Family Practice (9 page)

“So how was your night out with the handsome Doc Gibson on Friday? Heard you ended up back here after the barbecue at the Koslowskis’.”

“You don’t miss much around here, do you?”

“When I do it’ll be time to hang up my spatula and head for Florida.”

“You’d really move to Florida?”

“In a heartbeat. Well, for March and April, anyway. Lousiest weather of the year then.”

“We did come in for a nightcap. With Ron and Gerry, Rudy and Jen, and a couple of the guys who work for Rudy. Their wives took their kids home so they’d be ready for church this morning. But I was home and asleep by midnight. Cross my heart. Yesterday I slept in—the first morning since I returned. Then after lunch I drove to Petoskey, got my hair cut, got a manicure and bought myself a bathing suit and some new sunglasses.”

“A bathing suit?”

“It’s been really hot. I like to swim when the water’s warm.”

“When was the last time you went swimming in this lake, warm water or no?”

Callie laughed. “You’re right. I haven’t even bought a new bathing suit in years. But I haven’t gone native yet. Ask me that when I show up in a new snowmobile suit.” She closed her mouth abruptly. When snowmobile weather rolled around, she would be sailing the Caribbean.

“Since they’re singing the Benediction hymn about now, I’ll go out on a limb and say you didn’t make it to church this morning.”

“Next week, I promise.”

“I’m off next Sunday, I’ll pick you up at nine forty-five. We’ll sit together. Now, back to Friday night. You’re not giving me the slip that easy. What all’d you do?”

“Rudy’s parents offered to babysit so we could all come down and have grown-up talk, that’s all. The porch wasn’t crowded so we sat outside, talked about sports and the plans for the Labor Day fireworks, and tried not to get eaten alive by mosquitoes.”

“Shirley Koslowski is a braver woman than I gave her credit for, for offering to babysit six little ones,” Mac said, referring to Rudy’s mother. It might seem as if Mac had finished her interrogation, but Callie didn’t dare relax. It was probably a feint.

“Well, she did raise five of her own.”

“True.” Mac eyed Callie from beneath her white paper chef’s cap. She only wore the cap on Sundays when she deigned to leave her kitchen and make a couple ceremonial rounds of the dining room. “Sounds as if you enjoyed yourself. Especially being all cozied up to Doc Heartthrob like you were.”

Here it comes,
Callie thought,
be ready
. “It was a pleasant evening out with a group of friends. That’s all.” And a man who, if she was honest with herself, she had already started thinking of as more than just a friend.

“You could have evenings like that whenever you wanted if you took the committee’s offer and stayed here where you belong.”

Callie’s mouth flopped open. She shut it with a snap, taking a moment to absorb Mac’s bombshell. “The committee hasn’t offered me anything.”

“They will,” Mac insisted, waving a wooden spoon she’d been using to stir gravy in a huge cast-iron skillet that took both hands to lift. “They’ve wanted to since the day you graduated from medical school. Your dad wouldn’t let them. He’s afraid you’d say yes because you felt you had to, being a Layman and all. Sun wouldn’t rise in the east every morning if there wasn’t a Layman looking after this town one way or another.”

“Are you sure of that?” Though, now that she thought about it, J.R. had never in all these years tried to influence her to practice in White Pine Lake. Whenever the subject came up, which it had in the early days but not so much lately, he had always said he would leave the decision up to her.

“If you mean have I been eavesdropping on the committee’s doings when they meet in the small dining room—no. If you mean do I figure that’s what’s going on in those meetings—yes. You’d best be ready with your answer when they do ask. Especially if you’re going to be having more of those friendly nights out with Dr. Heartthrob in tow.”

Callie ignored the jibe about Zach. “I will think about it, Mac.” How naive had she been? She’d been so exhausted and stressed out for the past year and a half she’d let herself be swept along by events without really examining the repercussions. She’d been willfully blind. Of course, she couldn’t just come home, hang out her shingle, start treating friends and neighbors, then pull up stakes in three months and go sailing off to the far corners of the earth without explanation or hard feelings. She needed some advice. Now. “Where’s Dad?”

