Nothing But Trouble (14 page)

Now the thought of being jobless was
stressing her out. What she needed was another pill. She'd taken
one this morning, and wasn't supposed to take more than one in a
twenty-four hour period. But what harm could one more little pill
cause? It would send her on a work-spree around her house and she
wouldn't have time to think about her current unemployment. Or how
R.J. had obviously banged the doctor bitch, and clearly wanted to
get in her pants again. Danielle was very familiar with the looks
he gave the other woman. Because he used to look at
her
that
way. Until he decided to go all ethical on her with his "I can't do
this anymore" bullshit.

She was getting irritable, and that wasn't a
good sign. Another pill would take the edge off. Just one more and
she could float through the rest of her day stress-free.

Rebecca took
advantage
of the practice's lunch hour and drove to the
pharmacy. This was pure instinct and something she probably
shouldn't be doing. If information got beyond her, the potential of
Dr. Gross getting in serious trouble grew exponentially. Not to
mention she could get slapped with a lawsuit, so she had to be
careful with what she said. But she'd graduated high school with
one of the pharmacists, and she trusted him to be discreet. At
least she hoped. One could never tell with people these days.

She still hadn't worked out what she was
going to say to him. But she needed more solid evidence of Dr.
Gross's activities and she wasn't sure how else to go about it. If
her suspicions were true, which she was sure they were, she'd be
forced to leave the practice. In that case, she might have to find
a practice in another town. However, that was a small sacrifice to
make in order to keep her medical license.

The sun was a bright yellow disc directly
overhead. After yesterday's storm, Rebecca was grateful for the
warm weather, even if it was a bit toasty for her taste. Her feet
were sweating in her brown high heels.

In just a few short minutes after leaving
work, Rebecca pulled into the pharmacy. It wasn't one of those that
was tucked in the back of a drug store. It was one of those mom and
pop places located at the end of a small strip center. Luckily
there were no other cars. Rebecca didn't relish anyone else
overhearing.

With a pounding heart, she parked her car and
went inside the pharmacy. The place wasn't very big. Wall-to-wall
shelving held over-the counter medicines and vitamins, along with a
few chairs for those who wanted to wait for their prescriptions.
Rebecca spotted Josh behind the counter with his white coat and
light brown hair. The phone was cradled between his ear and
shoulder as he worked on the computer.

She'd always liked Josh. He had a warm smile
and never had a bad word to say about anyone. He was also a
newlywed, and he and his wife were renovating an older home in the
neighborhood where Lacy, R.J's sister-in-law, used to live. She
came to a stop in front of him and waited for him to finish his
phone call. After a few minutes, he hung up and greeted her with a
grin.

"Hey, Rebecca. Are you dropping off, or
picking up?"

She inhaled a deep breath. "Neither. I
actually have a favor to ask you."

"What do you need?" he asked.

"I need you to let me know if any
prescriptions for Adderall come in here that are written by Dr.
Gross. Would you be able to do that?" she asked, knowing good and
well he wouldn't.

Josh shook his head and frowned. "I can't
really give you that information."

That's what she was afraid of. Did she really
expect him to give her a glance of all their confidential files and
keep a personal record of Adderall prescriptions just for her? She
wouldn't do that for anyone either. But still… without that
information, she was that much further away from getting to the
bottom of this.

"Why do you need to know?" Josh asked.

The look on her face must have shown her
disappointment. Now, face to face with Josh, Rebecca wasn't sure
she could divulge this information. "Uh…" she started, not feeling
the confidence of a few moments ago.

Josh leaned forward across the counter. "You
know you shouldn't even be in here talking to me about this. And
you also know I can't give you that information."

"I know," she admitted, unable to look at her
own reflection in Josh's eyes. What had she been thinking, coming
in here? That Josh would allow her access to confidential
information and answer all her questions? She knew better than that
and could get in trouble for even asking. "Forget I said anything,"
she added.

