The Best Medicine (8 page)

“That whore.”

Hilary smiled. “She is a whore. A tax-coding whore and she’s trying to steal my husband.”

I knew she was being deliberately dramatic, and I smiled for that. Even Hilary gave a tiny chuckle. But her eyes were still a little sad, and it made my heart hurt.

“Do you really think this woman is an issue, or are you just feeling like a little body work will remind him of how awesome you are? Because you are, you know. Most women would die to have your figure.”

She rubbed her fingertips across her forehead. “I don’t know. I’m probably just being silly. He’s working on some big case, and I’ve been busy helping Chloe set up that mission trip in Haiti. We’re both so tired and the kids are so demanding. We never have time to just sit and talk.”

They lived in the same house, so it seemed odd to me that they wouldn’t have time for that. But then again, I was no expert on marriage. Or parenting. Or relationships in general.

“Maybe you should go away for a long weekend or something. Without the kids. Go to Vegas, or Chicago, or take one of those wine-tasting tours up north. Isn’t that what couples do?”

She took another sip of coffee and stared at me over the rim. “That’s not a bad idea. We haven’t gone anyplace, just the two of us, in about a hundred years. Will you stay at my house and take care of my kids and my dogs, and the turtle and the fishes? And the gerbil?”

My skin itched just thinking about all that dander and poo. “No. That’s too many pets. But I will cover your patient load on a Friday so you can take a long weekend.”

Hilary smiled again, her face relaxing into the original version, the one I’d met back in residency.

“You would? That would be fabulous. Really fabulous. I think I’ll go do some web browsing and find a romantic getaway. Do you know of any?”

She burst out laughing at her own joke, because obviously I wouldn’t have a clue about romantic getaways, even though the whole idea had been mine.

I crossed my arms while she cracked herself up. “That’s just hurtful,” I finally said, but it wasn’t, really. It was actually kind of funny, and I was glad to see her spirits lift. Before, she’d been drawn and exhausted, but now she looked like her usual vibrant self, and all because of something I’d suggested. Maybe I was better at this relationship stuff than I’d realized, and she was going to be extra happy to hear I was ready for one of my own.

But she glanced at her watch and pushed up from the chair. “Oh, shit. Is that the time? I’m supposed to be in surgery.” She dropped the coffee cup into my wastebasket. “I’m still serious about the tummy tuck, though. Marsupial pouch has got to go. I’ll schedule it and let you know.”

She was gone with a flutter of white lab coat and long, toned legs.

“You’re late for surgery, Dr. Pullman!” I heard Delle’s voice call after her. Then I heard footsteps coming down the hall toward my office, and seconds later the receptionist filled my doorway.

“I heard you bought a house, Dr. Rhoades. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Chapter 6

THE BELL HARBOR COMMUNITY PARK
sat halfway between my apartment and the hospital. It was a mystical green space full of big, old oak trees and lots of winding paths, and the perfect place to take my early morning jog when the weather got too warm for beach running. Today I had just enough time to get in a few miles before heading off to work.

As I walked underneath the arbor entrance and adjusted my ear buds, a symphony of high-pitched yapping caught my attention. I pulled the buds from my ears and spotted a cluster of yippy little dogs tangled up around a man’s muscular legs. One fluffy pooch bounced around like a furry Ping-Pong ball, another stretched as far as his lead would allow and bayed at a chattering squirrel, while a third mutt sprinted in a circle around them all, tightening the noose on the whole crew.

The imprisoned dog walker lifted a foot to disengage from the mess, but a black-and-white spotted puppy rose right along with his shin. “Come on, Taffy, you furry little rat.”

My gaze traveled up his leg and locked on his face. That face. I flushed all over as Tyler Connelly looked up from the canine chaos and peered straight at me. What was he doing here? Why was he surrounded by a circus of little dogs? And most important, why hadn’t I put on some makeup before leaving my apartment?

