LITMIR.BIZ

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taken and called out, and in the madness, Janey heard a nurse working on the girlfriend tell someone to call for X rays and Dr. Easton, the only orthopedic surgeon in town. But it was the driver that Janey was worried about. He’d slipped back into unconsciousness again. If he didn’t get into surgery soon, they were going to lose him.

      Hurriedly she helped cut away his clothes and hook him up to a heart monitor. During the entire procedure she never took her eyes off his still figure. “Where’s Dr. Michaels? Has anybody paged him? Somebody send an orderly for him—”

      “There’s no need to send an orderly,” a cool, husky voice cut in smoothly. “I’m taking over for Dr. Michaels tonight.”

      Startled, Janey looked up from the patient, directly into the deep-blue eyes of the stranded California motorist she’d stopped to help the day before yesterday when his BMW broke down on the side of the road. She’d only seen him that once, and then only for a few minutes, but she would have known those eyes of his in the far reaches of Mongolia. As dark as the sky before a winter storm, they were tinged with a sadness that touched her heart.

      She’d never been able to stand to see anyone in pain and wanted to ask who or what had put that look in his eyes, but he had a reserve about him that didn’t encourage questions. Then, with a blink, recognition flared and his only expression was surprise.

      It was her—the woman who’d stopped to help him his first day in town. He’d thought she was some rancher’s wife—she’d had the look of one, driving a Jeep and wearing jeans and cowboy boots that were scarred from use—but here she was in an EMT’s uniform and right at home in the emergency. Who the hell was she?

      If a patient hadn’t lay there bleeding to death right in front of him, he would have asked. As it was, all he could do was growl, “Let’s get this man to surgery,” and quickly help push the stretcher down the hall to the surgical wing of the small two-story hospital.

      She didn’t accompany him and the other nurses, but stayed behind in the E.R. Watching him disappear behind the double doors that led to surgery, she frowned, questions swirling like a swarm of bees in her head. Who was he? There was no question that he was a doctor—she only had to see him in action in the E.R. to know that—but what was a doctor from California doing in Liberty Hill, for heaven’s sake? She’d just thought he was a traveler passing through town who’d made a wrong turn.

      “Isn’t he the best-looking man you’ve ever seen in your life?” a dreamy voice sighed beside her. “It’s the eyes, you know. So sad and lonely. I’ll bet he needs a good woman.”

      Turning to face the head nurse of the E.R., Janey tried not to flinch. Tanya had never been one of her favorite people—she was too bold and wild, and since her recent divorce, she’d become even more so. She’d already come on to every eligible man in town, not to mention a few married ones, since she’d walked out on her husband. Considering that, Janey wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if she’d set her sights on the new doctor without bothering to ask—or care—if he was married or not.

      “I wouldn’t know,” Janey said quietly. “Who is he?”

      “Dr. Reilly Jones,” Tanya replied, savoring the name as if it was some new tasty treat. “He just joined Dr. Michaels’s practice today.”

      Shocked, Janey couldn’t believe she’d heard correctly. “Dan never said anything about taking on a partner. What’s going on?”

      “I wish I knew,” Tanya said with one last longing look at the doors Reilly disappeared behind. “The word going around the hospital is Dr. Michaels is retiring and Reilly Jones is taking over his practice for him. Nobody knows who he is, though, or what his story is. I almost asked, but then I thought it’d be better not to push my luck. He seems to be a very private man, so I figured I’d give him some time to get comfortable here, then make my move.”

      Janey didn’t care about Reilly Jones—if he was stupid enough to be taken in by Tanya, than he was dumber than she thought he was. No, it was Dan she was concerned about. He and his wife, Peggy, had been her parents’ best friends, then when Peggy and Janey’s father had both died, Dan and her mother had continued their friendship over the years. He was like a member of the family, and if he was retiring without telling anyone, something had to be horribly wrong.

      Afraid he might be sick or something, Janey almost woke her mother to find out what was going on, later that evening when her shift was over and she went home, but she didn’t want to scare her. So she spent what was left of the night worrying about Dan and barely slept. Up by five-thirty and scheduled to report to work at her regular job at the nursing home by seven, she hurried downstairs just as soon as she was dressed.

      As usual her mother, Sara, was already up and in the kitchen making breakfast. Seeing her at the old O’Keefe and Merrit stove that her mother wouldn’t have traded for anything, Janey had to smile. For as long as she could remember, her mother had been right there every morning of her life when she came down to breakfast. And today, as always, it amazed Janey how time had hardly touched her at all.

      Sara Dawson McBride was sixty-four and didn’t look a day past fifty. She’d always claimed she was lucky to have good bone structure, but Janey knew better. Her mother had a good heart, the kind that would keep her forever young. Janey only hoped she was as lucky.

      Glancing up from the stove, Sara sent her a smile that was as bright as the copper teakettle whistling happily on the stove. “Good morning, sweetie. Did you sleep well?”

      She’d meant to wait until after breakfast to ask about Dan and Reilly Jones, but she found that she couldn’t. “Not really. I met a new doctor at the hospital last night. His name’s Reilly Jones. Apparently, he’s Dan’s new partner. I was shocked. Is Dan sick or something? The word going around the hospital is he’s going to retire.”

      “But not because he’s sick,” her mother assured her quickly. “He’s been thinking about retiring for some time now, but he didn’t want me to say anything until he had someone lined up he felt comfortable turning his practice over to.”

      “And Reilly Jones is that man?”

      Unable to speculate on that, Sara poured them both a cup of tea. “It’s too early to tell. Right now they just have a temporary partnership—after three months they’ll decide if they want to make it permanent. Dan’s keeping his fingers crossed that it’ll work out. A doctor of Reilly’s caliber doesn’t come along every day. He’s an excellent heart surgeon.”

      In the process of setting the table for breakfast, Janey frowned. “But Dan has a family practice. I wouldn’t think a cardiologist would be interested in that at all, especially in a small town like Liberty Hill. Most of the local surgeries are pretty routine.”

      “He apparently wanted a break from L.A.,” Sara said simply. “His wife died recently, and he decided he needed a complete change of scene.”

      That explained the sadness in his eyes. “That must have been very difficult for him. What happened?”

      Sara shrugged. “He didn’t want to talk about it to Dan, so all I know is that he showed up in town the day before yesterday with only a fancy foreign car and two suitcases to his name. He didn’t even have a place to stay until Nick rented him the cabin.”

      That stunned Janey almost as much as the news that Dan had taken on a partner. “Why am I just now finding out about this?”

      But even as she asked, she knew. She’d worked double shifts at the nursing home all week because they were shorthanded due to an early flu bug that was going around. Then last night she’d spent half the night working with the volunteer fire department. She hadn’t seen any of the family except in passing all week.

      “I guess I haven’t been around much,” she admitted with a grimace. “Obviously the good doctor impressed Nick—that cabin’s his baby. He wouldn’t rent to just anybody.”

      “Dan says he’s a good man,” her mother replied. “Nick thinks so, too.”

      And

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