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A tree, uprooted by the storm, was balanced precariously against the roof. Torn shingles littered the ground like fallen leaves, and there wasn’t a soul in sight who seemed to be doing anything about it. The clinic was busy, though, if the number of cars in the small parking lot was any indication.
Block stepped inside the door and threaded his way through a maze of patients on hard plastic chairs and asked the harried receptionist if she needed the tree taken down.
The woman looked up, a wary expression on her face. “How much?”
Block suspected there were already people out there charging exorbitant fees for work, but he wasn’t one of them. “It’s on me,” he said as the phone rang. “I just want to help.”
“Have at it,” the woman said with a weary smile. She turned to answer the phone.
He hadn’t seen Macy, and maybe he should have checked with her, but the woman hadn’t hesitated when she’d told him to go ahead, so he figured it was all right.
“I’VE TAKEN a throat culture, Mrs. Pelham, but I don’t think it’s…strep—” Macy stopped at the sound of thumping on the roof. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear it was footsteps.
“Sometimes we have squirrels in the attic,” she said to her patient’s mother. If it was a squirrel, it was a very big squirrel, she thought as she wrote out a scrip for an antibiotic. “I’m going to give you a prescription, but don’t fill it until I get the labs back and call you. Chances are, by the time the tests come back, Cassie will be feeling her old self again anyway. Just give her lots of liquids and let her eat if she’s hungry.” She gave Mrs. Pelham, a new mother, a reassuring smile.
Before Mrs. Pelham could respond, the sound of a chainsaw at close quarters ripped through the air.
“What the…!” Macy went to the window and opened the venetian blinds just as a large mass of green and brown fell past the window and landed on the lawn with a thump.
She turned back to Mrs. Pelham. “Do you have any other questions?” Macy asked. “I hate to rush you, but I have to find out what’s going on.”
“No, ma’am, I understand.” The woman gathered up her baby and assorted paraphernalia and turned toward the door.
Macy left the chart on the exam table and brushed past the woman and child in the hall and hurried out to the reception desk.
“Do you know what’s going on?” Macy asked the receptionist as she headed for the door.
Bettina looked up from a phone call and said, “A guy came by and asked if we’d like to have the tree taken down. He said he wouldn’t charge, so I said to go ahead.”
“You didn’t check with me first?”
Bettina gestured toward the teeming waiting room. “I didn’t think I needed to bother you.”
Macy sighed. “You could have warned me. Who is it?”
The receptionist shrugged. “I don’t know. Sure is good-looking, though. He could definitely be Mr. October in some hunk-of-the-month calendar.”
“I’m going out to check on our benefactor, and then I’ll be back for the next patient.”
She stepped outside and shaded her eyes with her hands to see who was up on her roof. With the sun in her eyes, all she could see was a silhouette, but if the silhouette was any indication, hunk was right.
“Hello, up there. Can I speak to you for a minute?”
Chapter Three
Block had wondered when Macy was going to come out and investigate. He’d tried to be quiet as he moved around up on the roof, but a chainsaw was anything but subtle. Block looked down and grinned. “Morning, Macy. Nice day, isn’t it?”
The expression on Macy’s face told him that she was less than pleased to see him.
She glared up at him, one hand shading her eyes and the other planted firmly on her hip. “Alex Blocker, you come down from there right this instant.”
Lord, she sounded like a starchy old-maid schoolteacher instead of the soft and sexy woman he’d kissed last night. Block chuckled and saluted. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be right down.” He scrambled to the other side of the roof and climbed down the same way he’d gotten up.
Macy was fuming, that was sure. Her arms were crossed over her small, round breasts and one foot was tapping fit to beat the band as Block rounded the corner of the building. Even in that crisp white lab coat, she looked sexy as hell. Block wondered what had her in such a snit. Surely it wasn’t because he was trying to help?
“What can I do for you, Dr. Jackson?” he said, pulling the bandana off and swabbing his damp forehead. “Hot business up there,” he commented while he waited for her to have her say.
