Wishes and Stitches (2 page)

Chapter Two

N
aomi sloshed even more coffee onto her paper as she set her cup back down, and she gripped the handle tightly.

What the
hell
was he doing here? She hadn't said where she lived, and she hadn't asked him, either. One-night stands did
not
show up at breakfast the next week. Oh, God. He'd see her . . .

“Good to have you here,” she heard Elbert say. “Come on back, and meet everybody.”

Meet everybody. In a year, she'd never been invited to do that. How on earth did Rig rate?

Elbert introduced him to Mayor Finley, who nodded and said something to him that Naomi couldn't catch. Mildred and Greta both leaned all the way out of their booth to stare at Rig's rear end after he passed their table. Mildred's ball of sock yarn bounced out of the booth and down the aisle, as if chasing him.

Elbert didn't glance at Naomi as he stomped past, but Rig did. He smiled and nodded, and somehow didn't look surprised, the way she knew she did. The corner of his too-wide mouth twisted, eyes crinkling as he paused next to her.

Naomi was too flustered to smile back. She had the same thought she'd had in the bar when she'd first seen him: He didn't look like a doctor. He looked like he belonged on a motorcycle, illegally crossing borders.

“In pen, huh?”

She'd forgotten how deep his voice was. She nodded and twiddled the pen's cap.

“I would have guessed that about you. I use erasable pen, myself,” he said. He reached out one of those huge, gorgeous hands—yep, it really was him—and touched the edge of the paper.

“Why not just use a pencil, then?” she asked. Her voice felt like it would shake, embarrassingly, but instead it came out strong.

Rig shrugged, and Naomi noticed again how broad his shoulders were. “Not as much fun that way.”

“So, stalking me already?” Was it possible that she was flirting again? Just like that?

He laughed. “That's me. Stalker guy. Considering I didn't even know what state you lived in, I think I've done well, don't you think?”

Naomi bit her bottom lip as she grinned. She'd forgotten how easy conversation was with him. “What are you doing here? I mean, besides the obvious stalking thing. Surf's up?”

“Yeah, that's me. Dr. Hang Loose. Hang ten. However that goes.”

His tone was light, but she could imagine it, actually: his wide thighs and broad chest in a black wet suit, his hair slicked back, face turned to the sun as he rested on the waves, waiting for a set. . .

Naomi said, “They say the surf's great here. There are always people out there, even at night.”

“Maybe sometime I'll get a chance to try it.”

“You'd be good, I bet. You're strong.” She felt color rise to her cheeks, but she held his gaze.

This was fun. She still had no idea why he was here, but Naomi was glad that he was.

His eyes turned serious. “Naomi, I didn't plan on this. My brother lives here, and I just found out yesterday that you—” He stepped forward as if he was going to say more, but her phone buzzed, clattering on the table. He looked at it and then looked at Elbert who was yanking on his sleeve.

Picking up her cell phone, trying to act cool, Naomi said, “We can talk later. Go with him, he wants you.”

Rig nodded. “Soon. We'll talk.” His voice was a promise. Then he was herded toward the side room, and Naomi flipped open her phone.

The message was a spam e-mail advertising Viagra. Naomi's scrambled eggs were stone cold now. No hope for them. She pushed the plate away and looked around for Shirley. More coffee was the only thing she needed. But Shirley had followed Elbert and Rig into the ranchers' room, and if Naomi leaned her head back a little, she could just hear what was being said.

Elbert introduced him, and a volley of greetings was exchanged.

“Rig Keller!” said Pete Wegman, one of the old ranchers. “You're Captain Keller's brother, ain'tcha?”

A mumble of something Naomi couldn't quite hear. Dammit. She wanted to catch this.

“That's Jesse, and Landers, Hooper's over there. That's Cade, on the right.”

“Howdy.” Naomi recognized Cade MacArthur's voice. She'd treated him for a knee injury a few months ago. He'd been what she privately termed an im-patient, but his wife, Abigail, had seemed kind. Naomi had ached, then, to tell Abigail who she was, but it hadn't seemed like the right time.

Naomi missed something else from the back room, and then heard, “Nah, it's just a dumb nickname my brother gave me when I started working on the oil derricks. But it stuck, and I kind of like it now.” Then he said something she couldn't hear, and an appreciative wave of laughter rolled through the ranchers' room.

