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Alex was stunned. “You’ve been matching me up?”
He didn’t know why he was surprised. But it seemed pretty cold to him that his nurse was trying to marry him off to someone he didn’t even know. Somehow, he had thought Maryann was interested in him. Well, it was nonsense, of course.
“I’m sure she won’t do,” Alex said with as much dignity as he could manage. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go write some prescriptions.”
He walked down to the exam room and closed the door.
He was finally interested in a woman, and she was trying to match him up with someone else. Of course, it was probably for the best. He was leaving in a few weeks anyway. And, just because he was interested in her, didn’t mean he had anything to offer someone like that.
Alaskan Bride Rush: Women are flocking to the Land of the Midnight Sun with marriage on their minds
Klondike Hero—Jillian Hart
July 2010
Treasure Creek Dad—Terri Reed
August 2010
Doctor Right—Janet Tronstad
September 2010
Yukon Cowboy—Debra Clopton
October 2010
Thanksgiving Groom—Brenda Minton
November 2010
The Lawman’s Christmas Wish—Linda Goodnight
December 2010
JANET TRONSTAD
grew up on a farm in central Montana, spending many winter days reading books about the Old West and the gold rush days of Alaska. During college she got a chance to see the beauty of Alaska for herself when she worked a summer on Kodiak Island in a salmon factory, packing fish eggs for a Japanese firm. Because of those experiences, she is excited to be part of this series. Janet lives in Pasadena, California, where she writes full-time when not dreaming of other places.
Doctor Right
Janet Tronstad
MILLS & BOON
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I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.
—Psalms 121:1–2
This book is dedicated to my friends in the Love Inspired Historical discussion group on Goodreads. We’ve taken many exotic trips together in our minds and I hope they’ll love this one to Alaska, too.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Epilogue
Letter to Reader
Questions for Discussion
Chapter One
If she opened the clinic door, Maryann Jenner knew a gust of cold wind would blow inside that would smell of wood smoke, mostly from the stovepipes jutting up from the row of flat and peaked roofs that lined the main road into Treasure Creek, Alaska. As much as she liked the scent, not all of the patients did, so she left the door closed and instead looked out the window at the rugged, green mountains that edged the backside of this small tourist town. She still couldn’t believe she was working in this postcard-perfect place.
For the first time in her twenty-six years, she was beginning to feel like she had a chance at the peaceful life she wanted. She’d been an unwilling participant in other people’s dramas—mostly her parent’s—since she was born. Now she was far enough away that she could love her mother and father without being dragged into the soap operas that were their respective, disconnected lives. As though to celebrate her new life, she’d landed the perfect job, working with the ever so perfect Dr. Alex Havens in this perfect little clinic in paradise.
“Oh, no,” she muttered to herself and took a quick glance over her shoulder to be sure the doctor was still in the back room examining six-year-old Johnny Short’s ear infection. She had a bad habit of actually believing what she conjured up in her day dreams when looking out that window. Treasure Creek was wonderful, of course, but the pediatrician could be, she had to admit, a bit demanding at times. And particular. And downright testy about some things. He’d even been dubbed The Ice Man by her predecessor. And, since Maryann was now his nurse, it was apparently her job to make his days run smoothly.
Ordinarily, that wasn’t much of a problem. She was good at maintaining order. Besides, the doctor might be an ice man around adults, but children seemed to love him, and since they were his patients, everything moved along fine in their small clinic. She and Alex had figured out how to work together.
But if the line of women marching up the slight hill toward them were the ones she thought they were, she was going to earn her salary today. The final thing he’d asked before hiring her last month was if she knew how to keep the fancy women away. She’d assured him she did, even though she was new in town and hadn’t known what—or who—he was talking about.
Today she knew. Several months ago, Now Woman magazine had run an article on the bachelor tour guides in Treasure Creek, and before Maryann arrived, women had started swarming up here in hot pursuit of husbands. The locals called them fancy women because they looked like exotic tropical birds when set against the sturdy, practical dress of the local people.
Maryann had never heard of the women attacking their target all together, though. Not like this. Alex was only a part-time guide with Alaska’s Treasures tour company, earning just one brief mention in the article.
