The Doctor's Redemption

“It’s just down the street on the right. The Silver Spoon.”

Mark pulled into the small parking area in front of a nineteen-fifties-style café that had seen better days.

“You want to eat here?”

“Sure. They have the best pecan waffles in town.” Laura Jo was already getting out of the car. She looked back in at him. “You coming?”

Mark had been questioning it. He wasn’t sure the place could pass a health inspection.

“Yes, I am.” He climbed out of the car. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

She was already moving up the few steps to the front door.

* * *

Because all the booths were full, Laura Jo took an empty stool at the bar. She didn’t miss Mark’s dubious look at the duct-taped stool next to her before he took a seat.

“You don’t frequent places like this, do you?”

“I can say that this is a first.”

She grinned. “I thought it might be.”

Mark picked up a plastic-covered menu. “So I need to have the pecan waffles.”

“They’re my favorite.” She was going to enjoy watching Mark out of his element.

“Then waffles it is. You do the ordering.”

“Charlie,” she said to the heavy man wearing what once must have been a white apron, “we’ll have pecan waffles, link sausage and iced tea.”

“Coming right up, Laura Jo,” Charlie said, and turned to give the cook her order.

“I see you’re a regular,” Mark said.

“I come when I can, which isn’t often enough.”

Charlie put their glasses of iced tea on the counter with a thump.

“I don’t normally have iced tea for breakfast.” Mark picked up his glass.

“If you’d rather have coffee…” Laura Jo made it sound like a dare on purpose.

“I said I wanted the same as you and that’s what I’m having. So how did you find this place?”

“Charlie gave one of the mothers that came through the shelter a job here after her baby was born.”

“That was nice. I’m impressed with what you’re doing at the shelter.”

“Thanks. But it never seems like enough. You know, I really appreciate you helping me out with Anna and Marcy. I hated to call you but I knew I couldn’t get her to the hospital and I was uncomfortable with how Marcy looked.”

Mark really had been great with Anna and Marcy. He’d stayed to give moral support even when he hadn’t had to. Maybe she had better character radar than she believed.

“I’m glad you thought you could call.”

She’d been surprised too that she hadn’t hesitated a second before picking up the phone to call him. Somehow she’d just known he would come. “Were you always going to be a doctor?”

“I believe that’s the first personal question you have ever asked me. You do want to get to know me better.”

Laura Jo opened her mouth to refute that statement but he continued, not giving her a chance to do so.

“Yes, I had always planned to go into medicine. My parents liked the idea and I found I did, too. I’ve always liked helping people. How about you? Did you always dream of being a nurse?”

“No, I kind of came to that later in life.”

“So what was your dream?”

“I don’t know. I guess like all the other girls I knew we dreamed of marrying the Mardi Gras king, having two kids and living in a big house.”

He looked in her direction but she refused to meet his gaze. “Marrying the Mardi Gras king, was it? So did you dream of marrying me?”

“I don’t think your ego needs to be fed by my teenage dreams. But I’ll admit to having a crush on you if that will end this conversation.”

“I thought so.”

“Now we won’t be able to get your head out of the door.”

Charlie placed a plateful of food in front of each of them with a clunk on the counter.

“Thanks, Charlie.” She picked up her fork and looked at Mark. “You need to eat your waffle while it’s hot to get the full effect.” She took a bite dripping with syrup.

“Trying to get me to quit asking questions?”

“That and the waffles are better hot.”

They ate in silence for a few minutes.

“So I remember something about an accident and then I didn’t hear much about you after that. I later heard you’d left town. Did you get hurt?”

Mark’s fork halted in midair then he lowered it to the plate.

Had she asked the wrong thing? She looked back at her meal. “You don’t have to tell me if you’d rather not.”

“I wasn’t really hurt. But my friend was. I had to leave a few days later to start my fellowship.”

“What happened?”

“It’s a long story. Too much of one for this morning.”

So the man with all the questions was hiding something. Minutes later she finished her last mouthful. Mark said something. She turned to look at him. “What?”

He touched her face. His gaze caught and held hers as he put his finger between his lips. Her stomach fluttered. She swallowed. Heaven help her, the man held her spellbound.

“You had syrup on your chin.”

“Uh?”

“Syrup on your chin.” Mark said each word slowly, as if speaking to someone who didn’t understand the language.

“Oh.” She dabbed at the spot with her napkin. Mark was starting to shatter her protective barriers. “We’d better go.”

She climbed off the stool and called, “Thanks, Charlie.” She was going out the door as Mark pulled a couple of bills out of his wallet.

Her hand was already on the door handle of his car as Mark pulled into a parking place at the shelter. She needed to get away from him. Find her equilibrium. That look in his eye as he’d licked the syrup on his finger had her thinking of things better left unthought. She stepped out of the car. “Thanks for helping out last night. I don’t know how I’ll repay you.”

“No problem.”

“Bye, Mark.”

Why did a simple gesture from Mark, of all men, make her run? She had to be attracted to him for that to happen. Surely that wasn’t the case.

CHAPTER FOUR

FOUR DAYS LATER, as Laura Jo was busy setting up the med tent on North Broad Street, she was still pondering how to raise the money needed for the single mothers’ shelter. The grant they were hoping for had come through, but with a condition that the board match the amount. There were only five more days of Mardi Gras season, then things would settle down. After that the city would place the house on the market. She couldn’t let that happen. They had to move out of the too-small building they were in now.

She didn’t want anyone to get hurt at the parade but if she was busy tonight it would keep her mind off the issue of money…along with the thoughts of how agreeing to go to the dance with Mark just might solve her problem.

Think of the devil and he shows up. Mark rode over the curb of the street and up onto the grassy lot where the med tent was stationed. His tight bike shorts left little to the imagination and there was nothing small about the man. He unclipped his helmet and set it on the handlebars, before heading in her direction. For a second her heart rate picked up with the thought that he’d come to see her. She wasn’t sure if it was relief or disappointment that filled her when he stopped to talk in depth to one of the ER doctors working with her. Mark should mean nothing to her. She shouldn’t be feeling anything, one way or another.

Laura Jo returned to unpacking boxes, turning her back to him.

A few minutes later a tenor voice she recognized said, “Hello, Laura Jo.”

She twisted, making an effort to act as if she hadn’t been aware of where he’d been and what he’d been doing during the past ten minutes. “Hi, Mark. I didn’t expect to see you today.”

“It would be my guess that if you had you’d have seen to it you were reassigned to another med tent.”