Millionaire M.D.

Five

“Winona!”

Winona had barel y pushed open the door to the Royal Diner before the waitress shrieked her name. Sheila abandoned her customer and bustled straight toward her.

“I been hearing all over town about you and that baby! Let’s have a look!” Although it was barely the dinner hour, the diner was already filling up. This was not a crowd worried about eating at a fashionably late hour-more likely they were worried about how fast they could get the kids home to bed. Sheila popped her favorite Juicy Fruit gum as she herded Winona and the baby carrier toward a booth in the back, talking the whole while-loud enough, of course, for the whole town to hear.

“Dr. Webb called. Said to put you in a spot away from the drafts and get you started, he’d be here, but he got held up with a patient for a little bit. So you’re seeing Dr. Webb, huh? God, he’s such a hunk. Could make a girl think about getting a breast reduction just to get his hands on her…but I guess that’s a little tasteless, huh? If you’re seeing him and all. But you don’t have to worry about me, honey, he’d never look my way…and I can’t wait to hear the whole story about that baby. Let’s see her, let’s see her…well, aren’t you a beauty, darlin’.”

Sheila tugged down her waitress uniform, which tended to ride up her thighs with every other step. Years ago, Winona had realized that buying another size uniform wasn’t a possibility-not for Sheila. She’d been fighting to stay in a size twelve for half a decade now, and there was no way she was going to let a fourteen win. But right then, she peeled back Angel’s blanket and picked up the baby with a long refrain of oohs and aahs.

Because the baby chortled happily for the attention, Winona decided to let Sheila live. Actually, she was too tired to kill her and too old to feel embarrassed at the waitress’s loud personal gossip. Still, she pushed off her jacket and sank onto the booth seat, wishing for a long, tall whiskey instead of straight water-and she didn’t drink. The thing was, over the last two days, Sheila wasn’t the only townsperson who’d made wild, presumptuous assumptions about Winona’s relationship with Justin.

It didn’t make sense. Folks should have been gossiping ten for a dozen about the plane crash. That was the crisis in town. That was the big news. Who Winona happened to be seeing-or not seeing-shouldn’t have mattered to a soul.

And the really crazy thing was that she wasn’t even seeing Justin. At least not exactly. Yeah, he’d offered to marry her…and for damn sure, that was why she’d insisted on seeing him right now, today, over dinner, and specifically chosen this public place for the occasion…but there was still no reason from here to Austin that anyone should leap to the conclusion that she was “seeing him.” Heaven knew he’d proposed to her fifty times before this. And most folks in Royal had seen her slug him probably that many times-or more.

“Well, okay, honey, if you want to keep it quiet, I won’t tell a soul,” Sheila boomed, as she settled the baby back in the carrier. “But I hope you realize that no one’s curiosity is intended in a mean way. We all love you. We all know you. Anyone who’s had a kid in trouble, for years you were the one who stepped in. This here baby, though…” Efficiently she slapped down two paper place mats that read: The Royal Diner-Food Fit For a King! and then extracted her pen and pad from her front hip pocket. “She doesn’t look Spanish or Indian or Mexican. Not with that blond hair and blue eyes…but you haven’t found the mama yet?”

“Not yet.”

Sheila motioned with her pen. “So, what’ll you have? Dr. Webb, remember, he said for you to order.”

“Really, I’d rather wait for him-”

“No, no. He said you’d be tired from working and from carting the baby around all day. He’ll be here. Just ten minutes late, he said. But he wanted you to start eating. Manny-” she motioned toward the grill cook in back “-he says the pork chops are extra tender today.”

“I was thinking a salad-”

“Now, you can’t build up your strength on leaves and rabbit food, honey. Much less can you build up a bust, and men do tend to like a substantial woman, you know. Did you see my pies up front?” She motioned toward the revolving pie stand near the front door. “Strawberry rhubarb today. And I got a banana cream to die for. You need me to warm up a bottle for the baby? You sleeping with Dr. Webb?”

“Cobb salad. No dessert. Yes, thank you on the bottle, I have one in the diaper bag here. And none of your business.”

