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He Calls Her Doc
Mary Brady
Maude DeVane is home in Montana to prove to the set-in-their-ways townsfolk that she's the doctor they need.What she doesn't need is an arrogant E.R. physician competing on her own turf. Especially if he's Guy Daley. Five years ago they shared a kiss she's been trying to forget ever since. And that's not possible with Guy here raising his teenage niece and spending far too much time at Maude's clinic.It's like a prescription to fall for him again. Worse, Guy's presence is not helping her with the townsfolk. How can she be their GP if they seek him for treatment? And if she has to leave the valley behind, will she lose her chance to find healing…and love?
“What’s happening?”
Guy’s grip on Maude’s arm stopped her and brought her back under the rain-battered awning.
“I’ve got a patient coming in.”
He pulled her closer and held her by both arms. Reflexively she raised her hands, then balled them into fists instead of putting them on his chest as she wanted to do. She tried to concentrate on a raindrop trickling down her face, but all she could see was the darkness of his eyes and all she could hear was the pounding of her heart. She needed to kiss this man.
Slowly, as if time had no meaning, he lowered his mouth to hers and the fire burst inside her. Flames raged through her senses and threatened to consume everything except her desire for him—until the doctor took over.
She pushed back. “I’ve got to go.”
Dear Reader,
Rugged western Montana urged me to tell a story amid its soaring mountains and sweeping pine forests. To do so, I needed characters who would stand out against a backdrop of magnificent scenery. Maude and Guy, two doctors so wounded they could not heal themselves, fit the roles well.
Enemies in the past and now touched by the same tragedy, they must forgive each other—then forgive themselves. When they do, the passion between them becomes love. With love as big as all Montana, they make a family for a little girl orphaned by the same tragic loss.
Sometimes life hurts. I believe it is the pain that shows us how brightly the joy can shine.
I loved taking these three “injured by life” people and, in my first book for Harlequin, molding a fiercely loving family who couldn’t imagine living without one another. I hope you love them, too.
I’d love to hear from you. Visit my Web site at www.marybrady.net or write to me at MaryBrady@ marybrady.net.
Regards and happy reading,
Mary Brady
HE CALLS HER DOC
Mary Brady
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mary Brady lives in the Midwest and considers road trips into the rest of the continent to be a necessary part of life. When she’s not out exploring, she helps run a manufacturing company and has a great time living with her handsome husband, her super son and one cheeky little bird.
For my husband and son, with whom I make my own
fiercely loving—and laughing—family of three.
Acknowledgments
My thanks to the people of Montana, who have never been anything but welcoming to me and who won’t know where to find the town of St. Adelbert, because it exists only in my mind.
And to Dr. Gillian Rickmeier, who selflessly answered my questions about the medical field. That said, any errors in this book—especially errors concerning medical issues—are mine and mine alone.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER ONE
MAUDE DEVANE, M.D., bypassed her crisp white lab coat and slipped on the one with a couple of badges of courage stained faintly into the fabric. Collar turned to the chill of the sunny June morning, she stepped out onto the ramp of the Wm. Avery Clinic’s emergency entrance. Somewhere under the biggest, bluest of Montana skies a man had fallen from a horse.
And she was ready, make that eager, to help her first patient in her brand-new solo practice.
On cue, the Squat-D Ranch’s red pickup truck careened around a corner and raced up Main Street. Traffic in the tiny mountain town of St. Adelbert made way as if they knew the passenger was unconscious.
Some of them probably did.
The truck lurched up the ramp and fishtailed to a halt, engulfing Maude in the smell of oily exhaust.
Curly Martin’s great-grandson Jimmy burst out the driver’s side door. “He still ain’t talking to me, Dr. DeVane!”
The bear-size seventeen-year-old barreled around toward the passenger side. As Maude reached the dusty truck, she leaned in to see the ninety-two-year-old rancher slumped against the door.
“Jimmy, get back in the truck.” Maude conveyed calm in her command. “And hold him in position. Don’t move him at all, especially his head.” And if they were all very lucky, the old man was not already paralyzed.
Jimmy dashed back around and scrambled into the cab. As he cradled his great-grandfather in his giant hands, Maude opened the door and reached in to feel for a pulse.
“Is he dead?” Jimmy peered at her from under the bill of his faded green cap.
She gave him a quick smile. “He’s alive, Jimmy.” Curly Martin, icon, epitome of cowboy in these parts, was not going down to a spill from a horse, not if she had any say.
She patted Curly’s chest. “Mr. Martin.” No response. “Curly, open your eyes.” She rubbed her knuckles into the man’s breastbone hard enough to awaken a sleeping person. The man remained still, his lips a pale slash in his tanned face.
“Keep holding him just like that, Jimmy. I need to put a protective collar on his neck.”
“I’m here, Dr. DeVane,” a woman’s quiet voice said from behind her.
Maude turned to the dark-haired, scrubs-clad, on-call nurse holding the stiff cervical collar in her hand. Maude smiled. “Thanks for getting here so quickly, Abby.”
“Carolyn will be here soon,” Abby said of the tech on call.
Maude nodded and then bent down to speak into Curly’s “good” ear. “Mr. Martin, I’m going to put a safety collar around your neck,” she said in the event he could actually hear her. After stabilizing his neck, the three of them lifted the unconscious man onto the waiting gurney and wheeled him inside the glass and aluminum entrance doors of the red-brick clinic.
“I’ll have vitals for you in a sec,” Abby said when they had moved Curly into the trauma room, a large, well-stocked room reserved for critical cases.
The serious knot on the side of his gray old head indicated the likely cause of his unconsciousness. But Maude wondered if he had fallen because he was unconscious or if he was unconscious because he had fallen. One of the slippery slopes of emergency medicine.
