LITMIR.BIZ

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marshal, but Jenny knew there wasn’t a more sincere soul on the planet than the woman now patting her on the shoulder.

      Jenny smiled back, accepting the welcome with guilty grace.

      “Thank you,” she murmured, torn between the comfort of a friendly and familiar face and feeling like a total fraud. “And thank you for all this,” she said, hoping she wouldn’t appear terribly ungrateful as she held out her filled hands. “But I really don’t think I need it.” She couldn’t afford it even if she did. She had exactly $46.08 to last until she got her first paycheck—which, if she’d calculated correctly, would be less than two hundred dollars before taxes. “Can you just bill me for taking care of my head?”

      “You do need that,” Bess informed her. Taking what Jenny held, she stuffed it into the small purse hanging by a thin strap from Jenny’s shoulder. “I know you didn’t come for an examination. Rhonda said you’re here to see the doctor. I imagine you’re wanting to know if he’s all right after helping him out last night. But that,” she said, pointing at Jenny’s forehead, “is a nasty scrape and it needs to heal properly. And don’t you worry about a bill,” she admonished. “All I did was slap a bandage on you. That antibiotic is a sample. No charge. Now, come on. You can wait for Dr. Reid in his office.”

      Bess obviously knew all about the help Jenny had given her boss. Because she did know about it, and because Jenny asked if he would be all right, the briskly efficient woman confided that she had X-rayed and wrapped his shoulder herself last evening and that he would be just fine in a couple of weeks. She offered nothing else, though, before she ushered Jenny into the office near the end of the hall, told her the doctor wouldn’t be long and closed the door behind her.

      Jenny stared at the carved panel of dark wood. She hoped desperately that she’d done the right thing coming here.

      Wishing the nerves in her stomach would stop jumping, something she’d been wishing now for weeks, she slowly faced the neat and comfortable space. Across from her, the sunshine spilling through the slatted wooden window blinds cut a pattern of shadow and light over a maple pedestal table and four bow back chairs. A coffee mug sat on the table near stacks of open medical books. At the other end of the room, a large maple desk sat in front of a wall of bookcases and a hanging fern.

      Between the warm woods, the colorful braided rug beneath the table and the old furniture, the room looked much as it always had. Quaint and rather charming in a reassuring, old-fashioned sort of way. It was only the laptop computer on the table by the books, the dish of peppermint candies on the painfully tidy desk and the wall of photos and certificates that gave any hint of the new doctor’s personality. If she were pressed for a quick assessment, she would say that the new doctor was far neater than the old one had been. More open to technology. And that he apparently possessed a sweet tooth.

      That small weakness would have made her smile had she not felt so anxious. Too restless to stand still, wondering how long she would be left to pace, she moved toward the desk with its single file neatly centered on the blotter and pens standing upright like good little soldiers in their holder. As she did, she absently pushed back her bangs, and promptly bumped into the bandage Bess had more or less slapped onto her forehead.

      With everything else she’d had on her mind, the abrasion and her bruises truly had been of the least consequence. In no time the soreness would go away. The scrape and bruises would heal. The other damage done to her life felt infinitely more immediate and would take far longer to remedy.

      She couldn’t believe Greg had actually asked Bess to check on her. With her faith in the human species, men in particular, sorely shaken, she’d almost forgotten that every man wasn’t out just for himself.

      That’s just the kind of man he is. If someone needs help, he sees that he gets it.

      She let her hand fall. It had seemed so much easier to ignore what had happened to her yesterday morning without the chunk of white gauze that undoubtedly made the little injury that much more noticeable. It had been as if by ignoring the abrasion and bruises, she could ignore the incident. She knew she was playing ostrich, but she simply didn’t have the mental energy to deal with the assault and thwarted robbery on top of everything else. Not when she was trying so desperately to focus her energy on something—anything—positive.

      Needing to focus on something positive now, she thought about Dora Schaeffer. Dora, bless her, had given her back her old part-time job at the café. She was feeling exceedingly grateful to the older woman when she turned to the wall beside her.

      The ivory-colored wall was covered with a collage of photos. Many were large, matted photographs of the area’s flaming fall foliage, stands of bare birch trees in pristine fields of snow, apple trees blossoming in the spring. Most were photos of the local Little League team and individual players with gap-toothed grins. Snapshots of babies, some held by their proud parents, obliterated a bulletin board. A child’s handmade Valentine, its paper lace doily curling, dangled from one corner.

      A black-framed diploma hung near the edge of the wall. Its placement by a state medical board certificate and a medical license seemed almost incidental, as if it were displayed only because convention or law required it.

      It seemed that Gregory Matthias Reid had been awarded his medical degree from Harvard.

      She was definitely impressed. A Harvard education was not only academically challenging to obtain, it cost a fortune. She knew. She’d heard brokers she’d worked with complaining about it, either because they were paying it off for themselves or their offspring.

      His alma mater surprised her, too. The Harvard men she’d met wouldn’t have spent more than a weekend in this remote and rural community, and then only for one of the quaint local festivals. There were no ski lodges nearby, no reliable cell phone service, no latte machines, martini bars or night life. But then the only Harvard graduates she’d known were hungry MBAs clawing their way to the top of the shark tank. Those who swore to beat the stock market undoubtedly possessed less compassion per gene than those who swore to beat injury and disease.

      Shaking off her thoughts before they could move to one MBA in particular, her glance dropped to the shades of coral and orange in a small gold-framed photograph. The photo sat askew among the books and files jammed along the credenza. In it, the good doctor stood with a view of the Eiffel Tower at sunset in the distant background—and his arm around a drop-dead-gorgeous blonde.

      The woman was tall, built like a model and had been blessed with long, corn-silk-colored hair that flew in the breeze. Jenny couldn’t tell the color of her eyes, but her smile was wide, her teeth perfect. It wasn’t the perfection, however, that had Jenny picking up the picture. It was the air of utter self-assurance the woman seemed to exude.

      With her own self-confidence having disappeared along with her life as she’d known it, Jenny was wondering if she would ever feel certain about anything again when the door opened and Greg walked in.

       Chapter Three

       A dark-blue sling covered Greg’s left arm. Much of it was hidden by the white lab coat he wore open over a forest-green golf shirt and tan khakis, but there was no hiding that he’d been injured. Even if one side of the coat hadn’t been draped over his shoulder, the bruising she’d seen last night would have given him away. It had darkened to the color of a Bing cherry and now crept to almost an inch above his collar.

      It was the rest of him that had the bulk of her attention, though.

      Even with his arm bound in a sling, there was nothing about him that hinted at any sort of vulnerability. Nothing to indicate how dependent he had been on her less than twelve hours ago. Beneath the dark slash of his eyebrows, his gray eyes smiled at her with a quiet intensity that weighed and assessed and put strange little flutters in her stomach.

      Without the pain he’d dealt with last night, he was more than an attractive man. He was a man who looked big, capable and totally in control of himself and everything around him.

      That quiet power seemed to radiate toward her, drawing her in as he looked to what she held.

      Aware

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