“Not even one sock?” he asked in a pleading way.
Blair glanced at him and saw that he was laughing at her. “You!” she laughed and fell back into his arms, where he hugged her fiercely. “You didn’t tell me about the triplets.”
“What triplets?”
“The ones you delivered and that were written about in four journals.”
He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “I’ve never delivered triplets in my life.”
“But you said…Oh, you!” she gasped, laughing.
He ran his hand up her trousered legs and over her bare back. “How about walking down to the river? We can eat there.”
“And talk about the clinic,” she said, as she stood and put on her shirt. “When do you think the equipment will arrive? And you never did tell me exactly what you ordered. Lee, if you don’t want to work there all the time, I thought I might write a friend of mine, Dr. Louise Bleeker. She’s quite good and Chandler is growing by leaps and bounds, so I’m sure we could use another doctor.”
“Actually, I was thinking of hiring Mrs. Krebbs to help in the clinic.”
Blair paused in buttoning her shirt. “Mrs. Krebbs! Do you know what she’s like? One day, a little boy came to the hospital with a chicken bone caught in his throat and dear Mrs. Krebbs suggested I wait for a real doctor to arrive.”
“And she’s still alive today?” he asked, wide-eyed.
She squinted up at him. “Are you teasing me again?”
“I never tease women who look like you do.” He looked down at her gaping shirt that was unbuttoned to just above her navel. “Come on,” he said before she could answer. “If we’re going to talk business, let’s at least walk while we do it.”
Chapter 26
Leander and Blair, holding hands, ran up the hill to the cabin. They stopped now and then to kiss, and Lee began to tug on Blair’s clothes and she on his until, when they reached the rise just before the cabin, they were both unbuttoned to the waist.
But the fun stopped when they looked up the hill toward the cabin, for there on the front porch stood Reed Westfield.
Lee’s face instantly turned somber, as he put himself between Blair and the cabin and began to button her shirt. “Listen to me,” he said gently. “I think I’ll have to go away again. I don’t imagine my father’d come here unless it were an emergency.”
“Emergency? I can—.” Something in his eyes made her stop and her jaw harden. “Is it that kind of emergency? One where I’m to be excluded, where I can’t be trusted? The emergency that is for men only?”
He put his hands on her shoulders. “Blair, you have to trust me. I would tell you if I could, but for your own good—.”
“For my own good, I should remain ignorant. I understand completely.”
“You don’t understand anything!” Lee said, his fingers gripping her tightly. “You’re just going to have to trust me. If I could tell you, I would.”
She jerked away from him. “I understand perfectly. You are just like Mr. Gates. You have rigid ideas of what a woman can and cannot do, and I can’t be trusted enough to be told what you’re doing when you so mysteriously disappear. Tell me, what do you plan to allow me to do now that we’re married? That is, besides manage your household and gleefully share your bed? May I continue practicing medicine, or am I too incompetent to do that, too?”
Lee rolled his eyes skyward, as if looking for help. “All right, have it your way. You seem to think I’m a monster, so I’ll be one. My father is here for an important reason, and I have to leave you now. I can’t tell you where I’m going or I would. What I’d like you to do now is to return to Chandler with my father, and I will be home as soon as possible.”
Blair didn’t say another word as she walked past him, up the hill and toward the cabin. It was difficult for her to even look at Reed. He’d never liked her since s
he was a child and he’d caught her playing a prank on his precious son. When Lee’d said he wanted to marry Blair, Reed had participated in that dreadful interrogation Gates had subjected her to. And later, Reed had pointblank, directly, lied to her, making up that story about Lee and a Frenchwoman.
So now, as she walked past him and into the cabin, she could be neither warm or even especially cordial. She greeted him coolly and went inside.
Even when she was alone, she wouldn’t allow herself to unbend. What had she expected except to be treated this way? Lee said he loved her, but what man wouldn’t love a woman who was as enthusiastic a bed partner as she was? And Lee’s sense of honor would make him feel obligated to marry her, since she’d been a virgin that first night.
Blair went upstairs to remove the men’s clothing she was wearing and put her medical uniform back on. The window was open and through it she could hear voices. When she looked outside, she could see Lee and his father at some distance from the cabin and, from the look of their gestures, they were angry with each other.
Lee was squatting in the grass, chewing on a stem, while Reed was using every inch of his heavy body to lean over his son in an intimidating way. To Blair, it looked as if Reed were threatening Lee.
In spite of herself, she leaned closer to the window. Some words floated to her, words that Reed was punctuating with a finger pointed at Lee. “…danger…” “…risk your life…” “…Pinkerton…”