you’re telling me is that your employer isn’t allowed to express an opinion about his employee’s work.”
“Yes,” she said, quite sternly. “And, technically, I was not your employee. I worked for your grandmother, who worked for the community.”
He couldn’t help but smile. “Then that makes me … what?”
“Right now, a nuisance. Go to work, see a few of those couple dozen people out there who want to be seen, and I could be persuaded to change my mind about that. Otherwise get out of my way.”
Mellette slammed through the kitchen door, hurried down the hall and into the area Eula had set aside for her clinic. The people waiting there were orderly and polite, no one pushing and shoving to be seen first. But there were so many of them, she was beginning to wonder if she’d be able to make good on that promise to tuck her daughter in tonight, because if she wasn’t out of here by dusk, she wasn’t going.
Travelling during the daylight was one thing, and she’d gotten used to that. But Big Swamp at night was a whole different story, and not one she particularly wanted to face. Call her a coward, call her chicken … she’d answer to it all because she was a city girl. Hadn’t even known these isolated pocket communities existed in Big Swamp until a year ago when she’d seen the ad for a part-time nurse. And she’d spent her entire life living so close to here.
Talk about an isolated existence! Raised with all the advantages, she was almost embarrassed to admit where she’d lacked. Landry had made up for that in a lot of ways, not being from that proverbial silver-spoon family, like she was. But all this … Areas where an entire community of people existed, totally out of step with society, living a good life independently. Nothing was taken for granted here. And every kind gesture was appreciated.
“I don’t work here,” Justin said, following her into the clinic, which had actually been his grandmother’s parlor. Now it was a plain room with several wooden chairs and a curtain to separate the waiting area from the person being seen. There was nothing medicinal here. No equipment, no real medicines. Of course, Eula Bergeron hadn’t practiced medicine. She’d been a self-taught herbalist. Someone who’d known which swamp herbs cured what.
“But you could, since you’re not doing anything else.”
“The people don’t trust me.”
“Probably because you’ve given them good reason not to.”
“You’re actually right about that. So what’s the point of wasting my time?”
“What’s the point of even being here if you’re not going to make yourself useful?” she snapped. “Look, we need to talk. Today. Later.”
“You’re right. I was thinking about asking you to put in another day every week.”
“Another day?” Mellette sputtered. “And just where would I get that?”
Justin shrugged. “I assumed …”
She stepped around him, and gestured her first patient to the area behind the cabinet. “Don’t assume anything about me, Doctor. And while you’re at it, don’t presume, either. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have patients who need medical care. If you’re not willing to provide it, get out!”
She pointed to the front door without another word. But what was there to say? Justin Bergeron was an annoyance. If she hadn’t heard Eula mention him so much this past year, she would have never guessed this man and the veritable saint Eula had talked about so lovingly were one and the same. But they were, and she wondered about the discrepancy. Wondered a whole lot.
IT WAS HARD watching her work, and doing nothing himself. She had such a look of determination, though. Brown eyes narrowed to her task. Biting down in concentration on her lower lip. He did have to admit Mellette was a looker. Tall, with legs that went on forever. Nice athletic form with well-defined feminine muscles. Smooth, dark skin, boyish-cut black hair with just a hint of natural curl, and all of it thrown into her work while he stood on the sidelines, casually observing.
But that was the way his days went since people around here would hardly even speak to him outside a stiff hello or an unfriendly nod accompanied by a muffled grunt. So what the hell made him think they’d accept him as a doctor? Someone to trust, someone to confide in. Someone to take care of them the way his grandmother had.
Clovis Fonseca, for example. He was waiting in line to have Mellette see him—Justin wasn’t sure why—and if it weren’t for the fact that Justin had stolen his canoe some twenty-five years ago, then gone and torn a hole in the bottom of it by racking it up on a cypress stump, Clovis might have been inclined to let Justin take a look at him. But Clovis held a grudge, and Justin had seen it every time he’d looked in the man’s eyes since he’d come home. There was no way Clovis would ever consent to a physical exam from Justin, probably just as Clovis would probably never even greet him with anything other than a snarly sort of a snort.
And Ambrosine Trahan. He felt really bad about her because she’d loved him when they’d been kids, but he’d blatantly asked out her younger sister, Emmy Lou, the prettier of the two girls. It hadn’t been so much that he’d wanted to go out with Emmy Lou, because he hadn’t. She hadn’t been his type, either. But he’d simply been trying to rebuff Ambrosine because back in the day he hadn’t gone out with girls who hadn’t been pretty. In fact, he’d been known to be intentionally cruel to them. So she was waiting in line today, a beautiful woman now, by all estimations, probably hanging on to horrible memories of the way he’d treated her, and he seriously doubted she’d want to claim him as her doctor. And rightfully so. He was so embarrassed just remembering the way he’d treated her.
The problem was, the line of waiting patients was full of bad experiences left over from his ill-mannered youth, and he didn’t trust any of them to trust him. And who could blame them? He’d been a repeat offender on all fronts. After he’d taken Clovis’s boat, he’d had pretty much the same experience with Rex Rimbaut’s pickup truck. Taken it, banged it up. Then there had been that time he’d flaunted a date with Ambrosine’s cousin, Ida, in front of both Ambrosine and Emmy Lou. Ida had been pretty. He’d done the same with their other cousin, Marie Rosella, as well, who had been even prettier.
So nothing gave Justin reason to believe that any one of those people waiting to be seen by Mellette would believe that he’d turned over that new leaf. Especially when each and every one of them assumed he’d neglected his grandmother at the end of her life. It was something that overshadowed everything else. And no one knew the real story, that she’d purposely not told him she was failing for fear that he’d want to do something drastic, like move her to the big city, rather than let her die where she wanted to.
No, history wouldn’t repeat itself on his account. But as far as the people here were concerned, twenty-five years ago was the same as yesterday, and time wasn’t healing the bad thoughts they had of him. He was Justin Bergeron, bad boy. Poor Eula’s pitiful excuse for a grandson.
And poor Eula’s pitiful grandson wasn’t welcome to touch them, not for any reason. They’d just as soon go without medical help as accept his.
Which made Justin feel like hell, seeing how hard Mellette was working while all he was doing was standing around, twiddling his thumbs and wallowing in his just desserts.
“Anything I could do where they wouldn’t see me?” he finally asked her, as she rushed into the kitchen to grab a drink of water. Looking frazzled. But sexy frazzled.
“Right. Like you really want to work,” she said, not even trying to hide her contempt for him.
“I’m not saying I want to work. But I am saying I would, if I could.” It was either that or go back to his writing, and today, like yesterday and the day before that, he wasn’t in that frame of mind. In spite of an upcoming deadline, there were too many distractions. Too many things to think about.