The Doctor and the War Widow

THE DOCTOR AND THE WAR WIDOW

VIOLA RUSSELL

SOUL MATE PUBLISHING

New York

THE DOCTOR AND THE WAR WIDOW

Copyright©2015

VIOLA RUSSELL

Cover Design by Fiona Jayde.

This book is a work of fiction.  The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher.  The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Published in the United States of America by

Soul Mate Publishing

P.O. Box 24

Macedon, New York, 14502

ISBN: 978-1-61935-
912-3

www.SoulMatePublishing.com

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

I dedicate this novel to my past and present students, who taught me about writing (as I graded their papers and grew as a writer) and about love (as I sometimes disciplined, graded critically, and watched them grow). Many of them are now adults and my friends. Love them all! And—at this tenth anniversary of Katrina--to all of us who were its victims, who lost our lives and property, but not our strength to its devastating winds and water.

Acknowledgements

I want to acknowledge the bitch Katrina, which started me writing again after a dormant period. May she live in infamy and may her like never be seen again.

Facebook: (under my real name)
www.facebook.com/susan.weaver3

Twitter: [email protected]

Chapter 1

Memorial Day: The beginning of summer for New Orleans teachers.

“You
have
to do it.”

Harley Michel sighed as she listened to the comments from her twenty-something colleagues. Groaning, she put her hands over her eyes. Why had she ever agreed to have lunch with these much younger women? She cursed her own stupidity
.

Irritation like a dull knife gnawed at her nerves. “I don’t
have
to do anything. As I remember, slavery was outlawed in 1863.” Harley shook her head, sighing as she dribbled dressing into the bowl of lettuce and shrimp salad the waiter deposited in front of her.

“Why don’t you do it? You don’t have anything better to do!” Karen twirled long blond braids between her fingers.

“Karen!” Lindsey playfully smacked her friend’s arm.

“Behave, girls.” Harley rolled her eyes. Sometimes, she wondered if these incorrigible teachers had no more maturity than the adolescents they taught. They meant well, but their silly intrusions into her life irritated like a vexing skin rash.

“Why should I join this VoodooMatch.com? My life is full as it is.” Harley shook her head and sipped her coffee. “I travel. I belong to a book club.” Harley suppressed a smile. They would never know about the secret life she pursued at night if she could help it. She was sure that if they did knew, their eyes would bulge from the sockets.

“Could always be fuller.” Jennifer smiled broadly and nibbled on a French fry. “You still have a figure, girlfriend. Hell, you’re beautiful. Don’t you want a man to cuddle with at night?”

“I have Nico.” Harley smiled mischievously and took another sip of coffee.

Sometimes, she dreaded the end-of-the-school-year lunches. At forty, Harley knew her experience differed from that of the women surrounding her, and she sensed they considered her a boring old woman they had to save. She wiped her mouth with a napkin and buttered a cracker. Being a pity project grated.

Karen cut into her fried trout. “Look, all we’re saying is that you
should
do it. Nico’s cute, but he has too much fur to be really cuddly. A dog’s not a man.”

“He’s very cuddly. Everyone should have a chocolate lab.” Harley shook her head and munched on the cracker. Jennifer placed a hand on Harley’s arm. “Aren’t you lonely since Ms. Eden died?” The girls had liked Harley’s mother. Eden had baked for them on many occasions, and they had eaten her signature oatmeal cookies like greedy children. Besides, Jennifer couldn’t imagine being without a man. At twenty-eight, she’d already left one husband and had embarked on what she thought was a secret affair with an older, wealthy man. Harley knew that her self-inflicted celibacy must be perplexing to these women, particularly Jennifer.

Harley patted her hand. “Sure, I am, but I have good memories of my mother and my father.” She smiled, transported back to another time. “My dad, Roland, was a handsome merchant marine who loved motorcycles. That’s why I’m named Harley. He was a lot older than my mother and loved to dance. I can still see them dancing around the living room. After he died, my mom went to work as a secretary at St. Cyprian’s.”

Karen stared at Harley. “How’d your dad die?”

Harley grinned when she saw Lindsey and Jennifer cast severe glances at Karen. The youngest of the teachers, Karen was infamous for her lack of tact. She had been called into the principal’s office more than the students because of inappropriate online comments.

Harley’s heart constricted and she swallowed hard but forced herself to return Karen’s gaze evenly. “He was killed in a motorcycle accident.” She’d suffered a great deal of loss in her life, and Eden’s death was still too fresh in her psyche. “I still see the cop standing in the doorway, telling my mother. I was young.”

She took a deep breath and forced a smile. “His death made me feel sad about my name for a long time, but then I remembered how much he loved his Harley.”

None of them spoke for a long time. The other women silently reached for their purses and placed money on the table.

“Yes, time to go.” Harley forced a lightness she didn’t feel into her voice. Reaching into her handbag, she counted out her share of the money and glanced around the restaurant.

Mandina’s Restaurant was one of New Orleans’ most cherished institutions. Local business people congregated for lunch. Blue-haired ladies ate shrimp cocktails and drank glasses of wine after noon Mass. The television always remained tuned to a national sports channel.

“Harley, we really want you to be happy.” Karen brushed herself off and rose to leave. “You should try the Internet thing.”

“I
am
already happy.” Harley hoped they believed the lie. Since her mother’s death, she’d been anything but happy.

“Damn!” She suddenly remembered the curriculum binders needed for the state and the important deadline the school had to meet for the school board. Harley called to her departing co-workers as they strode across the parking lot. “Remember, ladies, we still have to meet tomorrow to finish the binders. It’s going to take all day.”

