For the Sake of Warwick Mountain (Harlequin Heartwarming) (3 page)

“I can’t afford any question of my own reputation. As the local schoolteacher—”

“Caesar’s wife?”

“Exactly. My own life must be above reproach or the people here won’t want me teaching their children. There’s a clause in my contract. Moral turpitude, I believe it’s called.”

He felt torn. On the one hand, he’d made his promise to Dwight and had also begun to look forward to knowing this forthright, unpretentious woman better. But on the other, if she kicked him out, he’d have the perfect excuse to take that cruise he needed so badly.

The choice should have been simple, but his conscience wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily. He thought of all the families who needed his help, medical attention Dwight had been prepared to give until he’d broken his wrist. Matt had to make a stab at carrying out his friend’s commitments.

“Isn’t there somewhere else I can stay? Another family who might take me in?”

“Aunt Delilah and I went through the list of possibilities.” She frowned with genuine disappointment. “None of them would work out. I’m sorry. Looks like you made this trip for nothing.”

His conscience prodded him like a sharp stick. “What if I rented a motor home?”

Her face brightened an instant, then fell again. “There’s still the question of where you’d park it. Keeping it here would raise the same red flags as your being a houseguest.”

“There has to be someone—”

“The people of Warwick Mountain are poor but proud, with a long heritage of hospitality. No matter whose home you parked at, you’d put a strain on the people who live there.”

“But I wouldn’t need anything from them—”

“That’s not the point. They would consider you their guest, and they would tax their own resources to provide you with electricity, water, meals—”

“I’d insist on paying.”

She cocked her head and stared at him with that bright, open look he found so enticing. “You have a lot to learn about mountain folk. If you refuse their hospitality, you’ll offend their pride. Offend one member of this community, and you’ll offend them all, and the next thing you know, they’ll refuse to accept treatment from you. They’re touchy enough about accepting charity as it is. I’m sorry. I just don’t see any way to make this work.”

“We could get married,” he said jokingly. “Then I could stay here without damaging your reputation.”

At the mention of marriage, her expression closed, her entire demeanor stiffened, and he realized he’d hit a sore spot.

“Sorry,” he said. “Guess that wasn’t funny.”

“Or helpful,” she admitted, but added a hint of a smile as if to suggest he was forgiven.

“You really care about these people, don’t you?”

She leaned toward him, her eyes sparking like green fire. “I grew up here. My parents died in a car accident when I was a baby, and Granny Warwick raised me. My neighbors are good people, salt of the earth. They’d share their last morsel of food and drop of water with you. If you need help with your chores, they’ll pitch in to assist you before they do their own. This community is deeply rooted in two things—their traditional values and their love of the land. What they lack in money and worldly goods, they make up for in generosity and a zest for living.”

He wanted her to keep talking, to watch the light flash in her eyes, the expressions scud across her face like clouds caught in the jet stream. “Tell me about the people Dwight planned to treat. I have his records in my briefcase, but I haven’t had a chance to study them yet.”

She relaxed against the back of the rocker and crossed her trim ankles. “Several of the farmers and their wives need skin cancers removed. They’ve worked all their lives in the outdoors. That exposure’s taken its toll.”

“Basal cell carcinoma or melanoma?” The first was bad enough, but the second could be fatal.

“We don’t know. Dr. Peyseur intended to screen everyone.”

“Anyone have a life-threatening illness?”

“Not that I’m aware of, although many of the men have been heavy smokers all their lives and probably should have their lungs checked. The most serious cases Dr. Peyseur planned to concentrate on are cosmetic.”

Matt frowned. “From the way you’ve described your neighbors, I don’t see them approving of cosmetic surgery.”

Her laughter tumbled through the room like a mountain stream over rocks. “You mean like a face-lift? Not very likely.” Her voice and expression sobered. “The worst case is Lizzie McClain.”

“Where Emily went to play?”

Rebecca nodded. “Lizzie has a cleft lip and cleft palate.”

“How old is she?”

“Almost ten.”

Matt couldn’t hide his shock. “Those defects are usually corrected before age one.”

“Lizzie was born at home. I doubt she’s seen a doctor a half dozen times in her life.”

“You said she’s the worst case. There’re others?”

“Little Jimmy Dickens. He’s eight and terribly scarred from burns when his mother accidentally scalded him with hot grease.”

Matt winced. “Facial scars?”

“Face, neck, arms and hands. All highly visible. Jimmy’s very self-conscious about them.”

Memories of the society matrons and Hollywood celebrities who frequented his clinic complaining of encroaching wrinkles or bags beneath their eyes reproached him. Dwight, who’d been born in these hills, had felt drawn back to them later in life. No wonder he looked forward to this time in the mountains. His partner practiced medicine here that actually changed people’s lives. Not that Matt would have that chance now. Rebecca Warwick had already made it perfectly clear that he couldn’t stay.

