Dear Reader

A few years ago I met an amazing woman—Nona—who travelled by horse through the mountain regions of the eastern United States. What fascinated me about her was not so much that she spent day after day on the trail, in the woods, in the mountains, and in areas so isolated the world had forgotten them—I was fascinated by the fact that she was a doctor who packed her medicine into her saddle bags and took it to the people who lived in those areas. People who wouldn’t have it otherwise.

At the time I guess I didn’t even know such areas existed in the United States, much less that the people from those places didn’t have access to the same things I had. But Nona was diligent in what she referred to as her ‘calling’, and she took her skills and knowledge to people who didn’t take for granted the conveniences of life most of us are accustomed to having.

I like writing about people who, like Nona, have a similar calling. People who don’t practise ‘convenient’ medicine. That’s why you see this recurring theme in so many of my books. There are dedicated, quiet people in this world who serve without accolade. I’ve met them in my travels, been befriended by them, seen them work under conditions I can’t even begin to describe. They do have a calling—a higher calling, I believe. And it’s because of them I bring you the story of Deanna and Beau, who wrestle with the life they had in New York, and the one they’ll face together in a community one hundred miles from nowhere.

As always, wishing you health and happiness

Dianne

PS Check me out on Facebook at:

www.facebook.com/DianneDrakeAuthor

Recent titles by Dianne Drake:

 REVEALING THE REAL DR ROBINSON

 NO. 1 DAD IN TEXAS

 THE RUNAWAY NURSE

 FIREFIGHTER WITH A FROZEN HEART

 THE DOCTOR’S REASON TO STAY**

 FROM BROODING BOSS TO ADORING DAD

 THE BABY WHO STOLE THE DOCTOR’S HEART*

 CHRISTMAS MIRACLE: A FAMILY*

** New York Hospital Heartthrobs

* Mountain Village Hospital

These books are also available in eBook format from www.millsandboon.co.uk

P.S. You’re
a Daddy!

Dianne Drake

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Doc Nona, with all my admiration.

CHAPTER ONE

ONE SIGH SAID it all, and for Deanna Lambert that sigh filled an entire story—past, present and future. She stared at her face in the mirror for a full minute, unsure what the face staring back was telling her. Do it? Don’t do it? Keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best?

“You’re no help,” she groused at her image, then pulled up her red tank top and finally assembled the courage to look at her belly yet again. She brushed away another tear. Ups and downs now. That’s what her life was about, ups and downs. “I wish I knew what to do. Wish somebody would just say, Deanna, do this.” But situations like hers didn’t come with a set of instructions. Only regret. More regret than she knew what to do with. And pain. Dear God, the pain nearly crippled her.

Assessing her belly, Deanna’s new daily routine, she splayed her fingers over the warm flesh, willing herself to feel the child just beneath her fingertips. It was silly of her, of course, but this baby was her only connection to Emily, and she wanted desperately to hold onto that connection, feel that connection the way she used to. Count on it.

She couldn’t, though. Not any more. But this baby … it was different. A hope she wasn’t ready to accept. Permission to move on. A blessing ready to be claimed.

Another tear trickled down her cheek and she swatted at it with the back of her hand.

“Part of me wants to go and find him. He’s your daddy.” At least, biologically he was. “And maybe he would want to know about you.” But the truth was, men who made sperm donations didn’t want to know. It was an anonymous gesture, often for the money and sometimes out of generosity. Or ego. So which was it for Braxton Alexander? she wondered. The unbearable weight of not knowing was dragging her down. The unbearable weight of carrying her cousin’s baby—a baby who would never see his or her mother—was dragging her down ever deeper.

“Resolve it immediately,” Dr. Brewster, her obstetrician, had warned her. “Your blood pressure is borderline high, you’re not getting enough sleep, you’ve lost three pounds. Regardless of whose baby you’re carrying, you’re that baby’s lifeline. You’ve got to take better care of yourself. So figure out what you need to do, and do it.”

Kindly old doctor. And he was right. She had to figure out what to do, and do it. “But darn,” she murmured, as she backed away from the mirror and pulled down her top, “why couldn’t somebody just tell me what it is I should do?”

She was in this alone. Carrying a mistaken baby—her cousin’s child who, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was not the progeny of her cousin’s husband. However a mistake like that could be made in this age of technological wizardry. Oops, wrong sperm, Mrs. Braxton. We’re terribly sorry.

A mistake that had cost Emily her life, as it had turned out.

“It would have been good,” she said to the baby. “Even if Alex didn’t want you after he found out, Emily would have been the best mother anyone could have because she wanted you so badly.” Even after three miscarriages and a stillbirth Emily had never lost hope. “And I would have helped you raise her.” Deanna ran her hand over her red tank top to smooth the wrinkles but more to acknowledge the love she felt every time she touched her belly.

And she did love this child. She didn’t feel equal to the task of motherhood, and hadn’t ever even thought of herself in those terms, to be honest. But that didn’t negate the feelings she had for Emily’s baby. And those only grew stronger every day. Along with the irrational guilt. Survivor’s guilt, she’d been told. “So, the question remains, should I tell your father about you, or let him exist as the anonymous donor he was?”

Stupid question. Anonymous donors wanted anonymity, presumably. But something was pulling her in a direction she knew she should resist. “OK, so maybe we could go there and simply watch him for a while, see what kind of man he is. What kind of genes you’ll be getting from him. No harm in that, is there?”

No harm except the emotional one that kept her hanging onto something she didn’t understand. Dr. Brewster was right. She had to resolve this. But by going all the way to Tennessee? Specifically, Sugar Creek? That’s where the investigator she’d hired said he was living now. One law firm, a private investigator and some pretty formidable legal maneuvering had gained her a little information, more than most women had when they made their selections from the information inside the catalogs, and that should have been enough. But it wasn’t.

And maybe that’s because she really did want to know, or simply because hanging onto a man she should never, under any circumstances, meet meant putting off the inevitable—facing what happened next.

All she wanted to do was see him. Nothing else. And wasn’t it her right to know more about the father of the baby she carried? OK, so maybe it wasn’t. But she was … curious. What, specifically, she wanted to know about him, she had no clue.

She did want to stop hurting, though, and maybe that’s what this near obsession was about. Losing his cousin, her best friend, had turned into a pain she didn’t know how anybody could endure, and she was looking for anything to make it stop. Maybe that’s what finding Dr. Braxton Alexander was about, at least in part. Something to keep her occupied until something else made sense.

“So, we go to Sugar Creek,” she said to the baby, looking at the already packed bags by her front door. They’d been packed for days, and she’d gone this far several times before. Then stopped. But today was different. She could feel it in her resolve, in her heart and, yes, in her belly. Today she would carry those bags to the car, climb in and head south. All the way to Tennessee.

“But before we leave, I need to stop by the cemetery and tell Emily what we’re going to do,” she told the baby. “Emily,” she whispered, as tears started welling again. “I really don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m so scared …”

“Welcome to Sugar Creek, Tennessee,” Deanna said on an ambivalent sigh. This was it. She’d done it. Well, part of it. She’d managed to get herself here. As far as the next part went, she had options and she wasn’t ready to decide which one to choose. So for now she was here to work. At least, that’s what she’d tell people. Reports to do, financial donor sources to track down, people to hire who would implement her programs. Her temporary lease here was for a month and she’d brought enough work with her to keep her busy for three, so the part about coming here to work wasn’t a lie. Nurse researcher with plenty to do.

