Career Girl in the Country / The Doctor's Reason to Stay (23 page)

“Maybe he didn’t, maybe he did. I’ll never know, because he was killed when I was a toddler. My mother always said that he was a sad man who didn’t know how to follow his heart, and that’s how I like to think of him … as a sad man. And the thing is, even though I never met him, what I learned from him is that people don’t follow their hearts the way they should. They get so caught up in what society expects or dictates, or whatever other trappings are out there ready to grab them, they forget to follow their hearts. But every day my mother showed me how much that mattered, showed me how to do just that, no matter what else was going on.”

“She sounds like she was an amazing woman,” he said, as sadness washed down over his face. “I’m sorry she’s gone now. Sorry I’ll never have the chance to know her.”

“She
was
amazing, and I’m sorry about the way
your
father treated you. Grace told me some of it, and there are rumors … it was horrible, Rafe. You deserved better. But you had your aunt.” She reached across the table and took hold of his hand. “Grace found me when I was pretty lost, you know. Sheltered life, failed marriage, fresh out of college a decade later than I should have been and totally without a clue, and there she was, a great big miracle in a tiny, feisty package, crooking her finger at me, telling me to follow her.”
She paused, swiped at a stray tear that had found its way down her cheek. “I’m glad I did, because what I have found in Lilly Lake is … everything.” Her path finally restored. “I’m happy here, and I’m sorry you can’t be.”

“It’s that obvious?”

She shook her head. “Grace warned me.”

He chuckled. “It seems my aunt was the prognosticator of a great many things.”

“And a good judge of pizza,” she said, picking up her slice, glad for the opportunity to change the subject. She held it out to touch it to his slice in a toast. “To Grace Corbett,” she said. “A woman of influence and perfect insight.”

“To Grace Corbett” he said, smiling fondly. “A woman who knew her heart.”

“She did, didn’t she?” Edie asked.

He nodded. “Not only did she know her heart, she knew everybody else’s.” With that he took a bite of the pizza.

Edie filled up after one huge slice, and Rafe went on to eat three before he was feeling the need to loosen his belt. One last swallow, and one final sip of beer swigged, and he pushed his plate and beer mug away, then settled back in the chair. “So, what’s next?” he asked Edie.

“As in?”

“As in, are you planning on staying here? Settling down, making Lilly Lake your permanent home?” It was occurring to him that if he succeeded in persuading Edie to adopt Molly, it might be good to give her Gracie House, so Molly wouldn’t have to be uprooted.

“Maybe. I haven’t really thought about it in the
long term. In the short term, I love my job, I’m renting a nice little cottage … it’s good. I don’t really have a reason to go anywhere else.”

“But if better job opportunities came up?”

She frowned, clearly puzzled by this line of questioning. “What’s this about?”

“Just curious. I mean, I do own the hospital, so I have a vested interest in what you do since …”

“Since I work for you? Have you turned into my employer now?” Said in quite an irritated voice.

“True, I own the hospital. That’s all paperwork and legalities, nothing to do with the actual operating of it. But I was just curious about you. Future plans, hopes, dreams …”

She eyed him suspiciously. “Future plans—keep on working. Hopes—keep on working. Dreams—get an advanced degree and keep on working. Is that what you wanted?”

OK, he was doing it again. Opening mouth, inserting foot. He hadn’t meant to. In fact, he’d hoped to settle back into a nice, relaxing conversation and approach the subject of Molly’s future. But he’d put her on edge…. again. Which meant any talk about Molly wasn’t going to be met with the most receptive attitude. “What I wanted was to start a nice after-dinner conversation with a lovely lady. But the lady seems to be taking it the wrong way.”

“Or the gentleman seems to be starting it the wrong way. Look, Rafe, I like you, but this … this so-called date isn’t really a good idea. We did better when our mouths were full, but now that we have to actually sit back and talk to each other …”

“And you wonder why I don’t date,” he huffed.

“It’s not you. It’s both of us. I have my agenda, you have yours …”

“What if our agendas overlapped?” he asked. “Would that be common enough ground to keep us on this date for another few minutes? Because, as bad as I am at it, I don’t want it ending so soon, Edie.”

“Why?” she asked, trying to mask all emotion in her face.

