Ozark Nurse (3 page)

He took a deep breath. Well, if he was lucky enough to get out of the hospital in reasonably good health, he was sure as heck going to change his ways.

"It's been a lesson to me," he said unexpectedly, "just watching you, Nora."

"Me?" Her brows arched in surprise.

"Sure. I've never known anyone who put himself out for others the way you do. You've been so kind and good, putting up with my griping, kidding me along, doing a thousand little things that aren't required of a nurse. You think I don't know?"

"Oh, Andy." She looked embarrassed. "You just imagine all that, the way patients often do."

"No. I don't imagine it." His hand reached for hers, covered it gently. "You're a good girl, Nora, a very nice girl. You're sweet in your ways, and so very kind, so thoughtful of others."

Silent for a moment, he studied her. "There aren't too many like you, my dear. And—well, I just wanted you to know how deeply I appreciate all you've done for me. That's why I got the watch for you, as a gesture of appreciation. Please take it."

"But, Andy—" She hesitated, not sure what was the right thing to say or do. She didn't want to hurt him, and yet—a diamond wrist watch!

"Try it on, Nora. See how it looks. Please?"

She unfastened the beat-up leather strap binding to her wrist the cheap silver watch which had cost four ninety-five by mail order. In its place she fastened the little beauty, and pondered.

Why shouldn't she take it?

It would make him happy, and it would most certainly make her happy to have it.

Of course, there were all the comic jokes about middle-aged men becoming infatuated with young nurses. But he hadn't said a word about liking her in that way; only that he was grateful.

"Listen," she said. "I love this watch, and I'd adore keeping it. But if I did keep it, how could I know there wasn't a string or two attached?"

He surprised her. "There is." Then he modified that unexpected answer. "That is—in addition to everything else you've done, there's one more favor that would mean quite a lot to me. It hasn't anything to do with my giving you the watch. I expressed myself badly. But if you
could
do this one additional favor for me—"

"And exactly what favor is that, Mr. Fine?" Her eyes were narrowed now, her tone dripping suspicion.

"Andy," he corrected again. After watching her for a moment and reading her mind, he laughed heartily. "You're all wrong, Nora. This is what I have in mind. The doctors tell me I should take a good long rest after I leave here. I can't think of a more wonderful place to rest than right here in these mountains. Can you?"

"Well, no."

"But where would I stay? I'm told there are no rest homes for convalescents in this neck of the woods, and I suspect your one hotel is no great shakes."

"No, it isn't." The rooms didn't even have private baths. "You'd never stand it there for a week."

"Ummmm. Just what I figured. So I've been wondering, Nora, if you, or perhaps I should say your mother, would rent me a room for the summer. Would you consider doing that?"

She was astonished, but after a moment's thought, decided it was not an unreasonable suggestion. That barn of a house was big enough for a dozen people to get lost in. The rent money would come in handy, too.

"Is there any reason you can't at least consider taking me in for a few months?" Suddenly he was grinning. "I'll need somebody to check on my blood pressure, you know."

Nora stood up. "I'll have to think about it, Andy. I'd have to talk it over with my mother, too."

"Excellent. You take your time to decide." Apparently satisfied that he had won his point, Andrew smiled, patted her hand in a fatherly way, and closed his eyes.

As usual, he fell asleep in a minute or so.

Nora straightened the light covers over him, then spent the next ten minutes moving noiselessly about, doing the dozen and more things that always need doing in a sick room: closing the blinds, disposing of some wilted flowers, cleaning the already sterile-clean basin in the adjoining toilet room, then heading back to the bed to make sure that her patient was sleeping and breathing normally.

He was.

So what now? Oh, well, she could always think about Paul, who seemed to be changing into a man she did not know at all.

Sometimes Nora wondered if she had fallen in love with Paul at first sight, on the day when he had walked into the children's section and said: "Hello, everybody. I'm told I'm to be in charge here, so I guess you'll all have to put up with me." And he grinned, a charmingly shy grin, while he walked down the long room shaking hands with the nurses. He stopped beside several of the single beds to reassure one or another of the small patients, who were all eyes, some of them frightened eyes, at the sight of this tall, white-coated stranger whom they had never seen before.

