clinic or the hospital.

  Telling herself not to panic, April hurried to the telephone in the living room. She’d tapped out four numbers before the fact that she hadn’t gotten a dial tone registered. Mumbling under her breath, April dropped the receiver into cradle then snatched it up again. She held it to her ear and listened. Nothing. The phone was dead. Perfect.

  “Progress certainly doesn’t like to stick around long in Hades, does it?” Frustrated, she threw the receiver back into the cradle a second time.

  Downed lines were not uncommon in these regions. They were a fact of life. She didn’t have time to sit around to wait until they came back to life. That could take hours. Or days.

  “Rustic charm, my foot,” she declared tersely to the empty room, remembering what Jimmy had said to her about the area. “He thinks it’s so great, he can stay here.”

  Flying down the stairs, she grabbed the car keys, and quickly she jammed her arms into a jacket and ran down the three steps at the front of the post office. She was going back to the Salty, praying that for some reason, she’d somehow managed to overlook her grandmother and that the woman was still there, wondering what had become of her.

  April got in behind the wheel. Her earlier thought came back to haunt her. What if Gran had suddenly taken a turn for the worse while coming home with Max? What if Max had to have her taken to Providence Hospital?

  Caught up in the scenario, her heart began to pound. Now that she thought of it, she didn’t remember seeing Shayne or his w
ife at the gathering when she left, either. They were both licensed pilots and flew Shayne’s plane regularly, usually to Anchorage for supplies.

  Maybe this time they had to leave to fly her grandmother to—

  “Damn it, April, get hold of yourself,” she ordered angrily. “You sound like some hysterical dimwit. It’s going to be fine, just fine.” She pressed down hard on the accelerator. “Max would have found some way to get word to you if there was something wrong.”

  Not over downed power lines, he couldn’t, she reminded herself.

  She pressed down harder on the accelerator, pushing it all the way to the floor.

  Maybe someone at the Salty had seen her grandmother leaving.

  Jimmy had said his good-nights and assured his sister that even a city kid like him could find his way back to her house. It was only a short distance from the Salty. He’d wanted a little time by himself. Being in the midst of teeming humanity usually did that to him. After endless shifts at the hospital, he had made it a practice to go up on the roof to look up at the stars and pretend, for a little while, that he was alone.

  For some reason, there was comfort in the heart of the loneliness.

  Jimmy heard the vehicle before he actually saw it. The squeal of brakes behind him made him think, momentarily, that he was back in Seattle at the height of rush hour. Or back in school, driving one of Kevin’s cabs for pocket money.

  Turning around, Jimmy saw April leaping out of a car that looked as if it, quite possibly, was older than she was.

  What struck him was the expression on her face.

  He’d seen that look before, on the faces of family members accompanying someone being brought into the emergency room, usually in critical condition. Except that she was alone.

  Jimmy thought of her grandmother and what April had said about her condition. The man in him that had been admiring the way each deep breath she took sent her breasts straining against the blouse that was framed on either side by her jacket, was instantly sublimated as the doctor emerged.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She hardly spared him a look. “It’s my grandmother—” The words came out breathlessly.

  She was hurrying past him. Probably to find Shayne, Jimmy realized.

  He grabbed her arm to get her attention. “Heart attack?”

  Preoccupied, afraid of her own thoughts, April half turned to look at him. She struggled to bank down the terror. “God, I hope not.”

  He’d left his medical bag at Alison’s, he thought. “What are the symptoms?”

  She shook her head, feeling horribly helpless and frustrated. “I don’t know what the symptoms are,” she snapped at him. “I can’t find her.”

  Confused, he let her arm drop as he stared at her. “What do you mean, you can’t find her?”

  Her irritation at the question increased and threatened to erupt. “I came home and she wasn’t there. I thought she’d left the Salty—when I left, I looked for her and didn’t see her anywhere so I thought—what am I telling all this to you for?” It wasn’t him she was turning to for help. Turning on her heel, she hurried into the saloon.

  “Maybe to gather your wits together,” Jimmy suggested, following her inside. He tried to help. “When did you see her last?”

  “Here.” April plowed her way through the people who were still there, looking from one end of the saloon to the other. All in all, it wasn’t that big a place. She told herself that she wouldn’t have missed seeing one small woman. “When I was with you.”

  He remembered. “She was with that man then, wasn’t she?”

  April had to stop and think about who he was referring to. “Who, Yuri?”

  “Maybe you should ask him where she went.”

  She sighed. If she’d been thinking more clearly instead of jumping to conclusions she would have thought of that. “Right.”

  But Yuri wasn’t anywhere to be found, either.

  Frustrated, April leaned against the bar. From there, she had a clear view of the entire place. And neither Yuri, and more importantly, her grandmother, was anywhere to be seen. She frowned, turning to Jimmy. “Yuri probably went home early. He’s not that young.”