Of course, he was completely single and unattached. But—oh, dear.
The door flew open before Maryann had time to retreat. The smell of perfume followed the women inside, along with a surprising number of the rather large mosquitoes Alaska is famous for. She wasn’t sure if it was the heavy floral scents that attracted these insects so late in the season, or if it was the red shine on the women’s lips and nails. Either way, the fact that the women didn’t complain about the bites they must be getting only proved how determined they were to be here.
“This is a pe-dia-tric clinic,” Maryann raised herself up to her full five-foot-seven-inches and announced in her strictest nurse voice. “Adult patients need to go down the street to Dr. Logan’s clinic.”
She’d worked on that voice in her nurse’s training, until it could silence a group of rowdy boys. It didn’t even stop the women from chattering long enough for them to really listen to her. Of course, part of that could be because they were reaching up to try and tame their windblown hair.
“I have full-coverage insurance, so any doctor will see me.” A showy blonde, with a dandelion head of bleached hair and the plumpest purple lips Maryann had ever seen, sat down in one of the few adult chairs in the waiting room and crossed her nylon-encased legs in a theatrical gesture. Then she looked at Maryann. “It was part of my last divorce settlement. The doctor can do any test he wants on me. My ex will cover it if the insurance doesn’t, so the doctor doesn’t need to worry about the bill being paid.”
“I just need a prescription refill,” a young waif-like woman whispered as she slipped into one of the nearby children’s chairs. She had long brown hair and a slight overbite. “Do you know if the doctor likes to walk on the beach in the moonlight? I adore the beach. Not the Alaskan beach, of course—it’s too rocky and cold—but, you know, the regular beach.”
The wind had ruffled the young woman and she nervously tried to pull her tangled hair into place.
“I can’t—” Maryann said, her voice rising slightly. She looked around. Eight women were in the room. None of them looked sick, especially since the cold outside had given their cheeks higher than normal color. Besides, together they were wearing enough gold jewelry to open a pawn shop. They had marched up here in full battle armor. But why had they come, now of all times—on this cold, blustery day?
And then the realization hit her and she felt a twist in the pit of her stomach. It was her fault. She’d told her cousin last night how much his young patients would miss Alex after his contract expired at the end of the month. Her cousin remarked that if she wanted the man to stay in Treasure Creek, she needed to get him happily married to a local woman. Which led to the unfortunate remark by her that no woman with warm blood flowing through her veins would marry The Ice Man. Which led to her cousin saying that there was a match for everyone and Maryann could find someone for the doctor if she put her mind to it. After all, her cousin added, Maryann was good at managing other people’s romances—hadn’t her parents relied on her to help them find their next soul mates? And the ones after that?
Unfortunately, she and her newly-engaged cousin, Karenna, had been eating hamburgers in Lizbet’s Diner when they’d had their conversation. Someone must have overheard. Gossip traveled fast in a small town like this, and it often got twisted. Maryann knew she shouldn’t have said anything about Alex. And worst of all, she had taken a guess at a woman who might suit him, and, even though it wasn’t one of the fancy women, the whole thing must have resulted in today’s sudden invasion.
“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave,” Maryann said, as she tried to herd the women to the door. They weren’t budging. She didn’t suppose she could call 911 over something like this. “The doctor is in the exam room with a patient and—”
“He can be my doctor any time,” a woman with bouncy, copper ringlets said, as she wiggled out of Maryann’s herd, walked over to a chair and sat down looking pleased with herself.
The fancy women all giggled.
Why did people seeking romance all become silly as teenagers, Maryann wondered. She raised her voice. “What I’m trying to say is that there are no appointments left for today.”
She hoped that would do it.
“Or tomorrow either,” she added quickly just in case. “We’re all booked.”
She really liked this job; she didn’t want to be fired. Alex had promised to give her a good recommendation to his replacement. Well, it would be his temporary replacement. The agency had already said they could only send someone to fill in for a few months while they kept looking for a new scholarship doctor to take over the clinic for another three years. If they couldn’t find someone, they would close the clinic in six months.
