colleagues’ reports about her work.
Her very first telephone impression of Rick had been favorable. A nice voice, decidedly masculine but not macho, and he identified himself immediately. No cute little guessing games like some guys played. He simply skipped any preliminaries and politely asked her to dinner the coming weekend at the Hathaway House.
He was a bit businesslike and direct about it, but she sort of liked his confident, why-don’t-we-close-a-deal manner, so she accepted. He was friendly without sounding desperate or nervous in the way of men who placed too much importance on a date. And the Hathaway House in nearby Summerfield, while no leader in trendy cuisine, was generally considered the best restaurant in Mystery Valley—respectable but hardly formidable, appropriate for a safe first date.
She had hung up the phone feeling better than she usually did after making a blind date. Well, not actually a totally blind date, she reminded herself while she washed and rinsed a few dirty plates and set them in the drainer. After all, she finally remembered who the guy was. She’d gotten a good look at Rick once a few months ago from Hazel’s kitchen window.
She recalled his collar-length blond hair and the gorgeous, sexy smile he’d flashed at her when he caught her scoping him out from the window. But Rick had been at least four or five years ahead of her in school, so she’d never met him and knew little about him except that he was still single and worked for a manufacturing company located about fifteen miles from Mystery.
She was perhaps a little bothered by his by-the-book manner. She liked to flirt a little, but he had passed up the opportunities she had given him over the phone.
God forbid that he’d turn out to be another John Saville—just a good-looking vinyl boy who reserved his charm for debutantes and Vassar grads.
Something else bothered her about the brief conversation. Hazel had implied that she knew Rick well. Yet he admitted on the phone he hardly knew her. But so what if Hazel was being a little pushy. The old girl had always seen herself as a crusader in the cause of romance. Had some notable successes at it, too.
Romance… Rebecca rinsed her hands, then used her wet fingers to comb back a few rebellious strands of chestnut hair that had escaped the barrettes. Suddenly the old rumination came to her again: for too long now she’d been wondering what “doing it” was really like. She’d been close a few times with Brian, but something had always stopped her—some inner sense that the time just wasn’t right. In Brian’s case, it was the commitment that wasn’t right; she saw that now. She only hoped that the next time she had the opportunity to take the plunge, her instincts would go away. So far they’d only prevailed in keeping her from making any move. And she was tired of her virginity, and getting cynical.
If she couldn’t find love, then she at least wanted to pretend she knew about it.
Unbidden, an image of John Saville’s intense cobalt eyes, raking over her like fingers, filled the screen of her mind, and a restless yearning stirred low in her stomach, quickening her pulse.
That’s just great, she chided herself—a cute guy just asked you out, and here you are fantasizing about some self-loving, elitist snob who wouldn’t be caught dead with you in public.
Another doctor in her life might send her screaming for the nunnery. So she erased the unwanted image of John Saville from her mind and returned to drying the dishes.
Surprisingly, the rest of the week went by smoothly at the clinic, as if John Saville were on his best behavior. Late on Friday afternoon he came up front from his private office.
“Ladies,” he announced in his stilted, formal manner, “I’ve finished reviewing Dr. Winthrop’s financial books. I see that neither of you has received a raise in almost two years now.”
His fiercely blue eyes lingered on Rebecca, seeming to dwell on the spots where a snug cashmere pullover, despite her bra, clearly marked her nipples. He cleared his throat.
“So I’ve informed our bookkeeper,” he continued, “that retroactive from the day I took over, you both are to receive a 10 percent raise. Also three more paid personal-leave days.”
Rebecca was too pleasantly surprised to speak.
Lois, however, quickly thanked him on behalf of them both. They received a second shock when John Saville actually flashed a quick and very charming smile—nothing imperious about it.
“Nonsense, both of you earn your salaries,” he insisted.
He left, taking some mail with him back to his office.
Lois looked at Rebecca, then fanned herself with the folder in her hand, as if bringing down her temperature.
“Sexy smile. And does that man look good in herring-bone dress slacks? Especially from the rear.”
But a moment later she added, “A pox on myself for such adulterous thoughts. And me the property of the Gang of Four.” The Gang of Four was Lois’s name for her husband, Merrill, and their three sons, who ran Brubaker and Sons Automotive in nearby Colfax.
She looked at Rebecca before adding, “Besides, he was putting the eye on you, Miss O’Reilly. Oo-la-la.”
Rebecca was unimpressed. “I wouldn’t alert the media if I were you, because I doubt that. Unless the doctor had a brief fantasy about slumming with the scullery help.”
“You ingrate. The man just padded our pay envelopes. And you saw how sweet he was about it.”
“I appreciate the raise,” she told Lois. “But he’s right, we are due for one, girlfriend.”
“Not to mention well worth it,” Lois conceded. “Lutheran Hospital has been wooing you ever since you did your nursing practicum there. And I’ll have my business degree in another year—I know for a fact Bruce Everett wants to hire me to manage his new dude ranch.”
Rebecca only half heard her friend, thinking about John Saville. “If you ask me,” she speculated, lowering her voice, “he’s one of these big carrot-and-stick commandos. This raise is a carrot meant to bring us—me, actually—into line.”
“And when he gets that uptight look like somebody’s giving him a wedgie,” Lois giggled, “that’s one of the sticks.”
They enjoyed a rebellious laugh. Their goof-off mood inspired Rebecca to suddenly pucker her face in an exaggerated scowl.
“‘Having fun, Miss O’Reilly,’” she lectured, making her voice as deep and disapproving as she could, “‘isn’t the point of this clinic.’”
They were safe, for he was well out of earshot at the rear of the building. However, the sudden sound of his steps in the hallway caught them before they could quite suppress their mood of bubbling mirth.
“Shush, woman,” Lois hissed melodramatically. “We just got a raise, don’t get him mad.”
But that last smart crack was one joke too many, and badly timed. She had to swivel sideways in her chair, and Lois barely managed to compose her face before the doctor appeared in the doorway, several X-rays in his left hand.
“Miss O’Reilly, has the lab got back with us yet on Bernie Decker’s blood-and-urine workups?”
His request was polite
