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  Marianne helped Cathy out of her clothes and into a hospital gown. If Cathy had felt vulnerable before this, the added factor of being in a garment that had so many openings closed only by drawstrings tripled the feeling. The nurse eased Cathy onto the examining table, covered her with a clean sheet, and called Marcus back into the room.

  "Now, Cathy, the first thing I want to do is have a closer look at that cut on your head." Marcus slipped on a pair of latex gloves and probed the wound.

  Cathy flinched. "How does it look?"

  "Not too bad. One laceration about three or four centimeters long in the frontal area. Not too deep. The bleeding's almost stopped now. We'll get some skull films, then I'll suture it." He wound a soft gauze bandage around her head and taped it.

  Marcus flipped offhis gloves and picked up the clipboard that Cathy knew held the beginnings of her chart. "Why don't you tell me what happened?"

  At first, Cathy laid out the details of the accident and her injuries in terse clinical language, as though presenting a case to an attending physician at Grand Rounds. She did fine until she realized how close she'd come to being killed, apparently by someone who meant to do just that. There were a couple of strangled hiccups, then a few muffled sobs before the calm physician turned into a blubbering girl. "I'm . . . I'm sorry." She reached for a tissue from the box Marcus held out.

  "No problem. If you weren't upset by all that, you wouldn't be normal." Marcus took an ophthalmoscope from the wall rack and shined its light into her eyes. "How's your vision?"

  "Still a little fuzzy—some halos around lights. I figured it was from the blood running into my eyes."

  He put down the instrument and rummaged in the drug cabinet. "Let's wash out your eyes. I don't want you to get a chemical keratitis from the powder on the air bag. I'll give you some eye drops, but if your vision gets worse or doesn't clear in a day or so, I want you to see an ophthalmologist."

  "Oh, right." The fact that she hadn't thought of that underscored to Cathy how shaken she still was.

  "Now, let's see what else might be injured." Marcus took her left wrist and gently probed with his fingers. Apparently satisfied, he proceeded up along the bones of the arm. His touch was gentle, yet firm, and Cathy found it somehow reassuring. "We'll need some X-rays. I want you to help me figure out the right parts."

  "I can't help you much. I'm hurting pretty much everywhere," Cathy said. "But I haven't felt any bones grating. I think I'm just banged up."

  Marcus turned his attention to her right arm. He paused in his prodding long enough to touch her chin and raise her head until their eyes met. "You're like all of us. You think that because you're a doctor you can't be hurt or sick."

  "That's not true. I don't— Ow!" His hand on the point of her right shoulder sent a flash of pain along her collarbone.

  "That's more like it. We'll get an X-ray of that shoulder and your clavicle. Seatbelt injuries do that sometimes. Now see if you can finish telling me what happened."

  This time she got through the story without tearing up, although Marcus's efforts to find something broken or dislocated brought forth a number of additional flinches and exclamations.

  "I really do think I'm fine except for some bruises," she concluded.

  "Really?"

  "Okay, I'm also scared. And a little bit mad."

  A tinny voice over the intercom interrupted her. "Dr. Bell, is Marianne still in there?"

  "I'm here," the nurse replied.

  "Can you help us out? There's a pedi patient in Treatment Room Two with suspected meningitis. They're about to do a spinal tap."

  "Go ahead," Marcus said. "We can take it from here."

  No sooner had the nurse closed the door than there was a firm tap on it.

  "Jerry?" Marcus called.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Come in."

  The door creaked open, and Cathy turned. The pain that coursed through her neck made her regret the decision. A man in starched, immaculate whites strode into the room and stopped at an easy parade rest. A smattering of gray at the temples softened the red in his buzz-cut hair.

  Marcus did the honors. "Dr. Sewell, this is Jerry O'Neal.Jerry retired after twenty years as a Marine corpsman, and he's now the senior radiology technician at Summers County General. He probably knows as much medicine as you and I put together, but he's too polite to let it show."

  "Pleasure to meet you, Doctor," Jerry said.