Josh didn't respond, probably because he
couldn't forget she'd asked. Now she'd probably raised a red flag
for him that would likely come back to bite her in the ass.

She turned and left the pharmacy with a heavy
and oppressing weight pressing down on her shoulders. It was sort
of the same dread she used to feel the night before an exam, the
ones that she hadn't been as confident about. And not only had she
not gotten anything accomplished, but Josh probably thought she was
nuts.

As she drove back to work, she tried to keep
her thoughts aligned to her patients that she still had to see
today. Thoughts of impending doom, such as losing her medical
license, kept interfering with normalcy. While examining her first
patient after lunch, Rebecca pulled up the wrong file and it took
her several minutes to fix the problem. Dr. Gross had been scarce,
going from one exam room to another, then back to his office. It
was just as well. She didn't have the wherewithal to broach the
subject again.

Not only that, but she couldn't look at him
with a million questions in the back of her mind.

Thankfully the rest of her day went by pretty
smoothly. Her last patient left at quarter to six, giving her time
to stop by the grocery store to pick up things for dinner. However,
after arriving home, the chicken and asparagus all of the sudden
didn't sound very appetizing. Her mother already had a pot
spaghetti on the stove, while simultaneously arguing with Rebecca's
father. As mouthwatering as the garlic bread smelled, Rebecca
really didn't want to listen to her mother and father argue about
whether or not to take advantage of the termite invasion and
remodel the house.

"The shag carpeting is thirty-five years old
and needs to get ripped up anyway, Donald. Why leave old
carpeting?" Her mom was saying as Rebecca walked into the
house.

"Because there's nothing wrong with it," her
father shot back.

Twenty minutes into the wood paneling debate,
Rebecca excused herself to her room and packed an overnight bag. No
home-cooked dinner was worth this headache. She'd had a long day
and the last thing she wanted was to listen to her parents volley
back and forth for Lord knows how long. She'd grab a quick dinner
and go see Courtney. The two of them were overdue for a girls'
night anyway.

"Honey, where are you going?" her mother
asked as Rebecca walked through the kitchen to the garage door.

"Over to Court's. Don't feel like you have to
wait up."

Patsy eyed the overnight bag with a
suspicious gleam in her eye, but shrugged her shoulders. "All
right."

Her car was so blessedly silent, that all
Rebecca could do was sit there. Maybe she ought to just sleep in
her car. The seats were leather and pretty darn comfortable. No,
because then her mother would really think she was crazy.

So she pulled out of the garage and headed to
her friend's house. On her way there, she grabbed some dinner and a
sweet ice tea. The tea was entirely too watery and not sweet
enough, but she didn't care. It was cold and wet and that was all
the mattered.

Courtney's house was pitch black when Rebecca
pulled up to it. She knew, even as she rang the bell, that her
friend wasn't home. Even still, she rang the bell two more times,
but no one answered. No one answered the phone either when Rebecca
called on her cell phone. Disappointment had her taking slow steps
back to her car. She tossed her overnight bag in the back seat and
climbed behind the wheel. Over the next few minutes, Rebecca
munched on her brisket tacos and stared out over the darkened
street. After finishing dinner, she grabbed her cell phone again
and called Lacy. She'd been dying to see the little girl Lacy had
given birth to three months ago. But Lacy informed her the newborn
had croup.

Rebecca hung up her phone again and stared at
the thing. She thought about calling Erica but then remembered the
girl saying something about going out for her birthday. With a
defeated sigh, she tossed her phone back in her purse and laid her
head on the steering wheel. Her only sensible option was to go back
home, but she really,
really
didn't want to go there. She
loved her parents dearly but they'd been suffocating her since
they'd come to stay with her. Rebecca had never realized how much
she valued the quiet of her home, until her home was no longer
quiet. Questions about why she wasn't dating and her biological
clock ticking away, was not what she wanted to deal with right
now.

