Her Leading Man (28 page)

“
Yes, Martin Tafft.” She sounded the tiniest
bit
frosty. “Not yet. It’s only because women are
discriminated
against that you don’t see any woman physicians
But the time is
coming, believe me.”

He heard a rip and a soft, “Da
mn.”
Uh-oh. If she
was ripping her clothes and swearing, she must
be
really
angry with him
.

Because the idea of Christina’s anger directed
against himself made
him feel sick and sad, he decided
to try to unruffle her feathers. He pulled
on
his
trousers and walked around the bed to her as he
buttoned them up. She was
glaring at her shirt and
inspecting the underarm seam, which was
gaping
slightly, He suspected she’d yanked
on it in her
annoyance,
and it had come apart. He felt bad for having
angered
her.

“
Listen, Christina, I’m sorry if I sounded
unenthusiastic
about your plans.”

“
Unenthusiastic?” Her tone held a sharp edge
of
venom. “You don’t believe me. You don’t think it’s
possible. You think
I’m stupid for wanting a job in
a man’s profession.”

“
Well, I wouldn’t
—”

She cut him off. “Don’t you? Damn it, Martin,
tell me the
truth!”

He did. “I don’t think you’re stupid. Or crazy. I
only think you’re
being a little unrealistic.”

She jabbed her arms into the shirt, ignoring the
hole in its armpit,
and buttoned it up furiously. She
hadn’t bothered putting on her chemise,
and when
Martin saw her lovely breasts disappear under the
fabric, he felt
deprived.

“
Oh? I’m being unrealistic, am I? And why is
that,
pray tell?”

He shrugged, feeling defeated and hating the
feeling
.
“For heaven’s sake,
Christina, look around
you.
Do you
see any female doctors anywhere? No, you
don’t. And why is that? It’s because
women—women—” Even as he struggled to find
the appropriate
words, he started questioning
his reasoning.

“
Women what?” she demanded, not giving an
inch.
“Women are too stupid?
They’re too emotional?
They’re too tenderhearted? They’re
too compassionate?
Tell me why women can’t be doctors. Please,
Martin. I want to
know.”

“
No, no, no. None of those things But they
have
other—other jobs in the world.”

“
A
h
a. I
see.” She sounded vaguely triumphant.
“They’re supposed to sit home and raise
the children
while the men tackle the important tasks in this
big,
bad
world, is that it?”

“
No!” Lord on high, how had he got
himself
into this mess? “But, well, it’s the women who have
the babies, after
all.” He knew that point shouldn’t
sound weak, because it was the God’s
honest truth—but it did
sound weak.

“
Right. And, of course, it would never occur
to
anyone that a woman could be a mother and a
physician
at
the same time, would it?”

“
Well, if you’re going to put it that
way
. . .”

“
What
way would you put it?”

Hell’s teeth, this conversation was going
nowhere
.
Fast. “All right, perhaps I was too hasty.
Perhaps
women
can and should be doctors. I—I’ve just never
considered it as an option
before now
.
I
, ah,
hadn’t
considered the
possibility that a woman
could have
a family and a job, too.”

“
Fiddlesticks.” She glared around the room,
looking
for something else, although Martin didn’t know
what. “Women have
had families and worked for
centuries. Only most of the time, the only
jobs
they’re
able to secure are for slave wages.”

“
U
m
. . .” Suddenly
Martin’s mind filled with images
of sweat shops and of Jacob Riis’s
monumental
work of the last century,
How the Other Half
Lives
.
Christina was
right
about
the types of jobs women
were allowed to have, by God.

“
What’s more,” she went on as she made
another
swoop, retrieved her chemise and stuffed it in a
pocket, “they’re
paid cents on the dollar that a
similarly employed man would make for
doing th
e
same job. It’s not fair, Martin
Tafft.”

“
But
. . .
but, it’s the men
who support the f
amilies.
Don’t you think
women
shouldn’t
take jobs aw
ay
from
men who need them to support their children?
”

I
f her eyes got any bigger, they’d
pop. “Surel
y
you’re joking with that old saw, aren’t
you?”

“
Well . . . no.” Martin had what he considered
an
inspirational thought. “And don’t forget that it’s
a
lways women
and children first when it comes to
rescue.
Remember
last year when the
Titanic
sank?
It
was the men who drowned, if you’ll
recall!
”

“
It was mainly the poor ones who drowned,
M
artin
. Besides, that only illustrates my
point”

“
It
does?” This was getting confusing.