Now, stepping out of her car and raising her binoculars to look down the south face of the mountain at the lay of the little town, she noted how the quaint buildings stretched pleasantly up and down Sugar Creek Highway. There was an outcropping of foothills and more green trees than she’d ever seen in any one place in her life jutting out prominently in any direction she looked other than the main part of town itself.

“It’s very pretty. And it’s got a grocery store, café, general merchandise store, and beauty shop. I think we’ll have a nice month here.” With or without tracking down Braxton Alexander.

Even though she’d never lived in one, Deanna loved small towns, loved the whole countrified experience. As a nurse researcher, she’d devoted her entire career to finding ways to make healthcare better in areas where it wasn’t easily accessed. Places like Sugar Creek, which sat in a beautiful, secluded valley a hundred miles from anywhere. It wasn’t the beauty of such places that caught her attention when she took on new assignments but the seclusion, because her job was to bridge the medical gaps.

“But this town is one of the lucky ones,” she said. “It has a doctor. Your daddy.” Your daddy … Odd how that was so easy to say. “Judging from what I read about him, he’s very good.” And she’d read everything she could find. A few articles he’d written about general surgery, some accounts of awards he’d received. Nothing about why he’d given up a lucrative New York City surgery to isolate himself here. As a GP, no less.

Midday carried with it a cool June breeze, and a chill washed over Deanna as she lowered her binoculars and, once again, thought about what she was doing here. Chasing Braxton Alexander. This wasn’t just a small change of direction for her. It was a total life-changer. She was having this man’s baby—a baby she’d never planned on having—and sitting on a mountaintop hoping to catch a glimpse of him somewhere.

How much more perverse did life get than that? She tilted her face to the sky and, for the first time in weeks, actually felt a little bit of relaxation slide down over her.

“I’m pretty sure I’m glad we came here, but I suppose there’s a lot still to be determined.” She liked talking to the baby, particularly here. Possibly because she was so close to the daddy. Or maybe because she’d put physical distance between herself and everything that reminded her of Emily.

“Now we’re going to have to figure out what we’re going to do next … for real.” She laid her hand on her belly. “So, here are our options. We can watch and keep quiet. Try finding a way to meet him. Or we can always play it by ear. See what happens. Hope for the best.”

However it worked out, she had a whole month ahead of her to find the answer and act on it. Or not.

“She’s making eyes at you, boss.” Joey Santiago led the chestnut mare into the stall then took off her lead before he stepped out and latched the door behind him. Brushing his hands together to shake off the dust, he said, “They all do it. Big brown eyes, so many expectations. You’ve let them have their way with you once too often, and now you pay for it every time you come in here.”

“Not pay for it, Joey. Enjoy it.” Beau leaned over the Dutch door of the stall and gave the mare a couple of lumps of sugar, like he always did. It’s what he’d done as a child every time he’d spent a few days or a few months here with his grandfather, and he’d continued doing it after he’d moved in for good when he’d been a teenager.

“And they love you for it.”

“Horses don’t love,” Beau protested. “They merely get used to certain things.” The way he had, growing up. “Come to expect them. Recognize them when they’re being offered.”

“You’re wrong there, Beau. They love, just like we do. You can see it in their eyes.”

Joey had been here for as long as Beau could remember, doing odd jobs, gardening, taking care of the few horses his grandfather always kept, and taking care of Beau’s grandfather after his stroke. He was also part of the two-man team who had raised him when his dad had gone off on benders and wherever else it was the old man had gone to avoid life, responsibility and, most of all, fatherhood.

“Some of us don’t love, though,” Beau countered, still cringing over his marriage fiasco nearly two years later.

“You loved,” Joey countered. “Just not wisely. But with a horse you don’t have to worry about duplicitous intentions. A carrot and a few kind words will get you unconditional love for ever. And even if you don’t yet have a taste for falling in love again, that’s going to change. Just in your own time.”

“Or in no time,” Beau quipped, preferring not to think about Nancy. Two years later, he still did, though. It was inevitable, he supposed, because of the way she’d changed his life. But all this love talk made him nervous. He wanted to climb up on one of these horses and ride so hard it knocked the memories right out of him.

Joey, a stocky man with thick black hair, shook his head as he peeked over the half-door in the next stall at Nell, who was ready to give birth any time. “I watched you at the races last spring, in Kentucky. Watched you get so excited when Donder almost won the Derby. I saw love in your eyes for that horse, Beau. I know you’re not dead in your emotions like you think you are. Just holding it back.”

“Emotionally dead is easier.”

“Or safer. But that’s going to change. Mark my words, when the time’s right to move on, nothing’s going to hold you back.”

“I’ve been ready to move on for two years.” And everything was holding him back.

“And yet you haven’t,” Joey quipped. “Strange how that works, isn’t it?”

Joey was right, of course. But Beau didn’t have to admit that out loud because, in ways he didn’t want to deal with, he was just fine being held back. It kept him away from the possibility that what he’d gone through once could happen again. Admitting you’d been so blind and, on top of that, so insanely stupid on so many levels … No, there would be no repeat acts for him, and the only way to guarantee that was to keep his distance. Big distance.

“What’s strange is standing here talking to you about my love life when I’ve got fences to mend out on the back forty.” Barring emergencies, no more patients for the day and no house calls for the evening. With any luck he’d be so worn out by nightfall that, for once, a good night’s sleep—out there—would come easily. Then he’d get an early jump on it in the morning and be back here by noon to open the clinic. But he had to quit talking first. And quit moping as well.

“So which one you running away from? Thinking about that whole mess you had with your wife, or the problems you’ve got going with Brax?”

Leave it to Joey to turn one emotional train wreck into two. He loved the man, knew he only wanted to help. But, damn, not this way. “I’ve got no problems with the old man,” Beau snapped. “Just a difference of medical opinion.” Big difference of opinion.

Joey chuckled. “Your way, his way. Two stubborn men who don’t want to budge. Glad the extent of my medical knowledge doesn’t go beyond applying a bandage and some good, old-fashioned horse medicine.”

True, they were alike in a few ways. Stubbornness for stubbornness, maybe they did match up, but only a little bit. “OK, so maybe we have some similarities. But the old man thinks he can practice medicine again, and I know he can’t. It’s time for him to retire.”

“Two peas in a pod. Actually, let’s make that two peas in separate pods since you’re not seeing eye to eye on pretty much anything right now.”

It bothered Beau more than he let on. He liked being here, on Brax’s land, close to nature, in a place where no one could touch him. It let him remember the best times of his life when he and his grandfather would go out to mend fences together then stay over for a camp-out.

He missed those uncomplicated days. Missed his once uncomplicated life. But the complications came from so many directions now—some of his doing, some from Brax’s physical condition. Too many bitter pills to swallow.

“That’s why I’m going out for the night. Brax and I need some space. There’s too much conflict going on in the house and it’s not good for him.”

“Not good for you either.”

“But I’m not trying to recover from a stroke.”

“A little space might be good. I’ll give you that. But what if Nell decides that tonight’s her night? Or there’s a medical emergency?”

