Marta Perry - Hearts Afire

“Yes, but I promised you I’d take care of it, remember? You should be resting.” The son eased the older man to the car and helped him get in, talking softly. Once Dixon was settled, he turned to them.

“Sorry about that. I’m afraid once Dad gets an idea in his head, it’s tough to get it out. I’m Andrew Dixon, by the way. You’d be Dr. Landsdowne. And I know Terry, of course.” He put his arm around her shoulders. “She used to be my best girl.”

Terry wiggled free, but the look she turned on the man was open and friendly—a far cry from the way she looked at him. “Back in kindergarten, I think that was. Good to see you, Andy.”

“Listen, if you have any problems, come to me, not the old man. No point in worrying him.”

“There won’t be any problems.” He hoped.

Andrew smiled and walked quickly toward the driver’s side of the car, as if afraid his father would hop back out if he didn’t hurry.

The elder Dixon rolled down his window. “You make sure everything’s done right,” he bellowed. “Anything else, and I’ll shut you down, that’s what I’ll do.”

Shaking his head, Andrew put the car in gear and pulled out, disappearing quickly down the lane, the dust settling behind the car.

Jake looked down at Terry. There were several things he’d like to say to her. He raised an eyebrow. “So, are you still his best girl?”

Her face crinkled with laughter. “Not since he took my yellow crayon.”

He found himself smiling back, just as involuntarily as he had smiled at her mother. Her green eyes softened, the pink in her cheeks seeming to deepen. She had a dimple at the corner of her mouth that only appeared when her face relaxed in a smile.

These Flanagan women had a way of getting under his guard. Without thinking, he took a step closer to her.

And stopped.

I always told you your emotions would get the best of you. His father’s voice seemed to echo in his ears. Now it’s cost you your career.

Not entirely. He still had a chance. But that chance didn’t include anything as foolish as feeling attraction for anyone, especially not Terry Flanagan.

Terry took an instinctive step back—away from Jake, away from that surge of attraction. Don’t be stupid. Jake doesn’t feel anything. It’s just you, and a remnants of what you once thought you saw in him.

She turned away to hide her confusion, her gaze falling on the trailer Brendan had managed to borrow from one of his parishioners. Bren never hesitated to approach anyone he thought had something to offer for good works.

“Would you like to see the equipment we have so far?” She was relieved to find her voice sounded normal. “It’s stored in the trailer until we can get the building ready.” She started toward the trailer, and he followed without comment.

She was fine. Just because she’d had a juvenile crush on him two years ago, didn’t mean they couldn’t relate as professionals now. After all, half the female staff at the hospital had had a crush on Jake. He’d never noticed any of them, as far as she could tell.

“It’s locked, I hope?”

The question brought her back to the present in a hurry. She pulled the key from her pocket, showing him, and then unlocked the door. “We’ll be very conscious of security, since the building is so isolated.”

He nodded, grasping the door and pulling it open. “About meds, especially. All medications are to be kept in a locked box and picked up at the E.R. when clinic hours start and then returned with a complete drug list at the end of the day.”

Naturally it was a sensible precaution, but didn’t he think she’d figure that out without his telling her? Apparently not.

“This is what I’ve been able to beg or borrow so far. There are a few larger pieces, like desks and a filing cabinet, that we’ll pick up when we’re ready for them.” She pulled the crumpled list from her jeans pocket and handed it to him.

He looked it over, frowning. What was he thinking? His silence made her nervous. Was he about to shut them down because they didn’t have a fully equipped E.R. out here?

“I’m sure it looks primitive in comparison to what you’re used to, but anything is better than what the workers have now.”

“It looks fine,” he said, handing the sheet back to her. “I’ve worked in worse.”

She blinked. “You have?”

He leaned against the back of the trailer, looking down at her with a faint smile. “You sound surprised.”

“Well, I thought—” She blundered to a stop. She could hardly ask him outright what had happened to his promising neurosurgery career.

“I didn’t stay on in Philadelphia.” Emotion clouded the deep blue of his eyes and then was gone. “I spent some time at a medical mission in Somalia.”

She could only gape at him. Jacob Landsdowne III, the golden boy who’d seemed to have the world of medicine at his feet, working at an African mission? None of that fit what she remembered.

“That sounds fascinating.” She managed to keep the surprise out of her voice, but he probably sensed it. “You must have seen a whole different world there—medically, I mean.”

“In every way.” The lines in his face deepened. “The challenges were incredible—heat, disease, sanitation, unstable political situation. And yet people did amazing work there.”

She understood. That was the challenge that made her a paramedic, the challenge of caring for the sick and injured at the moment of crisis.

The emergency is over when you walk on the scene. That was what one of her instructors had drummed into them. No matter how bad it is, you have to make them believe that.

“You did good work there,” she said softly, knowing it had to be true.

“A drop in the bucket, I’m afraid. There’s so much need.” He glanced at her, his eyebrows lifting. “Hardly the sort of job where you’d expect to find me, is it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You were thinking it.”

“Yes, well—” They were getting dangerously close to the subject he’d already said he wouldn’t talk about. “Everyone said you were headed straight toward a partnership with your father in neurosurgery.”

“Everyone was wrong.” Tense lines bracketed his mouth. “I found the challenges in Africa far more interesting.”

There was more to it than that. There had to be, but he wouldn’t tell her. How much of his change in direction had been caused by Meredith’s death?

It had changed Terry’s life. She’d given up her bid for independence and come running home to the safety of her family. Had he run, too?

Jake closed the doors and watched while she locked them, then reached out and double-checked.

She bit back a sigh. He couldn’t even trust her to do something as simple as locking a door. How on earth were they going to run this clinic together?

“Not a bad day, was it?” Terry glanced at her mother as they cleaned up after the clinic’s opening day.

She probably should get over that need for Mom’s approval. Most of her friends either called their mother by her first name and treated her like a girlfriend or else feigned complete contempt for anything a parent might think. She’d never been able to buy into either of those attitudes, maybe because Siobhan Flanagan never seemed to change.

Her mother turned from the cabinet where she was stacking clean linens. “No one would recognize this place from the way it looked a few short days ago. You can be proud of what you’ve accomplished.”

Terry stared down at the meds she’d just finished counting and locked the drug box. She should be proud. But…“Three clients wasn’t much for our first day, was it?”

“It will grow.” Her mother’s voice warmed. “Don’t worry. People just have to learn to trust what’s happening here. And they will.”