Just Down the Road (38 page)

“I can’t deal with your insanity right now.” Noah glanced at the boy. “I’ve already got a full plate.”

“I understand,” Big said. “But when this is over, I want you to say good-bye to Reagan once and for all.”

Noah didn’t have time to say more. Ester was back with Band-Aids.

After a few minutes, Reagan talked Big into going down to the cafeteria and getting them some breakfast.

Big didn’t argue. He didn’t bother to ask anyone what they wanted either. He just followed Ester out, frowning at Noah like he felt sorry for him.

“What was that all about?” Reagan whispered.

“Big thinks we should break up.”

Reagan shrugged. “First of all, I didn’t know we were a couple; I thought we were just friends. And second, why would he care?”

“He thinks we’re ruining his love life, and by the way, we are a couple.”

She backed into the space behind the door. “We are? Nice of you to mention it to me.”

Noah followed. “Of course we are, Rea. We always have been, even though you won’t admit it. Besides, no one kisses hello and good-bye like you do. I should have been having you take me to the airport every time I flew.”

He leaned in and touched his mouth to hers. When she didn’t object, he pressed her gently against the wall and kissed her the way he’d been wanting to since their first kiss at the airport hours ago.

She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back. That wild, buckle-your-knees kind of kiss she’d given him far too few times.

He slid his hand along her body, loving the feel of her against him. She was small, but every inch of her was a woman and he loved pressing her to him. It was like their bodies had a memory of how to mold perfectly together. No one felt the same as Reagan in his arms. No one ever would.

A moment later, she pushed away and stepped around him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t do this here.”

Noah tried to calm his breathing. He’d been playing this game with her for so long he wondered how she could still manage to surprise him. Anyone else would have walked away, he thought. But every time she pulled him close and then stepped away, he felt the kick of her gone in his gut like a fresh wound over old scars.

When he didn’t say a word, she finally looked back at him.

He didn’t turn away. For once he wanted her to see how she affected him, how she hurt him. She wasn’t some
woman in a bar who just walked up to him and kissed him. She was Reagan. His best friend. His only true love.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I’m standing on a ledge, Rea, halfway between heaven and hell, and right now I don’t much care if I fall or if I fly. If you want me, then be with me. If you don’t, then step away. I’ll get over it in a few hundred years. We can be friends or we can be lovers, but I can’t deal with being halfway in between.”

She nodded as if she understood, but Noah had no idea which direction she was thinking about taking. If she said she only wanted to be friends, he’d take the blow and probably wait around for the next time she kissed him full out with no holds barred.

It occurred to him that maybe everyone was right. Maybe he
had
been kicked in the head one too many times by the bulls he rode. If she ever stopped fighting her feelings and him, he prayed he’d be man enough for her to love.

D
R. ADDISON
S
PENCER CLOSED THE DOOR TO HER OFFICE
and leaned against it for strength.

Her father had already taken the seat behind her desk as if he belonged there. Though this was only a temporary office stocked with leftover furniture, he couldn’t have looked more regal if he’d been in his huge oak-lined office in California.

He’d come sixteen hundred miles to have his say, and she knew he wouldn’t leave until he did.

“I still don’t understand why you signed on for this little town. Did you really think you could do something miraculous here, or were you just running away … as usual?” He cleared his throat, preparing to begin the lecture about how she’d never measured up. “It took me a while to locate you this time, but….”

Addison held up one hand and took a long breath. She didn’t intend to let him win this time. She might not know what direction she was headed in life, but it was her life.

They’d had this conversation over the phone a dozen times.

“Ten years ago, I left home because I thought I was in love when I was still more kid than woman. It was a mistake, not
usual
behavior. This time, I guess, I ran away, if you want to call it that, because I wasn’t in love with my work or the man you seem to think is perfect for me. Part of me was afraid you’d be disappointed in me. Glen Davidson or your vision of what I should do for the rest of my life was all your idea, not mine. He’s doing great research, Dad, but it’s not what I want to do. I love working with people, not test tubes. I delivered a baby last night for a woman I’d treated seven months ago when she was hurt in a fall. I’ve been with her, fighting for that baby to be born.”

She could tell her father wasn’t listening, but she needed to say the words. “These people matter to me. I’m almost like family, there when they lose someone and there for the birthing. I know you don’t see it, but the work I’m doing here is important. I’m not afraid of what you’ll think anymore. For once I don’t want to disappoint
me
.”

Before he could correct her, she added, “People, Dad, not patients or subjects, but real people. That’s what I want to work with.” Until this moment she hadn’t realized just how much she loved it. Delivering babies in the middle of the night, working overtime after a bar fight, sitting with the family when there was nothing else to do but wait for death. She loved it all.

