“I wasn’t truly rich, not really.” She sat back down on the chair she’d so recently slept on. When he held out his hand, she gave him hers. “Not until you told me that you loved me.”
“I do love you. And I really don’t care if you’re rich, or not.”
“Good.” Michelle shrugged. “It’s not something I think about overly much, because, well, to be honest, most of the people who live in Lusty are rich. Our parents all raised us to work, and make our way, and pay it forward. The trust funds…well, they’re there, and to be used. But we don’t flaunt it.”
“So it’s not much of a gift on my part, then, if I tell you that once we’re married you can feel free to quit working and get that advanced English degree you want.”
Michelle tilted her head to the side. “Are we getting married?”
“Christ, talk about clumsy.” Joe scrubbed his right hand over his face. He had planned on waiting for just the right moment.
Lying here, knowing that he’d nearly been killed—he figured a man couldn’t get a more right moment than this.
“I think you’re right, that damn anesthetic is still running through my bloodstream. Come here, sweetheart.” He pointed to the bed beside him, on his right side.
She stood and maneuvered until she was sitting beside him, facing him, and managed it without letting go of his hand.
“Michelle Parker, I love you with all my heart. I’ve never said those words to a woman before, because no other woman has ever touched my heart the way you have, and no other ever will. Michelle, will you please marry me?”
Joe knew his woman well enough, that when her eyes glistened, and then the first tear rolled over the rim of her right eye to trickle down her cheek, he didn’t worry. He smiled, and he waited for his answer.
“Yes, please. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
“Come here.” He tugged on her hand, urging her closer. She shot a worried glance to his left shoulder, where the white bandage told the tale of his recent misadventure. “You won’t hurt me, love. I need to kiss you.”
“I need to kiss you, too.” She laid her lips on his, a soft and gentle whisper that he knew he’d know blindfolded.
He placed his left hand on the back of her head, and gave in to the temptation to really taste her. And he recalled then, in that instant when he felt the lead tearing into his flesh, when he felt himself weaken, it was Michelle’s face he saw, and her name that echoed in his heart. He tapered the kiss, and tucked her head against his chest.
“I was so scared, Joe.”
“Me too, sweetheart.”
“I meant what I said. No more getting shot.”
“Yes, ma’am. I promise.”
“I thought the hospital had rules against canoodling.”
Michelle straightened up, and Joe wanted to laugh at the fresh blush she wore. Joe looked up into the laughing eyes of Henry Kendall. Joe returned his grin, and said, “Congratulate me. This beautiful woman has just agreed to marry me.”
“Hey, congratulations, and welcome to the family.” Henry came in and hugged Michelle. Then he focused on Joe. “How’re you doing?”
“Considering I’ve been shot, I’m not so bad. I haven’t spoken to the doc yet, so I have no idea what kind of convalescent time I’m looking at.”
Michelle laid her hand on his arm. “You’ll stay in hospital however long the doctor says you will—and you’ll ‘convalesce’ until you’re healed.”
“Damn, Michelle, you sounded just like Kate when you said that,” Henry said.
Michelle beamed at her cousin. “Thank you. I’ve taken notes over the years, from her, Aunt Samantha, and my mother.”
Henry laughed. “Well, Joe, it looks like, from now on, your life is going to be ruled by this bossy cousin of mine.”
Yes, it did. Joe sighed and couldn’t contain his pleasure at the prospect. He squeezed his fiancée’s hand, gazed into her beautiful eyes, and said, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
* * * *
Jillian stepped to the door of exam room one and took a moment to just watch. Unlike an hour and a half earlier, the mood inside the room was damn near serene. “The medical transport is on its way. The van should be here in about twenty minutes.”
She watched as all three of the men crowding around Penelope’s stretcher seemed completely smitten by little Eloise Katherine Benedict. Penelope looked down at the baby at her breast, and wore what Jillian thought of as a mother-love face. She’d seen it on new mothers often, and could identify with the feelings coursing through the young woman. It may have been more than a couple of decades, but a mother never forgot that feeling of looking down into her newborn baby’s beautiful face.