"Hi, fella. How're you doing? Feeling lousy? Well, don't you worry. Old Doc Anderson is on the job."

The words seemed to come easily enough, as did his cheerful, outgoing manner. But Nora sensed immediately that it was a carefully thought out approach, that basically he was a shy man who had to work to put himself over.

A basic lack of self-confidence? Perhaps.

But one thing was certain. There was no lack of self-confidence when Paul Anderson picked up the scalpel and one of his brilliant operations got under way. Some of his surgery demonstrated nothing short of genius, and before he had been at Summitsville many months, everyone said so.

"Of course I think you're a wonderful surgeon," Nora told him. "I also think you're a very, very wonderful guy. And if you really mean what you say about wanting to marry me—" Close in his arms, she sighed blissfully. "Well—"

"Well, what, honey?"

Another ecstatic sigh. "I'm only the luckiest girl in the world, that's what."

By that time they had been dating off and on for weeks, whenever Paul could get away from the hospital, where he seemed to think he should spend twenty-five hours out of every twenty-four.

His occasional evenings with Nora were almost the only relaxation he allowed himself. Very often, as on that very special evening, they met in the house where Paul had his room. They had been taken to their hearts by Mr. and Mrs. Lodge, the elderly couple who owned the house.

They were lovely people, warm and friendly, and they begged Nora to feel free to use their living room for her dates. "We're just two lonely old people who are only too glad to have a little youth and life around us. So you come right on over whenever you feel like it, Nora."

It was a wonderful arrangement. For one thing, it solved the TV problem which, at home, complicated everything. The television set was in the living room, and Caroline had her special evening programs which were a
must
. After Jerry's return, with his family, there were even more complications.

Everybody had to look at TV; each had his or her own pet programs. This left Paul and Nora as much privacy, or chance to be alone together, as a hotel lounge would have.

It was maddening.

With Mr. and Mrs. Lodge it was altogether different. They didn't even like TV, or pretended that they didn't. "We'll just skip up to our room," Martha Lodge would say cheerfully, "which is where old folks belong after the sun goes down. You two young things get on with your courting."

With a smile and a wave of her hand, she would say good night, order her "old man" to get along upstairs, and follow right after him. She never forgot to leave a little treat on the dining room table—a steaming hot apple pie, or perhaps freshly baked doughnuts.

So that was where and how Nora and Paul had done most of their "courting."

The wonderfully good, companionable evenings spent getting acquainted came first, of course. Usually they sat on the divan in front of the open hearth, where a huge pine log burned lazily.

At first Paul was reluctant to talk much about himself. There was that basic shyness which was part of his nature. In addition, as he told her, with that crooked grin which she thought so charming: "I'm one hundred percent Swede, and you know how Swedes are: great ones to dummy up about themselves."

But with Nora he got over that. She learned that he had been born and brought up in Minnesota, where his dad owned vast acres of farm land. Since he was an only son, the father had expected Paul to stay on the land which would be his some day. When Paul announced his determination to study medicine, the father had gone into a cold rage and had not forgiven him to this day.

"Because you wanted to be a doctor?" Nora was shocked. "Most fathers would have been proud."

But not Paul's. Having come to the country as an immigrant boy and achieved his shining dream of some day owning land, lots of land, he wanted his boy to take up where he left off. "He did everything to stop me," Paul said. "For instance, he threatened to disown me." And he probably would have if Paul's mother had not taken Paul's side.

"When all else failed, he warned me that I wasn't cut out to be a doctor, that it was just a fool notion I'd gotten into my head, and one of these days I'd find it out, when it was too late."

Paul also told her that he had never had a girl before. "Guess I was always sort of scared of girls." The crooked grin again. "When I'd try to wisecrack and kid them the way other fellows did, I'd feel like a fool. Maybe I was just shy."

