LITMIR.BIZ

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      “I’m sorry. We have no overnight facilities at the clinic.”

      “I need to stay here until I can travel,” she said after a few more moments of polish-studying.

      “There are motels nearby.”

      The woman looked away, and when she looked back, there were tears in her eyes.

      “Then I’d—” She paused.

      “Yes?” Maude placed a hand on her patient’s shoulder.

      “I’d be alone.”

      Maude wondered if Cynthia Stone had ever been alone. She’d met the type, always had nannies, traveling companions, live-in servants. Never alone.

      “You wouldn’t be by yourself at the ranch. It’s such a pretty place.”

      “You know it? You know that place and about that thing he has strung across the canyon?”

      Maude smiled. She hadn’t seen Henry’s contraptions, but he had an uncanny respect for the land; she trusted him to somehow make Mountain High fit in to the natural surroundings.

      She realized Ms. Stone was waiting for a response.

      “You chose to participate in the program, didn’t you?”

      “Well—um—yes.”

      “And you paid for it?”

      “Of course.” She looked at her fingernails again. “Well, my father did.”

      Maude stepped back and folded her arms over her chest. “Then you’re the boss. Choose to participate or choose not to. They can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. You can discuss options with the people from Mountain High.”

      Cynthia Stone crossed her arms over her chest, mimicking Maude’s stance, but said nothing.

      “I’ll send in D—um—Mr. Daley.” Mr. Daley. Dr. Daley, whatever. It wasn’t her place to rat him out.

      Cynthia huffed out a derisive sound. “It won’t do any good. I don’t trust any of them. I don’t know what they think they’re doing out there in the middle of the wilderness on that horrible ranch.”

      “I’ll send him in.”

      Maude left the door slightly ajar as she exited the room. Horrible ranch. She thought many things of the ranch where she grew up, but horrible was never one of them. Not even when its isolation helped cause great harm to her sister.

      She remembered the ever-present smile on the face of her beautiful sister. A sister who had once been so smart and capable.

      “You can go in and see Ms. Stone now,” Maude said as she approached Guy Daley. “She’s convinced she needs to stay.”

      He nodded and disappeared into the treatment room.

      If he didn’t talk the woman into leaving, there was always Sheriff Potts. The imposing man with the badge had little trouble in a face-to-face confrontation. Though law enforcement was rarely needed in the small rural valley’s only clinic, the sheriff was always glad to help out—at least that’s what Doc Avery told her. He had told her a lot of things during the short two weeks she had to get acquainted with his, and now her, practice.

      Not much later, Maude looked up from the office desk where she was finishing paperwork to see Guy coming down the hallway toward her. So soon. She wondered if she’d need the sheriff after all.

      “The tech is helping her learn how to use crutches and then I’ll take her back to the ranch.”

      Maude swallowed a startled “What?” She couldn’t believe the woman in the treatment room would consent to going anywhere with him, let alone back to the ranch, and so quickly.

      “She said she’d leave because—” He paused.

      She checked to see if he was gloating.

      Holding his expression emotionless, he said, “I told her you’d make a house call.”

      She pushed up from her chair to face him. “You what? A house call? For a minor ankle injury?” She thought of the old and the infirm patients Doc Avery used to visit at home. She would gladly see those people, but Cynthia Stone didn’t fit any category of patient who might need a house call.

      “Having you come by to check up on her was the only thing that got her interested in leaving.”

      The ranch. The place she had managed, with one excuse or another, not to go back to for over ten years.

      “Tell her I won’t be there.”

      “She’s your patient,” he stated matter-of-factly, and walked out the door.

      Even after Henry most generously bought the ranch from her parents to save them from bankruptcy and to fund their retirement and her sister’s care—Maude could not make herself return.

      Soon, Mountain High’s blue van pulled up to the door.

      Yes, she did hate Guy Daley. She did so want to be bigger than that, but he made it too easy.

      Worse—

      He was forcing her hand. She should visit the ranch for her own sake. She hadn’t had the moral fortitude to go back there since she left for medical school, and had even less courage after her parents sold the ranch to Henry. Making a house call would keep her from chickening out.

      She stepped into the warm afternoon sunlight and walked over to where Guy stood looking tall and Western, not at all like a Chicago doctor, and leaning on the van’s driver’s side door with his arms crossed.

      “I’ll come,” she said as she stopped in front of him.

      He unfolded his arms and looked at her to continue.

      “Please keep an eye on Mr. Hancock. My confidence is low that he’d report any problems if he had them.”

      Guy frowned and Maude knew he wanted to ask for confidential patient information, but he didn’t, always the utmost professional. Recalling the earlier promise she’d made, she said, “He asked that I tell you he ‘didn’t just get up and run away.’ That I released him.”

      “That would be Jake.” One corner of his mouth turned up into the beginnings of what she knew to be a beguiling smile.

      Oh, yes. This was Henry Daley’s brother. Charm had poured from Henry at every turn. From his brother it had to be coaxed and, if given, was hard fought for. The only people she ever saw charm the great Dr. Daley were his brother Henry and Henry’s daughter, Lexie. For Maude, the charm had never been there.

      “I’ll come tomorrow morning.” “Solo practice” popped into her head. “Make that afternoon. Tuesday morning is office hours, there are patients for me to see.”

      “Tomorrow afternoon then.”

      She could have sworn he gave her the tiniest of bows before he reached for the sliding passenger door and made himself busy making room for Queen Cynthia.

      As Maude turned away, a sense of relief flooded through her, followed quickly by annoyance. She couldn’t let Guy Daley get to her. Much water had flowed under many bridges for both of them, and the past needed to stay in the past.

      THE NEXT MORNING, dressed in her neatly pressed blue oxford shirt and navy slacks with her lab coat over her arm, Maude entered the foyer of the Wm. Avery Clinic ready to let people see how well she could do the job. The truth be told, she was better than old Doc Avery, at least technically, and the more patients she kept alive and healthy, the more people in this valley would accept her as Dr. DeVane and forget about little Maudie.

      Arlene, the receptionist, looked up with a nervous smile. That would change, Maude knew. They’d all get used to her.

      “Good morning, Arlene.” Maude turned slowly in the empty reception area. “Are

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