Why did it all have to be so complicated? The children here needed a doctor. And Maryann didn’t want to lose her job and return to the lower forty-eight. The obvious solution was to have Alex put down roots here in Treasure Creek. Of course, he’d have to want to stay. Her cousin was right about a wife being the answer, but—despite her earlier comments about him being The Ice Man—Maryann knew full well he could have his pick of brides. Some women would tell themselves he would thaw eventually; others might not care.
No, he would be the one who was hard to please when it came to marriage. The nurse before her claimed Alex hadn’t dated anyone in the time she’d known him. All he cared about was that clinic he was going to build in Los Angeles.
“I’m Delilah Carrington. I’m sure he’ll see me,” the copper ringlet woman said as she gave a grand wave with an arm wrapped in thin gold bracelets. Then she looked around and slowly frowned. “I would think a doctor’s office would be better equipped though. This place is a little old and scruffy, isn’t it?”
She made it sound as though the patients regularly stuck their old chewing gum under the chairs bottoms, Maryann thought—which she was sure they did not, since she’d checked a time or two.
“He’s a scholarship doctor,” another of the women said, as though that explained any shabbiness. “You know, the government pays for him to go to medical school and he has to work in a place like this for a few years to pay them back. All the poor kids do it.”
Maryann bristled at the implication that because Alex didn’t have money, somehow that made him less of a success. He was a brilliant doctor. She’d known that after working the first day for him. Plus, he really cared about his little patients. He even treated the children from the Taiya Village, part of the Tlingit tribe, for free. If the town got another scholarship doctor, he probably wouldn’t go out to the village at all. It was extra work, and not part of the agreement the doctors signed. That was another reason she wanted Alex to stay on here. The Tlingit kids needed him as much as the kids in Treasure Creek did, and probably more.
“The city owns this clinic,” Maryann said firmly. “The place is charming and very neatly organized. It might be a little scratched up, but we keep it very clean. Besides, Dr. Havens knows all of the latest treatments.”
The room was quiet as the women looked around. Apparently, they’d been surprised enough at that declaration to listen.
“What kind of treatments?” one of the women asked, looking around the office dubiously. “Those herbal things?”
“Medical treatments,” Maryann snapped back. She saw no reason to admit that he studied the native remedies of the Tlingit people. She’d already said too much about the man last night. “They’re the kind any good, well-trained doctor uses. Some from the Mayo Clinic.”
Then she scowled at the women, daring any of them to make more remarks about this building or the doctor who ran it. The clinic was set in one of the restored log cabins that were left over from the original gold rush prospectors who had founded this town in 1897. She’d like to see how these fancy women would have stood up a hundred years from now. Besides, people should be proud to use this place, she told herself; it had solid history.
The town had taken ownership of the cabin decades ago, renting it out to a souvenir shop for years until someone decided they needed a children’s clinic in town. They widened the doorway and added a side ramp off the porch for wheelchairs, and the cabin became a clinic. Except for the thickly lacquered logs, the only other holdover from its tourist days was Horace, the slightly droopy moose head hanging over the door.
“So this means our doctor is poor,” Delilah finally said in the silence, that same frown on her face. “If he had to have a scholarship, I mean. That can’t be good. Does he have any money at all?”
“Honey, a man with looks like Dr. Havens doesn’t need money,” another of the women—Joleen something—declared with a warm chuckle. The woman was wearing a spandex jumpsuit in a leopard print and spiked black heels. A long gold chain hung around her neck, and somehow she’d managed to get her blond hair rearranged after the wind. “Besides, he’s not going to stay poor. He’s a doctor. He’ll be rich before you know it, especially since he’s going back to Los Angeles. You should see the expensive cars men like him drive down there.”
That started the rest of the women talking about the doctor again. And they weren’t just talking about his money.
Maryann didn’t need to hear the women to know what they were saying. Alex was tall, dark and handsome—she’d be the first to admit it. Any woman who sighed over Rhett Butler—and she had a feeling most of those women in the waiting room had—would be drawn to the good doctor. He had that same kind of jaw. Plus, he had strong biceps, a chin with a dimple—just like they said, and with all the glowing adjectives they used. It was amazing that the fancy women had taken this long to fill up the man’s waiting room.
