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“I really can’t give up. My medical practice is expanding now that the villagers in the mountains are getting used to me, and even trusting me. And I want to get this arrangement taken care of before there’s an urgent need. I’m assuming that you’ll make your facilities available to my patients. Or am I mistaken?”
“Of course I’ll make my facilities available.”
“Which leaves us to the ways, Dr Killian.”
“And the means, Dr Léandre. I always have to figure in the means.” Paul glanced over at her father, who was beginning to inch closer to hear the conversation. “So about that lobster dinner…?”
Solange smiled. In spite of her caution, she liked him. He was to the point, but charmingly so. And he did so tempt her to veer off course for a little while. “I do like lobster, but I’m not dressed for the dining room and I’m sure there’s a dress code, so I’m afraid I’ll have to pass on the offer.” Safe comeback, and on the personal side, all she wanted was safe.
Paul took Solange’s arm. “You’re dressed better than anyone you’ll find in the dining room, in my opinion anyway. But I’m afraid you’re right about a dress code, so—”
Solange thrust her palm out to stop him. “So this is where you get me up to your room?”
“Purely lobster. And talk. I can give you an hour, but that’s all.”
He was back to business. That was good, because that’s all she could cope with. “So I’ll take that hour, and your lobster.”
He arched his eyebrows suggestively. “More’s the pity this is only business, because you’re good, Dr Léandre.” Paul laughed as he held out his arm to escort her to his hotel room. “Very good.”
“So are you, Dr Killian.” Good, she was sure, in ways she would never know.
CHAPTER TWO
PAUL’S room was heaven. Solange followed him through the door and simply stopped and stared before she was all the way inside. Pure heaven, just the way she remembered these rooms to be from her childhood. Red tile floor, two colonial king-sized beds, a vast picture window with a marvelous view of the pristine beach outside, and of the blue ocean beyond it.
Even though it was nearly dark outside now, in the pinks and golds of the twilight she could see a sailboat making its way slowly to port, its tall white sails fluttering lazily in the early evening breeze. She’d gone sailing out there with her family so many times. Her parents, her sister Solaina. Those had been good times, and she almost ached from the memory of them. But that had been so long ago, and nothing now, or in her future, was about sailboats or any of the other luxuries with which she’d grown up. She didn’t miss them much, though, because she had the memories, and nothing now could come close to that.
“The bathroom,” Solange whispered, crossing over to take a peek at the bathtub. White porcelain, deep, and curved in a way she was sure would fit to her well. Solange sighed wistfully. Only a few months up in the mountains and she’d already forgotten how nice a long soak in the tub could feel. Now it was a matter of a quick, usually cold, shower. Function over luxury. And time necessitated expediency because, no matter where she was, she was expected someplace else.
But this bathroom was so nice, she did indulge herself the fantasy of it all for a moment, picking up the scallop-sculpted soap nestled into a large abalone shell sitting at the washbasin. The lavender scent of it wafted up to greet her, and she quickly replaced the soap in its abalone shell for fear that getting caught up in the luxuries here would distract her.
“Feel free to use it,” Paul said. “Any of it. All of it.”
She laughed. “Am I being that obvious?”
“Like a kid in a candy store.”
“Out in the jungle there aren’t any such luxuries. We have buildings and we have the basics, but lavender soap…Frère Léon buys lye soap from one of the villages and, believe me, it doesn’t come close to smelling this nice.” On her way out of the bathroom, Solange stepped in front of the mirror over the vanity, almost afraid to take a look.
Her first glance at herself was such a shock. “Mon Dieu!” she whispered. Slowly lifting her hand to her face, she brushed it across her cheek, then her lips, then she raised it to her hair and ran her fingers through it. “I’ve aged so much,” she said. Her eyes were almost hollow, her hair so wild. And she was so thin…Turning away, she smiled self-consciously. “I haven’t been in front of a mirror for months and after all this time I’m afraid it’s quite a shock.”
“Then we must be looking at two different images, because what I’m seeing is absolutely stunning.”
“Kind words, Doctor, but not the ones I want to hear from you.”
