Dance with the Doctor Read online

  “We can go there. But the bed here is much more comfortable.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go back to sleep?” she teased.

  “I can’t get enough of you.” He pulled her close, letting her feel how ready he was for her again.

  “Mmm.” She swiveled her hips against him.

  “What do you call that move?”

  “An omi.” She did it again—contracting the muscles first on her right side, then the center, then the left, releasing in the back, an undulating circle of movement around her hips.

  “Very interesting.” He grasped her hips.

  “I know lots of interesting moves.”

  “I think you need to show me.”

  He let her take the lead in their lovemaking this time. She felt free to be in turns silly and serious, playful and passionate. She bit his shoulder when she came this time, and he stifled his cries against her breast.

  “One day, Taylor will have an overnight stay with her mother,” he said as they lay in each other’s arms afterward. “Then I’ll really show you. No holding back.”

  “If this is what you call holding back, I can’t wait.”

  He kissed her again, the leisurely kiss of a man who is sure of what is his. But he abruptly stilled and pulled away. “Taylor’s up.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I heard the toilet flush.”

  Darcy tried to move quickly and quietly. She didn’t feel what she and Mike had done was wrong, exactly, but she didn’t want to start the day explaining things to a ten-year-old girl.

  She hurried to the guest room to change while he headed for the kitchen. She found him there with Taylor twenty minutes later.

  “Good morning, Darcy.” Taylor greeted her with a hug. “Dad’s making pancakes.” She giggled. “It’s his specialty.”

  Darcy thought of a few other things the good doctor did especially well, but kept these thoughts to herself. “What are you grinning about?” Mike gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek and a not-so-chaste squeeze of her hip. “You don’t think I can make pancakes?”

  “I’m sure you can do anything you set your mind to.”

  “He can’t make very good cookies,” Taylor said. “He always burns the bottoms.”

  “It’s just as well he isn’t perfect,” Darcy said. “Then he might be really hard to live with.”

  Mike’s pancakes were indeed delicious. Darcy and Taylor polished off a stack each, then helped Mike with the dishes. “Let’s go skiing!” Taylor shouted when they were done.

  When Darcy thought about that morning later she wondered how much the fog of newfound love colored her memories. Everything about the morning was perfect in the way only dreams are perfect. The fresh snow was soft and smooth underfoot. The ski runs were long swatches of white corduroy. “You’re a beautiful skier,” Mike said when Darcy joined him at the bottom of a run.

  “Thanks.” His smile made her oblivious to the cold. Or maybe she was still warmed by this morning’s lovemaking. Already she was looking forward to tonight…. But no, she shouldn’t think that far ahead. She should simply enjoy this beautiful day. She turned to watch Taylor come down the hill. “You look great,” she called to the girl.

  “We should come skiing every weekend,” Taylor said as the three of them glided into the lift line. “Or every day. You should quit your job at the clinic and we can move into the condo.”

  “And pay the rent with what?” Mike asked. “I’m too old to get by on good looks and charm.”

  “They probably need doctors in Breckenridge,” Taylor said. “And belly dancers.”

  “Oh yes, there’s a critical shortage of belly dancers,” Darcy agreed. “It’s why we’re all so wealthy.”

  “Now you’re just being silly,” Taylor said.

  “Yes, I am.” They’d reached the front of the line and skied forward and waited for the chair.

  When they were settled, the lap bar lowered, Taylor continued. “I still wish we could come up here more often.”

  “How long have you had the condo?” Darcy asked Mike, who sat on the other side of Taylor.

  He stretched his arm along the back of the chair, his hand brushing Darcy’s shoulder. “We bought it four years ago. At the time, I thought we’d be up here every weekend, but somehow we never make it more than a few times a season.”

  “Time gets away from us, doesn’t it?” Had it really been a month since Mike and Taylor had changed her life? Being with them felt so right, as if she’d known them for years.

  “Put the bar up, Dad,” Taylor ordered as their chair approached the top of the lift. She scooted to the edge of the seat.

