“Hey!” she cried out as he started the engine. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
He looked at her through the open window of the tow truck. “I’m taking her back to the garage.”
“You were going to leave me here?”
“That was the plan.”
“Well, you need a new plan. I’d like a lift to my sister’s place.”
“Fine,” he said, sounding less than enthusiastic about the idea. “Hop in.”
She and Stanley ran around to the passenger-side door and flung it open.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “You’re not bringing that dog with you.”
“What do you suggest I do with him? Tell him to hitch a ride to Ellen’s?”
“There isn’t room for three of us in the front seat.”
“Then he can sit in the backseat.” She took a second look. “Except you don’t have a backseat.”
“Put him in your car,” he said.
“Why don’t I let him sit up here with you and I’ll sit in my car.” Stanley would be terrified alone in the car while it was towed down the street at such a crazy angle.
Was she imagining things or did Scott the Mechanic turn pale at the suggestion?
“Are you afraid of dogs?” she asked.
“Hell, no.” His expression softened just the slightest bit. “Are you sure that’s a dog? I’ve seen smaller bears.”
“He’s harmless,” she said, her own expression softening in response. She bent down and wrapped her arms around Stanley’s massive neck and pressed a kiss to the top of his silky head. “See? My Stan wouldn’t harm a fly.”
“Get in,” Scott said. “But the dog sits next to the window.”
Chapter Five
Ellen’s cell phone rang as she pulled away from Claudia’s house. The moving men were hung up on a delivery and wouldn’t be able to get to her until mid-afternoon. It was a few minutes past noon. She still had time before she was due at the lawyer’s office for the closing. She downshifted from a building excitement to mild disappointment, then turned the car around and headed for the hospital to check on the McIntyre baby, who, if everything had gone well, would be over four hours old.
Hall’s Rover was parked in his assigned spot. She slid into her spot next to him. No time like the present, she thought as she dropped her keys into her purse, then ducked into the hospital. Sooner or later she was going to have to show her face around Shelter Rock Cove, and this was as good a time as any to start.
She thought Marie’s smile was a little snarky as she passed the reception desk, but Leandra’s greeting seemed normal enough. Ellen waved at both women and kept walking, head held high. Let them think what they wanted. As long as they didn’t have pictures, she was in the clear.
“Morning, Doc.” Sarah from Admissions popped out of the elevator as Ellen was getting in. “Beautiful day.”
“Oh, it definitely is.” Was it? She hadn’t a clue. She could have driven through a June snowstorm for all she could remember about the weather. She smiled politely as the elevator doors slid shut, then leaned against the wall, weak with relief. If a comment about the weather was going to throw her into a tailspin, she was in big trouble. “Get it together, Markowitz,” she ordered herself. Personal problems had no place at work.
Maternity was on the third floor. The elevator doors opened, and instantly she was swept up into the world of miracles. God, how she loved everything about the maternity wing. The pink and blue and green and yellow and lavender murals on the walls. The soft rosy carpeting underfoot. The way the rest of the world and its troubles dropped away the moment you entered this world.
“Hi, Dr. M.” Jeannie, the day shift head nurse, looked up from the computer terminal. “Thought today was moving day.”
“It is,” Ellen said. “I had a few minutes, so I figured I’d stop by and see how the McIntyres are doing.”
Jeannie laughed. “I thought we were going to have to call out for a bigger crib. He’s in number three. You can’t miss him.”
If Jeannie had heard any gossip, she was doing a great job of hiding it. Ellen thanked her, then zipped around the corner to the nursery.
Simon McIntyre was a bruiser. There was no other way to put it. As big and rosy and perfect as it was possible to be, and the sight of him, sound asleep in the third crib from the left, brought tears to Ellen’s eyes. They always did. Every single time. It didn’t matter if she helped deliver them or not. The miracle of conception and birth had the power to bring her to her knees. She knew you were supposed to divorce your emotions from your job, but she had never quite mastered that skill. How on earth could you keep your heart from becoming involved when your job was helping to bring a new life into the world? To be there at the moment a family was born.
“Simon Andrew. I left you a note.”
Hall was standing behind her. She met the reflection of his eyes in the nursery window.
“I haven’t stopped in at the office yet.”
“Nine pounds, two ounces. Twenty-four inches long.”
“Jamie?”
“Happy. Relieved. Sleeping.” He hadn’t moved an inch closer, but her awareness of him, his body, was unbearable. “Frank almost keeled over, but she told him to get a grip and by God he did.”
She laughed despite herself. “If I had a dollar for every husband who almost keeled over, we could open a second maternity wing.”
We. Now where did that come from? She meant their partnership, of course. She considered hammering that point home, but it might sound a bit defensive and that was the last thing she wanted.
“Ellen.” His voice was low, his tone urgent. “We need to—”
“I’d better get moving,” she said. “The closing’s at one and I need to check messages.”
