The Awakening of Dr. Brown Read online

  The Awakening of Dr. Brown

  Kathleen Creighton

  EMERGENCY!

  Well, not of the medical sort. But one look at young, idealistic Dr. Ethan Brown and Joanna Dunn realized she had it bad – and only the good doctor could cure her. And while she knew that dreams of white lace and wedding bells were not for her, was it so wrong to pretend, just for a little while, that she and Ethan belonged together?

  When it came to Joanna, Ethan, too, was stymied – for here was a woman whose stock-in-trade was in reinventing herself. Yet whatever form she was taking now, Ethan was finding her impossible to resist. Dare he indulge his dreams of a future together – even if she had a nightmare of a past?

  Kathleen Creighton

  The Awakening of Dr. Brown

  A book in the Into The Heartland series, 2001

  Dear Reader,

  Valentine’s Day is here this month, and what better way to celebrate the spirit of romance than with six fabulous novels from Silhouette Intimate Moments? Kathleen Creighton’s The Awakening of Dr. Brown is one of those emotional tours de force that will stay in your mind and your heart long after you’ve turned the last page. With talent like this, it’s no wonder Kathleen has won so many awards for her writing. Join Ethan Brown and Joanna Dunn on their journey into the heart. You’ll be glad you did.

  A YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY continues with Someone To Watch Over Her, a suspenseful and sensuous Caribbean adventure by Margaret Watson. Award winner Marie Ferrarella adds another installment to her CHILDFINDERS, INC. miniseries with A Hero in Her Eyes, a real page-turner of a romance. Meet the second of bestselling author Ruth Langan’s THE SULLIVAN SISTERS in Loving Lizbeth-and look forward to third sister Celeste’s appearance next month. Reader favorite Rebecca Daniels is finally back with Rain Dance, a gripping amnesia story. And finally, check out Renegade Father by RaeAnne Thayne, the stirring tale of an irresistible Native American hero and a lady rancher.

  All six of this month’s books are guaranteed to keep you turning pages long into the night, so don’t miss a single one. And be sure to come back next month for more of the best and most exciting romantic reading around-right here in Silhouette Intimate Moments.

  Enjoy!

  Leslie J. Wainger

  Executive Senior Editor

  Prologue

  The nightmare came as it always did, borne on wings of music. Heavenly music; joyful, happy music. Music that filled her heart with delight and tumbled from her throat in ribbons of song. Music that poured into her feet and made them want to dance.

  Then…as it always did, everything changed.

  In her dream, one minute she was laughing and dancing, singing for the pure, unbridled joy of it. In the next moment, the music became an undulating wail that replaced joy with terror and her legs with lead.

  No longer dancing, now she was running, running, running, while around her the world turned violent shades of fire-orange and red and yellow-white-and the wail grew to a shriek that filled all the spaces inside her head. The air was thick and black with smoke and choked her when she tried to breathe it. She wanted to scream, tried to scream, but there was no air, no breath for screaming.

  Still…still she tried, until her throat was raw and the pain inside became too terrible to bear.

  Then, as always, she woke up.

  Awake, she could still smell smoke, but strangely, now it seemed to comfort rather than terrify. And there were cool fingers stroking the damp hair from her forehead, and a voice steeped in bourbon and cigarettes crooning, “Hush, baby-girl, hush now, don’t you cry. You gonna be fine now. The Doveman’s got you under his wings…”

  Little by little the fear and pain subsided. Her throat relaxed, her breathing slowed, and she drifted into sleep on the whiskey-sweet notes of the Doveman’s song:

  “Hush little baby, don’t say a word,

  Papa’s gonna buy you a mockin’bird…”

  Chapter 1

  “Who you gonna be this time?” Doveman turned on the piano bench as a final riff of music dropped from his gnarled but still-nimble fingers, effortlessly as raindrops from the sky.

  The rock-and-roll legend known as Phoenix pulled her gaze away from the window to look past him, tilting her head slightly as she replayed the music inside her head, then tried it again paired with the lyric Who am I this time? A smile played across her lips and her heart quickened; together in just such a way, she and Rupert Dove had created more hit songs over the years than she could count.

