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  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Synopsis

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Author

  Other Books by Nat Burns

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Part Two

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Bella Books

  Synopsis

  Physician Corinthia Madsen Salas—Dr. Maddie—has a flourishing practice in the tiny southern town of Maypearl, Alabama. Although she’s on call for her eclectic patients 24/7, she keeps her personal life private—most notably the fact that she is in love with her new receptionist, Ella Lewis. To reveal the truth could be an ethical disaster for her career and her impeccable standing as a civic leader in the small town. Yet, even so, she wonders often if Ella’s sly, shy glances indicate a return of affection or just workplace courtesy.

  Then the incredible happens, the two are thrust into revealing their feelings and Ella offers to change jobs so that they may have a relationship. Throwing caution to the wind, Maddie agrees. After a blissful evening, Dr. Maddie is called out to a late night emergency and soon the worlds of both women turn completely upside down.

  Now Ella is faced with life changing choices. Should she turn away from the challenges a life with Corinthia would bring? Or allow the power of devotion, time and persistence to bring her beloved Maddie back to her arms…

  Copyright © 2016 by Nat Burns

  Bella Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 10543

  Tallahassee, FL 32302

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  First Bella Books Edition 2016

  Editor: Amanda Jean

  Cover Designer: Sandy Knowles

  ISBN: 978-1-59493-524-4

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  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.

  About the Author

  Nat Burns began her award-winning writing career as a freelancer, then later worked as a staff journalist for two Virginia newspapers.

  She has often worked as an editor and still does. After suffering a TBI, Nat retired from her demanding editorial systems coordinator job at a Washington DC-based medical journal.

  She is now a full-time novelist and this is her ninth lesbian romance for Bella Books.

  In addition, Nat is the music editor for Lesbian News magazine where she has a monthly column called “Notes from Nat.”

  www.natburns.com

  www.bellabooks.com/Author-Nat-Burns-cat.html

  Other Bella Books by Nat Burns

  Two Weeks in August

  House of Cards

  The Quality of Blue

  Identity

  The Book of Eleanor

  Poison Flowers

  Family Issue

  Nether Regions

  Dedication

  I want to dedicate this book to all the hardworking physicians, medical workers, activists and volunteers who work with patients and families suffering through Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Their patience, tolerance and joy for living are unmatched.

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to acknowledge the incredible help of Dr. Cynthia Cavazos-Gonzalez, a Texas neuropsychologist, who tested me extensively and helped me understand, and come to terms with, the idea that my new normal was just that—a new normal for me.

  I wish to offer my eternal thanks to speech pathologist, Caroline Skill, for helping me to find my voice again.

  And thank you, Barrett, my retired nurse writing friend, for advising me on certain medical elements.

  I must also thank all the members of my local book club and the Petroglyph Guild for listening to me loudly work out plots during our get-togethers. You are good friends.

  And, as always, thanks to Bella Books and the production staff there who keep me out of trouble.

  Finally, importantly, thank you, Chris, for reading and rereading this manuscript (te amo).

  Eres la luz de mi corazón, mi alegría.

  -Corinthia Madsen Salas

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Maddie

  I liked to watch her. Sometimes I would leave my office door cracked a little so that I could observe her as she smiled at my patients, or frowned at a misbehaving computer program. Ella Lewis was beautiful. Oh, not in a classic sense—she was a bit too short at just taller than five foot, and a bit too plump in the middle. Yet I relished those slight imperfections. When I looked into her dark blue-green eyes, we connected somehow. I’d never experienced that before. With anyone. This was all new, and I wished desperately that I could explore it to the fullest.

  I rose and stepped from behind my heavy wooden desk. I was restless, railing at an unfair universe that would show me my perfect mate then have her work for me. It was not fair dangling a carrot before a donkey and then binding its feet so it couldn’t move forward. I sighed and studied the certificates papering the office walls. The wooden frames gleamed in the morning light from the street-side window.

  The honors mocked me. Corinthia Madsen Salas, Doctor of
Medicine. Corinthia Madsen Salas, Doctor of Humanities-Ideas thrown in just for fun. My eyes traveled across about a dozen other framed certificates—residency, adjunct residencies, citations of gratitude and of success. It was a whole wall of framed paper saying that I was a good and honorable person. I turned and peered through the opening that spotlighted the receiving desk out by the enclosed waiting area.

