Deadly Medicine (17 page)

But.

Dr. Judi Rosen, who seemed to not only run the medical staff but the county as well, had personally invited her. Twice. She’d stopped in at the ER two days earlier, fifteen minutes into Ward’s first shift at the hospital, offering an unofficial orientation to the ER protocols and to invite Ward to join her and the rest of the county at her home as they celebrated the country’s birth. Then today, as Ward was covered in sterile garb and inserting a needle into a dead man’s heart in an attempt to restart it, Judi had poked her head through the door and told her again about the shindig. “Doesn’t matter how late,” she’d said, and winked. “The fun doesn’t even start ’til after dark.”

It wasn’t wise to ignore such a request, at least if one had any political aspirations. It wasn’t polite, either, and certainly no way to treat a colleague. And Dr. Rosen was quite an exceptional colleague. The first this and the first that, with a whole lot of letters after her name and awards on her resume. As a female, and a physician, Ward couldn’t help but admire her. And so, she’d sacrificed her bath and her sleep and now found herself wedging her car onto the shoulder of this country road so she could celebrate the holiday with hundreds of people she barely knew.

Ward chuckled as she locked the car. This was the middle of nowhere, and a thief would have had a grand time with all the cars deserted along the road for as far as she could see. No nosy neighbors or even a casual bystander were nearby to report a break-in. Industrious thieves could have brought a car carrier, loaded it, and driven away without raising an eyebrow.

Oh, well, she thought. If someone wanted her collection of Broadway show tunes in the CD changer, she could make more from her originals at home. And she wouldn’t miss the few dollars’ worth of change in the cup holder. Thinking it smarter than paying a five-hundred-dollar deductible to replace a broken window, Ward turned around and unlocked the car. It was just easier. At the hospital in Philly, some people placed signs in the windows saying the car was unlocked and had nothing valuable within. Although she’d never done it, she’d thought it a brilliant idea, until the day one of her colleagues found a vagrant sleeping in her backseat at the conclusion of her overnight shift.

Ward crossed the street, at least ten miles from the place she’d seen the balloons, and wandered back toward the house. A stone wall, three feet high and with a dusting of wildflowers at the base to add a splash of color, guarded the property along the front border. It curved gracefully at the drive, where the flowers were concentrated in a lovely, mulch-topped bed. In front of her loomed a house of wood and stone in palatial proportions, with accent lighting showing off still more landscaping. A dozen miniature trees dotted a front lawn that would have dwarfed a football field. She followed the wall for several hundred yards along the left edge of the property, noting that it disappeared into a mature forest near the mountain to the rear. Along the mountain’s base, more trees were scattered, each landscaped with flowerbeds and benches connected by stone pathways.

Directly behind the house, dozens of chairs and tables were set up, some beneath tents and others under the fading light in the early night sky. To the far right, in a clearing of appropriate size, a softball game was underway. Ward wondered how they could see the ball and hoped she wouldn’t be needed for any emergency services. Dozens of people sat on the sidelines cheering. And along the wall to her left, in what Ward assumed was normally a field of grass, still more cars were parked. Five rows of them, to be exact.

This gathering resembled the county fair more than a house party, and Ward hesitated, reconsidering her decision to attend the party. Was she really up for this much excitement? As the chief of staff, Judi would know how busy the ER had been and that Ward had left the hospital an hour late, and would forgive her bad manners. As she stood debating, she was spotted. Frankie, the ER nurse manager, began waving frantically at her. Resigned to staying, she waved and began walking again, toward the crowd rather than the road.

The quiet hum she’d detected from the front of the house grew steadily louder. She wove through statues and sculpted shrubs and, of course, dozens of folding tables set up on the lawn and on the patio beside an Olympic-size swimming pool, complete with a fountain and a sliding board. She grinned as she noticed the line for the slide on this warm evening. Most of the people queuing were adults. Twenty others were already in the pool, and hundreds of people had gathered around it, enjoying the fading warmth of the sun’s last rays. They all seemed to be having a good time.

Frankie approached and hugged her.

“Some party!” Ward said.

“You’re not kidding. Wait till you see the fireworks. I bet they don’t do it this well in Philly.”

