Dancing in the Moonlight (9 page)

On the other hand, if she wasn’t here, where else would she be? Probably riding a horse or driving the tractor at Rancho de la Luna. At least here he could keep an eye on her.

With a sigh, he turned back to Hector. “I’m going to prescribe some pills that should help but like I told you last month, you’re going to have to lay off the jalapeños for a while until things settle down a little.”

Maggie dutifully translated his words into Spanish. He listened to her, pleased that he could understand most of what she said.

Listening to her fluid words was a guilty kind of pleasure. How pathetic was he that he could be turned on listening to talk about ulcer advice in Spanish?

Somehow the words seemed lush and romantic when she spoke them in her low, melodic voice.

Hector asked him a question too rapidly for him to catch it all. He looked toward Maggie for help.

“He wants to know if he should continue his current dose of acid reflux medicine.”

“I’d like to increase the dose to twice a day. Call me next week to see how that works. Oh, and if you don’t
take ten minutes to put your leg up in my office I’m going to carry you in there myself.”

Maggie started to translate his words to Hector, but stopped and glared when the last phrase registered.

“Try it, Dalton, and you’ll find out every dirty trick they taught me in the Army.”

Hector snickered, apparently understanding more English than he let on. Jake spared the man only a quick glance, then turned his attention back to her. “Take a rest, Maggie. I’ll be okay for a while on my own, I promise. If I need it, I can muddle through with my high school Spanish for my next few patients.”

“I’m fine.”

“Please, Maggie. I don’t want you to wear yourself out.”

“You better do what he says,” Hector said to her in Spanish. “The man knows what he’s talking about.”

“Gracias,”
Jake said, earning a grin from Hector.

It was killing her not to rip into him in front of a patient. He could see thunderclouds gather in her dark eyes and her slim hands clench in her lap. After a charged, frustrated moment, she let out a breath and grabbed her forearm crutches.

“You know how to find my office?”

“I’ll look for the Obnoxious Know-It-All sign above the door.”

He grinned. “That’s one way to find it. It’s also the last room on the right.”

“Just so you know, Dalton, I’m growing very tired of you ordering me around,” she muttered at the door. “I don’t remember asking you to babysit me.”

“Somebody has to. If you would take care of yourself, I wouldn’t have to do it for you.”

She apparently decided not to dignify that with a response. With another fulminating glare that included the hapless Hector Manuel, she swung out of the exam room on her crutches and headed down the hall, still managing to convey anger even with her back to them.

“Man, are you in trouble.” Hector shook his head in sympathy.

He didn’t know the half of it. Jake sighed as he wrapped things up and moved on to his next patient. How would he ever get through the barricades she seemed determined to erect between them? Was it even possible?

What if his last name wasn’t Dalton? Would she still be so confrontational?

It seemed like the height of irony that she should hate him for his father’s sins.

Maybe he would look at things differently if he’d had a glowing relationship with Hank Dalton, if he considered his father someone who deserved love and respect. He had lived with the man. He knew what a bastard he could be.

He’d resolved early in life that when he grew up, he would be nothing like his father. He thought he had succeeded fairly well, until Magdalena Cruz came home.

What could he do to make her see him as a man, not just Hank Dalton’s son?

He was still wondering that precisely ten minutes later when he finished with his next patient, eighty-year-old Millicent Hall, who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis and who brought him her famous angel food cake
every time she came to the clinic. He was in the hallway making notes in her chart when Maggie rejoined him.

Her eyes seemed a little less shadowed but she still looked tired, he thought.

He set the chart on the counter. “You didn’t have to take me so literally about that ten minutes. You can have longer if you need.”

“I don’t,” she assured him coolly, her flashing eyes daring him to contradict her.

“Fine. I’ll have Jan send in the next patient. Exam room three is open. Go ahead and wait for us.”

She turned and headed down the hall, conveying her stubbornness in every proud line of her body.

M
aggie belonged in this world.

As he listened to her translate final instructions to his last patient of the day—Carmela Sanchez, twenty-one years old and at thirty-five weeks gestation with her first baby—Jake didn’t miss the way Maggie’s eyes softened as she looked at Carmela, how her exhaustion and pain seemed to slip away while she helped someone else.

He had seen Carmela several times for prenatal visits over the past three months, but in those other visits she had always only listened solemnly as he mentioned a few things that would be going on with her pregnancy.

She had never asked him a single question, had always seemed eager simply to take whatever printed information he had about her stage of pregnancy and leave.

But she and Maggie had been jabbering nonstop. He picked up only about half of it.

“I wish I could speak better English,” he thought she might have said at one point. “I’m afraid I will not understand the doctors and nurses when I am in labor.”

“You will be fine,” Maggie assured her. “What about the baby’s father? Does he know English?”

Carmela looked nervous suddenly and slanted a cautious look to Jake. “He won’t be there.”

