The Men of Medicine Ridge - Diana Palmer [1]
At first, the doctors feared that he’d lost the sight in both eyes. But later, it had become evident that the right one still functioned. During that time of uncertainty, Natalie had attached herself to him and refused to go away, teasing him when he became despondent, cheering him up when he wanted to quit. She wouldn’t let him give up, and soon there had been visible progress in his recovery.
Of course, he’d tossed her out the minute he was back on his feet, and she hadn’t protested. She knew him right down to his bones, and he realized it and resented it. He didn’t want her for a friend and made it obvious. She didn’t push. As an orphan, she was used to rejection. Her aunt hadn’t taken her in until the dignified lady was diagnosed with heart failure and needed someone to take care of her. Natalie had gone willingly, not only because she was tired of the orphanage, but also because her aunt lived on Killain’s southern border. Natalie visited her new friend Vivian most every day after that. It wasn’t until her aunt had died unexpectedly and left her a sizeable nest egg that she’d been able to put herself through college and keep up the payments on the little house she and her aunt had occupied together.
She lived frugally, and she’d managed all by herself. The money was almost gone now, but she’d made good grades and she had the promise of a teaching position at the local elementary school when she graduated. Life at the age of twenty-two looked much better than life at age six, when a grieving child had been taken from her family home and placed in the orphanage after a fire had killed both her parents. Like Mack, she’d had her share of tragedy and grief.
But teaching was wonderful. She loved first graders, so open and loving and curious. That was going to be her future. She and Dave Markham, a sixth-grade teacher at the school, had been dating for several weeks. No one knew that they were more friends than a romantic couple. Dave was sweet on the clerk at the local insurance agency, who was mooning over one of the men she worked with. Natalie wasn’t interested in marriage anytime soon. Her only taste of love had been a crush on an older teenager when she was in her senior year. He’d just started noticing her when he was killed in a wreck while driving home from an out-of-town weekend fishing trip with his cousin. Losing her parents, then the one love of her short life, had taught her the danger of loving. She wanted to be safe. She wanted to be alone.
Besides that, she was far too fastidious for the impulsive leap-into-bed relationships that seemed the goal of many modern young women. She had no interest in falling in love, or in a purely physical affair. So until Dave came along, she hadn’t dated at all. Well, that wasn’t quite true, she conceded.
There was the dance she’d coaxed Mack into taking her to, but he’d been far older than the boys at the local community college who had attended. Nevertheless, he’d made Natalie the belle of the ball just by escorting her. Mack was a dish, by anybody’s standards, even if he did lack social graces. By the time they left, he’d put more backs up than a debating team. She hadn’t asked him to take her anywhere else, though. He seemed to dislike everybody these days. Especially Natalie.
Natalie hadn’t really minded his abrasive company. She admired his penchant for telling the truth even when it wasn