Coltrain's Proposal Read online

  “You’re very quiet,” he remarked.

  “I was thinking about Mr. Bailey,” she hedged. “He really needs to see a specialist about that asthma. What do you think of referring him to Dr. Jones up in Houston?”

  He nodded, diverted. “A sound idea. I’ll give you the number.”

  They worked in harmony until the lunch hour. Then, despite her arguments, they drove to a jewelry shop in downtown Jacobsville. As bad luck would have it, Jane Burke was in there, alone, making a purchase.

  She was so beautiful, Lou thought miserably. Blond, blue-eyed, with a slender figure that any man would covet.

  “Why hello!” Jane said enthusiastically, and hugged Copper as if he was family.

  He held her close and kissed her cheek, his smile tender, his face animated. “You look terrific,” he said huskily. “How’s the back? Still doing those exercises?”

  “Oh, yes,” she agreed. She held him by the arms and searched his eyes. “You look terrific yourself.” She seemed only then to notice that he wasn’t alone. She glanced at Lou. “Dr. Blakely, isn’t it?” she asked politely, and altered the smile a little. “Nice to see you again.”

  “What are you doing here?” Coltrain asked her.

  “Buying a present for my stepdaughter for Christmas. I thought she might like a nice strand of pearls. Aren’t these lovely?” she asked when the clerk had taken them out of the case to show them. “I’ll take them,” she added, handing him her credit card.

  “Is she staying with you and Todd all the time now?”

  She nodded. “Her mother and stepfather and the baby are off to Africa to research his next book,” she said with a grin. “We’re delighted to have her all to ourselves.”

  “How’s Todd?”

  Lou heard the strained note in his voice with miserable certainty that Dana had been telling the truth.

  “He’s as impossible as ever.” Jane chuckled. “But we scratch along, me with my horses and my clothing line and he with his computer business. He’s away so much these days that I feel deserted.” She lifted her eyes to his and grinned. “I don’t guess you’d like to come to supper tonight?”

  “Sure I would,” he said without thinking. Then he made a sound. “I can’t. There’s a hospital board meeting.”

  “Oh, well,” she muttered. “Another time, then.” She glanced at Lou hesitantly. “Are you two out Christmas shopping—together?” she added as if she didn’t think that was the case.

  Coltrain stuck his hands deep into his pockets. “We’re shopping for an engagement ring,” he said tersely.

  Her eyes widened. “For whom?”

  Lou wanted to sink through the floor. She flushed to the roots of her hair and clung to her shoulder bag as if it were a life jacket.

  “For Lou,” Coltrain said. “We’re engaged.”

  He spoke reluctantly, which only made Lou feel worse.

  Jane’s shocked expression unfroze Lou’s tongue. “It’s just for appearances,” she said, forcing a smile. “Dana and Nickie have been hounding him.”

  “Oh, I see!” Jane’s face relaxed, but then she frowned. “Isn’t that a little dishonest?”

  “It was the only way, and it’s just until my contract is up, the first of the year,” Lou forced herself to say. “I’ll be leaving then.”

  Coltrain glared at her. He wasn’t certain what he’d expected, but she made the proposal sound like a hoax. He hadn’t asked her to marry him to ward off the other women; he’d truly wanted her to be his wife. Had she misunderstood totally?

  Jane was as startled as Coltrain was. She knew that Copper wasn’t the sort of man to give an engagement ring lightly, although Lou seemed to think he was. Since Dana’s horrible betrayal, Copper had been impervious to women. But even Jane had heard about the hospital Christmas party and the infamous kiss. She’d hoped that Copper had finally found someone to love, although it was surprising that it would be the partner with whom he fought with so enthusiastically. Now, looking at them together, she was confused. Lou looked as if she were being tortured. Copper was taciturn and frozen. And they said it was a sham. Lou didn’t love him. She couldn’t, and be so lighthearted about it. Copper looked worn.

