Ozark Nurse (5 page)

He was studying her thoughtfully, brushing aside the fresh hand of cards she dealt him. "You aren't in the humor to play this game, so forget it. You have the look of a girl who's worried sick about something. Are you?"

"Who? Me?" She laughed at the suggestion, and seemed close to tears as her teeth clenched her lower lip.

"I'm your friend, my dear."

"Thanks, Andy." Her voice was unsteady.

"And if there's one thing a friend is good for, it's to have somebody to spill things to when you have problems or things aren't going right. You can talk to me, honey."

The tears which brimmed her eyes were the measure of her emotional unrest. "Thanks again, friend." She managed a quavery smile for him.

"Any time, about any little thing or any big thing. I'm a good listener. And if anybody does something to hurt you, I'm on your side. Will you remember that?"

"I'll remember." The tide of warmth inside her was a sudden surge of deep gratitude toward this understanding man. The watch was a lovely gift. But this offer of friendship if she should ever need him was a greater gift.

She smiled at him.

"Want to know something, Andy? Margaret Thorpe said you were one very swell guy, and she was right."

"Miss Thorpe said that? About me?" He looked pleased.

Just then the phone on the bed table rang.

Nora lifted the receiver and heard the voice of the nurse on duty at the desk outside of the surgery section.

"You're wanted in Doctor Anderson's office, Nora, right away."

It was a logical assumption that Paul had sent for her.

But when she opened the door to his office, it was not Paul who was seated in the swivel chair behind his desk. And it was not Paul who put down the pen and looked up to say: "Hello, there, Nora Hilton. Hope I didn't interrupt some grim little task, such as hustling a bedpan. But I wanted to see you on a business matter, and this seemed a good chance."

It was Rita Lansing who was seated at Paul's desk, exactly as if she had every right to be there.

Fuming inwardly, Nora walked into the room. But she did not sit down. When the other girl said, laughing: "Oh, drag up a chair. You make me nervous, standing there like you had a ramrod up your back," Nora replied: "I happen to be on duty with a coronary patient, Miss Lansing. I can't imagine what you and I could have to discuss, but whatever it is—can't it wait until some other time?"

"No, dear It can't wait. And for heaven's sake, call me Rita. We used to be best friends in school. Don't you remember?"

Nora smiled pleasantly and decided to sit down after all. "Frankly, no. I do not remember that we were best friends." Snubs she did remember. Also a patronizing pretense of friendship when Rita was stuck for a composition she lacked the ability to write, or the answers to math problems which were too much for her. Also the occasional parties in the big house to which she was invited at the last minute and made to feel like a poor relation when she arrived.

In short, Rita had turned to her only when she needed to use her for something or other. So the logical question followed: What did she want to use her for now?

"By the way," Nora asked, "where is Doctor Anderson?"

"You mean Paul?" Oh, he had gone over to wherever it was they kept those poverty-stricken hill kids.

She made it sound as if the ill children were little animals who were caged up. Her tone was one of contempt at the very thought of them.

Rita had taken off the long black gloves and the hat. The extraordinary red hair was arranged in a fabulous updo. Her face, with the assistance of makeup expertly applied, was as lovely as a picture on the wall. Her mouth was wide, the lips full and lush-looking. She could have held her own in any beauty contest.

Nora thought: To me she isn't beautiful at all. Everything about her is too artificial. There is no warmth in her eyes. I'll bet if you were to dig an eighth of an inch under that flawless skin, you'd find the human equivalent of a cold, heartless fish.

At the same time, she wondered if she was just envious or afraid. For her common sense told her that any man—meaning Paul—would be attracted by all that flash and style and sophisticated exterior. Paul probably considered Rita a great beauty. Nora sighed.

"So," Rita was saying, "when we came back here after lunch, and Paul was called over to consult with somebody or other about some of those little brats, I asked if it would be okay for me to use his desk to write a letter. He said he didn't mind. As soon as he was gone, I got that horse-faced nurse out in the hall to track you down."

"Why?"