Alex kept his hand under his daughter, and Jillian knew he was holding most of her weight. The new dads were loving husbands who took seriously some of the precautions David had given them. She doubted Penelope would be allowed to so much as lift a coffee cup until well after her incision had healed and her stitches came out.
From the opposite side of the table, Robert ran his hand down Penelope’s leg, a comforting gesture, and then looked up and met Jillian’s gaze. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him look so at peace.
David sat in the corner, making notes on the computer. He looked up and shot a big smile at Jillian. Then he flicked his gaze toward his brother, and then met hers again.
David sensed the change in Robert, too. Jillian wasn’t completely certain she knew what it meant, but she’d had more than a clue in the short, intense time they’d spent together.
Robert had obviously resolved something that had been weighing heavily upon him. Right then and there, she could say he wasn’t the only one.
The only other occupant in the room, Kate Benedict, stood quietly beside the stretcher, her left hand resting softly on Penelope’s head.
With her right hand she reached out toward Robert. He obliged her, letting her hold on to him. “Thank you, and thank God for you, for both of you. Not that your fathers couldn’t have delivered little Ellie, here…” She let the sentence go, and Jillian understood her sentiment.
The senior doctors Jessop had likely delivered their share of babies, but they were family practitioners. They weren’t surgeons.
Jillian wasn’t a trained nurse, but she’d been called upon often enough to assist at the clinic she’d managed for more than five years. She felt pleased with the contribution she’d made today.
They’d all donned masks and gloves, and draped Penelope in sterile sheets. David had administered just enough anesthetic to get the job done. Penelope had been awake during the entire procedure. Robert had worked quickly and skillfully to deliver the baby before fetal distress had become a real factor—without ever once letting the Benedicts know how dicey the situation could truly have been.
Although the baby arrived nearly a month early, she was a good weight, almost eight and a half pounds. David had declared the baby’s Apgar score to be a perfect ten.
Mom and babe would be admitted into the hospital in Waco, where both would be checked out and likely stay a couple of days, just to be on the safe side.
“You don’t have to thank us, Kate. It was always our plan to come home. This is what all those years away were all about.” Robert continued to hold Kate’s hand, while he put his attention back on the baby. “Things happen for a reason. Everything turned out exactly as it was meant to be.”
Jillian heard the door buzzer, indicating someone had come into the clinic. She turned, began heading in that direction, and then stopped in her tracks. Eyes wide, she could only stare at the line of people who filed in through the doors. Everyone was laughing or chattering excitedly, and began milling around, meeting and greeting others. No one seemed intent on coming back to the exam rooms. They just seemed to want to be there.
She should have recalled the town’s tradition, as related to her by her aunt. When something happened to one of them, as many of them that
could, came.
Through the gathering crowd, Matt Benedict ushered his mother. Bernice Benedict looked excited, anxious, and riveted her gaze on Jillian’s as she approached.
Jillian had met the woman a couple of times, both at the restaurant, and that very first time right here, when she’d visited with Shirley a few weeks before.
“Hello there, Grandma and Uncle Matt.”
“My husbands picked the wrong day to go to Dallas, that’s for certain.” The woman shook her head. “I know you’re likely getting them ready to transport to the hospital,” Bernice said, “and my husbands are going to be taking me there as soon as they get back, but could I…?”
Jillian grinned. “Of course! They’re in room one. Come and have a quick visit.”
Matt stayed at the door, but Bernice went right into the room. She won major points from Jillian when she focused on the new mom, first and foremost.
“How are you, sweetheart? What do you need? What can I get you?”
“We’re good, Mom,” Penelope said. “You have a granddaughter. Would you like to hold her?”
Jillian stayed beside Matt, because the room was nearly at capacity. She counted herself blessed to be this close, to see and feel and be a part of the emotion that filled that room to overflowing.
