From Brooding Boss to Adoring Dad

“For ever,” Adam said, as their hands slapped.

“Now, maybe you should go high-five Dr Glover,” Davion suggested.

“Well, maybe I would, except, I’ve got to get back to work.” He stood. “And, Tadeo, come back later and we’ll have dinner together, if Pabla doesn’t mind.” Pabla Reyes, Tadeo’s guardian, never minded. “Conch fritters OK with you?”

Tadeo gave him a thumbs-up, handed Adam the empty soda bottle, then dashed off toward the beach.

“He needs better,” Davion said.

“At least we agree on something,” Adam responded on his way back to the bar. He worried about Tadeo, worried about Davion, too, but in a different way. Davion’s mother was Trinique, a salt-of-the earth kind of woman who had raised her son in the best possible way. She was saving to send Davion to medical school, and Davion was saving, too. But times were tough, and at the rate they were going, Davion’s medical education was a long way off. But with the money from the sale of his property, Adam was going to be able to help get Davion there sooner. Which was why, ultimately, he would turn over the deed to his property. He knew that, even though he couldn’t bring himself to admit it. His clinic needed supplies. He was out of all but a few of the necessary drugs, he needed a new stethoscope … couldn’t afford even the damned wooden tongue depressors, which were cheap. More than anything, though, the world needed the likes of Davion Thomas as a doctor.

Selling his little piece of land was going to make it all possible. Like it or not, he’d do the right thing by Dr Glover, because he had to. But he was still going to be grumpy for a while. He deserved that much.

“I know that look on your face,” Davion said, stepping up to the bar.

“There’s no look on my face.”

“Sure there is.” Davion grinned. “Look in the mirror, see it for yourself. It’s the look that says you’re going to give the property deed to Dr Glover and be nice to your new neighbor.”

“I might be thinking about finishing Stella, and selling her.”

“Ah, but you love that boat too much. You’d never sell her. Not even if you had to sell the both halves of your property instead of just one.”

He was correct in that assumption. That boat was a huge connection to his past, to his grandfather. It was the one thing in his life he’d never part with. “OK, if she’s there when I get home, I’ll talk to her. I’ll give her the deed then tell her to leave me the hell alone. There, does that make you happy? ”

“Or she’ll tell you to leave her the hell alone. She’s a strong woman, Adam. Like my mother. Once they know what they want, they don’t let anything stand in their way, and you’ve been standing in Dr Glover’s way.”

“I’m not even going to get into a conversation with you about strong women, Davion. You know how I feel on that subject.” His ex-wife had been a strong woman and look how that had turned out for him. Now strong women made him run in the opposite direction. He just didn’t have it in him to deal with them any more. Not that there’d really been a woman since … he wasn’t going to think about that discouraging part of his life since there hadn’t been a woman beating a path to his door since he’d settled here permanently.

“Well, the strong lady in question won’t be waiting for you at your house. She’s staying at my mother’s.”

“You asked her to stay here?” He swiped an angry hand through his hair. “Meaning she’s there right now, probably getting ready to waylay me on the way out the door when I get off work tonight.”

Davion grinned. “Probably. But you have it coming.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“I just want everybody to be happy.”

“And what, in all this, is going to make me happy?”

“The medicine you can buy for your clinic. You know it will. And I wouldn’t mind a new otoscope for the clinic to make me a little happier, if that counts for anything.”

“It counts.” Point made. It was hard being grumpy around Davion, even when Adam wanted to be grumpy, because Davion radiated happiness and enthusiasm. He never, ever saw the negative in any situation. “So, I’ll try and be happy. And I’ll even apologize to the lady. But I get the feeling that an apology won’t be enough for her. She’s going to want a pound of my flesh, too.” He looked out the window across from the bar, saw Erin Glover standing on Trinique’s front porch, leaning against the white column, arms folded tightly across her chest. It was breezy, her hair was blowing. Dressed in a gauzy skirt and a tank top, she was … well, unfortunately she was just about the sexiest thing he’d ever laid eyes on. Which was a problem because the last sexy thing he’d got himself tangled up with had taken him for a ride that, even after two years past its legal end, still stung. “And in the meantime, I’m going to wait on customers for the next several hours and make sure you study those medical books I gave you. Jamaica itself may not have a recognized paramedic program, but I’ve got pretty tough standards for my paramedic. If you expect to stay working for me, you’ve got to keep cracking those books.” Actually, that’s what Davion did in every spare minute he had. He studied harder than Adam had ever studied in medical school. Which was why Davion was going to be a great doctor. He was motivated. He had passion. And he was smart.

Davion rolled his eyes, then retreated to the rear corner of Trinique’s, where he had a table set up with all his books and study materials. When he wasn’t working in the clinic, he spent his days and nights studying part of the time and singing the rest of the time. It was his soulful voice that brought in the customers, and it was his soul that would make him a great doctor someday. Adam wanted to be part of that, part of something good, because good hadn’t really touched his life in a long, long time.

