The Doctor's Forever Family Read online

Turning her eyes to his, Tina found that her breath instantly caught in her throat. The flippant remark that was all set to come out faded away, forgotten, evaporating without a trace.

  When had the interior of the car gotten so small, so confining? So tight? They’d shared it on the way to Pine Ridge and now back and it hadn’t seemed confining—until just this moment.

  In contrast to the actual temperature, which was going down with the sun, after all this was the desert, the inside of the car grew quite warm.

  When he leaned in closer, his fingertips skimming the outline of her cheek and then her chin, Tina was fairly certain that time stood still. At the very least, the earth had stopped spinning. Now it was her head that had taken on that task. All but spinning out of control.

  All Tina could think of was touching her mouth to his.

  Complications, her mind screamed in forewarning. If she let this happen, there would be tons and tons of complications.

  Complications she should avoid, given that she would be interacting with the man on a daily basis and the town needed him. If things went sour, then he might leave and she would be responsible for that.

  But right at this moment, she wanted nothing more than to have him kiss her. Nothing. Not life, not food, not a queen’s ransom in jewels scattered at her feet, which related to a particularly dear dream she’d held on to as a child.

  She wanted this man to kiss her.

  Now.

  Before she took matters into her own hands—literally—and kissed him.

  Her heart hammered in anticipation.

  It had been a long time since she’d sampled that kind of tenderness, a simple kiss between a man and a woman, and she ached for it the way a seedling ached to be bathed in the warmth of the sunlight.

  He shouldn’t be doing this, Dan upbraided himself. He was here to work, to attempt, in some small way, to take Warren’s place, to do what Warren would have wanted to do. He was here because it was his fault that Warren wasn’t.

  He wasn’t supposed to be giving in to urges and desires that had popped out of nowhere to plague him. Those kinds of reactions, of temptations, belonged to the man he’d been and perhaps, the man he would someday be again.

  But he wasn’t that man now.

  Kissing her was asking for trouble. It was purely a selfish transgression, a breech of some unspoken covenant he’d made with Warren. This was—

  Absolutely unavoidable, a voice in his head whispered. If he was going to take another breath, it had to be one he’d draw in after he knew what her lips tasted like. He had to find out.

  Framing her face in his hands, holding it delicately and reverently, Dan leaned in and touched his lips softly to hers.

  And immediately caused the earth to tilt ninety degrees off its axis, threatening by that very action to destroy the world as he now knew it. But it was worth it. Because he’d been right. Her lips did taste hopelessly sweet, like a treasured fruit, hidden in the recesses of the jungle.

  Meaning to pull back, he wound up deepening the kiss, taking it from sweet and gentle to something more intense and filled with a passion the likes of which he couldn’t remember ever encountering.

  Whether that was a factor of the self-imposed celibacy he’s been operating under or the woman he had allowed to slip in through the small crack in his world, he didn’t know.

  Dan needed to kiss her again to ascertain that.

  So he did.

  Chapter Eleven

  An eternity later, Dan placed his hands on her shoulders and lightly, but firmly, pushed himself away.

  With the contact severed between them, Tina took a deep, shaky breath, struggling to get herself, if not actually under control, at least to appear as if she was.

  “Liked the sunset that much, did you?” she asked, doing her best to sound flippant and offhanded instead of a woman whose very foundation had suddenly and unexpectedly just been rocked.

  “There was a sunset?” Dan deadpanned, maintaining such a straight face that at first she wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not. And then the corners of his mouth softened just a little, taking on the semblance of a smile. He cleared his throat. “It’s getting late. We’d better be getting back before someone sends out a search party for us.”

  That would be Miss Joan, Tina thought, since she’d made arrangements with the woman to pick up her son and bring him home. The woman wasn’t an alarmist, but she did tend to worry unless informed about changes ahead of time.

