Child of Her Dreams

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Moving past him, she returned the watering can to the kitchenette and got her purse out of the desk drawer.

“Don’t forget to get those blood samples taken and make an appointment with the nutritionist,” he said.

“I won’t.” She paused at the exit to give him a cheery wave and another smile. “Ciao.”

She kept her head high until she was around the corner from the clinic, then, despite all her training in deportment, she couldn’t help but let her shoulders slump.

That she’d saved enough to enjoy a wealthy lifestyle for the rest of her life, even if she never worked again, made no difference. That hundreds of men at one time or another had vied for her attention made no difference. Ben Matthews wasn’t impressed by beauty or money or fame.

And face it, if you took away those things, what did she have? Nothing.

Deep inside, she knew she was somebody, but no one besides her family ever bothered to look past the surface to see the real her. Especially not intelligent, educated men like Ben.

CHAPTER THREE

“HAVE ANOTHER chocolate doughnut,” Edna said, pushing the plate toward Ben.

Edna Thompson, the elderly woman who owned the bed and breakfast where Ben was staying until his rental house became available, had coffee and doughnuts waiting for him every day when he got back from work. She loved to talk about her health, or lack of it.

“Did I mention I have a pain here, in my left hip?” She slapped the bony buttock beneath her floral cotton shift, just in case Ben had missed that anatomy lesson. “What do you suppose it is?”

“Possibly referred pain from your lower spine,” Ben said around a mouthful of doughnut. “Come into the clinic tomorrow, and I’ll check it out.”

“Maybe I will. It’s a pity you’re moving next week. Having a doctor in the house is nice—kind of like having my own personal physician.” Edna got up from the table and went to the fridge.

Ben reached for the copy of the Hainesville Herald Edna had left on the table and skimmed the headlines. Hot debate raged over whether the town needed a traffic light at the corner of Main and Dakota.

“I heard Geena Hanson was helping you out in the clinic today,” Edna said, busily placing frozen sausage rolls from a commercial package onto a foil-lined baking tray. “That girl is skin and bones. Ruth—that’s her grandmother and my best friend—tells me she just pushes her food around her plate. Can’t you do anything for her?”

“I’m trying. She needs to recognize she has a problem before she can fix it.”

He was still puzzled by Geena’s disappointment—which all the smiles in the world couldn’t hide—at not being given a job at the clinic. Although probably she found life in Hainesville slow and simple after the jet-set scene. The town was a culture shock to him, too, but for the opposite reason. Paved streets, abundant consumer goods…heck, even electricity in every home was a big step up from where he’d been. People in small towns were pretty much the same the world over, though, friendly, a little nosy, but always willing to help their neighbor.

Edna shook her white head. “It’s not healthy for anyone to be that thin. Did I mention I had another gall bladder attack?”

“Maybe you should have it out.”

Edna glanced up. “You think so?”

“I could do it right now, if you like,” Ben suggested, straight-faced. “I used to operate in far more primitive circumstances in Guatemala. I’ll just go get my bag with my scalpel.”

Edna jerked back. “No way are you cutting me open on my kitchen table—” She broke into laughter as his mouth began to twitch. “You wicked boy!”

“Sorry, Edna,” he said, chuckling along with her. He rose and put his arm around her shoulder. “How about letting me buy you dinner at the Burger Shack tonight?”

Every Friday night he treated himself to a Humungoburger, onion rings and chocolate milk shake. A large chocolate milk shake. A dinner like that was probably murder on his cholesterol count, but what the heck, that was why he jogged.

“Why, thank you, Ben. But Friday night is my regular bridge night with the girls. We all bring a little something to snack on while we play.” She crumpled the sausage roll package and threw it in the trash. “Say, you won’t tell anyone these aren’t homemade, will you?”

“My lips are sealed.” Who would he tell? Although he liked the town and its people well enough, he hadn’t yet made friends.

“The other gals are good cooks, but me—I don’t have the knack. I tell them the sausage rolls are my grandmother’s recipe.” She grinned evilly. “But I buy them in Simcoe.”

Outside, a car horn beeped. “That’ll be Martha,” Edna said. “She’s still got her license.”

Edna took up her cane, but before she could reach for the tray of sausage rolls Ben said, “Allow me,” and carried them to Martha’s car. The early-model Volvo was in pristine condition. Ben speculated that Martha had been driving it since it rolled off the production line in 1958.

After Edna and Martha drove off, Ben sat in the wooden deck chair on the porch, savoring the balmy evening and the sweet scent of virburnum growing in big pots by the steps. The light hadn’t yet begun to fade and children were playing scrub baseball in the vacant lot down the street. An older couple out for an evening stroll waved to him from across the street. Ben waved back and realized suddenly what he liked so much about Hainesville. It was roughly the same size as the small Texas town he’d grown up in.

The phone in the kitchen rang, and he went inside to answer it. “Hello?”