Sheila cocked up an eyebrow. “Now, hon, with the Gerards gallivanting on vacation the winter months, who’all’s gonna give you advice if your friends in town don’t? But I don’t see the question made you blush, so I’m thinking, no, not yet. Ask me, I’d nail that man fast and any way I could. There’s some men you can string along, they like the hunt and chase. But him, I wouldn’t risk nothing like that. Too many girls got their eyes on him. He’s too cute and too rich. You get a chance, you get that boy in the sack and you don’t give him a chance to even look at anyone else.”

“Thank you so much.” Winona swiped a hand over her eyes. “Is there anything else you want to offer me advice on? Deodorants? Hemorrhoids? Constipation?”

“There now. You won’t be so crabby after you have some food. I’ll bring you the chops and my cheddar cheese mashed potatoes. Trust me. You’ll like them. And the whole town’s been asking whether Wayne’s gonna actually let you bring that baby to work right in the police station.”

“It’s only a temporary circumstance, my having the baby. It’s worked out for a few days. But obviously, I wouldn’t have the baby around any situation that could be dangerous. It just takes time to find an answer for-”

“Yeah, yeah.” Sheila waved off the politically correct answer. If she couldn’t have dirt, she didn’t want anything. “So, did you tell the Gerards about the baby yet?”

Winona sighed. To a point, it was easier to answer the questions than exert all the energy it took to duck them. “Yes. They’re still vacationing in Japan and having an outstanding time. But I talked to them on the phone two nights ago.”

“They love you.” Sheila set out the silverware, working around the baby’s carrier in the middle of the table. Two other customers waved hands to get her attention, but she clearly didn’t want to move quite yet. “And I just know they’d be happy if you were involved with Justin, because the Webb and the Gerard families were always so close. And really, at your age, hon, I think they’d expect you to be, how should I say it, physically involved-”

Winona propped her chin on her knuckled hand. “Okay. I give up trying to deny it. I’m having wild, unprincipled sex with Dr. Webb. If it’ll make y’all happy, tell the town, tell the whole universe-”

She was stunned into immediate silence when she suddenly saw another face appear behind the waitress’s-and Justin was grinning to beat the band.

“Now, darlin’. Please don’t be giving all the wild details of our sex life to Sheila. You didn’t tell her what we did two nights ago in the Porsche, did you?”

Smoothly, as if they’d been a couple for a hundred years, he bent down, bussed the top of her head, chucked the baby’s chin, and then plunked down on the opposite side of the booth. “Sheila, I’ve only got forty minutes, max. I want the greasiest hamburger you’ve got back there, heavy on the barbecue, and a ton of fries-”

“Like you need to tell me this, sweetheart?” Sheila whirled around, clearly delighted with him, and sashayed off to deliver their order.

Winona needed a second to recover her equilibrium. Five minutes ago, she’d had no equilibrium problems, but suddenly her heart was flopping in her chest louder than a beached whale and her nerves were suffering hiccups. She didn’t have nerves. She’d certainly never suffered from arrhythmia-at least until Justin walked in. And that kiss from two nights ago seeped back into her mind with a twinge of guilt.

She felt his gaze on her face. Nothing new, their looking at each other. They’d known each other for five million years, for Pete’s sake. Only, nothing was the same since that kiss. He’d never-never-looked at her this way before. As if she were a woman, instead of an old ragtail-younger-neighbor friend. As if she were a woman who sexually interested him. As if he didn’t have all that much trouble imagining her in bed. And was enjoying that imagining.

Her gaze frittered around the diner. The red barstools were all taken, the long Formica counter filled up with locals. Booths lined the walls, mostly spilling over with young families, but, traditionally, medical personnel popped over here to grab the counter seats because the hospital was so close by. No one in the medical field ever seemed to eat healthily. On the jukebox, someone was wailing about losing somebody. There was a truck and a cup of a coffee and a dog in the song, so no question it was a country-style wail. Manny, the cook, was visible from the open window of the grill kitchen. He was wearing his beefcake-style white undershirt that showed off his shoulder and upper arm muscles, and he was wielding a black spatula. Sheila patted his butt every time she went by.

The diner was familiar. Comfortable. The teasing was a pain in the keester, but what could Winona expect from a small town where everyone knew her, and, damnation, everybody cared? Hell, she cared, too, and could pry with the best of them when she was in the mood. Normally it was as easy to be in the Royal Diner as at home.