  Ella was talking to my nurse, Sandy Webber, and she was facing my office door. I ducked back, just in case her eyes lifted. Shaking myself and straightening my short white lab coat, I laughed soundlessly, embarrassed by my childish actions. I glanced once more at the wall of success and then stepped into the hallway.

  We had only two examination rooms as I was in a solo practice, and I was confused to see that neither room had a flag raised to indicate that there was a patient waiting inside. I peered along the hallway in a fog, perplexed for several seconds, and then reversed my direction and headed toward the front desk. Both women turned to me as I approached.

  “Hey, Doc Maddie,” Sandy greeted me in her usual boisterous manner. Ella hung back shyly, and I made a concerted effort not to look at her.

  “I guess you’re wonderin’ where all your patients are today, ain’t ya?” Sandy continued. “Well, there’s been an oil fire over at the Hamburger House. No one hurt, thank the lord, but the firetrucks got Central all blocked.”

  I nodded, catching on. “So now everyone’s going to the McDonald’s outside town for their breakfast.”

  Sandy laughed. “You know it. Ceptin’ for old man Travis. He’s coming in for glucose so he’ll be right on.”

  I rubbed my hands together to warm them. “And that means I have time for more coffee.”

  “Would you like me to get you some, Doctor?” Ella asked.

  I shifted my eyes toward her and took a deep breath to calm myself. What was it about my new medical assistant that turned me into a bumbling teenager every time she turned those sultry eyes my way?

  “Make sure it’s two sugars and two creamers,” Sandy said, shoving Ella toward the kitchen area.

  I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but she was gone. The phone rang, and Sandy reached for it. I made my escape back to the safety of my office. Moments later, Ella tapped on the door I’d left ajar.

  “Here’s your coffee, Doctor Maddie. It’s freshly made, just fifteen minutes ago.” She smiled and approached my desk.

  I cleared my throat and popped my reading glasses onto my nose. This made her image somewhat blurry so I was able to smile at her, take the coffee and carefully place it on the desk. “Thank you, Ella. I appreciate it.”

  “No problem. By the way, did you get a chance to finish the evaluation I left on your desk?” She tilted her head adorably to one side. I took off the glasses. I wanted to see her, no matter what.

  “Evaluation?” I cleared my throat again, annoying myself and certainly annoying her.

  She smiled indulgently, and I wanted to lick the dimple on her right cheek. “You know. The ninety-day evaluation? Sandy has to comment on it as well, and she asked me about it this morning.”

  I looked down. I had placed it aside. Ella had been with us ninety days. She was so efficient that it seemed as though she’d been here forever. I’d set it aside because I still agonized over fudging a bad review, just so she would go work elsewhere and give my libido some peace. Yet I realized in that moment that there was no way I could act in such a self-serving, untruthful way.

  “I—I’m sorry, Ella. It slipped my mind. I’ll finish it today and give it to Sandy.”

  “It’s okay, Doctor. I figured that’s what had happened.” She turned toward the door, and my eyes dropped to her sweetly rounded bottom, wrapped in dark denim. “Drink your coffee before it gets cold,” she said softly as she pulled the door closed.

  I let out a shaky breath and flopped back into my high-backed leather office chair. Yikes! I lifted my coffee and took a deep sip. Perfect.

  I worked on Ella’s review until I heard a commotion in the hallway outside my door. Sandy was showing my first patient of the day to the exam room. I looked over the review and made sure I hadn’t gushed too much about Ella. It was fine. I signed it with a flourish. This meant she would stay with us. It was okay—I was damned either way.

  I carried the review and handed it off to Sandy as she passed. “Mr. Travis is in one,” she said unnecessarily as she scurried by. I thanked her and lifted the folder from the pocket just outside the exam room.

  Clark Travis, seventy-four years of age, was an established patient. Last year, he’d presented with high glucose and, after a high A1C, I’d started him on metformin and dietary changes. This was his third follow-up since then. Sandy had done a fasting finger prick that was one hundred and three, so it looked as though the meds and changes had done the job.

  I opened the door and stepped inside.

  Chapter Two

  Ella

  Most of my past relationships had been with blondes, so it was strange for me to be so deeply attracted to Dr Corinthia Salas, a shy, reclusive Latina of Puerto Rican descent. Of course, I’d found out most of what I knew from Sandy’s overblown office gossip, and really, I had to wonder how much of what she said was true. Yet I could see the Caribbean in Doctor Maddie, as we called her. Her hair was the ebony of the papaya seed, and her eyes were the warm brown of the tamarind. Her skin, though she worked almost unceasingly night and day, always appeared sun-kissed, and I often longed to sweep one palm along that smoothly tinted surface.