  “Careful.” Her father tugged at the back of her jacket. “We’re not at the top yet.”

  “We are now!” As soon as they reached the unloading zone, Taylor hopped from the chair and sped away. Darcy dug in her poles, trying to build speed and keep up with the girl.

  “Over here!” Taylor called, and waved from the top of a run.

  Mike and Darcy skied over to Taylor, but as soon as they reached her side, she took off down the run. “Watch this!” She slid over to a mogul field at the side of the run. She wove in and out of the bumps with all the grace and speed of a raindrop flowing down a windowpane.

  “Taylor, be careful!” Mike stopped beside Darcy. “She’s not listening to me.”

  “She probably can’t hear you.”

  “She doesn’t want to hear me.” He glanced at her. “I understand selective hearing is a common trait of adolescence. Not that a ten-year-old is an adolescent yet.”

  “She’s a good kid.” She started to tell him he had nothing to worry about, but that was a lie. There was always a new worry when it came to children.

  They started down the slope, keeping to the groomed side of the run. Taylor was waiting for them halfway down. “Look at me,” she said, and took off again. She hit the center of a bump and flew into the air, knees tucked and arms wide. Darcy held her breath and waited for Taylor to stick the landing, dimly aware of Mike next to her, swearing under his breath.

  Taylor landed hard, but on her feet. She wobbled, then righted herself and turned to grin at them. Darcy laughed, and started toward her.

  At that moment, Taylor lost her balance. She tipped over onto one ski, then fell and rolled, arms and legs flailing, like a character in a cartoon who turns into a giant snowball.

  Darcy took off toward the girl, but Mike was in front of her, and reached Taylor’s limp body first. She lay spread-eagle on her back, her ski poles still around her wrists, though she’d lost one ski. Her eyes were closed, her face flushed against the whiteness of the snow.

  “Oh, God, is she all right?” Darcy covered her mouth with one mittened hand, as if she could hold back the awful words.

  “Taylor, can you hear me?” Make clicked out of his skis and knelt beside his daughter. “Taylor!”

  He touched her shoulder and she opened her eyes and grinned. “That was so awesome.” She popped up like a jack-in-the-box. “It was almost like flying. Do you see my other ski?”

  Darcy sagged against her ski poles. “You’re all right.”

  “Of course I’m all right.” Taylor awkwardly sidestepped up the slope to where her other ski jutted from the snow.

  “Young lady, if you pull a stunt like that again, you will be grounded for a month,” Mike said. His face was pale, the shadow of his dark beard stubble standing out against his skin.

  “Aw, Dad, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Taylor said.

  “What you did was dangerous and foolish and—”

  “Why don’t we go down and get some hot chocolate,” Darcy interrupted.

  “Yes!” Taylor clapped her hands together. She turned to her father.

  Mike nodded. “Chocolate sounds good.” As Taylor skied in front of them, he maneuvered over beside Darcy. “With maybe a double shot of schnapps in mine. I understand now why so many parents drink.”

  Darcy laughed. “She likes
testing you, I think. But maybe she’s not as fragile as she looks.”

  He shook his head. “All kids are more vulnerable than they feel, but try convincing them of that.”

  “I guess so. I remember when I first got my driver’s license. I felt as if I could do anything.”

  “Then you wrecked the car,” Mike said.

  “No. But I ran out of gas and had to hike to a pay phone to call my dad to come get me. I was mortified.”

  “I wrecked the car,” Mike said. “I had to work all summer to pay for the repairs.”

  At the lodge, Taylor raced around with two other girls and a boy, climbing the piles of snow and sliding down. Darcy waited at a picnic table in the sun while Mike went inside to fetch hot chocolate. “You have a beautiful daughter,” an older woman said.

  “Thank you.” Darcy didn’t correct her.

  By noon they were all pink cheeked and it was clear Taylor was beginning to tire. “Let’s go back to the condo and have lunch and a nap,” Mike said. “This evening, we’ll go tubing.”

  “Yay!” Taylor raised her hands in a victory gesture.

