Banner O'Brien (2 page)

Before she could give voice to her questions, he caught her arm in a suave, somewhat proprietory
motion and ushered her toward the boarding ramp. “We need you here,” he said, as though that settled everything.

The music grew louder still as they made their way down the slippery ramp to the wharf, and Temple was quick to reach a waiting carriage and help Banner inside.

She peered through the uncovered window as the vehicle made its cautious way up a steep, stony hillside and onto a street lined with weathered saloons and brothels. Here, prostitutes called out coarse invitations and sailors reeled, already drunken, from one seedy establishment to another.

“Water Street,” allowed Temple Royce in a bored tone. “Please don’t judge the whole community by this place.”

Banner drew in her head and sat back in the tufted leather seat, her hands buried in the warm folds of her fraying, blue woolen cloak. At the moment, she almost wished that she’d stayed in Portland, where she had had a clean, warm room and the kind of starvation practice that kept a doctor humble.

She sat up very straight and took herself in hand. Sean was in Portland—she’d seen him there with her own eyes—and that decided the matter.

“You are very beautiful,” observed Mr. Royce in an offhand fashion. He was a good-looking man, of medium height and weight, and his hair and eyes were a dark caramel color of exactly the same shade. He was about thirty, by Banner’s reckoning, and his fine linen shirt and obviously tailor-made suit indicated that he was well-to-do, if not downright wealthy. “How did you happen to become a physician?”

Banner was too tired and too unnerved to go into the details. She was here to take over another doctor’s practice while he recovered from an injury, not to bare her soul to a man she barely knew. “You have reviewed
my qualifications, Mr. Royce,” she said with dignity. “I have shown you my letters of recommendation and my diploma. It would seem to me that the manner in which I obtained them is irrelevant.”

A grin quirked the corner of Royce’s mouth, and his voice was like sugared brandy when he spoke. “That cinnamon-colored hair, those green, green eyes—why hasn’t someone married you, Miss O’Brien?”

“Doctor
O’Brien,” corrected Banner, as a small, insistent headache began to throb between her temples. One man
had
married her, and sorely regretted it, but that was none of Temple Royce’s concern.

He nodded a suave concession. “Dr. O’Brien,” he repeated. “How old are you?”

Banner sighed. “I am twenty-six. How old are you?”

He chuckled, though annoyance flashed in his caramel eyes. “You are quite impudent, Dr. O’Brien,” he said. “And to answer your question, I’m thirty-two.”

“How was Dr. Henderson injured?” she asked, referring to the man Mr. Royce had persuaded her to replace.

“It happened during a consultation with your competition, Dr. O’Brien. Poor Stewart dared to venture a contrary opinion, you see, and our Dr. Corbin took immediate issue.”

“You don’t mean—”

“Oh, but I do. Adam Corbin is a violent, opinionated man. Those who disagree with him run a grave risk.”

Banner shuddered, appalled that a doctor would behave in such a manner, but offered no response.

“I dare say that Adam will be beating at your door as soon as he learns that you’ve taken over Stewart’s practice. If you’d rather not stay alone—”

Color pulsed in Banner’s face. She wasn’t afraid of any man, save Sean Malloy, and she had no plans to cower under Temple Royce’s smoothly offered wing
like a frightened chick. “I’ll stay in Dr. Henderson’s house,” she said coldly. “As you assured me I could.”

“As you wish,” said Royce with a shrug.

They were well out of Water Street now, Banner saw, and again peering out through the swirling snow, she made out a bank, a general store, and an impressive brick courthouse before the cold wind buffeted away her breath and she had to give up.

Not wanting to talk, she huddled deeper into the half-warmth of her inadequate cloak and closed her eyes to reflect. She had been rash—there was no doubt of that—in taking Mr. Temple Royce at his word and traveling such a distance in his company just because he said that his town had need of another doctor, but desperation had driven her to accept. Not two hours before Royce had entered her cramped, storefront office, she’d gone to Portland’s waterfront to look in on a patient and seen Sean there, among a group of longshoremen entering a tavern.

The offer of a position in Port Hastings, though extended by a total stranger, had seemed a godsend.

Dr. Henderson’s house, now abandoned since he’d gone to recuperate in the home of his sister, was a small, sturdy structure with a picket fence and a holly tree growing at the end of the front walk.

