A Man for the Summer
Read A Man for the Summer Online
Authors: Ruby Laska
Tags: #Small Town, #Romance, #Contemporary Romance
A MAN FOR THE SUMMER
By
Ruby Laska
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012 by Ruby Laska
Discover other titles by Ruby Laska at
http://rubylaska.blogspot.com/
TABLE OF CONTENTS
If this was Junior Atkinson’s office, then he was in more trouble than he thought.
Griff Ross shook his head in disgust, then abruptly stopped when a fresh explosion of pain rocketed its way around his jaw.
“Dag nab it!”
Griff bit the words off in self-reproach. Bad enough that he’d spent the last three months voluntarily slogging through the moldy back roads of rural Missouri—but now he was beginning to mutter like one of the dimwits that lived there.
The dentist’s office looked like Southern Living meets Car & Driver, with a little Antiques Roadshow thrown in for good measure. An abomination—but Griff had vowed to quit being surprised by what passed for décor in the backwoods of this state. After all, his readers loved “offbeat” and “quirky”. Mirthlessly, Griff wondered if he shouldn’t take a few notes; this shack could easily provide material for an entire chapter.
The building was only slightly larger than the service station whose parking lot it shared. In fact, it looked as though it might have once
been
the original service station, a no-nonsense gray-shingled square box of a building with two big wood-framed windows. A moat a mere couple of feet in width separated the building from the parking lot, but this strip of dirt had been planted, seemingly, with every species of flowering plant that could survive a Midwestern summer.
A giant carved wooden sign in the shape of a tooth swung gently inches overhead. Wind chimes hung from every corner, the discordant notes contradicting each other with every push of breeze. Ducking into the shade, Griff noticed some sort of filmy, sparkling curtains swinging lazily in the open windows.
Gingerly clutching his jaw with one shaking hand, Griff raised the iron heart-shaped doorknocker and let it fall, the sound a fresh assault on his tight-strung senses.
“C’mon in!”
The muffled shout was cheerful enough. Griff pushed open the door and felt a rush of cool air on his sweating face. He blinked a few times to adjust to the cool, dappled light inside.
“Hot enough for ya?”
The inside of the room was an even crazier patchwork than the outside. Yard sale furniture shared floor space with pots overflowing with greenery; the floral-papered walls bore a mish-mash of amateurish paintings and photos, dozens of them, and kids’ drawings.
A woman stood beside a tall filing cabinet, a forty-something woman who Griff had to admit, even through the haze of pain, would be rather lovely, if she hadn’t wrapped most of her hair into a purple silk turban and run a silver hoop through her eyebrow.
“I have an appointment with Dr. Atkinson,” Griff managed through his clenched jaw, speaking each syllable with the greatest care he could manage. The pain had somehow managed to escape the left side of his mouth and now sort of rolled around his entire head.
“Oh, yes, Mr. Ross. With the
terrible
pain, you poor old thing.” The woman smiled sympathetically and nodded, lightly dropping a stack of folders on top of the cabinet and glancing his way. Her voice was lushly laced with the lazy drawl he’d come to associate with these small towns.
Oddly, her honeyed voice was almost sort of appealing. Except that Griff hated sympathy almost more than the pain itself.
“I’ll live.”
The woman’s glance deepened into an open appraisal, her cornflower blue eyes widening. “I’m so awfully sorry, but the doctor’s going to be few minutes.”
“I’ll wait.” Griff hoped his terse tone communicated sufficient urgency to the gypsy who was now gaping at him as if he were on display at the zoo.
Self-consciously, he lowered himself into an old chintz armchair. A musty though not entirely unpleasant smell rose from the down-filled cushions as he sank slowly into their depths.
Griff had become accustomed to being stared at. Three months in corn country would do that to a guy. A civilized guy, at any rate, one who’d spent most of his life in some of the most sophisticated cities in the world. Someone whose wardrobe included more than overalls and baseball caps bearing tractor logos.
A door burst open and a second bizarrely dressed female lurched into the room, muttering under her breath and slapping at her ankle, hopping with the effort. This one looked about twenty years the other one’s junior, but they were clearly related; same coppery hair and finely sculpted cheekbones.
She held a huge volume in one hand and peered hard at the page.
“Says here fire ants is a whole different thing.”
The first woman winked at Griff and edged out a smile. “Well now,
there
you are, Sugar,” she smiled. “Got us a patient. You’re just going to have to leave off that bug research for later.”
Griff cleared his throat and spoke carefully through his clenched teeth. “I’m here to see Doctor Atkinson.”
The second female looked up, surprise in her eyes as she noticed his presence. Her gaze was the same clear blue, the quirked corners of her generous mouth identical to the first woman.
“Huh,” she said, a note of disapproval in her voice. “You’re the one who wanted to be fit in at the last minute. And Rosie, if they were biting
you
on the backside, you might not be so cavalier about the matter.”
