Once Around (11 page)

And the flowers. Flowers bloomed everywhere Jessy looked. Lipstick-red geraniums
, pale blue snowballs, and wild, boisterous impatiens, tumbling red over white over pink.
You'd love it here, Mama,
she thought as she turned right on Amaryllis. This was everything Jo Ellen had ever wanted. A big fancy house with a flower garden front and back. "You'll have all the things I never did, honey," she'd said to Jessy more times than she could count. "You'll be somebody. You'll be a doctor,"

Lilac Hill was well named. Lilac bushes thrived everywhere she looked on the gentle rise of land. The houses were even larger than the ones on Amaryllis and Rosebud. Jessy
couldn't help but wonder why someone with this kind of money would be looking to take in a boarder.

Not that she was complaining. The rent was more than reasonable
, it was close to the hospital, and meals were included. Maybe Mrs. Chamberlain was
a lonely old widow who just wanted to know there was somebody else in the house. The idea appealed to Jessy. She liked old people. She probably should have gone into gerontology instead of gynecology. She hoped Mrs. Chamberlain was a blue-haired eighty-year-old matron who liked to knit and read romance novels and talk about the old days. Someone who wouldn't judge her by her accent or her bloodline.

The Chamberlain house was at the top of the rise. It looked like every other house in the subdivision
, only more so. A guy in jeans and a T-shirt was mowing the side lawn. He watched as she parked her car on the street and climbed out. She started to lock the door then realized how totally ridiculous she was being. The landscaper probably owned a better car than she did.

She ran a quick hand over her tightly braided hair. A few of the other residents at the hospital wore their hair this way
, and she'd noticed how neat and professional they always looked. Too bad the effect on her was more schoolgirl than professional. She slipped her huge tote-bag over her shoulder then started up the path that led to Mrs. Chamberlain's front door.

The landscaper stopped mowing and watched her progress. She knew she walked like what she was: a kid who
'd grown up barefoot and still hadn't made her peace with shoes. Why didn't he go back to cutting the grass and leave her alone? She shot him a look. He didn't even have the brains to seem embarrassed.. What he seemed was too darned curious for his own good. Thank God it was autumn and pretty soon there'd be no need for a landscaper to come by and mow lawns and spy on people.

Back home people did things like that
, nosing all over the place, trying to peek through windows and eavesdrop on phone calls and read someone else's mail. She would have figured Princeton folk were too sophisticated for that kind of white-trash nonsense.
Goes to show how much, you know, Jessy Ann Wyatt.

She climbed two steps to the front porch. She
'd never seen a brand spanking new front porch before. All the front porches she was familiar with were rickety and old, with wood worn thin and smooth by years of footprints and gliders and rain. Nothing like this spit-and-polish wonder. More than the fancy cars or the fancy people, this fancy porch was enough to make her turn tail and run away as fast as she could. She didn't belong here anymore than her daddy belonged in the Lincoln bedroom at the White House. Some things just weren't natural.

But it was one o
'clock, and she was still her mama's girl, the one who was brought up to be on time and keep her promises. She reached out and pressed the doorbell. From somewhere deep inside the house, she heard the sound of Westminster chimes. She'd been to church services in Dallas that had less music than that.

What are you doing here
, Jessy girl? This ain't no place for you. You should've stayed home where you belong, with your own kind.

Now
, what was her daddy doing, talking to her like that? She'd left him behind in Mississippi. He'd probably forgotten all about her before her plane even taxied down the runway. It was her own insecurities speaking, that's all, reminding her that she'd never be one of them, no matter how good a doctor she was.

Why wasn
't Mrs. Chamberlain answering the door? Maybe the old woman had peeked out the window, noticed her old car, and changed her mind about the whole thing. Which was just fine with Jessy because the doctors' lounge was beginning to look like the best place in town. She turned and was about to start down the porch steps when the front door swung open.

"
Jessy Wyatt?"

Jessy stopped
, took a deep breath, then turned around. A tall, downright gorgeous woman with a mane of light auburn hair stood framed in the doorway. She wore a loose turquoise dress, strappy sandals, and huge gold hoop earrings. She looked like an upscale gypsy.

"
You are Jessy Wyatt, aren't you?" The woman's voice was husky, her tone amused. She sounded like one of those women on television who sold cars and sexy lingerie with a wink and a smile.

"
I'm Jessy Wyatt." Jessy knew exactly how she sounded. Like white trash with an education. "I have an appointment with Mrs. Chamberlain."

"
I know," said the woman. "I'm Molly Chamberlain." She might as well have said Cleopatra.

"
Jessy Wyatt."

"
You said that before." She frankly assessed Jessy with curious blue eyes. "Are you sure you're really a doctor? You look about twelve years old."

"
I'm twenty-nine."

"
You don't look it."

"
I will when I'm forty."

Molly Chamberlain
's laugh was full-bodied and lusty, not at all what Jessy would have expected from such a perfect-looking woman. "So are you going to stand out there on the porch all day or are you going to come inside?"

"
Where I come from, we wait to be invited."

Molly
's dark, perfect brows arched slightly. "Well, honey, you're in New Jersey now, and we don't stand on ceremony." She opened the door wide and motioned Jessy inside.

There was something about Molly
's words, or maybe it was the way she said them—friendly, challenging, faintly sarcastic. Whatever it was, the combination got under Jessy's skin and gave her confidence. She brushed past the woman and stepped into the foyer, half dizzy from the combination of Shalimar and central air conditioning.

"
You have an accent," Molly said.