Ward didn’t argue but turned to another voice. “Hey, Doc! Over here!” someone yelled, drawing her eyes to one of the many tables. This particular one was occupied by the people she’d spent most of today with, and clearly they’d been looking out for her. She made her way toward them.

“I’ll catch you later,” Frankie promised before he headed toward the portable restrooms tucked behind the trees.

She stopped at the table and greeted her colleagues, then proceeded toward the food tent, glancing as she walked, hoping to see a sign of her hostess in the crowd. If she could just find Judi, she could say hello, thank you, good-bye, and then make her exit. There were just too many people, though. But she did find the food, and her growling stomach reminded her that the peanut-butter sandwich she’d hastily swallowed at lunchtime had been digested long ago.

This was an All-American picnic, and the burgers and hot dogs were grilled while she waited. Ward made use of the time by filling a plate with a variety of salads cooling on a bed of mostly melted ice. Pasta, fruit, potato, and green beans were piled high on her plate before she chose a water from a large tub. Before she could take a sip, Judi Rosen patted her on the back.

“Thrasher! Glad you could make it!” Ward had noted Judi’s tendency to address everyone by their last names and wondered if she’d been in the military. She certainly carried herself like a commanding officer.

“It’s a pleasure to be here,” she replied. “Thanks for the invite.”

Judi waved a dismissive hand. “Everyone comes. I don’t even know some of these people. Since you’re new in town, I had to make sure you got a decent burger on the holiday. Lord knows you’ve been working up a good hunger in the ER the past few days.”

Ward chuckled before sipping her drink, then nodded. “This certainly isn’t the sleepy little country hospital I was expecting, that’s for sure.”

“Well, you’re doing a great job, and we’re all very pleased to have you here. Any chance you’d think of staying on? You know, Dick Rave isn’t recovering from his surgery as we’d hoped, and I’m not sure he’s ever going to come back. He has a sweet disability policy that pays full salary until the age of seventy-two. Why work?”

Ward had heard about the ER chief, who’d suffered a ruptured bowel from diverticulitis and had every complication known to man since then. She didn’t know him though, and had no comment about his disability, and certainly no designs on his job. In a month she’d be at the beach, on vacation, and in two months she’d be back to work in Philly. That was her home. She had a great job. And she loved it there. Still…there was something to be said for the type of medicine she was practicing now, and if Jess had asked her to stay in the mountains, it wouldn’t have been a hard decision.

Judi walked with her toward her table, and a dozen people nodded to her as she made her way there. Some faces were familiar, but most weren’t. Still, they all seemed to know her. The new ER doctor.

“They let you out!” someone said as Ward reached the staff table, and the man sitting on the end stood and offered Ward his seat. He took beverage orders before he walked away, and Ward had to decline half a dozen suggestions for alcoholic beverages. Since she’d been watching her alcohol intake, it amazed her how much everyone else drank.

She was introduced to the people around the table as she ate. Most of them were ER staff, but about every third face was unfamiliar and belonged to the spouses. Judi excused herself, and Ward made the usual small talk as she tried not to eat too quickly. Either she was really, really hungry or the food was exceptional, because she consumed about half her weight in a span of ten minutes, and could have kept eating if she hadn’t looked down and found her plate empty.

Deciding to give her stomach a break, she joined the conversation. Hundreds of patients had demanded their attention in the ER, and she hadn’t had much opportunity for small talk with the staff. Now, though, her coworkers began the interrogation. They asked the typical questions—where she was from, where she’d trained, did she know so-and-so, how she liked their town and their hospital. It was always the “What are you doing here?” that caused her to pause. She’d been out since the age of six, when she announced at her aunt’s wedding her plans to marry her best friend from school, a girl, and not some disgusting boy. Zeke had pushed her toward the closet, though, and since January she’d found herself more cautious with her remarks than she’d ever been. After all, if you couldn’t trust your father-in-law, who could you trust?

So, for the fifth time in as many months she found herself talking about needing a change and taking to the mountains for some time in the outdoors. Natives every one, they all agreed with her decision and were full of suggestions about how she could fill her free time while in town. When someone mentioned the good fishing on the local river, Ward held up both hands defensively and told them her funniest fish tale. They all roared as she described Frieda emerging from the forest pointing a shotgun at her.

“I’m going to stick to the parks from now on!” Ward said, and everyone laughed.

