stinks?”
“Not recently. You certainly never complained,” she said sweetly, a wry smile canting her wide mouth.
Matt pushed himself-to his feet, dusting off his jeans with his clean hand, then smearing the egg yolk onto his thigh, grumbling and scowling the whole time. He turned to help Sarah up, but she had already gotten to her feet and stood by the door of the chicken house fussing at brushing the dust from her apron, casting surreptitious looks at the woman who had come to call.
Julia McCarver stood grinning at them both, her hands tucked into the back pockets of her tight faded jeans, her long mane of dark red hair tossing in the morning breeze. She had the lanky frame of an overgrown tomboy, a tomboy grown to just a hair's breadth under six feet, but she managed to exude femininity just the same. It emanated from her face, which was a study in delicate sculptured lines and exaggerated features. Her eyes were a rich chocolate-brown, enormous, limpid, sparkling, fringed by impossibly thick lashes; they gleamed with suppressed laughter and womanly secrets. Her mouth was too wide. Her lips were full and pouty, and they pulled back into a grin that was infectious.
She was beautiful and seemed friendly and obviously knew Matt—in the biblical sense, if Sarah had taken her comment about bedside manner right. She felt an instant burning rush of jealousy.
“Sarah, this is Julia McCarver,” Matt said. “The nurse from hell. Julia, this is Sarah Troyer.”
“Nice to meet you, Sarah,” Julia said ebulliently. She offered Sarah her right hand while she snagged back a handful of hair with her left. “You have my condolences for having to put up with this grizzly bear while he licks his wounds.”
She turned to face Matt, her look softening to genuine concern as she took his hands in hers and squeezed them. “All kidding aside,” she said softly, “it's really great to see you on your feet again, you arrogant jerk.” She leaned forward and gave him a small, chaste kiss on the lips.
Sarah thought she would choke on her jealousy. It rose in her throat like bile, and she couldn't even begin to force it back down. So much for Matt Thome's profession of love. Well, she'd been warned, hadn't she? Ingrid had told her Matt was a ladies' man. What difference did it make anyway? She knew full well what they had together wasn't going to last.
“I'll leave you to your … visit,” she said tightly. Snatching the egg basket, she strode for the house without looking back.
Julia raised one long curved brow and gave Matt an amused look. “So that's how the wind blows.”
“Save the smart-ass comments, Julia,” Matt warned. They had a long history of playful verbal warfare, but he was in no mood to be teased about Sarah. “Please,” he added, softening the order to a request
Julia studied him for a long moment, her wide, bright eyes searching. Finally she nodded. “Okay.” She brushed a thumb across a smudge of egg yolk on his chin. “Why don't you go get washed up, then we can chat? I spied a swing on the front porch. Ill meet you there.”
Matt went into the house, cleaned up and changed into fresh jeans and a burgundy chamois shirt. He had hoped to get a word with Sarah, but she was engrossed in a conversation with Lisbeth Parker and didn't do more than glance at him as he passed the parlor door.
Julia was waiting for him, sprawled comfortably on the porch swing. She had one booted foot on the bench, the other long leg stretched out, regulating the speed of the swing. It was hardly a feminine pose, but the usual rules didn't apply to Julia; she managed to look stunning regardless. And, as always, she seemed oblivious to her looks. She wore only a minimum of makeup. Beneath an oversize bomber jacket that had seen better days she wore an old white T-shirt with a faded “Life Run” logo on it. She gave him a crooked smile as he lowered himself to the bench.
“So, is all this peace and quiet driving you bonkers yet?”
“No,” Matt answered truthfully. A part of him had expected it to; he was, after all, a city boy born and bred. He was used to the sights and sounds and smells and the tension in the air of a vibrant metropolitan area. He was used to the nerve-racking pace of the ER. The first couple of days he had been here the quiet had irritated him, but at the moment he couldn't say that he missed any of it.
Julia made no comment. She chewed her lower lip and looked pensive, as if she took his contentment as a bad sign. Matt glanced at her and looked back out at the front yard. It was a gorgeous Indian summer morning, unseasonably warm. The air was dotted with ladybugs flying aimlessly around. The chains of the porch swing squeaked.
“So how are you—really?”
“Better. As you can see, my face no longer looks like an overripe melon. The ribs are healing. The leg … I don't know. Do you think women would find a slight limp sexy?”
“They would if you were the one limping.”
Matt reached over and tweaked her cheek. He enjoyed the easy camaraderie that existed between himself and Julia. They had been lovers once, but it had been a disastrous affair and in the end both had admitted to treasuring their friendship too much to spoil it just for the sake of fabulous sex.
“What about you?” he said. “How are you doing?”
“Me?” she asked, feigning surprise. “Never been better.”
Matt wasn't fooled for an instant. “Have you heard from him?” He didn't use a name because he couldn't bring himself to say it. He hadn't liked quarterback “Storm” Dalton the few times he had met him, and had never thought him good enough for Julia. It gave him no pleasure to know he'd been right all along.
“No,” she said, picking at a scab of paint on the arm of the swing, giving her attention to the task as if it held some earth-shattering importance. “I don't expect to. He's playing for Kansas City now. He doesn't owe any loyalty to an old Vikings fan, does he?” She shot Matt a look. “Don't answer that. And don't say you told me so.”
“I wasn't going to.”
“Good,” she said, forcing a smile. “Because I didn't come all the way down here to talk about me. I came to talk about you.”
“What's up in the ER?”
“Same old stuff. The names and the faces change, but the score stays the same. We're outnumbered. We could use our top dog back. When are you going to be ready?”
Matt took a long time in answering. A lot of feelings surfaced at the thought of going back, some of them pleasant, most of them not. The truth was the top dog was feeling old and cynical and he couldn't even muster the enthusiasm to lie. “I don't know.”
Julia pulled herself up, the seriousness of the topic demanding a more aggressive posture. “Matt, what happened—”
“This isn't about me getting shot, Julia. It's about trying and caring too much and not being able to make a difference.”
“You make a difference! I've lost count of the lives you've saved.”
“And I've lost count of the ones who came back shot or knifed or OD'd or with a gun in their hand so they could robe the drug cabinet.”
“Those aren't the ones you're supposed to count.”
“Aren't they?”
“Come on, Matt, you thrive on the action. It's only natural for you to feel a little depressed now, but that will wear off. You just need to get back in harness again. You need to get back to the city, back to reality. Look around you. This isn't reality. This is … is …” She looked around as if an appropriate word might pop out at her, finally shrugging. “This is a cornfield.”
Matt looked around. He saw the bleached stalks of corn, heard them rustling in the wind. He watched an Amish buggy pass. He saw the sky as a bowl of electric blue, unmanned by high-rise buildings. A dragonfly investigated the pot of yellow mums that sat on the porch step, and Blossom sat like a sentinel at the end of the driveway with a shoe in her mouth.
Julia pushed the swing into motion again with the toes of her boots, her hands dangling between her knees, her gaze drifting to the feu-side of the yard where Sarah had come out to rake leaves. “So what's the story on you and Laura Ingalls Wilder?”
“I'm not ready to talk about it.”
Julia gave a low whistle. “That serious, huh?”
Matt said nothing. He just gave her a long steady look with his dark eyes, letting her read what she would
