The Lady Who Lived Again (14 page)

Jace’s lively grin warmed her as he pulled her to her feet. She relished these rare glimpses of his easy humor, the way he always made her feel better. For a man who could be so somber, Jace had a lighter side, too. She felt honored that he shared it with her.

With a long graceful stride, he led her to the middle of the room. The braided carpet beneath their feet absorbed the sound of their steps as they moved slowly around the furniture.

Jace glanced down at her feet. “You haven’t missed a step.”

“I’m not certain you’d notice if I had,” she teased, although his dancing was surprisingly practiced.

He laughed. “Insulting my ballroom skills?”

“Not at all. You’re as light as air on your feet, Doctor Merrick.”

“Blame my boots,” he said. “But this exercise is to assess your dancing ability, not mine.”

She nodded with mock solemnity. “Yes, of course,” she said as he whirled her around.

He pulled her closer, and the heat of his body engulfed her. She leaned against his shoulder, closing her eyes. Though she’d not dare dance so improperly in public, she couldn’t help herself now. Jace moved, and she vibrated with each movement, each muscle flexing beneath his shirt. In his strong arms she felt so safe. Special.

“This is nice,” she murmured. Had she spoken that aloud? She fought for something less dreamy to say. “Where did you learn to dance?”

“My mother taught me,” he said. “Out of sheer boredom, I suppose. We’d dance for hours while my father saw to his patients.”

This peek into his past made her yearn for more. Aside from the ugly confrontation with Pastor Hogle, this was his first mention of his family. Jace kept the door to his personal life tightly closed, and she slipped carefully through the narrow opening he’d drawn.

“Your father was a doctor, too?”

“Yes. For over twenty years.”

“So you’re following in his footsteps.”

She felt him stiffen in her arms.

“Not if I can help it,” he said.

She stopped, staring up at him. He averted his eyes. Resuming the dance, he stared over her shoulder.

“What happened with your father, Jace?”

They moved through the deafening silence for several long moments before he spoke again.

“It seems like a lifetime ago,” he said softly. “After I decided to become a doctor, my father and I dedicated two evenings a week together to discuss various cases and treatments.” He shook his head. “Even back then I could sense his frustration.”

“Frustration?”

“My father was unable to distance himself from his patients. Their pain became his, their suffering his. And he hated the limitations of medicine. His limitations. He became increasingly unhappy over the years. With each patient he lost, he lost a bit of himself, too. He became a different person.”

“What do you mean?”

“His failures afflicted him like a disease, and his confidence in medicine dwindled to nothing. To combat his inconsolable sense of defeat, he turned to alternate forms of healing.”

Maddie’s breath caught.

“Alternate forms of healing? What does that mean?”

Jace frowned, and Maddie swallowed hard at his look of disgust.

“Ridiculous, illogical practices involving faith healers and witchdoctors. The occult.” Jace’s shoulders tensed with restrained emotion as he spoke. “He buried himself in case studies of this nonsense, applying it in his practice. The man he was—the competent physician he’d always been—disappeared, and his patients were talking. Naturally, their trust in him began to dissipate. As did mine.”

Jace’s obvious revulsion for these alternative therapies made Maddie shiver. She shuddered again as she imagined his response should he ever discover her secret.

“In his desperation for results, he abandoned traditional medicine—his life’s work—for hocus-pocus.”

Maddie shook off a shudder of fear. “What happened?”

Jace shrugged, as if he wasn’t quite sure. “By the time I returned home from school for the Christmas break, it was too late. His practice was already suffering. He’d lost a young patient that week, and the boy’s distraught parents blamed him for not saving their son. Talk of a lawsuit spread like wildfire through town. My father refused to discuss his treatment of the boy with me, though I suspect it involved more quackery than medicine. He holed up in his office, looking more hopeless than I’d ever seen him. After promising he’d get some sleep, he insisted I return to the house ahead of him.” Jace’s voice dropped so low Maddie barely heard it. “I found him at his desk the next morning. He was dead.”

Maddie cringed in surprise. “Oh, Jace, I’m so sorry.”