“Call me.” He patted the pocket of his chambray shirt, where his cellphone was tucked away. “Or come get me in the helicopter.” Yes, Brax had a helicopter. A necessity in these spread-out parts for a GP who still made house calls. “And I’m fine to be out there by myself, brooding about my life and all the things I can’t fix, so quit worrying about me, OK?” Actually, he was looking forward to going up to his spot to contemplate his past, present, even his future. Because right now it was one big blur, and he wasn’t sure about any of it.

“You up on the ridge all alone, your grandfather holed up in his study all alone … Like I said, different pods, same peas.”

Beau chuckled, and patted Joey on the back. “Leave me the hell alone, will you? The last thing I need is all that perception hanging around me, making too much sense.” The truth was, he was still in a wallowing mood, and he’d become damned good at it.

“You’re not going to find a better view anywhere in Sugar Creek,” Kelli Dawson said, as she pushed back the double doors and invited Deanna to step outside onto the porch to the see the view. Kelli was the rental agent, giving Deanna the grand tour of her home for the next month. “Hot tub in the left corner, porch swing in the right. And look at everything you can see from here.”

It was breathtaking, Deanna did have to admit. And the photos Kelli had e-mailed didn’t do this cabin justice. “But you’re going to sell it?”

“I’m just the listing agent. My client wants to sell, but it’s been on the market a year now and nobody’s interested. Sugar Creek is a nice town, but it’s small, too isolated. Our doctor here has to use a helicopter to make house calls.”

Braxton Alexander was the doctor, but she needed to hear it acknowledged. “Your doctor is …?”

“Doc Brax. Wonderful man. Everybody loves him.” That was encouraging. It was nice to know the baby’s daddy was liked. “He’s been an institution here for ever. Delivered most of the babies around here. Including me!”

No way …! According to the donor card, Braxton Alexander was thirty-six. Was she chasing after the wrong person? Wasting her time, not to mention her emotional investment, in the wrong place?

“And he’s still delivering babies?”

“Not since his stroke. He recovered from it pretty well. Needs a cane sometimes to help him get around better. But I’d still let him be my doctor if he hadn’t quit, because his mind’s as sharp as ever. By the time my grandpa was Doc Brax’s age, he was forgetful and he just seemed so withered up. But Doc Brax looks good for his age, and Joey, the man who runs Braxton Acres, says he’ll be able to get rid of his cane any day now.”

“How old is Doc Brax?”

“Seventy-five, I think. Could be seventy-six.”

Not the baby’s daddy, then, unless the sperm bank had got that wrong, too. “He’s the only doctor in this area?”

“He was, until his grandson Braxton, known as Beau took over. Good doctor, but not friendly like his grandfather. People don’t think he likes being back here … He used to be the town troublemaker when he was a kid. But he does what he’s supposed to now, and he’s as good as his grandfather, so the rest of it doesn’t really matter.” Her smile widened.

“Upstairs you’ll find the game room and TV. Downstairs you’ll find the laundry and a couple of extra bedrooms. And on this level … you’ve seen it all. The kitchen, the great room. Oh, and there’s a whirlpool in the master suite.”

“It’s lovely,” Deanna said absently, her mind still on the Braxton Alexander who’d fathered Emily’s baby. Good doctor a plus, lacking in personality a minus. Troublemaker as a kid an even bigger minus! “I think everything will suit me just fine.”

“You can call out for groceries, too. Number’s by the phone. If you want to hole up for the entire month and never leave, you can. So, what was it you said you were going to do? Write a book?”

Sugar Creek, where everybody knew everybody else’s business. That could work to her advantage, or against it. One way or the other, she was going to have to be very careful here, because her business was nobody else’s. “Something like that.”

“Well, if you find yourself craving company, my office is on the main street. Stop by any time. We can have lunch or I can show you around. There’s not much to do here so it’s always nice to make new friends.”

She liked Kelli. Maybe under other circumstances they might have been friends. But she wasn’t here about friendship, wasn’t here to have lunches or insert herself into the local culture. This trip was only about finding out what kind of man had fathered Emily’s baby, and once her curiosity was satisfied, she’d leave. Hopefully she would return to the larger apartment her own real estate agent was scouting for her right now. Another of those life changes happening too fast.

After hastily unpacking and tossing a few articles of clothing on the bed rather than hanging them, Deanna fixed herself a pitcher of lemonade and headed out to the porch swing. This was her next month: sitting, watching, hoping to learn. So why not start it now?

“They say your daddy isn’t too personable,” she said, laying her hand protectively over her belly as she lowered herself into the swing. “But that doesn’t really matter, does it? Not to either of us. I want you and love you, so it’s going to be fine even if he is an old grump.” Although somehow she’d wanted him to be pleasant, and she was a little disappointed by the prospect that he wasn’t. “So what else are we going to discover?”

The truth was, now that she was here, she was scared about it, and feeling more alone than she ever had in her life. “But we’ll get through it,” she said. “I always do.” A fact that scared her even more because, for the first time since she’d agreed to carry this baby, she realized she didn’t want to do it alone. But alone was what she was.

So very alone. And nothing could fix that. “So now I’m going to cry,” she said as the tears welled in her eyes. “Damn the hormones.” And the loneliness.

CHAPTER TWO

IT UNVEILED ITSELF before her eyes, almost in slow motion. Even from her mountaintop perch she saw the beginning of it, two cars climbing up the modestly steep highway leading into town, one in the front, one bringing up the rear at a safe distance.

Nothing out of the ordinary except the deer that darted out in front of the first car then paused in the middle of the road to stare at its would-be attacker, and run safely off to the other side. All this while the first car swerved to avoid it then jammed on its brakes, sending it into a fishtail that caused it to cut in and out, from lane to lane, over the center line, then whip back to the other side. Correcting and over-correcting to right itself.

That’s when the full realization of what she was witnessing grabbed hold and propelled her off the swing and right up to the rail of the porch for a better look. And as that horrible realization sank in deeper, and the second car jammed on its brakes to avoid the veering of the first car, her hand crept to her pocket and her fingers wrapped around her cellphone as the second car braked too hard and skidded … and skidded … and skidded …

A sickening crunch of metal permeated the mountain air, one so hideous it caused a roost of black birds in a far-off tree to flee their sanctuary with great protest and screeching. Holding her breath, Deanna didn’t divert her eyes from the road below as her fingers slid over the phone’s smooth face. She glanced down just long enough to see the numbers to push, and pushed.

Then, as she looked back down the side of the mountain, the second car was flipping, side over side, repeatedly hitting the pavement. Its course to the edge of the road clear, the clutching in her heart turning to a stabbing pain. “Dear God,” she murmured, as the emergency dispatcher came on.

“This is 911, what’s your emergency?”

“No,” Deanna cried in a strangled scream, hoping God or somebody would hear her and stop the second car’s inevitable plummet over the side of the mountain.

“What’s your emergency?” the dispatcher asked again, followed by, “Miss Lambert, are you all right? Please, can you hear me?”

Hearing her name snapped her back into the moment. “Yes, I’m here, and I’m watching a wreck in progress. Two cars …” She glanced left, to the semi heading down the mountain, its driver not yet able to see what was ahead. “And maybe a semi, if it doesn’t get stopped in …” Her voice trailed off as she watched the second act unfold.

