A Soldier's Return. RaeAnne Thayne

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       Chapter Two

      “You’re late.” Carmen Marquez, the clinic’s receptionist and office manager, gave an arch look over the top of her readers, and Melissa winced but held up her braced wrist.

      “I know. It’s been a crazy day. I’m sorry. Blame it on this.”

      “What did you do? Punch somebody?” Tiffany Lowell, one of their certified nursing assistants, gave her a wide-eyed look—though the college student and part-time band front woman wore so much makeup, she had the same expression most of the time.

      “I tripped over a big, goofy Irish setter and sprained my wrist. I’m sorry I’m late, but I was on strict orders to rest and put ice on it.”

      “That’s exactly what you should be doing. In fact, it’s what Dr. Sanderson would be telling you to do if he were here,” Carmen said.

      Dr. Sanderson Jr. had been the one to give her the instructions, but she wasn’t ready to share that interesting bit of gossip with the other women.

      “You look like you’re either going to puke or pass out,” Tiffany observed.

      “We don’t have any patients scheduled for another half hour,” Carmen said with a great deal more sympathy in her voice. “You should at least sit down.”

      “I’m fine. I need to get ready for the new doctor. He should be coming in today.”

      Carmen angled her head in a strange way, her mouth pursed and her eyes twinkling. “He’s already here. Oh, honey. Have we got a surprise for you.”

      The butterflies that had been dancing in her stomach since earlier on the beach seemed to pick up their pace. “The substitute doctor is Dr. Sanderson’s son, Eli.”

      “Whoa! Did your fall make you psychic or something?” Tiffany asked with much more respect than she usually awarded Melissa.

      “In a way, I guess you could say that. Sort of. I bumped into him on the beach this morning. He was a firsthand witness when I made my graceful face-plant into the sand, and he ended up kindly helping me up.”

      The memory of the concern in his blue eyes and of his strong fingers holding her hand, his skin warm against hers, made her nerve endings tingle.

      She firmly clamped down on the memory. She would have to work closely with him for at least the next few weeks while Wendell recovered. It would be a disaster if she couldn’t manage to keep a lid on her unexpected attraction to the man.

      “I keep forgetting you grew up in town,” Carmen said. “You must know Eli, then.”

      While Cannon Beach could swarm with tourists during the summer months, it was really a small town at heart. Most permanent residents knew one another.

      “We went to school together. He was older. I was a freshman the year he was a senior. I didn’t know he was going to be filling in until I bumped into him this morning. Last I heard, we were getting a temp from the Portland agency.”

      “That’s what I heard, too,” Carmen said. “I guess we have to roll with what we get.”

      “I’m pretty sure plenty of women in Cannon Beach will want to roll with Doc Sanderson’s son when they see him.” Tiffany smirked.

      Melissa turned her shocked laugh into a cough. “He told me he wasn’t sure until the last minute whether he’d be able to make it back to fill in.”

      “You know where he’s been, right?” Carmen asked.

      “Some kind of war zone,” Tiffany said.

      Wendell had told her something about what his son was doing, how since finishing his internship in emergency medicine several years earlier, Eli had been on a special assignment from the military to work with aid agencies, setting up medical clinics and providing care to desperate, helpless people whose countries were in turmoil. He had been deployed almost constantly over the last five years.

      Wendell had been so proud of his son for stepping up, even though his service put him in harm’s way time and again. He had also been worried for him.

      “He feels things so deeply,” her boss had said. “I can’t imagine it’s easy, the kinds of things he has to see now.”

      She remembered feeling great sympathy for Eli and admiration for him, though at the time she had pictured him as the nerdy, scholarly, skinny teenager she remembered, not the buff, gorgeous man she had encountered that morning on the beach.

      “One thing I need to ask, though. Maybe you know the answer,” Carmen said. “How can he just show up in Cannon Beach and start practicing medicine here? Do I need to check with the licensing board? Doesn’t he need an Oregon license or something?”

      “Fun and interesting fact. The particular license given to U.S. Army doctors allows them to practice medicine anywhere.”

      Melissa could feel her vertebrae stiffen and nerves flutter at the deep voice from behind her.

      Oh, it was going to be a long two or three weeks if she didn’t take control of this ridiculous crush she had suddenly formed for Eli Sanderson.

      “I guess that makes sense,” Carmen said.

      “Yes,” he answered. “Think how confusing it would be if an army doc had to go before the licensing board every time he was called to an emergency or had a new assignment.”

      “That would be a serious pain.” Melissa hated the slightly breathless note in her voice. She sounded ridiculous, like the kind of brainless bikini-clad groupies who used to follow the pro surfers on the circuit.

      She cleared her throat, wishing she could clear away her nerves as easily.

      “Good to know. I’ll file that little tidbit away, in case I’m ever on a game show where ‘Army Doctors’ is a category.”

      Tiffany snorted, and Eli’s mouth quirked up into a little smile, teeth flashing. She had the strangest feeling he hadn’t found that many things to smile about lately, though she couldn’t have said exactly why she had that impression.

      “That would be the most boring game show ever,” he said. “Unless you love learning about regulations and protocol.”

      “I really don’t. As long as you can legally see your father’s patients, that’s all I care about.”

      “I’ll СКАЧАТЬ