  Marcus handed the clipboard chart to Jerry. "Dr. Sewell's been in an auto accident. She has a scalp laceration I'll need to suture, but first, would you get a skull series, films of the right shoulder and clavicle?" He thought a bit. "Right knee.Right lower leg. While we're at it, better do a C-spine too."

  "Yes, sir," Jerry said. "Is that all?"

  Marcus looked back at Cathy. "If you catch her rubbing anything else, shoot it. Call me when you've got the films ready."

  Cathy half expected Jerry to salute Marcus. Instead, he nodded silently before helping her offthe exam table and into a wheelchair.

  "Don't worry, Dr. Sewell. You're in good hands."

  She tried to relax and take Jerry at his word. "Why haven't I seen you around before this?"

  Jerry fiddled with some dials. "I work weekdays as a trouble-shooter for an X-ray equipment company in Dallas.I'm only here on weekends. It fills the empty hours."

  That's why I was taking a drive on Saturday afternoon. Filling the empty hours. That started a chain of thought Cathy didn't want to pursue. Instead, she concentrated on getting through the next few minutes.

  The X-rays took less time and caused less discomfort than Cathy expected. She could see why Marcus thought so highly of Jerry. Soon she was back in the treatment room, lying on the examination table. Jerry put up two of the X-rays on the wall view box and stacked the others neatly on the metal table beneath it.

  "I'll get Dr. Bell now. Will you be okay here for a minute?"

  Cathy assured Jerry that she was fine, although she finally realized how many bumps and bruises she'd accumulated in the crash. Every movement seemed to make something else hurt.

  When she thought about what came next, her anxiety kicked into high gear. Would Marcus have to shave her scalp before placing the stitches? She recalled her own experiences suturing scalp lacerations in the Parkland Hospital Emergency Room. Maybe it was a woman thing, but she'd felt sorry for those patients, walking out with a shaved spot on their head, a bald patch that was sometimes the size of a drink coaster. She hated the prospect of facing her patients on Monday in that condition. Truthfully, she even hated the prospect of looking at herself in the mirror. She was thinking about wigs when Marcus reentered the room.

  "Let's see what we've got." He stepped to the view box and ran through the X-rays. "Skull series looks fine. . . . Neck is good. . . . Shoulder looks okay. . . .The clavicle isn't fractured.. . . You are one lucky woman. Looks like all I have to do is suture that scalp laceration."

  Cathy was surprised when Marcus didn't call for help but rather assembled the necessary instruments and equipment himself. When he slipped his gloves on, she closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. The fact that she'd been on the other end of this procedure hundreds of times just made her dread it more.

  Marcus's touch was gentle as he cleaned the wound. Soon she felt the sting of a local anesthetic injection. After that, there was nothing except an occasional tug as he sutured.

  Cathy processed what she'd just felt. "You didn't shave my scalp."

  "Now why would I want to mar that natural beauty of yours? I didn't paint the wound orange with Betadine, either.I used a clear antiseptic to prep the area and KY jelly to plaster the hair down out of my way. The sutures are clear nylon that won't be noticeable in your blonde hair. When I'm finished, I'll paint some collodion over the wound to protect it. In the morning, clean the area with a damp cloth, brush your hair over it, and no one will know the difference."

  Cathy couldn't believe what she'd heard. "Natural beauty?" This was certa
inly at odds with what she'd been told about Marcus Bell. Since the death of his wife, Marcus apparently wanted nothing to do with women. Rumor had it he'd turned aside the advances of most of the single women in Dainger. Was he flirting with her now? Or was this simply his bedside manner?

  Marcus snapped offhis gloves and tossed them in the bucket at the end of the table. "See me in a week to remove the stitches—unless you want to stand on a box and look down on the top of your own head to remove them yourself."

  "Okay, I get it. I'll stop being my own doctor," she said.

  "How about something for the pain?"

  "I think I'll be okay."

  "Tetanus shot?"

  "I'm current."

  "Then how about dinner with me next Thursday?"

  Once more, Cathy felt her head spin, but this time it had nothing to do with tumbling about in a runaway car.

  Cathy had always dreaded Monday mornings, but none so much as this one. Today it was time to show her face to the world.

