She sighed. “I really don’t have time to discuss cud,” she said, gesturing to the waiting area. “Perhaps save it for family dinner?”
“Oh, yes,” he said, watching her go. “Appetizing.”
By then the witch hazel had cooled enough for him to take it into the storage room and begin his bottling. As a special reward, he gave Winston an errand a few blocks away to take Dr. Bethel his medical bag, which he’d forgotten when he left for his first house call shortly beforehand.
The lad seemed extremely mollified by the gesture of trust and it kept him out of the way while Roland went about setting up the funnels and beginning his straining and ladling.
It wasn’t until he’d gotten about halfway through the bottles that the door to the storage room was wrenched open by Mae Casper herself, who darted inside, pulled the door shut behindher, and marched forward, clinking the little golden duck onto the countertop next to his hands.
“You lost that,” she said, brisk as you please.
“I didn’t lose it,” he said, turning in the very narrow room to smile down at her. “I left it to keep an eye on you while I was holed up in here. Put it back.”
She sighed and went onto the tips of her toes, putting her talc-dusted hands on either side of his face and pulling him down to kiss her, quickly and firmly, on the lips.
If she had intended to pull away immediately and flit back to her doctoring, she still had quite a lot to learn about him. He wrapped an arm around her, pinning her to his chest, and ensured that the kiss was a full and worthwhile affair. He dragged the duckling off the counter and tucked it into her apron as he walked her back against the wall. He took his time with placing it there, enjoying all those lush little curves she hid under that prim white apron as he ran his fingers down the side of the apron pocket and over the curve of her hip.
Her starchy fingers slid over his jaw in surprise but she did not resist, allowing her mouth to be plundered and tasted, tentatively flicking her own tongue back against his when he slipped it between her lips.
He groaned, wanting nothing more than to escalate this little encounter beyond the confines of either this narrow nook or the layers of their clothing and knowing neither was possible at this given moment.
He pulled back slowly anyhow, just to ensure that his pain was shared, and delighted in the shuddering little sound of protest she made as he did so.
“You can give it back to me after we close,” he told her against her lips before he released his hold on her. “Over dinner.”
“Oh,” she said, sounding a bit dazed at the rush of air when he stepped back and gave her the space around the wall again. “All right.”
“Good,” he said, and settled his hand over the next empty bottle, enjoying the flush in her cheeks and the rapid rise and fall of her chest. “Now get out of here so I can finish these bottles.”
CHAPTER 17
Mae had never looked forward to theendof a clinic day quite so much as she did today. It was an odd, jittery sort of prospect: dinner with Roland Reed.
What would they eat? Where would they go? Gracious, but what would they talk about?
She could ask him absolutely anything. And, wonder of wonders, she suspected he might actually answer.
How very odd that just now she couldn’t actually remember what made him so bloody mysterious to her in the first place. She couldn’t think of a single question that she intended to ask, and she really was wracking her brain trying to think of some, perhaps a bit too hard, based on the slant of her last set of sutures.
When she found an excuse to go back into the storeroom a little later in the afternoon, sadly, he had already departed and cleaned up all the particulars of rebottling the witch hazel besides. What an odd thing to make her heart flutter.
She found him deep in congress with her grandfather and Ezra Barnett by the chair at the door and hesitated before approaching, uncertain if she’d give herself away solely by the expression on her face if she drew too close and her grandfather happened to see how she looked at Roland after their little interlude earlier.
They were gathered around the little folio that Abraham Murphy had put together about the inspectors and vandals. The folio that, Mae was reasonably certain, she had locked in the cabinet with the more dangerous medicines and her private satchel.
She touched the pocket of her apron where the duckling sat and noted that the little key to that cabinet was, in fact, no longer in the pocket next to it.
She narrowed her eyes at Roland, who glanced up at that exact moment and flashed his teeth at her, spinning the little gold key over his pinky finger so that it caught the light.
Well!
She spun on her foot and went back to her treatment room.
How could she confront him about that just now, anyhow? At least without giving away why his hand was in her apron pocket.
She found Winston fluffing the pillow on the treatment table like a damned innkeeper, his little face screwed up in concentration. “Oh!” he said when he saw her come in. “Doctress. Can I help you sew someone? Or snap the bones?”
She sighed, unable to hide the ripple of amusement that bounced in her chest. “I think the next patient has a burn,” she said. “Will that do?”