  Darcy was heating soup while Mike grilled sandwiches when his cell phone rang. He went into the other room to take the call and returned a few minutes later, frowning. “That was my answering service,” he said. “Brent Jankowski took a turn for the worse last night. His mother brought him to the emergency room this morning and he’s been admitted.”

  “Is Brent the boy with the sick heart?” Taylor asked.

  “Yes.” Mike patted her shoulder. “I need to go see him. Tonight.”

  Darcy did her best to mask her disappointment. She wanted Mike to stay here with her, but of course he had to go and help this sick boy. “Taylor and I will do girl stuff,” she said. “We can still go tubing when you get back.”

  “Thanks for understanding.” He kissed her briefly on the lips, then kissed his daughter.

  “I hope Brent is feeling better,” Taylor said anxiously. “Is he as sick as I was?”

  “Not quite,” Mike said. “At least I hope not.”

  With Mike gone, the mood in the condo was definitely more subdued. Darcy and Taylor had lunch and Darcy left the dishes for later. “I could use a nap,” she said, stifling a yawn. Her early morning and all that skiing were catching up with her.

  “If you’re tired, I guess I could lie down, too,” Taylor said.

  Darcy started for the guest room, but ended up instead in Mike’s room. She crawled under the covers, imagining she could still smell the scent of his body and the faint musk of sex. She fell asleep smiling, wishing his arms were around her, but knowing he would be back.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “DARCY? I don’t feel very good.”

  Darcy struggled up from a deep sleep. She’d been dreaming of Mike—of his arms wrapped around her, kissing his way down her body….

  “Darcy!”

  She opened one eye. Taylor stood by the side of the bed. “What is it, honey?” Darcy came more fully awake, both eyes open now. She pushed herself up on her elbows.

  “I don’t feel good,” Taylor said, her face contorting.

  Then she threw up on the bed.

  Old skills long forgotten came rushing back. Darcy dodged the shower of vomit and within seconds she had a wet washrag and was cleaning a sobbing Taylor and escorting her back to bed. The child was burning up, but Darcy did her best not to show her concern. “Where does it hurt?” she asked, looking into Taylor’s eyes as she tucked her in.

  “My stomach and my head and my chest, a little.”

  “Your heart?” Darcy’s voice rose.

  “Behind it. When I try to take a deep breath there’s a sharp tug.”

  Sharp tugs in the chest were not in Darcy’s Mom repertoire. “Where does your dad keep the thermometer?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think we have one.”

  “I’ll see if I can find it. You rest for a bit.”

  Back in the master bedroom, Darcy set about cleaning up the mess, holding her breath and some how keeping from gagging. When the bed was stripped and the carpet scrubbed, she went in search of a thermometer.

  The master bathroom was depressingly bare, with only a single unwrapped bar of soap and a package of toilet paper in the cabinet. Mike must carry his personal toiletries back and forth.

  Taylor’s bathroom was more cluttered, with a bottle of strawberry shampoo and another of grape bubble bath, along with a pharmacy’s worth of medications.

  Darcy’s hand froze in the act of pushing aside a tall bottle of antacid. Taylor had thrown up her lunchtime meds. Had they been in her system long enough to do any good? Did she need to take them over again? Where was Mike when she needed him?

  She groped in the back of the shelf and brushed against what she thought at first was a mini hair dryer or travel iron. On closer inspection, it proved to be one of those fancy ear thermometers like those used in doctors’ offices.

  Taylor lay on her side, sobbing quietly. “What is it, honey?” Darcy sat on the side of the bed and rubbed the girl’s back.

  “I want Daddy!” Taylor moaned.

  “He’ll be back soon. Just as soon as he can. Meanwhile, I’ll look after you. I need to take your temperature, okay?”

  Taylor nodded and Darcy inserted the thermometer in her ear. A hundred and three. Very high. She tried to remember what Riley’s pediatrician had told her about fevers and children, but it was all a blur. She patted Taylor’s back. “I’ll see if I can find something in the kitchen to settle your stomach.”

