Chapter Three
River
“I’m the doctor, Daniel Millan,” the handsome man standing before River announced, fixing her with a steady gaze that seemed to steal her breath from her chest. His blonde hair was cut short, but there was still enough of it to rustle in the light winter breeze.
His smile was completely disarming and his blue eyes were so hypnotic, she feared she would fall into them if she stared at them too long.
“Oh, that’s the first bit of luck I’ve had in a while,” River replied with a nervous laugh and felt herself blush.
Smooth. Way to sound like a right idiot, she scolded herself.
“Well, now you’ve found me, how can I help?” Daniel asked brightly.
Marry me and give me your babies, River thought, but managed to stop short of actually blurting it out, which was something. She could, however, feel the blush deepening on her cheeks. She cleared her throat.
“I just need a new script. I left my meds behind...” her voice trailed off as the words caught in her throat. When I fled.
“No problem. Come in and we’ll see what we can do,” Daniel smiled and held open the door to his office for her.
River smiled weakly and allowed Daniel to show her inside, mildly surprised by how comfortable the place looked.
There was no tree inside, just the one that was outside in the front yard of the building.
The doctor’s office seemed to be part of his home, which she guessed made sense, seeing as there weren’t all that many people in the town and if there was an emergency, the doctor would be needed quickly.
The nearest hospital was a long way away.
He was a practical man. Probably not the sort of man who sold everything and climbed on the back of a bike at a half hour’s notice.
He showed her into his office and offered her a chair.
River sat down and shuffled uncomfortably.
She didn’t really know what to say and the need for her medication wasn’t exactly urgent.
She shouldn’t be disturbing him, and she certainly shouldn’t be sitting here having thoughts about a man after what she’d just been through.
“Actually, you know what, it doesn’t matter,” River said and made to stand up and leave.
Daniel frowned at her and tilted his head slightly.
“No offence, but I don’t believe you,” Daniel said with a light-hearted tone.
“Excuse me?” River replied with a look of disbelief.
“Just as I said, I don’t believe you,” Daniel replied with a shrug.
“You came looking for a doctor in a strange town to get a script because you don’t have your medication.
You clearly didn’t know where you were going and decided to find me without asking for directions. Sounds like it does matter to you.”
River stared at him with her mouth hanging open, speechless—which wasn’t something that happened much in her life. But the doctor had left her utterly dumbstruck. His intelligent eyes searched her face.
“Something tells me this is less about the meds, and more about why you’re here in the first place.”
“Maybe, but like I said, it doesn’t matter.
” River shrugged, then immediately regretted the casual gesture.
She found herself smoothing back her hair, a nervous habit she thought she’d broken years ago.
His steady gaze made her skin prickle, and she had to fight the urge to look away—or worse, keep staring back.
She shifted her weight, abruptly aware of every awkward angle of her body, every breath that felt just a little too shallow.
It was not a feeling she was used to and it was not something she was at all comfortable with.
“Tell you what, why don’t we treat this less as a doctor seeing a patient and more like a friendly ear?” Daniel offered. Everything in River wanted her to agree, immediately, but she bit her lip and tried to calm herself.
You got yourself into this situation by leaping before you look, she scolded herself. Just because he was hotter than hell and happened to make her want to go down on all fours for him did not mean she should just throw herself at him.
“I don’t want to bother you, really,” River said and with great effort stood up from her chair.
Daniel lunged to his feet, hands held up apologetically.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was too forward of me. I didn’t mean to upset you or make you uncomfortable, it’s just that you seem like you need someone to talk to. I shouldn’t have presumed...”
“Please don’t be sorry, it’s not you. It’s me,” River said taking a deep breath and trying not to cry. “Oh great, now I sound like a breakup cliché.”
“Well I hope you aren’t breaking up with me. I haven’t even had the chance to ask you out yet,” Daniel quipped.
River couldn’t help but laugh.
“Oh God, I am such a mess,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry.”
“Come on, I’ll close the office and we can have what’s left of the mulled wine that Betty made for me. It won’t take a minute to heat up and you really look like you need a drink,” Daniel offered.
“I really do,” River admitted. “And Betty’s mulled wine is pretty good.”
Daniel frowned slightly. “You’ve had Betty’s mulled wine? I thought you were new in town.”
“I’m her niece,” River replied.
“Of course! She said you were coming to stay. River, right? Now things make sense. Come on, this way.”
He paused to hang a note on the door saying he would be back in an hour and there was a number listed for emergencies and then turned to her with a smile. River allowed Daniel to lead her out of the doctor’s office and up the stairs to his private rooms.
“So if I remember rightly, Betty said you were a vet,” Daniel said as he turned on the gas burner under a metal pot that he’d emptied the last of the mulled wine into.
“Yes. Or at least, I was,” she said with a sigh. “You aren’t much of anything without a job.”
“Well, come sit down, and you can tell me about why you aren’t a vet anymore,” Daniel replied and indicated through an archway to where a large sofa and two chairs were positioned in front of a stone fireplace.
There were four rooms as close as River could tell.
The kitchen, which was where the stairs led to from the doctor’s office below.