“That’s right. You came to discuss lab tests and X-rays.” He laughed. “It seems to be a family trait. Your father’s a stubborn man—”
“I’m not stubborn,” Solange interrupted, turning out the bathroom light and stepping out into the hallway. “I wouldn’t argue the point over my father being stubborn, but I like to consider myself persistent.” She smiled at him, hoping not to seem too pushy. “Persistent with a purpose.”
“And I always thought that was called stubborn. My mistake.” Paul placed the palm of his right hand flat against his chest and gave her a slight bow. “And my sincerest apologies to the persistent lady. I’ll never make that mistake again.”
“Accepted,” she said, laughing. Paul was quite the charmer, and she shouldn’t be paying attention to him in a personal sense, or even liking him as anything other than a business contact. But she did, and it was very foolish! She knew that. She’d had a charmer for three years and look how that had turned out.
So why was she still susceptible? Especially when anything personal had the potential to make this situation between Paul and her difficult. She needed professional—colleague to colleague. Nothing else. Maybe not ever again, because it was turning out that being on her own wasn’t as bad as she’d feared it might have been. In fact, she rather liked her life, coming and going as she pleased. Nothing but the work to dictate her time and attention. Without Mauricio, life was good now, better than it had been in a long time, and she aimed to keep it that way. Meaning no more charmers!
“So now that you stand corrected about my persistence, shall we work out the details of your hospital schedule and arrange the best way for my patients to be seen there?” Solange went to sit on one of the two rattan chairs in a grouping at the end of the beds.
“That’s direct,” he said. “And just when I thought I might get lucky.”
“Lucky, as in…?” She tossed him an exaggerated puzzled look.
“Apparently as in it’s just my luck to be in a hotel room with the most beautiful woman on the island and all she wants to do is schedule X-rays.”
“I think you’re finally catching on,” Solange teased.
“Believe me, I may have caught on, but I don’t have to like it.”
“Is this how you raise your funds? Flirt with the women until they open up their…” Solange tossed him a sly wink “…purses to you?”
“If you had a purse, would that technique work on you?”
“Flirting? Not a chance. I learned how to be impervious to that technique, as you call it, a long time ago.”
“Sounds bad.”
“At the time, yes, it was bad. In a look back, it was the best thing that could have happened to me.”
Paul seated himself across from Solange, and plucked an orange from the fruit basket on the table between them. “Me, too,” he commented casually, breaking it apart and handing her a section. “Difficult at the time, and in a much broader perspective, it was the best thing that could have happened to her.”
“Her?” Solange asked before she popped the orange into her mouth.
He grinned. “She got everything she wanted—the husband at her side, lots of children. The life she wanted that I couldn’t give her.”
After swallowing her orange, Solange asked, “And what did you get?”
“The life I wanted. I travel and I’m not too tied into the domestic scene at this stage of my life, which is a good thing. I can’t be the perfect husband, or any kind of a good husband for that matter, and continue to do what I do. Couldn’t then either, so we split and everybody’s happy.”
“You still have contact with her?”
Paul nodded. “Our parting was, as they say, amicable. No hard feelings and we do talk every few months. Mostly because she wants to know what’s going on at the hospital, though. But it’s not strained. And you?”
“Hard feelings. Really hard feelings.” No need to say more. This conversation was becoming much too personal. But Paul was so easy to talk to, and listen to, and she was going to have to keep up her guard to avoid getting caught up in every little shade. Or in him.
“Let me guess. No one has captured your heart since.”
“I haven’t dated since,” Solange said, matter-of-factly. “One of my neighbors in Miami gave it a try…chocolates and champagne.”
“And?”
She wrinkled her nose, recalling the memory. “And he had all that champagne and chocolate to himself.” Plus a pile of clothes tossed onto the sidewalk. One of her moodier moments, admittedly. But such a good one!
Paul handed Solange another section of orange and practically drooled, watching her eat it. Attraction aside, and he was surely attracted to her, this was crazy. Pure craziness. He had work to do, and in another few days he’d be back in the States. And here he was…so distracted he didn’t want to go back to Bertrand’s party at all, back to all the wealth.
That was something he never allowed.
Even so, with one hundred prospective donors awaiting his return to Salon Rose, here he was sitting in a rattan chair, sharing a piece of fruit with her like he had all the time in the world. All because he wanted to spend more time with an entanglement he’d promised himself he wouldn’t go after again. Or at least not for a very long time. And just look at him now!