  A search of the refrigerator and cabinets yielded nothing helpful. Mike had stocked the pantry, but not with a sick child in mind. Darcy called his cell phone. “Hi, this is Dr. Mike Carter. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

  She supposed the doctor was for the benefit of his answering service. She left a brief message and hung up. Maybe he was already on his way back, traveling through one of the areas where it was impossible to get a cell phone signal, or over an icy pass where it wasn’t safe to answer the phone.

  “Darcy!” Taylor’s cry was weak but urgent.

  Darcy raced back to the bedroom in time to see the child throw up again. “It’s all right, honey. I’m here.” She hurried to get another washrag, praying Mike would be back soon.

  AT THE HOSPITAL MIKE STUDIED the latest results from the lab test he’d ordered for Brent. The numbers weren’t nearly what he’d hoped for. “Fax these to Dr. Munroe,” he said, returning the papers to the nurse at his elbow. The pediatric cardiologist had consulted by phone with Mike from his house in Aspen. Unlike Mike, he’d seen no need to make the drive back to Denver in yet another snowstorm.

  “Keep the boy in the hospital for observation if it makes you feel better,” he’d told Mike. “But he’ll be fine until Monday.”

  Fine was a relative term when dealing with chronically ill children. Fine might be a lower temperature than usual or less pain than the child normally experienced.

  His cell phone beeped, reminding him he had a message. He hit the voice mail button. “Mike, this is Darcy. I don’t want to worry you, but Taylor has come down with some kind of bug. She’s vomiting and has a fever of a hundred and three. I’m worried she might have thrown up her noon meds and I’m not sure what to do. I hope you’ll be back soon.”

  He was already pulling on his coat by the time the message ended, punching in Darcy’s number with his thumb while he searched for his gloves.

  “Mike?” She answered on the second ring.

  “I just got your message. What’s up?”

  “Mike, I’m so glad to hear from you. Are you on your way here?”

  “I’m just leaving. What’s going on with Taylor?”

  He listened to her list of symptoms. “It sounds like the stomach flu that’s been going around,” he said. “Nasty stuff, but it usually resolves within a couple of days.”

  “Then you don’t think it’s serious?” He could hear her relief thr
ough the phone.

  “You say she’s not keeping down her medication?”

  “She’s not keeping down anything. The lunchtime doses were only in her for an hour before she threw up. Should I try to give her everything again?”

  “No. Overdosing is as bad as underdosing in these cases. Just try to keep her quiet and I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  He hung up and finally found his gloves in his coat pocket. He put these on as he headed for the elevator.

  “Dr. Carter, where are you going?” A young nurse—Daphne, he thought her name was—intercepted him near the elevators.

  “I’m headed back to Breckenridge. My patient seems stable for now, but call me if you need anything.”

  “But you can’t drive to Breckenridge,” Daphne said. “It’s a howling blizzard out there.”

  The storm Friday hadn’t kept him from his daughter; he certainly wouldn’t let a little more snow keep them apart. “I’m a good snow driver,” he said. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “I mean, you really can’t go. All the roads are closed.”

  “They shut down I-70 again?” His shoulder muscles tensed as he thought of the torturous drive over three mountain passes on Highway 285.

  “Yes. And they’ve closed 285 too. The news re ports I heard said there were wrecks everywhere.”

  “The roads are closed,” he repeated, numb.

  “Yes. The police are advising people against even traveling locally. We’re setting up all our empty rooms for personnel to spend the night here. I can see if there’s something available for you.”

  “Do you know what the weather’s like in Breckenridge?” he asked.

  “Oh, I think the high country’s getting lots of snow, too. The skiers are loving it.”

  The skiers might love it, but what if Taylor took a turn for the worse and needed advanced medical care? Breckenridge had a small hospital, but what if an ambulance couldn’t get to her? Darcy had sounded pretty stressed on the phone just now. She didn’t have any experience looking after a child as sick as Taylor could get.

  He was Taylor’s father. It was his responsibility to look after her. He’d have to find a way, if he had to commandeer a team of sled dogs to take him to her.