“He’s working the front. Marcie Butler’s got the bug everyone else had last week.” Marcie was one of the year-round waitresses that had been at the White Pine almost as many years as Mac and usually worked the early Sunday shift and took over the kitchen on Mac’s one Sunday a month off. “Evidently Ginger’s sleeping in this morning. Becca and Brandon are busing tables for your dad. They should be in here any minute. I just sent the eleven o’clock shift out onto the floor.” Mac had barely closed her lips on the words when her dad and the twins came through the swinging double doors that led to the dining room.

“Hi, Callie,” J.R. said. He was lean and handsome in his green White Pine polo and khakis. It seemed the bar and grill’s signature color suited the whole family except for Becca—and herself, Callie thought with a little smile. Pine-green was not in her color palette, either.

“Hi, Dad.” She gave him a little wave, hoping she didn’t seem as off balance as she felt right now.

“Hi, Callie,” Brandon said, bounding up like an eager puppy. “I got tips! Ten dollars!”

“I’m impressed. You must have really hustled.”

“We were slammed,” Becca said, pulling off her apron and going to the sink to wash her hands. Neither one of the twins were in uniform. Brandon was wearing jeans and a Green Bay Packers T-shirt, and Becca was dressed in white capris and a floaty top in a mixture of blue and taupe that suited her far better than the restaurant’s signature color.

“Your dad shared his tips with us. He says the owner never accepts gratuities. That’s a fancy word for tips, in case you’re wondering.”

“Thanks for telling me.”

“Don’t be stupid, Brandon. She’s a doctor and ultrasmart. Besides, she used to work here. She doesn’t need to be told what
gratuities
means.” Becca leaned her hip against the deep stainless-steel sink, where the big pans were washed, and crossed her arms across her flat chest, distancing herself from the group around the prep table. “We were shorthanded because my mom’s sleeping in.” Her expression was fiercely disapproving, but Callie sensed fear lurking deep in her blue-gray eyes.

“Do you want me to go check on her?” Callie asked her father as he stood with his hands on Brandon’s shoulders. He used to do that with Callie, making her feel special and safe and protected with him standing tall and strong behind her. But she wasn’t eleven anymore. She was a grown woman and capable of taking care of herself and making her own life decisions. Still, right now she wished for those long-ago days so she could ask him to tell her what to do with her future.

J.R. shook his head. “She’s fine, just couldn’t sleep. The heat’s getting to her. I’ve been meaning to upgrade the air conditioner in our bedroom but haven’t had a spare minute.” He’d spent a couple evenings working at the clinic, Callie recalled, giving of himself for the betterment of White Pine Lake. The way Zach had done.

The way she had done, too.

“If it doesn’t cool off pretty soon, I’m going to sleep in the widow’s walk room,” Becca said defiantly. “I bet there’s always a breeze up there. You went up there a lot when you were living here, didn’t you, Callie?”

“I did,” Callie agreed, “but I haven’t been in years.”

Callie had found the small glassed-in room at the top of the building a magical place as a child. She’d spent hours and hours, reading and stargazing and dreaming a young girl’s dreams—and crying her eyes out the summer Karen left. But the stairs to the widow’s walk room were steep and narrow and warped from years of temperature change and leaks in the roof. With so much maintenance to be done in a building the age of the White Pine, J.R. hadn’t gotten around to repairing the room.

“It’s hot up there, too,” J.R. said with his usual patience. “Not nearly as nice as you imagine. But mostly I don’t want either of you going through a rotten floorboard or missing a step and breaking your leg.”

“Or worse,” Mac said, rolling her eyes. “Okay. That’s settled. The boss has spoken. No sneaking into the widow’s walk room. Now, listen up! Everyone out of my kitchen. It’s 11:17. In ten minutes this place will be crawling with the early bird lunch crowd. Shoo.”

“C’mon, guys,” Callie said, suddenly nervous as she prepared to head out with her stepsiblings alone. “My mother’s expecting us for lunch at noon.”

“We’re ready. We can still go with Callie, can’t we?” Brandon asked J.R.

