“Could he see us there? My son's in an awful lot of pain.” He'd had problems with his ears before, and a shot of penicillin had always helped him. That and a lot of loving from Jane and Daddy and Nanny.

“I'll check.” The operator was back on the line almost instantly. “That'll be fine.” She gave him directions to the hospital, and he went to get Alexander, and gently put him in the car seat he still used. Nanny had to stay home with Jane, so Bernie was going alone, and Nanny almost wrung her hands as she covered Alex with a blanket and handed him his teddy bear as he cried woefully. She hated to let him go without her.

“I hate to let you go alone, Mr. Fine.” Her burr was always stronger late at night when she was tired, and he loved the sound of it. “But I canna leave Jane, you know. She'd be frightened if she woke up.” They both knew that she had been more easily frightened since her abduction.

“I know, Nanny. He'll be fine. We'll be back as soon as we can.” It was four-thirty in the morning by then, and he drove to the hospital as quickly as he could. But it was ten to five before they arrived. It was a long way from Oakville to the city of Napa, and Alexander was still crying when Bernie carried him inside and gently set him down on the table in the emergency room. The lights were so bright they hurt his eyes, and Bernie sat on the table and held him on his lap, shielding him, as a tall dark-haired young woman came in wearing a turtleneck and jeans. She was almost as tall as he, and she had an easy smile, and her hair was so black it was almost blue. Almost like an Indian, he thought to himself with a tired look. But her eyes were blue, like Jane …and Liz…. He forced the thought from his mind and explained that he was waiting for Dr. Jones. He wasn't sure who the woman was, and assumed that she was a clerk at the emergency room.

“I'm Dr. Jones.” She smiled at him. She had a warm, husky voice, and cool strong hands when she shook his, and despite her height and obvious competence, there was something very warm and gentle about her. And the way she moved was at the same time motherly and sexy. She gently took Alexander from him and examined the ear that pained him, talking to Alexander the entire time, telling him little stories, chatting, entertaining him, and glancing up at Bernie from time to time to reassure him too. “He's got one very hot ear, I'm afraid, and the other one is pretty pink too.” She checked his throat, his tonsils, his tummy to make sure there was no problem there, and then gave him a penicillin shot as fast as she could. He cried but not for too long and then she blew up a balloon for him, and with Bernie's permission offered him a lollipop, which was a big success even in his weakened state. He sat up on Bernie's lap and looked at her thoughtfully. And she smiled down at him, and then wrote a prescription for Bernie to have filled the next day. She put him on antibiotics to be on the safe side, and gave Bernie two small codeine pills to crush for him if the pain didn't abate before morning. “In fact”—she looked at Alex' trembling lower lip—“why don't we do that now? There's no point in his being miserable.” She disappeared and returned with the pill crushed in a spoon, her dark hair swinging across her shoulders as she moved, and the medicine was down and gone before Alex could even object to it. She made it kind of a game with him. And then he settled back into his father's arms with a sigh, still sucking the lollipop, a moment later, as Bernie filled out some forms, Alexander fell asleep. Bernie smiled down at him, and then looked at her appreciatively. She had the warm eyes of a deeply caring woman.

“Thank you.” Bernie smiled down at him and stroked his hair, and then looked up at Dr. Jones again. “You were wonderful with him.” That mattered to him a great deal. His children meant everything to him.

“I came in for another earache just like that an hour ago.” She smiled at him, thinking that it was nice the father had come and not the mother for once, looking exhausted and harassed with no one to help her. It was nice to see men give a damn and pitch in too. But she didn't say anything to him. Maybe he was divorced and had no choice. “Do you live in Oakville?” He had put down their summer address on the form.

“No, normally we live in town. We're just here for the summer.” She nodded, and then smiled at him as she filled out her part of the form for his insurance.

“But you're from New York?”

He grinned. “How did you know that?”

“I'm from the east too. Boston. But I can still hear New York in your voice.” And he could hear Boston in hers. “How long have you been out here?”

“Four years.”