Macy seemed to have lost her voice. Her lips were moving, but no sound came out. It wasn’t often that he’d seen Macy Jackson speechless. Even as a pesky kid, she’d had no trouble speaking up. Block liked the idea that he might have something to do with keeping her off balance.
Suppressing a grin, he watched her, enjoying the play of emotions as they crossed Macy’s face. She drew in a deep breath, then finally managed to speak. “It isn’t that I don’t appreciate your offer to help, but this is a medical office,” she said primly. “Is there any way you can manage to do that a little more quietly?”
“Well, I could hack at it a little bit at a time with my pocket knife. I’d be here till Christmas, but you wouldn’t hear a thing. If I had my regulation K-Bar knife, it could go a little faster.”
Macy looked at him for a moment, then broke into a slow smile. “I guess I deserved that,” she said, then suppressed a chuckle. “I was just surprised when I first heard that saw going without any warning. I do thank you for helping out.”
Block’s stomach rumbled. He hadn’t had anything to eat since a sausage biscuit when he’d first come out. “Say, it’s almost lunchtime. How about you take off a few minutes and join me for lunch? Handy’s is open.”
Macy gnawed at her lip, a look of indecision on her face. She looked at Block, then she looked back toward the clinic. “See all those cars in the lot? For every car out here, there are about three people sitting in my waiting room. I’ll be lucky if I get a chance to grab a granola bar between patients today.”
Block shrugged. “Let me know if you change your mind.” He turned and looked back over his shoulder. “I’ll try to be as quiet as that saw will let me. Once I get the branches cleared away so I can see what I’m doing, maybe the rest of the tree can wait till the weekend.” He waved and strode away.
Macy watched as he disappeared around the side of the building. Last night he’d seemed almost diabolic as he’d ripped at the shattered trailers in the flickering light of the gas fires and the strobing blue lights of the police cruisers. Today he seemed like a guardian angel and looked like any other guy. If the guy happened to be about six-four and built like a linebacker.
She managed a wry chuckle. The Alex Blocker she knew was anything but angelic.
“Dr. Jackson?”
Macy looked up to see Bettina looking out the clinic door. “Yes?”
“We have a full waiting room in here. Are you ready for the next patient?”
“Oh, sure. I’m coming.” With Alex Blocker around, she’d better be on her guard and ready for anything, Macy told herself. She wasn’t sure what she was ready for. The next patient, yeah.
Alex Blocker? Maybe not.
BLOCK WORKED at the pine tree, carefully removing one branch at a time until only the main trunk rested on the roof. It had been slow going, but now he was certain that if it shifted, the tree would do no damage to the building.
Block swiped at his brow again with the soaking-wet bandana. He needed some chow, and he’d bet Macy needed a ration of energy just as much. She’d been up most of the night last night, too, and there was only so far a body could go on little sleep and less food.
He knew that too well. He’d done it before.
How could he go and enjoy a big fat burger and fries when she was looking at crackers and a diet soda grabbed on the fly?
He grinned as an idea popped into his mind. Yeah, that just might work, he thought as he climbed down.
He did what he could to make himself presentable, then stepped inside the clinic and had a brief conversation with the receptionist. “Great,” he said after they’d finished. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Then he hurried off to lunch.
MACY DIDN’T know how long it had been, but she came to the realization that she had heard no noises from the roof in quite some time. Had she become so accustomed to the thumping that when it stopped the place seemed eerily quiet? Just how long ago had Alex finished?
She started to ask Bettina where Alex was, but realized that she’d been so busy that the morning was gone. She looked out into the waiting area, and she still had an inordinate number of patients. No time for stopping now.
Since she was the only doctor in Lyndonville, she was it. She didn’t get a break until everyone had been seen. She stretched her arms above her head and rolled her neck on her shoulders and forced herself to go to the next exam room and the next patient. Would this day never end?
Every time she came out of one exam room, she hoped that she would not see a new file in the bracket on the door of the next. But there always seemed to be another file and another patient to be seen.