Good lord, what if he stayed?

Naomi missed something under the clatter of Shirley picking up dishes and putting them in the bus tub, but then she heard Rig go on.

“No, not with my brother. Staying with Shirley here, actually.”

Shirley? She hadn't mentioned she'd rented out her back unit, although Naomi knew she'd been advertising it. Not that she was required to tell Naomi anything, really, but . . . Naomi heard Shirley, sixty-five years old next month, giggle like a schoolgirl.

“Oh,” said one of the older men. “We were sure sorry about your brother's wife a few years back.”

The rumble of a trash truck going by the window covered Rig's response, and Naomi suddenly felt guilty for eavesdropping. She wished for the hundredth time that she was comfortable knitting in public, but she wasn't. That's just the way it was. So she fiddled with the cord of her headphones—she never listened to her iPod while she was at the cafe, knowing that would be too antisocial, but she kept the device near her. One of these days, with the way she worked the cord between her hands, she'd end up finger-knitting it into a tiny plastic noose, and what then?

So what if he was in Cypress Hollow? So what if he'd been introduced to the ranchers, and she had never actually met any of them in person, just knew them from eavesdropping? Dr. Pederson and she were going to hire a new doctor soon, and then she'd watch that person, see if she or he fit into the town better than she did. Until then she'd try not to worry.

Old Bill trundled by, rag in hand. Naomi couldn't remember if she'd ever seen him anywhere but behind the cash register. She hadn't really been aware that he had legs.

Naomi disentangled her fingers from the headphone cord and held out a hand. There was no time like right now to be friendly. Right? It had been easy with Rig—maybe it would be with the owner of the diner, too.

“Bill?”

Old Bill stopped, stock still, eyes still forward as if he didn't quite believe she was speaking to him.

Naomi's pulse fluttered at her throat, and she felt breathless. But she spoke anyway. “Hey, if you're going back there, would you mind telling everyone that I'll be having a free blood sugar check on Friday night? At the health clinic I just opened next to my office. They might . . .” She ran out of smart ideas. “They might want to get that done. You, too.”

Old Bill stared at her. “You sayin' my food isn't healthy?”

Naomi sucked in a breath. “Oh, no, that's not what—it's just that—”

“Because I buy them free-range eggs from Hooper. That's good cholesterol. And if them boys want bacon, I figure they've worked hard enough in their lives to deserve it.”

“But . . . low fat isn't a bad—”

Looking ahead deliberately, the conversation obviously over, Old Bill moved forward. In the back room, she could hear the introductions being made all over again.

Swallowing hard, she filled in eleven down. Eight letters, one who is a foreigner. Easy.
Stranger.

She wrapped the headphone cord around her iPod, put her phone in her pocket, folded up the paper, left correct change and a healthy tip on the table, and walked out, leaving her eggs behind her.

She didn't look back to see if Rig watched her go. One night was one night. And that night was over.

Chapter Three

A
s Naomi pushed open her front door at the end of the day, she heard the home phone ringing. She sighed and threw her purse and briefcase on the couch, and then kicked off her Danskos. Bending over, she rubbed the arch of her foot and waited until the rings stopped as the call went to voice mail. The silence wouldn't last. She might as well make the most of it. She poured herself a glass of water and took it along with the phone to the sofa, where she sat with a
whump
. It was a good couch. No, a great couch, red and soft, so inviting . . . She could just close her eyes for a few minutes. . .

No. Naomi straightened herself and waited for the phone to ring again. She picked up her knitting, working a few stitches. She'd finally started the wedding shawl pattern written by Eliza Carpenter, and Naomi was making it for herself, something to throw over her shoulders on cold mornings. The creamy white fiber was so fine, so soft, almost as lightweight as the sunshine they'd sat in that day when Eliza spun it. And she loved the pattern, although it sometimes got confusing. Good thing she was on the—no, wait. Had she been knitting back on the wrong side? Confused, she tried to read the lace. She'd screwed up somewhere. Again. Also, no surprise. This pattern was going to kill her.