Except tonight.

She felt a sensation of panic, as if her whole world were shifting on her. It wasn’t exactly that she minded his looking at her in that new way. That intimate, hot, unnerving-damn-him way. But she’d always known what to say to Justin, how to behave, what to do around him, and suddenly all that comfort level was lost.

Finally he got around to saying something. “You look tired, Win.”

“Thanks, Doc. That’s just what a girl wants to hear.”

“And not just a little tired. You look just plain whipped.”

Immediately she bristled. What had happened to all the sweet talk he’d used when Sheila’d been around? “Are you looking for a sock right in the labonza? I’m not the least tired,” she snapped.

The insult went right over his head. “What’s wrong?”

Her shoulders sank. The feeling of strangeness disappeared. This was, after all, Justin, who she’d known forever-and who already knew all about Angel. “Everything.”

“So. We’ll fix this ‘everything.’ But that’s a little tough to do unless you’re willing to be a little more specific.”

Out it poured. All the frustrations from the last time she’d seen him. Even though technically Angel should have been promptly turned over to Social Services, no one really had a sweat with her temporarily baby-sitting. Still, the whole world, and especially her boss, kept reminding her that the baby showing up on her doorstep didn’t mean she had any dibs-or legal rights-on Angel. And she knew that. But for the same reason, one of the first things she’d done was check out what was going on with foster care.

“Okay.” When Sheila served dinner, Justin didn’t even look up, just kept his eyes on hers, encouraging her to keep talking.

“There’s no great foster-care family waiting in the wings. The court finds a place when it has to. That’s the way it is. So there are the Barkers, who’ve already taken in two kids, even though they barely had room for the second one. They can take in a baby for a couple of weeks if there’s no other place. They’re good people, but they don’t want Angel, Doc.”

“Okay.”

“And there’s another family on the foster-care list…” She pushed her fork around fretfully. “On paper, they’re qualified. In reality, we’ve never put a child with them. He…smells. She dresses vintage Victorian to scrub her bathroom. I’m not saying anything’s that terrible, but there seem to be some raisins missing in their bran, you know? They claim to desperately want kids, that they can’t have their own, be happy to foster. But I’m telling you-”

“Angel isn’t going there.” Justin, God love him, didn’t waste time phrasing the comment as a question.

Again, her shoulders eased. He understood. “I realize that doesn’t mean that I’m the best choice to take care of the baby. Or that I’m entitled. In any way. But-”

“Oh, shut up, Win. You don’t have to justify anything to me.” He peeked at the snoozing baby as he started wolfing his burger. “So keep on talking. What’s happened so far with the parent search? I take it you haven’t found the baby’s mother?”

“God knows, I’m trying.”

“But…?”

She started filling him in. Leading her mom-suspect list were a couple of teenage girls. Both troubled. Both had histories of drinking and truancy. Both came from rich families where the parents had recently shipped them off to residential ranches. “You know the kind of place I’m talking about. They have a dry-out program, but it’s also a live-in school, all the academics. The idea is to remove the kids from the environment that was contributing to their trouble, see if professionals and positive peers can’t help turn the kids around.”

“Actually, I don’t know anything about those places, but it’s obvious you do.”

“Yeah. And some of them are excellent. Kids do take a wrong turn sometimes. Especially if they can’t get away from bad peer influences on their own. The only thing that ticks me off is how expensive they are, it’s not like everyone can take advantage. But, anyway, on those two specific girls-neither of them was pregnant, according to their parents.”

“Which means…?”

“Which means nothing. The parents could be lying, thinking that they’re protecting their daughters. So I can’t be sure until I’ve checked that out, and that’s going to take longer than overnight.” She lifted a forkful of cheddar cheese mashed potatoes, but then let it drop again. “In the meantime, I picked up news about another kid. Parents live in a trailer park, dad works in the oil fields, girl got pregnant at fourteen, supposedly had the baby in the family trailer and it died. Only maybe the baby didn’t die. Maybe that’s what the girl said to avoid trouble, and if so, and if her child was Angel, then it could well have fetal alcohol syndrome-at best. But right now, I have no grounds to haul in the girl and force her to take a medical exam.” She glared at Justin. “I’m almost positive that this girl isn’t Angel’s mother. But if she were…then either of those foster-care families would be the worst place to put a baby with those kinds of special problems.”