“Jimmy.” Maude turned to the wide-eyed kid standing at the foot of the cart. “Did you see what happened?”
“No, ma’am, Dr. DeVane. Black Jaxx came around the barn lookin’ proud like he a’ways does when he’s thrown a rider. When I got to Granddad, he was on the ground.”
“You should have let the rescue squad bring him in the ambulance.”
“He’d’a killed me dead if I’d done that. Heck, he’ll yell at me anyway.” The boy rubbed the back of his thick neck.
“I know.” Maude put a hand on Jimmy’s arm. “He told Doc Avery he was too old to have a fuss made over him.”
Jimmy grinned, then his face got serious again. “Will he wake up? Do you think you can save him, Dr. DeVane?”
“I’ll know more after I examine him. If he wakes up soon, it’ll be best.”
Maude patted the old man’s bony thigh through his worn jeans and started a more thorough exam. She gently prodded and searched for signs of injury, and just as she was satisfied there was no other neurological deficit, Curly began to mumble and tried to reach across his body with his left hand. Maude gently put his arm back at his side and let a little of her concern lift. Purposeful movement meant a decent level of brain function.
When Abby pulled off one boot, he murmured a few words.
Another moment later, “Danged horse,” came out loud and clear, followed by something they probably didn’t want to understand, period.
As Maude reached for Curly’s right arm, he sat straight up. “What the hell’s going on here?”
“Granddad!” Jimmy cried.
Curly looked around, blinked a few times and then swatted at Abby, who was tugging on his other low-heeled boot.
“And you can leave that right where it is, missy.”
Abby easily evaded the swat and grinned at the old man. “Hullo, Curly Martin.”
He let Abby ease him back against the pillow.
“Nurse Abby. Didn’t expect to be back here so soon.” With that, he gave Jimmy a look that made the boy squirm.
“I’m glad he brought you in, Mr. Martin.” Maude put a hand on his shoulder to encourage him to stay put while she finished her exam.
Curly smirked his Montana charm and relaxed. “You’re lookin’ perty as a picture today, Maudie. But I guess it’s Dr. DeVane nowadays.”
“Well, Mr. Martin.” Maude let the diminutive given to her in this valley when she was a child slide off her. “Now that you’re smiling, you don’t look so bad yourself. Does anything hurt?”
He grinned. “Just this.” He held up the arm she had been about to examine. The bone under the brown weatherworn skin of his forearm jutted off in a slightly unnatural direction.
“Let me take a closer look at that,” Maude said as she cradled his deformed wrist in the palm of her hand.
Curly’s thick, frosty eyebrows drew together. “Nothin’ a little time won’t fix,” he said as he tried to pull away.
“Curly Martin, are you in here giving people trouble again?”
All heads turned as the sound of the deep male voice thundered from the doorway. Maude smiled at her predecessor.
“Doc, I thought you left for civilization already.” Curly grinned gap-toothed at Dr. William Avery, founder of the only clinic in her hometown, the place where Maude hoped to practice medicine as long as he had—hoped the town would let her.
“Don’t you have a great-grandbaby back East to help birth?” Curly continued.
“Doc” pulled off distinguished-looking even in his travel clothes. “I heard you came all the way in from the ranch to say goodbye, so I stopped by for a minute.” He gave Curly a cursory once-over, touching the bruise on Curly’s head.
“Guess I wasn’t glued on to that danged horse well enough.”
“Good thing you landed on your hard head.” Doc chuckled as he gently brushed a thumb over the wrist fracture.
“Dr. DeVane,” he said as he turned to Maude, “I know you have everything under control here. If you have any questions, call me anytime.”
“Thank you, I will. I hope you make it in time for the baby’s birth, Dr. Avery.” Maude smiled and kept her tone light. Doc Avery trusted her, but this visit would play differently through the gossip network. “Have a safe drive and a great retirement.”
He smiled at her, patted Curly on the shoulder, nodded at Abby and Jimmy and walked out the door to his new life, no doubt leaving a trail of wagging tongues. Old Doc Avery couldn’t even get out of town without checking up on Dr. DeVane one last time. Lordy, what’s going to happen to us when he’s gone?
Earlier at the grocery store she had overheard, “What if little Maudie messes up?” Did it not matter to anyone in this tiny throwback town that she had earned the M.D. after her name? She gave X-ray orders to Abby and left the room.
Well, she’d earn their trust. In the two years they had advertised for a doctor to take over the clinic, she was the only one to apply, and because she was their only choice of doctors in this valley, they’d have to give her what she needed to win them over—time.
TWELVE MOUNTAIN MILES northwest of St. Adelbert, on the Whispering Winds Ranch, where pine trees towered and snowcapped mountains etched the sky—the doorbell rang shrilly and repeatedly.
Guy Daley pushed away from the desk. Cynthia Stone, one of the participants in the executive development program, was at his door for the third day in a row with an excuse to chicken out of an activity. He had coerced her into the hike and the overnight, but this canyon crossing was going to be tricky.
The shrill bell rang again and he yanked the door open.
“Why’s the door locked?” demanded the child on the stoop. She looked twenty, but he knew she was not quite thirteen. Mascara smeared under her eyes. Jeans shredded on the bottoms. Tail of her smudged pink T-shirt almost covering her belly and a riot of red curls mashed in on one side. She wore a deep scowl, just like her father had all those years ago when he’d run away from home and shown up at Guy’s college apartment.
A fist of grief punched Guy in the gut. He took it and smiled at his niece.
“Lexie.” He should be shocked or horrified she’d found her way, probably by herself, from Chicago to Montana, but he was oddly glad to see her.
“Uncle Guy.” She glared at him, large blue eyes narrowed in challenge.