Paul shook the tension out of his shoulders, handed Solange the last section of the orange, and tossed the peels at the trash can across the room. He missed, and they landed on the floor. But he didn’t go to get them. Couldn’t go. Couldn’t walk away from Solange. Not now. “My lab technician Bijou will be able to give you a better idea of how she’s able to schedule patients for lab procedures. The same is true for Zac, my X-ray tech. Unless we have an emergency, they maintain their own schedules and workloads, and they’re both much better equipped to tell you the best way to handle your patients. Also, they’ll be able to give you a better idea of what will be available to you.”
“Then I can’t wait to meet Bijou and Zac.” Solange popped the last section of orange into her mouth, leaning back in the chair to chew it—slowly, deliberately. Seductively. At least, he was seduced. Never before had he considered the way a person chewed to be sexy, but he was so transfixed watching Solange that when she stopped he wondered how long he’d been staring.
He cleared his throat, and leaned back in his own chair. “Tell me about your little infirmary.” Not that he needed to know. But his transaction with Solange had essentially ended now. She would talk to his technicians about making future arrangements for any patients she might want to send to his hospital and, for all intents and purposes, he was out of the mix. If he left the room this instant, it wouldn’t matter. She had his consent, and that’s all she’d come there for. Proper protocol, as she called it.
He wasn’t ready to end it, though. Not yet.
“It’s a nice little facility,” she said. “Frère Léon and some of the men of his order set it up in the hope that one of their own might be able to run it. But none of their own are medically trained, and apparently it sat empty for well over a year before they approached me. And to be honest, I expanded their idea a bit. Talked them into letting me spend most of my time on house calls, which works out nicely.”
“So, I’ve been on Kijé two years now, and I know a little something about the people here. Based on what I’ve seen, are the rurals accepting you as a doctor?”
“That’s the hard part. They’re accepting of my medicine, but wary of me…being a woman. I’ve made friends, and have several people who do trust me. But many don’t. Of course, I’ve only been on the mountain three months now. It all takes time.”
“And who minds the infirmary while you’re out in the rural areas?”
“I have two nurses. But don’t confuse my definition of infirmary with yours because we have one examination room and beds for four patients. That’s all, and in the three months I’ve been on Kijé, I’ve had exactly six patients spend the night. Which is why I don’t spend much time there.”
“But you’re supplied?”
“Quite nicely, actually. My father helps me out and Frère Léon is certainly a wonderful provider. We have running water and electricity from a generator at The Mission and well-stocked medical supplies…We’re doing quite well. Better now, since you have what I don’t.”
“Have you ever thought about extending the services at your infirmary? Adding that lab equipment or an X-ray machine?”
“I do think about it all the time. But the simple fact is, we’re too remote up there in the mountains. And for the numbers of people who would even consent to any kind of testing we might do, it’s a waste of money. I can do the simple things like the PPD or blood sugar with what I have.” Common tests for tuberculosis and diabetes. “But I can’t do a CBC.” Complete blood count. “Of course, I might have only one or two patients a month who would require a CBC, so even if our location would accommodate the necessary equipment, the patient load would not.”
“Which is where I come in.”
Solange nodded. “You and your hospital. Oh, and that lobster dinner you promised me—is that still part of the deal?”
Dinner was a simple affair. Lobster, an array of fresh, sautéed vegetables, baked potatoes, freshly made crusty bread. And, oh, yes, ice cream for dessert. With a wonderful dessert selection, Solange chose plain vanilla ice cream, and Paul couldn’t talk her into the truffle or the tiramisu or even the crème brûlée. It had to be the vanilla ice cream. “You have a hearty appetite,” Paul commented.
She laughed. “One thing I’ve learned, living with only the barest of necessities, is that when you do manage the good fortune to have something extra, you never, ever waste it. Especially lobster.” She longingly eyed a chunk of succulent tail meat sitting on his plate. “You’re not going to let that go to waste, are you?”
“With you around, apparently not.” He speared it with the seafood fork, dragged it through the butter and held it out for her. As her fingers brushed his in taking the fork, a shiver ran up his spine and he caught himself wondering what it would be like to feed her that lobster with his fingers.