“Ben?”

Through the static, Ben recognized his brother’s voice. “Eddie! I was wondering when you’d find a moment to call. How’s it going there? Are you finding your way around?”

“Everything’s fine,” Eddie said. “Except for the rain. It’s been pouring for days now.”

“Did I neglect to mention the rainy season?”

“Mostly it’s interesting,” Eddie went on in a lighter tone. “Today I was given a live chicken in lieu of payment. The fool thing is pecking apart my kitchen as we speak.”

Picturing it, Ben laughed. “You’re supposed to eat the bird, not keep it as a pet.”

“I was afraid of that, but I can’t bring myself to wring the poor thing’s neck. How is Hainesville? Are you enjoying being back in civilization?”

Ben took the cordless phone and went outside. “Hainesville is a treat. It’s got one stoplight, a mayor who goes fishing with the bank manager in the middle of the workday and the best hamburgers in the country. Right now I’m sitting on the front porch, breathing in the summer evening and watching the world stroll by.”

“Sounds idyllic. I can almost hear you slapping the paint on your white picket fence. Found yourself a wife yet?”

“Give me a day or two, would you? Oh, you’ll never guess…remember that model who collapsed in Milan, the one whose picture was in the newspaper you brought the day you arrived? She’s here. She grew up in Hainesville and has come home to recuperate.”

“And you’re her GP.” Eddie laughed. “Just deserts, big brother, just deserts.”

“Oh, she’s dessert, all right. But man cannot live on cake and ice cream alone.” Then he felt bad joking about Geena. She had helped him out. “Actually, she’s okay.”

“If you like that sort of thing,” Eddie said dryly.

“Which I don’t.” Sure, he found her attractive in a glamorous, superficial sort of way, but the idea of him getting involved with her was laughable. Geena Hanson was about as much his type as prissy Greta Vogler.

“Are you taking your malaria pills?” he said, as much to change the subject as because he couldn’t help looking after his little brother.

“Yes, Mom. Oh, hey, I’d better go. A couple of teachers from the next village are meeting me at the cantina.”

As Eddie spoke, Ben could almost hear the sound of marimba music, and he experienced a pang of homesickness for the village. “Have a cerveza for me, bro. And keep in touch.”

“Will do. How about we make this a regular time for me to call every week?”

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll give you my number at the clinic, too, in case I’m working late.” He recited the phone number to Eddie, then signed off. “Talk to you next week, little buddy.”

THE NEXT DAY the heat woke Geena early. When she saw it was ten a.m. she kicked off the ivory damask bedspread, leaving her naked body covered only by an Egyptian cotton sheet, and snuggled deeper into the mound of rose-patterned pillows. With no reason to get up, she let her imagination flow in a fantasy of herself and Ben Matthews in a delicious, if implausible, scenario involving a stethoscope and an examining bed.

At noon, she dragged herself out of bed, dressed in a simple linen sheath and dabbed on perfume from a crystal bottle. Then she wandered down to the kitchen, wondering what she was going to do with herself for the next few months. Picking an apple out of the fruit bowl, she put her nose to the rosy skin and inhaled the sweet-tart scent. Reluctantly, she put the fruit in the bowl. She was hungry, but then, she was always hungry. Denying herself food had become a habit.

Steps sounded on the back porch, and Gran came in, breathing heavily and wiping perspiration from her brow. “Man, is it hot out there. But I had a heck of a workout,” she panted. “I met Marvin Taylor outside the Knit ’n Kneedles and we racewalked all the way up Linden Street.”

“Are you sure you’re not overdoing it, Gran?” Geena asked, noting the damp patches on her grandmother’s sweatshirt. Since recovering from her minor heart attack a year ago, Gran was taking her exercise very seriously.

“I’m in training for the seniors’ fun run,” Gran said. “Of course, at my age, run is a misnomer, and it stops being fun after the first mile. But we’re raising money for a new maternity wing on the Hainesville Hospital. Greta Vogler just won’t let that project go. The woman’s like a bull terrier.”

Greta Vogler. The woman who had branded her father a drunk driver, tarnishing his memory and Geena and her sisters’ lives growing up. Geena went to the fridge for a bottle of mineral water. “Does Miss Vogler still teach at the high school?”

Gran balanced a hand on the kitchen countertop and stretched her quads. “She’s vice principal now. Which reminds me—Linda Thirsk called. She wants to know if you’ve decided about your high school reunion.”

Geena shrugged and sipped her water. “I can’t believe she married Tubby O’Conner.”

Gran moved on to her hamstrings. “Linda’s phone number is on the pad on the counter. She’s probably home now. Why not give her a call?” When Geena made no move to pick up the phone, Gran stopped stretching. “You are going, aren’t you?”

Geena drained her bottle and put it beside the sink. The high school reunion, Ben… Everything conspired to remind her of her deficiencies.