"I told you. I want to talk over a business matter with you. It concerns Paul. To be blunt about it, Nora, I think he was a fool ever to come to this one-horse hospital. There's no future for him here, and judging from the gossip circulating around town, there isn't even any present. Paul is a brilliant doctor, and he's wasting himself here. That's what I believe, and my dad agrees with me."

"Your dad?" Nora looked at her sharply. "What's he got to do with Paul and his work? I wasn't aware that Paul had ever met your father."

"He hadn't met him—until yesterday, when I dragged Paul home to have supper with us." Rita smiled a superior little smile. "But Dad knew
about
him, thanks to a little prodding from little old me. He's been asking questions, doing some investigation into Paul's record and abilities and so on."

With a shrug, Rita opened her big black alligator bag, took out a cigarette and flicked flame from a small gold lighter. "My dad is always on the hunt for promising young men. When he finds one, he likes to help him get ahead."

Her dad, Rita explained further, was the kind who absolutely abhorred waste, especially the waste of good human material. When he discovered a fine young man who was wasting his talents, throwing them away, so to speak, her dad believed it was his duty as a good American citizen to do something about it.

Nora felt a sudden chill run through her.

"Before we go any further," she said, "would you mind explaining why you say Paul Anderson is throwing away his ability? There are children who are alive and healthy today who would probably have been dead without Paul's skillful surgery. Do you call that wasting his talents?"

"Under the circumstances, yes." Rita leaned forward. "What is Paul getting out of it? That's the point."

An able doctor should consider himself, first, last, and always. If he didn't, who would?

"Until very recently, Paul has gotten great satisfaction from his work. He has a wonderful feeling of accomplishment when he cures a suffering child, when he saves a child's life."

That, said Nora, was the richest reward a truly dedicated doctor could reap.

Rita's scornful laugh said clearly that she thought Nora was talking nonsense.

She said it in words. Drudging away in a small town hospital could only pay him a pittance. He was sweating to cure hillbilly kids whose destitute parents couldn't pay a dime. How could an ambitious doctor build up a practice catering to charity cases?

And now, just to prove how right she was, even Paul's professional reputation was going down the drain, thanks to that filthy, half-cracked hillbilly who loped around town telling everybody how this doctor fellow had stuck a knife in his kid and killed him.

"Nobody listens to Ben Sackett's crazy talk, Rita."

"Sure they do. These hill people are ignorant, illiterate, superstitious. They'll listen to any old creep who shouts loud enough. Swallow what he says, too."

Nora sighed, saying nothing. What was there to say? That there was a certain truth in Rita's argument she could not deny.

Rita still had not mentioned what she had in mind, what she wanted Nora to do about it. But she was staring very intently at Nora, who sensed that she was shrewdly pondering her next words.

When the question came, it was shot as abruptly and unexpectedly as a bullet from a hidden gun.

"You and Paul aren't engaged to be married, are you?"

"Now I'll ask you a question." Resentment smoldered in Nora's eyes, and for once she decided to meet arrogant impudence with the rudeness it deserved. "What gives you the right to pry into matters concerning my personal life?"

Looking amused, Rita said airily: "I wouldn't have taken you for the touchy type." She lighted a fresh cigarette. "Since Paul didn't mind discussing your friendship, I assumed you wouldn't mind, either."

"Paul? Discussed me? With you?" Nora didn't believe it. That is, she didn't want to believe it.

"Sorry if that bothers you, dear. I can't imagine why it should. According to Paul, you and he are good friends who have a lot in common. But marriage doesn't seem to be in the cards, because you're tied down with your family, and he isn't making enough to support two houses. At least that was the impression I got, and I don't figure Paul's a liar. So what's so terribly personal and private about a setup like that?"

"Nothing."

"Well, then, why flare up as if I'd stepped on your pet corn?"

"Because I resent questions about my personal life." Nora was breathing hard as she stood up, feeling as if she were hitting some new low in miserable disillusionment. It was hard to believe Paul would have discussed their relationship with this girl, let alone have lied about it. Yet he must have.
Why
?

