Romance Classics (80 page)

Scott said confusedly, “Oh, now, wait a minute.”

But Chloe was ignoring him, while still retaining her possessive grip on his arm, and addressing herself to Kate with warm sweetness. “Hello, Kate Ryan. I've been dying to meet you, but Mother insisted we should wait until you were formally settled in at River's Edge before we came to call…. So you will come to Liss's party, won't you?”

Without waiting for their answer, she was tugging them toward the curb where, in a No Parking zone, an expensive station wagon was waiting.

There was a brisk spatter of introductions to the half-dozen who accompanied Chloe. Scott said firmly, “Now, see here, you folks; my car's parked down the street. Kate and I will follow.”

“Oh, no you won't. Remember I said this was a stick-up,” Chloe said, laughing. “Bill will look after Kate and see she's delivered at Liss's place. And I will see to it that you don't run out on us.”

Bill, tall, blond, good-looking, said happily, “Bill will be charmed, entranced, and no end delighted.”

Kate laughed. “It looks as though this is the way it's got to be, Scott. Be seein' you.”

She gave him a gay little wave of the hand and let Bill help her into the station wagon. The others tumbled in and the car drove away, leaving Chloe and Scott on the sidewalk.

“My car has as good a motor as your fancy station wagon. We won't be more than a couple of minutes behind them,” Scott told Chloe firmly, and marched her around the corner to where his car was parked.

“Oh, but we have to do an errand for Liss,” Chloe told him. “She's afraid she'll run out of provisions before the evening's over, so I promised her you and I would run out to Bud Enslee's and pick up some supplies.”

“Oh, now see here” — Scott bit back the angry words, and Chloe studied him for a moment, her eyes narrow in the light from the instrument panel as he bent to switch on the ignition.

“I'm sorry,” said Chloe gently. “I didn't think you'd mind. You see Bud has to be extra careful about who he sells stuff to. That's probably why he's still the town's pet bootlegger and why the cops don't lay a finger on him.”

“Bootlegger? Oh, for Pete's sake, the prohibition law was repealed quite some time ago,” Scott protested.

“Hamilton County's dry — local option,” said Chloe briefly.

“Oh,” said Scott, and set the car in motion and drove away from the curb.

The house at which Chloe directed him to stop was on a quiet residential street.

Chloe led the way up the walk and rang the door bell. After an interval a pretty, plump young woman in a crisp linen dress beneath a gingham overall apron opened the door.

“Hello, Millie,” said Chloe lightly. “This is Doctor Etheridge. Is Bud at home?”

Millie said pleasantly, “How do you do, Doctor Etheridge? Do come in. Bud's helping me get the babies to bed. I'll send him along. Just go into the living room and make yourselves at home.”

Chloe thanked her and stepped past her; then as Millie turned to go she hesitated and came back to look up at Scott confidingly.

“Doctor Etheridge? I was wondering — my Billie has a sort of rash on his stomach. Would you think it perfectly awful of me if I asked you to look at it and tell me if it's dangerous?”

“Of course not,” said Scott, liking the friendly, pretty young woman instinctively. He felt glad to be of service.

She led the way along the hall to a big square room at the back. Two small beds stood at opposite corners of the room, and in one a dimpled, towheaded, blue-eyed girl who was about two years old clung to the bars of her bed and bounced up and down in sheer animal spirits. In the opposite bed a boy of perhaps three and a half or four eyed them sullenly, a little uneasily.

Scott, who was genuinely fond of children, had no difficulty in making friends with the apprehensive little boy, and examined the rash and soothed the mother's anxiety. It was merely a slight rash that would yield immediately to a slight change in the boy's diet, and he promised to have the drug store send her a bit of salve to treat it.

Millie tucked the children in bed and walked with Scott to the door. When she had closed the door she hesitated a moment, and then said impulsively, “Doctor Etheridge, the children are frightened to death of Doctor Graves. He's old and grumpy, and we don't like him very much either. May we shift over to you?”

Scott said promptly, “I'd be delighted, Mrs. Enslee, of course. Only I wouldn't want to breach ethics — stealing Doctor Graves's patients, I mean.”