  Jane glared at Lou and put a gentle hand on Coltrain’s arm. “This is a stupid idea, Copper. You’ll be the butt of every joke in town when Lou leaves, don’t you realize it? It could even damage your reputation, hurt your practice,” she told Copper intently.

  His jaw tautened. “I appreciate your concern,” he said gently, even as it surprised him that Jane should turn on Lou, who was more an innocent bystander than Coltrain’s worst enemy.

  That got through to Lou, too. She moved restlessly, averting her gaze from the diamond rings in the display case. “She’s right. It is stupid. I can’t do this,” she said suddenly, her eyes full of torment. “Please, excuse me, I have to go!”

  She made it out the door before the tears were visible, cutting down an alley and ducking into a department store. She went straight to the women’s rest room and burst into tears, shocking a store clerk into leaving.

  In the jewelry store, Coltrain stood like a statue, unspeakably shocked at Lou’s rash departure and furious at having her back out just when he’d got it all arranged.

  “For God’s sake, did you have to do that?” Coltrain asked harshly. He rammed his hands into his pockets. “It’s taken me days just to get her to agree on any pretext…!”

  Jane realized, too late, what she’d done. She winced. “I didn’t know,” she said miserably. “It’s my fault that she’s bolted,” Jane said quickly. “Copper, I’m sorry!”

  “Not your fault,” he said stiffly. “I used Dana and Nickie to accomplish this engagement, but she was reluctant from the beginning.” He sighed heavily. “I guess she’ll go, now, in spite of everything.”

  “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

  He moved a shoulder impatiently. “She’s in love with me,” he said roughly, and rammed his hands deeper into his pockets.

  “Oh, dear.” Jane didn’t know what to say. She’d lashed out at the poor woman, and probably given Lou a false picture of her relationship with Copper to boot. They were good friends, almost like brother and sister, but there had been rumors around Jacobsville for years that they were secret lovers. Until she married Todd, that was. Now, she wondered how much Lou had heard and if she’d believed it. And Jane had brazenly invited him to supper, ignoring Lou altogether.

  She grimaced. “I’ve done it now, haven’t I? I would have included her in my invitation if I’d had any idea. I thought she was just tagging along with you on her lunch hour!”

  “I’d better go after her,” he said reluctantly.

  “It might be best if you didn’t,” she replied. “She’s hurt. She’ll want to be alone for a while, I should think.”

  “I can’t strand her in town.” He felt worse than he could ever remember feeling. “Maybe you’re both right, and this whole thing was a stupid idea.”

  “If you don’t love her, it certainly was,” she snapped at him. “What are you up to? Is it really just to protect you from a couple of lovesick women? I’m shocked. A few years ago, you’d have cussed them both to a fare-thee-well and been done with it.”

  He didn’t reply. His face closed up and his blue eyes glittered at her. “My reasons are none of your business,” he said, shutting her out.

  Obviously Lou had to mean something to him. Jane felt even worse. She made a face. “We were very close once. I thought you could talk to me about anything.”

  “Anything except Lou,” he said shortly.

  “Oh.” Her eyes were first stunned and then amused.

  “You can stop speculating, too,” he added irritably, turning away.

  “She sounds determined to leave.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Despite Jane’s suggestion, he went off toward the department store where Lou had vanished and strode back to the women’s rest room. He knew inst
inctively that she was there. He caught the eye of a female clerk.

  “Could you ask Dr. Blakely to come out of there, please?”

  “Dr. Blakely?”

  “She’s so high—” he indicated her height with his hand up to his nose “—blond hair, dark eyes, wearing a beige suit.”

  “Oh, her! She’s a doctor? Really? My goodness, I thought doctors never showed their emotions. She was crying as if her heart would break. Sure, I’ll get her for you.”

  He felt like a dog. He’d made her cry. The thought of Lou, so brave and private a person, with tears in her eyes made him hurt inside. And it had been so unnecessary. If Jane had only kept her pretty mouth shut! She was like family, and she overstepped the bounds sometimes with her comments about how Coltrain should live his life. He’d been more than fond of her once, and he still had a soft spot for her, but it was Lou who was disrupting his whole life.