“That’s up to Callie,” her father said noncommittally, glancing across the room at her. “Your mother gave her permission.” J.R.’s disapproval of Callie’s scheme, though, was evident in the furrow drawing his eyebrows together above his hazel eyes. He clearly wasn’t in agreement with Ginger in allowing her children to be brought into his ex-wife’s orbit. Callie suffered a momentary stab of disloyalty, but she pushed it aside. She was trying to forge her own bonds with the twins, and Karen was her mother; there was no getting around that.

“Yes, she did.”

If J.R. thought it through with his usual clearheadedness, he would understand Callie’s reasoning. But he wasn’t entirely clearheaded when it came to Karen. Callie would have to take this blending business slowly. Still, White Pine Lake was just too small a town to try to keep the twins strangers from their stepfather’s ex-wife. Ginger understood that, and despite their differences, Callie appreciated her stepmother’s support.

“We really should be going. We don’t want to be late.” Callie smiled, hoping he could read her mind as he’d seemed to be able to do when she was small.

J.R.’s expression softened as though he indeed knew exactly what she was thinking. He nodded slightly before giving Brandon a little shove. “Get going, then,” he said, “and have fun. All of you.”

“Thanks, Dad. You go spend some time with Ginger, okay? It will be good for both of you,” Callie urged.

J.R.’s expression lightened a little and he smiled. “I plan to do just that.”

Though she wished she could take J.R. aside and beg for his advice on what she should do about staying in White Pine Lake, now was not the time or place. For the moment at least, their roles were reversed. It was her dad who needed someone to take some of the burden from his shoulders. The possibility of her staying in White Pine Lake for longer than she had originally planned could be dealt with later.

CHAPTER EIGHT

C
ALLIE
WATCHED
Z
ACH
come up the path from the dock as she rocked lazily on the porch. On the table beside her, Karen’s natural citronella candles cast flickering shadows in the darkness. It was a little past ten, but there was enough light out on the water for Zach to dock his boat. He’d been fishing again but he wasn’t carrying a stringer, nor had he paused to drop any fish into the wire cage beneath the dock that served as a live well for those awaiting the fillet knife and frying pan. Either the fish hadn’t been biting or he hadn’t landed any he wanted to keep. He’d used the electric trolling motor to come in off the lake, so there was no sound to disturb the quiet of the summer evening. No wash of waves on the shore. The night was warm, the water still and calm. There was no breeze rustling through the branches of the pine trees next door, only the buzzing of mosquitoes waiting in ambush just beyond the range of the candles’ scent.

“Catch anything?” she asked. He was wearing a Detroit Tigers baseball cap and a Ski Michigan T-shirt that portrayed a man wearing a snowmobile suit waterskiing behind a powerboat in a snowstorm with the Sleeping Bear Dunes in the background. Her dad had had a shirt like that when she was a kid. It had always made her laugh when he wore it. Zach’s appeared worn and faded enough to be from the same time period.

“There’s probably a cave painting in France somewhere of a woman asking her man that same question forty thousand years ago,” he said, lifting the baseball cap to run his fingers through his short blond hair. The cut wasn’t precisely military but it was certainly one that didn’t require much fussing in front of the mirror. Whatever the reason he’d chosen it, the style suited his rugged features and broad-shouldered build.

Callie laughed but her pulse ticked up at the thought of having a man like Zach come home to her each night, to call her own. She’d felt a similar little shiver of longing when she’d held Gerry’s baby at the barbecue. She wanted all the things other women did: a husband, children, a home of her own. She just hadn’t let herself think about those things too much during medical school. But since she’d been home again, they were more often on her mind. “Well, did you catch anything?”

“Nope. The only things biting tonight were mosquitoes.”

She tilted her head to one side, listening. “I can hear them out there in the darkness, waiting for me to put out the candles so they can swoop in when I open the screen door and torment me for the rest of the night.”

“And at least a half dozen of them will manage the feat.”

“Bloodthirsty beasts.” She shivered and hugged herself in mock terror. “I used to call them vampire mosquitoes when I was a kid.”

“Rudy calls them Michigan’s state bird.” He grinned and leaned one hip on the porch railing. “How was your day?”

“Very nice,” she said. “Would you care for a glass of wine?” she asked, lifting her own to her lips.

“No, thanks,” he said. “I’m not much of a wine drinker.”