  She tossed away the question with a shrug, and the smile grew wry. “Hey-I’m open to suggestion. I’ve done vamp and virgin, waif and glamour queen-”

  “Don’t forget punk.” Doveman’s voice was even drier than his usual Black Jack-and-Camels rasp.

  “I try to, daily,” Phoenix replied, mimicking both tone and manner.

  Doveman’s cackle of laughter was affectionate. “You was young, girl. Cut y’self some slack. You done traveled a long, long road since those days.”

  He swiveled back to the keyboard, his fingers finding their way so surely the sounds they produced seemed to come from the air itself rather than human hands. And so clever and intricate was the variation, even Phoenix didn’t recognize for a moment the main theme from “Pretty Mary,” the biggest hit single from her last album, Fire and Ice. The song that had won them both multiple Grammys, the one that had prompted critics to say of the album and the subsequent world tour that “Phoenix has entered a new dimension of sophistication and maturity.”

  But that had been four long years ago. An eon measured in pop culture time.

  Phoenix turned back to the window, feeling chilled in spite of the heat haze that shrouded the city like fog.

  Behind her, Doveman’s voice rode gently on the current of his music. “That one-that Fire and Ice tour, now-that was a good one. Done real good with that one. But the river rolls on, girl, it don’t go back. You got to go on to somethin’ new.”

  The river rolls on… But I have gone back, Phoenix thought, her gaze skipping past the city’s redbrick jumble to the tiny sliver of harbor waters sparkling in the sun like a diamond in a rubbish heap.

  Down there, between the newly renovated harbor with its tourist havens and pricey high-rise apartment buildings, and the converted loft on the edge of a newly renovated warehouse district in which she stood, blocks and blocks of dingy, dilapidated row houses straggled like defeated soldiers to the water’s edge. Down there, hopeless people still passed empty days on sagging stoops and street corners and children played and skinned their knees on crumbling sidewalks with broken curbs.

  This she knew. Oh, yes, she-and only one other-knew that it was on one of those same streets that multimillionaire rock icon Phoenix had played as a child. But she still had the scars on her knees to prove it.

  “The Phoenix shall rise again,” she intoned.

  Doveman chuckled, missing-or ignoring-the irony. He nodded without turning. “That’s right. Phoenix is gonna rise up again. Question is, who she gonna be this time? You got to decide, child.”

  Who am I? Standing at the window with her back to the old piano man, Phoenix drew a catching breath.

  “Here’s an idea for you.” Doveman’s voice had softened. And she realized the melody hidden in the blues variations that tumbled so easily from the piano keys wasn’t “Pretty Mary” any longer, but something slow and sweet and hauntingly familiar.

  An indefinable sadness clutched at her throat. In response to it, her voice hardened. “Shoot.”

  “How about for this tour, for this album, you just be yourself? Joanna Dunn?”

  Doveman’s music faded with his last word, so her laugh gusted into silence. The emotion gripping he
r now wasn’t sadness, nor was it indefinable. What it was, she knew full well, was fear-raw and unreasoning fear. The fear of a small child abandoned in the darkness.

  Jerking around to face him, she said, “Get real!” in a brittle voice that sounded like anger.

  Not the least bit perturbed by her fit of temper, Doveman shrugged. “Why not? Girl, it’s who you are. Time you let folks see who Phoenix is.”

  She shook her head; a derisive sound puffed softly from her lips. But as she gazed at the coffee-brown face of the man who’d been like a father to her for more than twenty years, she felt her anger drain away. When it did, only the fear remained.

  With her voice still hard as stone she said, “Doveman, I haven’t been that person for so long, I wouldn’t even know who she is now.”

  Unwillingly, her glance went back to the window, pulled inexorably by its view of row houses, tenements and despair. “Besides-” and now suddenly her voice had gone sharp and bright, pain disguised as laughter “-who in their right mind is going to pay money to listen to somebody named Joanna Dunn?”