“
It does. How do you expect those poor
widows
and children are going to live now? And don’t forget
that for every man
who drowned on the Titanic, the
re
are thousands of
others who don’t have such a good
excuse for not supporting their families.
Do, you ha
ve
any notion how many women have to support
their
families because they’ve been deserted, or because
their husbands. have
died or are injured or are merely
useless drunks? The figures are
phenomenal,
Martin.
and I think you should know
it.”

Hmm
. Actually, he did know it. Brenda
Fitzpatrick
,
who had made a fortune in films, had
started
working because her family needed her to support
them. Brenda had
always admitted to having been
lucky in her looks. She’d never taken any credit
at
all for
having been born beautiful
,
and she’d
always
stated
with perfect honesty that if she’d been ugly,
he
r
family would have starved. “
Um
, I
guess you’re
righ
t about that, Christina.”

“
You’re darned right
I’m
right. So you agree that
it’s not fair for women to be paid less
than men for
doing the same job.”

He knew how to respond to that one. “Absolutely.
It’s most unfair.”
He felt minutely better.
She didn’t speak for a moment, but stuffed
her
shirttail
into her trousers and considered him. Her
scrutiny made him feel uncomfortable,
so he decided
to look for his shirt. He found it and put it on
before
she
spoke again.

“
Thank you for saying that,” she said at last.
“At
least you admit that your
objections to women working
at regular jobs
spring from long-held prejudice
an
d
weren’t formed through any study or effort on
your part.”

W
as that a rebuke? The words might be
so construed,
but Christina’s tone when she’d uttered them
didn’t sound
critical, but thoughtful. And since she
hadn’t lashed out at him and backed
him up against
a wall, instead of bridling or getting defensive,
Martin
considered what she’d said
.
Were his
opinions
formed from mere prejudice and lack of cogitation
and
analysis?

The conclusion he came to was that she was right.
By God. Who’d have
thought it? Slowly, he nodded.
“
Yes,”
he said finally. “Yes, I see your point.”

“
Thank
you.”

This wasn’t the first time she’d thanked him for
something he didn’t
understand needing to be
thanked for. Gazing at her, finding her lovely in
every
particular, he decided it might behoove him to try
to
understand
her. If he could only do so without allowing
his belief system—his wall of
intolerance?— to rebel in anger, perhaps there might yet be
hope
for
. . .
for what? For an affair?

His blood ran cold. He didn’t want an affair with
her.

Immediately, his conscience told him not to be an
ass. Certainly he
wanted an affair with her. She was
the most sexually attractive woman he’d
ever met.

But he believed he also wanted more than a mere
sexual association
with Christina.
He’d thought it
might be marriage, but now he wasn’t so sure. In
an
astoundingly short
space in time, she’d managed to
knock his own
particular set of notions and beliefs
askew.

He was pleased when, after they’d finished dressing,
she let him kiss her
one last
time
before they
parted
.
He didn’t want to part from her.
Ever. But,
he
chided
himself, this is what he deserved for succumbing
to his baser urges
and not waiting.

Waiting
for what? For her to leave him forever?

Aw, hell.
The Christina
situation
was
too complicated for his poor, sore
brain to figure out now
.

As he opened his door and surveyed the hallway—no matter
how modem a female she claimed to be,
Martin wasn’t going to subject her to
malicious gossip—he wondered if being permanently attached
to
Christina
Mayhew would be an altogether comfortable
proposition.

In spite of their parting words, Christina felt a
blissful sense of
euphoria as she went back to her
room in the Desert Palm Resort. She knew
beyond
the
shadow of a doubt that she loved Martin. The
deep and profound feeling in her
soul couldn’t be
anything else.

And the sex had been grand, too. She hoped this
would be only the
first of many encounters of a like
nature they would share.

As for the future . . . Well, she didn’t want to
think about that
right now
.
She was sure they could
work something out.
The university and Peerless were
both located in Los Angeles, so there was
no reason
they couldn’t continue to conduct a discreet
alliance
without too much bother.

As much as she loved Martin, she wouldn’t give
up her dreams for
him.

His attitude about her ambition bothered her,
although
he,
unlike most of the men she knew, seemed
willing to consider her point of
view. Bless his heart.

She felt like waltzing through the door to her
room, but since her
grandmother lurked on the other
side, she didn’t. She was glad for her
caution as soon
as she opened the door.

“
So
there you are.”

Christina turned and saw Gran eyeing her critically.
Oh dear, had she
troubled to fix her hair before she’d
left Martin’s room? She couldn’t remember.
She
didn’t
have to wonder long.