Never Been Kissed

He liked the idea of not being bothered by neighbors as he had been in L.A. He’d known they were concerned about him, and he appreciated that, but all he’d wanted was the silence of his own company. Living out here, so far from anyone, he wouldn’t have to worry about someone dropping by to borrow a cup of sugar, thank God. And for no other reason than that, he was prepared to love the place even if it turned out to be an architectural nightmare.

The cabin that Nick had built with the help of some friends, however, was far from the leaning shack that Reilly had expected. It may have been rough-hewn and a quarter of the size of his old house in L.A., but it had a porch across the front and back, a fieldstone fireplace, and paned windows that gave it an old-fashioned charm that would be nice to come home to after a long day at work. As Nick braked to a stop in the circular drive and cut the engine, Reilly took one long look and didn’t need to see anything else.

“I’ll take it.”

Already in the process of stepping from the car, Nick leaned down to swivel a sharp look at him. “Don’t you want to look inside?”

“Sure, but it’s just a formality,” he retorted. “This is just what I was looking for. Is it furnished?”

Amazed that he could make a decision so easily, Nick nodded. “I didn’t take much when I married Merry and moved into her place—just a chest and a couple of end tables. When do you expect your things from California? You can go ahead and move in today if you like, but it’s going to take me a couple of days to find a place to store everything—”

“Don’t bother. I’ll take it the way it is, if that’s okay with you. I sold all my things in California with the house.”

Surprised, Nick wanted to ask him what could bring a man to sell everything he owned and cut all ties with his past, but Reilly’s expression had turned distant, his eyes shuttered. Wondering what his story was, Nick didn’t push. In his business, he’d learned that people talked when they were ready. And judging from the wall he had built around himself, Reilly was a long way from ready.

Respecting his privacy, Nick said easily, “Sure. No problem.” Naming a fair market price for the rent, he arched a brow at him. “How does that sound to you?”

“More than fair,” Reilly replied, and stuck out his hand. “So we have a deal?”

Pleased, Nick grinned and shook his hand. “Deal!”

“Sorry, Wanda, darling, but a full house beats three of a kind. If my calculations are right you now owe me six million big ones and a handful of M&M candies. I’ll take the candy now, thank you very much.”

“Not so fast, Robin Hood,” Janey drawled before Scott Bradford could grab the colorful candy piled high in the middle of the table. “You may have a full house, but if I remember correctly, that can’t hold a candle to a royal flush.” Smiling hugely, she laid down her cards on the table to the cheers of Scott’s wife, Wanda, who was down to her last piece of candy. Her brown eyes dancing, Janey smiled smugly at Scott. “Now what was that you were saying about candy, pretty boy?”

For an answer he shot her a less-than-polite hand gesture.

Far from offended, Janey only laughed. She’d known Scott all her life—his uncle’s ranch boarded her family’s, and they’d gone through school together. And for the last few years he and Wanda invariably spent two evenings a week with Janey at the local volunteer fire department volunteering as emergency medical technicians. And tonight, as most Thursday nights, they passed the time playing poker while they waited for the radio to crackle to life with the report of an accident or the phone to ring with an emergency call.

They rarely got either.

Oh, they got their fair share of calls, but the calls were usually for something minor—like a twisted ankle or heart pains that turned out to be heartburn, and then there was the time Margaret Hopper got stuck in the bathtub and it took not only the entire EMT team but two firefighters, as well, to get her out. Tonight the phone was thankfully silent. Janey hoped it stayed that way.

A grin twitching at his lips, Scott watched her rake in her winnings and groaned in pretended pain. When Janey arched an inquiring brow at him, he pressed a hand to his stomach and moaned again. “I think I must be going through withdrawals. Help me, Janey. You wouldn’t deny your old friend a few M&Ms, would you? I’m dying here.”

“Then we’ve got to do something!” Jumping to her feet, she grabbed her stethoscope. “Quick, Wanda, help me get him into the ambulance. We’ve got to get him to the hospital.”

“Do you want me to call your mama, honey?” his wife crooned, laughing when he scowled at her. “I’m sure she would want to know about this—”

Enjoying themselves, she and Janey would have continued to tease him unmercifully, but before they got the chance, the radio suddenly started to crackle and Nick’s voice, rough with static, filled the room. “This is County One calling County 911. Janey? Are you there?”

Her smile fading, Janey stepped quickly over to the radio and grabbed the mike. “Yes, go ahead, Nick. What’s the problem?”

“We’ve got a one-vehicle accident out on Eagle Ridge Highway ten miles north of town. The driver took a curve too fast and rolled his SUV. He and his girlfriend weren’t wearing their seat belts, and were both thrown from the vehicle. You’d better get out here as quick as you can.”

He didn’t have to tell her twice. Already reaching for her bag, Janey said, “We’re on our way.”