“I’ve noticed. Sorry, I don’t have any beer. The fridge is too small to keep them both cold at the same time.”

“What all did you do today?” he asked, leaning against the porch railing, hands outstretched on either side.

“I spent most of it bonding with my stepsiblings.”

“And?” he asked. She couldn’t read his expression in the faint light of the candles, but she sensed he might be smiling a little.

“It wasn’t a complete failure, considering I took them out to the farm to visit my mother.”

Zach whistled through his teeth. “Gutsy move for a first attempt.”

“I was nervous, I’ll admit,” she confessed. He was a good listener. And she knew him well enough now to trust his discretion. It was no wonder his patients thought the world of him. “I can’t say that Becca and I are going to be BFFs, but she didn’t demand to be returned to town fifteen minutes after we got out there. I doubt she’ll admit it, but I think she truly enjoyed watching my mother spin. Karen’s spinning wheel is an antique. She found it in a corner of the attic when she moved out to the farm. She says it was a sign from Gaia—the earth goddess, you know—that she was supposed to buy the Angoras. I’m not sure what sign pointed her to the Orpingtons but the omelets she fixed were excellent. Ham and cheese for Brandon and me, fresh tomato and cheese for Becca. She also served creamed kale and new potatoes.”

“Yuck.” Zach leaned forward enough for the candlelight to bring his handsome features into focus. Callie caught her breath. His expression was comical. It was the exact replica of the one Brandon had made when a spoonful of the creamed kale and potatoes had been put on his plate.

She laughed, pleased that Zach could make fun of himself. She relaxed a little, even though the tingling in her nerve endings remained. “Brandon was a good sport about it. And there was the lure of homemade ice cream for dessert. We made it ourselves, just the two of us. I haven’t cranked an ice-cream freezer in years.”

“I can’t say I ever have. What flavor?” Zach asked, looking interested.

“Vanilla bean.”

“Sounds delicious.”

“We had all the fixings, too—homemade fudge sauce, homemade wild-strawberry jam, nuts, bananas.”

“Stop! You’re making me envious. What was Becca doing while you and Brandon were cranking away?”

“Talking to my mother,” Callie said. “Surprisingly Mom seemed to enjoy her company and Becca was interested in the spinning, which helped. I think Mom’s getting ideas for a blog entry on kids working with fiber.”

“How do you know?”

“From the way she watched Becca, the questions she asked.”

“Maybe she was just remembering doing those kinds of things with you when you were a kid?”

“She wasn’t into that kind of thing when I was young. That all came after she found herself.”

“I see.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, watching her from slightly narrowed eyes. “Not only were you bonding but maybe getting your first taste of sibling rivalry?”

She laughed. “I guess it might sound that way. I didn’t mean it to.”

“Or was it regret I heard?” His eyes were dark, shadowed like the porch, but somehow she understood he was speaking as much of the loneliness of his own childhood as of hers.

“We did a lot of fun things together when I was a kid,” she insisted, somewhat defensively. “She was a good mother in her own way.” But she didn’t want to talk about what had been, only what might be. “She offered to teach Becca to knit, but that was a step too far. Knitting is not cool, as far as Becca is concerned, although she might change her opinion one day. I took pictures. I’ll print them off at the clinic tomorrow.”

“Uh-oh.” Zach waggled his finger at her. “Wouldn’t that be unauthorized use of office supplies and equipment?”

“I plan to put money in the petty-cash drawer.”

“Yes, boss,” he said.

“I most certainly will.” Man, there she went sounding all starchy and humorless when everything had been going so well. She felt herself flush and stood up so quickly her chair skidded backward and hit the wall.

“Callie, slow down. Don’t get all fired up. I was only teasing.” He reached out and closed his hand around her wrist, just as he’d done that first day in the clinic. And just as it had done that first day, his touch threw her off balance.

“I know you were teasing. I overreacted. I seem to have misplaced my sense of humor, probably somewhere around the third year of medical school.”

“You’ve had a lot on your plate.”

“That’s no excuse. I’ve been rigid and humorless. That’s not the real me. Truly it isn’t. Do you know I agreed to this job and never even considered asking where I’d be living? I just showed up at the White Pine and expected my old room to be ready for me. How thoughtless is that?”