  He leaned against the wall, his legs and arms crossed, and waited. The female clerk reappeared, smiled reassuringly, and went to wait on a customer.

  A minute later, a subdued and dignified Lou came out of the small room, her chin up. Her eyes were slightly red, but she didn’t look as if she needed anyone’s pity.

  “I’m ready to go if you are,” she said politely.

  He searched her face and decided that this wasn’t the time for a row. They still had to get lunch and get back to the office.

  He turned, leaving her to follow. “I’ll stop by one of the hamburger joints and we can get a burger and fries.”

  “I’ll eat mine at the office, if you don’t mind,” she said wearily. “I’m not in the mood for a crowd.”

  Neither was he. He didn’t argue. He opened the car door and let her in, then he went by the drive-in window of the beef place and they carried lunch back.

  Lou went directly into her office and closed the door. She hardly tasted what she was eating. Her heart felt as if it had been burned alive. She knew what Dana meant now. Jane Parker was as much a part of Coltrain’s life as his cattle, his practice. No woman, no matter how much she loved him, could ever compete with his love for the former rodeo star.

  She’d been living in a fool’s paradise, but fortunately there was no harm done. They could say that the so-called “engagement” had been a big joke. Surely Coltrain could get Nickie and Dana out of his hair by simply telling them the truth, that he wasn’t interested. God knew, once he got started, he wasn’t shy about expressing his feelings any other time, regardless of who was listening. Which brought to mind the question of why he’d asked her to marry him. He wasn’t in love with her. He wanted her. Had that been the reason? Was he getting even with Jane because she’d married and deserted him? She worried the question until she finished eating. Then her patients kept her occupied for the rest of the day, so that she had no time to think.

  Jane had wondered if she could help undo the damage she’d already done to Copper’s life, and at last she came up with a solution. She decided to give a farewell party for Lou. She called Coltrain a few days later to tell him the news.

  “Christmas is next week,” he said shortly. “And I doubt if she’d come. She only speaks to me when she has to. I can’t get near her anymore.”

  That depressed Jane even more. “Suppose I phone her?” she asked.

  “Oh, I know she won’t talk to you.” He laughed without humor. “We’re both in her bad books.”

  Jane sighed. “Then who can we have talk to her?”

  “Try Drew Morris,” he said bitterly. “She likes him.”

  That note in his voice was disturbing. Surely he knew that Drew was still mourning his late wife. If he and Lou were friends, it was nothing more than that, despite any social outings together.

  “You think she’d listen to Drew?” she asked.

  “Why not?”

  “I’ll try, then.”

  “Don’t send out any invitations until she gives you an answer,” he added. “She’s been hurt enough, one way or the other.”

  “Yes, I know,” Jane said gently. “I had no idea, Copper. I really meant well.”

  “I know that. She doesn’t.”

  “I guess she’s heard all the old gossip, too.”

  He hadn’t considered that. “What old gossip?”

  “About us,” she persisted. “That we had something going until I married Todd.”

  He smoothed his fingers absently over the receiver. “She might have, at that,” he said slowly. “But she must know that—” He stopped dead. She’d have heard plenty from Dana, who had always considered Jane, not her affair with Fielding Blakely, the real reason for their broken engagement. Others in the hospital knew those old rumors, too, and Jane had given Lou the wrong impression of their relationship in the jewelry store.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?” Jane asked.

  “You might be.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “What can I do?” he asked shortly. “She doesn’t really want to marry anyone.”

  “You said she loves you,” she reminded him.

  “Yes, and she does. It’s the only thing I’m sure of. But she doesn’t want to marry me. She’s so afraid that she’ll become like her mother, blindly accepting faults and abuse without question, all in the name of love.”

  “Poor girl,” she said genuinely. “What a life she must have had.”

  “I expect it was worse than we’ll ever know,” he agreed. “Well, call Drew and see if he can get through to her.”

  “If he can, will you come, too?”