“Glen won’t wait forever.” Her father hadn’t heard a word she’d said. “If you ask me, he’s been a patient man already.”

“He doesn’t want me. He wants an assistant.” She could feel herself fading again, disappearing into the woodwork.

“I’ve already talked with your supervisors in Dallas. You’re just one of a rotation line of doctors they move out to these small towns that need help keeping staff. They can find someone to take your place immediately.”

Addison closed her eyes, remembering another time when she’d stood before her father, broken and alone. He hadn’t
listened then and he wasn’t listening now. Before, she’d been willing to do whatever he suggested, whatever he demanded, because after one shattered marriage she’d lost all judgment.

But she wasn’t nineteen this time. She wanted more than her father or Glen in L.A. could offer. She still wanted what she’d been searching for when she’d run away after high school graduation. Addison wanted love.

When she opened her eyes, all she saw was a cold man at her desk. Her entire life had never been about her. It had always been about what he wanted, what he expected, what he demanded.

She’d been wrong once. She’d probably be wrong again, but at least she wouldn’t be invisible.

“I’m not going back with you.” The image of Tinch standing alone on the porch before dawn flashed in her mind. “I have to do what is right for me.”

“You’re making a mistake. You’re throwing away your future. If you’d just listen to me …”

“No, Dad, I’m finding it,” she countered. “I don’t want what you and Glen are offering. I want something else, something more.” For the first time she realized her words were true. She wasn’t hiding away settling for less; she was standing, demanding more.

“I’m not coming back to save you again, Addison.”

“I won’t be asking you to.” At that moment she felt light enough to fly. “Good-bye, Dad.”

She turned, opened the door, and stepped into the rest of her life.

T
YLER
W
RIGHT USED THE BACK ENTRANCE OF THE HOSPITAL.
He might not be taking out a body this time, but he figured the way he looked someone might mistake him for a corpse. Few in town had ever seen him unshaven, much less with his trousers pulled over his pajamas. He’d been delighted when Stella McNabb showed up. He was also thankful the funeral home didn’t have any services pending. They all needed time to simply enjoy the new life coming into their world.

Tyler was thinking about how he liked the name Autumn had picked. Brandy Lee Smith. It sounded like a country/western singer. She might be only hours old, but he could tell she was a bright little thing just by the look in her eyes.

A short, wiry man bumped into Tyler as he stepped onto the back parking lot. He seemed in a great hurry, not bothering to apologize as he hurried on. Tyler didn’t recognize him. Over the years he might not have known names, but he was familiar with all the staff. This man in his wrinkled
black suit and slicked-back hair didn’t work at the hospital, Tyler was sure about that.

This guy didn’t even look like he belonged in town, much less at a hospital.

Tyler’s tired body pulled him toward his car, but reason stopped him. If his Kate thought something was amiss, she’d investigate, and so would he.

As he followed the man inside, keeping his distance, he noticed the odd way he moved, as if testing each step for a trap below the tile floor. He turned the corner and entered the stairwell, and after a moment, Tyler followed.

Tyler climbed the stairs as quietly as he could. He was almost to the second-floor door when he heard the man pull a door open on the third floor. Then not a sound.

Out of breath, Tyler reached the third-floor door and pulled the door open to an empty hallway. The stranger was gone. He could be in any room. The third floor stretched out in both directions from where he stood.

For a moment, Tyler thought of taking the elevator down and going to his car. The idea of stopping by for a dozen doughnuts on the way home sounded grand. He figured, with luck, he could have half of them eaten by the time he reached his own kitchen. Autumn or Kate wouldn’t be there to stop him, so he’d finish the rest off with milk.

Then, he thought of Autumn and her baby in the maternity wing on his left. Their safety immediately overrode any thought of food. What if the stranger had come to steal the baby? Tyler had heard of it happening.

He had to check on them first. While he was at it, he’d check all unlocked doors and open rooms because he couldn’t shake the feeling that the little stranger in the wrinkled suit was somehow walking, breathing trouble.

If Tyler didn’t find him on the left wing, he’d search the right wing, then he’d move down to the second floor. He’d go all the way to the emergency room if he had to.

A
DDISON MADE HER ROUNDS HOPING HER FATHER WOULD
get the hint and leave. By midmorning when she’d finished, she wouldn’t even check to see if he was still waiting.

She knew he wouldn’t be. She’d won a battle, but she had no illusions about the war being over. He’d be back to try again.

Before she checked out, she had one more patient to see. She couldn’t leave, if only to sleep a few hours, without knowing how Tinch was doing. The image of how he must have stood alone and watched the three men come for Jamie kept flashing in her mind. He’d put his life on the line for a boy he’d known only a few weeks. There was a goodness, a strength in Tinch Turner that her father would never understand … but she saw it. Admired it.