She splinted and wrapped a sprained ankle and jotted notes in the file, then wearily moved on to the next exam room.
Macy was so hungry she could swear she smelled food. Did she dare hope that there was no file in the holder on the door of the next room so that she could grab something to eat?
No such luck. Another folder. Macy sagged. She rubbed her eyes and drew a deep breath. Then she took the chart down, rapped on the door, and stepped inside.
Macy stopped short.
“Have a seat, Doctor,” Alex Blocker said as he gestured toward a feast of burgers and fries and drinks in tall, sweating wax-coated paper cups. “I couldn’t get you to take time for lunch, so I brought it to you.”
“But…” Macy’s mouth watered at the tantalizing aroma of food. “…I have patients.”
“Who haven’t been working on their feet as long as you have. How can you help them if you’re starving and dead on your feet?”
“I—whose file is this?” She held up the manila folder that had been in the rack on the door. “You’re cutting into that patient’s time,” she protested.
“It’s mine,” Alex said. “I came back to have my knee looked at. It’s a very serious case,” he said solemnly. “It might take a long time to treat,” he explained. “But I think I know what will fix it. Lunch!” He looked as pleased with himself as a cat who’d caught a canary.
Macy started to say something, then shut her mouth quickly and pressed her hand to her stomach to stop its insistent gurgling.
“Stop standing there gulping like a guppy and sit down and eat. A serious knee exam can only take so long.” He patted the metal swivel stool by the exam table.
Slowly, Macy followed his suggestion. “Thank you,” she finally managed, unaccustomed to accepting gifts from anyone, especially Alex Blocker. Though her younger brother, Ty, lived in the next county, she had done it all alone for so long. “I am hungry,” Macy admitted begrudgingly. She reached for a crispy French fry and brought it to her mouth.
Alex held up his soda cup. “To you, Dr. Jackson. May you live to cure the rest of the day.”
Macy groaned. “Oh, that was bad, but I get what you mean. And thank you again. This is just what I needed.” She popped the fried potato into her mouth and chewed.
Alex grinned as he watched Macy eat. “I might not be a good toastmaster, or a good cook, but I’m great at cash-and-carryout.” He chuckled. “Your patients might need you, but I checked with the receptionist first, and she told me that there weren’t any real emergencies waiting out there. So, for right now, I’m the doctor, and my prescription for you is to eat and to put your feet up for at least fifteen minutes.”
He slid off the stool he’d been sitting on and pushed it over to in front of Macy. What was he up to now? she wondered as she took a bite of burger.
Alex bent and lifted her feet up off the floor and propped them up on the stool. She started to protest, but Block just told her to shut up and eat. Then he removed her shoes and gave her the best foot rub she’d ever had.
Macy felt as if she’d died and gone to heaven, and if she had retracted her proposal from last night, she’d be tempted to offer it again.
But, no. She and Alex had some issues. Some that Alex didn’t even know about. And until they’d settled them, there was no way they could…what?
Macy had to admit that she’d needed this break, even if she did have a waiting room full of patients. If she’d had the time, she would have crawled onto the exam table and taken a nap, but having an impromptu picnic set up before her was unprofessional enough.
Even if it had been very welcome.
Alex sat across from her, arms crossed over his chest, as she ate. He hadn’t said much, just seemed to enjoy watching her eat. She wouldn’t be surprised if he insisted that she “clean her plate” if she tried to leave one morsel uneaten. As it was, she’d been plenty hungry enough to eat it all.
She popped the last lonely, ketchup-coated fry into her mouth, savoring the salt and tangy condiment on it. Then she blotted her lips with a paper napkin. As she put it on the pile of sandwich wrappings, she breathed a contented sigh. “I didn’t realize how much I needed that.”
Alex arched an eyebrow, but didn’t say “I told you so,” something she’d half-expected to hear. Instead he said, “Sometimes the people who are used to taking care of everybody else need someone to take care of them.”
