Linda Turner - Never Been Kissed

“And Reilly Jones is that man?”

Unable to speculate on that, Sara poured them both a cup of tea. “It’s too early to tell. Right now they just have a temporary partnership—after three months they’ll decide if they want to make it permanent. Dan’s keeping his fingers crossed that it’ll work out. A doctor of Reilly’s caliber doesn’t come along every day. He’s an excellent heart surgeon.”

In the process of setting the table for breakfast, Janey frowned. “But Dan has a family practice. I wouldn’t think a cardiologist would be interested in that at all, especially in a small town like Liberty Hill. Most of the local surgeries are pretty routine.”

“He apparently wanted a break from L.A.,” Sara said simply. “His wife died recently, and he decided he needed a complete change of scene.”

That explained the sadness in his eyes. “That must have been very difficult for him. What happened?”

Sara shrugged. “He didn’t want to talk about it to Dan, so all I know is that he showed up in town the day before yesterday with only a fancy foreign car and two suitcases to his name. He didn’t even have a place to stay until Nick rented him the cabin.”

That stunned Janey almost as much as the news that Dan had taken on a partner. “Why am I just now finding out about this?”

But even as she asked, she knew. She’d worked double shifts at the nursing home all week because they were shorthanded due to an early flu bug that was going around. Then last night she’d spent half the night working with the volunteer fire department. She hadn’t seen any of the family except in passing all week.

“I guess I haven’t been around much,” she admitted with a grimace. “Obviously the good doctor impressed Nick—that cabin’s his baby. He wouldn’t rent to just anybody.”

“Dan says he’s a good man,” her mother replied. “Nick thinks so, too.”

And that said a lot. Besides her brothers, Janey couldn’t think of two men she respected more. If Reilly Jones made a good impression on them, that should have been enough to silence any questions she had about the man. It didn’t. As far as she could see, it just didn’t make sense. A man didn’t leave a million-dollar practice in L.A. for a significantly smaller one in the wilds of Colorado without a darn good reason. So what was Reilly Jones’s story? It would be interesting to find out.

Reilly wasn’t surprised that he was the latest topic of conversation everywhere he went. Gossip was the grease that made most small towns run, and he was the new man in town. He’d expected questions, and there were plenty of them. But he had no intention of answering any of them. Not now, not ever. He’d come to Colorado to start fresh and put his past behind him, and he couldn’t do that if he was continually talking about it. So when people asked everything from how much money he’d made in L.A. to why he wasn’t married, he coolly replied that that was private information and he preferred not to talk about it.

It didn’t win him many friends.

Another man might have been bothered by that, but Reilly told himself he didn’t care. He wasn’t there to make friends. Friends took an emotional toll, and that was more than he could give at the moment. Which was one of the reasons he’d moved to Liberty Hill in the first place. He didn’t know anyone there and didn’t want to know anyone. He just wanted to work, then escape to the cabin in the woods he’d rented from the sheriff and just be left alone. After everything he’d been through, he didn’t think that was too much to ask.

Dan Michaels, his new partner, had other ideas.

Inviting him to lunch at the local diner to discuss the matter after he’d observed Reilly with the patients that morning, Dan took a chair across the table from him and ordered a grilled chicken sandwich without bothering to look at the menu. A tall, trim man with snow-white hair and the kindest eyes Reilly had ever seen, he waited until Reilly had given his order and the waitress had moved on before he met his gaze with a frown.

“We’ve got a problem,” he said quietly. “And if this partnership between us is going to work, I feel it’s important that we start it off right by discussing problems that crop up as soon as possible. Agreed?”

“Of course,” Reilly replied, surprised. Frowning, he thought back to some of the patients he’d seen that morning. He’d treated colds, allergies, a sprained wrist, even a minor burn, nothing that a first-year medical student couldn’t have handled with one hand tied behind his back. So what was the problem? “I thought everything went fairly smoothly. Did I miss something?”

“The patients,” the older man retorted, not unkindly. “Don’t get me wrong. I was watching you, and you were right on the money when it came to your diagnoses. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that when it comes to medicine, you’re a gifted doctor.”

“But you just said I missed something with the patients,” he said, confused. “I don’t understand.”

Careful to keep his voice down so it wouldn’t carry to the other diners, Dan said quietly, “I don’t have to tell you that there’s more to practicing medicine than handing out prescriptions and doing everything right procedurally. In L.A., your patients might accept—and even expect—a cool business relationship with their doctors, but that won’t work here. This is a small town, Reilly. Your patients will expect you to not only be their doctor, but a friend, confidant, priest and therapist. They’ll treat you like family and ask you private questions they’ve got no business asking. And they won’t understand if you don’t tell them anything about yourself.”

Not liking the sound of that, Reilly scowled. “I have a right to my privacy.”

“Yes, you do,” he agreed. “And I know you’re still grieving. After my wife died, I just wanted to crawl in a hole and be left alone. But I couldn’t, and neither can you. Because you have patients who need you. And to them you’re a stranger. They want to accept you, to like you, but they don’t know anything about you. If you don’t open up a little and let them know who you are, there won’t be much trust between you. And without trust, you won’t be much good to them as a doctor.”

He wasn’t saying anything Reilly didn’t already know. A good doctor did a lot more than just treat physical ailments. But wasn’t he allowed to keep his private life separate from work? Couldn’t he earn patients’ trust without telling them about the house he’d owned in Beverly Hills and if he’d ever dated a movie star? Wasn’t he at least entitled to that?

“What’s important here is that the patients trust my judgment as a doctor,” he replied. “They don’t need to know anything about my private life to do that.”

Not a pushy man, Dan had said his piece. There was no point in beating the subject like a dead horse. “You know what’s best for you,” he said simply. “So how were things at the hospital last night? After the fancy operating rooms you practiced in in L.A., our little hospital must have been quite a shock to you. You probably felt like you’d stepped back in time.”

Reilly had to grin at that. “Well, maybe just a little, but I didn’t encounter anything I couldn’t handle. By the end of the evening, I felt right at home.”

“Good.” Pleased, Dan sat back as the waitress delivered their food. “I can’t remember the last time I had a night off. It was great, thanks to you.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Reilly said with a wry shrug. And Dan was no more grateful than he was. After sitting at home and brooding for months in L.A., he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed work. Last night he’d been so busy that he hadn’t had much time to think about Victoria.