Or maybe it was simply that he had never met a girl who truly appealed to him until he met Nora. With her, he soon lost his shyness, and in double-quick time he decided that she was the girl for him.

"It's the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me," he told her, on that very special night when he took her in his arms and asked her to marry him.

"I've found the girl I want to live out my life with." His quiet voice throbbed with utter sincerity; his eyes were filled with the almost prayerful wonder of a serious, completely honest man who had found his true love.

"I do love you with all my heart, darling. And this I swear to you—I'll never let you down."

Everything should have gone beautifully from then on and undoubtedly would have, except for Nora's obligations at home. Paul was all for an immediate marriage, but Nora couldn't agree to that.

She wanted it; she longed to belong to Paul in every sense of the word as soon as possible. But she could not, would not, shove her responsibilities onto Paul's shoulders. And how could she shove them off her own?

"It will take some time to work things out," she told him, admitting that she paid the food bills, the tax bills, most of the repair bills on their old house, not to mention a lot of other incidentals.

"I just don't get this," Paul said, and as she tried to explain she understood that they were heading for their first quarrel. "Doesn't your mother have any income at all?"

Well, yes. There was the pension she received from the trucking company whose driver, falling asleep at the wheel, had been responsible for the collision which had caused her dad's death.

"But Mother isn't very good at handling money. It seems to dribble through her fingers."

"And when the bills come in, you're elected to pay them?" He sounded angry.

Neither was he greatly impressed when she explained she was an adopted child, and therefore felt a terrific sense of obligation to repay for all that had been done for her.

"So what are your plans? To spend the rest of your life repaying this debt, so-called?" He was angry again. "What about us? What about me? I'm not interested in a meaningless little romance. I want a wife. If I can't have you the way I want you, and soon—"

But in the end, Nora had persuaded him to have patience. "I'll work things out somehow, Paul, if you'll just give me a little time."

But the "little time" drifted on into many months, and Nora was no nearer a solution. In fact, with the return of Jerry and his family, things were more complicated than ever.

And now there was this baffling change in Paul, who showed such terrifying signs he was going to pieces as a surgeon.

"Nora." Her patient's sleepy voice summoned her to the bed. "Could I have a drink of water, please. Real cold."

She held the glass of water while he sipped it through a straw. "Thank you, my dear." He sounded as grateful as if she had done something wonderful for him. "I don't know what I'd do without you, Nora."

She smiled teasingly. "Oh, the woods are full of nurses like me, Mr. Fine."

"Andy."

"Pardon me, sir." Another teasing smile. "Andy."

"And you couldn't be more wrong. You're a born nurse, in addition to being an especially sweet, charming girl."

He dozed again. Nora walked to the window, opening the blind just enough to look out toward the distant hills which looked so peaceful. I envy those old hills, she thought. They had nothing to worry about; nothing to do but wait patiently and silently through the centuries.

"How about another glass of water?" Andy had roused again. "I don't really want another drink," he confessed, smiling as she held the glass for him. "It's just that I like to look at you."

"Well, thanks." She suggested, laughing: "Maybe we should get you a pinup girl to fasten on the wall."

"No, thanks. I prefer you. By the way, how do you like the watch by now?"

"It's the most beautiful watch in the world, Andy. I just don't know how to thank you—
if
I decide to keep it, that is."

At that point the door opened, and Margaret Thorpe came in. "Okay with you if I drag your favorite nurse off for a little chow?" she asked.

Then she noticed the watch on Nora's wrist.

"Hmmmm," murmured Margaret, after the man had asked her kindly to back him up. "It's just a small token of appreciation, but Nora seems to have some squeamish idea that a present costing more than a dime or so isn't quite the thing. What do you say?"

The head nurse was firmness itself. "I say that I wish I knew how she does it." A deep sigh. "I've been nursing for more years than I care to remember, but has any grateful patient tossed a diamond watch my way? And such a charming patient, too," she added.