The fading light brought an end to the ball game, and Ward recognized more faces as both fans and players came back, some moaning and others bragging about the contest. As they all moved to accommodate the new arrivals, Ward found herself squeezed uncomfortably close to a nurse anesthetist whom she’d met during the treatment of a cardiac-arrest victim. The woman, Gianna, had done everything short of tattooing her phone number on Ward’s body to let her know she was interested.

Ward wasn’t, though. She supposed she might be ready to date if she found the right woman, but it wasn’t Gianna. There was nothing unattractive about Gianna, but Ward was inexplicably not interested. Gianna’s sudden appearance, and the pressure her left hand was putting on Ward’s right thigh, changed the jovial atmosphere at the table to an uncomfortable one. It was time to leave.

“Excuse me,” she said to the crowd, avoiding Gianna’s gaze. “I need to use the restroom.”

She was directed to the pool house—set aside for the female partygoers—and prayed Gianna wouldn’t follow. She was tremendously relieved when she didn’t. Ward emerged a few minutes later to find the hordes of guests migrating toward the softball field, where preparations had begun for the fireworks display. During the course of the dinner discussion, it had grown dark enough for the show, and Ward understood that Judi liked to end the fireworks at a reasonable hour, since so many of her guests would have to be at work in the hospital early the next day.

The table where she’d been sitting was now vacant, and Ward was relieved. She’d had a long day, and if the fireworks display wasn’t imminent, she might have skipped it altogether.

But.

Here she was, on a warm, clear, gorgeous summer night, and could think of no better way to fill the remaining hours of her day.

She glanced around and grabbed a fresh water from one of the many ice-filled tubs scattered around, and then, instead of joining the masses, she walked in the other direction, toward the mountains and the fruit trees at their base. She kept her head down as she followed a stone pathway, careful not to trip on the uneven surface in the near darkness. Just as she reached the stone bench beneath the tree, the crunching sound of footsteps startled her. She looked up to see someone approaching. She couldn’t discern any features from a dozen feet away, but the approaching shape was unmistakably feminine, with wavy hair that met the tops of her narrow shoulders, and a small, thin frame that was curvy in all the right places.

“Oh,” a light, female voice said as she noticed Ward, and Ward could hear the surprise. The stranger was just as startled as she was.

“I’m sorry,” Ward said, with a hint of laughter in her voice. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” It was sort of comical, though, to nearly run into another human being in such a deserted place in the near darkness. And then she added, “I didn’t realize this tree was taken.”

The stranger overcame her shock and apparently also found the humor in their situation. “Well, I did have a reservation, but since my date didn’t show up, I’d be happy to share my bench with you. There’s a perfect view from here, and it’s not quite as loud as it is by the softball field.”

The stranger sat and patted the bench beside her.

“So, I guess you’ve been here before?” Ward asked as she took the proffered seat.

The stranger laughed, a deep chuckle that suggested a long story was meant to accompany her answer. Ward found herself waiting, eager to hear the tale. She was disappointed by the stranger’s simple reply. “Yes. Many, many times. How about you?”

“First time,” Ward confessed. “First time I’ve seen fireworks in years.” She didn’t go into detail, didn’t explain about her strange job that didn’t end on holidays, or the hassle of fighting traffic to see a fireworks display in the city.

The stranger was polite enough not to ask questions but instead patted Ward softly on the shoulder. Her voice was like a caress in the darkness. “You’re in for a special treat, then.”

“Yeah?”

The stranger cleared her throat. “Oh, yeah. Judi goes all out for this. The guys who do the show are pros.”

Ward leaned back and slid down, slowly stretching her legs in front of her as she rested her head against the back of the bench. She turned to face the stranger. Now that her eyes had adjusted, she could see her features more clearly. The wavy hair was one length, tucked behind the ears at the moment, but only because she persistently redirected the strays that managed to escape. Her eyes were fair, like her hair, and her nose was long and straight, with a small bump at the bridge that looked invitingly kissable. As did her full lips, which were parted at the moment. The sight of them caused Ward to suck in a breath, which seemed obnoxiously loud in the quiet beneath their tree. A softly curving chin led into a long neck, partially hidden now by the hair that seemed to have a life of its own.