She said something else too fast for him to understand but he thought he picked out the word
deporte
and deduced that the baby’s father was in the country illegally and either had been deported or was in danger of it.

Maggie squeezed her hand, sympathy in her dark eyes. “Well, do you have a friend who could go with you? A mother or a sister?”

Carmela shook her head.
“Ninguna.”
No one.

She looked down at the floor, then back at Maggie. “I am frightened,” she whispered. “So frightened. Would you come with me? The doctor could tell you when I am delivering and you could help me so I’m not alone.”

Jake listened to the fear in her voice and wanted to kick himself. He should have thought to ask Carmela if she had someone to help her during labor and delivery.

It was a basic question he asked all his pregnant patients, but he had always been so busy trying to get past the language barrier with Carmela—to get her to even
talk
to him, it had never occurred to him she was heading into all this alone.

“Please.” Carmela begged. “I am afraid I will not know what to do and I will hurt my baby.”

“You won’t. You’ll be just fine. The hospital in Idaho Falls should have translators available.”

“They do,” Jake interjected. “I promise, I will make sure we have someone there to translate.”

Maggie conveyed his words to Carmela, but the girl still looked distressed, as if she would burst into tears at any moment. “I will not know those people. They will be strangers to me. I will not know anyone but Dr. Jake. Please say you will help me.”

Maggie studied her for a long moment, then sighed heavily. “Yes. All right. Dr. Dalton can contact me when you begin to go into labor and I will try to come. I can’t make any promises that I’ll definitely be there, but I will do my best.”

The young woman beamed, her shoulders slumping as if a huge weight had just been lifted from them. She rushed to Maggie, nearly knocking her off balance as she embraced her and kissed her cheeks with effusive, genuine gratitude.

Maggie returned the embrace, he noted, but she didn’t look at all thrilled by the prospect of participating in a labor and delivery. He wondered at it but didn’t have time to give it more than a passing thought as, to his deep surprise, Carmela turned her gratitude in his direction. She even went so far as to hug him. She stopped after only a few seconds and pulled away, obviously flustered.

“I’ll call her when you go into labor,” he promised. “This close to the end of your pregnancy, I’d like to see you every week. Can you come back next Wednesday?”

Maggie translated his words to Carmela. The young
woman frowned and said something back to Maggie that he missed.

“She thought you only had the clinic every two weeks,” Maggie translated.

“Tell her we’re having it every week for a while.”

“Are you?” Maggie asked under her breath.

“As far as she knows, yes. Just tell her.”

Maggie related the information, and Carmela smiled shyly at him, looking much more relaxed as she left than she had when he first came into the examination room.

“Poor thing, to have her husband deported this close to the end of her pregnancy,” Maggie said after Carmela left. “I can’t imagine many things more terrifying than having your first baby all alone in a strange country where you don’t speak the language.”

“You were kind to ease her fears by agreeing to help when she’s in labor. The remaining few weeks of her pregnancy will go far more smoothly without that added stress.”

Maggie shrugged. “What choice did I have? I certainly wasn’t about to let a Dalton outshine me when it comes to helping out my fellow creatures on earth.”

He laughed and couldn’t help himself from covering her hand with his—both out of gratitude and simply because he had spent all day without touching her and couldn’t go another minute.

Her fingers quivered under his and he thought she would jerk away, but they stilled after a moment. His heart gave a little leap, though he knew it was likely a foolish hope. Maybe he was making progress.

“You were wonderful today,” he murmured. “I can’t
tell you how much you expedited the process. Having someone with a medical background along to translate was invaluable.”

“With the growing Latino population in this area, maybe you need to have someone bilingual on staff.”

“What about you?”

Her fingers twitched and she finally did slide them away. “What
about
me?”

“If you decide you’re coming home to stay you’ve always got a place here at the clinic. The patient load is more than I can handle and I would love to have an experienced nurse-practitioner—especially a bilingual one—on board in the practice.”

“You’ll have to look somewhere else for that.”

He frowned at her dismissive tone. She wouldn’t even consider it? Stubborn little thing. “Come on, Maggie. We worked well together today, and I don’t see any reason we couldn’t continue the same way. Can’t we be done with this whole Hatfield and McCoy thing?”

“It’s not that. Well, not completely that. I’m looking for a different career path now.”

He blinked. “You what?”

“I told you this the other day. I’m leaving nursing.'”

“You told me, but I suppose I didn’t really believe it. Today just showed me what a terrible mistake that would be. You were incredible today! Even though you were only translating, your compassion came through loud and clear. All the patients responded to it. Everything I know about you and everything I saw today proves to me you’re too good to just throw it all away on a whim.”

“A whim? A
whim?
” Her spine stiffened. “Is that what you call having half your leg blown out from under you?”