  She took one last look in the mirror. Cathy had figured that her fair complexion would make her bruises show up like tire tracks on fresh snow, but the judicious application of some Covermark had done its job well. The redness she'd noticed in her eyes two days ago had responded well to the eye drops Marcus prescribed. And, true to his prediction, she'd been able to style her hair so that the blonde strands almost hid the stitches in her scalp. A little more lipstick and blusher than usual, drawing attention to her face instead of her hair, and maybe she could fake her way through the day.

  No matter how successful she'd been in covering the outward signs of the accident, it was still impossible for her to move without aches and pains. She popped a couple of Extra Strength Tylenol, washed them down with the remnants of her second cup of coffee, and headed out the door to face another week. If the medication kicked in soon, maybe Jane wouldn't notice that Cathy moved like an old woman.Maybe Jane hadn't heard the news about the accident. Yeah, and maybe the President would call today and invite Cathy to dinner at the White House.

  Cathy tried to sneak in the back door, but Jane's hearing was awfully good for a woman her age. She met Cathy at the door to her office, clucking like a mother hen and shaking her head. "Dr. Sewell, what happened to you?"

  What a break it had been for her when Jane—a trim, silver-haired grandmother with a sassy twinkle in her eye— answered her ad for a combination office nurse and secretary.She'd helped Cathy set up the office, given her advice on business, and provided a sympathetic ear on more occasions than she could count.

  Cathy recognized Jane's question as rhetorical. Having grown up in Dainger, Cathy knew how quickly news spread in her hometown. She'd bet that Jane had known about the accident before Cathy had cleared the emergency room doors on Saturday. By now, probably everyone in town knew.

  "I was out for a ride in the country. I needed to relax and clear my mind. Then someone ran me offthe road out near Big Sandy Creek. My car went out of control, flipped, and took out a row of Seth Johnson's peach trees." Cathy winced as she dropped her purse into the bottom drawer of her desk. "Dr. Bell sutured a laceration on my scalp."

  "Any other injuries? Do we need to cancel today's patients?"

  Cathy shook her head, aggravating a headache that the Tylenol had only dulled. "Other than the fact that I feel like I've just finished a week of two-a-day practices with the Dallas Cowboys, I'm okay."

  "It's good that you have a nice light schedule today. You can take it easy."

  Cathy frowned. A "nice light schedule" for a doctor just getting started as a family practitioner wasn't exactly the stuff she dreamed about. She needed patients. The money from the bank loan was about gone, and her income stream was anything but impressive. But she'd do the best she could.Anything had to beat living in Dallas, knowing she might run into Robert.

  Speak of the devil. Cathy actually shuddered when she saw the return address on the envelope sitting in the middle of her desk: Robert Edward Newell, M.D.

  She clamped her jaws shut, snatched up a brass letter opener, and ripped open the envelope. Inside were two newspaper clippings and a few words scribbled on a piece of white notepaper with an ad for a hypertension drug at the top of the page. The first clipping announced the engagement of Miss Laura Lynn Hunt, daughter of Dr. Earl and Mrs. Betty Hunt, to Dr. Robert Edward Newell. The second featured a photo of Laura Lynn and Robert, she in a high couture evening gown, he in a perfectly fitting tux, arriving at the Terpsichorean Ball. The note was brief and to the point: "See what you've missed?" No signature. Just a reminder, one that made her grit her teeth until her jaws ached. Leave it to Robert to rub salt in her wounds.

  She forced herself to sit quietly and breathe deeply until the knot in her throat loosened. Then she wadded the clippings and note into a tight ball, which she consigned to the wastebasket with as much force as she could muster.

  No use rethinking the past. Time to get on with her life."Jane," she called, "may I have the charts for today's patients? I want to go over them."

  Jane returned and deposited a pitifully small stack of thin charts on Cathy's desk. The look in Jane's eyes said it all.Sorry there aren't more. Sorry you're hurting. Sorry.

  Cathy picked up the top chart but didn't open it. "Do you think I made a mistake coming here to practice?"

  Jane eased into one of the patient chairs across the desk from Cathy. "Why would you ask that?"

