Paul handed Solange another section of orange and practically drooled, watching her eat it. Attraction aside, and he was surely attracted to her, this was crazy. Pure craziness. He had work to do, and in another few days he’d be back in the States. And here he was…so distracted he didn’t want to go back to Bertrand’s party at all, back to all the wealth.
That was something he never allowed.
Even so, with one hundred prospective donors awaiting his return to Salon Rose, here he was sitting in a rattan chair, sharing a piece of fruit with her like he had all the time in the world. All because he wanted to spend more time with an entanglement he’d promised himself he wouldn’t go after again. Or at least not for a very long time. And just look at him now!
Paul shook the tension out of his shoulders, handed Solange the last section of the orange, and tossed the peels at the trash can across the room. He missed, and they landed on the floor. But he didn’t go to get them. Couldn’t go. Couldn’t walk away from Solange. Not now. “My lab technician Bijou will be able to give you a better idea of how she’s able to schedule patients for lab procedures. The same is true for Zac, my X-ray tech. Unless we have an emergency, they maintain their own schedules and workloads, and they’re both much better equipped to tell you the best way to handle your patients. Also, they’ll be able to give you a better idea of what will be available to you.”
“Then I can’t wait to meet Bijou and Zac.” Solange popped the last section of orange into her mouth, leaning back in the chair to chew it—slowly, deliberately. Seductively. At least, he was seduced. Never before had he considered the way a person chewed to be sexy, but he was so transfixed watching Solange that when she stopped he wondered how long he’d been staring.
He cleared his throat, and leaned back in his own chair. “Tell me about your little infirmary.” Not that he needed to know. But his transaction with Solange had essentially ended now. She would talk to his technicians about making future arrangements for any patients she might want to send to his hospital and, for all intents and purposes, he was out of the mix. If he left the room this instant, it wouldn’t matter. She had his consent, and that’s all she’d come there for. Proper protocol, as she called it.
He wasn’t ready to end it, though. Not yet.
“It’s a nice little facility,” she said. “Frère Léon and some of the men of his order set it up in the hope that one of their own might be able to run it. But none of their own are medically trained, and apparently it sat empty for well over a year before they approached me. And to be honest, I expanded their idea a bit. Talked them into letting me spend most of my time on house calls, which works out nicely.”
“So, I’ve been on Kijé two years now, and I know a little something about the people here. Based on what I’ve seen, are the rurals accepting you as a doctor?”
“That’s the hard part. They’re accepting of my medicine, but wary of me…being a woman. I’ve made friends, and have several people who do trust me. But many don’t. Of course, I’ve only been on the mountain three months now. It all takes time.”
“And who minds the infirmary while you’re out in the rural areas?”
“I have two nurses. But don’t confuse my definition of infirmary with yours because we have one examination room and beds for four patients. That’s all, and in the three months I’ve been on Kijé, I’ve had exactly six patients spend the night. Which is why I don’t spend much time there.”
“But you’re supplied?”
“Quite nicely, actually. My father helps me out and Frère Léon is certainly a wonderful provider. We have running water and electricity from a generator at The Mission and well-stocked medical supplies…We’re doing quite well. Better now, since you have what I don’t.”
“Have you ever thought about extending the services at your infirmary? Adding that lab equipment or an X-ray machine?”
“I do think about it all the time. But the simple fact is, we’re too remote up there in the mountains. And for the numbers of people who would even consent to any kind of testing we might do, it’s a waste of money. I can do the simple things like the PPD or blood sugar with what I have.” Common tests for tuberculosis and diabetes. “But I can’t do a CBC.” Complete blood count. “Of course, I might have only one or two patients a month who would require a CBC, so even if our location would accommodate the necessary equipment, the patient load would not.”
“Which is where I come in.”
Solange nodded. “You and your hospital. Oh, and that lobster dinner you promised me—is that still part of the deal?”
Dinner was a simple affair. Lobster, an array of fresh, sautéed vegetables, baked potatoes, freshly made crusty bread. And, oh, yes, ice cream for dessert. With a wonderful dessert selection, Solange chose plain vanilla ice cream, and Paul couldn’t talk her into the truffle or the tiramisu or even the crème brûlée. It had to be the vanilla ice cream. “You have a hearty appetite,” Paul commented.
She laughed. “One thing I’ve learned, living with only the barest of necessities, is that when you do manage the good fortune to have something extra, you never, ever waste it. Especially lobster.” She longingly eyed a chunk of succulent tail meat sitting on his plate. “You’re not going to let that go to waste, are you?”
“With you around, apparently not.” He speared it with the seafood fork, dragged it through the butter and held it out for her. As her fingers brushed his in taking the fork, a shiver ran up his spine and he caught himself wondering what it would be like to feed her that lobster with his fingers.
His fingers? Where the hell had that come from? Paul shook his head, trying to rid himself of that image. He really didn’t know enough about her to be having these feelings. No, he didn’t know nearly enough to be so blithering. “So tell me about your clinic in Miami,” he said, trying to get his mind off the obvious.
“I was there three years. It was closing so I left.”
Matter-of-fact words. Too matter-of-fact for the flash of anger he saw in her eyes. “Did you like the work?” he asked, trying to return to neutral ground.
“I loved the work,” she snapped. “But that wasn’t enough.”
No, definitely not neutral ground. And to top it all off, her body language was going rigid. What had been friendly and open was suddenly cold and defensive, which meant he was wandering down the wrong path with this topic. Or probably any topic right now, judging from the scowl onto her face. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”
“I’m sorry about being so abrupt. It’s an old wound that, apparently, isn’t as well healed as I thought it was.”
Old wound. At least it wasn’t something he’d said, and he was glad about that.
“He hurt you badly, didn’t he?” Paul refilled her wineglass and handed it to her. He might have liked to have made a night of it here, sitting and talking, but the truth was, he did have to get back to Bertrand’s party shortly. The night was still quite young, and he had work to do. Funny, that! In a way, he was like Solange—going only so far, then pulling away with an excuse of work. It was safe. He knew it. Apparently, she knew it, too.
“He pulled the rug out from under me. I thought we were partners in more ways than one, but we weren’t, as it happened. So I suppose you could say that I needed the rug pulled out. After three years, when you haven’t made the right commitments, they aren’t going to come along. Not in the sense that you want them to, anyway.”
“You mean as in marriage?”
“It went far beyond that. We were medical partners.” She paused, shaking her head vehemently. “Let me rephrase that. I thought we were medical partners, but in the end I was his employee, with no say in