Rogue

The doctors she met always seemed pompous to her, or she had nothing in common with them, and they found the demands of her practice and home life too taxing. Most men didn't want a woman or a wife who went to the hospital for emergencies at four in the morning, and had that many demands on them outside the home. Blake hadn't loved it either, but her medical career had always been important to her, and her children even more so. Her cup was very full, and as Tuesday night had proven, it didn't take much for it to run over. There wasn't much room, if any, for anyone else. And he suspected that that suited her children. It had been clearly written on all their faces when he met them, that they wanted her to themselves, and he was not welcome in their midst. They didn't need him. And he suspected she didn't either. She didn't have that desperate quality of most women her age, who wanted more than anything to meet a man. What she conveyed instead was that she was happy, fulfilled, and doing fine on her own. And that appealed to him too. He had no desire to be anyone's savior, although he did want to be the hub of a woman's life. And with Maxine, he never would be. There were both positives and negatives to that.

“Do you think they'd adjust to your being involved with someone?” he asked casually, checking it out, and Maxine thought about it for a moment.

“Probably. Maybe. It would depend on the person, and how well they adjusted to my kids. Those things work two ways, and take some effort from both sides.” Charles nodded. It was a reasonable answer.

“What about you? Do you think you'd adjust to having a man in your life again, Maxine? You seem pretty self-sufficient.”

“I am,” she said honestly, sipping at a delicate mint infusion, which was the perfect end to a great meal. The dinner had been delicious, and the wines he had chosen superb. “To answer your question, I don't know the answer to that. I could only make the adjustment for the right man. I'd have to really believe it could work. I don't want to make another mistake. Blake and I were just too different. You don't notice it as much when you're young. After a certain point, when you're grown up and know who you are, it really matters. You can't kid yourself at our age, that something will work when it really doesn't. It's a lot harder to make the gears mesh later on, because there are more of them. It's all good fun when you're a kid. Later, it's another story. And it's not so easy to find the right match, there are a lot fewer candidates, and even with the good ones, there's a lot of baggage. It has to be worth the effort of making the adjustment. And my children give me an excuse not to try. They keep me busy and happy. The trouble is that one day they'll grow up, and I'll wind up alone. I don't have to face that right now.” She was right, and he nodded. They were a buffer against loneliness for her, and an excuse to be lazy about letting a man into her life. Somewhere, he suspected she was scared to try again. He had the impression that Blake had taken a big part of her with him, and even if they were “too different,” as she claimed, he had the feeling she still loved him. That could be a problem too. And who could compete with a legend who had become a billionaire and had that much charm? It was a hell of a challenge, one that few men would take on, and clearly hadn't.

They moved on to other topics then, more about their work, her passion for her suicidal adolescent patients, her compassion for their parents, her fascination with trauma caused by public events. By comparison, his practice was far less interesting than hers. He dealt with the common cold, a host of more mundane ailments and situations, and the occasional sadness of a patient with cancer whom he immediately referred to a specialist and lost sight of. His practice did not revolve around crisis the way hers did, although he occasionally lost a patient too, but it was rare.

He came back to the apartment afterward and had a glass of brandy from her newly stocked bar. She was totally equipped now to entertain a date, even if she never saw him again. She would be fully stocked for the next one, five or ten years from now. Zelda had teased her about it. She had a very proper bar as a result of her date with him, which worried her a little with the kids around. She was planning to lock up the booze, to keep it away from them and their friends. She didn't want to provide any temptation. Daphne had reminded her of that.