Mary Brady - He Calls Her Doc

Maude swallowed a startled “What?” She couldn’t believe the woman in the treatment room would consent to going anywhere with him, let alone back to the ranch, and so quickly.

“She said she’d leave because—” He paused.

She checked to see if he was gloating.

Holding his expression emotionless, he said, “I told her you’d make a house call.”

She pushed up from her chair to face him. “You what? A house call? For a minor ankle injury?” She thought of the old and the infirm patients Doc Avery used to visit at home. She would gladly see those people, but Cynthia Stone didn’t fit any category of patient who might need a house call.

“Having you come by to check up on her was the only thing that got her interested in leaving.”

The ranch. The place she had managed, with one excuse or another, not to go back to for over ten years.

“Tell her I won’t be there.”

“She’s your patient,” he stated matter-of-factly, and walked out the door.

Even after Henry most generously bought the ranch from her parents to save them from bankruptcy and to fund their retirement and her sister’s care—Maude could not make herself return.

Soon, Mountain High’s blue van pulled up to the door.

Yes, she did hate Guy Daley. She did so want to be bigger than that, but he made it too easy.

Worse—

He was forcing her hand. She should visit the ranch for her own sake. She hadn’t had the moral fortitude to go back there since she left for medical school, and had even less courage after her parents sold the ranch to Henry. Making a house call would keep her from chickening out.

She stepped into the warm afternoon sunlight and walked over to where Guy stood looking tall and Western, not at all like a Chicago doctor, and leaning on the van’s driver’s side door with his arms crossed.

“I’ll come,” she said as she stopped in front of him.

He unfolded his arms and looked at her to continue.

“Please keep an eye on Mr. Hancock. My confidence is low that he’d report any problems if he had them.”

Guy frowned and Maude knew he wanted to ask for confidential patient information, but he didn’t, always the utmost professional. Recalling the earlier promise she’d made, she said, “He asked that I tell you he ‘didn’t just get up and run away.’ That I released him.”

“That would be Jake.” One corner of his mouth turned up into the beginnings of what she knew to be a beguiling smile.

Oh, yes. This was Henry Daley’s brother. Charm had poured from Henry at every turn. From his brother it had to be coaxed and, if given, was hard fought for. The only people she ever saw charm the great Dr. Daley were his brother Henry and Henry’s daughter, Lexie. For Maude, the charm had never been there.

“I’ll come tomorrow morning.” “Solo practice” popped into her head. “Make that afternoon. Tuesday morning is office hours, there are patients for me to see.”

“Tomorrow afternoon then.”

She could have sworn he gave her the tiniest of bows before he reached for the sliding passenger door and made himself busy making room for Queen Cynthia.

As Maude turned away, a sense of relief flooded through her, followed quickly by annoyance. She couldn’t let Guy Daley get to her. Much water had flowed under many bridges for both of them, and the past needed to stay in the past.

THE NEXT MORNING, dressed in her neatly pressed blue oxford shirt and navy slacks with her lab coat over her arm, Maude entered the foyer of the Wm. Avery Clinic ready to let people see how well she could do the job. The truth be told, she was better than old Doc Avery, at least technically, and the more patients she kept alive and healthy, the more people in this valley would accept her as Dr. DeVane and forget about little Maudie.

Arlene, the receptionist, looked up with a nervous smile. That would change, Maude knew. They’d all get used to her.

“Good morning, Arlene.” Maude turned slowly in the empty reception area. “Are they all in the treatment rooms?”

“I’m sorry, Dr. DeVane.” The receptionist took the pencil from behind her ear and fiddled with it. “They—um—canceled and two of them who are usually early didn’t show up at all. I’m really sorry. Mrs. Effington was here for her nine-thirty, but when she saw no one else was here, she—um—decided to leave, too.”

“Is there anyone left on the books for today?”

“Only Mr. Stanley to have his stitches taken out, and he’s already in one of the exam rooms.”

Maude felt some of the puff go out of her ego, but she was careful not to let Arlene see. “And he’s only here because he can’t take the stitches out himself?”

“I suspect you’re right, Dr. DeVane. Can I get you a cup of coffee, or maybe tea?” Arlene was trying hard to put her at ease.

“No, thank you. Say, Arlene, how would you like a paid day off?” The offer didn’t seem to make Arlene any more comfortable and Maude continued. “I’ll see Mr. Stanley and while I do, you make a note for the door. If anyone needs us, they can call the emergency number, and you won’t have to be here all morning without anyone to greet.”

“I can do paperwork.”

“Paperwork will keep.” Maude gestured at the empty waiting room. “They’ll come back. In the meantime, we’ll make lemonade out of this big lemon of a day.”

Arlene nodded and Maude went in to see the only one of Dr. Avery’s patients willing to have her treat him this morning.

After Arlene left, Maude stayed at the office for a while. When she was tired of reading charts, but mostly frustrated at being alone, she went to find an ear that would give her sympathy—or a knock upside the head, whichever she needed the most.

“SALLY, THEY STOOD ME UP!” Maude said as she entered the back door of a large, rambling old house in a cul-de-sac only a few blocks from her own tidy little home.

Sally Sanderson, Maude’s friend since childhood, glanced up from the washer into which she had been shoving colorful clothing of many small sizes. “Well, I’m glad.”

“What?”

Sally snorted a laugh as she pulled her mop of blond curls away from her gray eyes and pushed her glasses up on her nose. “Go pour us some coffee. I’ll be done in a sec.”

Maude put cream and sugar into Sally’s—I need the energy, she had said about the added calories—and sat down to wait. Sally did need the energy. Her slight five-foot-two-inch body chased five children all day and half the night.

“I wasn’t sure I’d get to see much of you after Doc left,” Sally said as she set a basket of folded towels by the door and took a seat at the worn wooden table big enough to seat the small army of Sandersons and a few more.

“Me, too.” Maude laughed. “Doc Avery was supposed to be here for a month after I got here, but it seems their granddaughter had her delivery date recalculated.”

“Mommy. Mommy.”

Sally reached down and picked up Lizzy, a shy five-year-old replica of herself, who had wandered into the room, spotted the intruder and made a beeline for the safety of her mother’s lap. The sparkling stars mounted on floppy stalks attached to the headband Lizzy wore batted her mother on the chin and Sally pushed them gently aside. “Doc’s gone only one day and here we are. I’m delighted to have your company.”

“I’m glad you are. Thank you.”

“All right. So what’s that about?” Sally stroked Lizzy’s hair.

“Yesterday morning at the grocery store they were gossiping, called me little Maudie.”

“And you just had to hide behind the dill pickle display and listen?”

“Well something like that. It was canned peas.” Maude reached down and patted Barney, the docile family dog that had followed Lizzy into the room and now sat with his head against Maude’s leg. “What if this keeps up?”