  Pressing her lips together, Tina nodded. Though she wouldn’t say so out loud, she was grateful that Dan hadn’t pushed what was clearly his advantage. For just a moment, she’d been on the brink of losing control, of being that girl who’d already wantonly given in to the sudden rush of heat mingled with desire in her veins.

  She would have sworn that she’d come a long way from that girl she’d been, the one who’d so effortlessly succumbed to physical needs. The last time she’d done that, Bobby had been born nine months later. But since the accident and Don’s death, she’d done a great deal of growing up. And withdrawing from that front.

  Or so she’d thought.

  Maybe not, she silently allowed, glancing at Dan’s profile as he started up the car again to take them the rest of the way home.

  Tina folded her hands in her lap and looked out the windshield, forcing her mind to go blank so she wouldn’t be tempted to dwell on anything.

  Easier said than done.

  A WEEK WENT BY AND NEITHER one of them spoke about what had happened on the drive back from Pine Ridge. Not a single word. No reference whatsoever.

  It became the elephant in the living room, forever in the way, reminding each of them of the one unguarded moment they’d shared.

  For Tina it stirred up reams of questions. Had it been just a matter of going with the moment for Dan, or had he felt the same overwhelming pull? And if so, what was she supposed to do about it? Ignore it and stay safe? Explore it and risk everything?

  What did it all mean?

  Though she refrained from bringing the subject up and was grateful that he didn’t, either, she knew damn well that she wasn’t going to have a moment’s peace until it was resolved. One way or another.

  And then what? the little voice in her head demanded. You sleep with him? We all know how that went for you the last time.

  It wasn’t as if her track record or taste in men was above reproach—or even passingly decent. But all that was in the past and from everything she’d witnessed so far, Dan seemed to be a decent person. After all, he was out here, seemingly uninterested in making money from his patients. She’d been the one to charge his patients that first day, not Dan. He’d been seeing Forever’s residents without making a single reference to the fact that he expected any form of payment from them.

  Who does that but a saint?

  At the very least, that was the height of selflessness. Something Don had never been, she thought ruefully. Not even on his best day.

  There was no comparison between the two men. Don had been a user almost right from the start. Dan was here just to help because the people in Forever needed it.

  A whole week had gone by. Seven long days in which he was achingly aware of the woman who sat out front, organizing his professional life. Booking his appointments, making certain that the flow of patients in and out of the medical clinic did not get out of hand.

  He’d started something in that car on the way back from Pine Ridge. For both of them, Dan suspected. He hadn’t meant to complicate their relationship, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened. While it didn’t interfere with his being a doctor, it did interfere with his being a man. He had to stop examining this from every conceivable angle and just get on with life.

  Forcing himself to come out of his haze, he glanced at his watch. It was past five. It occurred to him that Tina hadn’t stuck her head in since the last patient had walked out of the office.

  Was he finally done for the day?

  If
he was, maybe he and Tina could grab a bite of dinner together and then he’d ask her to go stargazing with him. After all, she’d been the one to bring it up in the first place. Alone with just the stars might be a good time to talk. Clear the air or some such trite saying, he mused.

  Getting up from his desk, Dan walked out of his office. He was about to ask Tina if anyone else was left for him to see when the front door flew open, banging unceremoniously against the opposite wall.

  On her feet, Tina froze the moment she saw who it was.

  Rick.

  Rick didn’t even see her. His attention was focused on the only person he felt could help him. “Doc, I need you,” he cried. “It’s Olivia. I think the baby’s coming. Now,” he emphasized, trying to bank down the mounting fear in his voice.

  Olivia was a couple of weeks shy of her due date, Tina thought, but that could easily mean nothing. Then again, she knew it wasn’t exactly unheard of to experience false labor pains. In either case, having a doctor around was not the worst idea.

  “I’ll just get my bag,” Dan told the sheriff.

  Ducking back into his office again, Dan hurried to retrieve the classic black bag that his uncle had given him when he’d graduated from medical school. Warren had received an identical one on his graduation.