The screen door at the front of the house slammed, and Matt heard giggles in the entryway.

“Emily,” Rebecca called. “Is that you?”

Rebecca’s back was to the hallway, but Matt could see the top half of a little girl’s face as she peeked around the door frame. Coal-black hair framed an arresting pair of periwinkle-blue eyes dancing with curiosity. Emily stepped into the room and tugged the other child, an older girl, in with her. The newcomer kept her hand over her mouth and continued to stare at Matt with interest.

“That’s Dr. Tyler,” Emily said to the girl. “He’s come to make you better.” Rebecca’s daughter turned to Matt. “Lizzie doesn’t talk.”

Can’t talk, Matt reminded himself, at least not well without the roof of her mouth to help form the proper sounds. He gave the girl his warmest smile. “Then maybe she can just wave hello.”

As he hoped, Lizzie took her right hand from her mouth and wiggled her fingers at Matt. Keeping his face from showing his distress at the severity of her disfigurement, the split in her upper lip that extended all the way to her nose, he waved back at her. “Hi, Lizzie. I’m glad to meet you. You’re a very pretty girl.”

He spoke the truth. Lizzie was a stunningly beautiful child, except for the cleft lip and palate, defects that his special skills could mend.

“Can we have some cookies, Mommy?” Emily asked.

Rebecca shook her head. “But there’re fresh peaches in a bowl in the fridge.”

“Can I show Lizzie the baby chicks?”

“Just be sure to keep the gate to the henhouse closed.”

“See you later, Dr. Tyler,” Emily said with a giggle and a friendly grin, and Lizzie waved again before following Emily into the kitchen.

Matt watched them go and temporarily thrust visions of a South Pacific paradise aside. If he went to work immediately and coordinated with the nearest surgery facility, two weeks were all he’d need to correct Lizzie’s problem. He could leave the follow-up visits to a local doctor—removing the sutures, guarding against infection and scheduling speech therapy were tasks that almost any doctor could handle—and Matt would still have time for his Fiji cruise.

He turned to Rebecca. “I know you can’t have me here, but I intend to stay and do Dwight’s work, even if I have to sleep in my car in a field somewhere.”

CHAPTER THREE

N
O
WONDER
M
ATT
T
YLER
had such a reputation with women. Becca failed to completely repress a wry grimace. Her own four-year-old daughter and ten-year-old Lizzie had gone gaga over the man, blushing and giggling when he turned on his charm. Was Becca the only woman in the house who hadn’t fallen for him like a dead tree in a high wind?

She studied him closely, but couldn’t tell whether Matt had been as touched by Lizzie’s disfigurement as he appeared, or if he was merely a powerful, wealthy man used to having his own way. His motivations, however, changed nothing about the predicament she was in.

“Even if you slept in your car,” she told him, “you’d still be considered the guest of the field’s owner, so we’re back to our original quandary.”

He pushed to his feet and paced the hearth in front of the fire. “Now that I’ve seen Lizzie, I can’t just walk away without helping her. Isn’t there an empty house or building I could rent for a few weeks?”

Becca felt the stirrings of admiration at his determination, but she squelched them quickly. Matt’s concern with Lizzie didn’t necessarily indicate compassion. For all Becca knew, the child merely posed a professional challenge.

“Every house in the area is occupied. Even some that are barely habitable,” she said.

With a sigh of frustration, he rammed his hands into his pockets. “Surely there’s somewhere I could stay and commute?”

“Not within forty mountain miles. We’re one of the most isolated communities in western North Carolina.”

“And nobody has an empty barn or shed where I could camp out?”

The solution to the problem popped into her head, and Becca wondered if her resistance to the doctor’s charms had prevented her from thinking of it before. “The old feed store on Main Street is empty.”

Matt’s expression brightened. He jerked his hands from his pockets and rubbed them together. “That might work. Who owns it?”

“I do.”

His surprise was evident. She didn’t wonder. Sometimes the fact that she owned the property surprised even her. Especially when the mortgage payments came due. She and Emily had gone without to buy the old structure. Her car, actually Granny’s car, was ten years old. They had no television satellite dish, no computer, and they’d had to postpone indefinitely Emily’s dreams of a Disney World vacation to buy the old store. If Becca’s plans for it materialized, though, every sacrifice would have been worth it.

“Is it livable?” Matt asked.

“Depends on what you mean by living.” Becca considered the man with a critical eye. He’d probably never done without in his entire life. Aunt Delilah had said he had more money than God. His residential requirements would be more appropriately met by the staff and facilities of a Ritz-Carlton penthouse suite. The prospect of the wealthy, pampered doctor roughing it in the old store tugged her mouth into a smile. “It has a bathroom. Toilet and sink only, no tub or shower.”

