PATIENT CARE (Medical Romance) (Doctor Series) (8 page)

Melissa agonized over what to wear, but when James led her through the open door and into the East Side Community Hall that Friday night at seven, she realized that she could have put on almost any item in her closet, apart from her bathing suit, and felt comfortable. The simple blue cotton sundress she’d chosen was fine.

“Hey, Doc, Melissa—over here.” Rudy’s booming voice carried over the earsplitting buzz of conversation, the lively music coming from four musicians on a dais at the end of the room and the shrieks of half a dozen little kids playing hide-and-seek under the snowy tablecloths.

Melissa clutched James’s hand, and he led the way through groups of people standing and sitting, talking and laughing, eating and drinking. They passed an elderly woman in a wheelchair, a young mother breast-feeding her infant, a group of rowdy teenagers.

Rudy and a dramatically beautiful tiny woman were guarding two chairs at a round table.

“Melissa Clayton, meet Thelma, my better half.” Rudy’s face was flushed with excitement and pride. “Doc, you remember Thelma from when you took out my gallbladder.”

“Indeed I do. How are you, Thelma?”

“Nice to see you again, Dr. Burke.” Thelma’s smile was breathtaking, reflected as it was in her dark eyes. She reached out with both hands, took Melissa’s and held them for a moment. “I’m so pleased to meet you at last, and isn’t it wonderful about your mother?”

Melissa was still trying to get used to the fact that this dainty woman was Rudy’s wife. “Thank you more than I can say for praying for her,” she managed to blurt out.

“We just present our case,” Thelma said with a shrug. “What happens after that has nothing to do with us.” She swept a graceful hand toward the buffet table. “Let’s go and get something to eat, and then we can visit. I want you to meet the other women in the prayer group.”

Bracketed by Rudy and Thelma, Melissa and James made their way to the buffet. Accustomed by now to the lavish, high-calorie dishes in Rudy’s trailer each morning, Melissa wasn’t surprised by the array of mouthwatering food. She tried to select wisely, but with Rudy urging her to try this and that and Thelma indicating which dishes she herself had prepared, it seemed rude not to load up her plate with a little of everything. She noticed that James abandoned his vegetarian, low-calorie rules. His plate was heaped just as hers was as they started back to the table, and he rolled his eyes and shrugged helplessly when he saw her examining his choices.

“Seeley’s good at gallbladders,” he murmured to her.

Rudy was greeting friends. “There’s Dougie. Hey, Dougie, meet the doc and Melissa. This here’s my friend Dougie Murdoch. He’s a Sheetrock salesman.”

Dougie introduced his wife and four children, his mother-in-law, and his aunt.

Thelma introduced Maisie and Jean, members of her prayer group. They introduced husbands and cousins and grandmothers, until Melissa’s head was spinning.

“Enough socializing,” Thelma finally ordered. “The food’s getting cold.”

They sat down at their table, and Melissa realized how hungry she was. She’d had a tuna sandwich at lunchtime and nothing since.

“Everything tastes fabulous,” she told Thelma, and it did. It might have had something to do with pounds of butter and sugar and gallons of cream, Melissa mused as she ate her way through more food than she usually consumed in a week.

The thing that Rudy and Thelma had in common was their gregarious, inclusive personalities, Melissa soon realized. They were people magnets. As soon as they were finished eating, friends pulled up chairs and slid tables together, with Rudy and Thelma at the center of it all. The laughter and good-natured teasing flowed, under laid by honest affection. She and James were introduced over and over again as smiling faces joined the ever-widening circle. Melissa soon gave up even trying to remember names.

It was getting warmer by the minute in the hall, and she’d had too many glasses of fruit punch. Melissa excused herself and headed for the bathroom. She was dabbing cold water on her neck and cheeks when Thelma came in.

“Whew, it’s boiling out there. Longest stretch of hot weather I ever remember in Vancouver, and I grew up here, so that’s a lot of years,” Thelma remarked, wetting a tissue and wiping her forehead.