  She didn’t wait for the answer to that, didn’t expect or want one. She jerked herself away from the window and announced, “I’m going out,” as she snatched up a pair of sunglasses and a New York Yankees baseball cap that were lying on the white leather sofa.

  Rupert Dove only said mildly, “If you’re walkin’, better take one of the boys with you. This ain’t exactly a strollin’-around neighborhood.”

  And he watched as the rock star’s famous lips curved with a small, sardonic smile. He said nothing more, knowing it would fall on deaf ears; in all except music matters, Phoenix listened to no one but herself.

  He watched silently, then, as she twisted her long black hair and stuffed it beneath the baseball cap, as unforgettable silvery eyes vanished behind mirrored sunglasses. “Be careful out there,” he drawled by way of a farewell. She threw him a wave, went out the door and left him shaking his head and chuckling to himself.

  He doubted she’d have heard the sadness in his laughter, even if she’d stayed.

  Doveman’s heart was heavy with concern for the girl-child he’d raised and loved as his own for more than twenty years. Not for the sake of her physical safety-he knew she was capable of handling anything those mean streets might throw at her. Nor was he afraid she might be recognized, even on the streets of the city of her birth. Phoenix had always been a master of the art of disguise.

  It was the part hidden away beneath all the layers of her disguises he worried about, the part only one old black piano man even knew existed. The part named Joanna Dunn.

  Swiveling once more to the keyboard, Doveman reached into the bowels of the baby grand and drew out his hidden stash-a crumpled pack of Camels and a half-used up book of matches from the convenience store down on the corner. He preferred matches over a lighter, always had; liked listening to the sound of the matchhead scraping grit, liked the flowering flame, the faint smell of sulfur. Now, touching the flame to the tip of the cigarette, he closed his eyes and drew the forbidden smoke deep into his lungs. His body reacted to the abuse with a violent fit of coughing, which he accepted philosophically. His lungs were shot to hell anyway; the way he saw it, he might as well enjoy what life there was left to him.

  But that was another reason why he worried.

  “Doctor? I put that otitus media in exam three, when you’re ready.” Ruthie Mendoza, casually dressed in jeans and a pink cotton smock with kitty-cats printed on it, waved a clipboard from the opposite end of the counter.

  “Thanks, Ruthie.” Dr. Ethan Brown returned his pen to its customary place in the pocket of his lab coat and tried to sneak a glance at his watch as he laid the chart he’d just completed back on the pile.

  Bibi Schmidt, whose mild gray eyes missed little, glanced at him over the tops of her half glasses as she reached for it. “You gonna try and get some shut-eye this afternoon, Doctor? It is your night to ride-along, isn’t it?”

  “It is, and I’d hoped to.” The smile Ethan gave the clinic’s volunteer administrator/receptionist was wry. “I don’t know what it is with this sudden epidemic of ear infections. Lord, it’s June-cold and flu season should be over with by now.”

  “Swimming,” said Mrs. Schmidt, returning to her paperwork. “School’s out, it’s hot, these poor kids are out there trying to cool off in that filthy river.” Bibi had been a school administrator in a former life, and Ethan didn’t doubt she knew whereof she spoke.

  After a moment, the bookkeeper glanced up again. “Who are you going to be riding with tonight?” Her expression was bland, her tone casual but with a particular undertone.

  Ethan had come to know that look and that tone well in the six months or so he’d been serving at the South Church Street Free Clinic; behind Mrs. Schmidt’s stern and stony schoolmarm’s demeanor lurked the soul of a schoolboy prankster.

  Playing along, he replied in a similarly casual tone, “Oh, I don’t know. Most likely be Kenny.” He slid a sidelong glance toward the other end of the counter, where Ruthie was poring over an upside-down chart and pretending complete disinterest in their conversation.

  “Baumgartner?” Behind the half glasses, Mrs. Schmidt’s eyes were now openly twinkling. “Why, that’s that nice Jewish boy, isn’t it? The one that has such a crush on our Ruthie.”