If the lack of bathing facilities fazed him, to his credit, he didn’t show it. “A kitchen?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“I’d still like to check the place out, if that’s all right with you.”

She shrugged, figuring he’d take one look at the dusty old ruin and beat a fast retreat to California. “I’ll see if Mrs. McClain will look after Emily.”

A few minutes later, with the two girls settled under her neighbor’s watchful eye, Becca climbed into the front seat of the Land Rover and took a deep breath. “I love that new-car smell. You were lucky to get a brand-new rental.”

Matt turned the SUV around and headed down the mountain for the village. “It’s not a rental. I bought it in Asheville.”

Becca settled into the deep leather seat and fastened her seat belt. The car cost more than she earned in a year and had depreciated by thousands of dollars the minute he had driven it off the lot. She couldn’t wrap her mind around having that kind of income to toss around. The doctor seemed to accept spending money as naturally as breathing.

So had Grady.

Her former fiancé had thought money could buy him anything. But she’d taught him differently, much to his—and his father’s—surprise. She had refused to place a price on honor, dignity and self-respect. With a shudder of revulsion, she pushed those memories away and gazed out the window at the road ahead.

She always enjoyed the drive into the village. The rain had stopped, the clouds were lifting and the sun was shining. On the way down the mountain, every curve of the gravel road revealed breathtaking vistas of ridge after ridge of softly folded mountains clad in blue haze. These mountains were her home. She’d felt strangely exposed in the alien landscape when she’d gone to college at the edge of the North Carolina Piedmont in Chapel Hill, away from the Smokies’ sheltering, comforting presence. She had always hungered to return to Warwick Mountain. She’d fled here when her world collapsed over five years ago, and she hadn’t left since.

Didn’t plan to. Ever.

Matt handled the hairpin curves smoothly, driving with the same easy confidence that seemed to suffuse every aspect of the man’s personality. Becca wondered if his remarkable self-possession was the result of his incredible wealth or an innate characteristic. Nothing seemed to rattle the man. When confronted with a problem, he immediately looked for solutions—with the assumption they’d be there.

And solutions, she thought with a twinge of envy, were infinitely more available when money was also plentiful. Then she silently rebuked herself. Money couldn’t buy love, and she wouldn’t trade all of Dr. Wonderful’s millions for her life on Warwick Mountain with Emily, family, friends and memories of Granny.

They passed orchards of gnarled apple trees, limbs heavy with ripening fruit; stands of ancient hickories and oaks with an understory of dogwoods and wild azaleas; and cultivated fields, hip high in corn, defying gravity to grow tall and straight on the steep forty-five-degree slopes.

“This is beautiful country,” Matt said.

“Nice place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live here?” Becca asked.

“What makes you say that?” Matt’s tone implied curiosity rather than offense.

The Land Rover had rounded the last curve and exited the gravel secondary road onto the narrow blacktop of Warwick Mountain’s Main Street. Actually, Warwick Mountain’s only street.

“This isn’t exactly Rodeo Drive.” Becca pointed out the landmarks. “That’s the Baptist church where the street dead-ends. Three houses on one side of the street, the feed store and convenience store/gas station on the other. You’re not in California anymore, Toto.”

Matt pulled in front of the feed store and parked. “I can tell that by the air.”

Feeling her hackles rising in defense of her home territory, Becca turned on him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The smile he flashed was one-hundred watt. “You can’t see the air here. It’s too clean. Unlike the smog I’m used to.”

She bent her head to unfasten her seat belt, glad for the chance to avoid his face. As hard as she tried to dislike the man, he kept doing and saying things that won her over. Admiring her daughter, showing compassion for Lizzie, appreciating the quality of mountain air. Good thing he wouldn’t be staying at her home. He’d probably have her eating out of his hand in no time, just like every other female on the planet.

Becca, however, had her experiences with Grady as a shield against the doctor’s charms. She’d made a fool of herself over a man once.

Never again.

She opened the door and hopped to the curb. “Ready to inspect the real estate?”

Confident he’d take one look at the interior of the feed store and hop the first flight back to Los Angeles, she strode up the wooden stairs of the loading dock to unlock the wide, double front doors.

* * *

M
ATT
WATCHED
HER
graceful ascent of the stairs with appreciation. Rebecca Warwick was like no other woman he’d ever met. In California, every female he’d encountered had been obviously impressed by his wealth and his status. He rarely had to ask a woman for a date. Someone always called him first, inviting him to this party or that opening. The enigmatic Miss Warwick was apparently totally unimpressed by his celebrity status or his money. Her only interest seemed to be helping the people of her community obtain medical care.

And protecting her reputation.

But hadn’t she already damaged her standing in the community by having a child without a father? As conservative as she insisted her neighbors were, the people evidently didn’t hold the circumstances of Emily’s conception against Becca, or she wouldn’t be teaching their children.

