Reach for Tomorrow

  Reach for Tomorrow

  Peggy Gaddis

  Avon, Massachusetts

  Contents

  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

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Claire Frazier came briskly down the corridor of the Women’s Wing of Chatworth Memorial Hospital. It was fifteen minutes before she went on duty, but she always came down the corridor fifteen minutes ahead of time. Her light gray eyes were alight as she moved with the swift, effortless grace of a trained nurse. Her crisp uniform was immaculate. Her brown-gold hair, crowned with its cherished small RN cap, was held high. In short, she made a very pretty picture as she walked the long corridor.

  Her pace slowed ever so slightly as a tall young man in hospital whites came toward her, and the light in her gray eyes warmed.

  “Good morning, Doctor.” She spoke demurely, her tone soft, but the light in her eyes laughing at the phrase as she looked up at him.

  “Good morning, Nurse,” said Dr. Massey, his tone matching hers, routine, ordinary, matter of fact. But under his breath as they stood there he said, his voice husky, “Hello, my beautiful beloved.”

  For a breathless moment they stood smiling at each other.

  “How was Emergency last night?” she asked after a shaken moment while his eyes drank her in.

  “Routine,” he answered, and again spoke in a voice that could reach her ears alone, “If you could possibly know how much I want to take you in my arms and kiss you!”

  Color flushed Claire’s pretty face, and her eyes met his.

  “I want that, too, darling.” Her whisper was a thread of sound scarcely strong enough to support its yearning tenderness.

  “Do you?”

  “You know I do!”

  He drew a deep, hard breath.

  “It’s about all that keeps me going,” he told her huskily. “Two more months and then — ”

  “Oh, yes, darling — and then!”

  They were so absorbed in each other that they were not aware of the scrubbed, crew-cut young man in hospital whites, the inevitable small black bag in his hand, who came briskly toward them and slowed as he passed, his eyes straight ahead.

  “Break it up, kids,” he muttered without looking at them. “The Big Chief is on the prowl. Morning rounds in ten minutes.”

  “Thanks, Bob,” said Dr. Massey without looking at the young interne. And then as a group of nurses, headed by the stout, impressive figure of the Chief of Staff, appeared at the end of the corridor, Dr. Massey said softly, “See you around, honey.”

  “Yes, Doctor,” said Claire demurely, her eyes twinkling as he nodded and moved away and she went on down the corridor to her patient.

  She couldn’t remember when she had first known that she was in love with Richard Massey. He had been a junior interne, she a third-year student nurse when suddenly they had seemed to look at each other and know that they were meant for each other. And now she was an RN and he was completing a special year in surgery; in two months when he had finished that training, they were going to be married and set up shop together back in her home town! It was a prospect so dazzling that she entered room 1003-B with her eyes shining and her pretty face flushed.

  The night-duty nurse looked up as she came in and grinned.

  “You have the look of a gal who’s just seen and spoken to her best beloved,” she teased.

  “Does it show as plainly as that?” Claire laughed and turned to the patient, “Good morning, Miss Dawson. How do you feel this morning?”

  “Oh, I’ll probably live — darn it!” said the stout, elderly woman who was propped in bed, her broken leg still in traction, her thinning white hair neatly brushed above a freshly scrubbed face.

  Mrs. Stokes, the night-duty nurse, was just putting away the morning bath things, and she clucked disapprovingly.

  “Now is that any way to talk?” she scolded lightly, “after all Chatworth Memorial has done for you?”

  “I suppose not,” admitted Amanda Dawson reluctantly, though her blue eyes were twinkled. “It’s just that lying here looking at that ridiculous leg standing straight up in the air makes me feel like a fool!”

  “Well, it’s mending beautifully and you’ll soon be going home, so try not to worry about it,” Mrs. Stokes soothed her and smiled at Claire. “She’s all yours, Claire, until four P.M.”

