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“Careful. They’re all—” Maryann started, but she was too late. The women had broken rank and were rushing toward Alex, waving their hands in the air. There was only one thing to do, she decided, as she put her fingers to her lips and gave a shrill referee whistle.
There was a moment of absolute silence. Even Alex looked stunned.
Maryann gave a decisive nod. She had taken a self-defense class in high school and the whistle was all she had mastered, but today it was enough. “First, Mrs. Short, you take Johnny out on the porch. I’ll be out in a second to give him his lollipop—he likes lime, doesn’t he? We’ll set up a follow-up appointment. Everyone else sit back down, except for the doctor, of course.”
She was almost surprised when everyone obeyed her.
“These women say they need to see you.” Maryann waited for the Shorts to leave the room before raising her eyes to Alex. “For medical reasons.”
The doctor nodded and turned to the seated women. He looked stern enough to make Maryann glad she wasn’t one of the fancy women.
“I’m a pediatrician. You’ll have to go down the street to Dr. Logan’s office. He’s the general doctor in town.” And then, as though he wasn’t sure they understood, Alex added. “I only take children as patients.”
“I already told them that—” Maryann started, but she was ignored.
“My feet haven’t grown much since I was a girl.” Delilah stood up and moved a step closer to Alex, before taking his arm. “And it hurts to walk. Really, feet are feet. It doesn’t matter if I’m a child or not. Men always tell me I have such nice-looking ankles.”
Delilah stood on her toes so her ankles showed to their best advantage. “What do you think, Doctor?”
Maryann watched the thundercloud settle on Alex’s face. He didn’t say anything though.
The waif woman sitting in the corner looked up. “Dr. Logan’s office is closed this morning.” Her voice managed to sound pitiful and sultry at the same time. “There’s no place else to go. I need something for all these mosquito bites.”
Alex removed Delilah’s hands from his arm as he glanced over at the small pink dots on the other woman’s arm.
“Baking soda,” he said in a curt voice and then looked around. “Just to be sure, are any of you really injured? Or having a heart attack? Even an asthma attack? We’ll take an emergency, but that’s all. The rest of you will have to see Dr. Logan instead. If he’s not there, call later and make an appointment.”
The chatter started up. It was impossible to sort out what everyone was saying.
Alex turned and looked at Maryann. “Have them fill out medical forms just in case. And find out if that one woman is allergic to insect bites. Then come back to the exam room. We need to talk.”
“Yes, sir.” Maryann resisted the impulse to salute. She was in trouble enough as it was. He probably expected she should have locked the door when she saw the women coming.
Alex had no sooner turned to go back to the room when Maryann heard footsteps running up to the porch. She recognized a medical emergency when she heard one and wasn’t surprised when Alex turned around to face the door.
“Everybody sit down. Clear some space. We have a patient coming in.” Alex said as he headed toward the door. At times like this he blessed the workmen who had made the new doorway and the ramp outside both sturdy and wide.
He’d been through this drill often enough up here, he thought to himself. A siren never announced an emergency as it did back in Los Angeles; here it was the thump of the heavy boots the men wore. The faster the footsteps were coming up the steps to his porch, the worse the problem. The most serious injuries came by the steps and not the ramp; it was in recovery that the patient used a wheelchair. Alex had the door open before the men outside could touch it.
“It’s Timmy Fields,” the man standing in front said as he pushed his cap back on his forehead and looked behind him to where two other burly men in flannel shirts were carrying the boy. They were all breathing hard and the boy was moaning.
“Easy now,” Alex said when he saw how they were carrying his patient. Every spring he gave a first aid emergency course and showed people how to transport injured hikers, but it never seemed like the right people came. Next time he was going to go down to one of the bars and give his demonstration there. Oh—he stopped. He’d be gone by then. He’d have to leave a note for the next doctor. Or maybe Dr. Logan would do it, although people didn’t tend to bring him the emergency cases since he lived a mile from town and most problems seemed to happen after the clinics were closed.
“Lay him down here.” Alex put his hand on the gurney Maryann had just wheeled over to him.
“Thanks,” he said to her as she stepped back so the men would have enough room. Maryann always knew what to do without him telling her.