For an eighth of a second, I considered dashing behind an oak tree, but he’d obviously seen me. I was only twenty feet away. Nothing to do now but keep on walking. I approached, nonchalant, and offered him an awkward wave. The ear buds dangled uselessly around my neck.

“Good morning, Mr. Connelly,” I said, as if seeing him here had been my plan all along.

He smiled in obvious but unflustered surprise and pushed his sunglasses up on top of his head, no doubt to mesmerize me with his laser-beam eyes. Cheeky bastard.

“Good morning, Dr. Rhoades.” He said my name as if he were tasting it on his tongue. “Are you stalking me?” He sounded playfully hopeful.

“Not at all. Just here for a little exercise.”

My hair was in two short ponytails down low behind my ears. It was a childish style, but at my hair’s current shoulder length, this was about my only option for exercising. I wished, at that moment, I’d left it loose, even while acknowledging that what my hair looked like was completely irrelevant. My appearance didn’t matter because I was in no way trying to attract him. In no way. Trying to attract him. No way.

A long, skinny rust-colored dog pulled on my shoelace.

Tyler tugged on its leash. “Hey, Doxie, knock that off.”

“That’s all right.” I crouched down to scratch the dachshund mix behind his droopy ears. That was my first mistake. It brought me eye level with Tyler’s goods. I hadn’t had my face this close to a penis since my last relationship and the celebration of National Steak and Blow Job Day, which is apparently a big deal among the steak-eating, penis-endowed community.

I averted my gaze from Tyler’s wiener to the wiener dog instead.

One was trying to ruin my shoe. The other could ruin my life.

“He’s a menace,” Tyler said.

I could only assume he meant the dog.

“But cute,” I said. “I wouldn’t have guessed you to be a little dog kind of guy.”

Tyler tried to untwist one leash. “I’m not. These aren’t my dogs.”

I stood up again and looked at his face just in time to see those dimples deepen. That was my second mistake.

“They’re not your dogs? Did you steal them?”

I was teasing, and he knew it.

“No. I didn’t steal them, just like I didn’t steal the Jet Ski.” His voice lowered to a whisper when he said that last part, as if we shared a special secret, but one I still didn’t understand.

“So you’ve said,” I whispered back. “But if these aren’t your dogs, then why are you walking them?”

A sly, lazy smile curved his lips into nearly a pucker.

My mouth watered irrationally.

“That’s kind of a funny story, actually,” he said. “Have dinner with me and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Fate was a persistent bitch. She seemed determined to toss us together. Various scenarios flashed through my mind. Some involved nudity. Actually they all involved nudity. Damn, maybe I should take him to bed just for the novelty of it. I hadn’t had a meaningless fling in eons, and he was big and beautiful and couldn’t be
that
bad a man if he was out walking all these cute little dogs. But he was twenty-seven and I was thirty-five. If I was going to get naked, it had to be with someone from my own bracket. And besides that, I was a surgeon and he was a . . . a dog walker. Of someone else’s dogs.

The canine chaos continued to yip and yap and twine the various leashes around his legs.

“I can’t have dinner with you, Mr. Connelly.”

“Tyler.”

“I can’t have dinner with you, Tyler.”

“Why?” He was asking as if we’d never been through this conversation before. It was amusing. And flirtatious. And it made me want to change my mind.

But I should end this, fast and sharp, like the first incision with a scalpel. I crossed my arms. “Why? Because I’m thirty-five years old.”

His head tilted to the side. “And?”

It wasn’t obvious? “And that means I’m too old for you.”

He looked me over, slowly, from the laces of my shoes up to the stupidly tiny ponytails behind my ears. Then his gaze came back to mine. His eyes had a perceptible twinkle, and a rush of heat cascaded over me.

“We could go at four o’clock,” he said coyly.

I nearly stomped my foot. His persistence was both flattering and frustrating. “I didn’t say I was
old
. I said I was too old
for you
. And besides that, I watched you get arrested. Remember? Or maybe you don’t remember that part because you were drunk.”

All the smirk left him, like a guillotine falling. He looked down at the dogs and started to earnestly untangle them. “You’re right. I made a great first impression, didn’t I?”