Griff fought back exasperation, even as his eyes sought the shapely but evidently tormented backside of the woman before him.
The sign on the freeway exit had clearly stated “Medical Services Next Exit”. Maybe they should have added “When and If We Damn Well Feel Like It.” The first two names he found in the yellow pages turned out to be partners—and they had taken the afternoon off to go fishing, their receptionist informed them. And while a dentist named Junior seemed like a bad idea on principle, his tooth was throbbing too desperately for Griff to get back on the highway and take his chances on the next town.
“Ma’am,” he said, chewing off each syllable in agony, “I’m going to pass out right here in your waiting room if you don’t get me in to the dentist. Now.”
He didn’t miss the look, the raised eyebrow and lop-sided smile that passed between the two women.
“Well, I suppose you had better come on back, then,” the younger one said. “I’m Junior. The dentist.”
Junior shook her head. He
was
a mess. Crack in his tooth wide enough to go fishing in, and infected to boot. Most folks in his condition would have reached their pain threshold long ago, but he sat stolidly as she examined him, barely flinching.
Stubborn man. She knew the type. Would rather cut off an arm than go to the doctor.
Actually, Junior knew her way around men like this one fairly well. Way too well, in fact. Smooth. Confident. A little edgy, not too pretty, though you’d never convince them of that. Or the women who inevitably flocked to them.
Definitely not one to try too hard. That was usually the point with these guys—the ones who didn’t have to try at all.
Trouble in capital letters, but even as Junior gave a firmer poke than necessary into the fissure, she could feel that old weak-in-the-knees thing.
Thank heavens she had her hands in his mouth—
her
turf. She was in charge in here, and there was no chance of him pulling anything that would cloud her judgment any further.
“You’re going under. Rosie, see if you can get a hold of that tank,” she added, raising her voice. Though she was fairly sure her aunt was probably listening on the other side of the door.
“Tank? You do your own anesthesia?”
“Relax.” Junior gave her patient a bemused look. “I’m fully certified. No kiddin’. Besides, I’ve been told I have an exceptionally light touch.”
Griff narrowed his eyelids at her.
“And it’s not like I’m putting you all the way under anyway. This is just a little something to put you in the right frame of mind. I’ll give you a local. You won’t feel anything. Lots of folks even go to sleep.”
Junior ignored his skeptical gaze as she and Rosie went about their business. But it was difficult to ignore his presence entirely. Ordinarily she stopped thinking of her patients as people while she was working—they were just a mouth full of teeth, a problem to be approached and considered and solved. A challenge to relish and tackle and conquer.
This man was another matter. That snaking lovely warmth hadn’t left her gut. She snuck a glance or two at his legs, splayed tensely on the chair, and couldn’t resist allowing her eyes to travel upward…
“Comfortable?” Her voice was a little raspy when everything was set and she took her place to get started, hands poised to begin.
“Mmmmph.” Indeed, Griff was comfortable, suddenly. Much as he usually hated the spreading numbness of local anesthesia, whatever it was she’d given him had driven annoyance right out of his mind. In fact, he felt good, unaccountably good, as though his body had relaxed and melted into the curved form of the chair. She’d put some sort of weird warbling flute music on, but he didn’t mind. A nap
might
be nice, after all. But before he allowed his eyes to drift shut he let them linger on the face above his.
Freckles. Every last inch of her face was sprinkled with dots, thousands of them. As the cozy feeling made its way out to the tips of his fingers and toes, he focused on her lips and noticed, with great fascination, that even there were freckles. Those lips. Full and pink and flecked in the most amazing cinnamon-colored spots, like nothing he’d ever seen before.
Wonder what it would be like, he thought lazily, to kiss those lips. He had a vague notion that the urge wasn’t entirely appropriate and smiled, or thought he smiled, as his eyelids slid half-shut seemingly of their own volition.
Junior watched him and relaxed. A sleeper—definitely a sleeper. She could always tell. Besides, it was generally the ones who were the most tense that ended up enjoying their little sortie into altered consciousness. Without thinking she rested her fingers lightly on his forehead, easing away the tension lines with a few strokes as the drugs did their work.
“Okay, I think we’re set,” she said.
Rosie pulled up a rolling stool, as she often did, even though Junior rarely needed much assistance. Rosie liked to keep an eye on Junior, much as she had when babysitting her niece years before. She gave the patient a gentle poke in the ribs, and nodded in satisfaction when she got no response.
“Well, hey now, the answer to your prayers just showed up in your chair. Didn’t I tell you? ‘Solutions make themselves known today.’ The stars don’t lie!”
Junior rolled her eyes at her Aunt. “Yeah. Like I’m going to believe a horoscope prediction. In the
Poplar Bluff Gazette
, no less. They’re probably re-printing the horoscope from 1968 over there or something.”
Rosie frowned, gathering her skirts up and dropping the extra folds of fabric between her legs to let the cool air circulate.