Marked for Marriage (7 page)

When the kitchen was cleaned and tidy, Noah took his bag and returned to the living room. This time he approached Maddie
without
caution. Taking out his blood pressure gauge and stethoscope, he sat on the coffee table again, pulled back the comforter and wrapped the pressure cuff around Maddie's left arm.

Her eyes fluttered opened. “Wha-what's going on? Oh, it's you. What are you up to now?”

“I'm taking your blood pressure.”

“I would think a doctor would know enough to let a tired person sleep.”

“You can sleep all you want to after I check you out.”

“You're not my doctor.”

“I am now. Stay silent for a minute, okay? I can't hear myself think, let alone what's going on in that puny little body of yours.”

“My body is not puny! God, talk about a revolting bedside manner.”

“Just shut the hell up!”

Maddie clamped her lips together. Good-looking or not, this guy—what had he said his name was?—was a total jerk, certainly not the kind of man she would
ever
give a second glance.

Noah removed the blood pressure cuff from her arm, then placed the little round sound receiver segment of the stethoscope on her chest.

“Hey!” Maddie slapped away the instrument. “Just stop it!”

Noah was fast losing patience, something that he wasn't
overloaded with, in any case. He gave his friend Mark's mouthy little sister a look that was colder than the outside temperature and then asked with equal frostiness, “How many doctors do you know in Whitehorn who would make a house call? Either you let me examine you properly or I swear I'll call an ambulance and put your butt in the hospital. It's up to you. Take your pick.”

Maddie tried to scoff away her immediate misgivings with a snappy comeback but it came off pretty weak. “You wouldn't dare,” she said, and actually felt a chill go up her spine from the icy expression in his eyes.

“Just try me.” He focused the icy glare onto her eyes.

She absolutely, positively would not look away first. “I'm not afraid of you, you know,” she said, realizing at the same time that she was getting angry.
She
knew that anger without the physical strength to back it up wasn't very formidable, but common sense wasn't controlling her at the moment. What ticked her off so much was that this…this cretin doctor thought
he
was.

Noah was in no mood for foolish bickering, and he spoke flatly, without a dram of warmth. “There's no reason you should be afraid of me.” Then he added, sounding angry himself, “Good Lord, woman, don't you know when someone's trying to help you? What kind of doctors have you been seeing? What kind of people have you been associating with?”

“
My
friends and doctors are at least recognizable. I haven't the foggiest notion of what or who you are.” Maddie was literally gritting her teeth. No one told her what to do,
no one,
and this…this pompous know-it-all wasn't going to get away with it, either.

“You most certainly do know. I told you my name before and showed you my medical ID, as well.” He could see confusion in her eyes and added, “My name is Noah Martin…Dr. Noah Martin…and I'm Mark's friend.”

“All right, you're a doctor, but why should I believe you're Mark's friend?”

“Maybe because I have a key to his house?”

He was boxing her in, which only made Maddie angrier.

“There's no way you could put me in the hospital without my permission,” she said daringly.

“Oh, but there is. If a person is mentally unbalanced because of fever or other symptoms of illness, I have every right to hospitalize her…or him.”

Maddie's jaw dropped. “I am
not
mentally unbalanced, you…you retard!”

Noah glared right back at her. “You want me to think you're a tough little nut, don't you? Well, you're not, and I don't, and what's more, you
are
going to get a medical exam today. Now, are you going to let me do what's necessary or should I phone for an ambulance?”

She was livid, or as livid as she could be under the circumstances. Looking horrible and feeling almost as horrible all but destroyed her normal ability to hold her own in just about any situation. Maddie never looked for a fight—or even a mild disagreement—with anyone, but she'd been a self-sufficient grownup for too long to take orders that went against her grain. It really galled her when Noah Martin folded his arms across his chest and then sat there waiting for her to give in.

“I really hate you,” she said, meaning it heart and soul.