“An empty syringe lie on the desk in front of him.” Jace lowered his eyes. “Cause of death was attributed to cardiac arrest, but I’ve no doubt he died from opiates. What I’ll never know for certain was if the overdose was intentional.”

The pain in Jace’s eyes echoed through Maddie’s core. She would never have guessed he’d endured such a trial, and she couldn’t help wondering how Pastor Hogle had known of it. Jace had risked much by making an enemy of the pastor. And he’d done it for her.

“All those years as a doctor, he helped so many people.” He shook his head sadly. “Medicine was his life until he’d lost any sense of meaning in it.”

“As you did in Pittsburgh?”

He glanced down at her, surprised that she’d suspected this.

“Yes. It happened to me, too.”

Maddie lowered her gaze. She knew Jace well enough to know he rarely spoke of these events, and she felt flattered and gratified that he’d confided in her. Sill, a heavy uneasiness formed in her chest. She forced herself to look up at him.

“What about your mother?”

His face hardened over his distress. “She was used to his absence,” he said bluntly. “Even before he died. The years of staring at his vacant chair at the dinner table, the empty space beside her in bed, had primed her well, I suppose.”

“She must have been a strong woman,” Maddie said.

“Oh, she bore it as best she could. She was a truly wonderful mother—attentive, clever, and unfailingly kind. But there was always a shadow of sadness in her. And in the end, she wasn’t so very strong. After my father passed, people looked at us differently. To escape the scandal of his death, she moved to Ohio to be with my aunt. She died a year later.”

“I’m sorry,” she uttered.

They moved slowly over the carpet. She rested her head on his shoulder. She felt his intake of breath, as though inhaling the contact.

“Life is so fragile. So short,” she began. By rote, her fingers splayed, caressing his tense shoulders. Her body melted as the stiff muscles beneath her hands began to relax.

He shook his head. “Maddie…”

She gazed into his eyes.

“Let’s say we live for today. For the moment.”

He stilled, absorbing her words. Conflicting desires marred his handsome face. Surrender, resistance, a combination of both…

His voice came out hoarse. “What is it you want from me?”

Nothing. Everything. She truly did not know.

“I want you to escort me to the wedding,” she uttered softly. “I want you to be my friend.” She licked her lips. “I want you to kiss me.”

He drew in a breath, then slowly exhaled. The whisk of warm air on her cheek fluttered through her. Her legs turned to jelly. He stared down at her, his blue eyes filled with such feeling, such substance that it made her afraid. The sudden shift inside her own center frightened her even more.

This thing that they shared went far deeper than lust or loneliness. She felt it in the root of her being, felt it down to her bones.

Lowering his head, he pressed his lips to her forehead. She closed her eyes, accepting the tender gesture, not for the bittersweet refusal it was—but for what she must let it become.

A safeguard against losing her heart.

“I have to go check on Mrs. Mead,” Jace said, releasing Maddie from his arms. He raked a hand through his hair and fought for control. It wasn’t merely lust now. He cared for her.

“Yes, of course.” She fluffed her skirts awkwardly and took two steps back.

The rattled look on her flush face wrenched in his gut. He hated to leave her this way. Emotion collided with reason.

“Want to ride along?” he asked before he could stop himself.

She snapped up her head in surprise.

He had never before invited her to join him on a house call. He was clearly sunk. Spending less time with her seemed the better solution to his brewing dilemma, but as always, her presence blurred the boundaries of good sense.

“I can drop you off after I see to Mrs. Mead,” he offered, by way of explanation.

“All right,” she said. “Just give me a moment to gather my things.”

Jace shrugged on his coat, qualms multiplying as he snatched up his bag. He stepped out to the porch. The smell of the petunias she’d planted wafted from the window boxes. He inhaled the scented breeze, soothed by the homespun simplicity of the fragrant aroma. Jace had deemed the flowers unnecessary, until Maddie had pointed out that, despite the modest signboard identifying his medical practice, the neglected boxes made the weathered house appear vacant. Colorful blooms now welcomed his patients with an air of permanence—a hallmark of a reliable physician.

