by Tami Hoag
Behind Sarah there was a growl and a chicken war cry, and suddenly it seemed as if a tornado had revved into high gear inside the close confines of the little shed. Chickens squawked as Blossom tore around in circles, baying her lungs out as she tried to nab a red hen. IWo chickens hurled themselves against Sarahs back, wings beating frantically. She lunged forward in surprise, knocking Matt off balance. He went backward out the door, tripping and landing on his back in the dirt. Sarah stumbled after him, her skirts tangling around her knees. She sprawled forward and had to give up her hold on her egg basket to save herself. She ended up on her hands and knees. The eggs—at least some of them—ended up on Matt. The red hen shot out of the coop like a missile. Blossom, in hot pursuit, scampered under Sarah, then trampled across Matt's prone form.
“Wait&ll they hear about this in the ER,” an amused voice sounded from above him. “How I caught the great Dr. Thorne with egg on his face.”
Matt eased himself into a sitting position, wincing at the nip of pain in his ribs and the gooey mess on his chin. He wiped the egg away with his hand then stared in disgust at the yellow ooze on his palm, not sure what to do about it. He shot a glance at the woman who seemed so amused at his predicament, taking in battered dusty cowboy boots and legs that stretched a mile straight up. “Would you care to shut that lovely mouth long enough to give me a hand up, Nurse McCarver?”
She grimaced at the slimy palm he offered. “No way. The yoke's on you, Doc.”
“You're a regular Florence Nightingale,” Matt said sarcastically. “Has anybody told you your bedside manner stinks?”
“Not recently. You certainly never complained,” she said sweetly, a wry smile canting her wide mouth.
Matt pushed himself-to his feet, dusting off his jeans with his clean hand, then smearing the egg yolk onto his thigh, grumbling and scowling the whole time. He turned to help Sarah up, but she had already gotten to her feet and stood by the door of the chicken house fussing at brushing the dust from her apron, casting surreptitious looks at the woman who had come to call.
Julia McCarver stood grinning at them both, her hands tucked into the back pockets of her tight faded jeans, her long mane of dark red hair tossing in the morning breeze. She had the lanky frame of an overgrown tomboy, a tomboy grown to just a hair's breadth under six feet, but she managed to exude femininity just the same. It emanated from her face, which was a study in delicate sculptured lines and exaggerated features. Her eyes were a rich chocolate-brown, enormous, limpid, sparkling, fringed by impossibly thick lashes; they gleamed with suppressed laughter and womanly secrets. Her mouth was too wide. Her lips were full and pouty, and they pulled back into a grin that was infectious.
She was beautiful and seemed friendly and obviously knew Matt—in the biblical sense, if Sarah had taken her comment about bedside manner right. She felt an instant burning rush of jealousy.
“Sarah, this is Julia McCarver,” Matt said. “The nurse from hell. Julia, this is Sarah Troyer.”
“Nice to meet you, Sarah,” Julia said ebulliently. She offered Sarah her right hand while she snagged back a handful of hair with her left. “You have my condolences for having to put up with this grizzly bear while he licks his wounds.”
She turned to face Matt, her look softening to genuine concern as she took his hands in hers and squeezed them. “All kidding aside,” she said softly, “it's really great to see you on your feet again, you arrogant jerk.” She leaned forward and gave him a small, chaste kiss on the lips.
Sarah thought she would choke on her jealousy. It rose in her throat like bile, and she couldn't even begin to force it back down. So much for Matt Thome's profession of love. Well, she'd been warned, hadn't she? Ingrid had told her Matt was a ladies' man. What difference did it make anyway? She knew full well what they had together wasn't going to last.
“I'll leave you to your … visit,” she said tightly. Snatching the egg basket, she strode for the house without looking back.
Julia raised one long curved brow and gave Matt an amused look. “So that's how the wind blows.”
“Save the smart-ass comments, Julia,” Matt warned. They had a long history of playful verbal warfare, but he was in no mood to be teased about Sarah. “Please,” he added, softening the order to a request
Julia studied him for a long moment, her wide, bright eyes searching. Finally she nodded. “Okay.” She brushed a thumb across a smudge of egg yolk on his chin. “Why don't you go get washed up, then we can chat? I spied a swing on the front porch. Ill meet you there.”