“I hear you. You’re saying you’d want to take in Angel even more if you thought she had special problems. Not less. But in the meantime, how come you’re so positive that that one girl isn’t Angel’s mom?”

“Well, I can’t be positive-but whoever is the mom of that baby knew me personally. She had to. I mean, she not only left the baby at my house, but left a personal note to me. And I didn’t know that kid in the trailer park from Adam-or anyone in her family.” Sheila stopped by the table, delivered the warmed bottle and two gigantic pieces of pie, but when she couldn’t get another conversation going, moved on again. “I spent hours in the schools today. And on the computer. Found three runaways. Six truant cases. I’m still trying to follow up on all of them. Then I hit the docs, the clinics, the obstetricians, Planned Parenthood. I swear I could smack ’em all upside the head. None of those people talk. They’d guard the confidentiality of a kid in trouble no matter what. It’s like trying to get blood out of a turnip. So then I tried calling ministers and priests and rabbi Rachel-”

He glanced over at her plate, and stole some of the chops she wasn’t eating.

“They’ve all got worry-lists of girls or kids they think are promiscuous. But whether any of those girls were for sure pregnant at the time Angel’s mom had to be-no one knows. One minister gave me a couple of names to check out. So did one of the vice principals at the high school.”

“But…?” He held out a tidbit of pork chop on a fork, until she bit into it and chewed.

“But it could be an adult woman. It’s not like the mother had to be a teenager.” She swallowed, only to have the exasperating man nudge another bite toward her mouth. “So I called the women’s shelter. Asked if anyone was pregnant at the time Angel’s mom had to be. Since this woman knew my name, I keep thinking that if I could just get some clues, some ideas, I might recognize her in some way. And I’m looking for a grown-up now, a woman with the means to hide a pregnancy, but for some reason feels she can’t keep her baby. Unfortunately, the people at the shelter were as bad as the doctors. Angel’s mom could have been right there, but no one was about to tell me. I understand confidentiality. I believe in it, for Pete’s sake. Only it’s been days now, and I can’t get a solid lead to save my life.”

“Win,” Justin stopped trying to coax her into more food. “Are you positive that you want a lead?”

The question startled her. “Are you asking me if I’d drag my feet because of wanting the baby for myself?” She shook her head, fast, fiercely. “I admit I’ve fallen in love with her. I know it’s only been three days, but I swear she already feels like she’s mine. But there’s only one way I can make this right, Justin. To find the mom. To know what the whole story is. Then to legally go after doing whatever’s right for Angel. I admit, I want her. But there’s still only one way to drive down this street, and that’s the right way. You know how it is. The truth’ll come back to bite you in the butt if you don’t face it down to start with.”

“Um, is that a Texas saying?”

She grinned. “No, but it should be, don’t you think?”

“What I think, Ms. Raye, is that you’ve got too much on your plate-and that’s a problem that you’d be really, really stupid not to let me help you with. What the hell good is it to have a friend with a ton of money unless you use him now and then? You know my house. You know Myrt, my housekeeper. And while you’re trying to work full-time-”

“No,” she interrupted firmly.

“No? No? This ‘no’ is in reference to what? I never asked you a question.”

Since Sheila was nowhere in sight, Winona got up herself and carted their plates to the old Formica counter, out of their way. The baby was still snoozing, but starting to stir. With a little more space, she could use a hand to keep the baby carrier in a gentle, rocking motion, but her gaze stayed glued on Justin’s. “Somehow you managed to get me talking all this time about Angel and my problems, Doc. But that isn’t why I wanted to see you today.”

She could see him brace, his eyes pick up a wary glint. “Yeah. I suspect you wanted to talk to me about weddings.”

She nodded. “You’re not going to bamboozle me into a marriage, Doc,” she said gently.

“Do you think you’re announcing something I didn’t know? Why on earth would I want to bamboozle you into anything?”

But she was all through being fooled by that easy, lazy teasing tone. “That’s exactly what confounded me for the last few days. Trying to understand. You’ve asked me to marry you a gazillion times, but I always knew you didn’t mean it. I mean, it’s one of our favorite private jokes together. But this time-you sounded serious. So then I started thinking. Maybe something was really bothering you.” She watched his eyes. “I know something happened to you in Bosnia.”

