Swan's Way by Becky Lee Weyrich Page A

doc took your blood pressure or gave you one of his magic pills.”
    At the moment, Ginna would have done anything to wipe the concern from Neal’s face. He had enough on his mind without having to worry about her. “I ll go,” she said quietly, “but I promise you, there’s nothing wrong.”
    “That’s my girl!”
    Neal made the remark casually, but something about the tone of his voice and the change in his eyes warmed Ginna through and through. He really cared what happened to her. Knowing that made her feel good.
    Neal knocked at the door, and the doctor called for them to come in. When they entered Kirkwood’s office, he was just adding the d to the end of his last name. A radio was playing classical music softly in the background. When Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony ended, a sultry-voiced announcer came on and said, “The time is now exactly twelve o’clock noon.”
    Dr. Kirkwood checked his watch and frowned. “Do you believe this? I just bought this watch last week and already it’s losing time.” He reset his expensive timepiece, running it ahead seven minutes. Then he turned his full attention to Ginna and Neal. “What can I do for you two?”
    “Somthing’s wrong with Ginna, Doc.” Neal blurted out what had happened, without giving Ginna a chance to say a word. “One minute she was standing next to me in the greenhouse, and the next minute it was like her bones turned to water. She just collapsed. Scared the hell out of me!”
    Kirkwood rose from his desk and led Ginna to his leather couch. He took her pulse, then said, “Roll up your sleeve, please.” When she complied, he fastened a blood pressure cuff around her arm.
    “A maidenly swoon, eh?” The doctor tried to cut the tension in the room with a small joke. It didn’t work. Neal only glared at him for taking Ginna’s condition so lightly.
    “Maybe she needs a real doctor,” Neal snapped back at him.
    “I apologize,” Dr. Kirkwood said. “I didn’t mean to minimize what happened. If you’ll wait outside, Neal, I’ll see what I can do to help.”
    Neal looked at Ginna questioningly. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
    Reluctantly, Neal left the room.
    Leonard Kirkwood’s manner turned professionally serious, once he was alone with Ginna. “So, it happened again, exactly like last month, when Zee found you unconscious in the woods. Are you ready to tell me what’s going on, Ginna? The first time, you said you were running because it started raining and that you tripped and hit your head. I didn’t believe that then, since there was no bump on your head, and I don’t believe it now. But I do believe something is wrong with you. I also believe that you know exactly what it is. Am I right in my assumptions?”
    Ginna didn’t answer for a time. She wasn’t sure how much she should tell him. Instead, she let her gaze roam the room. Somehow she knew that this had been the plantation office back when Swan’s Quarter was a working tobacco farm. She could see a high plantation desk made of local pine as clearly as if it were here today, instead of Dr. Kirkwood’s modern desk with its smooth design of sleek, polished oak. She remembered working at that old desk. Long hours of backbreaking, eye-straining labor, bending over ledgers and writing sums by candlelight into the wee hours of the night. But how could she remember such things? She had never even been in Dr. Kirk-wood’s office before today.
    “Ginna? Am I right?” he prompted. “Are you ill?”
    “It’s nothing serious,” she answered, watching him remove the blood pressure cuff. “I had a restless night and skipped breakfast”
    “How about the truth , Ginna?”
    Ginna sighed. She had tried to be so careful. She didn’t want anyone at Swan’s Quarter to know about her condition. Still, Leonard Kirkwood was a doctor; he would have to keep her secret. And one of these days, she might need his help. She might go for years with