Deep in the Valley (13 page)

June’s first thought was that it had been too damn long since she’d been kissed like this, then that she’d
never
been kissed like this. As she opened her mouth under his probing tongue she said a quick silent prayer that she was right about this guy, that he was really a good man. Because whatever he turned out to be, she was already locked in pretty tight.

The phone’s final ring was cut in half by the clicking of the answering machine as it picked up. Then there was the familiar beep. And then John Stone’s voice, a breathless, frantic edge to it. “June? June, if you’re there, pick up! June, I’m on my way out to 482. There’s been an accident! We have injuries.”

“Damn!” June said, pulling out of Jim’s embrace. “Why
now?
” She nearly tipped over her wicker rocker trying to get into the house to grab the phone. “John! I’m here! Go ahead!”

“Four-eighty-two, about three-tenths of a mile past Old Mill Road. Mike Dickson found them and is administering first aid. He called Tom Toopeek, who called me, and I’m calling you. You should radio Elmer from the car.”

“Paramedics?” She was so accustomed to calling Elmer for help, she didn’t even question this order, though a third doctor on the scene was a crowd.

“Tom radioed for them. According to Tom, we have two victims, one unconscious and one conscious but disoriented, possible internal injuries but no apparent compound fractures. Stable pulses and respirations, but that’s the extent of vitals Mike Dickson is capable of reporting.”

“One car?”

“Yep. Off the road at a curve. Right at dusk. How far are you from there?”

“Ten minutes, maybe less.”

“I’ll beat you there, so drive carefully. Isn’t that the bad spot where…?”

“Angel’s Pass. Do we know the victims?” she asked reflexively. She almost always knew the victims. There was the sound of air, almost as though John keyed the mike on and off, but he was calling from a cell phone, so there was no mike. “John?”

“June, it’s Judge and Birdie.”

“Oh Jesus.”

“Just drive carefully.”

J
une’s head was empty but for the repetitive urgent prayer,
Dear God, let them be okay, dear God, please…
She drove too fast and knew it, but couldn’t seem to slow herself down. She forgot all about Elmer. When she arrived at the scene everything stopped and she shifted into an eerie slow motion, she entered a sluggish dream state. The lights from Tom’s Range Rover and John’s BMW illuminated the scene—rising smoke and dust, the steaming wreckage of mangled metal ground up against the tree line.

There, crouched in the headlight beams, John and Tom hovered over a backboard. June couldn’t make her legs move; her feet were leaden. It seemed like hours before she got to the others. And when she did arrive, she couldn’t quite make sense of the situation. Birdie lay supine, a collar on her neck, a reddened rag on her brow, her beautiful, thick, wiry silver hair matted and stained with blood.

June heard muffled voices, but couldn’t make out the words.

Beside Birdie, sitting on the ground, looking ancient and vulnerable rather than imposing and authoritative, was Judge. Dazed. Hunched. A trickle of blood and spittle dripping down his chin. He resembled a nursing home patient more than a judge.

Again she heard the muffled sounds. She saw that the noise was coming from Tom and John, but she couldn’t quite hear them. They were shouting at her, but sounded as though they were underwater. Their hands on Birdie, faces turned toward her, they garbled incomprehensible words.

Then, like a vacuum, the fog was sucked away and both her vision and hearing became suddenly acute.

“June! I need an IV set up and Ringer’s solution!” John shouted.

“June! We need oxygen here!” Tom yelled.

Instantly she knew. They were using the collar, backboard and first aid equipment out of Tom’s Rover and John’s medical bag, but June carried the bulk of the ambulance supplies in her Jeep.

Mike Dickson came out of nowhere and was at her side, prodding her. His voice was calm, steady. “Come on, June, you can show me what John needs. Let’s get the stuff out of your Jeep.”

She came back to herself then. Birdie and Judge became emergency patients and she became a functional doctor. If anyone had noticed that she’d been stunned senseless and temporarily useless, they didn’t say anything.

Many hours later, as dawn was breaking, June examined Birdie for the tenth time. They were safely
admitted into a hospital room and no longer on the ground beside devastating wreckage.

“Did you see any angels, Birdie?” June asked, flicking the light rapidly across the elderly woman’s opened eyes.

“No, but I saw stars.”

“I’ll bet. Pupils are equal and reactive. You had a nice clunk on the head, and a long rest. Slept like a curled up kitten all night long.”

“She never left your side,” Elmer said.

“Judge?” Birdie wanted to know.

“He’s fine. He’s having some X rays, then he’ll be back.”

Birdie gripped June’s wrist. “It’s Judge, June. He had a stroke or something.”