“Where, Miss Lambert?”

Again, hearing her name from the dispatcher jolted her. “It’s a road I can see from my porch, but I don’t know its name. I’m in my cabin …”

“Above the Clouds,” the dispatcher supplied, then asked, “South porch?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me, exactly, what kind of damage or injuries we might be looking at?”

Massive, devastating injuries, she thought. “Yes. One of the cars has just gone through the guardrail and over the edge. And the other …” She swallowed hard. “It hit the guardrail a few times and it’s still trying to correct itself on the road … I think the truck coming from the other direction’s going to hit it.”

Whether or not the driver of the semi saw the impending disaster ahead, or simply assumed the car careening head first at him in his lane would move over, Deanna had no idea, but the excruciating squeal of the semi’s brakes and the low wail of the truck’s horn was what snapped her totally out of the surreal watching mode and into action.

“I know exactly where it is,” the dispatcher said, “and I’ve sent out an alarm to the volunteer fire department. They’ll be there as fast as they can.”

How long would that be? In a study concerning rural emergency response times Deanna had conducted last year, she’d discovered that those waiting times could be fatally long—sometimes thirty minutes, up to an hour. And from what she’d just witnessed, there were people down below who needed help before that. “What about the local doctor?” she asked. “Can we call him?”

“He’s out mending fences right now, but I’ll give his grandpa a call and see what we can do to get him there. Kelli Dawson’s my daughter, by the way. And I know this is probably not the best time to say this, but welcome to Sugar Creek, Miss Lambert.”

She heard the cordial greeting, but it wasn’t registering because … “Oh, my … No!” The semi didn’t hit the oncoming car, as she’d thought it might, but in its attempt to do a hard brake, it jackknifed and turned over, sliding on its side along the road.

And the car swerved right into it, hit the back end of its trailer with full-on force, bringing both the truck and the car to a stop. “More casualties,” she informed Kelli’s mother. “Two cars and one semi now. Can’t see how many people …” Wasn’t sure she wanted to see how many people.

But after she’d clicked off from the dispatcher, curiosity got the better of her and she grabbed her binoculars, took a look. Nobody was moving. No one was trying to climb out of the carnage. No one was trying to climb up the side of the mountain from where they’d toppled off.

And there was no one there to help. That’s what scared her the most. People down there needed help and she prayed they weren’t past the point where help mattered.

Without a thought for anything else, Deanna grabbed her medical kit, one she carried out of habit more than necessity, and sprinted for her car. She backed it out and headed down the steep road, making sure not to speed lest she ended up like one of the cars below. At the turn-off to the highway, she slowed to let a minivan by, made a left-hand turn and headed for the crash site, hoping help would be there when she arrived.

But the minivan was the only car present, and the woman driving it was standing outside her vehicle, torn between running to look for victims and trying to subdue three small children in the rear of the van. Her cellphone was in her hand and she was physically standing in front of the van’s door. Was she trying to block the view from her children? Deanna wondered about that as she pulled alongside the van, waved to the woman, then continued to drive into the heart of the scene.

It’s what she would do, she realized. She would protect Emily’s baby from seeing what she herself was about to confront. She absolutely understood that mothering priority. She wasn’t sure she’d respond that way in a crisis out of a natural tendency but, looking at it from a purely practical point of view, there was no denying the minivan mom was doing what she had to do. Something Deanna hoped she would learn when she became a mom.

As Deanna brought her car to a stop, several hundred yards short of the crash site, her cellphone jingled before she had a chance to step out. “You’re a nurse?” the deep voice practically shouted. He sounded winded.

“I am. And who are you?”

“Local doctor. Beau …”

She wasn’t even going to ask how he knew who she was, that she was a nurse, her cellphone number … “Your ETA?”

“Five minutes, tops. But without supplies. You’re on the site already?”

How did he know that? “Just got here. Don’t know how many victims yet.”

“OK, you go see what we’ve got and I’ll keep the line open, Miss Lambert. And please start the assessments, establish the priority if you can, figure out what I need to do first, and I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

He knew her name, too. And trusted her to prioritize the scene? She hadn’t done that in a while. Hadn’t been in active practice for years. Maybe if she’d told him that, he wouldn’t be so trusting of her.

Those were the thoughts that stayed with her for the next seconds as she grabbed her medical bag, switched her phone to her earpiece, and headed straight for the first car. “I’m not sure we’re cut out for small-town life,” she whispered to Emily’s baby as she went straight to the driver’s-side window of the car that had hit the semi, and looked in.

“In case you’re listening, Doctor, I have a red sedan embedded in the back of the semi’s trailer. Inside, three people. Male, mid-twenties, driver. Female passenger, approximately same age. Both unconscious. Airbags not deployed. No seat belts. From what I can see, both have had head contact with the windshield, profuse cranial bleeding both victims. Not seeing movement of any kind. And back seat …”

She bent, took a closer look, and was hit with a cold chill. “Child, age approximately three. No child seat. No seat belt. And …” she pulled open the car door and kneeled inside “… he’s conscious.”

“Stay with the child, Miss Lambert. Do you hear me? Stay with the child. I’m a minute away.”

Not that she would have left this little boy. “Hello,” she said, crawling all the way in. Instinctively, she reached over the front seat, took the driver’s pulse. Found nothing. “My name is Deanna,” she said to the toddler. He was curled up in a ball on the floor, looking at her with huge blue eyes that registered shock and terror and total confusion. “Can you tell me your name?”

Crawling across the seat until she was above the little boy, she leaned forward until she could get a good positioning on the female passenger’s neck and, again, felt no pulse. “Can you tell me where you hurt?” Were his parents both dead? Admittedly, she wasn’t in the best position to make assessments on the couple, so she wasn’t making any assumptions.

“No pulses detected,” she said to the vague voice on the phone. “Nothing affirmative, though. I’m not at a good angle to tell.”

“But you’re in the car?” he asked.

“Yes, with the child.”

“Is the car safe? No fuel leaking, nothing that looks like it’s going to ignite? Not close to the edge of the road?”

“Front end’s a mangled mess, but I’m safe.” She was pleased he actually sounded concerned.

“No chances, Miss Lambert. You keep yourself safe. Do you hear me?”

Yes, she heard him. “I have every intention of doing just that, Doctor,” she replied. To get Emily’s baby safely into the world, she would take no risks.

“Is the child injured? Can you tell if he’s hurt?”

“Can’t tell yet. I’m trying to check, but it’s cramped in here.” Cramped, even without her baby bump. She wondered how, in months to come, she was going to maneuver with a baby bump. “We’ll just have to wait and see how that works out,” she said to Emily’s baby.

“Yes, I suppose we will have to see how it works out. In the meantime, I’m coming up behind you, so hold tight.”

Startled that she’d been caught talking to Emily’s baby, she glanced over her shoulder to see exactly where he might be behind her and there he was, larger than life … a cowboy riding her way. Actually, galloping. On a horse. OK, so maybe not a real cowboy in the Western movie sense but he was certainly a doctor on a horse who gave her an unexpected chill. And he was also a big, imposing figure of a man. Jeans, T-shirt, boots. Sexy. “Other casualties?” he shouted, as he slid off the horse and ran straight towards her.

