Coltrain's Proposal Read online

  He started to speak, took a breath and finally, nodded. “Yes. Through no fault of your own, I might add. I’ve held grudges.”

  She glanced at his hard, lean face. “You were entitled,” she admitted. “I didn’t know about my father’s past. I probably should have realized there was a reason he never went back to Jacobsville, even to visit, while his brother was still alive here. Afterward, there wasn’t even a cousin to write to. We all lost touch. My mother never seemed to mind that we didn’t come back.” She looked up at him. “She probably knew…” She flushed and dropped her eyes.

  “But she stayed with him,” he began.

  “She had to!” The words burst out. “If she’d tried to leave, he’d have…” She swallowed and made a futile gesture with her hand.

  “He’d have what? Killed her?”

  She wouldn’t look at him. She couldn’t. The memories came flooding back, of his violence when he used narcotics, of the threats, her mother’s fear, her own. The weeping, the cries of pain…

  She sucked in a quick breath, and all the suffering was in the eyes she lifted to his when he took her hand.

  His fingers curled hard around hers and held them, as if he could see the memories and was offering comfort.

  “You’ll tell me, one day,” he said abruptly, his eyes steady on her own. “You’ll tell me every bit of it.”

  She couldn’t understand his interest. She searched his eyes curiously and suddenly felt a wave of feeling encompass her like a killing tide, knocking her breathless. Heat surged through her slender body, impaling her, and in his hard face she saw everything she knew of love, would ever know of it.

  But he didn’t want her that way. He never would. She was useful to the practice, but on a personal level, he was still clutching hard at the past; at the girl her father had taken from him, at Jane Parker. He was sorry for her, as he would be for anyone in pain, but it wasn’t a personal concern.

  She drew her hand away from his slowly and with a faint smile. “Thanks,” she said huskily. “I…I think too hard sometimes. The past is long dead.”

  “I used to think so,” he said, watching her. “Now, I’m not so sure.”

  She didn’t understand what he was saying. It was just as well. The nurse came in to do her round and any personal conversation was banished at once.

  Chapter 4

  The next day, Lou was allowed to go home. Drew had eaten breakfast with her and made sure that she was well enough to leave before he agreed with Copper that she was fit. But when he offered to drive her home, Coltrain intervened. His partner, he said, was his responsibility. Drew didn’t argue. In fact, when they weren’t looking, he grinned.

  Copper carried her bag into the house and helped her get settled on the couch. It was lunchtime and he hesitated, as if he felt guilty about not offering to take her out for a meal.

  “I’m going to have some soup later,” she murmured without looking at him. “I’m not hungry just yet. I expect you are.”

  “I could eat.” He hesitated again, watching her with vague irritation. “Will you be all right?”

  “It was only a virus,” she said, making light of it. “I’m fine. Thank you for your concern.”

  “You might as well enjoy it, for novelty value if nothing else,” he said without smiling. “It’s been a long time since I’ve given a damn about a woman’s comfort.”

  “I’m just a colleague,” she replied, determined to show him that she realized there was nothing personal in their relationship. “It isn’t the same thing.”

  “No, it isn’t,” he agreed. “I’ve been very careful to keep our association professional. I’ve never even asked you to my home, have I?”

  He was making her uneasy with that unblinking stare. “So what? I’ve never asked you to mine,” she replied. “I wouldn’t presume to put you in such an embarrassing situation.”

  “Embarrassing? Why?”

  “Well, because you’d have to find some logical excuse to refuse,” she said.

  He searched her quiet face and his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “I don’t know that I’d refuse. If you asked me.”

  Her heart leaped and she quickly averted her eyes. She wanted him to go, now, before she gave herself away. “Forgive me, but I’m very tired,” she said.

  She’d fended him off nicely, without giving offense. He wondered how many times over the years she’d done exactly that to other men.