"
So do you," Jessy said, beginning to enjoy the byplay.

"
Alabama?"

"
Mississippi," Jessy said. "Near Jackson."

"
I wish I sounded like you," Molly. said. "My husband—" She stopped. "Damn it. I've got to stop doing that."

"
Stop doing what?"

"
Talking about my husband. He's gone. I have to get used to it."

"
I'm sorry," Jessy said. A widow. That explained everything. "How long has it been?"

"
Eight weeks."

Jessy tried to keep her expression bland. Back where she came from
, widows didn't wear bright turquoise mini-dresses eight weeks after they buried their husbands. "Was it sudden?"

Molly snapped her fingers.
"One day he was here, the next he was gone."

"
You must still be in shock."

"
Tell me about it." She rested her graceful hands on her belly.

For the first time Jessy noticed the swell behind the loose-fitting dress.
"Are you pregnant?"

"
I just started my fifth month."

"
I'm an OB-GYN."

Molly looked at her
, then started to laugh again. "I guess we're a match made in heaven."

"
Looks like." She seemed awfully cheerful for a new widow, but that was none of Jessy's business. She could tap-dance on top of her ex-husband's grave, and it still wouldn't be any of Jessy's business.

"
Let me show you your room. Spencer went to get us some iced tea. I don't know what's taking him so long."

Spencer? Jessy wasn
't the backward country hick she'd been a few years ago, but this was too sophisticated for her. Damn but these Princeton Yankees did things different. She was about to say that sure, she'd love to see her room, but a man's voice interrupted her.

"
You ran out of ice. That's what took me so long."

Jessy turned in the direction of that voice. She couldn
't have done anything else. That was the voice she heard in her dreams.

"
Spencer!" Molly Chamberlain sounded downright delighted. Her dead husband must be spinning in his grave. "Come in and meet Jessy."

Jessy
's palms started to sweat. She was no more than ten feet away from the front door. Maybe she should make a run for it. But that voice, that sexy wonderful voice, called out her name, and she heard him walk closer. She turned around, and at 1:23 P.M., Jessy Ann Wyatt fell in love.

It happened that fast. One second she was her normal solitary self
, and the next her hopes and dreams had a focus. All her life her dreams had had her mama Jo Ellen's name on them. Class valedictorian, full scholarship to Duke, her years in Dallas--they were all her mama's hopes for her daughter's future.

But this dream
, this man, was Jessy's alone. She'd imagined him every night of her life since she was old enough to know that boys and girls were different, and now that he was standing there in front of her, she couldn't remember her name.

"
Jessy." Molly Chamberlain's voice tugged at her sleeve. "I'd like you to meet Spencer Mackenzie."

"
Jessy and I already know each other," Spencer Mackenzie said as her right hand disappeared into his.

Say something
, you fool. Don't go staring at him like he's a plate of barbecue and you've been starving for a week.

"
We do?" she managed. She'd never seen hands like his before, large but graceful, the kind of hands you'd imagine sliding across the keyboard of a grand piano. The kind of hands she'd imagined sliding across her body even though she almost never had time to think about things like that.
Get a grip on yourself, girl. Like he'd notice you with Molly Chamberlain standing right next to him.

"
I arranged this for you," he said as he released her hand. It took all her self-control to keep from begging him to hold onto her forever. "We talked about the terms of the lease."

Actually it was his secretary who had talked to her and sent on the paperwork
, but if he wanted to believe they'd spoken, she wasn't about to tell him otherwise.

"
Thank you," she said, wondering if he realized her palm was sweating. If he did, he was too much of a gentleman to let on.

"
So how do you like it?"

"
I like the foyer just fine," she said.

"
I was about to show Jessy her room," Molly said

"
Unless you'd rather do it while I make us some sandwiches."

"
You don't have to make me anything to eat," Jessy said. The thought of being alone with Spencer Mackenzie made her feel faint. "I had something at the hospital cafeteria before I came here."

"
I've eaten at that cafeteria," Molly said, rolling her eyes in comic dismay. "I promised room and board and I'm a woman of my word."

"
I know this place better than Molly does," Spencer said to Jessy. "I'll give you the grand tour."

I
'll just bet you know this place,
Jessy thought as she saw the way he looked at Molly as she glided from the room. Jessy had seen a lot of pregnant women in her day, and she'd never once seen one capable of gliding past the third month. There was a lot to hate about Molly Chamberlain: her big house, her pregnant belly, the Greek god who kept stealing glances at her when he thought no one was looking. She wasn't sure she wanted to live there with a woman who made her look even plainer than nature had managed to do.

But then who was she kidding? In a million years she wouldn
't stand a chance with someone like Spencer Mackenzie. The Molly Chamberlains of this world had them all sewn up.

Chapter Six

I don
't like you,
Molly thought as she watched Jessy Wyatt eat a tuna salad sandwich.
And I don't think you like me too much either.
She'd gone out of her way to be scrupulously sweet and polite to the young doctor, and so far she'd been rewarded with sidelong glances and monosyllabic comments delivered with a faint edge hidden beneath the Southern syrup.

J
essy Wyatt was a plain little thing with long light brown hair that fell between her shoulders in a messy braid. She wore beige cotton trousers and a pink T-shirt that drifted loosely over her small breasts. One bra strap peeked out from the boat neckline. Her sneakers were worn and white. She carried a pager clipped to her woven belt and an enormous tote bag that looked like it weighed as much as she did. The thought of her examining patients and delivering babies was almost laughable. She didn't look old enough to menstruate.