“How did you and Rudy meet?” Melissa had been wondering about it all evening.

“We were both working at the fish-packing plant in Steveston for the summer. I was seventeen. He was twenty- two. He was going to apprentice with a plumber in the fall, and I needed money to go to college. There was a party and I asked him to go with me.” Her smile was tender. “We’ve been together ever since.”

“Did you get to college?”

“Oh, sure.” Thelma wiped off eye shadow and reapplied it. “I did business admin. It’s been a real help with the plumbing business.” She outlined her lips with a lip pencil and filled them in with lipstick. “Rudy says you’re the boss of the whole show over at St. Joe’s, first woman ever to hold the job. That’s what the doc told him. Good for you. It thrills me to meet women who won’t take no for an answer.”

“Thanks, but I think that’s an exaggeration.” Melissa laughed and explained what she did. Thelma listened and asked several pertinent questions about the physicians’ job action and what affect it had on Melissa’s work.

“The doc’s lucky he found you,” she said at last. “He’s way more easygoing than he was when he operated on Rudy. Whew!’ She rolled her eyes at the memory. “He was a pretty uptight guy. Now he’s out there joking and laughing with the best of them. You’re really good for him, Melissa.”

“Oh, but—but we’re not a couple, not really,” Melissa stammered. “This is the first time I’ve actually been out with him.”

“Rudy said the doc’s not too swift on the uptake when it comes to romance. But the way he looks at you, he’ll catch on. Don’t you worry. Rudy was like that when I met him. Figured he couldn’t ask me out because I was going to college and he was a plumber. The doc probably has his own hang-ups. Men get the darnedest ideas in their heads.” Thelma patted her shining cap of short dark hair. “We’ll put you both on our prayer list. We’ll just ask God to give the doc a little shove in the right direction.”

Melissa was flustered. Obviously Thelma had the wrong idea about her relationship with James. “But you don’t understand,” she tried to explain. “Neither of us is looking for a long-lasting relationship. We’re just—” She remembered that kiss and her cheeks flamed. “We’re just friends,” she insisted. “He operated on my mom, and because of that and the job action, we’ve spent some time talking, but there’s nothing—” She was babbling, and she shut up.

Thelma tipped her head back and laughed.   “Honey, the electricity between the two of you is strong enough to blow all the transformers in town. You just relax and let the prayer group work on him a little.” She winked and tucked a strand of Melissa’s hair behind her ear. “C’mon out and dance with him. The band’s really warming up. Dancing is a great aphrodisiac.”

“I don’t think James knows how to dance.” Melissa remembered his saying so.

Thelma waved a hand dismissively. “He’ll learn fast enough. Rudy and I’ll teach him.”

Couples were dipping and swaying to a sedate waltz, and Rudy took Thelma in his arms and whirled her away, as light on his feet as a ballerina in spite of his bulk.

James smiled at Melissa, but he looked uncomfortable. She sat down beside him and sipped at the fresh glass of punch he’d brought her.

“I know you like to dance. I’m sorry I’m challenged in that—“

Rudy interrupted whatever James was about to say. He swept up to the table and pulled James to his feet.

“Dance with Thelma,” he ordered. “She taught me to tango. She can easy show you how to waltz.” Rudy bowed low before Melissa, his face scarlet with exertion, his eyes alight with pleasure. “Madam, may I have the honor?”

Before she had a chance to respond, Rudy was swooping her expertly across the dance floor. In a hearty baritone, he sang the words to the tune the band was playing, so there was no need for conversation. He was so confident that Melissa didn’t have to do anything except float along in his massive arms. He was an extraordinary dancer, innovative and smooth, totally dedicated to the fun of it all. Every now and then, without missing a beat or a lyric, he would pull an immense white handkerchief out, mop his brow and grin at Melissa.

They floated through three songs. The next set was a series of polkas, and when it finished and another set of waltzes began, they passed Thelma and James, and Rudy smoothly switched partners.