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a crush,” Ethan mused. Then, following a pause, “More like…the hots.”

  “He does not!” That brought a rich, warm color to Ruthie’s cheeks. “And even if he did, so what? I’m not interested.” She dropped the clipboard with a clatter and went flouncing off.

  “A good thing she isn’t,” said Mrs. Schmidt in a dry undertone, watching the nurse walk away toward the back of the cavernous room that had once been a fire station’s engine bay. “What kind of a future can there be for those two-a nice Jewish boy in love with a sweet Catholic girl whose twin brother just happens to be a priest?”

  For a moment Ethan allowed his own gaze to follow Mrs. Schmidt’s, before he jerked it back to the counter and its pile of charts. Ruthie was a sweet girl and he was fond of her, in a way. But the fact was, there was simply no place in his life for entanglements-not now, and not for the foreseeable future. At least for the next year and a half, while Everett Charlton Brown was still in residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and his entire family under a constant media microscope and his son’s future in limbo as a consequence.

  Ethan didn’t resent the notoriety his father’s choice of careers had forced upon him-he truly didn’t. At least, not anymore. Rhett Brown was a good man and a great president, and he’d done some wonderful things for the country-the world, even. But to be honest, there were times when Ethan thought about his childhood back in Iowa, thought about holidays spent on his aunt Lucy’s farm, or building a tree house in the backyard in Des Moines with his sister Lolly…

  He thought about Lauren, and how she’d managed to escape the limelight practically on the eve of their father’s presidency. And yes, he envied her sometimes, with her law practice and her two kids and her Native American lawman husband, living out there on an Apache reservation in the wilds of Arizona, far from the glare of TV cameras.

  Back then, while struggling through med school and internship out in California, he’d mostly been too busy to think about his own future…about personal relationships, anyway. A family, a wife, children…it had all seemed too far off to worry about. Lately, though, he had begun to think about it-something to do with being on the verge of turning thirty, he imagined-and whether it would ever be possible for a man in his position to meet someone he could fall in love with. Someone who would love him back, for the right reasons. Ethan didn’t consider himself to be shy-although others might disagree with him, and he supposed he might have been shy, as a child. Now, as far as he was concerned, he was just a very private person. And one thing he knew for certain: if and when he did meet someone, there was no way in hell he was going to risk h
aving his personal life, his emotional affairs turned into public entertainment like some huge Hollywood production!

  Another thing. If he ever did decide to brave the media attention over a woman, it was going to have to be something pretty compelling-the real thing, nothing less-which was a long way from the kind of gentle affection he felt for Ruthie. The truth was, he thought of her as…well, a younger sister.

  Of course, part of the reason for that attitude may have been the fact that Ruthie’s twin brother, the priest, happened to be Ethan’s former college roommate and best friend.

  Also, both the Mendoza twins and Mrs. Schmidt were among the very few in town who were fully aware of Ethan’s identity. Not that he could have kept it a secret, even with the well-trimmed beard and longish hair he’d tried to cultivate in an attempt to disguise his all-too-familiar face, given the presence of the pair of Secret Service agents who passed their days in vigilant boredom upstairs in what had once been the firehouse’s kitchen. Not to mention the news crews that showed up on the clinic’s doorstep from time to time in defiance of the unspoken agreement between the media and the White House that the president’s children were to be strictly off-limits. There’d been more than one occasion when Ruthie, Father Frank or Mrs. Schmidt had been called upon to run interference with a camera crew while their quarry escaped out the back door.

  Ethan’s sense of gratitude toward the three was therefore deep and heartfelt, not only for their loyalty and discretion, but for refusing to allow the unfortunate accident of his parentage to stand in the way of genuine friendship. He’d learned the hard way, during the six and a half years his father and stepmother had occupied the White House, how rare and valuable such friendships were.

  So it was for that reason he took advantage of every opportunity to promote EMT Kenny Baumgartner’s cause. Tonight’s ride-along, which was part of the arrangement with the city that allowed him to put in his hours at the clinic free of charge, he devoutly hoped would provide him with a few more of those chances.