The more they talked, the gloomier Maryann got. Until last night, she’d found working with Alex companionable enough that she’d almost forgotten he was drop-dead gorgeous. Years ago, she’d vowed never to trust a handsome man. Assuming that vow still held, her cousin had made the criticism rather loudly last night over dinner that, because of it, Maryann might be a little bit unfair to her employer when she called him The Ice Man. Everyone deserved a chance to prove himself, her cousin said; maybe Maryann needed to get to know him better. Besides, no boss was perfect.
Which reminded Maryann, if she wanted to keep him as her boss, she needed to warn him about these women, and quickly.
“Let me go see how long the doctor will be,” she announced casually as she started toward the back exam room. There was a good-size window on the side wall. It was a bit of a drop to the ground, but Alex was in excellent physical shape. At least the fancy women had gotten that much right.
If she hadn’t been looking straight at the door, Maryann wouldn’t have seen the knob turn. She formed her lips and called out, “Nooo.”
But it was too late. Her voice came out thin and the door opened anyway. Johnny Short walked out with his mother. Both of them looked surprised at the crowded waiting room.
“Isn’t he cute?” a brunette with diamond clips in her hair and gold chains on her ankles said, as she stood up and beamed at the wide-eyed little boy. She tugged on her V-neck sweater, which only made more skin show. “Aren’t you a sweetie?”
The diamond woman took a step toward the boy before his mother put up a hand to stop her. “He’s only six and his ear hurts. He’s not used to women like—” Mrs. Short stopped and pursed her lips. “Well, let’s just say, most of the women around here wear sweaters to keep their necks warm. This is Alaska, after all, not Las Vegas. It might be September on the calendar, but we’re already feeling the nip of winter. Besides, we’re a small, decent town.”
Maryann half-expected the fancy women to be offended, but it was clear they weren’t even listening to Mrs. Short. They had all stood by now and were arching their backs and puffing up their hair as they stared at him.
Alex stood in the open door of the exam room. The sunlight streamed through the window behind him and made him look bronzed. Maryann blinked. How had that happened? He was wearing the same white lab coat with a stethoscope hanging around his neck that he’d been wearing all day. But he looked different. Maybe because of the angle of the light behind him the lab coat suddenly showed that his shoulders were satisfyingly broad. His dark hair was ruffled and his blue eyes were fringed with black lashes. If it weren’t for the look of dawning horror on his clean-shaven face, he could have graced the cover of GQ magazine. It would have all been comical if Maryann didn’t feel called upon to do something to rescue him.
He cleared his throat and the women looked like they would swoon.
She looked at the salivating women staring at him. So, the man was good-looking. Well, okay, more than good-looking. That didn’t mean he was a rock star or anything.
“What’s wrong?” Alex finally asked. “Is someone hurt?”
He sounded so suspicious that she had to smile. Maybe he didn’t realize how great he looked standing there.
“Careful. They’re all—” Maryann started, but she was too late. The women had broken rank and were rushing toward Alex, waving their hands in the air. There was only one thing to do, she decided, as she put her fingers to her lips and gave a shrill referee whistle.
There was a moment of absolute silence. Even Alex looked stunned.
Maryann gave a decisive nod. She had taken a self-defense class in high school and the whistle was all she had mastered, but today it was enough. “First, Mrs. Short, you take Johnny out on the porch. I’ll be out in a second to give him his lollipop—he likes lime, doesn’t he? We’ll set up a follow-up appointment. Everyone else sit back down, except for the doctor, of course.”
She was almost surprised when everyone obeyed her.
“These women say they need to see you.” Maryann waited for the Shorts to leave the room before raising her eyes to Alex. “For medical reasons.”
The doctor nodded and turned to the seated women. He looked stern enough to make Maryann glad she wasn’t one of the fancy women.
“I’m a pediatrician. You’ll have to go down the street to Dr. Logan’s office. He’s the general doctor in town.” And then, as though he wasn’t sure they understood, Alex added. “I only take children as patients.”