He stilled. “What is this? A guy can’t ask a woman to marry him without her thinking he’s mentally ill or has some deep dark problem?”

“Don’t even try throwing feathers in front of my eyes, Doc. You know perfectly well that’s not what I meant. Answer the question. Or is Bosnia something you can’t talk about?”

She’d seen that exasperated look on his face before-and that unwilling hint of humor in his eyes. Somehow, some way, they’d always been able to talk honestly together. Even when Justin fought it tooth and nail. He threw up a hand. “How Bosnia got in this conversation beats me. But yeah, of course things happened to me there. I went through a year of real hell.”

She nodded gently. “I know you did. And you’ve always pretty openly admitted that…but I meant, was there something that happened that you didn’t talk about? Or couldn’t? I know you saw horrors. I know you went through hell. But you came home and changed from trauma medicine to plastic surgery.”

“So?”

“So…when I realized that, I tapped into my memory banks and it seemed like that was around the time that other things changed for you, too. You picked up a reputation as a devil-may-care playboy. It’s stupid.”

“I don’t know about stupid. More, hard to avoid. I’ve got money and I’m single, so the press naturally-”

“Don’t try to sell me cow patties, darlin’.” Winona leaned forward, feeling better now. In fact, feeling downright good, now that the subject was off her and on him, and Justin was no longer looking at her as if she were whipped cream. “I’m talking about how the media regularly pegs you, Doc. I’m talking about the kind of reputation that you’ve let happen. And it isn’t at all true.”

“It’s not exactly a lie that I’m single. Or that I have the means to-”

She snorted. Not particularly delicately. “You make out like you spend all your time on tummy tucks and boob implants. Nothing wrong with boob implants, mind you-but why is it that no one in town realizes you’re the reason we have that fancy Burn Unit at Royal Memorial?”

“Who told you that?” Justin yanked on his ear, a clear clue that he was feeling edgy. “And for the record, I do my share of tummy tucks and nose jobs. If you think I’m apologizing for that-”

“No one’s suggesting you need to apologize. If anything, you should take a bow. Some idiots think tummy tucks and boob jobs are about nothing but vanity. You’ve always been a women’s supporter for real, Justin. Reconstruction after cancer or a tumor can make a difference to a woman’s esteem…” Abruptly she stopped and waved that subject aside. She could have ranted on, but he was obviously trying to distract her. “Anyway, the point is-I’m not knocking the work you do. I’m only asking why you give the community the impression that you only take on spoiled rich women for patients, when in reality you donate a ton of your time to some of the worst burn cases over three states.”

“Hell.” He tugged on his ear again. “Who told you that? Someone’s been spreading vicious lies and slander about me.”

“Shut up, Justin. I’m just trying to tell you…I know something’s wrong. Maybe it’s not my business. But once I started realizing how much you’ve changed since Bosnia, it just kept hitting me in the face. Obviously something serious has been bothering you. Something you don’t talk about. And I don’t know whether that wild-assed idea about marrying me could be part of that, but…”

As if she hadn’t been right in the middle of an important, serious conversation with him, Justin suddenly bolted to his feet and grabbed his jacket. Some instinct made Winona turn around in bewilderment, seeking some reason for his sudden behavior.

At the door to the diner, Willis Herkner was just ambling in. The jerk was still working for American Investigator, which, as far as Winona was concerned, was the belly-buster of all the sensational media rags. Willis was dressed to impress, wearing a long white aviator scarf with his ultracool jacket. Still, even though the smarmy investigator was a major nuisance, Winona couldn’t fathom why his appearance would bother Justin enough for him to be hustling double-time out of there.

“Justin…” she began, intending to question him, but just then Angel’s baby-blue eyes fluttered open and her rosebud mouth opened in a squeal. The first squeal was fairly sleepy and friendly sounding. The next one, Winona knew, wouldn’t be. The baby needed to be fed, bathed and rocked to sleep. Come to think of it, after this long day-so did she.