They may have been volunteers, but they, like the rest of the local residents who worked the station on a regular basis, prided themselves on always being ready for whatever emergency cropped up. And this time was no exception. The ambulance was stocked with everything they needed, and by the time Janey ended the call a few seconds later, the rest of the team was already in the cab of the vehicle and waiting for her. She quickly jumped in next to Wanda, who sat in the middle, and was still reaching for her seat belt when Scott pulled out of the garage of the volunteer fire department with sirens blazing. Seconds later they turned north on the Eagle Ridge Highway and left town far behind.

If it hadn’t been for the flares Nick had set out marking the spot of the accident, they might have driven right past without even noticing it. In the dark it was impossible to see the wrecked car at the bottom of the ravine that ran parallel with the highway.

Nick had, however, managed to get his patrol car down there, and Scott carefully followed his path in the ambulance. “Ouch,” he said when the vehicle’s headlights landed on the smashed SUV. A foreign make that obviously didn’t stand up well to crash tests, it was banged in on all sides and nearly as flat as a pancake.

“It looks like a tin can that’s been run over by a semi,” Wanda said.

Janey had to agree. “I don’t know how anyone made it out alive.”

As it was, the two survivors weren’t in the best of shape. The driver was bleeding and unconscious, while his girlfriend was suffering from a broken leg and arm and going into shock. Janey and her team took one look at them and went right to work. They knew the routine, and although Janey was the only one who actually worked in the medical field, both Scott and Wanda had had extensive training in emergency medical care. They didn’t need instructions to know what to do.

Within minutes the girlfriend’s broken bones were immobilized, and she was given fluids to help counteract the shock. Her boyfriend wasn’t so lucky. He’d regained consciousness, but his pulse was thready, his blood pressure falling, and Janey was sure he was bleeding internally. They didn’t have a lot of time to waste. Hurriedly easing both victims onto stretchers, they quickly loaded them into the ambulance, then raced back to town.

Scott radioed the hospital with a report of the victims’ condition and their estimated time of arrival, but Janey hardly noticed. With all her attention focused on her patient and his rapidly falling blood pressure, she never even noticed that they made it back to the hospital in record time. Suddenly the back doors of the ambulance flew open, and there were hands to unload both patients and rush them inside.

In the organized chaos that was the emergency room, the driver and his girlfriend were taken to separate cubicles and quickly examined. Vital signs were hurriedly taken and called out, and in the madness, Janey heard a nurse working on the girlfriend tell someone to call for X rays and Dr. Easton, the only orthopedic surgeon in town. But it was the driver that Janey was worried about. He’d slipped back into unconsciousness again. If he didn’t get into surgery soon, they were going to lose him.

Hurriedly she helped cut away his clothes and hook him up to a heart monitor. During the entire procedure she never took her eyes off his still figure. “Where’s Dr. Michaels? Has anybody paged him? Somebody send an orderly for him—”

“There’s no need to send an orderly,” a cool, husky voice cut in smoothly. “I’m taking over for Dr. Michaels tonight.”

Startled, Janey looked up from the patient, directly into the deep-blue eyes of the stranded California motorist she’d stopped to help the day before yesterday when his BMW broke down on the side of the road. She’d only seen him that once, and then only for a few minutes, but she would have known those eyes of his in the far reaches of Mongolia. As dark as the sky before a winter storm, they were tinged with a sadness that touched her heart.

She’d never been able to stand to see anyone in pain and wanted to ask who or what had put that look in his eyes, but he had a reserve about him that didn’t encourage questions. Then, with a blink, recognition flared and his only expression was surprise.

It was her—the woman who’d stopped to help him his first day in town. He’d thought she was some rancher’s wife—she’d had the look of one, driving a Jeep and wearing jeans and cowboy boots that were scarred from use—but here she was in an EMT’s uniform and right at home in the emergency. Who the hell was she?

If a patient hadn’t lay there bleeding to death right in front of him, he would have asked. As it was, all he could do was growl, “Let’s get this man to surgery,” and quickly help push the stretcher down the hall to the surgical wing of the small two-story hospital.

She didn’t accompany him and the other nurses, but stayed behind in the E.R. Watching him disappear behind the double doors that led to surgery, she frowned, questions swirling like a swarm of bees in her head. Who was he? There was no question that he was a doctor—she only had to see him in action in the E.R. to know that—but what was a doctor from California doing in Liberty Hill, for heaven’s sake? She’d just thought he was a traveler passing through town who’d made a wrong turn.

“Isn’t he the best-looking man you’ve ever seen in your life?” a dreamy voice sighed beside her. “It’s the eyes, you know. So sad and lonely. I’ll bet he needs a good woman.”

Turning to face the head nurse of the E.R., Janey tried not to flinch. Tanya had never been one of her favorite people—she was too bold and wild, and since her recent divorce, she’d become even more so. She’d already come on to every eligible man in town, not to mention a few married ones, since she’d walked out on her husband. Considering that, Janey wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if she’d set her sights on the new doctor without bothering to ask—or care—if he was married or not.