Matt went into the house, cleaned up and changed into fresh jeans and a burgundy chamois shirt. He had hoped to get a word with Sarah, but she was engrossed in a conversation with Lisbeth Parker and didn't do more than glance at him as he passed the parlor door.
Julia was waiting for him, sprawled comfortably on the porch swing. She had one booted foot on the bench, the other long leg stretched out, regulating the speed of the swing. It was hardly a feminine pose, but the usual rules didn't apply to Julia; she managed to look stunning regardless. And, as always, she seemed oblivious to her looks. She wore only a minimum of makeup. Beneath an oversize bomber jacket that had seen better days she wore an old white T-shirt with a faded “Life Run” logo on it. She gave him a crooked smile as he lowered himself to the bench.
“So, is all this peace and quiet driving you bonkers yet?”
“No,” Matt answered truthfully. A part of him had expected it to; he was, after all, a city boy born and bred. He was used to the sights and sounds and smells and the tension in the air of a vibrant metropolitan area. He was used to the nerve-racking pace of the ER. The first couple of days he had been here the quiet had irritated him, but at the moment he couldn't say that he missed any of it.
Julia made no comment. She chewed her lower lip and looked pensive, as if she took his contentment as a bad sign. Matt glanced at her and looked back out at the front yard. It was a gorgeous Indian summer morning, unseasonably warm. The air was dotted with ladybugs flying aimlessly around. The chains of the porch swing squeaked.
“So how are you—really?”
“Better. As you can see, my face no longer looks like an overripe melon. The ribs are healing. The leg … I don't know. Do you think women would find a slight limp sexy?”
“They would if you were the one limping.”
Matt reached over and tweaked her cheek. He enjoyed the easy camaraderie that existed between himself and Julia. They had been lovers once, but it had been a disastrous affair and in the end both had admitted to treasuring their friendship too much to spoil it just for the sake of fabulous sex.
“What about you?” he said. “How are you doing?”
“Me?” she asked, feigning surprise. “Never been better.”
Matt wasn't fooled for an instant. “Have you heard from him?” He didn't use a name because he couldn't bring himself to say it. He hadn't liked quarterback “Storm” Dalton the few times he had met him, and had never thought him good enough for Julia. It gave him no pleasure to know he'd been right all along.
“No,” she said, picking at a scab of paint on the arm of the swing, giving her attention to the task as if it held some earth-shattering importance. “I don't expect to. He's playing for Kansas City now. He doesn't owe any loyalty to an old Vikings fan, does he?” She shot Matt a look. “Don't answer that. And don't say you told me so.”
“I wasn't going to.”
“Good,” she said, forcing a smile. “Because I didn't come all the way down here to talk about me. I came to talk about you.”
“What's up in the ER?”
“Same old stuff. The names and the faces change, but the score stays the same. We're outnumbered. We could use our top dog back. When are you going to be ready?”
Matt took a long time in answering. A lot of feelings surfaced at the thought of going back, some of them pleasant, most of them not. The truth was the top dog was feeling old and cynical and he couldn't even muster the enthusiasm
to lie. “I don't know.”
Julia pulled herself up, the seriousness of the topic demanding a more aggressive posture. “Matt, what happened—”
“This isn't about me getting shot, Julia. It's about trying and caring too much and not being able to make a difference.”
“You make a difference! I've lost count of the lives you've saved.”
“And I've lost count of the ones who came back shot or knifed or OD'd or with a gun in their hand so they could robe the drug cabinet.”
“Those aren't the ones you're supposed to count.”
“Aren't they?”
“Come on, Matt, you thrive on the action. It's only natural for you to feel a little depressed now, but that will wear off. You just need to get back in harness again. You need to get back to the city, back to reality. Look around you. This isn't reality. This is … is …” She looked around as if an appropriate word might pop out at her, finally shrugging. “This is a cornfield.”
