Janet Tronstad – Doctor Right (страница 2)

“He can be my doctor any time,” a woman with bouncy, copper ringlets said, as she wiggled out of Maryann’s herd, walked over to a chair and sat down looking pleased with herself.

The fancy women all giggled.

Why did people seeking romance all become silly as teenagers, Maryann wondered. She raised her voice. “What I’m trying to say is that there are no appointments left for today.”

She hoped that would do it.

“Or tomorrow either,” she added quickly just in case. “We’re all booked.”

She really liked this job; she didn’t want to be fired. Alex had promised to give her a good recommendation to his replacement. Well, it would be his temporary replacement. The agency had already said they could only send someone to fill in for a few months while they kept looking for a new scholarship doctor to take over the clinic for another three years. If they couldn’t find someone, they would close the clinic in six months.

Why did it all have to be so complicated? The children here needed a doctor. And Maryann didn’t want to lose her job and return to the lower forty-eight. The obvious solution was to have Alex put down roots here in Treasure Creek. Of course, he’d have to want to stay. Her cousin was right about a wife being the answer, but—despite her earlier comments about him being The Ice Man—Maryann knew full well he could have his pick of brides. Some women would tell themselves he would thaw eventually; others might not care.

No, he would be the one who was hard to please when it came to marriage. The nurse before her claimed Alex hadn’t dated anyone in the time she’d known him. All he cared about was that clinic he was going to build in Los Angeles.

“I’m Delilah Carrington. I’m sure he’ll see me,” the copper ringlet woman said as she gave a grand wave with an arm wrapped in thin gold bracelets. Then she looked around and slowly frowned. “I would think a doctor’s office would be better equipped though. This place is a little old and scruffy, isn’t it?”

She made it sound as though the patients regularly stuck their old chewing gum under the chairs bottoms, Maryann thought—which she was sure they did not, since she’d checked a time or two.

“He’s a scholarship doctor,” another of the women said, as though that explained any shabbiness. “You know, the government pays for him to go to medical school and he has to work in a place like this for a few years to pay them back. All the poor kids do it.”

Maryann bristled at the implication that because Alex didn’t have money, somehow that made him less of a success. He was a brilliant doctor. She’d known that after working the first day for him. Plus, he really cared about his little patients. He even treated the children from the Taiya Village, part of the Tlingit tribe, for free. If the town got another scholarship doctor, he probably wouldn’t go out to the village at all. It was extra work, and not part of the agreement the doctors signed. That was another reason she wanted Alex to stay on here. The Tlingit kids needed him as much as the kids in Treasure Creek did, and probably more.

“The city owns this clinic,” Maryann said firmly. “The place is charming and very neatly organized. It might be a little scratched up, but we keep it very clean. Besides, Dr. Havens knows all of the latest treatments.”

The room was quiet as the women looked around. Apparently, they’d been surprised enough at that declaration to listen.

“What kind of treatments?” one of the women asked, looking around the office dubiously. “Those herbal things?”

“Medical treatments,” Maryann snapped back. She saw no reason to admit that he studied the native remedies of the Tlingit people. She’d already said too much about the man last night. “They’re the kind any good, well-trained doctor uses. Some from the Mayo Clinic.”

Then she scowled at the women, daring any of them to make more remarks about this building or the doctor who ran it. The clinic was set in one of the restored log cabins that were left over from the original gold rush prospectors who had founded this town in 1897. She’d like to see how these fancy women would have stood up a hundred years from now. Besides, people should be proud to use this place, she told herself; it had solid history.

The town had taken ownership of the cabin decades ago, renting it out to a souvenir shop for years until someone decided they needed a children’s clinic in town. They widened the doorway and added a side ramp off the porch for wheelchairs, and the cabin became a clinic. Except for the thickly lacquered logs, the only other holdover from its tourist days was Horace, the slightly droopy moose head hanging over the door.

“So this means our doctor is poor,” Delilah finally said in the silence, that same frown on her face. “If he had to have a scholarship, I mean. That can’t be good. Does he have any money at all?”

“Honey, a man with looks like Dr. Havens doesn’t need money,” another of the women—Joleen something—declared with a warm chuckle. The woman was wearing a spandex jumpsuit in a leopard print and spiked black heels. A long gold chain hung around her neck, and somehow she’d managed to get her blond hair rearranged after the wind. “Besides, he’s not going to stay poor. He’s a doctor. He’ll be rich before you know it, especially since he’s going back to Los Angeles. You should see the expensive cars men like him drive down there.”

That started the rest of the women talking about the doctor again. And they weren’t just talking about his money.

Maryann didn’t need to hear the women to know what they were saying. Alex was tall, dark and handsome—she’d be the first to admit it. Any woman who sighed over Rhett Butler—and she had a feeling most of those women in the waiting room had—would be drawn to the good doctor. He had that same kind of jaw. Plus, he had strong biceps, a chin with a dimple—just like they said, and with all the glowing adjectives they used. It was amazing that the fancy women had taken this long to fill up the man’s waiting room.

The more they talked, the gloomier Maryann got. Until last night, she’d found working with Alex companionable enough that she’d almost forgotten he was drop-dead gorgeous. Years ago, she’d vowed never to trust a handsome man. Assuming that vow still held, her cousin had made the criticism rather loudly last night over dinner that, because of it, Maryann might be a little bit unfair to her employer when she called him The Ice Man. Everyone deserved a chance to prove himself, her cousin said; maybe Maryann needed to get to know him better. Besides, no boss was perfect.

Which reminded Maryann, if she wanted to keep him as her boss, she needed to warn him about these women, and quickly.

“Let me go see how long the doctor will be,” she announced casually as she started toward the back exam room. There was a good-size window on the side wall. It was a bit of a drop to the ground, but Alex was in excellent physical shape. At least the fancy women had gotten that much right.

If she hadn’t been looking straight at the door, Maryann wouldn’t have seen the knob turn. She formed her lips and called out, “Nooo.”

But it was too late. Her voice came out thin and the door opened anyway. Johnny Short walked out with his mother. Both of them looked surprised at the crowded waiting room.

“Isn’t he cute?” a brunette with diamond clips in her hair and gold chains on her ankles said, as she stood up and beamed at the wide-eyed little boy. She tugged on her V-neck sweater, which only made more skin show. “Aren’t you a sweetie?”

The diamond woman took a step toward the boy before his mother put up a hand to stop her. “He’s only six and his ear hurts. He’s not used to women like—” Mrs. Short stopped and pursed her lips. “Well, let’s just say, most of the women around here wear sweaters to keep their necks warm. This is Alaska, after all, not Las Vegas. It might be September on the calendar, but we’re already feeling the nip of winter. Besides, we’re a small, decent town.”

Maryann half-expected the fancy women to be offended, but it was clear they weren’t even listening to Mrs. Short. They had all stood by now and were arching their backs and puffing up their hair as they stared at him.

Alex stood in the open door of the exam room. The sunlight streamed through the window behind him and made him look bronzed. Maryann blinked. How had that happened? He was wearing the same white lab coat with a stethoscope hanging around his neck that he’d been wearing all day. But he looked different. Maybe because of the angle of the light behind him the lab coat suddenly showed that his shoulders were satisfyingly broad. His dark hair was ruffled and his blue eyes were fringed with black lashes. If it weren’t for the look of dawning horror on his clean-shaven face, he could have graced the cover of GQ magazine. It would have all been comical if Maryann didn’t feel called upon to do something to rescue him.

He cleared his throat and the women looked like they would swoon.

She looked at the salivating women staring at him. So, the man was good-looking. Well, okay, more than good-looking. That didn’t mean he was a rock star or anything.