Presenting this impression was especially important, as Jace was unmarried and, therefore, considered unsettled. Soon after Maddie had planted the flowers, Jace had relocated four wicker chairs from the shed to the porch. Her influence was subtle but sure. It was an intrusion he minded less every day.

This alarming fact shrieked through his brain, alerting him to imminent danger. After reflecting on his past and his parents’ one-sided marriage—after that dance with Maddie in the parlor—he needed the earsplitting warning.

Maddie hurried from the house, fastening the ties to her bonnet. Her demure smile was unnerving. Settling next to her in the buggy unsettled him even more. Her skirts filled the tight space between them, brushing his thigh. His senses devoured her nearness, her arousing lilac scent, her heat. Jace snapped the reins. The buggy jerked to a start, but he couldn’t escape the building tension—or the peripheral view of her breasts.

He drove through town in frustrated silence. The mild weather drew people outside to their porches and gardens. Recognizing Jace’s buggy, they waved, quickly retracting their greetings as they recognized the passenger seated at his side.

If Maddie noticed their disrespect, she made no mention of it. But then again, what could she say?

He had to give her credit for facing them instead of cowering. He admired her dogged resolve to reclaim some semblance of her former life—and certainly Maddie would have to agree that these weeks of office work leading up to Amelia’s wedding had been good for her regardless of whether she achieved her goal. The two of them made a fine team and were getting on well.

Too well, in point of fact. Jace had lately become a master of resistance. Evasion.

Or so he’d thought until that dance. Until he’d held her in his arms and felt her body pressed to his. Until he’d confided in her the story of his father.

Until that sobering moment when he’d looked down into her eyes and felt himself falling.

* * * *

Maddie sat beside Jace, trying to weave what she’d learned of Jace’s past into something she could use to her advantage. But the result of this effort was disheartening. Try as she might to spin a happy outcome, Maddie kept returning to the uncomfortable truth: Jace condemned his father for exploring the very type of alternative healing that Maddie herself performed. There was no conceivable way around that small detail.

This knowledge made Maddie feel more isolated than ever before. And more fearful. If Jace somehow discovered that she’d been treating his patients…no. She would not—could not—let him find out. But nor would she quit ministering to the men and women of Misty Lake on the sly. She was helping people as surely as Jace was, and by doing so, she was helping herself.

Maddie’s ability to ease the suffering of others had lately given birth to something else inside of her—a new compassion and regard for her neighbors. Before the accident, Maddie had been shamefully self-centered and cared mostly for shallow amusements. But her gift had taught her to look beyond her own pleasure for the first time, and she was satisfied with the person she had recently become.

“The road has dried out well,” Jace said woodenly.

He’d remained strangely quiet since their dance, but if the state of road conditions was to be the extent of their conversation, she was in for a long trip. He tipped his hat to a laundress hanging out her wash. After one glance at Maddie, the woman’s sweet smile quickly soured.

Combating the snub with a lift of her chin, Maddie turned to Jace. “Do you think you will be happy here in Misty Lake?” she asked.

“I like it fine. Despite the delay in opening, my practice is progressing nicely.”

She sighed. Jace’s impersonal doctor mask was firmly back in place. “What about the people?” she prodded. “Do you like the people?”

He shrugged. “People here are set in their ways. Traditional.” He shook his head. “And they’re hard pressed to trust me.”

“Your association with me doesn’t help.”

“It’s my age,” he countered. “Although I’m educated in more advanced medical practices, they’re reluctant to trust someone so young. Not a day goes by when a patient doesn’t mention Doctor Filmore.” He shook his head. “Ironic, isn’t it? Their blind faith in that bastard?”

It was more than ironic, she thought, as she slumped farther down in her seat.

“Treating wary patients is difficult. They don’t heed my advice, even as their health suffers for it. As an outsider, I can see the advantage to living among people you’ve known all your life. But as a doctor, the insular nature of this community is often maddening.”

She shrugged off the hard truths in his assessment of her neighbors.

“They’ll learn to trust you eventually,” she said. “As I have.” She offered him a smile. “Quite a feather in your cap, that, since my belief in doctors was shattered to pieces by your predecessor.”