Almost Twilight (4 page)

“No,
I’m not your doctor, but need I remind you,
I am
a doctor, if you
haven’t noticed.” 

She
noticed a lot of things, but she didn’t need him knowing that! His breath
smelled of peppermints from the candy basket in the waiting room.

She
closed her eyes, feeling herself sway.

“As
far as I can see, you are not looking well,” he said coolly. “And the fact that
you can take care of yourself is a matter to be debated another time.”

Candy
blinked at his hovering form, barely hearing the rest of his speech. A thin
veil of darkness blanketed her eyes, and the room began to tip. She tried to
disguise her feebleness by securing a death hold on the mop, but it wasn’t
working.

“I’ve
never liked enclosed spaces,” she finally blurted out, her hands sliding downward
along with her body.

“Oh,
for crying out loud!” 

Firm
hands swept beneath her knees and her neck. She felt herself falling weightless
into space.

“Can
you hear me? Come on, sweetheart. Don’t faint on me.” The voice sounded
concerned, striking a tender chord in her heart.

She
heard Tanner’s voice and Hannah’s, too. Who were they yelling at? 

She
batted her eyelashes, trying to focus on the silver eyes boring into her, but
suddenly everything turned black, and she felt herself drifting somewhere beyond
sleep.

Grimacing
at the strange turn of events, Rafe stood with his older brother Tanner outside
the hospital room where Candy Richards was resting.

Hooking
his thumbs over the elastic waist of his scrubs, Rafe glared back at his brother,
refusing to be goaded into another argument. Tanner’s imposing form had never
made Rafe flinch - even the way his sibling was looking at him now with those
accusing gray eyes.

Tanner
drew in an aggravated sigh and pulled a hand through his tawny-gold hair. “What
in the world were you thinking, dragging Candy into the janitor’s closet? Are
you a doctor or a teenager with a schoolboy crush?” 

At
that moment, they both turned to the sound of Hannah’s soothing voice drifting
past the closed door. She was insisting that Candy rest for another few minutes.

Rafe
frowned in exasperation, partly at himself and partly at Candy Richards, because
he could still smell the fresh scent of the rose perfume she wore. “As you can
see for yourself, we certainly weren’t having a party.”

“Then
what were you having?”

Rafe
snorted. “For crying out loud. This is unbelievable. You know me better than
that, Tan. Give me a break. I do not harass nurses in the closest.” 

But
a niggling voice inside Rafe’s head told him to take a better look at how he’d
behaved. In truth, he wasn’t very proud of how he had handled the entire
situation. But Candy Richards got under his skin more than any other woman ever
had.

Tanner
narrowed his eyes. “Listen, I don’t usually get involved in your personal
affairs, but this goes too far. Candy is Hannah’s friend and my friend too. If
you know what’s good for you, you better confess now, or I’ll shake it out of
you.”

Rafe
stared hard at his brother, wondering what in heaven’s name Tanner thought was
going on in that closet. The two brothers hadn’t fought physically since they
were kids. Their younger brother Max, of course, was an entirely different
matter.

“Shake
it out of me?” Rafe gave a laugh of disbelief. “I wouldn’t even try it.”

Tanner’s
mouth thinned with displeasure. “You think I won’t call you on this? You’re
dead wrong.”

Rafe
tilted his head to his side. “So you want to join me in the janitor’s closet
and fight it out, man to man?”

Amusement
suddenly flickered in Tanner’s eyes. “You two were arguing, weren’t you? And it
looks like she won.”

Irritated,
Rafe ground his teeth. “We had a little disagreement. I thought it would be
better for both of us if we took our conversation to a more private place.”

“Private
place? What happened to going to the cafeteria or your office? You’re a doctor.
The janitor’s closest is not the place to take a woman that is claustrophobic. Hell,
any woman, Rafe. What were you thinking?”

“The
closet was there, and she didn’t seem like she was too crazy about listening to
me anyway. I didn’t want to make a scene.”