A light burned in a front window, and smoke curled from a brick chimney. The scent of it gave Banner a cozy, welcome feeling, as did the tenuous smile of the young Indian woman who met her at the door.

“Where is husband?” she wanted to know, looking past Banner and seeing only Mr. Royce and the carriage driver, who were unloading the few belongings Banner had taken the time to pack.

Used to such questions, Banner smiled and stepped around the woman to enter the small house. It was a sparsely furnished place, very clean, and a tea tray had been set beside the brick fireplace in the parlor. “I don’t have a husband,” she answered, shedding her
cloak, bonnet, and gloves. “I’m Dr. Banner O’Brien. What is your name?”

The woman gaped at Banner for a few moments before stating that she was called Jenny Lind.

It was Banner’s turn to gape. “Jenny Lind?” she echoed, just as Mr. Royce and his driver brought in her trunk and the two crates that contained her books and medical supplies.

Temple laughed. “Jenny’s Klallum name is virtually unpronounceable, so we gave her one we could manage.”

Banner recovered herself and poured tea from the pot the world-famous singer’s namesake had prepared. It was a pity, she thought, that the white man had taken not only the Indian lands, but their names in the bargain.

Royce’s brown eyes swept over Jenny. “What are you doing here, anyway? This isn’t—”

Jenny drew nearer to Banner, as though she’d sensed her sympathetic thoughts. “House was very dirty,” she broke in in a tremulous voice.

Temple considered her answer and made a visible decision not to pursue the point. He favored Banner with a few more pleasantries and then took his leave.

Jenny was clearly relieved, and Banner yawned and fell into a comfortable chair to sip at her tea and enjoy the fire. Saints in heaven but she was tired, and the shock of almost encountering Sean was heavy within her.

Jenny came to stand beside the chair and touch Banner’s snow-dampened hair with a chubby, nut-brown hand. “Doctor Firehair,” she mused, in a wondering tone.

Banner had lived in the West for nearly a year, and she liked to think that she had some understanding of Indian ways. They were quick, these people, to touch whatever drew their interest, and it was common for them to walk into a private home without knocking.
While some were affronted by this direct approach, Banner was not.

“Do you work for Dr. Henderson?”

The girl drew back as though the cinnamon-red tresses had burned her. Her brown eyes widened, and her waist-length, blue-ebony hair glinted in the firelight as she shook her head. “No!” she replied, with spirit.

At a loss, Banner simply watched Jenny, her teacup poised between her lap and her mouth.

“Dr. Adam tell me come here. Clean house good.”

A tremor of alarm invaded Banner’s weariness. “Dr. Adam?”

Jenny’s rich hair shimmered as she nodded.

“Is he the man who hurt Dr. Henderson?”

Jenny lowered her eyes and her mouth worked. “Yes,” she said. “But—”

At that moment, a cold draft suddenly filled the room and made the brave little fire undulate eerily on the hearth. The sense of a third personality was palpable, and Banner looked up to see a tall, dark-haired man, probably somewhere in his mid-thirties, raking Jenny’s squat little frame with mocking navy blue eyes.

“You promised,” he drawled, folding his arms.

A golden glow appeared in Jenny’s cheeks, and she lowered her head. “I’m sorry, Adam,” she said, in perfectly accented English.

The indigo gaze swung back to Banner, assessing her swiftly and coming to rest on her face. “She’s been doing her rendition of the Ignorant Savage again, hasn’t she?”

Banner was so overwhelmed by the effrontery of this man’s unannounced entrance and the impact of his presence that she couldn’t speak.

The tall man was unperturbed by this; his teeth flashed in a pearlescent smile, and he bowed slightly. “Dr. Adam Corbin,” he said, in crisp introduction.

Banner stood, knowing that her response would unbalance this man and relishing the fact for some
reason that was quite beyond her. “Dr. Banner O’Brien,” she said, with a corresponding nod.

The impact of her words was in no way disappointing. The rakishly handsome brute paled slightly, his eyes scraped her, and his jaw hardened. “What?”

“You came here to intimidate the new doctor, didn’t you?” Banner retorted, determined not to let the fate of her predecessor quell her hard-won bravado. “Well, Dr. Corbin, here I am!”

He ran one hand through his dark, unruly hair and squinted at Banner as though he didn’t trust his vision. “My God—a woman—is this a joke?”