Deanna shook herself out of her observation, out of the pure fascination that was overrunning her, displacing the fugitive fantasy with the reality. “Um … don’t know. We’ve got a car over the side, about two hundred yards back …” She pointed to the black skid marks snaking across the road for a hundred yard stretch. “And a truck. Don’t know anything about the driver. Haven’t had a chance to go over there to see him yet.”

The doctor, Beau, crowded into the back seat of the car right behind her and nudged her forward most of the way to the opposite door then twisted around and proceeded to wedge himself between the back seat and the front. Doing his own assessments, as Deanna attempted to make herself more accessible to the boy, who’d curled even tighter into a ball.

After mere seconds he sucked in a sharp breath, which Deanna heard, and understood.

“How about we get the child out of here?” Beau asked. “There’s nothing here he needs to see.”

Even though she had been prepared to hear the words, the implication hit her hard. “Both of them?” she asked.

“Both of them.” He began to back out of the car, pulling his massive form out of the too-small space. “How about you? Are you OK in there?”

“Don’t have a choice,” she said, as she began the struggle to lift the boy from the floor and at the same time assess him for injuries she might not have seen right off. The truth was, nothing about this was OK. But it wasn’t about her feelings or memories. Or any inherent fears she might have for what this child was about to face.

“Then I’m going round to the truck. Janice Parsons, standing over at the minivan, said she’ll look after the boy if we need her to, so shout if you need anything else, OK?”

If she needed anything else? She needed everything, including a way out of this. Her parents, Emily … it was all closing in around her. Smothering her. “Oh, and the dispatcher said she’d get the volunteer fire department out. But I don’t know how long that’s going to take.”

“Too long,” Beau shouted, his voice diminishing even before his words were all out. “Damn problem with all of this. It always takes too long!”

Deanna rose up and took a quick glance out the window, just enough to see him run behind the truck, and while she knew she wasn’t alone here, that’s how she felt. Amazing how twenty seconds crammed together in a car with him had bolstered her self-confidence.

“So, is your name Tommy?” she asked the child, as she gently moved in to take his pulse. Strong, a little too fast. But he was scared. “Or Billy?” She wiggled her hand from his and brushed long, curly blond locks from his forehead, then took a look into his eyes as best she could. Pupils equal and reactive. “Or Porcupine?” Counted his respirations—normal.

“Not Porcupine,” he finally said.

She was so relieved to hear his voice. “If it’s not Porcupine, is it … Bulldog?”

“Not Bulldog,” he said, tears welling up in his eyes.

She began a gentle prodding of his limbs, no heightened pain sensitivity noted. Then his belly. Not rigid, no distension. “Kangaroo?” she asked, trying to move him slightly to his side to make sure nothing was sticking into him in any way, like shards of glass from the shattered windshield or objects that might have flown around the car. But he was clear of everything, and she was beginning to wonder if he’d been curled up on the floor of the car when this had happened. Maybe asleep?

He whimpered something Deanna didn’t understand but which she took to be him asking for his mommy. Glancing over the seat to the lifeless form, she drew in a ragged breath. “Mommy needs to rest right now. So does Daddy. So I’m going to open this car then we’ll get out very quietly so we won’t disturb them. Will you help me do that, Kangaroo?”

“Not Kangaroo.”

“Is it Hippopotamus?” she asked, as she pushed on the car door then climbed out. “Or Walrus?”

Leaning back in, she scooped the boy into her arms and lifted him away from the wreckage, taking great care to make sure his face was buried in her shoulder. What an awful thing, seeing your parents that way and having that memory linger as your last memory of them. Her parents had died this way, in a car wreck. But she hadn’t been in the car, and her very last recollection of them was the hugs and kisses they had given her when they’d dropped her off at her aunt and uncle’s house. Hugs, kisses, and I love yous shouted from the car window as they’d pulled away from the curb … “I personally like Cheetah, or Chimpanzee.”

“It’s Lucas,” the child said, but so quietly it was more a muffled sob than a word.

Did he know? Did he have some innate feeling that he’d just become an orphan? She hadn’t when it had happened to her. In fact, it had taken months to sink in, months in which she’d spent every minute she could with her face pressed to the window, watching for them to come back.

Deanna didn’t know about Lucas, though. Didn’t know if he had an innate feeling, or just plain knew, because she didn’t know a thing about children. She’d never been around them except for a few mandatory clinical rotations through pediatrics, and she’d certainly never planned on having them herself. She’d never been struck with that maternal urge the way Emily had. While it had defined her cousin, it had eluded her. So motherhood had never been included in her life plan—a decision she’d been fine with.

Of course, Emily’s baby changed all that. Still, she wasn’t consumed with an innate sense of motherhood the way she’d expected to be, the way she’d seen it in so many other women she’d known. The way Janice Parsons was when she bundled Lucas into her arms so protectively the instant Deanna handed him over to her.

“I think he’s OK,” she said, a little envious of the way the boy went from her embrace to someone else’s so easily. Hadn’t she snuggled him the right way? “His name is Lucas, and I’ll have the doctor do another exam on him as soon as he can. In the meantime, if you could …”

There was no sense in finishing the sentence. Janice’s mothering instincts were on full alert as she turned Lucas away from the wreckage. All that natural tendency—a beautiful thing to see, really. “Don’t give him anything to eat or drink,” she said, taking one last look at the boy then at Janice, envying the way she exuded motherliness from every pore.

Would that ever be her?

That thought plagued her as she ran over to the edge of the road where the guardrail was smashed and broken, then looked down. Thank God, the drop-off to the first ledged area was barely more than a hundred feet. Sure, it was a long distance if you were in the car going over it, but the distance was short enough that she was cautiously optimistic.

“Hello,” she shouted. “Can anybody hear me?”

The response was one staccato honk, which came as pure relief. But also frustration, knowing she couldn’t make that climb down. Thank heavens some kind of natural instinct had kicked in and kept her planted on terra firma, because her natural inclination would have had her over the side before she’d even given it a thought. She still wondered, though, if that instinct would be enough in the long term because, dear God, everything in her wanted her to go over that edge.

“Help’s on the way,” she shouted, actually taking a step backwards. “Please, don’t move. And if you have a cellphone …” She called out her number and actually stood there for a second, waiting for a call back. Which didn’t come. “I’m going to go get the doctor. We also have the fire department on the way. So don’t give up. We’re going to get you out of there in a few minutes.”

“Truck driver’s wedged,” Beau said, the instant Deanna rounded the front of the truck. He was standing on the asphalt, looking through the windshield at the driver, who was stuck fast between the steering-wheel and the seat. “Internal injuries, some bleeding. Broken arm. Mangled leg … not sure if it can be saved. Head trauma but conscious. Strong possibility of hemorrhagic shock once we get him out. I can’t do anything about it until we have more help.

“I’d stay in there with him but it’s too tight and I don’t want to risk slipping or moving the wrong way and hurting him more than he already is.”

“We’ve got survivors in the car that went over,” she said, trying to sound positive.

“Were you able to get down there?” he asked, his eyes glued to what was visible of the man in the truck.

“No, but someone honked.”