Justin, in the meantime, had lunged out of the booth and was zipping up. “You know what? Even when you were a belligerent, aggravating, sullen twelve-year-old, I realized this odd thing about you. You were never fooled by people’s bologna. You always saw past the cover story to the truth. I could never lie to you, Win, even when I wanted to.”

“Well…that’s good,” she said forcefully, and then hesitated. He’d seemed to mean a compliment, didn’t he? Only he’d managed to confuse her by the side comment. She organized the thoughts in her mind again, determined to get back to the point-there was something wrong, something bothering Justin, and she was determined to get him to talk about it.

Instead, faster than she could get the words out, he leaned down.

Half the town-maybe more-was sardine-packed in the Royal Diner, most of them familiar, the baby squawking louder now, children screaming from another booth and Sheila shrieking something to Manny in the back. Yet he kissed her. Just bent down, and softer than the stroke of a petal, brushed his lips on hers.

Like a rose hungry for sunlight, her whole body strained upward for the touch of him. Her throat arched at the same time her eyelashes swooshed down. It wasn’t dark behind her closed eyelids. If anything, there were fireworks of light and soft, silver flames. Her closed eyes just cut out the riffraff sensory images in the restaurant until there was nothing in her mind-nothing in her sight, sound, touch, taste, but Dr. Justin Webb and his wicked, wicked mouth.

Her conscience scrambled for some common sense. Some inhibitions. Some sanity.

Nobody home behind any of those doors.

Oh my, oh my. She didn’t let go. Not with men, not with anyone. You get too close to people, then if they abandoned you-even if they never meant to or wanted to-your heart broke. You didn’t die. Your heart just hurt and ached and never stopped aching. Nothing was worth that. She was sure of that yesterday, and she was sure of it today.

But her lips clung to Justin’s and wouldn’t let go. Her hands didn’t touch him. Her breasts, her legs, her tummy-no body part was connected to him except her lips. And tongue. His warm, silky tongue touched hers, gentle as a spring breeze, not demanding, not taking, just…offering. Touch. Taste. The intimacy of himself.

Heat flushed her body head to toe.

The baby revved up the volume of tears. A child galloped past toward the rest room. A plate clattered on the floor. The jukebox twanged out another song about pickup trucks and getting up in the morning. Neon lights flashed on, off, on, off into the dark winter night street outside. Winona saw. She heard. She just didn’t care.

And then Justin lifted his head, eyes suddenly darker than a midnight sky. “It’s a good idea, don’t you think? Kissing in public.”

“What?” He might as well have suggested rolling naked in a mud puddle. It would have made as much sense.

“Everyone in town realizes that we know each other, Win. But just in case…this way they’ll get the picture that we’re close…that we were thinking about getting married even before Angel entered the picture. This way we’ll look like a couple. So it won’t seem contrived or hokey when we tie the knot.”

“Tie the knot,” she echoed.

“And you’re damn right. There was a very serious reason I asked you to marry me. It’s because I thought we could make it together. And I thought that ages before you ever laid eyes on our beauty here.”

He touched Angel’s cheek, which was enough to startle her from whimpering into a gurgle for him. And then he strode for the door.

All that noise, all that chaos, but there suddenly wasn’t a sound in the restaurant but the scratched tape from the jukebox. Some folks were being polite. But the others were either outright staring at her or at Justin’s departing figure.

Swiftly, Winona gathered up the baby, patting, soothing, trying to grab her jacket and car keys at the same time. He put a drug in his kisses. Well, what else could she possibly think? Maybe she didn’t recognize the controlled substance, but it was there. In the taste of him. The mood. The look in his eyes. And whatever was in that damn chemical went straight to her head.

And it was still going straight to her head.

Blasted man-richer than a tycoon-yet he’d forgotten to pay for their dinners. So she had to finagle that money out of her pocket, get her jacket on, get Angel and all the baby paraphernalia, all under the watchful, smiling eyes of everyone in the whole darn diner.

But when she finally hurtled into the night a few moments later, she sucked in a lungful of frigid winter air and, out of absolutely nowhere, smiled, too.

There was nothing funny about her situation. Nothing. She needed to figure that man out, and pronto. Somehow there still seemed to be a marriage proposal hanging between them. More worrisome yet was the stunning, startling thought that he actually wanted to marry her. But boy…

That man sure could kiss.