It had a small round dining table, a small island, a rather lavish oven, complete with six industrial gas burners, a refrigerator, a deep freeze, and a few cupboard that had solid oak doors and a marble counter top.
Daniel was clearly a man of excellent taste.
Then there was the living room that was through the archway from the kitchen.
River thought it was odd to have a fireplace on the second floor, but as this was where he lived, she guessed it made sense in some respect.
There was a door from the living room that River assumed led to the bedroom and that the bathroom would be beyond that.
As she sat down in one of the chairs, she made sure her back was to the bedroom door. She didn’t need any more temptation than she already felt around the irresistible doctor.
It didn’t take long for the mulled wine to warm through, and Daniel served it in a mug rather than a glass.
“I’ve always thought that Betty’s mulled wine had too much kick to be safe in a glass,” Daniel smiled as River looked at the rich, red liquid in the mug.
“You’re probably right,” River replied with a slight smile and sipped with the mug. The moment the flavorful liquid touched her lips, she felt a lot better than she had in days.
Daniel sat in the other chair and a comfortable silence fell between them.
He sipped on his mulled wine slowly and River got the sense he was waiting for her to be ready to talk.
It was nice that he cared, that she wasn’t being rushed, for once.
She took her time, taking deep breaths and sipping her mulled wine, until she was, eventually, ready.
“About a year ago, I met this guy,” she began, wondering just how much she should tell the doctor.
His face was so open, so inviting, that she found herself wanting to tell him everything, the whole sorry story.
“He’d moved to town and was looking at running a horse breeding business.
I’ve always loved animals; it’s why I became a vet, and I found him interesting.
As it turned out, he was less interested in animals and more interested in money.
After six months together, I found out he’d been stealing from me.
He’d emptied my savings account, somehow managed to convince my landlord to change the name on the lease to his, and to take me off it, and that my security deposit was his.
I then tried to leave him, only to find that I didn’t have any money to go anywhere.
I had my car and my bike, and that was it. ”
She hadn’t spoken to anyone about everything that had happened and the weight of it had been crushing her. More than she’d even known. It wasn’t until the words spilled out of her that she realized just how much it had been weighing her down. Stifling her.
“What about your job?” Daniel asked.
“He started telling people about my mistreatment of animals, and people stopped coming to see me.” Her lips pressed together in anger at the memory.
As if she would ever hurt an innocent, and worse, he’d known it.
He’d known it would hurt her more than anything else he’d done, and he’d done it anyway.
“The practice let me go, and I had no money coming in. That took another five months. He tried to sell my car and my bike, but I reported them stolen the moment he took the keys from me. The cops picked him up and he got locked up pending trial. Legal aid told me I don’t have much of a case, so I sold my car and used the money to come up here with everything I could stuff onto my bike. ”
Daniel was looking at her with a great deal of sympathy and seemed to be at a loss as to what to say. He put down his mug and leaned forward, his arms on his knees.
“I am glad that you managed to get away from him. He sounds like the worst kind of controlling abuser. You didn’t deserve any of that,” he said kindly, and offered her a reassuring smile that made River want to leap across the room and into his arms. Which she absolutely was not going to do. Men? Nothing but trouble.
“Thanks. I just don’t know what I am going to do now. I feel like I’m running away from my problems and not dealing with them. But I also feel like I can’t go back to my old life.”
“You don’t need to worry about that right now,” Daniel said. “You’ve only just arrived in town, you need to take a breath and relax. Find some peace, and what you want for yourself. The future will get here soon enough, don’t waste the time you have right now by worrying about it.”
River cocked her head in his direction, mulling over the words.
“That’s probably the most sensible thing anyone has said to me in over a year,” River said and then burst into laughter. Daniel frowned. Great. He probably thought she’d lost it.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I must seem hysterical to you, and honestly I do feel a little bit hysterical, but it’s just because of how ridiculous this all is.
I mean, I lost everything and had to leave everything I had ever known behind, and the majority of my belongings, and here I am, sitting in the living room of a perfect stranger, who is so disarmingly handsome that I have completely unburdened my soul to him after a single sip of mulled wine that I’m not actually convinced has any alcohol in it. ”
“Disarmingly handsome?” Daniel grinned at her.
“You know what you look like,” River replied, trying to dismiss her comment, with color rising in her cheeks.
“I see, well then I won’t tell you that you are stunningly beautiful,” Daniel shrugged playfully.
River glowed at the compliment and was once again lost for words.
She opened her mouth to say something, but the doctor’s phone rang and whatever she was going to say was lost between chirps and vibrations. Thankfully.
“Hello?” Daniel said as he answered the phone, and then his forehead creased in a frown. “I see. I’ll be right out.”
“Emergency?” River asked.
“Yes, out on one of the farmers. I have to drive out there now. Sorry to do this, but if you come back later, we can sort out that script for you. I shouldn’t be back any later than four.”
“Okay, I will. Thanks for the drink, and for listening,” River said as she took her mug into the kitchen, rinsed it and put it on the side.
She felt a small amount of disappointment at having to leave so suddenly, but already the thought of coming back to see him later was sending a wash of warmth through her.
And that, she told herself sternly, can stop right now.