“Well, if it isn't you it's going to be somebody else. So if you don't mind, we'll be dropping in on you from now on,” said Millie.

She led the way to the living room, where Chloe was chattering gaily with a tall, good-looking, dark-haired man who must have been ten to twelve years older than Millie.

Chloe jumped up as Millie and Scott came in, but before Chloe could speak Millie said eagerly, “Oh, darling, listen. Doctor Etheridge said Billie's rash was nothing to get excited about and he's given me a diet change and is going to send over some medicine. And Billie simply loved Doctor Etheridge, so we're all going to be his patients from now on.”

Bud's eyebrows went up a little, but he grinned, and the look he gave his wife indicated the depth of his tenderness for her.

“With your approval, of course, Mr. Enslee,” said Scott pleasantly.

“Oh, we've been badly in need of a family physician for the last six months, ever since Graves was too drunk to set Billie's arm the last time he fell out of a tree and fractured it,” said Bud. His dark jaw set hard and there was a look in his eyes that spoke of his extreme dislike for Doctor Graves.

“I'll be very happy to have you, of course,” said Scott. “I hope to get the office straightened out within a week. Meanwhile, of course, if you should want to get in touch with me before my own phone is put in, you can call me over Miss Alice Mowbray's line. I have rented her apartment.”

Chloe protested, affronted, “You didn't tell me you'd left the hotel.”

Scott laughed. “I didn't think it was necessary. Isn't this the town where everybody knows what you do ten minutes before you do it?”

Chloe said briskly, “Well, we simply have to fly. We'll be seeing you folks.” She slid her hand through Scott's arm and drew him with her out into the night.

Scott said curiously, “Where to now? Obviously, Bud was just fresh out of supplies.”

Chloe laughed. “What makes you think so?”

“Well, neither of us is carrying a package.”

“It's in the car, silly,” she laughed. “That way neither you nor I could ever swear in court that we bought a single solitary drop of anything from him. And Millie took you to see the babies, so if anybody in the neighborhood is curious about why we came to call — well, Billie was sick.”

“Oh,” said Scott.

Chloe slid close to him on the seat, tucked her hand through his arm, and rubbed her cheek kittenishly against his shoulder.

“So now I've got you your first patients. Wasn't that nice of me?”

Scott stopped the car in front of Liss's house, and Chloe slipped out of the car. She waited for him as he got out and locked it. “You do amuse me, angel, the suspicious way you lock your car and everything.”

“I suppose it's a habit I acquired when I started carrying a bag of instruments around in my car,” he tacitly apologized.

She laughed and they walked up the path to the house, and as they reached the door, it swung open and Liss stood there, slender and tall and beautiful in her black chiffon gown.

“You two!” she accused them sternly. “Now what's your alibi?”

“In the back of Scott's car — ” Chloe began mysteriously.

“Correction, please — under my arm,” said Scott, and offered the bulky package to Liss.

“Why, what in the world — ” asked Liss. And then as she took the package and felt its shape, she gasped and her eyes flew wide. “Why, Scott Etheridge, how dare you bring your own refreshments to a party, you sweet thing? It just isn't done, though I can't think why not. It's a lovely idea!”

Puzzled, Scott asked, “But didn't you tell Chloe — ”

Chloe said coolly, “I thought it would be nice for Scott to meet some friends of mine. And it was a good idea for he picked himself up a couple of patients. I'm helping him build up a practice.”

Chloe led the way into the big living room.

Scott's eyes swiftly sought and found Kate, very much at home. She looked as though she were having fun. Bill Elliott, handsomely at ease, sat beside her, his manner possessive as he looked down at her.

“Hello,” Scott greeted Kate, as he crossed to her. “You look as though you were being taken care of.”

“Beautifully, thanks,” said Kate crisply. “And you?”

“We were doing an errand for Liss,” Scott insisted.

Kate's eyebrows went up as she studied him.

“How very thoughtful of you,” she said, and turned her shoulder on him and gave her bright, interested attention to Bill once more.