“No, you don't. You just hate being told what to do.” Maddie couldn't help being startled, and her wide-eyed expression made Noah grin. “You'll get over it.”

“Don't hold your breath,” she snapped. “And don't you dare laugh at me one more time!”

Noah's grin vanished. “Fine, I won't laugh or even smile for the rest of this perfectly delightful day. So, what's your decision about that examination?”

Maddie hadn't missed the sarcasm in his voice when he'd
called the day “perfectly delightful.” Oddly, the fact that he wasn't enjoying this fiasco any more than she was made her feel a little less like throttling him, if she had the strength to throttle anything, that is.

“What kind of examination are you talking about?” she asked.

“Let me ask you a question before I answer that. Besides the injuries to your hand and face, were you hurt in any other way? Any other area of your body?”

“If you think for one minute that I'm undressing for you, think again! Now I'm on to your game, buster!”

“Oh, good Lord,” Noah muttered. “I don't know what kind of accident caused all of this, but to have such screwy ideas you must have landed on your head. Listen to me. I couldn't care less about seeing you undressed. I'm a doctor, and, speaking professionally, the human body, clothed or unclothed, does not affect me. What I know about your condition so far is just enough to warrant further examination. You're taking painkillers and running a low-grade temperature. It's possible that your blood pressure is elevated, but without prior records I can't be positive of that. At any rate, I need to know…and see…the extent of your injuries, and if that means undressing, then you will undress. I brought a gown from the hospital to make an exam easier for both of us.”

Noah reached into his medical bag for the gown and laid it on the comforter. “Can you get up and change into this by yourself?”

Maddie had become stiff with fury. “This is not a doctor's office! This is a house, my brother's house!”

“It's here or the hospital, Maddie. Take your pick.” Noah spoke quietly, impersonally, firmly. Even though patience had all but vanished from his system—not a new experience for him—he managed to convey professional concern to his patient, which he considered Maddie Kincaid to be at this
point. Yes, that ludicrous tingle was still nudging his libido, but he'd go down in flames before doing anything about it.

She crooked her good left arm over her eyes so he wouldn't see how degraded and defeated she felt.

“Maddie?”

He
would
phone for an ambulance, the wretch. She knew it as surely as she knew anything, and she was going to have to look him in the eye and
admit
defeat.

“I'm not getting up with you watching. Wait in the kitchen. I'll change in the bathroom,” she said dully.

“You do have more injuries than what I can see on your face and hand, don't you?” he asked quietly.

“Yes, damn you!”

Noah got to his feet. “I'll wait in the kitchen.” He started to walk away, then stopped for one more thing. “I'd like you to be lying down for the exam. A bed would be better than this sofa.”

“I'm
sure
it would be much better,” she retorted with a venomous glare.

“Don't get any silly ideas. This is strictly impersonal for me.”

“Are you married?”

“Uh, no. Why?”

“Because I'd feel better about this…this fiasco if you were!”

Noah was getting very close to giving up on Maddie Kincaid. Not that he'd drive off and just forget about her, but he could probably find another doctor among his peers that would take her case.

He considered doing exactly that, but only for a few moments. No way was Maddie Kincaid going to best him in this. Who was the doctor here, anyhow, certainly not her! Besides, it wasn't merely an examination of
all
of her injuries that mattered to him. She mattered, and he could question why she
did until doomsday and maybe never know the answer. But he wasn't leaving her alone in a blizzard that he could hear growling and snarling outside, getting fiercer by the minute. He couldn't see the storm, however, because the drapes and blinds on every window in the room were tightly closed, which suddenly annoyed the ever-loving hell out of him.

Going to a window he yanked open the drapes. The density of the blowing, swirling snow outside actually shocked him. He couldn't see across the street. He couldn't even see the big trees in Mark's front yard! Craning his neck he tried to spot his SUV in the driveway and failed. All there was beyond the window glass was an angrily moving sea of white. This was the worst storm he'd ever seen, and it was scary, damned scary.