He wouldn’t let her do this, give up a successful, rewarding career out of self-pity or martyrdom or whatever excuse she used in her mind for denying herself something she so obviously loved.

“Your foot might be gone but your brain is still there. Or at least it’s supposed to be. There’s no possible medical reason you couldn’t continue as a nurse-practitioner. I went through med school with a paraplegic, for heaven’s sake. He was one of the finest doctors I’ve ever met. If anything, your own experience as a patient will no doubt make you even more compassionate and caring.”

“That’s all fine in theory. But practice is something else entirely.”

“Don’t do this to yourself, Maggie. Please. Don’t rush into a major life change until you give yourself a little more time to adjust to what’s happened to you.”

“How much time would you recommend, Dalton? At what point can I have my life back the way it was? Six months postamputation? A year? I’d really like to know what the magic formula is.”

The raw edge to her voice finally managed to break through his anger and frustration, and with effort he choked down the arguments brewing inside him.

He could see the exhaustion shadowing her eyes and wanted to kick himself for bullying her when she didn’t have the physical or emotional reserves to fight back fairly.

What he really wanted to do was pull her into his lap and hold her close until the pain went away, but he had
a feeling she’d clock him upside the head with one of her crutches if he tried.

“Mind your own business, Jake,” she finally said, her voice low and her expression closed.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I just hate to see you waste your training and your abilities.”

“My training, my abilities, my choice.”

“All right,” he said after a moment. “I won’t say anything more about about it today.”

“Or how about ever?”

He gave a rueful smile. “Afraid I can’t promise that but I’ll let it go for now.”

“I guess I need to take what I can get.”

She moved as if to rise and he quickly stepped forward and handed her the crutches, then stood by ready to stabilize her if necessary.

“Thanks. I guess that means we’re done here, then.”

He wasn’t even
close
to being done with her, but he didn’t think she would appreciate that information. This was another thing he’d probably better keep to himself for now.

“Thanks again for your help. I’ll walk you out. And for once in your life, please don’t argue.”

She clamped her lips together and started making her way out of the exam room.

Outside, the early-evening sky was alive with soft pastels—ribbons of pink and lavender and yellow across the pale blue. This was just the kind of evening he loved best, and another reason he’d chosen to set up shop in Pine Gulch.

Maggie drew a deep breath into her lungs, then made
her way quickly across the parking lot. He followed, not missing the wince she tried to hide when she slid into the driver’s seat.

“You’re having a rough day painwise, aren’t you? Is it just the prosthetic?”

He saw the denial form in her eyes but after a moment she shrugged. “The phantom pain has been a little hairy for the last few days.”

“What are you on for it?”

She gave him her prescription combination and he immediately thought of some alternatives. “I can tweak that for you if you want to try a different dosage or something else entirely.”

“Maybe. I’ll give it another day or two and call you if things don’t improve.”

“Right. I’m sure you will. And you can bet, I’ll just be waiting by the phone.”

She actually smiled at his dry tone before she pulled the door to her car closed and started the engine.

It wasn’t much of a smile, but he still wanted to freeze the moment in his mind forever.

Someone was following her.

She picked up the tail in her rearview mirror five minutes after she left the clinic, just as she turned onto Cold Creek Road and headed home.

She slowed down a little to give him time to catch up so she could verify who her pursuer might be. Sure enough, she saw Jake’s silver SUV in her rearview mirror.

She sighed heavily, torn between giving a little scream
of frustration or bursting into hot, noisy tears. Why wouldn’t the man just give it a rest, for heaven’s sake?

She wanted to convince herself he was simply heading to his family’s ranch beyond the Rancho de la Luna, but she knew better. He was following her to make sure she arrived home safely.

How was she supposed to respond to him? On the one hand she found it highly annoying that he didn’t seem to have any faith in her ability—or willingness—to take care of herself.

On the other hand, though she didn’t want to admit it, she found the gesture kind of sweet. Chauvinistic and presumptuous, certainly, but still a little flattering that he cared enough to worry about her.

She
must
be tired if she could find anything positive about Jake Dalton’s obstinacy.

A moment later she turned into the Luna’s gravel driveway and stopped her Subaru, prepared to wave him past. To her surprise, he followed her, pulling his vehicle right behind her.

Okay, there was a fine line between protective and annoying.

She grimaced and threw her car in gear. How had she suddenly become his pet project? she wondered. He was a busy doctor. Surely he had more important things to do than harass her.

He followed her up to the house and pulled directly behind her again. Almost before she had the keys out of the ignition, he was at her door, pulling it open for her.

She swung the crutches out and pulled herself up. “I thought we established I’m a little old for a babysitter.”

His bland smile didn’t fool her for a second. “I was heading out here anyway.”

She was too blasted tired to fight it out with him again, so she decided not to call him a rotten liar.

“Anyway, while I’m here, I figured I could help you get the prosthesis off and see how everything looks.”