Naomi sighed. Lord, it had been a long day. Pederson had been out again. No surprise there—Naomi was used to seeing both her patients and as many of his as she could fit in. They'd had a shared partnership ever since she'd bought her way out of direct employment after Pederson's original partner retired two years ago. It made accounting easy—they split both the bills and the profits although Pederson still had a larger share.

But in the last six months, even though they split the income, they sure as hell hadn't shared the work. Today, Naomi had spent the day seeing patients, but not really
seeing
them. And she hated that—the patients were the best part of the job and when she had to shuffle them like cards, it frustrated her. She knew she'd treated a woman for athlete's foot, and another man had a rash that looked like classic poison oak, as well as twenty other patients, back to back, as fast as she could shoehorn them in and out. They came from as far as forty miles out in the countryside, and women who drove that far to be told it was just a virus weren't happy people. But if someone had asked her to match their names to their symptoms or, God forbid, their faces to their names, she wouldn't be able to do it.

At least her grumpy jack-of-all-midlevels Bruno helped with that. Nurse and office staff all wrapped into one wide, scrubs-wrapped package, Bruno always had the right file at the right time, all the labs ordered when she needed them, and he even vacuumed before the cleaning crew came in. Even though he rarely cracked a smile, he didn't need to—he was probably the best thing Pederson had ever contributed to the practice.

She stared at the lace chart, her eyes unseeing. Her hand moved to the phone resting next to her thigh. It hadn't rung again yet; her mother must be leaving the message to end all messages.

Okay. She tried again, pulling the fabric away from the needles to look more closely at it. In the previous row, had she missed a yarn-over? Could she fake a fix for that? She glanced at the pattern she'd placed in plastic page protectors in a binder. Did she have to rip back? Oh, great. That would be the capper for today. To say that ripping lace never went well for Naomi was an understatement. And since she rarely remembered to use a lifeline, hoping for the best, the yarn always, always won.

Times like this, she missed Eliza the most.

The phone rang again. Yep. Right on schedule. Naomi didn't need caller ID to know who it was.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Sweetheart. How are you?”

“Fine.” Her mother never wanted an actual answer—she just needed to ask.

Her mother sighed. “Oh, sweetheart. She called again. Can you believe it? And you know what she wanted?”

“Money?” Naomi tucked the phone between her ear and shoulder, leaving her hands free to start knitting. She'd just forge ahead not knowing where that yarn-over had gone, believing everything would be okay. Like Eliza would have. Even though Naomi never quite believed it herself.

Her mother gasped. “How did you know?”

She should really get one of those cordless headsets like Bruno had at the office. Naomi knitted three stitches before she answered. Maybe she could redeem today a tiny bit. “Because Anna never calls you, Mom, and when she does, she needs money. It's not that hard to do the math.”

“She wouldn't tell me where she was. That kills me, you know it's killing me, right?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“You'd tell me if you knew where she was?”

Naomi made a face she was glad her mother couldn't see. “She never calls me, you know that.”

“She might one day, though. And if she does, just do your best to find out where she is, and Daddy and I will drive or fly out anywhere and get her. We'll bring her back, and we . . . we can fix her, I'm sure we can.”

“Anna's a big girl now. She's all grown up.” Naomi dropped another stitch and, stifling a curse word, paused for a moment while she caught it. “You've done all you can, now she's going to live her life.” Even if that meant stripping in seedy bars and having inconsequential affairs with inappropriate men. Naomi thought her little sister had made some pretty crappy choices, sure, but Naomi, at least, had given up years ago trying to save her sister, even when she wanted to. Anna was just Anna.

“But her life is
awful
,” said her mother.

Naomi heard the low rumble of her mother's husband's voice in the background. “What did Buzz say?”

When Naomi was five, her parents had divorced, and she'd gone to live with her father. By the time Naomi was nine, Buzz Maubert was Maybelle's second husband and the newborn Anna's father. Both times Maybelle had married, she'd gone for men with good jobs who pulled in enough money to keep her in her name-brand clothes: first a doctor, then a lawyer, even though Naomi couldn't think of too many men more different from her fastidious father than Buzz. Before he'd retired, when Buzz left his office, he'd roared away on his Harley, and he hadn't been just a weekend warrior—he loved everything about motorcycles, including fixing them, getting the grease under his nails. Now that he could stay home and work on them all day, Maybelle tolerated the dirt he tracked in with his leather riding boots because his retirement package allowed her to hire a housecleaner.