But he saw the emotion … the warmth in her eyes, the way the corners of her mouth turned up ever so gently. She couldn’t help but care, couldn’t help but put herself out there for someone who needed her. And while he wasn’t about to admit that he needed her, he would freely admit that Molly did, and that was what this conversation had to get on to. Molly. “Because I like being with you,” he said, kicking himself for those misspoken words before they were all the way out. He should have told her it was about Molly. Had meant to tell her it was about Molly. Then he’d gone and said he liked being with her. Another kick to the head. “And I have a bad habit of shutting out the things I really like. Over the years, I’ve developed this uncanny way of letting in only what I want to let in, and shutting the rest of it out. It keeps things in good balance that way, and my old habits aren’t yielding very much this evening, for which I truly am sorry, Edie.”

“There’s no need to apologize for you being you. But what I have to wonder is what happens if you shut something out that really would have been nice to let in?”

“Do you mean Molly?” he asked.

“That’s not where I was going with this, but we
could turn this into a conversation about Molly, if that’s what you want to do.”

“Maybe we should, because Molly’s my priority, over everything else, and I’m counting on you to help me with her. The thing is, I’m not shutting her out. I’m opening new doors for her. Or trying to.” Trying hard to open Edie’s door and, so far, failing miserably.

“Opening her doors, shutting your own at the same time. Isn’t that what you’re doing, Rafe? Because I wonder what would happen if you could keep
all
the doors open for a little while … yours and hers. Give it some time, see what happens, instead of being so … so stubborn about it. You know, forget the open doors for now and try being open-minded for once.”

He arched amused eyebrows. If there was only one thing he could say for Edie, it was that she was fierce in her loyalties. Of course, he was glad he didn’t have to say only one thing because that list she’d mentioned earlier, the one with her stringent qualifications. well, he had a list, too. And it all concerned Edie. But nothing on it was stringent. More like, it was a list of attributes … lovely to look at, nice to talk to, wonderful to just sit back and watch. “Did you know you fairly glow when you’re impassioned?”

“And
you’re
condescending when I’m impassioned. This is a serious discussion, Rafe. Don’t deflect it by telling me I glow.”

“OK, so maybe I’m deflecting. I’ll admit it. Talking about Molly’s future is difficult. But, Edie, you’ve got to understand, I don’t have many doors in my life, open, shut, or otherwise. I’m all about structure. I live by it. I’ll die by it. Everything in my life is so damned structured it’s like I stay on a very linear, very narrow
path, and I can’t get off it. But I don’t want to get off it because it works for me. Me. Alone. Nobody else involved. I accomplish what I want to, have everything I need, and the thing is, I
do
want what’s best for Molly, which is
not
my life. I wish it could be, because that would be the easiest thing to do. I genuinely care for that little girl. But she needs more than I can give her, more than I can be for her.” More than his own father had ever been for his sons.

“And you can’t adjust your life just a little to accommodate her? I mean, how do you know that if you haven’t tried?”

“I know it because … hell, it’s complicated.” He shifted in his seat. “Look. I am who I am, and while I may not be the person you want me to be, I have the good sense to know my limitations. Getting involved with someone else in a way that matters … that’s my limitation. It’s not an excuse. It’s a fact.”

“But what if there’s something else inside you, Rafe? Something you’re not seeing, or something you’re trying hard not to let get through?”

“Yeah, the Rafe Corbett who’s just waiting to be some poor little girl’s daddy. Well, that’s not me. And if that’s what you’re seeing, you’d better look again.” He huffed out an impatient sigh. “Look, I’m sorry. I wanted this to be a nice evening, but with Molly’s situation hanging between us. I feel horrible about what I’ve got to do, Edie, and you’re seeing the fallout from that.”

“Then the simple solution is not to do it.”

“Easy to say, impossible to do. Sometimes we don’t get what we want, no matter how hard we try to make it work. That’s just a fact of life, like it or not.” Tonight he
didn’t like it one little bit, because he could almost see himself staying in Lilly Lake, settling down, raising Molly, maybe even he and Edie … No! He blinked it out of his head.