His fingers? Where the hell had that come from? Paul shook his head, trying to rid himself of that image. He really didn’t know enough about her to be having these feelings. No, he didn’t know nearly enough to be so blithering. “So tell me about your clinic in Miami,” he said, trying to get his mind off the obvious.
“I was there three years. It was closing so I left.”
Matter-of-fact words. Too matter-of-fact for the flash of anger he saw in her eyes. “Did you like the work?” he asked, trying to return to neutral ground.
“I loved the work,” she snapped. “But that wasn’t enough.”
No, definitely not neutral ground. And to top it all off, her body language was going rigid. What had been friendly and open was suddenly cold and defensive, which meant he was wandering down the wrong path with this topic. Or probably any topic right now, judging from the scowl onto her face. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”
“I’m sorry about being so abrupt. It’s an old wound that, apparently, isn’t as well healed as I thought it was.”
Old wound. At least it wasn’t something he’d said, and he was glad about that.
“He hurt you badly, didn’t he?” Paul refilled her wineglass and handed it to her. He might have liked to have made a night of it here, sitting and talking, but the truth was, he did have to get back to Bertrand’s party shortly. The night was still quite young, and he had work to do. Funny, that! In a way, he was like Solange—going only so far, then pulling away with an excuse of work. It was safe. He knew it. Apparently, she knew it, too.
“He pulled the rug out from under me. I thought we were partners in more ways than one, but we weren’t, as it happened. So I suppose you could say that I needed the rug pulled out. After three years, when you haven’t made the right commitments, they aren’t going to come along. Not in the sense that you want them to, anyway.”
“You mean as in marriage?”
“It went far beyond that. We were medical partners.” She paused, shaking her head vehemently. “Let me rephrase that. I thought we were medical partners, but in the end I was his employee, with no say in the practice. He decided it was time to go upscale, sold out and moved on up.”
“And here you are.”
“Here I am, doing what I want to be doing. Simple, predictable story. I let him do it, he did it. But the ending was as it should have been.”
“Even though you’re not over him.”
“I’m completely over him. Maybe a little bitter around the edges about the circumstances of my medical practice with him, and definitely much wiser when it comes to life and matters of the heart. I should have taken a better look at him from the start.”
“There are a lot of things you don’t see when you fall in love. Either it sneaks up on you or blindsides you and, however it happens, it’s not exactly an objective period in your life, is it? What you’re looking at isn’t necessarily what’s really there.”
“But you got over it, didn’t you?” Solange asked him, bending forward to spoon up a bite of the ice cream.
“Better than I thought I would once I saw that Joanna wasn’t the one for me, and I certainly wasn’t the one for her. She got happy when she left me, and the hell of it is, looking back, I’m not sure I ever saw her truly happy with me.”
“Did you get happy, too, when it was over?”
“Oddly enough, yes. Even though I didn’t end up with the love of my life like she did, I got happy. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t so torn between my obligations any longer—obligations like trying keeping the hospital funded and keeping my wife happy at the same time, which was nearly impossible since the expectations of both seemed to always be on a collision course with each other. So, you said you’re a little bitter, but is there any happiness in there for you now that you’re single again?”
“I’m getting happy. I’ve got a ways to go, but the biggest part, I think, is that I’ve found what I was meant to do. My work defines me, and being back here on Kijé, traipsing around in the mountains with Frère Léon, that’s what makes me happy.”
Paul spooned a bite of ice cream from the bowl, then raised it in the air for a toast. “Here’s to getting happy, one and all.”
Solange chinked ice-cream spoons with him, then smiled shyly. “I really am sorry for getting so grumpy and making all kinds of assumptions. Mood swings…Living in the mountains will do that to you, I think.”
“Apology accepted. Look, I’ve got to get back to Bertrand’s little soirée. Believe me, I’d much rather spend the rest of the evening here with you, but that’s what I do. I mingle with the people who will give me money, and there’s a lot of money to be had in there if I make the right connections. So what I’d like to do is take you back to my hospital in the morning, introduce you to the staff, get you acquainted with what we have available, then maybe travel up the mountain with you, if that’s OK. I have a few days before I need to leave Kijé, and since I’m going to get to show you mine, I’d love to have you show me yours.”
“You are talking hospital?” she asked, scooping up the last bite of ice cream.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“And just why would you want to come back to my infirmary?”
“I need a reason?”