  “I do love the way you nurses parcel me out among you, as though I were a cold Sunday night supper!” Amanda complained.

  “We don’t mean it to sound that way and you know it,” Claire said gently as Mrs. Stokes grimaced and left the room. “We all love you and look forward to taking care of you — ”

  Amanda studied her sharply.

  “Which is a bare-faced lie and you know it,” she cut in grimly. “I’m a mean, cantankerous old woman with a tongue made of sandpaper, and only the fact that you’ve just seen your boy friend makes you so gentle with me. Love — it’s wonderful!”

  “It really is, isn’t it?” Claire marveled softly.

  Amanda made a rude noise and then grinned.

  “Why ask me? How’d a grouchy old maid like me know anything about it?” she mocked. “But I’ll say one thing for you; I can always tell when you’ve seen him. You look as if you were floating around on rose-colored clouds. I suppose you had a date with him last night?”

  “He was on duty in Emergency,” Claire answered, and stood up as the door opened and the little procession she had seen outside swept into the room.

  The Chief of Staff, with a resident on either side of him, the head nurse, attended by two of her senior student nurses, all glanced about the small, neat room with sharp eyes for any hint of untidiness.

  The Chief growled a greeting to Claire, managed a faint smile at Amanda, studied the chart, nodded, turned and strode out with his devoted court following at a respectful distance.

  Amanda stared at the door closing behind the senior student nurses, and her eyebrows went up a little.

  “Quite the grand manner he has, hasn’t he?” she derided the Chief. “Do you think he really knows whether I’m going to live or die — or that he would be even mildly interested one way or the other?”

  “Oh, now, you mustn’t say that!” Claire was appalled that anyone should dare speak disrespectfully of the Chief, who was a figure of somewhat fearsome awe to the staff. “Of course he would! He took your chart in at a glance, approved of what was being done for you, and went on to finish his rounds. After all, you are convalescent, and he has an awful lot on his mind.”

  “Sure, sure, sure,” Amanda agreed. “But let me give you a word of advice for that handsome brute of yours that you’re going to marry. You are, aren’t you?”

  Claire laughed richly.

  “If you mean Dr. Massey, I surely am!” she boasted happily.

  “Then for heaven’s sake, try to persuade him to treat a patient like a human being, not just a case record,” snapped Amanda crossly. “Even if we are strung up like a side of beef in a smoke-house, we do have feelings and fears and hopes and aspirations. And a doctor with a good bed-side manner nowadays is hard to find and much to be cherished. Don’t forget that, my girl.”

&nbs
p; “I won’t, Miss Dawson, and neither will Rick,” Claire assured her earnestly. “Rick’s a wonderful person. He’ll never forget the human being in a patient. He just couldn’t. He’s not that kind of doctor.”

  Amanda’s eyes twinkled but her smile was warm.

  “Kind of like the lad, don’t you?” she teased.

  Claire laughed, “That’s scarcely a secret! Everybody in the hospital knows it, I imagine.”

  “And he’d be a fool if he didn’t feel the same way about you, my girl.”

  Claire said softly, “He’s far from being a fool, Miss Dawson.”

  The door opened to admit a pretty candy-striper in her neat red and white pinafore, a basket of mail on her arm.

  “I brought the patient’s mail, Miss Frazier,” she announced, and handed Claire a thick sheaf of mail, smiled shyly at Amanda and went out.

  Amanda eyed the mail without enthusiasm.

  “Next to the Christmas card racket is the ‘get well’ card foolishness,” she said curtly. “I’ll take a wager that ninety percent of that bundle of mail is made up of ‘get well’ cards and all of them from people who don’t give a darn whether I do or not!”

  “Oh, now, some of the cards are very pretty,” Claire protested lightly.

  “Where’s the morning paper? You going to read it to me this morning?” she demanded.

  “Especially the stock-market reports,” Claire told her demurely.

  “Unless there’s a nice juicy scandal,” Amanda told her.