June frowned. “There’s no evidence of a stroke, Birdie. He was a little disoriented after—”

“He was disoriented
before!
I tried to get his attention, but he had that glazed-over look on his face, like he gets when he’s thinking about some complicated court case or baseball, and he doesn’t hear a word I’m saying. But instead of snapping out of it, he veered right off the road. Right at that sharp curve. Something’s wrong with his head. I mean, more so than usual.”

“It’s okay, Birdie,” June said calmly. “That’s exactly why we’re keeping him. We’ll get some blood, take some X rays. I think I’m going to have Elmer drive him down to Ukiah for an MRI, and maybe, based on what you’ve said, we’ll have him see a neurologist.”

“June, you need to check him for a brain tumor. And Alzheimer’s. And—”

“Birdie, slow down. Don’t get yourself too excited. You’re a patient, too. A patient who’s been unconscious all night. Now, I’ll get the nurse to bring you a pen and paper, and when you think of something you want me to check, you write it down. For the time being, I need for you to be calm.”

Birdie took a deep breath. “I know you’ll take good care of him, June.”

“And of you.” She patted her hand reassuringly. “Think you can relax? Or should I get you a little something?”

“I’ll be fine, once I see Judge again.”

“He should be up in a little bit. And I’ll be back shortly.”

June left the hospital room and leaned wearily against the wall just outside. It was barely after dawn, but she hadn’t so much as dozed all night.

By the time the ambulance had taken Birdie and Judge away and she’d had a chance to really look at their demolished car, she’d felt a huge surge of panic. They shouldn’t have come out of that mess alive, much less in the condition they were both in, which was stable. The car had been crushed around a thick tree and there was no windshield or front seat. And if Mike Dickson hadn’t come across them, they could have both died, or wandered off, or who knows what. Mike usually avoided 482 going to and from his orchard, for exactly that reason. It was a touchy stretch of road. They hadn’t had any fatalities there since June had returned to Grace Valley, but they’d had a few serious accidents.

She remembered too clearly her reaction when she’d
seen the wreck, when the fear of losing Birdie had hit her. Some things you just never prepare for. She loved Birdie so, depended on her so—two things she took completely for granted. At that moment, fear had ripped through her like a hunting knife. Birdie had been her mother’s best friend for thirty years or more, June’s godmother, the mother of June’s high school sweetheart, and finally, June’s replacement mother after Marilyn’s death. But June wasn’t alone in her love for Birdie. The whole town adored her.

June closed her eyes. Just the memory of blood on her dear friend’s silver pin curls was enough to bring her to her knees. She said a little prayer of thanks that they were, so far, all right.

“She’s going to be fine,” Elmer said, sneaking quietly out of the room. “I bet that old coot she’s married to has a carotid occlusion. Bet he got dizzy and confused and hit some soft shoulder right there at that turn.”

“Good guess,” she said tiredly. “Dad. I froze.”

“I would’ve, too.”

“No, Dad. I froze. I couldn’t get out of the car. Then I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t walk, couldn’t hear John and Tom shouting at me.”

“I bet. I would’ve been worse.”

“Dad, you don’t—”

“June, I
do!
Don’t overthink this! They’re family! You had a panic response. It happens…even to doctors.”

“It’s never happened to me before.”

“Lucky you,” Elmer said.

“Are you saying it’s happened to you?”

“I can remember once or twice, but not the circumstances. I
do
remember thinking I’d lost my ability to be functional and objective. As time went by I realized I was only in shock for seconds, but seconds that seemed like minutes. You need some rest.”

“I’m fine. I’m fine now, I mean. I’m not leaving till I’m sure they’re okay. And I have patients.”

“You do your early rounds and I’ll take your patients. Me and John. Besides, I’d like a chance to work with him, see how he functions around there. Based on your—”

“Oh Dad, I’m sorry! I meant to tell you, I talked to his old nurse. She was with him for several years and sings his praises. Apparently he went through a nasty divorce, had an ex-wife who wouldn’t let the divorce proceed and got into a nasty conflict of ideas with Fairfield. But as for skill and patient rapport, he is supposedly a minor god.”

Elmer chewed on this a moment. “He’s sort of goofy for a god, don’t you think?”

“Sometimes.” She laughed and confided conspiratorially, “Jessie says he’s a nerd. Or was that dork? But a good doctor. She likes working with him.”

This made Elmer smile. “Little bald girl can sure call ’em, can’t she?”

“That aside, I would appreciate it if you’d take some of my morning patients, Dad. John would be glad to, but if you could just help out, I should be in by—”

“Take your time, honey. I know pulling Birdie and Judge out of a ditch just about took ten years off your life.”

“At least. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to go by
my house, take a shower, let Sadie have a pee—that sort of thing. Poor Sadie…”

“She’s going to have to learn how to be a doctor’s dog.”

June looked in on a few patients, then got herself a cup of coffee. She stood in front of the nursery window, holding her steaming cup. Musing. Nothing could replace newborns for musing.

