care for him. In the end, because he had refused to listen, refused the treatments, he was in monstrous pain. You’re a doctor—you know how horrible terminal cancer is. Those last weeks in the hospital were the worst. There was nothing they could do for him that time. So he died a little every day. I went on performing, because he insisted, then flying back to the hospital in Geneva every chance I had. I wasn’t there when he died. I was in Madrid. I got a standing ovation.”
“Can you blame yourself for that?”
“No. But I can regret.” Her eyes were awash with it.
“What do you intend to do now?”
She looked down at her hands, spread her fingers, curled them into her palms. “When I came back here, I was tired. Just worn out, Brady. I needed time—I still do—to understand what I feel, what I want, where I’m going.” She stepped toward him and lifted her hands to his face. “I didn’t want to become involved with you, because I knew you’d be one more huge complication.” Her lip curved a little. “And I was right. But when I woke up this morning in your bed, I was happy. I don’t want to lose that.”
He took her wrists. “I love you, Vanessa.”
“Then let me work through this.” She went easily into his arms. “And just be with me.”
He pressed a kiss to her hair. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Chapter Ten
“That was the last patient, Dr. Tucker.”
Distracted, Brady looked up from the file on his desk and focused on his nurse. “What?”
“That was the last patient.” She was already swinging her purse over her shoulder and thinking about putting her feet up. “Do you want me to lock up?”
“Yeah. Thanks. See you tomorrow.” He listened with half an ear to the clink of locks and the rattle of file drawers. The twelve-hour day was almost at an end. The fourth twelve-hour day of the week. Hyattown was a long way from New York, but as far as time served was concerned, Brady had found practicing general medicine in a small town as demanding as being chief resident in a major hospital. Along with the usual stream of patients, hospital rounds and paperwork, an outbreak of chicken pox and strep throat had kept him tied to his stethoscope for over a week.
Half the town was either scratching or croaking, he thought as he settled down to his paperwork. The waiting room had been packed since the end of the holiday weekend. As the only doctor in residence, he’d been taking office appointments, making house calls, doing rounds. And missing meals, he thought ruefully, wishing they still stocked lollipops, rather than balloons and plastic cars, for their younger patients.
He could get by with frozen microwave meals and coffee for a few days. He could even get by with only patches of sleep. But he couldn’t get by without Vanessa. He’d barely seen her since the weekend of the wedding—since the weekend they had spent almost exclusively in bed. He’d been forced to cancel three dates. For some women, he thought, that alone would have been enough to have them stepping nimbly out of a relationship.
Better that she knew up front how bad it could get. Being married to a doctor was being married to inconvenience. Canceled dinners, postponed vacations, interrupted sleep.
Closing the file, he rubbed his tired eyes. She was going to marry him, he determined. He was going to see to that. If he ever wangled an hour free to set the stage and ask her.
He picked up the postcard on the corner of his desk. It had a brilliant view of the sun setting on the water, palm trees and sand—and a quickly scrawled note from his father on the back.
“You’d better be having a good time, Dad,” Brady mused as he studied it. “Because when you get back, you’re going to pay up.”
He wondered if Vanessa would enjoy a tropical honeymoon. Mexico, the Bahamas, Hawaii. Hot, lazy days. Hot, passionate nights. Moving too fast, he reminded himself. You couldn’t have a honeymoon until you had a wedding. And you couldn’t have a wedding until you’d convinced your woman she couldn’t live without you.
He’d promised himself he would take it slowly with Vanessa. Give her all the romance they’d missed the first time around. Long walks in the moonlight. Champagne dinners. Evening drives and quiet talks. But the old impatience pulled at him. If they were married now, he could drag