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Rosemarie was always quiet when she played the piano; the baby sat motionless in the makeshift playpen Sam had rigged up out of apple crates, apparently listening; the minute Winifred stopped to mark something on the score, Rosemarie set up a wail of protest.
Another year and her niece could reach the piano keys, and then the household would never be the same. Maybe when Rosemarie was older, Winifred could start teaching her the rudiments of beginning piano.
Maybe. Winifred wasn’t sure she could stand another summer out here in Smoke River. She always returned to St. Louis and the conservatory so unsettled it took days to focus on the curriculum and her students.
This morning Zane had patients to see. Now he emerged from his office surgery looking hot and tired, tossed his flannel jacket onto a library chair and pulled off his tie. Winifred stopped playing and swiveled toward him; her hands were perspiring so much her fingers were slipping off the keys.
“Hot,” he said.
“Too hot,” she responded. Suddenly she scooted off the piano bench. “Zane, could we go swimming?”
He looked at her oddly and didn’t answer.
“Please? Could we? It’s so hot today.”
Zane glanced to the playpen where Rosemarie sat poking the remains of a soggy cookie into her mouth. It was time for her nap. True, today was much hotter than yesterday, but swimming with Winifred?
He frowned and shook his head. Not a good idea, no matter how hot it was.
Winifred came toward him, her eyes alight. “Please say yes, Zane. Please.”
Good God almighty, he couldn’t refuse her anything. He nodded shortly. “I’ll get Sam to make up a picnic bask—”
She didn’t hear the rest; she’d flown up the staircase with more energy than he’d seen in a week.
“You’re not to swim, Winifred,” he ordered when she returned. “You understand? You’ve had pneumonia, and you can’t risk getting chilled. It’ll still be cooler for you in the shade around the hole, though.”
She looked so disappointed that a dart of guilt laced into him, but as a physician he knew he was right to insist.
With a sigh she deposited a bundle he supposed was a bathing costume on the library chair.
* * *
She sat beside him on the buggy seat, shaded with that lacy-looking parasol, and sighed dramatically. “Swimming would cool me off,” she said.
“Don’t whine. I’m your doctor, remember?”
Her shoulders drooped. “Oh, all right. I’ll sit in the shade and...think. Or do something equally unathletic.”
He clicked his tongue at the horse and rolled off the dusty town road onto the narrow lane that led to the swimming hole. Good. He wouldn’t have to look at her lush body in a swimming suit. Covered up from her ankles to her neck, as she was now in the yellow-striped skirt and shirtwaist, he should be perfectly safe.
But as soon as she climbed down and fluffed out her skirt, he glimpsed her ruffled petticoat and knew he was wrong. He would never feel safe around Winifred. He was always going to notice her, feel her eyes regarding him with interest or amusement or pique or with overflowing tears.
He knew now what he’d been denying for months; he was always going to notice Winifred Von Dannen.
And he was always going to want her.
It wasn’t the same kind of wanting he’d known with Celeste, the heady, star-spangled rush of blind desire. He let out a groan. This wasn’t the same at all.
Winifred stopped en route to the shady spot between two vine maples and turned toward him. “What is wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said quickly. “Just tired, I guess.Too many patients this morning.”
“Darla Bledsoe?” Her eyes sparkled with one of those looks she got when something tickled her. “Another broken...toe, was it?”
“This time it was a sprained finger,” he said dryly. “Lifting a heavy washtub.”
Winifred laughed and sat down in the shade, settling her skirt around her. “You know, Zane, by the time Darla finally hog-ties you, she won’t be able to—”
Her cheeks turned crimson.
Zane laughed and dropped down beside her with the picnic basket. “Oh, yes, she will. Darla is not easily deterred.”
She gave him a thoughtful look. “Do you want to deter Darla? Really?”
“Dammit, Winifred. How can you ask that?”
She blanched and he was instantly sorry. Oh, hell. He couldn’t sit here beside her, smelling her hair, feeling the warmth of her body for one more minute.