“Scene?
You did a good job of blowing that first grade philosophy when you carried a
limp Candy into that hospital room.” Tanner rubbed a hand across his face,
angling his head toward the room where his wife and Candy were. “There were a
couple wide-eyed nurses watching you like you were Prince Charming carrying
Cinderella away from the ball.”

 “It’s
not as if you helped matters any by shouting at me, asking what the hell I was
doing.” Rafe didn’t like the protective way he felt about Candy, and he didn’t
like the way Tanner could see right through him.

Tanner’s
dark blond eyebrows moved up and down suggestively. “What the hell were you
doing?”

“Okay,
Tan. Have your little fun with this, but I seem to recollect a time when you
acted so stupid, little Candy Richards almost tore you to shreds for leaving
Hannah high and dry.”

Tanner’s
tall framed stiffened as he glanced warily toward the room where his wife
Hannah was taking care of Candy. A second later, he shifted his steely gaze
back to his brother. “That was almost a year ago. Forget about it. We’re
married now.”

“Fine.
Then forget about this. I assure you, your little spitfire nurse will be more
than healthy in a few minutes.”

Before
another word passed, the door behind them opened. With her cornsilk blond hair
pulled back in a long braid, Hannah stepped out of the room, her cat-like eyes
glaring at Rafe.

“What?”
Rafe said in disbelief, feeling about as tall as a toad. He spread his hands
wide. “I didn’t do a thing.”

Hannah’s
tall, willowy frame hovered over him like a tigress ready for battle. “I’m
ashamed of you, Rafe, and a doctor at that. What would your father say about
this? Cornering poor Candy in the janitor’s closet?”

A fiery
heat shot through Rafe. He hadn’t been this embarrassed since medical school
when he’d fainted at the sight of a dissected corpse.

“What
did she tell you?” he asked cynically.

Hannah
drew in a deep breath, folding her arms across her chest like a school teacher
chewing out her pupil.

“Well?”
Rafe waited anxiously. “What did she say?” 

Tanner
frowned. “Hannah?”

“Nothing,”
Hannah snapped.

“Nothing?”
Rafe said a bit skeptically. “Forgive me, but I find it hard to believe that
Nurse Richards did not speak a single word to you.”

“She
said that you didn’t make her faint, it was the room.”

Rafe
breathed a sigh of relief.

Hannah
shook her finger under Rafe’s nose. “But if she weren’t in that tiny room in
the first place, she would never have fainted. It was all your fault. Fritz
would be mortified, if he knew.”

Rafe
clenched his teeth, trying to still his emotions. His father Fritz would not be
mortified; he’d be dancing the polka, believing the second of his three sons
had finally tied himself to a sweet little filly like Candy Richards.

“Let’s
leave my father out of this, if you don’t mind. If you know anything about that
man, this entire situation may send him into a matchmaking frenzy. Dad has been
trying to play cupid every chance he gets.”

Tanner
laughed so loud that a few nurses poked their head down the hall to see what
the commotion was all about.

Rafe
cuffed his brother on the shoulder. “Keep it down. I don’t need the entire
hospital coming to her aid.”

“Oh,”
Tanner said, winking at his wife. “I don’t think Candy will need any aid at all.
I was only thinking of you when our Dad hears about this. In fact, he’s has
been talking up a storm about you and your single status almost every night the
past month, even on the days you don’t visit.”

Tanner
tipped back on his heels, smiling like a cat that had licked up ten bowls of
cream. “And I can tell you, it’s not pretty words, Rafe. Not pretty words at
all. Dad will have you two tie the knot in a matter of days if it was up to
him.”

“What
will Dad do?” a voice echoed down the hall.

Rafe
groaned and spun around.

“Thanks
for the warning, bro,” Rafe said sarcastically.

Fritz
Clearbrook strolled down the hall, wearing a mustard-colored cowboy shirt, dark
blue jeans with a pressed crease down the front, and leather cowboy boots that
clacked on the beige tiled floor with every step he took. Jeremy, Tanner’s son
and Fritz’s only grandchild, scurried alongside him.

