“Oh, no,” she laughed, dismissing the suggestion with a wave of her hand. “We don’t need to do that. I’m healthy as a horse—always have been. You look like you are, too,” she added, neatly changing the subject. “I bet you spent a lot of time playing golf and tennis at a fancy country club in L.A., didn’t you? You’ve got that healthy, outdoor California look to you.”
“Thank you,” he said dryly, and neatly sidetracked her question by not answering it at all.
Undaunted, Myrtle examined him with bright, curious eyes. “So what brought you to Liberty Hill? I’d think a good-looking young man like yourself would go stir crazy here by the end of the week. It’s pretty quiet. There’s not much nightlife. Though I could introduce you around, if you like. I know a couple of nice girls you might like to meet.”
Reilly cringed at the idea, but all he said was, “I appreciate the offer, Mrs. Henderson—”
“Myrtle,” she corrected him with a broad grin and a motherly pat on the hand. “Everyone calls me Myrtle.”
“But right now I don’t have time for a social life. Maybe some other time.”
She surprised him by accepting that with a rueful shrug. “It never hurts to try. If you change your mind, you let me know. I was born and raised here and know everybody in town.”
Her mission accomplished and curiosity satisfied, she sailed out without mentioning her dizziness at all, and Reilly could only smile and shake his head. Unfortunately, the patients he saw after her weren’t nearly as polite. By the time the office closed early at three so he and Dan could go on rounds at the local nursing home, he’d been grilled about everything from his credit history to the number of children he one day hoped to have. And then, there were the women who’d come on to him. He didn’t even want to think about that.
Dan took one look at him as they headed for the nursing home and arched a brow. “Rough afternoon?”
“No, thanks,” he said dryly. “I’ve already had one. Are the women around here always so aggressive?”
To his credit, Dan didn’t laugh. But his lips twitched with wry humor. “So the feeding frenzy’s starting already, has it? I was afraid of that. I went through the same thing after Peggy died.”
“There were some women in L.A. who made it clear they’d be happy to help me through my grief,” Reilly said with a grimace of distaste, “but they were friends. These women don’t even know me!”
“Unfortunately, they know everything important they think they need to know about you,” the older man said as they walked the three blocks to the nursing home. Normally not a cynical man, he ticked off Reilly’s attributes. “You’re single, young, reasonably attractive. And you’ve got M.D. after your name. Every mama wants her daughter to marry a doctor—you know that. It’s not any different here than in L.A. Except that in a town the size of Liberty Hill, doctors are harder to come by. As long as you’re walking around free, you’ll be considered fair game.”
He spoke nothing less than the truth, and they both knew it. Reilly had married Victoria the summer before he started medical school, so he hadn’t been chased by marriage-minded women looking to land a rich doctor who could support them in the manner to which they wanted to become accustomed. But he’d been to more than his share of weddings where thrilled mamas of the bride paraded the groom around the reception hall as if he was a prize, introducing him to everyone as “my new son-in-law, the doctor.” Just thinking about it made him cringe.
That was not going to happen to him!
“They’re wasting their time,” he told Dan grimly as they reached the nursing home and the older man held the door open for him. “Victoria might be gone, but I still love her. I’ll always love her. If I can’t have her, I don’t want anyone.”
Sympathizing with him, Dan knew exactly how he felt. When Peggy had died, he’d thought his world had ended and he could never look at another woman as anything but a friend. He’d been wrong. Reilly would love again, too, but that was something he wasn’t ready to hear yet.
“You’re still new here,” he said diplomatically. “Once the women get to know you and realize you’re really not interested, they’ll back off. Just give them time.”
That sounded good, but Reilly wasn’t holding his breath. Women were the same all over, and as long as they thought he was free, they’d think they had a chance with him. He would have no peace. Resigned, he stepped inside the nursing home, where he would be making rounds twice a week, and braced for more questions as Dr. Michaels began to introduce him to the staff and patients.
He didn’t have to wait long.
“Oh, Dr. Reilly, it’s so good to finally meet you. I heard you were living out at Sheriff Kincaid’s cabin all by yourself. Don’t you have a wife and family?”
“We’ve heard so much about you, Dr. Reilly. Is it true that you had a house on the beach in Malibu and used to date Meg Ryan? Is she as sweet as she looks?”
“Are you married, Doctor? I was just telling my granddaughter she needed to meet you. Why don’t I give you her phone number and you can call her?”
Gritting his teeth as one patient after another quizzed him about his personal life, Reilly admitted that he wasn’t married and had never had the good fortune to meet Meg Ryan. The staff, thankfully, was more restrained, but he didn’t fool himself into thinking that the nurses weren’t listening to every word. More than a few of them had a gleam in their eye that he found all too familiar.
And he wasn’t the only one who noticed. Disapproval glinting in his eyes, Dan sent several of the younger girls back to work with just a frown. “C’mon,” he told Reilly. “There’s someone else I want you to meet. This time of day, she’s usually in the solarium with the Lester sisters.”
Leading the way through the east wing, Dan stepped into the solarium and grinned at the sight of the nurse overseeing a lively game of Parcheesi between two old women in wheelchairs who sat at a wrought-iron table that overlooked an outdoor patio. “Janey! I thought I’d find you here. Come and meet my new partner.”
In the process of rolling the dice for Margaret, who had lost partial use of her right hand due to a stroke four months ago, Janey turned at Dan’s call, a smile already starting to spread across her face. Then she spied the man at his side. He was scowling at her, just as he had when she’d stopped to help him the other day when his BMW broke down on the side of the road.
“Actually, we’ve already met,” she told Dan as she excused herself from the Lester sisters and stepped forward with a smile. “Well, sort of,” she amended wryly, offering Reilly her hand. “We ran into each other at the E.R. last night, but there wasn’t time for an introduction. It’s nice to finally meet you, Doctor. I’m Janey McBride.”
“Reilly Jones,” he said, giving her hand a matter-of-fact shake. “You’re Nick Kincaid’s sister-in-law.”
“Guilty as charged,” she replied, amusement glinting in her brown eyes. “Just for the record, he knows all about my shotgun.”
Chuckling, Dan grinned. “Everybody knows about that shotgun. As far as I know,” he told Reilly, “she’s never had to use it, but that doesn’t mean she can’t. She’s a crackerjack shot. And one of the most caring nurses you’ll ever have the good fortune to work with. You can always depend on her to see that your patients get the finest care.”
It was a glowing recommendation, one that brought a blush to Janey’s cheeks. “I just do what anyone else would do,” she said modestly, and immediately changed the subject. “Liberty Hill’s quite a change