The Doctor's In Love (Pathway Series) (2 page)

She had always loved Josh
Maddox and it hadn’t been love at first sight because at first sight she had
thought he was a pain in the butt.  He talked way too much and he never let her
get a word in edgewise.  Slowly but surely he had become one of Marisol’s most
trusted confidants.  She hadn’t had too many of those.   Yes he always tended
to be right and he always told her that he was right, but it was always in good
fun.  He picked on her and made sure that she didn’t take herself too seriously
and she made sure that he took himself just serious enough.  They had been a
good pair. 

He wasn’t gorgeous or
extremely built like in romance novels, he was lean and average but his
personality made up for whatever he lacked in the looks department.  He had an
extremely good heart and kind disposition and he had always looked at the
inside of a person’s heart and not the outside.  He had always looked out for
her best interests and Marisol wouldn’t push him away this time.  She’d see it
through, even if all he wanted was to have dinner and catch up.  She was always
so scared to put herself out there, but she was getting to the age where she needed
to quit running.  She looked at the clock again and thought back to the first
time she had met Dr. Josh Maddox.

Marisol was scared to
death.  The new physician was coming in and she was going to have to be the one
to show him around and show him the ropes.  The nurse that was supposed to work
with him had taken vacation and had left Marisol to work with him.  What was
her boss thinking; she did refills for heaven sakes.  She didn’t work with
doctor’s weeks at a time.  This had disaster written all over it.  What if he
was hard to work with?  She heard a noise and looked up to see a young guy
standing there.  He had to be about thirty-five or younger.  He had dark brown
hair and brown eyes and pale skin and a prominent nose.  He was wearing a white
t-shirt and blue jeans with a rip at the knees that looked a little worse for
wear.  Marisol thought he had something about him that seemed almost familiar.

“May I help you?” Marisol
asked.

“Yeah, sure.  I’m Joshua
Maddox, the new doctor.  I’m looking for where I’m supposed to be.” He said in
a deep voice.

 “Dr. Maddox, I’m Marisol. 
I’ll be working with you this week while your nurse is on vacation.  It’s nice
to meet you.  We weren’t expecting you till tomorrow.  How are you?” Marisol
extended her hand and he quickly engulfed it with his and shook it.  He didn’t
let g, but just held it and stared into her eyes.  Marisol felt like her hand
was on fire.  He wasn’t gorgeous or even sexy but there was something just
below the surface that Marisol couldn’t put her finger on.  He slowly let her
hand go and slipped his hands into his pockets. 

“I thought I’d get a
jump on things and move in.  I have a couple of boxes in the car and my
diplomas and stuff to hang.  I just wanted to have a look around and get things
settled.  Maybe go over a couple of things with who I’d be working with.”  He
smiled gently and shrugged.

“How about I help you on
all that?  I’m pretty free right now.”

“I don’t want to put
you out or anything.” He said quietly.

“Not at all.  It would
be good to switch things up a little.  We have 2 docs out so it’s pretty
quiet.” Marisol set her pen down and reached for her jacket. 

“Cool.  You get the
heavy stuff and I’ll get the picture frames? Deal?”

“I think you have that
backwards Dr. Maddox, but if you switch it you have a deal.”

“You can call me Josh.”
He said.

“I better not.  I’ll
slip up when seeing patients.  Really, I will.” Marisol said glancing sideways
and smiling broadly, when he went to protest.

“Ah…alright, but I
might not answer to Dr. Maddox.  I’m not used to it.” He joked.

“That’s okay.  I’ll
just throw something after the fourth time.”

They worked in silence
for a couple of hours putting up books and putting pictures on his desk.  Marisol
saw a pretty woman with blonde hair and brown eyes holding a little girl.  Marisol
picked the picture up and studied it.

“That’s my wife and
little girl.” Josh stated.

“They’re beautiful.” He
was married.  Isn’t that the way it always was.

“I like to think so. 
What about you?  Married?  Kids?”

“Are you kidding?  I’m
not really a kid person.  More of a dog person really and look at me – do I
look like I’d be married?” Marisol said with a snort.

“Yeah you do.  I can
see you married.  I don’t even know you and I feel protective over you already
and it’s only been 2 hours.  So yeah, I can see you married.” He looked down at
her, with this look she couldn’t understand.  He was really tall, at least 6’3
and she was all of 5’1. 

“Thanks for the
compliment, but there’s no one.  Hasn’t been.” Marisol placed the picture back
on the desk and backed towards the door.  “Well, looks like you’re settled in. 
I’d better get back to work.  I’ll um, see you later.”

“I thought you were
going to show me around?”

“It’s not that big an
office.”

He grinned that crooked
grin and snatched her hand.  “Come on.  Show me around.  We’ll work tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Marisol fell
head over heels in like.  Couldn’t help but like the good doctor.  His laugh
was infectious, even if he didn’t let you get a word in edgewise when he was
making a point or telling a story.  Josh Maddox was always in a good mood.  He
didn’t bring his problems to work and Marisol knew he had problems because he
had talked about them with her.  Who wouldn’t like someone like that? He would
even bring his daughter to work with him and Marisol would let her color in her
office.  She had watched her grow up and she had turned out to be a beautiful
child.  She had his personality and his outgoing nature.  They were an
all-around perfect family on the outside.

Marisol looked at the
clock and saw that it was 5 o’clock and put the past in the past so she could
head to the future waiting for her outside. 

“Hey Marisol, Dr.
Maddox is outside waiting for you.” Mindy said loudly.  Marisol closed her eyes
and counted to ten.  That was all she needed was a bunch of rumors getting
started. 

“I’m coming.” Marisol
said just as loudly.  She might as well just go with the flow.  She was sure
that it would get out sooner or later.  She grabbed her stuff and headed
towards the door.