When John’s call had come the night before, she’d rushed out of the house only to find the porch deserted. Jim had gone. She’d called out to him, but there had been no answer, and she’d had no time to wait. Sadie just looked toward the road. June had put Sadie in the house and jumped in her Jeep, making tracks. He hadn’t been walking down the long drive, nor had she seen any vehicle. There wasn’t any time to think about him again until dawn.

Now it seemed as if he were some apparition. She wouldn’t mind, as long as he made regular visits. Maybe that was how Mrs. Muir felt. But could you still taste the apparition’s kiss long after you’d licked your lips clean? Still feel the ghost’s arms around you? Smell his hair?

“Any of these yours?” a voice behind her asked.

She turned. “Blake! I was waiting around to see you, I was trying to get out of making a proper appointment. Aren’t you here awfully early?”

“I had a delivery. A stubborn one.”

“Everybody okay?”

“We are now. What are you doing here at the crack of dawn?”

“There was a car accident. An awful experience. Two old friends—Judge and Birdie Forrest. But they’re
doing well now. I need to speak to you, Blake, if you have a few minutes.”

“No better time than now. The office doesn’t open till eight, I’ve already made my rounds and no one is in labor.”

“It’s a personal favor I’m asking….”

“Whatever you need, June.”

“If we could find an empty room somewhere, or maybe even a stall in the ER…”

“Why don’t you tell me what you—”

“A diaphragm,” she whispered.

Blake Norton was a handsome bachelor in his late forties, one of the many professional transplants from big cities. But he was ahead of his peers and had opened his Rockport family practice almost twenty years earlier. He was, therefore, well acquainted with both Elmer and June. June used Blake as her primary physician.

Behind the curtain in a birthing room on the labor and delivery wing, with her legs up in the air and her butt hanging out, her doctor said, “I admit, I’m flattered. With the arrival of the esteemed Dr. Stone, I didn’t think you’d be needing my services anymore.”

“I’m not ready to make him my doctor,” she said.

“I guess I can understand that,” Blake said. “He comes with an amazing reputation, doesn’t he?”

“You’ve heard of him?”

“I asked about him when I heard you were bringing him in. I need a good OB now and then. I still have a number of colleagues I keep in touch with in the Bay Area. He practiced there, right?”

“Uh-huh. The Fairfield Women’s Clinic.”

“Then he must be good.”

“Why do you assume that?”

“Because that clinic, from a physician’s point of view, is just about the best place to practice reproductive medicine in all of northern California. Excellent reputation. The best doctors available. Neonatology, infertility, gyno-oncology, everything. One-stop shopping. I’ve heard that celebrities actually travel from afar for the services of that group.”

“My goodness,” she said, having had no idea word of the place was so well traveled. But then Elmer had said he’d heard good things about that clinic. The environment must have been sheer hell to make a good OB leave a clinic like that.

Blake gave her a fitting and an exam for good measure, then backed away, snapped off the gloves and handed her a nice little ivory case in which her new birth control device was now stored. “Thank you, Blake,” she said.

“And may I say one more thing?”

“I really thought I’d get out of here without you saying ‘one more thing.’”

“I’m delighted to provide you with this service, June. At long last.” He winked.

“Did you just
wink?
”

He winked again.

“Jesus. At least you didn’t say, ‘Anyone I know?’”

“I don’t dare,” he said. “Unless I hear rumors of your frequent travels out of the area, the odds are excellent that I do know him.”

“Ha-ha on you. Now get out of here and let me dress!”

It was now 7:30 a.m. and she was fairly certain she had just protected herself against the future offspring of a ghost.

Did it all seem unreal because it had been so long since she had had any kind of romantic interest? Because he was a stranger? Because of the chaos of the accident?

All the same, she took her little ivory case, slipped it into her bag and checked on Birdie and Judge one more time before leaving the hospital. Birdie was sitting up and Judge was grumbling that he wanted to go home—excellent conditions for both of them.

There was no welcome quite so pleasurable as that of a pet. Sadie almost wiggled herself into the floor, she was so animated. She yelped and pawed and licked June’s face, making her drop to her knees and laugh. “Okay, okay—I bet you’re about to explode,” she said. “Let’s go!” They went out on the back porch together; June didn’t let Sadie take solo trips anymore. She watched her closely, lest she run pell-mell back to Mikos’s farm. But June had to throw the ball to get Sadie out on the grass. Finally, on the third throw, Sadie paused to water the lawn, but only a dribble. Then she bounded back up on the porch with the ball in her teeth, her heavy golden tail swishing wildly through the air.

“Maybe later, sweetie,” June said. “Right now I have to get cleaned up. And you must want breakfast, huh?”

June thought her an amazing dog—she’d lasted almost twelve hours and hadn’t even made a mistake. Plus she had not depleted the food and water from last night. She must have been saving herself.