Unexpected tears clogged her throat as she watched his long legs take him from the kitchen in fast strides, despite the risk of slipping, and she angrily swallowed them down. It shouldn’t make her want to cry that he didn’t want to spend time with her. Why would he? If she were him she’d keep as far away as possible from the woman who’d wrecked their dreams. And hadn’t figuring out ways to avoid him been at the top of her mind the minute she’d bought her plane ticket?
But the quiet tears slid down her cheeks anyway.
“I’M GOING TO up your dose another twenty-five milligrams, Wilma,” Jake said as he wrote a prescription for his elderly patient. “Your blood pressure is better, but still a little high.”
“Okay, Dr. Hunter. I’ll take it every day if you think I should.”
He paused and glanced up at her. “You told me you had been taking it every day.”
She took the paper he handed her and made a sheepish face. “Maybe not every day.”
“If it’s hard for you to remember I can have Ellie get you a pill box that helps you keep track. Are you going to Fairbanks soon, so you can fill this? Or do you need one of us to get it for you?”
“I want to get supplies before the snow comes, so my son’s taking me tomorrow.”
“Good.”
He helped the woman down from the examination table and gave her a few more instructions. After she’d left the small room he wrote a note to himself to talk with her son to make sure she both got and took her medicine, then started typing his exam notes into the computer.
Ellie, who’d been office manager of this place for as long as he could remember, poked her graying head in the door. “Your mom’s here with Mika.”
“Already?” He glanced at his watch, wondering how it had gotten so late. “Have her come in here while I finish this up.”
The gleeful shriek that had been part of his world for the past eight months had him smiling before he even looked up from the computer. “I see he’s in a happy mood. Thanks for watching him again, Ma.”
“He’s such a good boy.” His mother beamed down at the baby in her arms. “He was cranky before his nap, but he’s been all smiles since.”
“I just need to finish up these notes, and then I have one more patient to see. Can you take Mika to my office to play until I’m done? Shouldn’t be long.”
“You still have things for him in there? Your dad bought him a new toy in Fairbanks today, but it’s at our house for when we’re babysitting. I told him he was going to spoil the child to death, since he’ll be getting all kinds of toys for his birthday. One-year-olds deserve a special party, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think he cares if he gets a party, but I do know he’ll love the attention.” He glanced up and smiled. “As for the spoiling—you were both good at that with all three of us, growing up, but I think we turned out okay.”
“Yes, you sure did. Two doctors and a lawyer? Not bad at all.”
“Yeah, except Timothy always said I’d be the doctor, Grace would be the lawyer and he wanted to be the Native American chief. I think he still kind of wishes that had happened, instead of planning to come work here next year when he’s finished with his residency.”
He finished the notes and stood. The serious look his mother sent him was a surprise, considering their light conversation.
“What?”
“Have you invited Rory over for dinner yet?”
“No, and I’m not planning to—which I already told you.”
Seeing her in the office when she brought in her mother was going to be difficult enough. The last thing he wanted was hours of small-talk with the woman he’d thought would be with him forever—the woman who’d crushed his heart into tiny pieces, then stomped on them for good measure.
“She’s busy with her mother, and I’m busy with work and Mika.”
“Then I’ll invite her. I want to catch up with all she’s been doing since she moved to LA.”
“Go ahead and invite her, then. Just don’t expect me to come, too.”
“Jacob,” she said in a disapproving voice. “It’s been a long time. I know things were...bad for both of you. But can’t you two just be friends now, since you went through the same heartache together? You were such good pals for such a long time.”
Good pals. That had been true for what seemed like nearly his entire life—until they’d become lovers. And then had come the happy surprise...before the horrible shock and the heartbreak. The fact that his mother wanted him to be friends with Rory now told him she had no clue how bad it had really been.
He wished he didn’t still feel the bitter resentment and hurt. But seeing her for even a few minutes last night had proved he still wasn’t ready to move on from that.
Maybe he never would be.
The moment he’d walked in through her mother’s front door a storm of emotion had swarmed up and strangled him. Far more than he’d expected, considering it had been seven years since he’d last seen her at her dad’s funeral, and they’d barely spoken then.
But he hadn’t forgotten the amazing deep green of her eyes—like moss on a hillside in the summer. The honey highlights in her silky brown hair. And when he’d slipped and fallen on that damned floor, and she’d leaned over him, he’d been stunned that she smelled exactly the same as she always had. She obviously still dabbed grapefruit oil on her skin—something her mother had encouraged her to use as a child, claiming it boosted the immune system and made people feel more cheerful.
Rory had always rolled her eyes at her mother’s conviction about all the things herbal oils would do for a person, and he’d sometimes wondered why she used it when it she claimed she didn’t believe in it. Obviously she liked the stuff, no matter what she said about it.
If he closed his eyes he swore he could still smell her. But he wasn’t going to tell his mother about all those memories and the discomfort—damn it, the anguish he’d felt when Rory left. Or that it was careening around inside of him all over again.
Before he could come up with some kind of answer that would satisfy her, Ellie poked her head in the door again.
“Rory Anderson is on the line. She says she thinks her mom has a urinary tract infection. She’s having trouble passing urine, and it’s cloudy. She’s wondering if she can get an antibiotic from you.”
He hesitated, then opened his mouth to say he’d write it and Ellie could call it into the pharmacy in Fairbanks. He forced himself to close it again. His policy was never to prescribe medicine—especially antibiotics—over the phone. He had to see the patient first, make sure it was really what they needed.
But maybe this time he could make an exception, since Rory was a doctor. He could leave a prescription at the front desk for Rory to pick up, and he wouldn’t have to see her—except for the day after her mother went to her surgeon for a follow-up.
No. Much as he didn’t want to see Rory, he couldn’t let his feelings urge him to violate good medical practice. Rory dealt with bones in her job. Who knew when she’d last had a patient with a UTI? Not to mention that a lot of surgeons called in antibiotic specialists for post-op infections. Truth was, there was no way around it.
He grimaced. “Tell her to bring Wendy in right now. We’ll fit her in