  "I applied at three banks before I got a loan. When I mention to other doctors that I'm taking new patients, they get this embarrassed look and mumble something about keeping that in mind, but they never make any referrals.Several of my patients tell me they've heard stories around town that make them wonder about my capabilities. And my privileges at the hospital have been stuck in committee for over a month now." Cathy pointed to the stitches in her scalp. "Now the situation seems to be escalating."

  "You mean the accident on Saturday?"

  "It was no accident. I'm convinced that someone ran me offthe road and intended to kill me."

  "Did you report it?" Jane asked.

  "Yes, but fat lot of good it did. If Will Kennedy hadn't insisted, I think the deputy who came out to investigate the accident would have written the whole thing offas careless driving on my part." Cathy grimaced. "Of course, he may do that anyway."

  "What was Will Kennedy doing there?"

  "He came along right after the wreck. When I couldn't manage under my own power, Will carried me up the embankment. Then he insisted I go to the emergency room, and when they were loading me into the ambulance he slipped his card into my hand and whispered, 'Please call me. I want to make sure you're okay.' " Cathy pulled a business card from the pocket of her skirt, smoothed the wrinkles from it, and put it under the corner of her blotter.

  "Did you phone him?"

  Cathy shook her head. "I started to, but I couldn't. I'm not ready to get close to any man. Not Will Kennedy.Not Marcus Bell. Not Robert Newell." She took in a deep breath through her nose and let it out through pursed lips.

  "Especially not Robert Newell."

  "Who is—?"

  Before Jane could finish, Cathy spun around in her chair and pulled a book at random from the shelf behind her."Not now. Please. I need to look up something before I see my first patient." She paged the book, but none of the words registered.

  Jane's voice from behind her made Cathy close the book."Dr. Sewell, you asked me a question. Let me answer it before I go. I don't know if someone's really making an effort to run you off. I've heard some of those rumors. They're always anonymous, like 'Somebody told me that Dr. Sewell's not a good doctor.' Or 'I heard Dr. Sewell came back to Dainger because she couldn't make it in Dallas.' You have to ignore the gossip and rumors. They're part of living here."

  Cathy swiveled back to face Jane. "I thought it would be easier to get my practice started in my hometown."

  "It might be, except that people here will compare you to your daddy, who was the best surgeon Dainger ever saw. I
n that situation a young, female doctor will come up short, no matter how qualified she is."

  Cathy tossed the book on her desk and held her hands up, palms forward. "If someone wants to get rid of me, they're close to succeeding. I don't know how much longer I can go on."

  "You're a fighter, and I'm right here with you. Just stick with it." Jane turned and walked toward the doorway.

  "Thanks. I appreciate it."

  Jane stopped and faced Cathy once more. "Have you been out to visit your folks?"

  "It won't do any good. There's nothing for me there. I don't have anything to say."

  Jane shook her head. "Sometimes you don't have to say anything. Sometimes you simply have to make the effort and go. It's the only way you'll ever put all that behind you."

  2

  MR. NIX, HOW CAN I HELP YOU?" CATHY SQUIRMED A BIT, HOPING TO achieve a more comfortable position. When she purchased equipment for her examination rooms, she hadn't figured she'd ever be this sore. Next time, she'd think about a rolling stool with a bit more padding.

  Cathy thought the man sitting on the edge of the treatment table might have shown the briefest of smiles. Or was it a smirk?

  "My family doctor's retiring, Dr. Sewell, and I need my heart medicines renewed. Since my bank has a vested interest in your making a go of it here, I thought maybe I'd try to help you out a little by giving you some of my business."

  Cathy bristled at the word "business" and the condescending attitude that went with it, but she did her best not to show her displeasure. She couldn't afford to alienate this man over something as minor as his choice of words. Besides, each day she saw medicine changing from a profession to a business. What used to be "patients" were now called "consumers" and "physicians" had become "providers."

  Let it go. She plastered a smile on her face. "Let me look at the records Dr. Gladstone's office sent. Then I'll check you over. After that, we can talk about continuing your medications.I'm sure Dr. Gladstone did a good job, although I may suggest we tweak your medications a little bit."