“But sometimes we do get what we want. It might be a struggle, or it might be a battle like we’ve never fought. My mother always told me that if there was something out there I wanted badly enough, I’d find a way to have it. And I believed her. I mean, look at me. Who knew I’d ever get this life? I started late, messed myself up before I hardly got started, yet I’m here. And before you go and tell me something like what I wanted was simple, and what you want isn’t, don’t. I never had simple in my life. Not for one minute. What I had, though, was desire, and that’s what got me through.”

“And I’m happy for you, Edie. I know it wasn’t easy, and I know your dream wasn’t simple. But you had a dream. That was a starting point.”

“And you don’t?”

“What I have is a function. I like being an orthopedic surgeon. I’m good at it. I take great satisfaction in helping people. But is it a dream? Or have I ever had a dream?” He shook his head, trying to remember a time when he’d had a dream. And came up blank. Well, almost blank. Because for the first time in his life he was feeling some regrets. Which meant there must have been some kind of a dream in there somewhere. As further proof, when he looked over at Edie, his heart clenched. So he blinked away from her in an instant and set about the task of blinking away what had just happened to him.

“But why can’t you embrace what you have and, at the same time, try for more? You’re a talented
doctor, but can’t you define yourself some other way? Something that isn’t about your function but about your … your heart?”

“My heart? It beats, Edie. It’s a biological necessity to keep it beating if I wish to continue living. Which I do. But the rest of it … the romantic notion that my heart can dictate something in my life? I don’t buy into it. Which is precisely why I can’t be Molly’s father. She needs someone who subscribes to the whole theory that the heart is more than an organ in the body. And don’t go looking all sad on me now that you know you’re not going to win this argument, and get Aunt Grace’s way.”

“My way, too, Rafe. Molly is meant to be with you. When I was younger, I chose to go one way. Then when I got a little older, I made another choice. We can make those choices in our lives, but we have to take the first step, which is admitting we want that change. So why limit yourself, or even stop yourself where you are, if you want more? And I think, deep down, you do. Otherwise you wouldn’t be so torn up about finding a family for Molly.”

He didn’t have an argument for that. No comeback, no response. Edie was right, of course. But how could someone who was so full of love understand someone who was not? In her rose-colored world, love took care of everything. In his world, love didn’t exist. It was easier that way. It didn’t open him up to be hurt. And he was better at being alone than anybody he knew. So why change it, and take the risk?

And why bring someone else, like Molly, or even Edie, into his misery, if he took that risk, and failed?
You’re just like your father, Rafe.
Just like his father. How many times had he heard that throughout his life,
and how the hell could he wish that on anyone? “Care for another beer?” he asked Edie, more with the intent of grappling for conversation to clear his head of the dark thoughts rambling around in there rather than offering an actual beer, which he was pretty sure she would refuse as she’d hardly touched her first one.

“One’s my limit,” she said, pushing away her still half-filled mug. “I’m full. Good pizza, good beer, interesting conversation …”

So, this was it? The end of the evening? A little conversation, a little food, then what? Rafe wasn’t even sure this warranted a circumspect kiss at the front door when he dropped her off. Which, in the end, turned out not to matter, as Henry Danforth called before they made it to the car, telling Rafe that he’d brought Molly home from her party, and she seemed a touch under the weather.

“Probably nothing,” Rafe said as they headed out the door. “Kids pick up bugs all the time.” Yet only two hours ago, all decked out in her frilly pink dress, she’d seemed fine. No symptoms, no nothing. Just a normal child with an exciting evening ahead of her.

“Want me to come with you?” Edie asked. “I know you’re the doctor, but she might need …”

“Mothering?” A chance to see how much Molly needed Edie.

“A woman’s touch. And if you could see the look on your face right now …”

He bent down, took a look in the rear-view mirror, saw the worry mixed with stress, tried pretending it didn’t exist. “Looks normal to me,” he lied.

“Looks nervous.”

He chuckled. “OK, so maybe I’m a little overanxious.
But I’ve never had a kid to care for, and I don’t really know much about them.”

She climbed into the car, and Rafe shut the door behind her then went round to the driver’s side. “Good parenting is a lot about good instincts. Don’t over-think it, Rafe. It’s all really pretty simple. Give her the basics—food, shelter, clothes, education, add love and support and some wise guidance along the way, and she’ll turn out to be amazing.”