When was the last time anyone had done that for her? She tried to scratch up some distant memory, but came up with nothing.
Smiling, Alex gathered up the discarded sandwich wrappings and stuffed them into the bag they’d come in. “The world won’t grind to a halt if you take a break,” he said gently, then he paused. “But you might, if you don’t.”
Macy knew she should thank him, but she was out of practice. For too long, she’d been the one in charge, the one doing for others. This was a new role, but one she could get used to.
Alex turned. “I’ll let you get back to your patients now.”
“Wait!” Macy called. “What about your knee?” She had to put something on the chart.
“It’s fine. See.” He put his hands, one still clutching the paper lunch bag, out in front of him and demonstrated with several shallow squats. “It’s fine,” he said as he straightened. Then he reached for the door handle. “Oh, Macy…”
“Yes,” she answered hopefully. Hoping for what?
He reached toward her and touched the underside of her chin and tipped her face up to his. Macy’s pulse did double-time as she moistened her lips, anticipating…. She thought, hoped, that he was going to kiss her, but he simply rubbed the side of her mouth with the pad of his thumb and sent streams of fire racing through her veins.
“There was a little bit of ketchup on your mouth. I figure you don’t want to advertise to your patients just what you had for lunch.” Alex grinned, then opened the door. He saluted, then stepped outside. “Later.”
Macy stood there, frozen for a moment and angry at how her feelings had taken possession of her where Alex was concerned. Then she checked her reflection in the tiny mirror above the sink to see if her passion showed in her eyes. Certain she was presentable, she hurried into the short hallway, just in time to see Alex pause at the reception desk and flash a thumbs-up sign to Bettina.
“Mission accomplished,” he said. Then he hurried out the door.
Macy leaned against the doorjamb and wondered what to make of Alex’s attentions of last night and today—and her own reactions. She had been sure that what had happened that one night in Fayetteville, when they’d cleared C.J.’s apartment, had been a fluke, an aberration, but now she couldn’t help wondering.
He must feel the pull between them. But he’s only going to be in town for a few days, she reminded herself. She wouldn’t let herself fall for him again.
She’d always thought of Alex as a larger-than-life figure, caring nothing about anything except himself and duty. Now she wondered. She’d always seen Alex as a hero, but she’d never thought of him as a genuine, three-dimensional man. Especially when she hadn’t heard from him for five long years.
Now his actions told a different story. But, Macy reminded herself, she couldn’t consider getting to know him better until she figured out how to tell Alex about…him.
She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. Not as long as they had any secrets between them. And wow, did she have a doozy.
THE SUN was sinking low in the sky, and the balmy, early autumn air had taken on a real crispness. Looping his hammer over a pocket opening, Block stopped a moment to appreciate the sight of the sun as it descended toward the horizon, streaking the clouds with orange and rose as it went. He dragged his gaze from the setting sun and set his mind to the job at hand. He had only a few more shingles to place, and he didn’t want to be caught by darkness before he was finished.
The last of Macy’s patients had pulled out of the parking lot, and the staff were leaving, one by one. He thought about this old building as he hammered the last shingle into place. When he was growing up, only the most well-off could afford to come here. He’d never been inside until last night. Judging from the assortment of patients he’d seen waiting earlier, things had changed. Changed a lot. Used to be the folks that lived on the wrong side of the railroad spur wouldn’t dare come over here unless they had cold, hard cash.
Yet last night and today he had seen people working together who would have never as much as offered the time of day to each other a few years ago. Had the town he’d tried so hard to forget changed while he was away?
Or had only his perceptions changed?
A door slammed, and he looked down to see Macy heading for her car. Block’s first thought was to tease her about her long day, but her shoulders drooped and her steps dragged, and he knew that her weariness wasn’t a joke. For that matter, neither was his.
“Goodbye, Macy,” he called.
She looked up suddenly as if he’d startled her out of her thoughts. “Oh, Alex. Don’t you think you should come down before it’s too dark to see?”