The emotion had been here since the Benedicts arrived, frantic. It had filled the room when the Drs. Jessop had worked together to bring this tiny new life into the world. And she realized, as she assisted the doctors, she finally understood what Shirley had been saying, all these years. It had always been a mystery to Jillian how any of this—this ménage lifestyle—could possibly work in the long run. Now she had the answer, a simple answer she wouldn’t have believed if she hadn’t discovered it for herself.
Love.
Love made it all work, and love made it all worthwhile.
Beside her, she felt Matt shift his attention to Robert. “I’ll follow the transport van and wait for you so that you can have a ride back home, Dr. Robert.” And then he grinned.
Robert smiled even as he said, “What, you’re not going to call me ‘Doc Junior’ anymore?”
Jillian grinned. She’d heard how the cousins had begun to tease her two lovers the moment they hit town.
Matt shook his head in the negative. “Not after today, man. Thank you. Seriously.”
Jillian heard the strain in the deputy’s voice. When she looked up, she saw the sheen of unshed tears.
None of the men in this town seemed to shy away from showing real, honest emotion. Wasn’t that something?
Robert seemed to understand that, like Kate, Matt needed to express gratitude. “You’re welcome. And thanks for the ride. I do appreciate it.” Robert looked over at the new dads. “I need to be in the back of the van with the girls. There’ll be room for only one of you. Sorry.”
“No sweat,” Alex said. “I’ll be following Matt, driving the Jag so we have our car there.”
Matt rocked back on his heels. “We’ll have to ask Aunt Anna how often over the years the firstborn has been a girl. I don’t think it’s happened very much at all.”
Josh shrugged. “We didn’t want to know the baby’s gender ahead of time, and we couldn’t be happier that our first baby is a girl. She’s as beautiful as her mama.” Josh bent over and kissed Penelope.
Matt said, “Of course you’re delighted, and you’re absolutely right. She’s a beauty, and likely to grow up to be just as much of a stunner as her mom. I’m just waiting for that time, fifteen, sixteen years from now, when she discovers boys or—more likely—they all discover her.”
“That’s not going to be a problem,” Alex said that without taking his eyes off his daughter. In the corner, David snickered, and beside the stretcher, Robert seemed to be fighting his own smile.
Jillian had never had any siblings of her own, but she certainly recognized sibling teasing sibling when she heard it.
“So,” Matt said, “what? You’ve already got a mission statement, a spreadsheet, and action plan for when the boys start hitting on her?”
“Nope,” Josh said. “None of the above.”
“Don’t need them,” Alex said.
“Just need our shotguns,” Josh said.
“Exactly,” Alex agreed. “She won’t be allowed to date until she’s thirty, anyway.”
Matt chuckled. “Yeah, good luck with that plan. Geeks.”
“Don’t you worry, sweetheart.” Bernice kissed her new granddaughter’s brow. “The women of Lusty stick together. I know how to handle my boys, and I’ll make sure you do, too.”
“Ooh, shot down by a pro,” David said. Then he made the “shoot” and “crash and burn” hand signs and sound effects, and Jillian laughed with everyone else.
Not long after, the medical transport service van arrived. Jillian gave the drivers credit. They took one look at the assembled masses in the waiting room and politely pushed their wheeled stretcher into exam room one. Jillian helped Bernice and the doctors get Penelope settled on the gurney. The new fathers tucked little Ellie in beside her mom, and then the paramedics moved the patients slowly through the crowd out toward their van. The amassed throng of Benedicts, Kendalls, and Jessops, along with the Parkers, and myriad other cousins, made way for the procession. Jillian heard oohs and aahs as mom and baby passed, as well as softly murmured words of congratulations. She recognized many of the people there, and knew in time, she’d know them all.
She thought Robert was holding up well, too, considering how many times his back got slapped as he followed the stretcher.
David stayed behind at the clinic, of course, because they didn’t want to leave the place unattended during hours. Soon, family members began to trickle out, most of them planning to gather at Lusty Appetites in a couple of hours, to celebrate. The clinic was slated to close in a half an hour, at three thirty.