  Jimmy wasn’t so sure. Age was not just something that could strictly be measured in years. He knew thirty-year-olds who acted as if they were on the ancient side of seventy and eighty-year-olds who behaved as if they were twenty.

  “Looked pretty young to me,” Jimmy commented with a smile. “Looked rather taken with your grandmother, too.” A sparkle entered his eyes. “Maybe if we find him, we’ll find her.”

  Her eyes narrowed. She didn’t care for where this conversation was heading. “Are you saying that my grandmother is—”

  “Not as old as you might think she is,” Jimmy interjected. He saw Ike look at him questioningly from behind the far end of the bar, indicating the spigot. He shook his head in reply. He’d had enough beer for the night. “From what I saw, there was still a great deal of life left in the lady. Ike told me earlier that your grandmother outlived three husbands. Legend has it they all died with a smile on their faces.”

  He was laughing at her grandmother, she thought. “I resent what you’re implying.”

  He studied April a moment to see if she was serious. “Why should you resent my thinking that your grandmother’s enjoying herself?” It didn’t make sense to him. “Life’s hard enough, especially around here, from what I gather. Why shouldn’t your grandmother enjoy herself with someone if the occasion arises, so to speak?” He couldn’t help the grin that rose to his lips. “I say good for her.”

  And he meant it. A good relationship, however long it lasted, was hard to come by. Connections were important at any age.

  Hands on hips, April looked at him incredulously. “You think my grandmother went to bed with Yuri Bostovik?”

  That was a definite possibility. “Or at least to his place.”

  April shook her head adamantly. This was her grandmother they were speculating about. Gran sorted mail and gossiped. And on occasion, baked badly misshaped chocolate-chip cookies. “She wouldn’t do that.”

  He wouldn’t have thought, to look at April, that she would be so vehement in her denial. If he’d had a grandmother who’d found companionship, even fleeting companionship, he would have thought it great. “Do you know where he lives?”

  “Yes, I know where he lives.” Everyone knew where everyone lived in Hades. Nothing ever changed, no one ever traded houses.

  “Well, then there’s only one way to find out if your grandmother is with him, isn’t there?”

  She didn’t particularly like the way his smile teased her.

  “She’s not there,” April insisted with feeling as she walked out of the Salty some ten minutes later. To cover all bases, she’d made the rounds again, asking everyone she came across if they’d seen her grandmother. To her annoyance, Jimmy had remained at her side. As if he had business being there. As if he cared one way or another where her grandmother was.

  No one had seen Ursula out of Yuri’s company and Nat Rydell told her he thought he’d seen the two of them walk out together. But Nat had trouble seeing his hand at the end of his wrist after he’d had more than one beer April had informed Jimmy when he’d grinned at her, so there was no reason to believe that he’d seen what he’d claimed.

  “I’m only going to see Yuri to ask him when he last saw my grandmother,” she told Jimmy tersely.

  It was colder now than it had been when they’d stepped out earlier. She zipped up her jacket, shoving her hands into her pockets and searching for the car keys.

  “Good start,” Jimmy acknowledged, nodding his head. He didn’t bother hiding the hint of a smile that played along his lips.

  She stopped abruptly when she realized he was dogging her tracks. “Where are you going?”

  He nodded toward the vehicle he’d seen her drive off in earlier. “With you.”

  Suspicion nudged at her with pointy horns. “Why?” Finding the
key, she unlocked the driver’s door.

  He stepped around to the passenger side, waiting to be allowed in. “Finding out I’m right usually makes my day. Or night.”

  She glared at him over the roof of the car. “You’re not.”

  The smile merely widened. He had a hunch he knew people better than she did. There’d been a zest to Ursula that he’d detected even with a window between them. A zest that belonged to a woman who still knew she was desirable. “We’ll see.”

  She pulled open the door. “Look, my grandmother’s none of your affair.”

  “No,” he agreed. “But if something has happened to her, I’d like to be there to help—” The serious look evaporated. “Provided it’s help she needs and not just applause.”

  And here she thought he was on the level. There was nothing she hated more than to be taken in. “You’re disgusting.”

  “I’m a realist,” he corrected. “And your grandmother, from what I saw, has a real zest for life. As a doctor, I can’t help but admire that.”

  She didn’t think it was the doctor in him that was admiring her grandmother’s supposed lascivious nature. For a second, April debated just jumping into her car and pulling away. He had no idea where Yuri lived and she could easily be rid of him. But if, for some reason, her grandmother was with Yuri, she actually might need medical attention. Her heart couldn’t take what her body might want. Heaven knew there were times her grandmother didn’t have the sense of a flea.

  Oh, God, this was her grandmother she was thinking about.

  April got into the car and then passed her hand over her forehead, feeling the beginnings of a tension headache to end all tension headaches.