For a moment, his attention wandered back to the front porch of Trinique’s cottage, where Erin Glover was still standing, still looking rigid. Then he meandered down to the end of the bar to wait on a customer, trying to forget the image that just didn’t want to let go.

CHAPTER TWO

“IT LOOKS bad. Is Trinique here?”

The man standing in front of Erin was holding a child in his arms. A child with a foot wrapped in a bloody towel. Instantly, Erin wanted to see the wound. “Bring him into the house,” she instructed, pushing open the door.

“We want to see Trinique.”

“I’m sorry, but she’s not here. Davion said she would be gone for a while.”

“Then I have to go see Doc Adam. He’ll know what to do.”

“Is Trinique a doctor?” Erin asked, clearly confused.

“No, ma’am. But she’s been taking care of us for a long time. Before Doc Adam, and since he’s working at the bar today, I didn’t want to bother him.”

“Look, I’m a doctor. I take care of children. Could I have a look at your son’s foot? See what I can do for him?” She wasn’t prepared, really. Didn’t have her medical kit. Hadn’t even come here as a doctor. But a child in need … she couldn’t turn them away.

The man wasn’t convinced, a sentiment that shone clearly on his face. “Doc Adam will do it fine, since Trinique isn’t here. But I appreciate the offer.”

“Doc Adam isn’t being a doctor right now. He’s busy serving beer and rum,” she said, instantly regretting the cutting remark. She didn’t know his circumstances and he certainly didn’t deserve the professional slap. “Look, how about I just take a little look? You bring your boy inside then while I get the wound cleaned up a little, you can go and get Doc Adam.”

That seemed to appease the man, because he brushed right past Erin and ran straight to the daybed in the front room, where he laid his son down. “His name is Tyjon, and I’m Ennis. Ennis Clarke.” He extended a hand to Erin, and shook hard when she took it. “I appreciate your offer. Good afternoon, ma’am Doctor.”

Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. The polite, customary greeting always used when addressing others. It was expected, especially in the more rural areas such as Regina. Her father had told her about this, told her to remember it. “Good afternoon, Mr Clarke. I’ll take very good care of Tyjon.”

Apparently, Ennis Clarke trusted that, because he turned and ran out the door, which gave Erin only a few minutes to assess the boy’s foot before Adam Coulson took over. She didn’t like that idea. But, then, she had no idea what kind of doctor he was. Didn’t even know if he was a real doctor, for that matter. “So, tell me what happened, Tyjon.”

“I stepped on glass. Broken bottle in the street. Cut my foot.”

“When? This morning?”

He shook his head. “Two days ago. It wasn’t so bad then. We washed it and it was OK. But now it hurts worse. And it started to bleed some more.”

She began unwrapping the towel, trying to be gentle because the dried blood had caused it to stick to his foot. When Tyjon winced, she slowed down the process, and as she peeled back the bulky layers and got closer to the wound, the smell of infection became noticeable. “Did you wash it with soap?” she asked.

He nodded. “My mother washed it very good.”

“And did you put on shoes and socks after you washed it?”

“No, ma’am Doctor. I don’t like shoes.”

Down to the last layer, she peeled it back carefully, and what she found wasn’t good. The cut was on his heel, almost the length of his heel. Very jagged, very dirty. And swollen. There was also pus, much more than she’d expected. General redness everywhere. On top of that, his whole foot seemed warm and slightly puffy. She needed supplies, something antiseptic to start the cleaning. Antibiotics at the very least. Suture materials. But she had … nothing at all.

Erin looked around. If Trinique was a healer of some kind, maybe she had a first aid kit. “I’ll be right back, Tyjon. I need to go and find something to clean up your foot.”

Water would work for starters. Get the dirt off. Give her a better look at what she had to deal with.

In the kitchen, she filled a basin full of water, grabbed two clean dishtowels then returned to Tyjon, who was laughing over something Doc Adam had apparently told him. Adam Coulson looked up at her. Saw the basin of water. “Fetching my cleaning supplies for me?” he asked.

“What I’m fetching is a basin of water so I can begin to clean Tyjon’s foot.”

“She’s a ma’am doctor,” Ennis Clarke explained quite seriously.

“So she says,” Adam snorted, standing then walking straight over to Erin and taking the basin of water from her hands. “My bag …” He pointed to it sitting next to the door. “Find my antibiotic cream in there. If I have any left. And I probably have some suture. See if you can also come up with a vial of lidocaine, too. I’m pretty sure I have some of that.”

“Pretty sure?”

He shrugged. “Supplies aren’t easy to come by. We have to make do, sometimes.”

“How do you make do without suture? Or lidocaine?” Lidocaine hydrochloride, more specifically, was the anesthetic agent he’d inject into Tyjon to dull the pain of the stitches.