She started toward the elevator with Hall in lockstep next to her. Jeannie looked up as they passed the main nurses’ station, and it seemed to Ellen that she and the other nurses seemed unusually interested in watching their progress.
Hall was his usual easygoing self. He smiled at the nurses and told Jeannie that he was going to stop in at the office but would be back on the floor within a half hour. The two younger nurses exchanged glances. Ellen arched a brow in their direction, and they quickly feigned interest in the water cooler.
“Just let it roll off your back,” he advised as they waited for the elevator. “Don’t give them more fuel for the fire.”
She pressed the Down button a second time. “I gave them all the fuel they needed when I—”
“Morning, Joe.” Hall smiled over her head. “See you at tomorrow’s staff meeting?”
She turned and saw Joe Wiley, the hospital’s chief of staff, standing behind her. Her knees began to knock.
“I’ll be there,” Joe said, nodding a friendly good morning to Ellen. “Not very good form to ditch a meeting you’re slated to chair.”
Ellen was extremely fond of the older doctor. He had welcomed her into the fold with warmth and respect, and that welcome had set the tone for the rest of his staff. Joe Wiley was in his early seventies, and as vital and sharp as most forty-year-olds. He had cut back on his workload in the past year, and rumor had it he was easing toward retirement. She couldn’t imagine Shelter Rock Cove Hospital without his gentle competence. He was a good man who adhered to a high standard of behavior and expected his doctors to do the same. The thought of disappointing him in any way made her feel physically ill.
The three of them chatted for a few moments about the weather, about their respective golf games, about the latest fund-raiser that kicked off during the Memorial Day festivities. The elevator doors opened and they were faced with a contingent of giggling kindergarteners and their harried teachers.
“Go ahead,” Joe said with a shake of his head. “I’ll wait for the next one.”
She and Hall squeezed into the car and she pressed 1. Hall’s white coat and stethoscope slung around his neck garnered lots of giggles and silliness. One little girl
with red hair like Ellen’s tugged at his hem, and asked, “Are you a doctor?”
“Yes, I am,” he said with great solemnity. “Are you a doctor, too?”
The little girl dissolved in a fit of giggles, which seemed to be contagious.
“Are you a nurse?” a little boy with a thick shock of dark hair asked Ellen.
“No, I’m not,” said Ellen, emulating Hall’s solemn manner. “I’m a doctor.”
“You are not,” said the little boy.
“Alex!” One of the teachers stepped forward. She made an I’m sorry gesture in Ellen’s direction. “Apologize to Dr. Markowitz.” You had to love small towns. Somehow they all knew her name, even women she had never laid eyes on before.
“You can’t be a doctor,” Alex continued. “Where’s your white coat and your stesscope?”
“I’m in disguise this morning,” Ellen said, her lips twitching with a smile. “Tomorrow morning I’ll wear my white coat and have my stethoscope with me.”
“Good job,” Hall said as they exited the elevator at the first floor. “I was about to give him the lecture on equal opportunity doctoring.”
“Poor kid wouldn’t have known what hit him. I’ve heard that lecture and it’s a barn burner.”
“Barn burner? Since when does the city girl use terms like barn burner?”
“You’d be surprised how much I’ve learned since I moved to Maine.” Damn. She hadn’t meant to sound defensive. He was the one who should be sounding defensive.
“We have to talk about last night.”
“No, we don’t,” she said as they approached their office.
“I’ll come by your place later. Maybe bring a pizza.”
“You’re not invited. I’m moving today, remember? I have things to do.”
“You’re making this a hell of a lot harder than it has to be, Ellen.”
She stopped in her tracks. “I really don’t want to have this conversation, Hall. I’m not making anything harder. You want easy? I’ll give you easy. It never happened.”
She pushed past him and into the small office suite they shared at the hospital. They rarely saw patients there, preferring to use the more spacious accommodations at the Medical Arts Building. This was mostly a place to catch up on paperwork, make phone calls, and occasionally decompress between deliveries or surgeries.
Janna, their office manager, hung up the telephone as they walked into the room, and instantly Ellen knew she had heard the gossip. The air was charged with questions.
“I thought you were off today, Dr. M.”
“I am,” she said. “I’m just here for messages.”
“Okay,” Janna said, obviously trying very hard not to glance over at Hall to gauge his mood. “I won’t forward any calls.”
Ellen nodded her thanks, then disappeared into her tiny hole-in-the-wall office. She didn’t usually close the door behind her, but she made an exception this time.
For a woman who was trained in the sciences she had a remarkable ability to discount reality when the spirit moved her. Last night was the perfect case in point. She knew how to weigh the pros and cons of a subject. She knew how to analyze, dissect, and evaluate. She knew all about odds, percentages, and bad risks. And despite all of that, she had slept with him anyway.
She picked up the phone and pressed 8 for messages. Two cancellations. One request to have patient records transferred to Vincent Marino’s office in Brunswick. It hadn’t taken long for the word to get out. Admittedly the patients involved were older women who had been less than pleased to find themselves under the care of a young female physician from New York City. Still, the timing was certainly no coincidence.