  He moved closer to her, noticing the way she tensed, the telltale quickening of her breath, the parting of her soft lips. She was affected by his nearness and trying valiantly to hide it. It touched him deeply that she was so vulnerable to him. He could have cursed himself for the way he’d treated her, for the antagonism that made her wary of any approach now.

  He stopped when there was barely a foot of space between them, with his hands in his pockets so that he wouldn’t make her any more nervous.

  He looked down at her flushed oval face with curious pleasure. “Don’t try to come in tomorrow if you don’t feel like it. I’ll cope.”

  “All right,” she said in a hushed tone.

  “Lou.”

  He hadn’t called her by her first name before. It surprised her into lifting her eyes to his face.

  “You aren’t responsible for anything your father did,” he said. “I’m sorry that I’ve made things hard for you. I hope you’ll reconsider leaving.”

  She shifted uncomfortably. “Thank you. But I think I’d better go,” she said softly. “You’ll be happier with someone else.”

  “Do you think so? I don’t agree.” His hand lowered slowly to her face, touching her soft cheek, tracing it down to the corner of her mouth. It was the first intimate contact she’d ever had with him, and she actually trembled.

  Her reaction had an explosive echo in his own body. His breath jerked into his throat and his teeth clenched as he looked at her mouth and thought he might die if he couldn’t have it. But it was too soon. He couldn’t…!

  He drew back his hand as if she’d burned it. “I have to go,” he said tersely, turning on his heel. Her headlong response had prompted a reaction in him that he could barely contain at all. He had to distance himself before he reached for her and ruined everything.

  Lou didn’t realize why he was in such a hurry to leave. She assumed that he immediately regretted that unexpected caress and wanted to make sure that she didn’t read anything into it.

  “Thank you for bringing me home,” she said formally.

  He paused at the door and looked back at her, his eyes fiercely intent on her slender body in jeans and sweatshirt, on her loosened blond hair and exquisite complexion and dark eyes. “Thank your lucky stars that I’m leaving in time.” He bit off the words.

  He closed the door on her puzzled expression. He was acting very much out of character lately. She didn’t know why, unless he was sorry he’d tried to talk her out of leaving the practice. Oh, well, she told herself, it was no longer her concern. She had to get used to the idea of being out of his life. He had nothing to offer her, and he had good reason to hate her, considering the part her father had played in his unhappy past.

  She went into the kitchen and opened a can of tomato soup. She’d need to replenish her body before she could get back to work.

  The can slipped in her left hand and she grimaced. Her dreams of becoming a surgeon had been lost overnight in one tragic act. A pity, her instructor had said, because she had a touch that few surgeons ever achieved, almost an instinctive knowledge of the best and most efficient way to sever tissue with minimum loss of blood. She would have been famous. But alas, the tendon had been severed with the compound fracture. And the best efforts of the best orthopedic surgeon hadn’t been able to repair the damage. Her father hadn’t even been sorry….

  She shook her head to clear away the memories and went back to her soup. Some things were better forgotten.

  She was back at work the day after her return home, a bit shaky, but game. She went thro
ugh her patients efficiently, smiling at the grievance of one small boy whose stitches she’d just removed.

  “Dr. Coltrain doesn’t like little kids, does he?” he muttered. “I showed him my bad place and he said he’d seen worse!”

  “He has,” she told the small boy. She smiled at him. “But you’ve been very brave, Patrick my boy, and I’m giving you the award of honor.” She handed him a stick of sugarless chewing gum and watched him grin. “Off with you, now, and mind you don’t fall down banks into any more creeks!”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  She handed his mother the charge sheet and was showing them out the door of the treatment cubicle just as Coltrain started to come into it. The boy glowered at him, smiled at Lou and went back to his waiting mother.

  “Cheeky brat,” he murmured, watching him turn the corner.

  “He doesn’t like you,” she told him smugly. “You didn’t sympathize with his bad place.”

  “Bad place.” He harrumphed. “Two stitches. My God, what a fuss he made.”

  “It hurt,” she informed him.