Matt looked around. He saw the bleached stalks of corn, heard them rustling in the wind. He watched an Amish buggy pass. He saw the sky as a bowl of electric blue, unmanned by high-rise buildings. A dragonfly investigated the pot of yellow mums that sat on the porch step, and Blossom sat like a sentinel at the end of the driveway with a shoe in her mouth.
Julia pushed the swing into motion again with the toes of her boots, her hands dangling between her knees, her gaze drifting to the feu-side of the yard where Sarah had come out to rake leaves. “So what's the story on you and Laura Ingalls Wilder?”
“I'm not ready to talk about it.”
Julia gave a low whistle. “That serious, huh?”
Matt said nothing. He just gave her a long steady look with his dark eyes, letting her read what she would there.
Julia shook her head and heaved a sigh, her anger showing through her normally placid manner. “Will you look at what you're doing here?”
“I'm recuperating.”
“You're hiding. You're retreating—not only from the city but from this century! Matt, you're too good a doctor to just burn out and fade away!”
He couldn't think of anything worth saying. Propping his elbows on his knees, he leaned forward and rubbed the back of his neck. Julia slumped back against the bench, spearing her fingers into her thick hair and smoothing it back from her face.
“Want to take a drive into town?” Matt asked. “They have a real old-fashioned soda fountain at the drugstore.”
“No, thanks.” Julia shook her head wearily and checked the man's watch she wore on her wrist. “I should head back. I told Devers I'd work her shift.”
Matt pushed himself up from the swing and followed her to the porch steps, catching her by the sleeve of her bomber jacket when she was two steps below him. “You can't bury yourself in work forever”
She pressed her lips into a long thin line as she avoided his gaze. “I guess we all have our ways of compensating, don't we?”
Matt took the hint. He thought she was hiding; she thought he was hiding. He wasn't going to let her in on all of his feelings; she wasn't going to let him in on hers. Standoff. “Ill walk you to your car.”
At the door of her Firebird she turned around and hugged him fiercely, then pulled back and swiped her hair out of her eyes. “Look, I know you're going through a rough spot right now. Just do me a favor and hang on, will you?”
He nodded, his gaze holding hers. “You too.”
She managed a tired smile that didn't get anywhere near her eyes. “Yeah, sure.”
Matt leaned against Lisbeth Parker's white Cadillac and watched Julia drive off, his mind resolutely shutting out the things she had said. As the Firebird disappeared down the road, he redirected his attention, catching Sarah looking at him.
Sarah dodged his gaze, focusing on her raking. She scraped the bamboo tines of the broad rake against the ground with more zeal than was required, sweeping the fallen maple leaves into an ankle-deep pile. It didn't matter to her that Matt had old girlfriends calling on him. Scrape, scrape, scrape. It didn't matter to her that Julia McCaiver was beautiful. Scratch, scratch, scratch.
“Trying to rake your way to China?”
She stopped just short of raking over the sneakers that had come into her limited field of vision. “Any job worth doing is worth doing well.”
She started to turn away from him, but he caught her by the shoulders. Still, she refused to look up at him. Tears had gathered behind her eyes and were pressing for release.
“Julia is an old friend of mine,” Matt said sofdy. “There's nothing romantic between us. There hasn't been for a long time. She came to prod me about going back to work.”
“It is no concern of mine,” Sarah said primly.
“I'd like to think it is. Come on, Sarah,” he said in his soft, cajoling tone. “Look at me. Please.”
The please did her in. He sounded so sincere. She was being silly anyway, wasting what time they had together on pointless jealousy. She gave him a weak version of her crooked smile.
“That's better,” he said, tracing his thumb over the line of her mouth. A chuckle worked its way up out of his chest. “My little pacifist. You looked ready to tear Julia s hair out by the roots when she kissed me!”
“Make jokes,” Sarah said, trying to look stern. “You bring out the dickens in me, Matt Thome. You should be ashamed.”
“Should I?” he asked softly. Suddenly the fresh fall air was charged with energy humming tight around them. Matt brought his hands up to frame her face, his thumbs brushing under the loose ties of her kapp. “I think I make you feel alive. I know that's how you make me feel. I think I bring that fire you keep buried inside you a little closer to the surface.”