“No, it won’t.” Jennifer flung open the door to her small but flashy purple foreign car. She turned to Harley. “Hey, I’m going to make a bet. If we finish those damned binders by ten o’clock and get the summer started, will you go on that dating site?”

“No fair. You’re blackmailing me.” Harley sighed as she searched for her keys hiding deep within her handbag.

Lindsey and Karen had pulled up beside her in Lindsey’s sporty vehicle in time to hear Jennifer’s challenge. Before peeling out of the parking lot like a NASCAR driver, Lindsey called to her. “When we finish early, you go on VoodooMatch.com.”

Harley groaned in mock exasperation and slowly opened the door of her green sports car. Once safely within her car, her composure deserted her. After inserting the key in the ignition, she pounded the steering wheel with her fist. “Goddamn! When are people going to realize they’re not helping?”

Harley unlocked her door of her home and flicked on the light. Nico ran to her and jumped into her arms, tail wagging. She knelt to embrace him, enthusiastically rubbing his coat. The big dog licked her face and rested a paw on her arm. “At least you love me. Come on, boy. Let’s go for a walk. Mama has work to do later.”

Nico stood still as she hooked the leash onto his collar and rubbed his smooth fur repeatedly.

Harley paused on the way out to gaze at her parents’ pictures on the mantle. She’d lived with her mother in her childhood home after returning from graduate school at LSU. Now the stately old Mid-City house was hers. She glanced at one image of her parents, dressed in their finest attire for a night on the town. She let her gaze linger for a long time.

Swallowing the self-pity rising like a tide in her throat, Harley turned from the mantle, but not before her gaze rested on a plain black frame encasing a picture of a handsome man in uniform. His blond hair and blue eyes still made her blood race.

There was no use looking back. People who indulged in wishful thinking only opened themselves up to hurt. John wasn’t coming back, and she couldn’t look over her shoulder her whole life, hoping to recapture his essence. Harley’s heart contracted with a sense of loss so acute she almost retched. Swallowing, she said softly, “Okay, Eden, I know what you’d say. There’s no point in a pity party.” She looked down at the dog as he gazed at her with obvious adoration. She reached down and petted him. “Let’s go, Nico.”

After taking the dog for his brief walk, Harley returned to her front porch, unlocked the door, and released Nico from his chain. The dog pounced upon his water bowl. She slipped on flip-flops and an oversized Saints T-shirt then made her way to the converted bedroom that now served as her study.

Taking a seat before her computer, Harley flicked on her Mac and clicked on a file. The galleys of her latest manuscript flashed onto the screen. Jill, her editor, had made suggestions that Harley would have to integrate into the complex electronic system.

Harley cringed when she came to the “advice-giving bubbles.” She had often laughed good-humoredly about this with Jill, but her heart always sank with the additional work. She read the notes and began typing.
How does she feel? Show. Don’t tell.
Harley laughed aloud. Jill was nearly always right. Why fight it? After two hours of concentrated editing, Harley submitted her changes to her demanding but thorough editor.

She moved to the kitchen with Nico following at her heels. Removing a bottle of wine from the refrigerator, she poured the shining liquid until she filled the wineglass, then returned to her computer to navigate the Internet.

Nico, her most ardent critic, situated himself by her chair. She patted the dog’s head. “Let’s see what these girls are so excited about.” Images of men selling themselves to women emerged before her. Some single, some widowed, some divorced—all trying to look sexy.

Harley fought the urge to laugh, but let the mischievous side of her nature run. Who in hell did these guys think they were fooling? A balding man with a bad hairpiece sprawled on a beach blanket in Mississippi. Harley wasn’t a beach lover. She also despised people who leered like lustful fools.
“Find someone else, honey,” she murmured.

Another man wearing a scuffed leather jacket with straggly white hair and a Santa Claus beard straddled a horse that appeared to be in agony. Harley gasped and stared with an open mouth. “Poor horse! Mountain Man’s going to break your back. You won’t be riding me, Santa.”

Yet another misguided soul posed with a hose between his legs. Divorced.
No wonder
.

“Let’s go to bed.” She scratched Nico’s ears and watched as his face melted into sheer bliss. As she padded to bed with the dog following, Harley flicked off lights and made her way to the bedroom that had once been her parents’. Nico pounced onto the bed.

“You’re on my side.” She gave him her severest school marm look. He gazed at her, unfazed. Tugging gently at the sheets, Harley grinned as the dog sullenly moved over and turned his back to her. Harley laughed softly. She should buy him his own bed.

No light drifted into her room from the street. Some streetlights hadn’t been repaired since Katrina, and most of the time, Harley welcomed the solitude. Tonight, the solitude penetrated her skin and took her breath away. A stifling loneliness almost smothered her.

Harley swallowed the groan pressing against her throat. The loss of John and her parents haunted her dreams. The memory of her father’s tragic but quick death, her mother’s lingering illness, and John’s death in a brutal war comingled, terrorizing her nights and robbing her of true rest. Burying her face in the pillow, Harley let her tears fall anew. A bird pecked at her window. Harley stared at its silhouette in the darkness, a calm settling over her whole being. When she was a child, her mother’s presence calmed her in the same way. Harley turned to find Nico suddenly at her side, licking her arms and then her face. “Okay, boy, I won’t go nuts on you. I promise.” Beginning to laugh through her tears, she cradled the heavy dog to her as if he were a toy, snuggled against his fur, and soon fell asleep.