At his elbow Liss said softly, “Better not intrude, Scott. Shall we see what other amusement we can find?”

As the party broke up, in the general confusion of good nights and plans for future meetings, Scott saw Bill Elliott lean close to Kate and heard his low-voiced, “Until tomorrow, then.”

Kate smiled warmly at him and nodded. And Scott was startled to realize the depth of resentment he felt at their obvious interest in each other. Yet as he put Kate into the car and went around to climb in beside her, he reminded himself sharply that he had no right to resent anything at all.

As he drove toward the country, she relaxed and sighed happily.

“Thank you for the party, Scott. It was fun. They're nice — some of them, anyway,” she said contentedly, smiling at some secret memory.

“Especially Bill Elliott?” he suggested, and could have kicked himself for saying it.

Kate stiffened and turned her head to look curiously at him.

“Now that you mention it, yes. Bill Elliott in particular. He's very agreeable, quite interesting, and fun,” she told him tartly.

His jaw set but he said nothing. And after a moment Kate began talking of the people she had met at the party and her liking for them. When they reached River's Edge she bade him good night, saying gratefully, “It was nice of you, Scott, to introduce me to the crowd. I can see now that it was all my own fault, thinking they were stand-offish and stiff. And I've decided they don't dislike Yankees, after all. Liss thinks they're ‘cute.' Can you bear that?”

“Only just,” Scott admitted. “When am I going to see you again?”

“You're coming for lunch Sunday, aren't you? I'll see you then,” said Kate, and before he could protest she told him good night again and went into the house.

Driving back to town, he was puzzled by his own feeling of depression. It had been a fine evening. Chloe's friends were fun; they had welcomed him warmly. If they made him feel old, simply because of their gay denial of any responsibility, that was his fault, not theirs. In point of years he was probably about the same age as Bill Elliott, who was thirty at the very least. Chloe, twenty-one or -two, though she looked and acted like seventeen, was Kate's age. Liss seemed older, but it was probably the two disastrous marriages that made it seem so. The others ranged somewhere between Chloe and Bill in age. Scott could not erase his sense of responsibility, of devotion to his profession, enough to feel gay and young and irresponsible. And he was grateful for the fact. He couldn't think of a more boring way to live than footloose, without responsibility, without some aim in life.

As he parked the car in the small garage in back of Miss Mowbray's cottage, he thought of Chloe and his pulse stirred. She had been so disappointed that the evening should be allowed to die young. There had been invitation, provocation in her deep blue eyes as she tried to convey a message to him, even while she was protesting Kate's determination to leave.

Chloe was exquisite and alluring; but Kate was beautiful and cool and poised and would be a most difficult conquest. The man who won his way to Kate's affections would have his work cut out for him. It wouldn't be easy — but what a reward! He grew slightly dizzy thinking of it. And for a moment it was as though the two girls, Chloe with her corn-silken shining hair, her deep violet eyes, and her soft curved mouth, Kate with her red hair, her gray, smoky long-lashed eyes, stood before him side by side — as though he had his choice of them and found it a most difficult choice to make.

Suddenly the absurdity of that struck him and he laughed aloud.

It would be a couple of years at the very least, perhaps three, before he could hope to be earning enough to take care of a wife and the family he would, of course, want. So any thought of laying siege to the heart of either Chloe Parham or Kate Ryan was definitely out of the question.

Having reached that sage decision, he got out of the car and walked to the house, letting himself into his apartment as quietly as he could, so as not to disturb his landlady….

When Kate came down to breakfast the following morning, Jane was alone at the breakfast table having a final and lingering cup of coffee.

“Himself has already departed for the day?” she asked lightly as Jane smiled at her.

“Seeing to the new clinic building,” said Jane, and added, “well, was it fun last night?”

A neatly uniformed maid put a beautifully iced grapefruit in front of Kate, smiled a shy response to her greeting and went out.

“Hum, yes, quite a lot of fun,” Kate answered thoughtfully. “They are friendly and pleasant and agreeable. I liked them all.” She broke off and dug a spoon into her grapefruit.

Jane, eyeing her with amused comprehension, said quietly, “Except?”