Chapter 2
Reilly wasn’t surprised that he was the latest topic of conversation everywhere he went. Gossip was the grease that made most small towns run, and he was the new man in town. He’d expected questions, and there were plenty of them. But he had no intention of answering any of them. Not now, not ever. He’d come to Colorado to start fresh and put his past behind him, and he couldn’t do that if he was continually talking about it. So when people asked everything from how much money he’d made in L.A. to why he wasn’t married, he coolly replied that that was private information and he preferred not to talk about it.
It didn’t win him many friends.
Another man might have been bothered by that, but Reilly told himself he didn’t care. He wasn’t there to make friends. Friends took an emotional toll, and that was more than he could give at the moment. Which was one of the reasons he’d moved to Liberty Hill in the first place. He didn’t know anyone there and didn’t want to know anyone. He just wanted to work, then escape to the cabin in the woods he’d rented from the sheriff and just be left alone. After everything he’d been through, he didn’t think that was too much to ask.
Dan Michaels, his new partner, had other ideas.
Inviting him to lunch at the local diner to discuss the matter after he’d observed Reilly with the patients that morning, Dan took a chair across the table from him and ordered a grilled chicken sandwich without bothering to look at the menu. A tall, trim man with snow-white hair and the kindest eyes Reilly had ever seen, he waited until Reilly had given his order and the waitress had moved on before he met his gaze with a frown.
“We’ve got a problem,” he said quietly. “And if this partnership between us is going to work, I feel it’s important that we start it off right by discussing problems that crop up as soon as possible. Agreed?”
“Of course,” Reilly replied, surprised. Frowning, he thought back to some of the patients he’d seen that morning. He’d treated colds, allergies, a sprained wrist, even a minor burn, nothing that a first-year medical student couldn’t have handled with one hand tied behind his back. So what was the problem? “I thought everything went fairly smoothly. Did I miss something?”
“The patients,” the older man retorted, not unkindly. “Don’t get me wrong. I was watching you, and you were right on the money when it came to your diagnoses. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that when it comes to medicine, you’re a gifted doctor.”
“But you just said I missed something with the patients,” he said, confused. “I don’t understand.”
Careful to keep his voice down so it wouldn’t carry to the other diners, Dan said quietly, “I don’t have to tell you that there’s more to practicing medicine than handing out prescriptions and doing everything right procedurally. In L.A., your patients might accept—and even expect—a cool business relationship with their doctors, but that won’t work here. This is a small town, Reilly. Your patients will expect you to not only be their doctor, but a friend, confidant, priest and therapist. They’ll treat you like family and ask you private questions they’ve got no business asking. And they won’t understand if you don’t tell them anything about yourself.”
Not liking the sound of that, Reilly scowled. “I have a right to my privacy.”
“Yes, you do,” he agreed. “And I know you’re still grieving. After my wife died, I just wanted to crawl in a hole and be left alone. But I couldn’t, and neither can you. Because you have patients who need you. And to them you’re a stranger. They want to accept you, to like you, but they don’t know anything about you. If you don’t open up a little and let them know who you are, there won’t be much trust between you. And without trust, you won’t be much good to them as a doctor.”
He wasn’t saying anything Reilly didn’t already know. A good doctor did a lot more than just treat physical ailments. But wasn’t he allowed to keep his private life separate from work? Couldn’t he earn patients’ trust without telling them about the house he’d owned in Beverly Hills and if he’d ever dated a movie star? Wasn’t he at least entitled to that?
“What’s important here is that the patients trust my judgment as a doctor,” he replied. “They don’t need to know anything about my private life to do that.”
Not a pushy man, Dan had said his piece. There was no point in beating the subject like a dead horse. “You know what’s best for you,” he said simply. “So how were things at the hospital last night? After the fancy operating rooms you practiced in in L.A., our little hospital must have been quite a shock to you. You probably felt like you’d stepped back in time.”
Reilly had to grin at that. “Well, maybe just a little, but I didn’t encounter anything I couldn’t handle. By the end of the evening, I felt right at home.”
“Good.” Pleased, Dan sat back as the waitress delivered their food. “I can’t remember the last time I had a night off. It was great, thanks to you.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” Reilly said with a wry shrug. And Dan was no more grateful than he was. After sitting at home and brooding for months in L.A., he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed work. Last night he’d been so busy that he hadn’t had much time to think about Victoria.
His brother had been right—he had needed a change of scene and he hadn’t even realized it. He’d needed to work again, to find himself in medicine, and Liberty Hill, at least so far, seemed like a good place to do that. Dan was an excellent doctor—intelligent, thorough, kind—and Reilly hoped that their temporary three-month partnership worked out for both of them. He liked Dan and felt sure he was someone he could work with.
As for the patients Reilly was confident they would come around. He’d never lived in a small town before, but people were pretty much the same everywhere. All he had to do was give them time. If they were nosy, they’d learn soon enough that he had no intention of discussing his personal life with them. Once they accepted that, they’d all get along fine.
Satisfied that he had everything well in hand, he and Dan finished their lunch, then walked back to the office, which was conveniently located two blocks from the town square in an old craftsman cottage Dan had converted into office space ten years ago. Not surprisingly, the waiting room was full. Dan had warned him that once word got out that he’d joined the practice, they’d be flooded with patients wanting to get a look at him, and he’d been exactly right. Patients had come in and out of the office in a steady stream all morning, and only a handful of them had really been sick enough to require the attention of a doctor. The rest had used everything from a hangnail to a fake cough as an excuse to see Reilly, and they’d made no apologies for it.
Amused, he took the chart from the door of the first examining room and read the name on it. Myrtle Henderson. Stepping inside, he found an older woman pacing the small confines of the examining room impatiently. Tall and spare, with a lively step, she appeared to be in her early seventies and in excellent shape for her age. Reilly didn’t doubt for a second that she, like so many of the others, had come to check him out. According to her chart, she’d come in complaining of dizziness, but the second she heard him step through the door, she whirled to face him without the slightest sign of unsteadiness. If she was dizzy, she hid it well.
“You must be Dr. Jones,” she said with a delighted smile, holding out her hand for a firm shake. “Welcome to our neck of the woods, Doctor. It’s good to have you here.”
Amused, Reilly couldn’t help but like her. She looked as if she could be as tough as nails when the occasion called for it, but there was a twinkle in her direct blue eyes that was hard to resist. “Thank you, ma’am. It’s nice to be here. I understand you’re having a problem with dizziness. Why don’t you sit down and I’ll take your blood pressure?”
Reluctantly she took the