“Matt …” She breathed his name like a sigh, invoked it like a prayer. She tilted her chin up, offering her mouth to him, and her whole body jolted as he kissed her, as if he'd infused her with a sudden burst of electricity. Alive. That was exactly what he made her feel, beautifully, achingly alive.
When he lifted his head, he had that look of wonder in his eyes again and he smiled. “I never would have believed love could happen so fast,” he murmured.
He slid his hands back from her face, tugging her kapp off and loosing the moorings of her bun all in one motion. Hairpins scattered, and her long chestnut tresses tumbled free, the wind catching at strands and fluttering them like ribbons. It felt wonderful and free—like her spirit.
She made a face at him. “Now, look what you've done. I'll have to put it all back up again. You're worse than a little boy tugging braids.”
Matt laughed, unrepentant. He felt, if not like a little boy, certainly younger than he had in a long time. “Oh, yeah?” he said, rising to the bait. “In that case, I belt you can't get this away from me.” He extended his arm above his head with Sarah's fine white kapp perched on the ends of his fingers.
Sarah made a jump for it. Matt snatched it back and twisted away from her. They played a laughing game of keep-away, eyes dancing, bodies dodging and feinting, leaves crunching beneath their feet. Matt was able to move at only about half speed. To compensate, Sarah didn't try as hard as she might have to win. The object wasn't in getting her kapp back, but in prolonging the game. They laughed and chased each other, touching and tickling. And as always, they became so absorbed in each other, the rest of the world faded into the far background. They scarcely noticed the sun that warmed them or the breeze or the dog that came to bark at their foolishness or the Amish farm wagon that rumbled past.
Matt tired first and gave up, sinking down into the pile of orange leaves, breathing heavily and grinning hugely. Sarah followed him without hesitation, her plain skirt billowing around her in a puddle of blue as she settled beside him. They sat facing each other, hip-to-hip. Sarah reached up and brushed at errant strands of black hair that had tumbled across Matt's forehead. He lifted a dried leaf and tickled the end of her nose with it. They both leaned toward each other simultaneously for a kiss, and Sarah thought her heart w
ould burst with happiness. She was in love, and all was right with the world … at least for a little while.
“Thank you, Mrs. Parker,' Sarah said, tucking the credit card slip into a desk drawer. “I hope you enjoyed your stay with us.”
“It was just lovely, honey,' Lisbeth Parker gushed. She tossed the end of her fox stole over her shoulder and glanced around for any sign of Blossom. “We had the nicest time, and you were just a doll! I sure wish we had some Amish people back home.”
Matt rubbed his jaw, fighting the urge to say something nasty. Sarah just smiled her little Mona Lisa smile, unaffected by the comment. She knew people generally meant no harm when they said things like that, and taking remarks in stride was simply part of being Amish.
“You don't want to forget this,” Matt said, holding out Mrs. Parkers pearl-handled pistol and ammunition.
“Oh, heavens no! I couldn't leave Li'l Ab-ner!” She smiled at the gun as if it were a favorite pet and tucked it into the depths of her handbag. “Tim gave him to me our first Christmas together.”
Matt stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Isn't that sweet.”
Lisbeth waved a hand and gave them a coy look. “He's like that, the big ol' darlin'. I'd best get on out to the car now before he loses his patience and starts in on that horn. It plays the Texas Aggie fight song. Drives me right out of my mind.”
“Really?” Matt said, eyes alight. He winced as Sarah gave his arm a sharp pinch.
Lisbeth bid them farewell again as she turned and pranced out the front door, fox tails swinging. Matt rubbed his palms together and started after her. “Come on. Well finally get to see if there really is a Tim.”
Sarah grabbed his arm and held him back. “No! It's more fun not knowing.”
Matt was incredulous. “Are you kidding? That woman and her invisible man have been driving me crazy all weekend!”
Laughing, Sarah tugged him into the parlor doorway so he wouldn't be tempted to peek out the window in the front door. She held onto his hand as she leaned back against the wide frame. “The mystery is more fun than the knowing would be.”