"What's more, if Paul, as you say, has given you all the answers, why bother asking me?"

Rita shrugged and flashed a smile. "I like to check up on anything a man tells me, just to be sure."

Nora sensed that Rita was laughing at her, would be all the more amused if she pursued the subject. But the next question had to be asked.

"
Why
must you be sure? What difference does it make to you? Well as I know Paul Anderson—and we have been very good friends for a long time—
I
don't run around checking up on him, or what he tells me. So why should you?"

Rita looked at her levelly. "Since you've asked, I'll tell you. I find him a very attractive man, and I've talked my dad into offering to do some big things for him."

"What kind of big things?" Nora looked at Rita sharply, while the fear in her grew and grew.

Difficult as it was to believe, Nora was slowly being pushed to the belief that Paul had, in some way, betrayed her. Even allowing for the fact that Rita was doing a bit of embroidering, as she probably was, she hadn't made up all she had said out of whole cloth. She couldn't have. I'm up against the kind of shrewd, conniving girl I don't know how to cope with, Nora thought helplessly. What was worse, more frightening, there was nothing in Paul's limited experience with sophisticated girls to prepare him to cope with Rita Lansing.

"I'm coming to the big things, dear," Rita said sweetly. "But don't rush me. Before I draw you a blueprint and explain what I want to do, I must be very sure that Paul is not tied up with you."

"What difference would that make?"

"Need you ask?" Rita drawled, killing her cigarette in a tray. "As I implied, Dad and I are ready to shoot the works to help the guy get ahead."

"That's very sweet of you. But what have I to do with it?"

Again that level, faintly amused stare. "Do I strike you as the kind of dummy who would lift a finger to help a man along, if some other girl already had her claim staked out?"

It was an honest, straightforward question which deserved an equally honest, straightforward answer.

"No."

"Well, then—"

Nora kept her voice calm and proud. "If Paul told you there was nothing serious between us, take his word for it. He is one of the finest men I ever knew, and a completely honest man. I don't believe he would know how to lie, or misrepresent."

That is, she wouldn't have believed it five minutes ago.

Rita nodded, as if satisfied. "Exactly the way I had him figured. But as I said, I believe in checking."

Nora was on her way to the door. The drawling voice called her back, ordered her to sit down, and proceeded to tell her what she, Rita, was going to do.

It was simplicity itself.

Nora was to use all of her persuasive powers to see Paul was handed over to Rita on a silver platter.

She did not, of course, express it in such crude terms. But as she listened, Nora understood that this was what it amounted to.

She wants him, and I'm supposed to give him to her.

Rita's fine plans were completely transparent, and exactly that simple.

All things considered, Rita's plans for Paul's future shaped up to a windfall for a doctor who happened to be at loose ends. While Summitsville was not a wealthy town, there were plenty of well to do families. A man like Paul could soon build up a lucrative practice as a general practitioner. All he needed was an elegant modern office to impress people, and before you knew it, he'd be making real money.

Her dad, said Rita, was ready to loan Paul the money to open such an office. "Isn't that wonderful of him?"

"Wonderful." Nora was having trouble with her hands. They kept clenching into angry little fists.

She wondered why such a glamorous creature hadn't managed to achieve a marriage to her taste in New York. Well, she had not. That much was clear.

"Of course, Rita, there are a few weak spots in this interesting project. For one, Paul happens to be an expert in pediatry. He is not trained or qualified as a general practitioner. And another thing—"

Rita laughed lightly, brushing aside that objection as an unimportant and trifling detail. If he knew how to cure sick kids, surely he could do the same with grown people. A doctor was a doctor, wasn't he?

"Secondly," said Nora, "Paul is a man who likes to stand on his own feet and be beholden to no one. I doubt that he would want to accept a big loan with no certainty as to whether or when he could repay it."

Again Rita's laugh was as light as a summer breeze. She and her dad between them had thought of everything.

"No problem there, Nora dear." Within a matter of months Paul would be able to repay every cent and be in the chips as well. She explained how easily that could be managed.