  When Dan returned to the reception area, there was no one there. Both Tina and the sheriff were outside, on either side of the woman in the service Jeep.

  Tina opened the rear door closest to her. Peering in, she took Olivia’s hand. In this one isolated instance, she was the one with experience and Olivia was the fearful novice.

  It felt strange, she had to admit, albeit silently, to be on this side of the equation. Olivia had always been the one who was the rock, the steadfast person, the one she turned to if something was wrong, confident that Olivia could make it right.

  “Hi, Livy,” she said softly. “It’ll be over with soon, I promise.”

  Olivia made no response. In the throes of a contraction, she wouldn’t have been able to answer any sort of question. Despite the chill in the air, perspiration pasted her blond hair to her forehead.

  “She wanted me to drive her to the hospital in Pine Ridge,” Rick told both his sister-in-law and the approaching doctor, “but she looked like she was in too much pain to put up with the trip.”

  Dan drew in a long breath as discreetly as he could, then slipped into the car. The last time he’d been in the same room with a pregnant woman, she’d been a friend’s wife and nowhere near ready to deliver. He didn’t have much experience with delivering a child into the world. Without much experience to fall back on, he faced trial by fire. Unless Rick was exaggerating. Mentally, Dan crossed his fingers as he took Olivia’s damp hand in his.

  “So Rick tells me that you think you’re about to have the baby.”

  Biting down on her lower lip, Olivia didn’t trust herself to say a word. Instead, she nodded vigorously, her head bobbing up and down. Her hair remained almost immovable, pasted not just to her forehead but her cheeks, as sweat poured out each time a contraction seized her. Which was far too often now. There was no longer any time to rest, to regroup between assaults.

  “How far apart are the contractions?” Dan asked, looking to Rick for an answer.

  But it was Olivia who spoke. “Sixty,” she squeezed out through lips that hardly moved.

  “Every sixty minutes?” Dan repeated. Now that was more like it. The emergency scaled back. “Then we have enough time to get you to the hospital—”

  Grabbing his hand back, Olivia held on for dear life, channeling the contraction from herself to Dan via her viselike grip.

  “No,” she cried desperately, struggling mightily to carry on the semblance of a coherent conversation when everything inside of her was being ripped to shreds. “Sixty seconds.”

  Dan reconnoitered. “Okay, we don’t have time to get to the hospital.” Managing to reclaim his thoroughly crushed hand, Dan backed out of the rear seat and turned toward Rick.

  “I’m at least going to need to get her into the clinic,” he told Olivia’s husband.

  Nodding, Rick coaxed his wife to the edge of the seat and then scooped her up. “You’re a little heavier than I remember,” he teased, trying to lighten the moment. “I’m…hoping…to drop…twenty-five…pounds…soon,” she answered, trying very hard to elude the next sharp, hard salvo of pain.

  Dan hovered about his patient, prepared to make a grab for her. He was afraid that any second she might lapse into a contraction, stiffening enough to run the risk of having her husband drop her.

  Tina led the way back into the building. She threw open one door after another until they were in the first exam room.

  As gently as he could, Rick placed Olivia down on the examining table the way the doctor indicated.

  After dropping his medicine bag on the first available empty surface, Dan quickly washed his hands and turned his attention back to his patient. One look at her expression told him that she hadn’t exaggerated about the amount of time between contractions. If anything, she’d overestimated it. It seemed to him there were less than forty-five seconds between them now.

  “This’ll be over with very soon,” Dan promised her, offering the woman as much encouragement as he could.

  “Not…soon…enough!” Olivia attempted to smile but what came through looked more like a grimace than a smile.

  “Tina, get me a—”

  Dan abruptly stopped. Anticipating his next move, Tina was way ahead of him.

  Tina had already retrieved a sheet to drape over Olivia’s soon-to-be exposed section for the purposes of modesty, even though when it came down to the wire, modesty was the first thing to go. Getting help and finally giving birth were far more important.