Oh, well, shit. Now I felt mean. I hadn’t meant to embarrass him, but I
had
seen him get arrested! Common sense warned me to avoid him, even if all my other senses wanted to taste him, and smell him, and squeeze him like a horny anaconda.

The dogs seemed to sense something tense was going on above their heads and quieted down. Tyler looked back at me, his expression void of any flirtation.

“Community service,” he said.

“What?”

“My lawyer thinks it’ll look good to the judge if I’m doing some kind of volunteer work, so I’ve started walking dogs for the animal shelter. Community service.”

My chest, which had been tight since the first moment I saw him, deflated.

“So you did steal the Jet Ski?” The words were heavy on my tongue.

“No. I didn’t. I was returning it for someone else. But I did knock out the dock by accident. I misjudged the angle. Might have been the whiskey.”

Maybe I was gullible, but I believed him. If he was going to lie, he’d have come up with a better story. Something more clever than misjudging the angle. Because of whiskey.

“Who were you returning it for?”

Tyler shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. As far as the police are concerned, it was all me. No good deed goes unpunished, right?” His smile was tight. There was obviously more to say, more to the story. It was present right there under the surface of what he
wasn’t
saying, but Tyler’s demeanor had changed from swagger to sincerity. It made him seem younger than ever. And made me feel even worse for having been so sharp.

“Anyway, I don’t want to keep you from your exercise, Dr. Rhoades.” He said my name with emphasis now, heightening the barrier between us. Which should make me glad. Only it didn’t.

“Enjoy your walk,” he added. “It looks like we’re heading in different directions.” He gave me a fast nod and moved on down the path, the little dogs scampering alongside him.

I watched him go and bit my lip. I wanted to stop him and tell him I believed him. Because I did. But what would be the point? He was right. We were heading in two very different directions.

“The wedding plans are coming along nicely, Evelyn. Have you found a maid of honor dress yet?” My mother was calling between surgeries. I hadn’t spoken to her much since my birthday, which wasn’t unusual. Schedules being what they were, it was hard to find the time to chat. Or dress shop, for that matter.

“Nope, no dress yet. I thought maybe I could pick something out when I visit you in Ann Arbor in a few weeks. There aren’t a lot of options here in Bell Harbor.” I was walking down the hospital corridor, on my way to surgery as well.

“No, I suppose there wouldn’t be many places to shop. Have you found a date yet?” Her voice was light, but the implication was heavy. I thought about just hanging up and pretending to have lost my signal, but she’d only call back.

“Nope, no date yet either.”

There was a significant, meaningful pause. The nonverbal equivalent of
I’m disappointed in you
.

“Well, your father was going to ask Uncle Marv to be his best man, but he could ask Dan Hooper. You remember him, don’t you? He’s single these days.”

A knot the size and shape of an armadillo lodged in my chest. Now my mother was trying to fix me up? With a thrice-married partner of my dad’s? That was not only insulting, it was nauseating.

“I’ll find my own date, Mother. I have someone in mind already.” That was a lie. I didn’t.

“Really?” She sounded uncharacteristically optimistic, and I couldn’t stop the vision of me strolling into the Bloomfield Hills bed-and-breakfast with Tyler Connelly on my arm. That would go splendidly.

My father would say, “You’re not a doctor? What do you do for a living, son?” and Tyler would say, “Well, in between incarcerations, I like to walk dogs.”

Then my mother would say, “Oh, Evelyn, he’s going to leave you for a younger woman. He’s far better looking than you are. And he’s not even a doctor.”

And then Tyler would say, “No, I’m not a doctor. Do they serve whiskey at this place?”

Yeah, scratch that idea. Tyler was not going to be my date to my parents’ wedding.

“Yes, I have some options,” I said. That was a lie too. I didn’t have any options. But that wedding was coming up fast, and I was going to have to figure something out equally fast. The only idea I had seemed far-fetched and risky. But I might just have to go for it.