“So all we need is …”

“Everything,” Deanna said. “All we need is everything.” She studied the man next to her for a moment. Mid-thirties, but with some lines etched in his face. Dark brown hair, a bit over the collar and wavy. Brown eyes. The kinds of things that would have been included on the sperm-donor card—had there been a donor card. But in addition to the sperm switch, the donor card had gone missing.

What wouldn’t have been described on that card, though, was the kindness she saw in his eyes. From that, she was drawn in immediately. Not that his good looks alone couldn’t have done it but those were an added bonus, gave her some hope for the way Emily’s child might look. “My name is Deanna Lambert. But I’m betting you already knew that, didn’t you?”

He smiled, although he didn’t even glance in her direction. “You’re renting a cabin here for a month to do some medical writing. Live in New York City otherwise.”

“And my zodiac sign?”

He chuckled. “Give me ten more minutes and I’ll not only tell you your zodiac sign, I’ll describe your high-school graduation in detail.”

“That bad here?” she asked.

“Or good, depending on your point of view. The people here describe it as caring and, for the most part, I think that’s right.” Finally, he glanced at her, but for only a second. “I’m Beau Alexander, by the way. Local and possibly temporary doctor, aspiring horse breeder, mender of fences.”

She’d known who he was, but hearing the name—from him—still shocked her, made her reason for being here even more real. Scared her, too. Most of all it made her feel sad, thinking about the way such a happy pregnancy was turning out. “I think I may be renting the cabin above your ranch.”

“Above the Clouds. Nice view. Been up there a couple of—”

His words were cut off by the ringing of Deanna’s cellphone, and without thinking she clicked it on. Listened for a second. Drew in a deep breath. “It’s the people in the car,” she said to Beau.

“What?”

“I gave them my cellphone number in case they wanted to call me. So they’re calling.”

“Damn,” he muttered, impressed with her resourcefulness. More than that, impressed with everything he’d seen of her so far. “Good thinking.”

“Only thing that came to mind. So, do you want to do this?”

He shook his head. “Got to stay focused on the driver, and I have to go back into the truck as soon as the fire department shows up and can keep the door open for me.” The distant wail of several sirens caused him to sigh in relief.

“They’re at Turner’s Points now … you can tell by the echo. Turner’s is the first place in the canyon that catches the sound like that. And it means they’ll be here in about five minutes.” He ran up to the truck windshield and gave the man a thumbs-up then turned back to Deanna, who was already on her way back to the side of the road where the car had gone over.

“Deanna,” he shouted to her, “direct the medical end of the rescue when they get here, because when I get back into the truck I’m not getting out until after my patient does.” Meaning he was going to have to wedge himself into a damned uncomfortable spot practically underneath the man, and stay put. He had to brace the man’s leg, hopefully apply some kind of a splint, before they could move him, and at the same time keep his fingers crossed that the driver would survive the efforts to cut him out of there.

He glanced back at her, watched the way she instructed the paramedics who’d just arrived. He observed her body language, her no-nonsense stance, and liked her instantly. He wished he could have someone like her working alongside him every day.

“Hire someone like Deanna,” he grunted, more to himself than out loud as he hauled himself up the side of the truck after two firefighters had dismantled the door for him and tossed it down on the road like it weighed no more than a plastic water bottle.

“Couldn’t hurt,” he said under his breath as he reached the top then started to lower himself back inside. “Might even help.”

Considering the way he and his grandfather were battling over how to run a medical practice, he was pretty sure that having someone capable like Deanna involved would be another of the old man’s objections. But Beau had to have his say in the matter if he was going to stay here permanently. And having a nurse or a medical assistant seemed like a good idea.

He’d known her for only a few minutes yet he wanted Deanna. Snap judgment and right fit, he believed. But he’d heard she was only renting for a month, which meant she wasn’t staying in Sugar Creek. So now the problem was that Deanna had become the only person who flitted across his mind’s eye when he thought about hiring another staffer. And she was such a nice fit he wasn’t sure how to alter that image.

“Well, Mack, this ought to be pretty easy, once I get you splinted up,” he said, trying to sound optimistic in order to bolster the truck driver’s spirits.

“Don’t think it’s going to be easy, Doc. But I’m willing to give it a try. Need to be home later … wife’s having a few friends over for dinner. It’s my granddaughter’s fifth birthday. Don’t want to miss that.”

“Just one granddaughter?” Beau asked, looking through the windshield at Deanna, still admiring what he saw. Striking woman. Tall. Hair the color of honey. Very subdued, though. Here, in the middle of this accident, showing so much command, she had such a sense of calmness about her. It baffled him because, as experienced as he was as a surgeon, he was still feeling the adrenalin rush.

“Just the one.” he said. “Got a grandson, though, who just turned two. You a family man, Doc? You got kids?”

“Nope. Had a wife for a while. It didn’t work out. Glad now we didn’t get around to having children because she was …” he did a quick visual assessment of Mack as he climbed past him then lowered himself to a position almost underneath him “… selfish. And that’s being kind.” Pulling a flashlight from his pocket, he looked at the man’s leg for a second time. Definitely a fractured tibia. Not mangled but also not good.

“Married her for her looks, got what I deserved because when you got past the looks all that was there was pure, unadulterated selfishness.” For all intents and purposes.

“That bad, eh, Doc?”

“Bad doesn’t even begin to describe it,” Beau said, shifting position but trying to keep well away from his patient. Outside, he could hear the noise level increasing, multiple voices shouting. “Next time …” He drew in a shuddering breath. “No next time. At least, not for a long, long time.”

Mack chuckled then sucked in a sharp breath. “I got lucky the first time out,” he said, his voice noticeably weaker than it had been even a minute before. “Married the perfect woman, had thirty-five good years so far. Hoping I’ll have a few …” Another gasp for air. “A few more.”

I hope so too, Beau said to himself as a blanket dropped down from the door opening.

“Cover you two up,” the burly voice shouted. “Windshield’s coming out next.”

Seconds after that the windshield had gone, and Beau was amazed by the speed with which everything was happening. He’d never worked a rescue from this end of it, and he wondered how many times over the years his grandfather had been called on to do something like this. It was a side of Brax he’d never considered, and he felt embarrassed that he hadn’t. “Need a splint in here,” he called. “And MAST trousers.”

“What can I do from out here?” Deanna yelled to him from just beyond the front of the truck. “I’ve got rescuers setting up to go over the side right now to help the people in the car, and I’m not needed there until they bring them up. So what can I do for you in the meantime?”

“Oxygen, IV set-up … fast fluids.”

“Already got them set up.”

“Possible field amp.” No way he was going to say “amputation” where the patient could hear, but if internal injuries didn’t turn into an issue, the mangled leg might. “You OK with that?” he asked.

“Sure, I’m OK. I’ll get everything together,” she said, turning and running back to the rescue truck.

“She’s a pretty one, too, Doc,” Mack said, his voice almost gone now. “Better watch out.”

Mack was right. Deanna was already fascinating him way more than she should. “Look, Mack, this is going to be a little tricky because of the way you’re wedged in. Your right leg is pretty bad, and you might have a fractured pelvis. Not sure what we’re going to do about those yet because I think you could also have some internal bleeding going on because of the way the steering-wheel is shoved into your belly.”