“How can I?” she said, and was dismayed to hear her voice waver. “I never graduated.”

“Does it matter? You’ve become such a big success.” Behind her large-framed plastic glasses, Gran’s eyes showed regret, sympathy and a trace of guilt, none of which eased Geena’s self-doubt.

“Such a success I nearly killed myself. I’m going for a walk,” she said. “I’ll see you later.” With no idea where she was headed, she took off down the hall and out the front door.

“Geena,” Gran called after her. “Will you be back for lunch?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Geena’s restless footsteps carried her into town on sidewalks shimmering with the late-summer heat. Past Blackwell’s Drugstore, past the bank where Erin had been assistant manager until she had the baby, past Orville’s Barber Shop…

She hadn’t spoken to Orville since she’d been back and she knew he’d like her to drop in. A close friend of her father’s, he’d been like a favorite uncle while she’d been growing up. She peered in the barbershop window. Orville had his back to her, busy cutting someone’s hair.

The bell above the door sounded as she pushed through to the cool interior that held the familiar mingled scents of Old Spice and hair products. “Hi, Orville.”

Orville, a dapper man in his fifties, was dressed as always in neatly pressed slacks and a cashmere sweater. At the sound of her voice he turned with a wide smile and came forward to greet her. “Geena! How’s my best girl?”

“If I’m your best girl, who do you take out on Saturday night?” she teased. Geena had always thought it a waste that Orville, who had been widowed young, had never remarried. “I’m fine. How are you?”

“Same as usual,” he said good-naturedly. “One step behind the tax man, one step ahead of the Grim Reaper.”

Then he moved to one side, and through the mirror Geena glimpsed the face of the man in the chair. Ben. Surprise and pleasure tinged with embarrassment flowed through her. Embarrassment because it wasn’t every day a man turned her down—for any reason.

Orville returned to his work with a flourish of comb and scissors. Geena sauntered to the counter and perched on the edge, facing Ben. The only way to get over embarrassment was to meet it head-on. “Hi, there.”

“Hi, yourself.” His warm gaze traveled over her. “All of Hainesville is wilting in the heat, and yet you manage to look like the proverbial cucumber.”

“It’s an illusion, cultivated by years spent in front of klieg lights,” Geena said lightly. She turned to the barber. “So, Orville, what hair magic are you working on the doctor? A quiff? A coif?”

“Just a trim,” Orville said, snipping carefully around Ben’s ears. “Right, Doc?”

Ben nodded. Geena wriggled farther onto the counter. “Orville used to cut my hair, too.”

“Until at the very grown-up age of six you decided you required a stylist and made your grandmother take you to the beauty salon in Simcoe,” Orville elaborated.

“That was before Wendy opened up shop here.” Geena eyed Ben, her head tilted to one side. “With that goatee and mustache, and draped in that black hairdresser’s cape, you look a little like Zorro.”

Ben’s right eyebrow rose, giving him a wicked, humorous expression. “You like, señorita?”

“It’s rather nineties,” she teased, meaning the goatee. “But I guess you can get away with it in Hainesville.”

“Are you suggesting this isn’t the fashion capital of the Pacific northwest?” Orville demanded, reaching for hair gel. “That everything’s not up-to-date in Kansas City?”

“Hainesville isn’t on the fashion map,” Ben replied for her. “I daresay it’s not even on the same planet as Paris or Milan.” He held up a copy of the magazine in his lap, which, to Geena’s surprise, turned out to be Vogue—with her photo on the cover. “As you can see, I’m studying up on the matter.”

Geena glanced down—and saw a two-page spread of herself at a New York fashion show three seasons ago. “Ugh. I was so fat back then. Orville, what are you doing with Vogue in your waiting room? You used to have nothing but Rod and Gun and Readers’ Digest.”

“Kelly dropped them off—she said she was distributing her old copies around town rather than throwing them away. You’d be surprised how many men pick them up.”

The bell over the door sounded, and a man Geena didn’t know came in. Orville excused himself and went to the desk to make the newcomer an appointment.

Ben continued to peruse the photos of Geena. “The extra weight looked good on you.”

“I was hideous. Flip the page.” She began arranging Orville’s brushes and combs, spreading them out in a fan on the counter. She didn’t know what was worse—Ben seeing her that way or Ben admiring her that way.

Ben’s voice was quiet but penetrating. “You’re beautiful, Geena. Why you don’t like yourself?”

A jolt ran through her. Her gaze jerked up to meet his in the mirror. “What are you talking about? Of course I like myself.” Then she realized she was being too intense and shrugged, adding lightly, “After that show some young thang from Georgia took over top billing. I had to do something to get my mojo back.”

Ben said nothing, just slowly shook his head. The silence worked on her, conjuring conflicting voices.

People told her she was beautiful all the time. It meant nothing.

He wouldn’t say it if he didn’t mean it.

Ben was a doctor, concerned about the health effects of low body weight.