Banner drew herself up to her full if unprepossessing height. “I assure you that it is not. I am here to replace the man you brutalized—doctor.”

“Brutalized?”
The word was only whispered, and yet it seemed to rock the small house like an explosion. “Who told you that? Temple?”

Jenny stepped between Banner and the giant, a plump diplomat clad in buckskin. “Jiggers, Adam, will you relax? Of
course
it was Temple!”

“What did he say?” Adam demanded, his impossibly blue eyes searing Banner’s face.

Banner sank back into her chair, fresh out of courage, and her hands trembled as she set aside her endangered teacup. “He told me that you are ‘violent and opinionated,’ Dr. Corbin, and that disagreeing with you is a risky proposition.”

“I see.”

“Furthermore,” Banner went on, rising on a swell of irritation and fatigue, “this is my home, for the time being, and I will thank you not to walk in without knocking ever again. Is that clear, doctor?”

The response was a raw, jarring burst of amusement. “I stand corrected,” he said, with another bow—this one more impudent than the first.

Banner O’Brien was far too overwrought to deal with the likes of Dr. Adam Corbin. She wanted him to go
and take his overwhelming personality, his broad shoulders, and the keen intelligence pulsing in his eyes with him. “Good night,” she said pointedly, taking up her teacup again.

But Adam stood fast, his arms folded across his chest. For the first time, Banner noticed that he wasn’t wearing a suitcoat, as cold as it was outside. His trousers, linen shirt, and half-buttoned vest fitted to his muscular frame with an easy perfection, as though they would not dare do otherwise, and the fabrics, while rumpled and snow-dampened, were of the finest quality.

The silence lengthened, and then Jenny broke it with a nervous giggle and a sympathetic glance at Banner. “Shall I get you something to eat?”

Banner was wildly hungry, for she hadn’t had a full meal since Portland, but she found the prospect of being alone with this strange man unsettling indeed. “N-No,” she sputtered quickly. “Thank you, b-but I’ll fix something for myself later.”

Adam’s indigo eyes sliced to the young Indian woman, and some almost imperceptible signal was given. Jenny scampered toward the back of the house without another word.

“How do I know you’re really a doctor?” Adam intoned, his arms still folded.

“I guess you’ll just have to trust me,” Banner retorted.

The magnificent head moved in a slow denial. “Oh, no,” came the gravelly response. “Henderson did enough damage as it was. I’ll be damned if I’m going to turn another quack loose on the people of this town.”

Banner was insulted, and her headache had taken on a marked tempo—that of her pounding heart. “You speak with such authority, doctor,” she said coldly. “Almost as though I needed your permission to practice.”

A mirthless grin curved his lips. “Perhaps you do,” he replied.

Banner shot to her feet and then swayed precariously as her hungry, exhausted body protested.

Adam Corbin caught her shoulders in his hands, to steady her, and a fearsome, inexplicable jolt went through her. “Sit,” he said, pressing her back into her chair.

She was on the verge of tears now, and she could still feel the weight of Adam’s hands, even though he had promptly withdrawn them. “I am not a ‘quack,’” she said. “I studied with Dr. Emily Blackwell, at the New York Infirmary for—”

He was crouching before her in a most distracting fashion, and his powerful hands gripped the arms of Banner’s chair, thus imprisoning her. “Dr. Blackwell,” he mused. “That is august company. August company indeed.”

“Yes,” breathed Banner, because she could manage nothing more. Why was she looking at the sprinkling of glossy black hair revealed by his open collar?

“I would like to see your diploma.”

Every nasty word Banner knew surged into her throat, each tangling with its fellows, and she swallowed them all. “You are insufferable,” she said through her teeth.

“Yes,” he confessed, and his eyes danced with an odd mischief. “The diploma, please.”

She almost directed him to her medical bag, which was sitting on top of her trunk, but she stopped herself in time. There were other papers in there, papers she didn’t want this man or anyone else to know about. “You’ll have to move, sir, if you expect me to comply.”

He subsided, rising to his feet in a fluid motion. With his left hand he gestured, and his dark brows were arched, as if to say, “Get on with it.”

With dignity that was completely feigned, Banner
lifted her small frame from the chair and made her way to her bag. She extracted her credentials and extended them to Dr. Corbin briskly.