  “It would look pretty bad if I didn’t, wouldn’t it?” he asked dryly. “They’d say we were so antagonistic toward each other that we couldn’t even get along for a farewell party. And coming on the heels of our ‘engagement,’ they’d really have food for thought.”

  “I’d be painted as the scarlet woman who broke it up, wouldn’t I?” Jane groaned. “Todd would love that! He’s still not used to small-town life.”

  “Maybe Drew can reach her. If he can’t, you’ll have to cancel it. We can’t embarrass her.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “I know that. Jane, thanks.”

  “For what?” she asked. “I’m the idiot who got you into this mess in the first place. The least I owe is to try to make amends for what I said to her. I’ll let you know what happens.”

  “Do that.”

  He went back to work, uncomfortably aware of Lou’s calm demeanor. She didn’t even look ruffled after all the turmoil. Of course, he remembered that she’d been crying like a lost child in the department store after Jane’s faux pas. But that could have been so much more than a broken heart.

  She hadn’t denied loving him, but could love survive a year of indifference alternating with vicious antagonism, such as he’d given her? Perhaps loving him was a sort of habit that she’d finally been cured of. After all, he’d given her no reason to love him, even to like him. He’d missed most of his chances there. But if Drew could convince her to come to a farewell party, on neutral ground, Coltrain had one last chance to change her mind about him. That was his one hope; the only one he had.

  Chapter 9

  Drew invited Lou to lunch the next day. It was Friday, the week before the office closed for Christmas holidays. Christmas Eve would be on a week from Saturday night, and Jane had changed her mind about dates. She wanted to give the farewell party the following Friday, the day before New Year’s Eve. That would, if Lou didn’t reconsider her decision, be Lou’s last day as Coltrain’s partner.

  “I’m surprised,” Lou told him as they ate quiche at a local restaurant. “You haven’t invited me to lunch in a long time. What’s on your mind?”

  “It could be just on food.”

  She laughed. “Pull the other one.”

  “Okay. I’m a delegation of one.”

  She held her fork poised over the last morsel of quiche on her plate. “From whom?”

  “Jane Burke.”

  She put the
fork down, remembering. Her expression hardened. “I have nothing to say to her.”

  “She knows that. It’s why she asked me to talk to you. She got the wrong end of the stick and she’s sorry. I’m to make her apologies to you,” he added. “But she also wants to do something to make up for what she said to you. She wants to give you a farewell party on the day before New Year’s Eve.”

  She glared at Drew. “I don’t want anything to do with any parties given by that woman. I won’t go!”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Well! You are miffed, aren’t you?”

  “Accusing me of trying to ruin Jebediah’s reputation and destroy his privacy…how dare she! I’m not the one who’s being gossiped about in connection with him! And she’s married!”

  He smiled wickedly. “Lou, you’re as red as a beet.”

  “I’m mad,” she said shortly. “That…woman! How dare she!”

  “She and Copper are friends. Period. That’s all they’ve ever been. Are you listening?”

  “Sure, I’m listening. Now,” she added, leaning forward, “tell me he wasn’t ever in love with her. Tell me he isn’t still in love with her.”

  He wanted to, but he had no idea of Coltrain’s feelings for Jane. He knew that Coltrain had taken her marriage hard, and that he seemed sometimes to talk about her to the exclusion of everyone else. But things had changed in the past few weeks, since the hospital Christmas dance the first week of December.

  “You see?” she muttered. “You can’t deny it. He may have proposed to me, but it was…”

  “Proposed?”

  “Didn’t you know?” She lifted her coffee cup to her lips and took a sip. “He wanted me to pretend to be engaged to him, just to get Nickie and Dana off his back. Then he decided that we might as well get married for real. He caught me at a weak moment,” she added, without details, “and we went to buy an engagement ring. But Jane was there. She was rude to me,” she said miserably, “and Jebediah didn’t say a word to stop her. In fact, he acted as if I wasn’t even there.”

  “And that was what hurt most, wasn’t it?” he queried gently.