  Claire laughed and unfolded the morning paper and a moment later asked curiously, “Would you know a Mrs. Elaine Crossett?”

  “Not personally, thank heaven. She’s a well-known divorcee who makes a business of getting married and then divorced, always with a sizable bundle of alimony. No doubt the current husband is delighted to pay her handsomely to be rid of her. Whom has she married this time?”

  Claire’s eyes ran over the printed lines, and she answered quietly, “Nobody at the moment. She’s here in the hospital. An overdose of sleeping-pills, taken accidentally, it is assumed.”

  Amanda’s eyes widened.

  “It must have been an accident,” she said grimly. “That one is much too fond of her gay life to want to end it — ”

  “She’s very beautiful,” said Claire, studying the photograph, a carefully posed studio portrait of a fragile-looking blonde, bare shoulders above a froth of misty gown, jewels at the throat and in the ears.

  “Sure she’s beautiful. It’s her chief stock in trade,” said Amanda brusquely. “Takes after her mother’s side of the family. Pity she couldn’t have taken after her father’s side. He was quite a man.”

  Claire was still studying the photograph.

  “Rick was on Emergency last night, so she must have been his patient,” she mused thoughtfully.

  “Well, don’t let that bother you!” scoffed Amanda. “A stomach pump is scarcely a romantic article, and that’s the way they have to get a patient over the sleeping-pill business. Let’s see about the stock reports.”

  Claire turned the newspaper’s pages and settled down to reading aloud while Amanda listened, shrewd-eyed and absorbed, occasionally making notes.

  Chapter Two

  At four o’clock, going off duty, Claire was halfway down the corridor when a door opened and Maude Welch, a fellow nurse, emerged into the corridor, looking harried and anxious.

  “Oh, Claire, be a pal and stay with my patient while I go roust Dr. Massey out,” she pleaded. “She’s determined to go home, and he hasn’t dismissed her and says she must stay at least two or three more days. She won’t listen to me and demands to see him.”

  “I don’t blame her,” Claire said softly. “He’s very nice to see.”

  “Oh, sure, you’d think so,” Maude scoffed. “But stay with her and keep her in bed, even if you have to slug her, until I can get him.”

  “Sure,” Claire agreed, and opened the door of the hospital’s best suite as Maude scurried down the corridor.

  The patient lay against her pillow, soft golden hair spread out about her pale face, her eyes darkly blue, her thin-lipped mouth sullen.

  “Well, who are you?” she demanded sharply. “Whoever you are, get me my clothes, unless you want me to walk out of here in this monstrosity of a garment.”

  “I’m Nurse Frazier, Mrs. Crossett,” said Claire quietly. “Nurse Welch has gone for Dr. Massey. He’ll be here very soon.”

  “Oh, so you know who I am?” Obviously Elaine wasn’t surprised that this should be so.

  “I recognized you from your picture in the paper this morning,” Claire answered pleasantly, adjusting the covers that Elaine had disturbed.

  There was a shocked murmur from Elaine, and her dark blue eyes widened.

  “My picture was in the paper this morning?” she repeated, and added with a faint touch of anxiety, “Oh, of course, on the social page — ”

  “I’m afraid not, Mrs. Crossett. It was on the front page,” Claire told her.

  The alarm deepened in Elaine’s lovely eyes.

  “The front page? But why should it have been?” she stammered.

  “Oh, it’s routine that when a patient is brought in for emergency treatment a report goes to the police, and the newspapers get it,” Claire told her. “And of course you are prominent, and naturally the newspapers would make a front page story of your accident.”

  Elaine studied her sullenly.

  “What makes you think it was an accident?” she demanded.

  “Well, I can’t believe a woman as young and beautiful and wealthy as you would want to destroy your life, with everything you have to live for,” Claire answered quite honestly.

  For a moment Elaine stared at her as though dumbfounded.