“When you don’t have it, you don’t have it. So, you improvise.”

She wasn’t sure what that meant. Wasn’t sure she even wanted to find out.

“Davion,” Adam continued, “run back to the clinic and see if I have any antibiotic cream samples there so I can give them to Ennis. I think I might have a few left. Also, bring me a syringe and a vial of penicillin.”

“Penicillin?” Nobody used that any more. There were newer, much more effective drugs on the market. Occasionally, she’d prescribed one of the penicillin derivatives, but never penicillin itself.

“Good drug,” Adam quipped. “Highly underrated today, and even more highly underused.”

“And cheap,” Davion said on his way out the door.

“Well, that, too,” Adam agreed. He dipped the kitchen towel into the basin of water and started to wash Tyjon’s foot.

It had to hurt. She saw the poor boy grimacing, and wondered if the infection had spread beyond his foot. What she saw even more than that, though, was the gentle way Coulson was taking care of Tyjon. Soothing hands. It was a term her father used. He’d always said the best doctors didn’t get so tied up in the book learning that they forgot how to have soothing hands. He’d had those soothing hands for her all those times she’d been sick after her chemotherapy, during all those times she hadn’t been sure if she’d live or die. She remembered her father’s soothing hands and right now what she saw with Adam Coulson was what she’d known from her father.

“What can I do to help?” she asked, after a quick look through his medical bag produced a vial with barely enough lidocaine to do the job, a scant amount of fresh suture, a few pieces of candy, a package of sterile gauze strips and a stethoscope with shredded rubber earpieces.

“You a surgeon?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Pediatrician.”

“Then you’d be good at stitches because kids always need them.” Assumption made. It wasn’t a question.

“I’ve done my fair share.”

“OK, I’ll let you do the honors. In the meantime, freshen up the water in the basin.”

The water was nearly black with dirt, which made her cringe because all that dirt had come from Tyjon’s foot.

“Please,” Adam added.

“What?”

“Please. You were standing there, staring at the basin, so I figure you were waiting for me to say please. So … please.”

She hadn’t been waiting for politeness. From Adam Coulson, whom she’d known for only an hour, she expected none. But her hesitance was … well, she couldn’t explain it. What she was seeing here wasn’t exactly a shock, because there were areas all over the world where the medical standard was different from her medical standard. What she didn’t understand was the doctor—his casual attitude, his lack of basic medical supplies. “Are you really a doctor?” she asked. “Educated in a regular medical school, licensed to practice?” The question just popped out of her.

He paused in his bathing of Tyjon’s foot, looked up at her, frowned for a moment, then broke into a broad smile. “A little while ago, Davion had almost convinced me to feel guilty about refusing to hand over the deed to my land. Honestly, I was feeling a little bad about the way I was treating you, and fully prepared to apologize for it. Like I said, that was a little while ago. But not any more. Now, the water, please.”

So, maybe she deserved that. She wasn’t about to apologize for asking, but she wasn’t going to take too much offense to his reaction either, because she shouldn’t have challenged him that way, especially not in front of Tyjon. So, before she said something else she’d regret, Erin picked up the basin, returned to the kitchen, and dumped out the old water. As she gave the basin a quick wash with dish soap and water, she thought about why she was here, and it was too important to let these skirmishes with Adam Coulson get in her way. Make no mistake, they could get in the way if she wasn’t careful. He was, after all, the local doctor. While she had all her permissions in place for the hospital, and all the legalities out of the way, having the doctor with her, rather than against her, was smart. So for now, she’d have to curb her temper. “For you, Dad,” she whispered, fighting the tears welling up in her eyes when she thought about the graceful way her father was accepting his fate. She didn’t have that same gracefulness about her in any sense, no matter how hard she’d tried to find it within herself. She was reactionary, quick to fight. On the verge of dumping the water on Adam Coulson, although there was no grace in that. However, the thought of it did come with some surprising satisfaction. This wasn’t about her, though. When she remembered that, everything else faded away.

“You crying?” Adam asked from the doorway.

“No!” she snapped, blinking hard then brushing the back of her forearm across her eyes. “I splashed soap in my eyes.”

“'If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out.'”

“What?” she sputtered, spinning to face him.

“That’s the kind of thing you’d expect me to say, isn’t it? I don’t have antibiotic cream, I still use penicillin, I make do with what I can find.”

“And the rubber earpieces for your stethoscope are wearing through.”

“You’ve judged me on several criteria that have nothing to do with my abilities as a doctor, so I thought telling you what to do with the soap in your eyes is what you’d expect from me. Especially since you haven’t seen my diploma from Harvard so you don’t know if I’m a real medical doctor.”

“Harvard?”