Together the men gently laid the boy down.
“What happened?” Alex asked the men as his hand reached out to take the boy’s pulse. It had been several weeks since he’d seen eight-year-old Timmy for that cough of his. The boy’s skin was clammy now, but Alex doubted it was from fever. It was pain making him sweat.
“We found him up on Chilkoot Pass. Fool kid shouldn’t have been up there alone. He said some tourists gave him a ride out of town to the base. They should be shot for leaving a kid like that there by himself. Don’t know what he was doing. He must have slipped on some rocks or something. We wouldn’t have found him if we hadn’t been out looking for that Lawson fellow—the one who’s been missing.”
Alex nodded. He’d been on the search team that had come upon Tucker Lawson’s crashed plane. They’d found some blood and his business card with a stake driven through it, but there was no one around. Searchers, under the direction of the sheriff, had been looking for the man, or his remains, since then. Surely the boy hadn’t been up there looking for Lawson, though. Timmy groaned.
“Easy now,” Alex said as the boy started to move. “Let me check you out first.”
“He’s got a lump on his head,” one of the men said.
“I see that,” Alex said as he ran his fingers over the rest of the boy’s scalp, then he turned to Maryann. “Flash—”
“Here.”
“Thanks.” She’d given him the flashlight before he’d even gotten the word out. Things like this were why he’d promised to write her a letter of recommendation and leave it for the next pediatrician that came here. She was an excellent nurse. She didn’t insist on being personal with him, either. His last nurse had wanted him to—well, he wasn’t sure what she had wanted. She’d resigned when he refused to have dinner with her one night after work.
Timmy opened one eye and stared.
“Don’t worry about focusing,” the doctor murmured to the boy before remembering to use simpler words. “Don’t worry about what you see. It might be fuzzy.”
“I see an angel choir,” Timmy said in quiet awe.
Alex choked back his chuckle as he looked over his shoulder. Children were so honest about their feelings. He saw that Maryann was doing the impossible and getting the fancy women to exit the room. All those women with their dyed blonde hair and sparkling gold might look like a band of angels because of the sun shining on their jewelry as they tiptoed past the gurney, especially when Maryann wore her white uniform to usher them out. No wonder Timmy saw angels.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s Nurse Jenner and some friends of hers.”
“They’re not my friends,” Maryann protested from the door as the men who’d carried Timmy down the mountain followed the last of the fancy women out of the clinic. Alex realized with a jolt that he was teasing Maryann. He’d never done that with any of his other nurses. He believed in professionalism in the clinic. But he liked the way her cheeks pinked up and her brown eyes sparked with indignation. She had dark, fringed bangs, and her hair shone as it floated around her head in the breeze from the open door.
“Is she an angel?” the boy asked.
“Some days,” Alex said. Then he forgot himself enough to grin at Maryann. He decided it would be okay to relax with her; he’d be gone before long, so what could it hurt?
Maryann tried to give him a stern look, but the blush on her face spoiled the effect. She shut the open door, but her hair still floated around her face.
“Does that mean I’m dead?” Timmy asked with some anticipation.
Alex looked down at the boy and smiled. “Not today you’re not.”
“Oh,” Timmy said, and with that, he closed his eyes.
Alex looked up at Maryann again, but she was one step ahead of him. She held out an ice pack she’d brought from the back room along with the gurney. He pressed that against Timmy’s face. “The cold will wake him up.”
“I’ll call his parents,” Maryann said.
“No.” Timmy opened his eyes in alarm. “You can’t call them.”
“You know we have to,” Alex said gently as he finished running his hands over the boy’s legs. “You took quite a fall. Does your leg hurt?”
Timmy winced and nodded. “They’ll kill me for sure.”
“I’ll tell them you’re a brave soldier,” Maryann said as she walked over to the phone.
Alex imagined she would say those very words to them, too. No one could accuse her of not caring about everyone who stumbled across her path. She was generous to a fault and that was the only reason he could think of for her to have sat in the diner last night talking with her cousin about matching him up with someone. Not that either one of the women had shown an over-abundance of caring when Maryann had called him The Ice Man. Wait until that nickname made the rounds of Treasure Creek. He wasn’t the kind of person who talked about himself to everyone he met, but he’d helped enough children in this town to have some friends among the parents. He’d been warned about last night’s conversation by two sources already.