Questions swarmed him like mosquitoes on a summer night. Who was Emily’s father and what had happened to him? Who could love such a vibrant woman and have such an adorable little girl and just walk away from them? Or maybe the man had died—

“Cold feet?” Rebecca stood at the top of the loading dock, looking down at him, and he realized he’d been lost in thought.

“We can forget this idea, if you like,” she said. “I won’t be offended if you decide you’ve already seen enough.”

Matt turned his attention from the woman with the mocking green eyes to the ancient structure of the feed store. Taking the stairs two at a time, he joined her on the dock. “Too soon to make up my mind. I haven’t seen anything yet. Lead the way.”

With a flick of her delicate wrist, she keyed the rusty lock and disengaged it. The double doors swung open with a squeal of rusty hinges.

Rebecca grimaced at the noise.

“Nothing a little WD-40 can’t fix,” Matt assured her and followed her inside.

Late-afternoon sun spilled through the tall windows that ran the length of the building on both sides, and dust motes floated in the rays illuminating the huge timber-framed space. Marks on the floors, indicating where storage bins and displays had sat, and a few empty crates were the only items left in the building.

“Bathroom’s at the rear.” Becca nodded toward a closet-size enclosure in the back corner. “Otherwise, what you see is what you get.”

Matt ran his hand along an exposed wall stud. “Good bones.”

Rebecca looked puzzled. “That a medical term?”

“It’s a building expression. The structure’s well built with good materials. You can’t find heart pine like this anymore.”

“It may be well built, but I doubt it will suit you. As you can see—” she encompassed the open space and uncovered windows with a sweep of her hand
“—there’s no privacy, and definitely no creature comforts. Worse than living in a barn. At least in a barn, you’d have hay to sleep on.”

“Trying to get rid of me?”

Although he’d made his tone joking, he couldn’t help wondering why she seemed reluctant for him to stay. She’d certainly balked at all his other suggestions for boarding arrangements. Even though her reservations had sounded reasonable, he sensed her throwing up walls, as if afraid to allow him to get too close. Maybe her reaction was typical of someone who lived in such seclusion. Or maybe she just didn’t want him upsetting her routine.

“Being realistic,” she said. “If you don’t rest well and eat well, you can’t work. If you can’t work, you’re no help to anyone.” She shrugged, lifting her shoulders in a manner that made him want to wrap his hands around them. “I knew this was a bad idea.”

“Hold on.” He strode toward the back of the building, stuck his head into the tiny bathroom, then paced off several feet of the adjoining space. “This can work.”

She shook her head in exasperation. “How?”

“If you’ll let me, I can frame and drywall a bedroom area—”

He stopped as her eyes widened in apparent disapproval.

“Or I could just string a few tarps for privacy—”

“You?” Skepticism dripped from the word.

“Sure. Why not?”

“You’re a doctor, not a carpenter.”

He enjoyed a smidgen of satisfaction. He’d apparently befuddled the unflappable Miss Warwick. “I’m a doctor and a carpenter.”

Her puzzled look disappeared. “I get it. Woodworking is your hobby.”

He shook his head. “More than a hobby. I’m a master carpenter.”

Her bafflement returned. “Why?”

“Why not?”

“Afraid Hollywood’s quest for eternal youth will go bust and you’ll need a backup career? I don’t think so.” She shook her head in disbelief.

“I haven’t always been a plastic surgeon.”

She tilted her head upward, at the same time lifting her lips in a smile so inviting he shoved his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for her. “You mean you had a life before Dr. Wonderful?”

“You agreeable to letting me stay here?”

“If you’re serious.”

He nodded, then dragged a couple of abandoned fruit crates from a corner, dusted them off with his sleeve and set them in a rectangle of light pouring through a window. “Have a seat, and I’ll bore you to death with the story of my life.”

She glanced distrustfully at the crate, eased onto it, crossed her legs and clasped her hands around one knee. “Hope it’s a short story.”

“Short but not sweet.” He settled on the crate across from her and wondered where the crazy impulse to tell all had come from. He never talked about his past. Never really even thought about it. But for some unfathomable reason, he wanted to share it with Rebecca Warwick.

“Don’t tell me you were a bad little boy,” she teased. “You must have had some discipline or you’d have never made it through medical school.”

“I wasn’t bad. Just poor.”

She narrowed her eyes in disbelief. “The other kids drove a Mercedes or Porsche to high school and you only had a Toyota? That kind of poor?”

“Nope, the old-fashioned not-having-two-nickels-to-rub-together kind of poor. My father died when I was two. Killed by a drunk driver. No life insurance. My mother cleaned other people’s houses to support us. I know what it’s like to do without.” He’d always felt ashamed of his past around his celebrity friends, but he felt no censure from Rebecca.

“That’s why you became a doctor, so you wouldn’t have to do without again?”