  I stepped out into the slanted sunlight of a south Alabama evening and glanced back once, hoping to see her behind me. Just so I could have her for a few more minutes. I sighed when she wasn’t there. I walked slowly through the small parking lot to my tiny Toyota and headed for home.

  I wasn’t certain Doctor Maddie even saw me. Or, if she did, it was as an employee only. After pondering this for hours, late at night in my bed alone, I had finally decided that she was the ultimate professional. Certainly, it would be unethical for a physician to carry on with the employees of her office. Then again, there was the lesbian issue. I wasn’t sure if Doctor Maddie was out to her patients, although my gaydar had gone off at our first meeting three months ago. The rest of the country might be making lesbians their media darlings, but in somewhat conservative Maypearl, she might want to be safe rather than sorry.

  I knew she was single, though. I’d surreptitiously asked several people in the course of general conversation, and there was no evidence of a partner, of kids or even of a pet, in her office. As I drove along the quiet Maypearl streets, I wondered once more about her history, an exercise I was familiar with. It seemed thoughts of her filled my waking hours. I knew she’d grown up in San Juan, Puerto Rico and Manhattan, New York, following her nomadic consultant parents from city to city. She’d gone on to graduate from Fordham University, Sandy said, and I had glimpsed her MD one day from a medical school in Texas. But other than that, neither of us knew a thing about her private life. I knew she loved coffee and had a weakness for good avocado on crispy wheat toast. It was her favorite lunch.

  I turned into the parking lot of my apartment complex and slid into my assigned space. Tropical Towers was a good enough place to live. If you paid your rent on time, and didn’t infringe on the other tenants, you were left alone. Just the way I liked it. Yes, I was a bit lonely, but I did have Julio, my enormous gray-and-black Maine coon cat. Said cat was waiting for me as I approached the door. Perched on the windowsill, he watched me with huge golden eyes. I waved at him, and he leapt down and, as usual, greeted me at the door with loud vocalizations, reporting the indignities of his day. I listened attentively as I made my way to the kitchen counter, relieving myself of my lunchbox and handbag.

  “I know,” I sympathized just as loudly. “It’s so hard being you and being stuck here all those hours by yourself. I just wish I could be with you, darn it!”

  He walked figure eights around my legs, displaying our solidarity.<
br />
  “So, what’s for dinner, little guy?” I opened the pantry door. “We have whitefish.” I waited but got no response. “We have tuna and salmon.” Again, I waited.

  He moved closer and peered up at me. I looked down. “Hmm, there’s chicken?” He meowed loudly and then purred, rubbing his cheeks against my leg. I opened the can of chicken cat food and filled his bowl. After watching him a moment, I grabbed a beer from the fridge and made my way to the den.

  Here I had books. Tons of them, stacked vertically and horizontally on every available surface. I studied their beloved, well-used spines as though picking the best pastry from a lavish buffet. I spent time on each one, silently recalling the stories tucked within. This was a murder mystery set in downtown Los Angeles. The cop had done it. This one was about a dysfunctional family who finds love and acceptance on a yacht in the South Pacific Ocean. Oh, and here was Michael Crichton’s work about nanotechnology gone wild. I stepped to a second rank of shelves and touched a book about the origins of interesting things, and then another about word origins. I was tempted to pull one down but realized suddenly that I’d read just about all my books numerous times, these trivia ones in particular. So which to read? I wondered what Doctor Maddie liked to read. Surely not medical journals all the time. Did she like fiction?

  Warmth flooded me anew as I thought of her, curled on a sofa reading… What? A steamy lesbian romance, maybe? I strode to the other side of the room and allowed my fingers to drift across the spines of the many trade paperbacks arranged like little colorful soldiers tucked into tidy barracks. These amazing books, hundreds of them, shared the lives and loves of lesbians. Some were not so good, too predictable, but others were amazing and thrilled me repeatedly. All were dog-eared as I reread even the bad ones obsessively. I needed a twelve-step program to break my addiction. I sighed and pulled one of my favorites down—in it, an unhappy housewife finds love with a new neighbor. Perfect. I looked around the room as I settled into my favorite chair. I wasn’t a housewife and didn’t know my neighbors, but maybe, just maybe, I could substitute beautiful Corinthia for the housewife and I could be her loving neighbor.