“Come over when you can,” Kelsey said. “I think we should start another family tradition with an ‘impromptu’ birthday party, even if I am a waitress short at the moment.” Then Kelsey’s eyes widened. “Oh, shoot, I wonder if Isabelle called Michelle and told her about the baby?”
Jillian quickly made the connection. Isabelle Parker was Michelle’s mother and the head pharmacist at the drugstore—which just happened to be across the street from the restaurant.
“Called her? Why, isn’t she in town? Where is she?” David asked.
“Oh my gosh, you don’t know? Man, the gossip mill has really been falling down on the job lately.”
Jillian gaped as Kelsey filled them in, not only about Michelle’s romance, but Joe Grant being shot. David asked Kelsey which hospital, and then said, “I know someone on staff in the ICU, there. I’ll give him a call and get a full update on Joe’s condition.”
“Henry called a little while ago. He flew Peter and Michelle to Dallas in the helicopter last night. The men are on their way back now. Henry said Joe’s awake, alert, and asked Michelle to marry him.” Kelsey grinned. “She said yes, of course. Well, I better get back. There’s going to be a flood at the restaurant, and I need go and prepare for that.”
The silence, once they were alone, seemed almost surreal. David came over and wrapped his arms around her.
Jillian snuggled into his embrace with a deep, appreciative sigh.
“There wasn’t time earlier to tell you, baby, but you did one hell of a job today. You anticipated our every move, making sure we had what we needed when we needed it. We couldn’t have helped to bring little Ellie into the world without you.”
“I’m glad I could be a help. It was pretty exciting, and I was pumped. But at the moment, I’m a little whipped.”
“Me, too.”
“I can see why you became an ob-gyn. That was incredible.” She lifted her head from his chest, got up on her tiptoes, and kissed him.
“Go make your phone call. I’ll just tidy up room one, and then I’m going to make some coffee.”
&nb
sp; “Coffee, yes. That sounds like a plan.”
They’d stayed and kept the clinic open, but no one, apparently, needed a doctor. They’d had only two appointments scheduled for that afternoon, and Jillian had quickly rebooked them for another day as the doctors had prepped Penelope for her emergency C-section.
“Robbie just texted. They’re on their way back. He should be home in less than an hour.”
“The hospital is keeping Penelope and Ellie for a day or two?”
“At least three—not only because of the surgery, of course, but also because of the less than completely ideal conditions under which it was performed.”
Jillian almost asked David about Robert, about what he sensed that was different in him, but she didn’t. As they headed back to the house, she thought that the two of them were engaging in the most inane, albeit polite, conversation ever.
“Huh. We have a visitor.” David raised one eyebrow and shot her a quick glance. “Anyone you know?”
Jillian shook her head. And then she remembered a telephone conversation she’d listened through the day before.
“Would that be Daisy?”
“Christ, I forgot all about her. Of course it would be.”
Jillian studied the young woman who rose to her feet from her perch on the porch steps as they exited the car. The woman had short amber hair, a pixie face, with arms and legs that looked…poetic. Daisy Kendrick looked as ethereal as a summer breeze.
She smiled when she saw them, but Jillian sensed something infinitely sad in her smile.
“Master Robert?”
“No, I’m David. You’re Daisy, right?”
The young woman nodded. “Yes, Sir. Daisy Kendrick. Master Jordan said you’d be expecting me.”
“We were. I apologize, it’s been a hectic day. Robert will be here shortly. We had an emergency at the clinic, and he had to accompany our patient to the hospital. This is Jillian.”
Daisy nodded her greeting, but her eyes returned almost immediately to David. “I can wait out here, if you would rather, Master David?”
“Of course not,” Jillian said. “Come inside.” She didn’t get offended when the young woman looked to David for confirmation of the invitation. She had a sense that Daisy Kendrick was strung just about as tight as she’d seen anyone, ever.
Love Under Two Doctors Page 23