 Mindy looked at her
quizzically.  “Are you going out with him?” She asked.

“Something like that.” Marisol
said.  She went out the door and saw Josh leaning back on the hood of his car. 
She stopped at the top step and just stared at him.  He looked good in his
jeans and dress shirt.  She felt her stomach flip-flop.  He smiled and touched
his forehead in a salute.  Marisol smiled and bounded down the steps.  She
didn’t care who saw her, she ran up to him and he caught her in his arms and
hugged her to him. 

“I figured if I didn’t
pick you up, you’d chicken out.” He said laughing.

“I almost did, but then
I saw you standing there and to be honest it flew right out of my head.  I
wanted to run all of 3 seconds.” Marisol said honestly.

“We have an audience, not
that I mind - because I don’t.”

“Let them look because I’m
throwing caution to the wind.” Marisol looked over her shoulder and 12 pairs of
eyes were staying at them with their mouths hanging open.  Marisol just smiled
as Josh opened the passenger side door for her.  “This is a big step for me you
know.”

“What going out with
me?”

“No, letting you drive. 
I usually have to be in control.” Marisol stated.

“You can drive if you
want.  I just thought you might like to sit back and relax and listen to some
tunes and close your eyes.”

“Not likely.  I’m too
nervous for that.” Marisol got in and put on her seatbelt and watched as he
crossed in front of the car.  Gosh, he looked good in those jeans.  Marisol
closed her eyes and breathed deeply. 

“Meditating?”

“Not exactly.  I wish I
were that calm.  Nice car…when did you get it?  I remember the old Jetta.”

“I had to get rid of
that old rust bucket.  I bought this about a month ago.  Didn’t really want a
car but didn’t want a truck so I settled on a SUV.  Volkswagen Touareg’s got a
really good reputation.   I had the Tiguan and Jetta so I thought I’d stick
with Volkswagen.”

“There’s nothing wrong
with that.  I’m working on Infiniti number 4.  So I stuck with that brand.” Marisol
said.  They were both really nervous…they were sitting here talking about their
vehicles.  Josh looked at Marisol out of the corner of his eye. 

“You know we’re making
small talk about cars right?”

“I was just thinking
that.  How nervous are you?” Marisol asked looking over at him.

“You wouldn’t believe
me if I told you.” Josh said seriously.

Josh glanced at Marisol
in amazement.  She didn’t know how nervous he was.  His hands were shaking and
he was sweating like a pig and it was cold outside.  She had to know the effect
she had on him.  He had always been interested in her, even when he probably
shouldn’t have.  She was smart, funny and had a beautiful smile that lit up her
whole face. When she smiled her eyes twinkled with mischief.   When he had
suggested going out he hadn’t thought she would actually say yes.  It had been
a shock to his system when he had seen her at the office.  He had known she
worked there, but he hadn’t been prepared when he’d seen her.  After all, it
had been several years and those years had changed her immensely.  She had lost
a lot of weight and had gotten rid of the glasses and her long reddish brown hair
was in a flipped out wispy style that he just wanted to run his fingers
through.  She looked amazing to him, but then she always had and he had fought
that interest for 5 years.  Looking back, he almost wished he’d acted on it,
but his morals wouldn’t have let him.  He had been in love with her when he had
left and it had almost killed him to leave, but he had.  His marriage had
fallen apart not long after that.  He had tried, he really had.  He’d loved
Jessica and he had tried to make it work even after he left, but his marriage
had still failed.  Things just hadn’t been the same.  He hadn’t been happy at work
or at home and things had gone downhill from there.  Sure, he had talked Jessica
into counseling, but after a couple of months she had decided that it wasn’t
worth it.  He guessed she was right on some level, but he had married for
better or worse, in sickness and health, till death do us part and he couldn’t
keep that last vow.  He took marriage serious, but in the back of his mind he
always knew that Marisol had been his soul mate from the day he had met her. 
He had known she was the one when they had talked about religion and marriage. 
Marisol had been a very spiritual person, she had loved God more than anything
and didn’t want to put him second and she had made it very clear to him on more
than one occasion.  That’s what he loved about her, her relationship with God
and her views on the subject.  He glanced over at Marisol and saw her leaning
her head back with her eyes closed. 

“Are you asleep over
there?”

“Not hardly.  I’m
trying to keep from making a fool of myself.  I have so many….” Marisol said
quietly letting her sentence drift off.

“Questions?”

“What happened with
your marriage?”

“Right to the point, I
like it.  It ended.  We grew apart and couldn’t make things work.  It happens. 
I tried to get her to do the counseling thing and she did for a while and then
she didn’t want to anymore.  She didn’t want to try anymore.  I don’t really
blame her.” Josh said sincerely.

“I’m sorry.   I know
how much you loved her.”

“Actually, there’s a
confession I need to make.  There was someone else.”

“Oh.” Marisol said,
sitting straight up in her seat.  That was the last thing she thought he would
say.

“It’s not what you’re
thinking.  When I left you I didn’t realize how hard that would be.  I kind of
shut myself down and wanted nothing more than to see you and hear you and I let
her know it.  I didn’t come right out and tell her, but I might as well have.” Josh
said.  He clenched both hands around the steering wheel and then flexed his
fingers.   He glanced at her expression and saw sympathy and a little
brightness in her eyes.  He might as well just lay it out there.  This was real
life and in real life sometimes things just needed to be said.  He might scare
her off, but at least he’d let her know how he felt.  Maybe it was quick in
coming, but it wasn’t really.  It had been 10 years in the making.

“I didn’t know.  I
mean, I knew how I felt, but I never knew how you felt.  You kept it pretty
well hidden.  My mom always told me how you talked about me when she saw you
but I always thought it was just you being nice.” Marisol said quietly.