“That’s all right. You had a long day.”
“I went on shift last night at eleven.” She knuckled dry, scratchy eyes. “It’s hard to believe sometimes that I’ve only been a resident for a couple of months. That on top of my internship makes it seem like I’ve been doing double shifts my whole life, and I still have so far to go.”
“Well, I’ve heard residency’s pretty tough. Kind of like boot camp for doctors. You like it?”
She smiled but it was fleeting. Did she like it? “Does anybody like boot camp?”
He chuckled. “Good point. There must be a sense of satisfaction when you’re doing your best, but it’s not the same as liking it, is it?”
She sighed, and was rather disturbed at how heavy and dispirited it sounded. “No, it isn’t.”
He reached out and covered her hands briefly, and she stared down at the large, square back of his hand, the tanned skin sprinkled with golden hairs and webbed gracefully with veins. Sinewed, strong, the tapered fingers sensitive; she liked his hands. “You sound awfully unhappy, Dr. Mary. Why are you doing it?”
From nowhere a pressure welled up inside her, and suddenly the urge to confide in someone, a stranger who had no expectations of her and no demands, became irresistible. She sighed again. “I had good reasons once. I think I still do. I love taking care of people, especially children. I love seeing them get better and knowing I’m one of the reasons why. It’s just that sometimes I wonder if I’ve gone about doing it the right way.”
Everybody was so supportive of her. Her grandfather had encouraged her every step of the way. Victor had offered her lots of guidance in her career choices. Even Tim had brought her coffee and rubbed her shoulders during late-night study sessions when she had been in medical school. She couldn’t let them down, not after all that they’d done for her.
It’s just that she wondered sometimes when she was going to find time for her own life. Sure, she wanted to take care of people, but when was she going to get the chance to take care of her own children? After two frenetic years of residency would come a busy career.
The times when she and Victor had talked cautiously about a possible future together, he had always evinced satisfaction with how things were going. He liked the idea of having a wife who was as career oriented as he was. He liked the respect and prestige, and the life-style. Lots of people managed two demanding professions in their relationships. Was that too much to ask?
Chance said quietly, “It’s easy to get bogged down in a career and forget you’re a human being.”
Mary turned to look at him. He looked so remote, attention trained on the road, half of his expression covered by the dark glasses. Was he talking about her, or himself? A career in journalism, traveling all over the world—how many opportunities could he have had for a normal life, wife, kids.
Good Lord—could he be married? With an awful feeling in the pit of her stomach, she sneaked a look at his left hand. No ring, and no tan line, either. But some men didn’t wear rings.
If he was in his late thirties, he could have three or four marriages by now, and any number of kids. Mary could just picture them, blond hair dripping into their sad eyes, wanting their daddy to stop flirting with her and come home to them. She gritted her teeth, revolted by the image.
Now, wait a minute. Find a nice roundabout way to ask him. “Have you—found time for a career and maybe marriage, too?”
His lips twitched. “Plenty of career, but no marriage. Not yet. I’m one of those men that got bogged down. One day I got home, walked into my apartment in New York, and everything was covered in dust. No food in the fridge. Hell, I couldn’t even keep a cat. Everybody I knew was a work contact. I’d lost touch with most of my friends years ago. That was when I decided to slow down. Nobody ought to work that hard.”
Her depression stopped riding her shoulders and blew out the window, and she gave him a sunny smile. “I thought about becoming a pediatrician, but that would be four more years of training on top of what I’m doing now. And then I’d spend all my time taking care of other people’s children.”
“And when would you find time to have any fun?” he asked dryly. “Let alone have any children of your own.”
“Well,” she said self-consciously, “yes.” So what. She could admit that she wanted children. That was a perfectly reasonable desire. A lot of people wanted children; it wasn’t as if she was hinting at anything.
And fun. What a pretty, simple, three-letter word that was, but what a concept. When was the last time she could say to herself, gee, I had fun?
Then the realization shook through her: she didn’t have any idea whether Victor wanted children or not. That was such an elemental knowledge of another person, but in the two years they had gone out together, the subject had never come up. And Mary couldn’t even make a good guess based on what she knew of his personality.
Victor and she were practically engaged. He was certainly by far the most serious relationship she’d ever had. In college she’d dated a few times, but she was mostly preoccupied with her schoolwork and her brother, who had needed her to be a surrogate mother. He didn’t even remember their parents, who had died in a car crash when she was seventeen and Tim was only five. She hadn’t had time for more than casual relationships, but Victor, who was also a doctor, and understood the stresses of her life, had pursued her with patience. She’d not only been flattered by his attention, but comforted by the companionship.
They reached the turnoff and began the long drive through the wooded twenty-acre estate to the large house. The clock on the Jeep’s dashboard read almost eight o’clock. The sun had set behind the tree line, and it was growing dark. Chance removed his sunglasses, pulled the Jeep to a stop, and regarded the sprawling manor house with raised eyebrows. Some of the windows were well lit, but the shadows outside were spiky and dark.
“You live in that?”
Mary started to chuckle. “Yes,” she said, “I know. It’s a monstrosity, isn’t it? But my great-grandfather was so proud of it.”
“There’re about three or four different plans going on. What’s it look like from the back?”
“Worse. There’re a couple of pavilions, an over-grown topiary garden, an arched bridge that doesn’t span anything, an unsuccessful artificial pond that turned to swamp around World War II and a rotting boathouse. It must have been something in the roaring twenties, but now it’s a little sad, like an abandoned carnival. Every two years or so, my grandfather swears he’s going to tear it down and build something more sensible.”
“I saw something like it in a horror movie once. All these college kids were being chased around by a maniac with a meat cleaver.” He cocked his head. “I don’t think I could sleep in that place.”
She covered her mouth and giggled at the image of such a tough, self-reliant man huddled wide awake in bed with the night sweats. “It’s not so bad when you’ve been raised in it. Then you don’t know anything different, you see. I always hoped to find a secret passage, but I never did. The attic is a wonderful place to play on a rainy day. It’s huge and filled with all kinds of junk.”
He shook his head, smiling, and opened his door. The song of crickets and the fresh smell of the woods filled the night air. Mary opened her door, as well, then realized that he was coming around to her side of the Jeep.
She looked up at him, her heart starting another idiotic tap dance. The creases on either side of his mouth were deepened by his smile, and he reached out for her with both hands. “Such a fancy manor house,” he drawled, twin devils laughing in his eyes. “It must be bringing out the genteel in me.”
Eyes riveted to his reckless face, she held out her hands, but instead of taking hold of them, he took her by the waist and lifted her lightly out of the Jeep. At some point her feet touched the ground. She wasn’t sure when; all of her attention had plummeted