He glanced up as one of the medics fresh to the scene dangled into the door opening, endeavoring to take the driver’s blood pressure. “Since you’re pressed so tight against the wheel, it’s serving as a pressure bandage of sorts, keeping the blood circulating to your vital organs. But once the wheel is removed, there’s a good chance you’re going to experience a major internal hemorrhage.” A mild understatement as once he was unwedged, the fight would be on to save him.

“So there’s going to be some surgery in your future as soon as we can get you to the hospital. Right now, because you’re in shock, you’re not feeling so much pain. But in another minute, when we make the big move to get you out of here … I’m not going to lie to you. It’s going to hurt like hell. But that pretty nurse out there’s got an IV with your name on it, and she’s ready to get some painkillers into you. Are you with me so far?”

“Doesn’t sound like a picnic, Doc. But I’m with you.”

“Good, because it’s going to happen pretty fast now.” He watched Deanna direct the stretcher to just outside the truck then recheck the supplies laid out for this part of the rescue. Sill cool as the proverbial cucumber, she was the only one involved here who didn’t seem frantic.

“Can I ask you one favor, Doc?”

“Sure. What is it?”

“Somewhere in the back I’ve got a birthday present for my granddaughter. However this turns out, would you see that she gets it?”

A lump formed in Beau’s throat. “How about I save it for you to give to her?” he said. “And I’ll tell her to save you some birthday cake.”

“Appreciate it, Doc. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to call my wife …”

“You talk while I splint your leg and get you ready to move.” He didn’t want to hear the conversation, it would be too personal.

So he bit his lower lip hard to create a distraction for himself and quickly splinted Mack’s lower leg, trying to block out the way Mack was trying to be supportive to his wife even though he was the one in critical condition. Trying to block out thoughts of Nancy, who didn’t have it in her to think of anyone but herself in a critical situation.

Pulling the last elastic bandage into place around Mack’s splint, Beau started to withdraw himself from the cab to allow the standby firefighters and medics their turn with him. “OK, let’s get you out of here and on the next helicopter to the hospital. You with me?”

Mack’s cellphone dropped to the floor, which was actually the passenger-side door, and as Beau twisted to grab it for him, he saw the wrapped birthday present and grabbed it as well. Something soft, a stuffed animal, he guessed.

“Deanna,” he yelled, then tossed it out for her to catch. “Mack, cross your arms over your chest and let the medics do all the work. And, please, don’t fight against them.” After one last check to make sure Mack was as stable as possible, Beau unwedged himself all the way and practically poured out of the front of the truck, bouncing off the hood then hitting the ground with a thump, landing rather ungraciously on his bum right at Deanna’s feet.

“You OK?” she asked, extending a hand to him to help him up.

“No, I’m not,” he snapped, taking hold of her hand—such soft skin—and righting himself. “Sorry. I’m OK, but my patient …” He shrugged then looked back at the truck as the firefighters cut away large chunks of the truck to get at its driver.

“Look, Beau, I don’t do this too often … patient care. Especially trauma and field rescue. But I understand the basics, we’re as ready for him as we can be. So just tell me what I need to be doing.”

He nodded. “What about the car that went over?”

“Both people inside are injured, one conscious, one not. Until the rescuers get into the car, we won’t know any more.”

“OK, then.” He looked at the MAST trousers, which Deanna had laid out on the ground and opened up all the way. They were essentially the same as a blood-pressure cuff, with all the same sticky fasteners, gauges and tubes running in and out to blow them up. If knowing how to get them ready was what Deanna called the basics, she was greatly underestimating herself. “Let’s do this.”

Giving a nod to the rescuers in the truck, who were awaiting his direction, Beau stepped away from the trousers to allow the rescuers a clear path then turned to watch them cut away the steering-wheel and dashboard, almost in the blink of an eye.

In that same blink of an eye his patient ripped out the most blood-curdling scream imaginable. Beau drew in a shuddering breath and felt the squeeze of Deanna’s hand on his arm. “I hate this,” he whispered. “Damn, I hate this.”

“I’ve got morphine ready.”

Another awful scream and her squeeze tightened. “If he lives that long.”

“He’ll live that long.” Deanna dropped to her knees as the firefighters ran forward and laid the driver directly atop the open trousers. Immediately she began to pull one of the legs over Mack’s left leg, while Beau did the same with the right, and in a fraction of a second, they were both closing the fasteners.

There was another scream from Mack but this one weaker, and at the end of it he passed out. “Stay with us,” Beau said, as he pumped pressure into the trousers. “You’ve got birthday cake to eat.”

“Birthday cake?” Deanna asked, without diverting her attention from the site she was cleaning on Mack’s arm for an IV.

“His granddaughter’s birthday. You’re not bad for a writer, by the way. Pretty good skill sets in the field.”

“Not bad for a writer who’s putting an IV in someone who doesn’t have a blood pressure,” Deanna corrected, then smiled as she slid the needle into the vein near the crook of Mack’s left arm.

“Do you like working trauma?” he asked, still astounded by her efficiency.

After she had taped the IV in place, she glanced over at Beau, who was listening to heart and breath sounds. “Don’t dislike it. Not sure I’d want a steady diet of it, though.” Returning her attention to her patient, she attached the IV tubing then hooked that to a bag of Ringer’s, which would help replace fluid volume lost through bleeding. “And you?”

“Surgeon, by training. Country GP … by obligation. Maybe by choice, but I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

“Ah, two diverse worlds with just as diverse appeals.” She signaled for the medic to hand her an oxygen mask then placed it on Mack’s face.

“Maybe too diverse,” he said, leaning over Mack to check his eyes for pupillary response. “Not sure where I fit yet.”

“Which is why you’re here?”

“I’m here because my grandfather isn’t able to manage his practice any longer, and there’s no one else to take care of his patients until I decide if I want to stay or bring somebody else in. He needed me, even though the old coot isn’t about to admit it.”

“Am I sensing family discord?”

“More like family stubbornness.” He pushed himself away from Mack, then stood up and waved for the medics to take the man. “Not such an endearing trait, I’ve been told.”

“So now what?” she asked, as she also stood, then stepped back. “An hour or so to the hospital? Will he be able to do that in his condition”

“Less, by helicopter.”

“If you can get one. Airlift in areas such as this isn’t always convenient when you need it.”

“Unless you own a helicopter.”

She arched her eyebrows. “I’m impressed.”

“I was too when my grandfather bought it. Not so much now that I have to fly it.”

“You fly?”

He shrugged. “Somebody has to. But normally I sit in the back with the patient and let Joey do the flying. He manages the ranch, tends the horses and my grandfather, flies the chopper.” Something about her made him lose all caution, and just when he thought he’d perfected the fine art of keeping his privacy at all costs. Another pretty face, he decided. Like Mack had said—watch out!

“So we’ll transport Mack to your helicopter, and …”

“And hope the people they’re going to bring up from over the edge can make do with an hour’s ride in the back of an ambulance.”

“You really are deprived out here, aren’t you?”

“Not deprived,” he said, not so much offended by her remark as curious about it. “Slowed down, forced to be inventive.”

“My mistake,” she said, following Beau, who was running along behind the medics who were ready to load Mack into the back of an ambulance that would transport him to the Alexander landing strip.

“Logical conclusion. Look, you handle the rest of it. I’ve got to go.” Which was exactly what he did. He climbed into the ambulance with Mack then watched Deanna until the doors shut on him. Even then, he stared through the tiny window until she was but a speck in the distance.