“Watch your toes,” James warned Melissa with a grin. He drew her close against his body, and although he wasn’t as accomplished as Rudy, she loved the delicious sensation of being in his arms, being held close.

“There’s no need to protect my toes,” she assured him after a moment. “If you really didn’t know how to dance before, you must be a quick study.”

“Thelma’s a great teacher. She even got me through the polka. I should have had someone like her tutor me in high school.”

“You probably just didn’t practice enough,” Melissa suggested.

“We’ll just have to keep doing this then, until I get good at it. Grit your teeth and persevere, woman.”

They twirled and gyrated and laughed their way through some variation of the polka, and when the music changed to a romantic ballad, James pulled her close again. His cheek rested on her hair. The music was slow and haunting, and their bodies moved in unison. Someone had dimmed the lights and opened all the doors, and the fresh evening air poured in.

Melissa tipped her head up to smile at James, and caught her breath. His eyes on hers were hot, and he bent his head and brushed his lips across hers, the lightest and most tantalizing of kisses. He lifted the fingers curled in his own and did the same with her knuckles.  Fire flickered, then caught low in her belly.

She could feel her pulse thrumming, and anticipation ran through her. It had been so long since she’d been in a man’s arms, so long since she’d been with someone with whom she wanted to make love.

It was clear to her that that was what she wanted, what she was determined to have. The hand resting on his neck slipped into his hair, soft, thick, sensual hair. She relished the texture of it, traced the shape of his skull with her fingers, and he shuddered.

The hand on her back tightened, drew her closer. She laid her head on his shoulder. She could feel his heart hammering. She could also feel his erection. To know that he wanted her at least as much as she wanted him gave her a delicious female sense of power and pleasure.

“You’re driving me crazy, Melissa,” he murmured into her ear.

“It’s mutual.”

“Let’s get out of here.”

They located Rudy and Thelma. Melissa saw the look that passed between them as she and James thanked them, and she caught Thelma’s tiny wink.

It seemed there were dozens of new friends to say goodnight to before they reached the door of the hall, but finally, they were outside.

The moon had just risen, a full moon, fat and golden above the city. James had Melissa’s hand, and he led her over to his car, but instead of opening the door, he turned her roughly into his arms.

Their lips met, and this time there was nothing tentative or gentle about the kiss. Melissa surrendered to it, trembling, and felt an echoing tremble in James.

The sound of laughter and voices interrupted them, and they drew apart.

“We need somewhere private,” James said, his voice hoarse.

This was the moment of decision, and Melissa made it. “Your place or mine?”

The cliched line made them both laugh a little.

“Which one’s closer?” He held the car door open, and she slid in.

“Mine, I think.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“With you coming to my apartment?” Skitters of excitement and nervousness ran through her, and she deliberately chose to misunderstand, to give herself time to consider if she was okay with it. “Depends on how fussy you are. You didn’t come into the bedroom when you picked me up, but the bed’s not made and there’re clothes on the chair.”

He was behind the wheel now, pulling the car smoothly into traffic.

“I don’t care if the whole damn place is condemned by the health department.” He reached across the console and took her hand, then placed it deliberately on his thigh and covered it with his own. She could feel the hard, corded muscles, the heat of his skin against her palm.  “I want to hear you say you’re ready to make love with me.”

She admired his honesty and met it with her own. “I wouldn’t have invited you home if I wasn’t.” But the forthright words dulled a little of the romantic shine for her. She wanted to be swept away. “Sounds like a business agreement,” she said with a touch of irritation in her voice.

“Why is it I always say the wrong thing when I’m with you?” At the next light, he reached across, pulled her into his embrace and kissed her with all the fervor she needed to reassure her that business had nothing to do with what was happening between them.

When they reached the door to her apartment, Melissa had another attack of nerves. What was she doing? How would she feel in the morning, when she had to face him across a boardroom table? She fumbled in her bag for her key, frantically trying to formulate the words to tell him she’d changed her mind.