automatically looked on with disdain or suspicion.
Her nurse stuck her head in the doorway. “There’s a call for you. Dr. Morris is on line two.”
“Thanks, Brenda.”
She picked up the receiver absently, her finger poised over the designated line. But when she pressed it, before she could say a word, the sentence she’d intercepted accidentally blared in her ear in a familiar deep voice.
“…told you I wouldn’t have hired her in the first place, if I had known who she was related to. I did you a favor, never realizing she was Blakely’s daughter. You can’t imagine that I’ll ever forgive her father for what he did to the girl I loved, do you? She’s been a constant reminder, a constant torment!”
“That’s harsh, Copper,” Drew began.
“It’s how I feel. She’s nothing but a burden here. But to answer your question, hell no, you’re not stepping on my toes if you ask her out on a date! I find Louise Blakely repulsive and repugnant, and an automaton with no attractions whatsoever. Take her with my blessing. I’d give real money if she’d get out of my practice and out of my life, and the sooner the better!” There was a click and the line, obviously open, was waiting for her.
She clicked the receiver to announce her presence and said, as calmly as she could, “Dr. Lou Blakely.”
“Lou! It’s Drew Morris,” came the reply. “I hope I’m not catching you at a bad moment?”
“No.” She cleared her throat and fought to control her scattered emotions. “No, not at all. What can I do for you?”
“There’s a dinner at the Rotary Club Thursday. How about going with me?”
She and Drew occasionally went out together, in a friendly but not romantic way. She would have refused, but what Coltrain had said made her mad. “Yes, I would like to, thanks,” she said.
Drew laughed softly. “Great! I’ll pick you up at six on Thursday, then.”
“See you then.”
She hung up, checked the X-ray again meticulously, and put it away in its file. Brenda ordinarily pulled the X-rays for her, but it was Monday and, as usual, they were overflowing with patients who’d saved their weekend complaints for office hours.
She went back to her patient, her color a little high, but no disturbance visible in her expression.
She finished her quota of patients and then went into her small office. Mechanically she picked up a sheet of letterhead paper, with Dr. Coltrain’s name on one side and hers on the other. Irrelevantly, she thought that the stationery would have to be replaced now.
She typed out a neat resignation letter, put it in an envelope and went to place it on Dr. Coltrain’s desk. It was lunchtime and he’d already left the building. He made sure he always did, probably to insure that he didn’t risk having Lou invite herself to eat with him.
Brenda scowled as her boss started absently toward the back door. “Shouldn’t you take off your coat first?” she asked hesitantly.
Lou did, without a word, replaced it in her office, whipped her leather fanny pack around her waist and left the building.
It would have been nice if she’d had someone to talk to, she thought wistfully, about this latest crisis. She sat alone in the local café, drinking black coffee and picking at a small salad. She didn’t mingle well with people. When she wasn’t working, she was quiet and shy, and she kept to herself. It was difficult for strangers to approach her, but she didn’t realize that. She stared into her coffee and remembered every word Coltrain had said to Drew Morris about her. He hated her. He couldn’t possibly have made it clearer. She was repugnant, he’d said.
Well, perhaps she was. Her father had told her so, often enough, when he was alive. He and her mother were from Jacobsville but hadn’t lived in the area for years. He had never spoken of his past. Not that he spoke to Lou often, anyway, except to berate her grades and tell her that she’d never measure up.
“Excuse me?”
She looked up. The waitress was staring at her. “Yes?” she asked coolly.
“I don’t mean to pry, but are you all right?”
The question surprised Lou, and touched her. She managed a faint smile through her misery. “Yes. It’s been a…long morning. I’m not really hungry.”
“Okay.” The waitress smiled again, reassuringly, and went away.
Just as Lou was finishing her coffee, Coltrain came in the front door. He was wearing the elegant gray suit that looked so good on him, and carrying a silver belly Stetson by the brim. He looked furiously angry as his pale eyes scanned the room and finally spotted Lou, sitting all alone.
He never hesitated, she thought, watching him walk purposefully toward her. There must be an emergency…
He slammed the opened envelope down on the table in front of her. “What the hell do you mean by that?” he demanded in a dangerously quiet tone.
She raised her dark, cold eyes to his. “I’m leaving,” she explained and averted her gaze.
“I know that! I want to know why!”
She looked around. The café was almost empty, but the waitress and a local cowboy at the counter were glancing at them curiously.
Her chin came up. “I’d rather not discuss my private business in public, if you don’t mind,” she said stiffly.
His jaw clenched, and his eyes grew glittery. He stood back to allow her to get up. He waited while she paid for her salad and coffee and then followed her out to where her small gray Ford was parked.
Her heart raced when he caught her by the arm before she could get her key out of her jeans pocket. He jerked her around, not roughly, and walked her over to Jacobsville’s small town square, to a secluded bench in a grove of live oak and willow trees. Because it was barely December, there were no leaves on the trees and it was cool, despite her nervous perspiration. She tried to throw off his hand, to no avail.
He only loosened his grip on her when she sat down on a park bench. He remained standing, propping his boot on the bench beside her, leaning one long arm over his knee to study her. “This is private enough,” he said shortly. “Why are you leaving?”
“I signed a contract to work with you for one year. It’s almost up, anyway,” she said icily. “I want out. I want to go home.”
“You don’t have anyone left in Austin,” he said, surprising her.
“I have friends,” she began.
“You don’t have those, either. You don’t have friends at all, unless you count Drew Morris,” he said flatly.
Her fingers clenched around her car keys. She looked at them, biting into the flesh even though not a speck of emotion showed on her placid features.
His eyes followed hers to her lap and something moved in his face. There was an expression there that puzzled her. He reached down and opened her
