“Oh, I prefer men. Just not right now and not for the foreseeable future.”
“I’m assuming it’s a long, sad story,” he said as he followed Anne to the hall.
“Longest and saddest. And the rest of it’s none of your business.”
“You know how hospital staff talks,” he said, shutting the door behind him.
“Let ‘em talk. Better them than me.” Surprisingly, he picked up a brisk pace, one she found quite difficult to keep up with. Was he testing her or trying to prove something? Admittedly, he did have a lot of strength, and the way he wheeled was something to behold, something athletic.
“Keep up,” he said, slowing his pace a little. “I don’t know where the dining room is, and I’m trusting that you’re going to show me sometime this afternoon. But at that slow pace …”
“Just shut up and wheel,” she said as a smile crept to her face. Yes, he was going to be a challenge. Maybe her biggest one ever. But he did have a grudge to work out, and a whole lot of anger he was going to have to learn to curb. Without therapy! Now, that was the part that was going to be difficult for her—just as Jason had anticipated—not getting involved in such a way as to help him solve his issues.
“By the way, since you asked me to lunch, you are paying for it, aren’t you?”
“Seriously?” she said, fighting back a laugh. If she did get through to this hulk of a man, Jason was going to owe her big time. Big, big time!
“I UNDERSTAND YOU met him,” Jason said to Anne.
“He sat at one end of a table for eight, I sat at the other. Nobody sat between us. And we didn’t talk. Not one word. I paid for his lunch and when he was through eating, he left. Thanked me for my hospitality and simply left.”
“But other than that, how was he?”
“Rude, arrogant, obnoxious, fixed on his work to the point of not even noticing anybody else there.” Her office was adjacent to her treatment room, and both were very relaxed and cozy. An immediate warm feeling drifted down over most of her patients when they came in, and that was done on purpose. Her walls were medium blue, her furniture a lighter blue accented in white, and the music piped in was a soothing Vivaldi or Bach. Atmosphere made a difference in so many of her cases, and she tried hard to achieve that comfort, as comfort equated to trust.
“But workable?”
“That, I don’t know. He’s as resistant a person as I’ve ever met. So this one is going to be the flip of a coin.”
“But you’ll try, since the majority of your referrals will come from him?”
“For a while. But if I see that he’s not working out, you’ll hear from me, Jason. And probably not just me.” Just as that threat rolled off her tongue, she received a text. When she checked it, it said: “See. I don’t bite. Lunch tomorrow?”
Anne sighed.
“What?” Jason asked.
“Nothing. Just an invite to lunch tomorrow,” she said, forcing a smile. “Lucky me.”
Jason headed for the door. “Just be careful, Anne, and you’ll be fine.”
“Don’t worry. I can handle him.” How was the question, though, especially since Jason seemed to have made her the one-person welcome committee, probably owing to her background in psychiatry. If the shrink couldn’t handle him, no one else could, either. What an assumption!
It was going on to seven that evening when Anne finally decided to call it quits. Long days were her norm, especially since she had nothing or no one to go home to. But that was OK because the last time she’d had someone to go home to, he’d been going to other homes. A lot of them. And it made her wonder how she could have been so truly wrong about the man.
Had she expected him to stay faithful while she was overseas? Of course she had. She would have. In fact, she’d been faithful when he’d been the one overseas, fighting, and she’d been stateside, working in a military hospital. It would have never occurred to her to cheat on him, and now she went home to a big, empty house every night, fixed herself a microwave dinner, caught up on some reading, showered and went to bed.
Big night. And nights were the worst, which was why she put in at least a dozen hours a day at the hospital. It was better than going home.
Flipping off the lights, she opened up the door and nearly tripped over Marc, who was merely sitting outside her office door. “What do you want?” she snapped.
“You bought me lunch, so I owe you a meal. Dinner?”
“You don’t owe me anything.” Her heart skipped a beat as she did like the idea of eating with him but she didn’t want to sound too anxious.
“Maybe an apology for being such a jerk today.”
“Apology accepted. Now, if you’ll excuse me …”
“Married, divorced from a lousy cheater, work longer hours than any other doc at Gallahue. I’m betting your evening consists of a microwave dinner and reading medical journals until you fall asleep.”
“I do watch the eleven o’clock news.”
“The epitome of a boring life. Which is why I thought dinner with me is better than dinner with the microwave. Besides, I have some questions to ask you.”
“If they pertain to the hospital, ask Jason.”
“Don’t you find him a little boring?” Marc asked.
“As a chief of staff or as my brother-in-law? Because I’m actually quite fine with him in both capacities.”
“Ah, a family tie.”
“He’s married to my twin sister, so that makes him family.”
“And you spend all the holidays with them, right?”
“How did you know about my divorce?” she asked.
“People talk.”
“But you haven’t even started to practice here yet.”
“And like I said, people talk.”
“They talk to people who give them a warm and fuzzy feeling, and you haven’t got a warm or fuzzy feeling in you.”
“Then it has to be the other thing.”
“What other thing?”
“People don’t see you when you’re in a wheelchair. For some reason, you’re invisible to them, so they talk around you.”
“And people are talking about me?”
“About how your divorce became final recently. Apparently, he’s been fighting you for everything, but you won. Left the man practically destitute.”
“People know too much,” she snapped. “It was an ugly divorce. But since he’s the one who deserted the marriage and left me holding a whole lot of hard feelings, and debt, what can I say other than I’m glad he got everything that’s coming to him?”
“And you’re going to get …”
“First, sell my house. Then buy a nice little cottage, maybe take up gardening. I’d like a cat, too.”
“A cat?”
She smiled. “Everything that makes life nice.”
“No man?”
“Absolutely not! Been there, don’t want to go back.”
“Good,