“He's saying his program is starting.
I'm on the phone, Buzz!
”

“So what's new with you two?”

As if she hadn't heard her, her mother went on. “I didn't give her the money, though. Even though she cried.”

“Of course you didn't.”

“I said I'd bring her the cash, and she refused. But maybe I
should
have wired the money like she asked. Then I'd know where she was, right?”

“She'd take off,” said Naomi. “Just like she always has, she'd get the money from Western Union and then she'd run off, and you and Buzz would spend a thousand dollars traveling and staying in hotels, looking for your adult daughter who by then would be in a different state. Same story, different day.”

Her mother sighed heavily into the receiver. “Oh, it's just so hard. You couldn't understand.”

Naomi turned her work and started back. The lace was simple when it came right down to it. A triangular scarf, garter stitch on both sides, lots of knit stitches, no purls at all—meant to be easy. Meant to be made from one skein of laceweight or sock yarn. At least that's what Eliza Carpenter's pattern said. But Naomi would end up having to use different yarn if she kept having to rip it out like this. The yarn would pill before it was even worn.

Naomi had considered giving the shawl to her mother next Christmas if it turned out well, but at the moment, she didn't feel very inspired to give it away.

Maybe she could still redeem the conversation. “Hey, I finally opened the health clinic that I told you about.”

“Buzz! Can you turn that down, please?”

“You know, like Dad had at his office. Remember? He'd love that I'm doing this. I'm going to run it like he did his—I'll have free blood tests and blood pressure checks—”

“
Buzz!
”

That line of talk wasn't getting Maybelle's attention. Par for the course—no one listened to her about the clinic. “We might be getting a new employee at work.” Naomi really just wanted to see if her mother listened when she spoke, if she'd remember the last conversation they'd had, when she told her that Pederson was making noises about hiring a third. “I'll end up losing money of course, for a while, until Pederson retires and we consolidate again, so I'm not happy about—”

“Oh, sugar, are you asking for money now, too? If the good daughter needs money, then I don't know how we went wrong. How can a doctor need money? We're retired now, you keep forgetting that. It's not that easy.”

Would she go to daughter hell if she just pushed the red button with her thumb and hung up?

Her mother went on. “And ever since you moved to that godforsaken little town . . . You always were your father's daughter, never listening to a word I said. I can't believe you moved there, after everything I've told you about it. Podunk,
hick
town with a chip on its shoulder. When I lived there, no one talked to me, no one acknowledged my existence. And that's because I wasn't Cypress Hollow born and bred. And you
chose
to move there. I'll never understand.”

Naomi could feel the pulse at her temples. “Mom. The fact that you happened to live here a million years ago and hated it isn't enough to make me hate it, too. I love it, in fact.” She wondered if she was lying.

“And if you need money, well, that'll just—”

“I was trying to keep you updated on my life, Mother. I don't need money. That wasn't the point . . .” Her voice trailed off. Her mother wouldn't get it, and it shouldn't matter as much as it did.

“I just don't see how—”

“Mom, I gotta run. I have to get ready . . .” Crap. What did Naomi get ready for in the evening?

“A date? Do you have a date?” Her mother's voice was suddenly eager.

“Um . . .”

“You do.
Buzz!
She has a date! Oh, sugar, tell me all about it.”

Naomi heard a sound of interest on the other end of the line as her stepfather said something.

“Daddy says that you should have a good time.”

“He's not my father, Mom,” she said on a sigh, unable to stop herself. Sure, Buzz was Anna's father, but even though he was a good father, he wasn't hers. He'd only really known her after her own father died of a heart attack when Naomi was seventeen years old, when she'd been forced to live with her mother for a year until she turned eighteen. Buzz was a heck of a nice guy, but she'd already had the best father in the world, and her mother had been unsuccessful in her attempts to make her forget that.

Her mother's voice was tight. “Fine. Please do not get murdered or raped, and make sure he pays the bill.” The click signaled that her mother had hung up without saying good-bye.