“I already told them that—” Maryann started, but she was ignored.
“My feet haven’t grown much since I was a girl.” Delilah stood up and moved a step closer to Alex, before taking his arm. “And it hurts to walk. Really, feet are feet. It doesn’t matter if I’m a child or not. Men always tell me I have such nice-looking ankles.”
Delilah stood on her toes so her ankles showed to their best advantage. “What do you think, Doctor?”
Maryann watched the thundercloud settle on Alex’s face. He didn’t say anything though.
The waif woman sitting in the corner looked up. “Dr. Logan’s office is closed this morning.” Her voice managed to sound pitiful and sultry at the same time. “There’s no place else to go. I need something for all these mosquito bites.”
Alex removed Delilah’s hands from his arm as he glanced over at the small pink dots on the other woman’s arm.
“Baking soda,” he said in a curt voice and then looked around. “Just to be sure, are any of you really injured? Or having a heart attack? Even an asthma attack? We’ll take an emergency, but that’s all. The rest of you will have to see Dr. Logan instead. If he’s not there, call later and make an appointment.”
The chatter started up. It was impossible to sort out what everyone was saying.
Alex turned and looked at Maryann. “Have them fill out medical forms just in case. And find out if that one woman is allergic to insect bites. Then come back to the exam room. We need to talk.”
“Yes, sir.” Maryann resisted the impulse to salute. She was in trouble enough as it was. He probably expected she should have locked the door when she saw the women coming.
Alex had no sooner turned to go back to the room when Maryann heard footsteps running up to the porch. She recognized a medical emergency when she heard one and wasn’t surprised when Alex turned around to face the door.
“Everybody sit down. Clear some space. We have a patient coming in.” Alex said as he headed toward the door. At times like this he blessed the workmen who had made the new doorway and the ramp outside both sturdy and wide.
He’d been through this drill often enough up here, he thought to himself. A siren never announced an emergency as it did back in Los Angeles; here it was the thump of the heavy boots the men wore. The faster the footsteps were coming up the steps to his porch, the worse the problem. The most serious injuries came by the steps and not the ramp; it was in recovery that the patient used a wheelchair. Alex had the door open before the men outside could touch it.
“It’s Timmy Fields,” the man standing in front said as he pushed his cap back on his forehead and looked behind him to where two other burly men in flannel shirts were carrying the boy. They were all breathing hard and the boy was moaning.
“Easy now,” Alex said when he saw how they were carrying his patient. Every spring he gave a first aid emergency course and showed people how to transport injured hikers, but it never seemed like the right people came. Next time he was going to go down to one of the bars and give his demonstration there. Oh—he stopped. He’d be gone by then. He’d have to leave a note for the next doctor. Or maybe Dr. Logan would do it, although people didn’t tend to bring him the emergency cases since he lived a mile from town and most problems seemed to happen after the clinics were closed.
“Lay him down here.” Alex put his hand on the gurney Maryann had just wheeled over to him.
“Thanks,” he said to her as she stepped back so the men would have enough room. Maryann always knew what to do without him telling her.
Together the men gently laid the boy down.
“What happened?” Alex asked the men as his hand reached out to take the boy’s pulse. It had been several weeks since he’d seen eight-year-old Timmy for that cough of his. The boy’s skin was clammy now, but Alex doubted it was from fever. It was pain making him sweat.
“We found him up on Chilkoot Pass. Fool kid shouldn’t have been up there alone. He said some tourists gave him a ride out of town to the base. They should be shot for leaving a kid like that there by himself. Don’t know what he was doing. He must have slipped on some rocks or something. We wouldn’t have found him if we hadn’t been out looking for that Lawson fellow—the one who’s been missing.”
Alex nodded. He’d been on the search team that had come upon Tucker Lawson’s crashed plane. They’d found some blood and his business card with a stake driven through it, but there was no one around. Searchers, under the direction of the sheriff, had been looking for the man, or his remains, since then. Surely the boy hadn’t been up there looking for Lawson, though. Timmy groaned.