Rafe
narrowed his gaze on his nephew.
Only grandchild
was a fact that his
father was all too ready to change.

Fritz’s
trusty walking stick, a keepsake he had taken off some mountain trail - and to
Rafe’s medical knowledge, something the man had no need of whatsoever - thumped
against floor, making Rafe cringe. His father blamed his need for that walking
stick on a rodeo accident he had years ago, something Rafe thought was
laughable since the man ran every morning.

Years
ago, the man had a found a piece of oak when hiking with Rafe’s late mother.
Fritz had taken the trouble to have the piece whittled and coated for a
keepsake. But now, the older man used the hiking cane as a mental weapon against
his sons.

Rafe
recalled that one of the his ancestors had a crazy aunt, or knew someone who
had a crazy aunt, who used a parasol as a weapon too. Perhaps the lady had used
the parasol on the Duke of Elbourne, Rafe thought with a narrowed brow, and
that’s where his father had gotten the idea.

However,
this was today, and when the older man had that mountain stick in hand, it
meant trouble for one of the sons. And today, it seemed it be Rafe.

Rafe
shook his head. This had to be a dream. He hadn’t slept all night. That’s what
it was, a bad dream.

Tanner
patted Rafe’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Doc. I won’t say a thing. Won’t have to. Dad
will be wondering what was keeping Candy. We were all waiting for her in the
car when she made a quick stop to see one of her patients.”

“One
of
her
patients?” Rafe asked with an wide-eyed look.

But
nobody heard him because the door beside the brothers suddenly opened, and
Candy stepped out, looking prettier than she had in the closet.

 Not
that Rafe was interested in the stubborn woman with the shiny mahogany hair.
Oh, some people called that color brown, but Rafe had noticed the hint of red
in her hair, and he thought it quite appealing. But interested in this lady? Nope.
Someone else could have her. He didn’t need a woman telling him how to do his
job. He had enough to do dealing with his father.

“Dr.
Clearbrook, are we keeping you from your duties?” she asked sweetly.

Rafe
hadn’t been ready for her quick wit. “Not at all,
Nurse Richards
.” He
shot her a twisted smile. “You’ll be happy to know, I was just leaving. Feeling
better?” The words were out of his mouth before he realized what he was saying.

“Much,”
she said and avoided his gaze as a blush stole over her face.

It
took Rafe a moment to compose himself. Her fresh innocence seemed to take his
breath away.

He
wondered why she had she turned him down last week? No one had ever turned him
down for a date, except Louise Bank who had flattened his nose back in third
grade.

Fritz
leaned down to tell Jeremy something, and the boy giggled. Rafe grimaced when
he heard his nephew’s laugh. Those two were up to something, which always meant
trouble where Fritz was concerned.

Rafe
knew his father had a soft spot for women. Rafe figured it had to do with
Fritz’s mother dying early in life and leaving Fritz with an alcoholic father.
Rafe knew his father had run away from home at fourteen and joined the rodeo.
But somehow, at age twenty-five, Fritz, with barely an eighth grade education,
had managed to marry Rafe’s mother, a teacher at the local school, and the rest
was history.

Rafe
came to the conclusion that Fritz figured every man should be married to a good
woman, and that’s where Rafe came in. He was a bachelor with no wife in sight.

Rafe
eyed his father, then turned his attention to his nephew, trying to change the
direction of the conversation. “Sorry I can’t go on your little picnic, Jeremy.”

Candy’s
head shot up.

Rafe
smiled at her. “Tanner invited me, but I have a few rounds to make before I’ll
be free.”

Her
shoulder’s visibly relaxed, and that bothered Rafe to no end.

“Too
bad,” Fritz said with a set of twinkling blue eyes that sent off an alarm in
Rafe’s head. “Just saw Jim on his way out and invited him to meet us at Eagle
Bluff, if he had the time, that is.”