She nodded. “I came out to go to Stanford Med School and never went back. And that was fourteen years ago.” She was thirty-six years old, and her credentials were good and he liked her style. She looked intelligent and kind, and there was a sparkle in her eyes that suggested a sense of humor. She was looking at him thoughtfully. She liked his eyes too.

“This is a nice place to live. Napa, I mean. Anyway”—she put away the forms and looked down at Alex' angelic sleeping face—“why don't you bring him in to the office in a day or two? I have an office in Saint Helena, which is closer to you than this.” She glanced at the antiseptic hospital around them. She didn't like seeing children there unless it was an emergency like this one.

“It's nice to know you're so close to us. With children, you never know when you're going to need a doctor.”

“How many do you have?” Maybe that was why the wife hadn't come, she thought to herself. Maybe they had ten kids and she had to stay home with them. Somehow the thought amused her. She had one patient with eight children, and she loved them.

“I have two,” Bernie supplied. “Alexander, and a nine-year-old little girl, Jane.”

She smiled. He looked like a nice man. And his eyes lit up when he talked about his kids. Mostly, they were kind of sad, like a Saint Bernard, she thought, and then chided herself. He was actually a very nice-looking man. She liked the way he moved …the beard…. Cool it, she told herself as she gave him final instructions and he left, carrying Alex in his arms. And then she chuckled to the nurse as she got ready to leave herself.

“I'm going to have to stop taking these late calls. The fathers start looking good to me at this hour.” They both laughed and she was only teasing of course. She was always serious about her patients and their parents. She waved good night to the nurses and walked outside to where she'd left her car. It was a little Austin Healy she'd had since med school. She drove back to Saint Helena with the top down, her hair flying in the wind, and she waved as she passed Bernie on the way, traveling more sedately. Bernie waved. There had been something he liked, about her and he wasn't sure what it was. And he felt happier than he had in a long time as he pulled into the driveway in Oakville as the sun came up over the mountains.





Chapter 35

Two days later, Bernie took Alexander back to see Dr. Jones. He went to her office this time. It was in a small sunny Victorian house at the edge of town. She shared the office space with another doctor, and she lived upstairs above the office. And Bernie was once again impressed with her manner with the child, and he liked her as much as he had before, maybe even more so. She was wearing a starched white coat over her jeans this time, but her manner was casual, her touch was gentle, and her eyes were warm as she laughed easily with Alexander and his father.

“His ears look a lot better this time.” She smiled at Bernie, then at his son, sitting next to her. “But you'd better stay out of the swimming pool for a while, my friend.” She ruffled Alex' hair, and for a moment she seemed more like a mother than a doctor, and it tugged at something in Bernie's heart which he was quick to deny to himself.

“Should I bring him back again?” She shook her head and he was almost sorry that she hadn't said yes. And then he was annoyed at himself. She was pleasant and intelligent, that was all, and she had taken good care of the child. And if Alex had to come back again, Nanny could bring him in next time. That was safer. He found himself staring at the shiny black hair and it annoyed him. And her blue eyes reminded him so much of Liz….

“I don't think he'll need to be seen again. I should get some information on him though, for my files. How old is he again?” She smiled pleasantly at Bernard and he tried to appear indifferent, as though he were thinking of something else, as he avoided the familiar eyes. They were so blue …just like hers…. He forced his mind back to her question.

“He's two years and two months.”

“General health all right?”

“Fine.”

“Vaccinations up to date?”

“Yes.”

“Pediatrician in town?” He gave her the name. It was easier talking of things like that. He didn't even have to look at her if he didn't want to.

“Names of the rest of his family?” She smiled again as she wrote it all down, and then looked up at him again. “You are Mr. Bernard Fine?” She thought that was what she remembered from the other night, and he almost smiled at her.

“Right. And he has a sister named Jane, who's nine years old.”

“I remember that.” She smiled at him again and then looked at him expectantly. “And?”

“That's it.” He would have liked to have had another child or two with Liz, but they hadn't had time before they discovered that she had cancer.

“Your wife's name?” Something in his eyes suggested sharp pain and she instantly suspected an ugly divorce.

But he shook his head, the pain of her question staggering him, like a blow he hadn't seen before it hit him. “Uh …no …she's not.”