A completely crazy idea came to her mind, and
she knew better. She turned the car back on and pulled away from
Courtney's dark house. If she had any sense at all she'd turn
around and go back the other direction. It would be much safer for
her to go home and listen to her parents.

But she was tired of being safe. Safe was
boring. Safe was predictable. All that had earned her was one
lonely night after another and a mother who constantly nagged her
to procreate. At this point, Rebecca would rather deal with the
torture to her deprived hormones.

By the time she pulled up to the well-lit
two-story home, Rebecca's heartbeat was in overdrive. An old muscle
car, covered in gray primer that she didn't recognize, sat in the
driveway. Without giving herself a chance to change her mind,
Rebecca got out of the car and walked to the front door. She leaned
on the doorbell and waited.

A few seconds later, the door swung open. No
amount of pep talking or preparation could ever brace her for R.J.
Devlin. He stood, silent in the doorway, with one arm braced
against the door frame. His eyes, which were especially green at
the moment, swept over her in slow appraisal. Every inch of her
body, down to her toes, felt the touch of his gaze. It made her
feel alive, wanted, and incredibly sexy. No one looked at her the
way R.J. did. The man made an art out of the act. Usually she had
to fight the urge to run for cover, or throw a turtleneck and a
pair of sweats on. Now, she reveled in his attention. It was a
pleasing thing to know she could still elicit a reaction out of him
after all these years.

His gaze landed on hers, and he lifted a brow
in question as though waiting for an explanation.

"My parents are driving me insane," she
blurted out. "And no one else was home."

"Good to know I'm a last resort," he said in
a low voice.

She tilted her head on one side. "Does it
really matter?"

For a moment he just stood there and stared
at her, his attention dropping down to her breasts, which were
still covered by her work blouse. Then he pushed away from the door
and stood back for her to enter.

As she brushed by him, she tried not to
breathe too much because his scent always made her feel
light-headed. She felt his scorching gaze on her as he closed the
door, then led her into the great room. She forced her attention
away from how spectacular his ass looked in those jeans, and placed
it on the interior of the home. She'd been to his house before, but
had never stepped foot inside, mostly because of the whole comfort
factor she always struggled with around him. Being inside his home
just felt too… well, personal. Rebecca didn't do personal with R.J.
Devlin.

The inside was nothing like she expected. The
soaring ceiling with exposed dark-wood beams was awe-inspiring to
say the least. Two sets of French doors, framed by more dark wood,
led to a backyard that was heavily-treed. Where she expected sparse
furnishings, which was usually typical of men, she found rich décor
and over-sized couches that were high class, yet masculine. A large
archway to the left led to what she assumed was a kitchen. Rebecca
got a glimpse of an enormous stainless steel fridge adjacent from a
black granite island. From the outside the house didn't look any
bigger from the other places on the street. But from the inside the
home felt huge and airy.

Despite the space, it suddenly felt small and
suffocating as R.J. brushed past her. He stopped by the couch and
gathered a pile of newspapers, which he stacked in a much neater
manner, then set them on the coffee table.

"This is really nice," Rebecca said lamely.
If she didn't say something she'd stand there and gawk at him.

"Thanks." He straightened from his task and
shoved his hands in his pockets. "Noah oversaw the construction and
Courtney decorated it."

Noah was R.J.'s oldest step-brother and was
in construction project management. And that would explain why
everything was so coordinated and well put together. Not that R.J.
couldn't put together a house. But Courtney had always had an eye
and a flare for this kind of thing. She'd decorated Mason's —
Lacy's and Chase's oldest son — nursery and had done a fabulous
job. She hadn't used the typical blue for a boy. She'd mixed in
yellows and greens and had pulled together a very tasteful and
appropriate baby room. Her friend's unique eye for design was what
had landed her the job as a decorator that she was currently
soaring at.

"How's my dad's car coming?" she asked,
because R.J. was staring again, and if she didn't put some words
between them, she'd do something really stupid. Like say, "The hell
with this, take me already."