  Spreading the sheet out over Olivia’s lower half, she quickly got Olivia ready, taking off her sister’s shoes, her maternity slacks and her underwear. Finished, she backed away, allowing Dan to step in so that he could make the proper assessment.

  When he did, his face paled slightly.

  “What’s the matter?” Rick demanded.

  “The baby’s breech,” Dan said.

  “What does that mean?” Rick demanded.

  “It means that the baby can’t come out the way it is,” Dan answered. “We’re going to have to get her to the hos—” His words were lost as Olivia screamed.

  Dan closed his eyes, centering himself. There was still a small chance she could have the child naturally. He looked at Olivia, his eyes on hers. “I’m going to have to try to turn the baby,” he told her.

  “You can do that?” Tina asked.

  He didn’t know. Saying so out loud would only cause Olivia and her husband to panic, so he didn’t answer. Instead, he warned Olivia, “This is going to hurt.”

  “Like…it…doesn’t…now?” she questioned breathlessly.

  “Sorry,” was all he could say. “Hold her,” he instructed Rick. When Rick closed his arms around his wife, Dan got started and thanked his lucky stars for having some training.

  Praying, he took a firm hold of the infant’s form and then, with great effort, slowly turned it just enough for the baby to emerge from the birth canal.

  “Stay with me, Olivia, stay with me,” Dan ordered, seeing that the woman was close to passing out. “We’re almost— There!” he announced. It was done. Letting out a huge, shaky breath, he offered Rick a smattering of a smile. “Worst is over.”

  “Obviously, you’ve never given birth,” Tina said under her breath.

  But before Dan could say anything to her, the baby began its final descent.

  Almost as exhausted as his patient, Dan murmured reassuring words to the woman. “Push when I tell you,” he instructed. “All right, push!”

  Mentally, he took it to the count of ten, then told her to stop. Panting, she slumped against Rick who still held her.

  Wanting to distract her from what he could see was another contraction approaching, Dan asked, “Do you k
now what you’re having?”

  “An…elephant,” Olivia expelled the words between clenched teeth. “A…great…big…fat…elephant!”

  “Girl elephant or boy elephant?” Dan asked.

  “We wanted to be surprised,” Rick answered for Olivia. He was almost as breathless as she was, going through the ordeal vicariously. It was obvious by his expression that he felt every single pain along with his wife. “What can I do, Doc?”

  “Just keep on supporting her shoulders like that when she pushes,” Dan encouraged. The last word was no sooner out of his mouth when he saw Olivia beginning to bear down. “Not yet, not yet,” Dan said quickly. “I want you to do it on my count. Nice, short, panting breaths, Olivia,” he coaxed gently. “Just remember, you can’t pant and push at the same time. It’s a physical impossibility.”

  Again, he was grateful for his education, which had prepared him for just such an emergency. Olivia wasn’t the only one he was trying to reassure. Silently, he was doing the same with himself.

  At that moment, as the focus was on Olivia and the child who was fighting so hard to enter the world, music began to fill the air. Specifically, a song that had been climbing up the charts around this time a year ago.

  Hearing it, it still took Tina a moment to make the connection. That was her cell phone that was ringing. Pulling the device out of her pocket, she snapped open the clam shell and put it to her ear, impatience streaming through her.

  “Hello?” she snapped.

  “Is everything all right over there?” It was Miss Joan and she sounded more than a little concerned. “Lupe said she saw the sheriff streaking by on his way to the clinic. She thought someone was in the backseat. Is it Olivia?”

  Nothing ever got by that woman, Tina thought. As it was, she was glad Miss Joan called. She needed the woman to watch her son for a while longer. “Yes. She’s having the baby right now. Could you—”

  Tina didn’t get a chance to finish.

  “Don’t give it another thought. Bobby and I will be playing games until his mama comes home. But if you don’t get back in time for his bedtime, I’ll tuck him in,” Miss Joan assured her. “You just go help that sister of yours. She needs you. The first time’s always the scariest for a woman.”