He watched Maryann as she held the phone to her ear and talked to Timmy’s parents. He couldn’t hear the words she was saying, but he could hear the soft tones of her voice.
He supposed the matchmaking had been inevitable. Maryann was the kind of woman who’d bring home stray cats. He knew that when he hired her, but he’d had no other choice. Women like her just couldn’t accept that some men—like some animals—were better off alone. She must have sensed the sadness in him and decided marriage was the solution.
He’d meant to tell her today that he was fine with the single life, but he hadn’t quite figured out the right words. Usually, he’d just blurt it out. He didn’t know why he was hesitating. As near as he could figure, he didn’t want to make her feel bad for caring that he was alone. Also, it bothered him that she thought of him as an ice man, and part of him wanted to prove her wrong.
He must be going soft from living in Treasure Creek. People around here wanted to be connected. They weren’t content with just loving their neighbor, they wanted to know where the guy was going for Sunday dinner, and if he needed help defrosting anything. Maybe it was some primitive emotional throwback to the freezing winters of old when people relied on their tribes for a safe existence. People needed other people then. And at least in this small town, that feeling seemed to still hold true.
He hadn’t thought much about that until one day when people came from miles around for a simple funeral. Even if people didn’t know the old man who’d died, they knew someone who knew someone who knew him. So they mourned the loss of those connections. The tribe had been lessened.
And then every year there was a Christmas pageant at the church that attracted the whole community. Even though he hadn’t been going to church, he’d always been drawn to the pageant.
He wasn’t used to a place like this. He envied the people here their connections, but he didn’t belong.
He should head south for Los Angeles as soon as he could. He’d been saving his money for years so he could open a clinic there. No one would be inviting him to any Christmas pageant down in L.A.
Not that he had time to think about that now, when it looked like Timmy had a fractured bone in his leg as well as the bump on his head. What had the boy been doing out on the pass, anyway?
Maryann hung up the phone and turned back to them. Alex could see why Timmy had been confused enough to think she was some celestial being. Her pink cheeks made her glow. She looked sweet. He had a hard time believing she had talked so openly about his personal life in front of everyone. If she knew anything about the tour guides of Treasure Creek, she’d know they would be making jokes at his expense from now until he left here. In fact, they’d be making jokes about it long after he was gone.
But seeing her in front of him, he couldn’t convince himself she’d meant any harm. Maybe the gossips had it wrong and it had been her cousin who had said those things about him. That thought made him feel better, although he didn’t dare ask himself why he cared which woman had spoken what.
Chapter Two
Maryann put another cool cloth on Timmy’s head. His breathing was still ragged, and Alex had given him a shot to help with the pain in his leg. Alex planned to put a splint on the injured limb as soon as the boy’s parents came, so he’d gone into the back room to pick out what he needed from the supply cabinet. Ordinarily, Maryann would have done that, but Timmy had asked her to stay with him and Alex had nodded his agreement.
“You’ve got to pray for me,” Timmy whispered to Maryann as soon as Alex left the room. He was still lying on the gurney and she had pulled a sheet over his legs. “Times are dire.”
“Dire?” She was surprised he even knew the word at his age.
But he nodded. “Bad. Real bad.”
“You know I’m not really an angel, don’t you?” She reached under the gurney to find another pillow. “I can pray for you, but I have no special powers.”
Timmy nodded. “It’s just for when my parents come in. Look like you’re praying for me. And do you have a Bible? They never yell when there’s a Bible around.”
She stopped, the pillow still in her hands, to look at the boy. “Your parents don’t hit you, do they?”
She’d only seen the Fields in passing. They must be Christians, if Timmy wanted a Bible. On the other hand, she knew some people took the Bible and twisted what it had to say. She had no idea why Timmy would be so intent on reminding his parents of their faith, unless he was afraid of them.
“They yell a lot,” Timmy admitted. “And my mom cries some.”
“But do they hit you?”