“Give yourself a break. You’ve been under a hell of a lot of stress for years. You’re bound to slip up once in a while. And why shouldn’t you assume there’d be a place for you at the White Pine until you get settled in? It’s your home.”

“And I never expected them to offer me the position permanently,” she said, brushing aside his excuses for her behavior to get at the heart of her dilemma.

His eyes narrowed. “Have they? Made a formal offer, I mean.”

“Well, no. Not yet. But Mac says they’re going to, and Mac is never wrong.”

“What are you going to say when they do?”

She lowered her eyes to his hand, still clasped lightly but firmly around her wrist. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I just don’t know.”

“Callie.” His voice was a low, rough growl, more sensation than sound. It was late; there were no boats on the water to see them outlined by the candles’ glow, no one nearby to overhear their words, but he tugged her closer and into the shadows on his side of the porch anyway. “Do you want to stay here? Do you want to make this your home again, not just for now but forever?” His words sent shivers up and down her spine. He smelled of warm skin and cold lake water and a little of seaweed. He smelled just right.

“I want to fit in again. I want to be useful, to be respected. I want to help people, to heal them, and I want to be part of what goes on around me. I want my family to be strong and whole and happy. Is that all too much? Am I capable of all of that? Am I setting myself up to fail?”

“Family is always worth a big risk.”

“I hope so. I feel like a hamster on a wheel these days,” she said, trying to lighten the mood, to gain a little distance from her problems, from him.

“You’ve got a ‘yours, mine and ours’ thing going on that even the folks at Disney would have a hard time finding a happy ever after ending for.”

“Don’t make fun of me. You don’t know how hard it is.”

“You’re right. I don’t have a family. None. Nada. No one. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t try. Man, how I tried with every foster family they put me with.” His face hardened for a moment and his mouth snapped shut. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to go off on you like that.”

“No, I’m sorry, Zach. I should have never said that. You should have a family of your own, the one you deserve. I hope you do someday.”

He didn’t move a muscle. His expression didn’t change, but he drew her closer. “I do, too. I always have,” he said very low.

She swallowed hard to ease the sudden tightness in her throat. She could imagine him young and alone, trying to fit in with strangers, to make it work, to be one of them. Maybe he was right. Maybe she couldn’t spin all the separate ends of her family ties together into a long, strong yarn that could be woven into a whole, but she had to make an attempt. “I have to try,” she said, low but forcefully. To convince herself as much as him?

He lifted his hand and touched her lips, just a brush of his fingertip, but it felt as if her skin had been seared by fire. “I wouldn’t expect anything less of you. You want what’s best for everyone. That doesn’t always happen, Callie. And that’s not your fault. Sometimes you can’t make it all come out right. It doesn’t mean you’re a failure.”

Tears blurred her vision. She blinked them away. She didn’t want to be this vulnerable. She didn’t want her innermost hopes and dreams exposed to a man as perceptive as Zach Gibson.

She sensed what was going to happen next. He was going to kiss her. And dear heaven, she wanted him to even though she knew it would mean too much. “Zach, please—” She laid her hand against his chest, felt his heart beat strong and just a shade too fast beneath her palm. She had meant it to be a barrier, a warding off, but instead it seemed more like a caress.

“Shh—” he said and leaned into her hand.

She couldn’t move into his arms but neither could she pull away. It was too late to prevent what was going to happen next.

He lowered his mouth to hers. The kiss was long and sweet and the world tilted just a tiny bit on its axis, and she sensed she would never be quite the same again.

“Zach,” she whispered when he lifted his head. It sounded as though she were pleading even to her own ears. This was wrong. He knew exactly what she wanted, and she was too conflicted, too confused. Besides, workplace romances were bad news. They almost always ended badly. She’d seen it happen to friends and colleagues often enough.

“You’re right,” he said, reading her mind. “It won’t happen again. You have my word, but please, don’t expect me to say I’m sorry. I’m not.” He stared down at her in the near darkness for a long moment, his eyes the same dark blue as the lake before a storm, and then he smiled. “Sleep well. See you in the morning.” He touched his lips to her forehead, turned on his heel and left her alone.