Home to Family by Ann Evans

Author:Ann Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2005-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

WHILE DOC WAS in California for the holidays, the clinic took patients only on Wednesday and Saturday. From the moment Matt arrived, the waiting room was full, so Leslie found very little time to brood about yesterday’s kiss in the snow—not with Moira sitting at the reception desk and the three exam rooms occupied constantly. After a brief, awkward moment or two, she and Matt fell into the safe, hectic routine of patient care.

She had never worked with him before professionally, and it was nice to confirm what she’d always suspected, that he was a quick and intuitive physician. None of the talents he’d enjoyed in his younger years—a killer charm, the ability to make an empathetic connection with people—seemed to have deserted him. The time he’d spent so exclusively in the operating room had not robbed him of a bedside manner that rivaled Doc Hayward’s. The patients loved him.

He dealt with several cases of the flu, a broken wrist, a penny swallowed by a three-year-old who wouldn’t stop crying, a tourist’s dislocated shoulder, a flare-up of bursitis from shoveling too much snow, a hysterical Winnie Alameda who brought her husband in with chest pain and Clifford Powell’s pulled muscle in his back.

He handled them all with the same brisk expertise. If his damaged hand gave him any trouble, Leslie never saw it.

They worked through lunch. By three o’clock she felt a little lightheaded as she stood at the medicine cabinet and hunted down samples of a muscle relaxant for Cliff Powell.

The door to exam room two opened, and Matt walked out with Cliff. “Christmas is a week away, and you don’t want to be flat on your back for it, do you?” Matt asked. “You don’t have to cut enough firewood for the entire winter all in one day.”

The older man laughed. “Should have taken care of it sooner. But I didn’t stockpile in the fall, so I’m paying for it now.” He rolled his shoulders. “Guess I’m just getting too old to split wood for hours on end.”

“You’re in your prime,” Matt told Cliff, “but it’s easy to overdo. Tell you what. Nick and I will bring over a load of our wood. We’ve got so much lying around that guests are tripping over it.”

That probably wasn’t true, but Matt no doubt remembered that Cliff’s landscaping business barely scraped by in the winter. The two men stood in the corridor, and while they talked, Leslie couldn’t help noticing that Matt didn’t look at all tired. In fact, he seemed energized. His dark hair danced under the harsh lighting. The faint shadow of afternoon beard stubble made him look sexy and too rugged for the white lab coat she’d loaned him.

Just watching Matt, her pulse pounded so hard it hurt. What was happening to her? One kiss didn’t mean anything.

She turned her attention back to the medicine cabinet, willing to chalk up that physical response to missing lunch. Willing to chalk it up to anything that didn’t have to do with a rebellious heart.

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