Timmy shook his head. “You’re still going to pray though, aren’t you?”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Maryann set the pillow on the end of the gurney where Timmy’s legs didn’t reach. Then she walked over to the drawer where she kept her belongings. She carried a small Bible with her. She’d been going to the church here with her cousin, and re-connecting with her childhood faith. It had been a long time since she had regularly read a Bible like she was doing nowadays. Her turbulent adolescence, as she played referee to her parents’ arguments and subsequent new loves, had caused her to drift far away from God, like it was His fault in some way that she had to endure it. She was glad to be back. Her restored belief centered her; she should have never stopped going to church and praying. Even those bad years would have been better.
She held the white Bible up for Timmy to see. “You can borrow this if you want to read something.”
“Put it in my hands like I’m dead.” Timmy crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes.
“I most certainly will not.” Maryann walked back to the gurney with the book in her hand. “Your parents are worried enough as it is.” Then she thought a moment. “Besides, it’s a girl’s Bible. You’d look too sweet in your casket if you were holding it. You could as well be holding a bouquet of lilies.”
“Oh.” Timmy opened his eyes and frowned at the Bible. “I don’t want to hold no girl’s Bible.”
“I didn’t think so,” Maryann said as she laid the Bible beside him. “But it won’t hurt to have it close, just in case. Like you’re alive and reading it. You might try a psalm.”
“Maybe you could put a ninja sticker on it.” Timmy cautiously took hold of the Bible. “Then it’d be okay for boys.” Maryann smiled.
She heard more footsteps on the porch and turned to the door. “I bet that’s your parents.”
Maryann walked over to greet the Fields as they opened the door and stepped inside.
“Where is he?” Mrs. Fields asked breathlessly, even as her eyes came to rest on the gurney. She was a slight woman with a harried expression on her face, and she was wearing a stained sweatshirt. Maryann remembered that there were a couple of children younger than Timmy in the family. They were all due for shots and Alex had them on the list for her to call.
“What kind of a fool thing were you doing, boy?” Mr. Fields asked as he followed his wife into the room. He was overweight and puffing hard, but he zeroed in on Timmy right away. “You know better than taking off like that.”
Maryann saw Timmy’s face crumple in misery.
She stepped back to the gurney. “I was just going to say a prayer for Timmy. Would you both join me?”
“Oh.” Mrs. Fields looked up in surprise.
“I—” Mr. Fields started to say something, then stopped.
Maryann walked closer to Timmy and winked at him. She had a moment’s hesitation. It had been a long time since she’d prayed in public and she wasn’t sure if it was the right thing for her to do now since it was all for show. Of course, it was for Timmy’s benefit and God loved children, so it would likely be all right with Him. She bowed her head and started.
“God of all the beings on earth and in heaven,” she began. She thought Timmy would like that since he seemed preoccupied with death and angels. “Timmy here is hurting, and we ask that you make him comfortable. He feels bad for what he did and he asks You to help him do better next time. Amen.”
“Amen,” the Fields both muttered.
When Maryann opened her eyes, she saw that Timmy had been right. His parents did look subdued. They moved over to their son and each gave him a pat on his head before moving back and looking at Maryann, as though waiting for further direction. She nodded approvingly at them, and smoothed the sheets on the gurney. She heard them walk away from the gurney and stop by the door.
They had started talking to each other, thinking she couldn’t hear them. If everything else hadn’t been so quiet, they would have been right, she admitted to herself.
“You were supposed to be watching him,” Mr. Fields hissed at his wife.
“Me? You should have been watching him,” Mrs. Fields said, her voice low and tense. “It’s not like you’re working anymore. You should at least help with the kids.”
“It’s not my fault I can’t find work. These are hard times and you know it. Besides, you’re his mother. Don’t lay it all on me.”
Maryann looked down at Timmy. He could hear his parents, too, and embarrassment covered his face. She remembered what it felt like when her parents were arguing. If someone outside her family heard them, she’d wanted to disappear.
“The doctor will be here in a minute,” Maryann said in her most professional voice. Maybe the couple wouldn’t know she had heard them. If she was calm enough, she might even fool Timmy. “In fact, I think I hear him now.”