She sank into her chair and placed the phone back in the console. The unfairness of the situation wasn’t lost on her. It had settled deep in the pit of her stomach like a burning stone, and more than anything she wished she could wipe the slate clean and start again.
“Liar,” she muttered. The only part she wanted to erase was that moment when he called out Annie’s name. The rest of it... oh God, she would remember it forever.
“Oh, damn,” she muttered, fumbling around in her top drawer for the paper napkins she stowed in there for emergencies. She wasn’t one of those women who cried over romantic misadventures. She saved her tears for more important things, like birth or death or the New York Jets’ playoff chances.
She didn’t find the napkins, but tucked beneath the corner of her Rolodex was one of Hall’s note cards.” Scrawled across it in his distinctive script were the words Simon Andrew McIntyre. 9# 2oz—24 in.
As if on cue, her door opened and he stepped into the office.
“You found it,” he said.
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
“I wanted to call you, but—”
Damn those ridiculous tears. She should be hurt or, even better, angry as hell with him, not filled to overflowing with wild sweet emotion at the sound of his voice.
“I know you’re hurt.” He waited for her to say something, and when she didn’t he continued. “I don’t know if I’d believe this if someone told it to me, but there were only two people in that bed last night, Ellen.”
“Right,” she said, suddenly finding her voice. “You and Annie Butler.”
“I don’t know why it happened. Blame the booze. Blame the years I spent wanting someone who never wanted me. Blame me! I don’t give a damn who or what you blame, but know this: It was you last night, Ellen. Nobody else.”
She opened her mouth to speak when Janna rapped on the door, then peeked inside. Her cheeks were bright red, and Ellen had the horrible notion that the woman had heard much more than she should have.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Janna said, “but your phone seems to be off-hook and—”
“It can wait,” Hall said. “We’re in conference.”
“Well, no, it can’t wait, Dr. Talbot,” Janna said, a testy note creeping into her voice. She looked toward Ellen, “A Deirdre O’Brien is calling from the police station. She says she’s your sister?” Janna ended the sentence on a question, and who could blame her.
“Sister?” Hall said. “You don’t have any sisters.”
“Put her through, please, Janna.”
“One second,” Janna said, then disappeared.
“You have a sister?” Hall looked dumbfounded.
“Two,” Ellen said. “They’re my half sisters. Didn’t you ever wonder where the O’Brien came from?”
The phone rang and she grabbed for it.
“Deirdre... Deirdre... will you calm down? Take a deep breath... that’s better... Stanley?... you’re joking... you’re not joking... okay, okay... put Harry on and I’ll take care of everything... hi, Harry... yes, she’s my sister... I’m sorry about the dog... no, there’s no problem... I’ll swing by on my way to the closing... absolutely... thank you.”
Hall was leaning against her desk, staring down at her as if he’d never seen her before. “You have two sisters and you never told me.”
“You never asked.”
“Why didn’t you introduce me to them?”
“If you want to drive over to the police station with me, I’ll introduce you to Deirdre. Harry is holding her for unlawful entry.”
“You’ve been here more than three years. You could have found a—”
“We’re not that close, okay? I don’t know what Deirdre’s doing in town, but you can bet it isn’t just to help me unpack. Now, if there isn’t anything else, it’s time for me to pick up my sister from the police station and close on my new house.”
She pushed back her chair and stood up.
“You’re sitting on my purse.”
He rose to his feet, all elegant lines and graceful movements. She had never seen him sweat. His clothes never wrinkled. For a second she almost hated him for being everything she had always wanted to be but never would.
Her purse wasn’t there.
“Oh, damn,” she said. “What did I do with it?�
��
The office was ten by ten. You couldn’t lose a flea in there. She looked under the desk, behind her chair, near the filing cabinet.
“Maybe you left it in the car.”
“I didn’t leave it in the car.”
“Down in maternity?”
“I don’t know... oh, damn...” She was losing control. She could feel it slipping away from her.
She didn’t remember moving toward him. She didn’t remember seeing him move toward her. But somebody must have done something because it seemed as if she blinked and they were in each other’s arms and they were kissing as if they had invented the sport, as if their lives depended on it.
There was no champagne this time. No moonlight. No easy excuse for the flood of sweet longing that lifted her and set her free. Only the one she wasn’t ready to hear.
“No!” She pushed him away, her hand shaking from the violence of the emotions his kiss unleashed. “I have to go.”
“We still need to talk.”
“You need to talk, but I don’t. I need to spring my sister from the police station.” And she needed to get as far away from him as possible before she made the biggest mistake of her life all over again.
He bent down and plucked her purse from the floor near the wastebasket. “Here,” he said.
She grabbed it from him and tucked it under her arm.
“We’re going to talk about what happened between us, Ellen.”
“Not if I can help it,” she said.
Girls of Summer (Shelter Rock Cove - Book #2) Page 6