  “I don’t suppose it could ever occur to you that one could become so bored — ” she began, and broke off and suddenly laughed, an ugly, mirthless laugh that was the epitome of bitterness. “Everything I have to live for! If you only knew what a laugh that is!”

  A moment later Dr. Massey came in swiftly and Elaine stared at him, wide-eyed, as he stood beside the bed, his fingers on her pulse, his smile warm and friendly.

  “Now what’s all this nonsense about your wanting to go home, Mrs. Crossett? Don’t you like our hospital?” There was gentle raillery in his voice as he took the chart that Maude extended, while Claire lingered near the door, filling her eyes with the sight of him.

  “Who are you?” demanded Elaine, studying him intently.

  “I’m your doctor,” Dr. Massey explained, and his friendly smile was a white flash in his darkly handsome face. “I like to take at least part of the credit for saving your life last night. And now you want to rush off and leave us. Is that gratitude?”

  “I didn’t ask you to save my life,” Elaine reminded him sullenly, her eyes still devouring him. “But thanks, anyway.”

  “Just part of the job, the service the hospital is happy to render,” Dr. Massey assured her, and there was a faintly mocking note in his voice to match the twinkle in his brown eyes. “You don’t really want to go home, do you?”

  Elaine’s eyes were intent, and suddenly she smiled and settled herself a little more comfortably against her pillows.

  “Certainly not. Whoever said I did?” she answered firmly. “I may be here for weeks and weeks — who knows? I like it here.”

  “That’s good,” Dr. Massey laughed. “But I’m afraid we can’t allow you to stay here that long. A week should see you back on your feet and ready to leave us.”

  Elaine studied him, and suddenly she smiled happily.

  “Then I’ll buy the hospital and make it my permanent home and you shall be my permanent doctor,” she assured him.

  “You’re not looking forward to requiring a permanent doctor, I hope, and settling down to semi-invalidism?” Dr. Massey asked solemnly.

  “The thought has a certain appeal,” Elaine assured him.

  “Well, we’ll talk about that later,” Dr.
Massey told her as he turned toward the door. “I’ll look in on you in the morning.”

  “You do that, Doctor,” purred Elaine. “I shall look forward to it.”

  Demurely Claire held the door open for him, followed him out into the corridor and closed the door gently behind them.

  “That’s a dangerous woman, Rick, my lad,” she said quietly.

  Dr. Massey’s hand reached for hers and folded it tightly in his own, and his eyes took her in with a look so caressing that she had the heady feeling that he was kissing her.

  “What woman? I know only one woman in the world, Treasure, and that’s you!” His voice was low and husky and brought the color in a warm tide to her face.

  “That’s the way I want it to be, Rick, always!” Her own voice was pitched low, threaded with ardor, and her fingers curled even more tightly about his.

  “It will be, dearest — I promise,” he told her tenderly.

  For a moment they were content just to stand there, their hands clenched tightly together, so that she could feel the warmth and tenderness curling about her quivering heart.

  “I want to kiss you.” His voice was a thread of sound. “I want so terribly to kiss you.”

  She leaned toward him and then glanced guiltily about the corridor where nurses were going busily to and fro getting their patients ready for supper, nurses were going off duty, other nurses were going on duty, and the busy, brisk, somewhat self-conscious young internes carried their small black bags, and here and there a candy-striper was very busy and self-important.

  Claire smiled up at him and drew a long deep breath.

  “Well, I’m afraid we’d fracture some of the hospital’s most stringent rules and regulations, Doctor,” she murmured softly for his ears alone. “But if you’re off duty — ”

  “I’m not, hang it. Not until midnight. But if you are, maybe we could have coffee?” he suggested hopefully.

  “That would be lovely.” She smiled up at him.

  A little later, at a corner table in the coffee shop, he glanced about him distastefully at the groups of hospital personnel, the sprinkling of anxious relatives awaiting word about patients whom they had come to see, and suddenly he scowled.