  “He wouldn’t let me take the damn stitches out, either. He said that I didn’t know how to do it, but you did.”

  She grinned to herself at that retort while she dealt with the mess she’d made while working with Patrick.

  “You don’t like children, do you?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know much about them, except what I see in the practice,” he replied. “I deal mostly with adults since you came.”

  He leaned against the doorjamb and studied her with his hands in the pockets of his lab coat, a stethoscope draped around his neck. His eyes narrowed as he watched her work.

  She became aware of the scrutiny and turned, her eyes meeting his and being captured there. She felt her heart race at the way he looked at her. Her hands stilled on her preparations for the next patient as she stood helplessly in thrall.

  His lips compressed. He looked at her mouth and traced the full lower lip, the soft bow of the upper, with her teeth just visible where her lips parted. The look was intimate. He was wondering how it would feel to kiss her, and she knew it.

  Muffled footsteps caught them unawares, and Brenda jerked open the sliding door of the cubicle. “Lou, I’ve got the wrong… Oh!” She bumped into Coltrain, whom she hadn’t seen standing there.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “I wanted to ask Lou if she’d seen the file on Henry Brady. It isn’t where I left it.”

  Brenda grimaced as she handed it to him. “I picked it up mistakenly. I’m sorry.”

  “No harm done.” He glanced back at Lou and went out without another word.

  “Not another argument,” Brenda groaned. “Honestly, partners should get along better than this.”

  Lou didn’t bother to correct that assumption. It was much less embarrassing than what had really happened. Coltrain had never looked at her in that particular way before. She was glad that she’d resigned; she wasn’t sure that she could survive any physical teasing from him. If he started making passes, she’d be a lot safer in Austin than she would be here.

  After all he was a confirmed bachelor and there was no shortage of women on his arm at parties. Nickie was the latest in a string of them. And according to rumor, before Nickie, apparently he’d been infatuated with Jane Parker. He might be nursing a broken heart as well, since Jane’s marriage.

  Lou didn’t want to be anybody’s second-best girl. Besides, she never wanted to marry. It had been better when Coltrain treated her like the enemy. She wished he’d go back to his former behavior and stop looking at her mouth that way. She still tingled remembering the heat in his blue eyes. A man like that would be just plain hell to be loved by. He would be addictive. She had no taste for addictions and she knew already that Coltrain would break her heart if she let him. No, it was better that she leave. Then she wouldn’t have the anguish of a hopeless relationship.

  The annual hospital Christmas party was scheduled for Friday night, two weeks before Christmas so that the staff wouldn’t be too involved with family celebrations to attend.

  Lou hadn’t planned to go, but Coltrain cornered her in his office as they prepared to leave that afternoon for the weekend.

  “The Christmas party is tonight,” he reminded her.

  “I know. I’m not going.”

  “I’ll pick you up in an hour,” he said, refusing to listen when she tried to protest. “I know you still tire easily after the virus. We won’t stay long.”

  “What about Nickie?” she asked irritably. “Won’t she mind if you take your partner to a social event?”

  Her antagonism surprised him. He lifted an indignant eyebrow. “Why should she?” he asked stiffly.

  “You’ve been dating her.”

  “I escorted her to the Rotary Club meeting. I haven’t proposed to her. And whatever you’ve heard to the contrary, she and I are not an item.”

  “You needn’t bite my head off!” She shot the words at him.

  His eyes dropped to her mouth and lingered there. “I know something I’d like to bite,” he said deep in his throat.

  She actually gasped, so stunned by the remark that she couldn’t even think of a reply.

  His eyes flashed back up to catch hers. He was a bulldozer, she thought, and if she didn’t stand up to him, he’d run right over her.

  She stiffened her back. “I’m not going to any hospital dance with you,” she said shortly. “You’ve given me hell for the past year. Do you think you can just walk in here and wipe all that out with an invitation? Not even an invitation, at that—a command!”