“I wouldn’t know,” Janey said quietly. “Who is he?”

“Dr. Reilly Jones,” Tanya replied, savoring the name as if it was some new tasty treat. “He just joined Dr. Michaels’s practice today.”

Shocked, Janey couldn’t believe she’d heard correctly. “Dan never said anything about taking on a partner. What’s going on?”

“I wish I knew,” Tanya said with one last longing look at the doors Reilly disappeared behind. “The word going around the hospital is Dr. Michaels is retiring and Reilly Jones is taking over his practice for him. Nobody knows who he is, though, or what his story is. I almost asked, but then I thought it’d be better not to push my luck. He seems to be a very private man, so I figured I’d give him some time to get comfortable here, then make my move.”

Janey didn’t care about Reilly Jones—if he was stupid enough to be taken in by Tanya, than he was dumber than she thought he was. No, it was Dan she was concerned about. He and his wife, Peggy, had been her parents’ best friends, then when Peggy and Janey’s father had both died, Dan and her mother had continued their friendship over the years. He was like a member of the family, and if he was retiring without telling anyone, something had to be horribly wrong.

Afraid he might be sick or something, Janey almost woke her mother to find out what was going on, later that evening when her shift was over and she went home, but she didn’t want to scare her. So she spent what was left of the night worrying about Dan and barely slept. Up by five-thirty and scheduled to report to work at her regular job at the nursing home by seven, she hurried downstairs just as soon as she was dressed.

As usual her mother, Sara, was already up and in the kitchen making breakfast. Seeing her at the old O’Keefe and Merrit stove that her mother wouldn’t have traded for anything, Janey had to smile. For as long as she could remember, her mother had been right there every morning of her life when she came down to breakfast. And today, as always, it amazed Janey how time had hardly touched her at all.

Sara Dawson McBride was sixty-four and didn’t look a day past fifty. She’d always claimed she was lucky to have good bone structure, but Janey knew better. Her mother had a good heart, the kind that would keep her forever young. Janey only hoped she was as lucky.

Glancing up from the stove, Sara sent her a smile that was as bright as the copper teakettle whistling happily on the stove. “Good morning, sweetie. Did you sleep well?”

She’d meant to wait until after breakfast to ask about Dan and Reilly Jones, but she found that she couldn’t. “Not really. I met a new doctor at the hospital last night. His name’s Reilly Jones. Apparently, he’s Dan’s new partner. I was shocked. Is Dan sick or something? The word going around the hospital is he’s going to retire.”

“But not because he’s sick,” her mother assured her quickly. “He’s been thinking about retiring for some time now, but he didn’t want me to say anything until he had someone lined up he felt comfortable turning his practice over to.”

“And Reilly Jones is that man?”

Unable to speculate on that, Sara poured them both a cup of tea. “It’s too early to tell. Right now they just have a temporary partnership—after three months they’ll decide if they want to make it permanent. Dan’s keeping his fingers crossed that it’ll work out. A doctor of Reilly’s caliber doesn’t come along every day. He’s an excellent heart surgeon.”

In the process of setting the table for breakfast, Janey frowned. “But Dan has a family practice. I wouldn’t think a cardiologist would be interested in that at all, especially in a small town like Liberty Hill. Most of the local surgeries are pretty routine.”

“He apparently wanted a break from L.A.,” Sara said simply. “His wife died recently, and he decided he needed a complete change of scene.”

That explained the sadness in his eyes. “That must have been very difficult for him. What happened?”

Sara shrugged. “He didn’t want to talk about it to Dan, so all I know is that he showed up in town the day before yesterday with only a fancy foreign car and two suitcases to his name. He didn’t even have a place to stay until Nick rented him the cabin.”

That stunned Janey almost as much as the news that Dan had taken on a partner. “Why am I just now finding out about this?”

But even as she asked, she knew. She’d worked double shifts at the nursing home all week because they were shorthanded due to an early flu bug that was going around. Then last night she’d spent half the night working with the volunteer fire department. She hadn’t seen any of the family except in passing all week.

“I guess I haven’t been around much,” she admitted with a grimace. “Obviously the good doctor impressed Nick—that cabin’s his baby. He wouldn’t rent to just anybody.”

“Dan says he’s a good man,” her mother replied. “Nick thinks so, too.”

And that said a lot. Besides her brothers, Janey couldn’t think of two men she respected more. If Reilly Jones made a good impression on them, that should have been enough to silence any questions she had about the man. It didn’t. As far as she could see, it just didn’t make sense. A man didn’t leave a million-dollar practice in L.A. for a significantly smaller one in the wilds of Colorado without a darn good reason. So what was Reilly Jones’s story? It would be interesting to find out.

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.