Cursing under his breath, Noah shut the drapes again and left the room, telling Maddie over his shoulder to get up and into that gown. He'd find whichever room she was waiting in, he told her, and added that he'd give her ten minutes before leaving the kitchen. “And put on the gown so that it opens in front.”

Maddie wanted to bawl. Better yet she'd like to scream Noah Martin's ears off! “Big man,” she sneered, despising him for backing her into a corner the way he had. People rarely got around her deeply ingrained sense of self, and she had always taken pride in her strength and independence. Well, she wasn't strong now, was she? Or independent?

Admitting weakness in the face of adversity nearly killed her, but there was little question that Dr. Noah Martin, first-class jerk and hometown yokel, was holding all the cards. When exactly had he descended upon poor unsuspecting Whitehorn? The town's citizenry, as Maddie remembered it, was accustomed to kindly doctors, such as old Dr. Slater, who'd taken such good care of Aunt June.

Memories of June's last years, especially her final months,
gave Maddie a chill. For the first time ever she admitted possessing a fear of invalidism, of having to rely on others for the simplest task. She had taken very good care of Aunt June and had never resented a moment of the responsibility she'd undertaken, but by the same token she couldn't bear the thought of herself being in Aunt June's shoes.

And wasn't she there right now, far sooner and at a much younger age than even her dread of the possibility had ever placed her? Noah Martin was treating her as though she was his responsibility, and she wasn't, damn it, she wasn't! Maddie gritted her teeth. Dr. Noah Martin was
not
going to examine her, and that was final! She'd playacted her way out of the hospital in Austin a day early and then convinced her brother and sister-in-law that she was doing just fine when she could just barely move without gasping out loud. But Mark and Darcy would not have gone on their honeymoon if she
hadn't
convinced them, and she'd suffered in silence until they had finally walked out the door with their suitcases. How could she possibly have guessed that Mark would bring a strange doctor into the picture? One who'd gotten all concerned and determined to heal, damn his hide!

Obviously, she was going to have to endure another game of pretense, Maddie thought with a sigh of premeditated distress. What's more, time was rushing by and she probably only had another few minutes before that nosy-Nellie friend of Mark's came looking for her, expecting her to be in that awful gown and lying on a bed awaiting his examination.

“That'll be the day,” Maddie mumbled, and pushed away the comforter. Gritting her teeth again because it hurt like hell to move, even though groggy from painkillers, she swung her feet to the floor, forced herself up and then hobbled her way to her bedroom. Shutting the door behind her, she immediately began undressing. Mark…or someone…she wasn't clear on
that point…had brought a lot of her clothes in from her trailer. She pulled on a long skirt and her biggest, baggiest sweater.

Her next stop was the bathroom, and she washed her face, applied moisturizer and makeup and then brushed her hair until it looked almost respectable. For good measure she gave herself a small squirt of cologne, then wasted no time in exiting the bathroom and heading for the kitchen.

Noah jumped a foot when she walked in. “What in God's name are you doing?” he asked, sounding a lot like a bear with a thorn in its paw.

“Grump and complain all you wish,” she said in a saccharine tone that didn't sound remotely genuine. “But I'm not getting into that gown, and you are not going to examine even one small part of me. Oh, I guess I wouldn't mind if you checked my cast. Would that satisfy your craving to play doctor today?”

“You little idiot,” Noah said. His lips were thin and disapproving, and he looked as though he really did think of her as an idiot.

She frankly didn't care what he thought. “Whether you like it or not, you are
not
going to be my doctor. I'll check the phone book and make an appointment with one without your help.” Maddie suddenly saw the storm through the window above the sink. “Oh, my God!” she cried. “When did that start?”

“About an hour ago. It's a serious storm, which isn't nearly as crucial as your seeing a doctor today. So, if it's not going to be me, I'm going to phone for that ambulance.”