  “Yes, I do,” he returned curtly. “We both belong to the hospital staff, and nothing will start gossip quicker than having one of us stay away from an annual event. I do not plan to have any gossip going around here at my expense. I had enough of that in the past, thanks to your philandering father!”

  She gripped her coat, furious at him. “You just got through saying that you didn’t blame me for what he did.”

  “And I don’t!” he said angrily. “But you’re being blind and stupid.”

  “Thank you. Coming from you, those are compliments!”

  He was all but vibrating with anger. He stared at her, glared at her, until her unsteady movement made him realize that she’d been ill.

  He became less rigid. “Ben Maddox is going to be there tonight. He’s a former colleague of ours from Canada. He’s just installed a massive computer system with linkups to medical networks around the world. I think it’s too expensive for our purposes, but I agreed to hear him out about it. You’re the high-tech expert,” he added with faint sarcasm. “I’d like your opinion.”

  “My opinion? I’m honored. You’ve never asked for it before.”

  “I’ve never given a damn about it before,” he retorted evenly. “But maybe there’s something to this electronic revolution in medicine.” He lifted his chin in a challenge. “Or so you keep telling me. Put your money where your mouth is, Doctor. Convince me.”

  She glared at him. “I’ll drive my own car and see you there.”

  It was a concession, of sorts. He frowned slightly. “Why don’t you want to ride with me? What are you afraid of?” he taunted softly.

  She couldn’t admit what frightened her. “It wouldn’t look good to have us arrive together,” she said. “It would give people something to talk about.”

  He was oddly disappointed, although he didn’t quite know why. “All right, then.”

  She nodded, feeling that she’d won something. He nodded, too, and quietly left her. It felt like a sort of truce. God knew, they could use one.

  Ben Maddox was tall, blond and drop-dead gorgeous. He was also married and the father of three. He had photographs, which he enjoyed showing to any of his old colleagues who were willing to look at them. But in addition to those photographs, he had information on a networking computer system that he used extensively in his own practice. It was an expensive piece of equipment, but it p
ermitted the user instant access to medical experts in every field. As a diagnostic tool and a means of getting second opinions from recognized authorities, it was breathtaking. But so was the price.

  Lou had worn a black silk dress with a lace overlay, a demure rounded neckline and see-through sleeves. Her hairstyle, a topknot with little tendrils of blond hair slipping down to her shoulders, looked sexy. So did her long, elegant legs in high heels, under the midknee fitted skirt. She wore no jewelry at all, except for a strand of pearls with matching earrings.

  Watching her move, Coltrain was aware of old, unwanted sensations. At the party a year ago, she’d worn something a little more revealing, and he’d deliberately maneuvered her under the mistletoe out of mingled curiosity and desire. But she’d evaded him as if he had the plague, then and since. His ego had suffered a sharp blow. He hadn’t felt confident enough to try again, so antagonism and anger had kept her at bay. Not that his memories of her father’s betrayal hadn’t added to his enmity.

  She was animated tonight, talking to Ben about the computer setup as if she knew everything there was to know about the machines.

  “Copper, you’ve got a savvy partner here,” Ben remarked when he joined them. “She’s computer literate!”

  “She’s the resident high-tech expert,” Copper replied. “I like old-fashioned, hands-on medicine. She’d rather reach for a machine to make diagnoses.”

  “High tech is the way of the future,” Ben said coaxingly.

  “It’s also the reason medical costs have gone through the roof,” came the predictable reply. “The money we spend on these outrageously expensive machines has to be passed on to the patients. That raises our fees, the hospital’s fees, the insurance companies’ fees…”

  “Pessimist!” Ben accused.

  “I’m being realistic,” Copper told him, lifting his highball glass in a mock toast. He drained it, feeling the liquor.

  Ben frowned as his old colleague made his way past the dancers back to the buffet table. “That’s odd,” he remarked. “I don’t remember ever seeing Copper take more than one drink.”