LITMIR.BIZ

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than a guy’s appreciative take on a very pretty, very sexy woman.

      The surroundings were different from any office he’d ever worked in. Mercy Medical Clinic was set up in a large Victorian house that had been donated to the town years ago. The kitchen had been turned into an outpatient lab and the spacious living room now had sofas, chairs and tables for a waiting area. Bedrooms had been converted to exam rooms, and closets held medical and office supplies. That morning he’d had the two-cent tour from nurse Virginia Irvin, who was no warmer than the patients he’d seen. She was like a glacier in scrubs.

      He grabbed a cup of coffee from the break area in the small alcove near the back door that was once a mudroom, then went back down the long hallway, past the exam rooms and to his office. It was time to catch up on paperwork.

      So as not to keep patients waiting too long, there hadn’t been time to do more than look at the updated medical information form he’d asked each patient to fill out and skim the chart for drug allergies. Now he wanted to look at all the information on each person he’d seen, including notes from the physicians who’d come before him. Including “the last doctor.”

      Those words worked on his nerves like something in his eye that wouldn’t come out. Everyone he’d seen today had said it and in exactly the tone Jill used, the one that put him in the same slimy subspecies as the physician who’d run out on her and the rest of the town.

      “There you are, Doctor.”

      He looked up from the stack of charts on his desk. Mercy Medical Clinic’s nurse stood in the doorway. “Hi, Ginny.”

      “It’s Virginia.”

      Apparently only to him, because everyone who wasn’t gum on the bottom of her shoe called her Ginny. Somewhere in her late fifties or early sixties, she had silver hair cut in a pixie, blue eyes that missed nothing and no filter between her brain and her mouth. At least one knew where one stood with her. In his case, he was pretty sure she wished he was standing in Alaska. She was short on stature and long on attitude.

      “Can I ask you something, Virginia?”

      “Thought doctors knew everything. Like God.” She folded her arms over her chest, and the body language felt like a yes to his question, so he continued.

      “We just pretend to know everything. It makes the patients feel better.” Maybe self-deprecation would thaw her out.

      “Uh-huh.”

      Maybe not so much. “As a boy I spent a lot of summers here in Blackwater Lake and folks seemed a lot friendlier.”

      She looked down at him. “We’re not in the habit of being mean to kids, especially ones who are visiting.”

      “So the friendly pill wears off when that kid grows up and moves here?”

      “Something like that.”

      He was the new guy and she knew this clinic and everyone who used it inside and out, by all accounts an excellent nurse who would be difficult to replace. So he hid his frustration when he asked, “Can you be more specific?”

      The gaze she leveled at him could laser a person’s heart out. “It would help if you looked less like the good-looking actor in that space movie and more like Quasimodo.”

      Huh? There was a compliment in there somewhere, but he’d need a scalpel to remove it. “I’m not sure what you mean by that.”

      “Then I’ll explain.” She moved farther into the room. “If you were ugly as a mud fence and didn’t rent a place from Jill Beck, folks here in town would give you the benefit of the doubt. But that’s not the case. The last doctor—”

      “Didn’t stick,” he interrupted. “Jill mentioned that.”

      “She’s one of ours,” the nurse continued. “Her mother was my best friend since third grade. The last thing I said to Dottie before she died was that I’d watch out for her little girl and her grandson.”

      Adam remembered what Brewster had said and figured Virginia and the patients he’d seen today were some of the folks who’d be a whole lot not happy if Jill got hurt.

      “What happened to her mom?” he asked.

      “Breast cancer.” The woman’s mouth pulled tight as if her lips would tremble without the control.

      “I’m sorry.”

      “Me, too.”

      “The thing is, you don’t need to protect Jill from me,” Adam assured her.

      “Uh-huh.”

      The sarcastic tone said there was nothing he could say to convince her, so he wasn’t going to waste his breath trying. “Did you want something?” At her blank look, he added, “You were looking for me?”

      “Right.” The puzzled expression disappeared. “You’ve got one more patient. Little boy with a fever and sore throat. His daddy sweet-talked Liz into letting him come by.”

      Liz Carpenter was the clinic receptionist, a pretty young woman who apparently didn’t need protecting from the big, bad outsider.

      “Is he here?” Adam asked.

      “Exam room one,” the nurse answered.

      “I’ll be right there.”

      “He’s ready for you.” She turned and left his office.

      It had been a warm, September day in Blackwater Lake, Montana, but Adam felt like digging out his winter parka before seeing the patient. He left his office and walked back down the hall. Exam one was the farthest away and the others were empty, so it wasn’t hard to do the math. New doctor hazing, with a generous dose of warning tossed in.

      He pulled the chart from the plastic holder on the wall beside the door and read the patient’s name. Tyler Dixon. The last name was familiar.

      Before going in he read the medical information. Tyler was six, about the same age as C. J. Beck. Not allergic to anything. An otherwise healthy boy with a sore throat and fever. His father was Cabot Dixon, and Adam grinned as he walked inside.

      The dark-haired, dark-eyed little guy sitting on the exam table looked exactly like the boy his father had been when Adam had met him years ago. The Dixons owned the ranch where he’d gone to camp every summer and the two had become friends.

      He held out his hand. “Cab, it’s good to see you again.”

      “Adam.” The other man’s smile was sincere and friendly, a first for the day. “Heard you moved here, but didn’t think I’d have to see you in a professional way so soon.”

      “Your boy’s not feeling well?”

      “This is Tyler.”

      “I didn’t wanna miss school, but my froat hurts,” the child informed him. “And I don’t like shots.”

      “Me either.” Adam smiled as he studied the boy’s feverish eyes and flushed cheeks. “Would it be okay if I just take a peek in your throat?”

      “Just look?” The boy didn’t trust him, but that had nothing to do with Jill Beck and everything to do with being six years old.

      “I want to feel your neck, too, but it won’t hurt.”

      “Promise?”

      Adam crossed his heart and held up his palm. “Word of honor.”

      “Okay.”

      Beside the exam table on a metal tray, nurse Virginia had put out some things. He picked up the wooden tongue blade and the handheld light and told Tyler to say “ah.” Then he ran his fingers over the boy’s neck and asked the father, “Has he had a cough or runny nose?”

      “No.”

      Adam took the stethoscope from around his neck and listened to the small chest

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