“Easy now,” Alex said as the boy started to move. “Let me check you out first.”
“He’s got a lump on his head,” one of the men said.
“I see that,” Alex said as he ran his fingers over the rest of the boy’s scalp, then he turned to Maryann. “Flash—”
“Here.”
“Thanks.” She’d given him the flashlight before he’d even gotten the word out. Things like this were why he’d promised to write her a letter of recommendation and leave it for the next pediatrician that came here. She was an excellent nurse. She didn’t insist on being personal with him, either. His last nurse had wanted him to—well, he wasn’t sure what she had wanted. She’d resigned when he refused to have dinner with her one night after work.
Timmy opened one eye and stared.
“Don’t worry about focusing,” the doctor murmured to the boy before remembering to use simpler words. “Don’t worry about what you see. It might be fuzzy.”
“I see an angel choir,” Timmy said in quiet awe.
Alex choked back his chuckle as he looked over his shoulder. Children were so honest about their feelings. He saw that Maryann was doing the impossible and getting the fancy women to exit the room. All those women with their dyed blonde hair and sparkling gold might look like a band of angels because of the sun shining on their jewelry as they tiptoed past the gurney, especially when Maryann wore her white uniform to usher them out. No wonder Timmy saw angels.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s Nurse Jenner and some friends of hers.”
“They’re not my friends,” Maryann protested from the door as the men who’d carried Timmy down the mountain followed the last of the fancy women out of the clinic. Alex realized with a jolt that he was teasing Maryann. He’d never done that with any of his other nurses. He believed in professionalism in the clinic. But he liked the way her cheeks pinked up and her brown eyes sparked with indignation. She had dark, fringed bangs, and her hair shone as it floated around her head in the breeze from the open door.
“Is she an angel?” the boy asked.
“Some days,” Alex said. Then he forgot himself enough to grin at Maryann. He decided it would be okay to relax with her; he’d be gone before long, so what could it hurt?
Maryann tried to give him a stern look, but the blush on her face spoiled the effect. She shut the open door, but her hair still floated around her face.
“Does that mean I’m dead?” Timmy asked with some anticipation.
Alex looked down at the boy and smiled. “Not today you’re not.”
“Oh,” Timmy said, and with that, he closed his eyes.
Alex looked up at Maryann again, but she was one step ahead of him. She held out an ice pack she’d brought from the back room along with the gurney. He pressed that against Timmy’s face. “The cold will wake him up.”
“I’ll call his parents,” Maryann said.
“No.” Timmy opened his eyes in alarm. “You can’t call them.”
“You know we have to,” Alex said gently as he finished running his hands over the boy’s legs. “You took quite a fall. Does your leg hurt?”
Timmy winced and nodded. “They’ll kill me for sure.”
“I’ll tell them you’re a brave soldier,” Maryann said as she walked over to the phone.
Alex imagined she would say those very words to them, too. No one could accuse her of not caring about everyone who stumbled across her path. She was generous to a fault and that was the only reason he could think of for her to have sat in the diner last night talking with her cousin about matching him up with someone. Not that either one of the women had shown an over-abundance of caring when Maryann had called him The Ice Man. Wait until that nickname made the rounds of Treasure Creek. He wasn’t the kind of person who talked about himself to everyone he met, but he’d helped enough children in this town to have some friends among the parents. He’d been warned about last night’s conversation by two sources already.
He watched Maryann as she held the phone to her ear and talked to Timmy’s parents. He couldn’t hear the words she was saying, but he could hear the soft tones of her voice.
He supposed the matchmaking had been inevitable. Maryann was the kind of woman who’d bring home stray cats. He knew that when he hired her, but he’d had no other choice. Women like her just couldn’t accept that some men—like some animals—were better off alone. She must have sensed the sadness in him and decided marriage was the solution.
He’d meant to tell her today that he was fine with the single life, but he hadn’t quite figured out the right words. Usually, he’d just blurt it out. He didn’t know why he was hesitating. As near as he could figure, he didn’t want to make her feel bad for caring that he was alone. Also, it bothered him that she thought of him as an ice man, and part of him wanted to prove her wrong.