Deanna Lambert … Their paths had been meant to cross, he decided. He didn’t know why, didn’t even know what kind of medical writing she did. But it didn’t matter. Something had just started, and while he didn’t know what it was, he was anxious to find out.

CHAPTER THREE

“NICE VIEW OF my grandfather’s ranch,” Beau said, settling into the porch chair next to Deanna. He stretched out his long legs. “He used to hate it that someone up here could sit and watch what he was doing. But then he discovered the beauty of a good pair of binoculars and while I haven’t seen him actually watching anybody up here, I think it gives him a certain sense of satisfaction knowing he can look up as well as they—or you—can look down.”

“I don’t blame him. I don’t like being watched either. I spent a lot of my youth having people looking at me, trying to figure out what to do with me, and now I like to keep to myself.”

“And yet you’re a nurse?”

“Not in the sense most people would think of it but, yes, I’m a nurse.” They were seated on the north porch this morning, watching the emerging new day and trying to forget all the haunting, hideous memories from yesterday.

Her parents had died in a car wreck. Then Emily had asked, “Deanna, can I come stay with you for a few days? Alex and I had a fight and I may leave him for good.” Rainy day, emotions overpowering rational thought, horrible outcome. Deanna cringed, reliving it, not sure she ever wanted to get into another car. So she fixed her attention on the vast forest she could see from her porch. Concentrated on something pleasant, for herself but mostly for the baby. “This is lovely, though, isn’t it? So many trees. Nature everywhere you look.”

Beau chuckled. “Sounds like you’ve been cooped up too much.”

“I get out, it’s always about work, though. Never really have much time to relax and when I do, my view at home is the rooftop next door. From just the right position, which is my left shoulder pressed to the wall with my neck cranked to a forty-five-degree angle, I can look out of one of my windows and see part of the city skyline. But I usually come away with sore muscles if I do that so I keep my curtains closed.”

Of course, when she returned, she would have a new apartment, something a little farther away from the city. Maybe in a suburb, with nice playgrounds and lots of children.

Beau chuckled. “I lived in a place like that once. In medical school. One room, with a bathroom so small you had to sidestep into the shower. There were two windows, total—one with a view of the street and one with a view of a flashing red neon sign: ‘Ralph’s Packaged Liquors’. During the day, though, when it was turned off, from the right angle you could see a little park at the end of the block, with some trees. Sometimes I’d catch myself standing there, just staring at trees. I had all the trees in the world right here, never even saw them.”

It was pleasant just relaxing, enjoying the morning. And it seemed so natural it nearly made her forget she was sitting here with the baby’s father. Never mind that for the moment, she decided. She simply wanted to enjoy his company. Everything else could come later. “We all do that, I think. Take the easy, dependable things in our lives for granted. But I’m not taking this view for granted. It’s spectacular. I could sit here for hours and just look at … trees.”

“And I have an idea down there, somewhere amongst those trees, someone might be looking up here. Brax is too idle these days, doesn’t have enough to keep him busy, and he got that little glint in his eyes when I told him I was going to drop in on you.”

Impulsively, she waved in the direction of the Alexander ranch. “You should have brought him along.”

“He’s a stubborn old bastard. Fought the development up here when it happened, claimed it wouldn’t be good for his patients. And as far as I know, he’s never been up here.”

“Then he’s missing out, because the view of his ranch is stunning. Even though from here you look like ants.” She shifted, tucked her feet up under her, thought she could get used to this. “So, any word from the hospital?”

“Mack, the truck driver, did well in surgery. They saved his leg, removed his spleen, took out part of his liver. Put him in traction for his pelvis. Tough road ahead for him, lots of rehab in his future, but he’s got a good family, a huge family, actually, and they’ll get him through it.”

And all she had was this baby. Amazing, though, how the developing life inside her connected her to so much more than she could have ever expected. She and the baby might not be a large family but they’d be a good family. “Did he get any of that birthday cake?”

Beau chuckled. “Not yet. His family decided to put off the birthday celebration until he’s able to eat solid food again.”

“Good family,” she said, truly glad for the man. “And the other couple? The ones who went over the edge?”

“Lucky all the way around for them. A few sprains, strains and bruises. Husband went home this morning, but they’re keeping the wife an extra day because she had a slight concussion. And Lucas is fine, too. Social Services is looking for relatives who can take him in, but right now he’s still with Janice Parsons, the minivan driver you gave him to, and she’s going to keep him until other arrangements are made. So, how are you doing? That was a lot of effort for your first day in Sugar Creek. You look tired.”

“First day? More like first hour. And, yes, I’m tired. Didn’t sleep much last night, which means I’m paying the price for it this morning.” Stretching her back, she stifled a yawn. “But basically I’m OK. What brings you up here this early other than to see if I’m spying on your ranch? Don’t you have patients to see?”

“I save my mornings for … well, I’ll admit it. I spend time with my horses. Childhood passion I’m getting to indulge now that I’ve come back to Sugar Creek. So barring a heavy schedule or an emergency, I block out a couple of morning hours to spend time in the stables. And if there’s nothing pressing for the next hour or so, I like to do physical work on the ranch. The medical practice comes first, of course, but I believe in balance in all things, and a good part of my balance is tied to the ranch. Oh, and I do house calls in the evenings.”

“Seriously? You make house calls?”

“Comes with the job when your medical practice is so spread out. It’s necessary out here, and it gives me a chance to get off the ranch. It’s especially nice if I can ride my horse.”

“Tennessee cowboy doctor,” she commented. The image of him on a horse was … nice. “In some parts of the medical world you’d be laughed at for your old-school ways.”

“I have a surgical practice in New York and I can pretty well guarantee my patients there wouldn’t care to see me ride up on my horse.”

At his mention of New York a chill shot up her spine. That got her right back to his sperm donation—in a New York clinic—and the fact that she was carrying his baby. All of it a wet blanket effect that caused her to straighten up on the swing, kick off the casual stance and don the starched one. “Yet here you are in Sugar Creek, being a country GP. How is that working out for you?”

“Let’s just say I’m still getting used to it. Still trying to get myself settled into it after almost a year. And still trying to figure out whether or not I’ll succeed in it, as part of me is still city surgeon. But all that said, I do like the lifestyle I have here. I’ve never worked harder in my life, and never had such a sense of … freedom.”

Was this a good idea? Sitting here, actually getting to know the baby’s father—when her only intention had been to come here and observe from afar, maybe sample some of the local flavor and hope to pick up a few tidbits about him as she did. Never had she planned on … well, this!

Deanna, I don’t know what to do. I just got a phone call from the clinic. The baby you’re carrying isn’t Alex’s. There was a name mix-up. Similar names, I think.

Emily’s words had started a nightmare that had ended right here in Sugar Creek, on the porch, sitting comfortably next to her. “Yet you don’t know if you’re staying or going?”

“I love it here. Always have. But loving it and settling down here are two different things and I’m not sure if I’m cut out to be a country doctor for the rest of my life. In fact, I’d never really thought much past New York until I got the call that Brax had had a stroke and I was needed home for a while.” He shrugged. “You do what you have to do, and for now this is what I have to do.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.