He chuckled. “Preconceptions are dangerous, Dr Glover. They can get you into all kinds of trouble. So much so that you’ll end up without antibiotic cream, decent rubber earpieces and a whole lot more trouble than you’d ever bargained for. Oh, and for your information, even though it’s none of your business, I’d use penicillin even if something out there was cheaper, because I like penicillin. Now, my water?”

The strains of the music wafted over to Trinique’s home, and Erin was finding herself strangely addicted to it already. It was calming. And happy. It transported her to the Jamaica her father had always told her of, the one she believed, with all her heart, was still there. Untouched.

“I wish you’d come with me,” she said over the phone. “Regina is a beautiful village. The cottages … they’re painted with all different colors. Reds, blues, pastels like pink and yellow. Every one a different combination. And they’ve all got so many types of tropical flowers in the yards … It’s like an artist’s pallet. Then, the people … they’re so nice. They just take you in and treat you like you belong, like you’re part of their family. Well, all but one, and he doesn’t count since he’s not Jamaican.” She wasn’t about to tell her father of the trouble brewing with the land purchase. As far as he knew, she had the deed by now and everything was moving forward. Oh, she was pretty sure Coulson would turn it over, but it was going to be in his own good time. Which wasn’t her time, as she had her dad fully involved now in the business plans for the new hospital, and the sooner those were finalized, the sooner he’d come to Jamaica … she hoped. It was her intention to put him in charge of the hospital, blind or not. Algernon Glover, Chief of Staff at the Algernon Glover Hospital. Maybe it would give him back some of his life. Maybe it would entice him to come out of his dark study, where he kept the shades drawn and the door closed. That’s the way he lived these days and it scared her. But soon, very soon, that would be over with. She hoped. “So, why don’t you come down? You can do everything you need to from here.”

“I’m fine where I am, and I have more than enough to keep me busy here.”

It was clear he didn’t like getting too far away from his comfort zone. That, more than anything else, was what made her feel sad. She and her dad had traveled to so many places together over the years, and done so many things. “But you could use a nice holiday, and the beach here is beautiful. Nicer than anything else I’ve seen in Jamaica. So pristine. No tourists.”

“There’ll be time enough for that in a while. Right how, I still have work to do right where I am. And who knows? Maybe you’ll find some time for a short holiday yourself. You wouldn’t want your father on your arm for that, would you? Especially if you meet a nice young man who’s in the mood for a little holiday, too?”

He lived in perpetual hope of that. Wanted grandchildren. But she’d … she’d never been that interested. It had been more than fifteen years since her last recurrence of leukemia, and the doctors had long since declared her recovered. Years and years of fighting the disease and all its nasty comebacks had taught her to be cautious. It had also taught her to stay focused on her goal … get through college, get through medical school, now this. Her life hadn’t afforded her the luxury of having more than one goal at a time because there had been so many times when even a single goal had been a struggle. So now she had a single goal to achieve, the most important one of her life, and she wouldn’t allow herself to think in terms of anything more.

“Dad, you know I’m not looking right now,” she told him.

“One of my big regrets, Erin, is that I have raised such a serious daughter. You were brought up in an old man’s world, I’m afraid, and you don’t know how to have fun.”

Her father was older, yes. But fun … her life had been filled with fun, filled with so many wonderful things. And this was her father’s standard argument, the one he used to make her feel guilty. “It’s not going to work,” she teased.

“What’s not going to work?” he asked, laughter just on the edge of his voice.

“You know what I’m talking about. And there’ll be plenty of time for grandchildren, if I ever do find the right man.”

“If you ever start looking.”

Oh, she’d looked. Come close to finding, actually. Then been jilted because a slight illness had brought up a cancer scare, which had scared a man she might have been serious about right out the door. And he had run so hard and fast he hadn’t even made the promise that he’d call, or see her again, or they’d work it out. He’d told her he loved her one week, then bolted the next. Like her high school sweetheart had when the cancer actually had returned. Or her childhood best friend had when the chemotherapy had claimed her hair. Oh, gross, Erin. You’re, like, going bald. That’s so disgusting. So, no more looking, no more expectations. Emotionally, it was easier that way. “On that note, I’m going to say goodnight. Love you, Dad.”

“Love you, too, Erin. Even if you are stubborn and too serious for your own good.”

He clicked off before she could get to her next comeback. And for a while after the phone call she sat with her feet propped up on the porch rail, enjoying the gentle, hot breeze, still listening to the strains of happy music wafting in. Thinking of Adam Coulson, not of her dad. Harvard education and without a decent stethoscope. On impulse, she dialed her dad back. “One more thing,” she said. “Could you send me a stethoscope?”

It was a small gesture, and she kept telling herself that it was for Tyjon, and anybody else needing treatment here. Not for Coulson.

“So, let’s just get this over with.” A voice came at her from out of the dark a while later.

Startled by Coulson’s intrusion into her pleasant solitude, Erin jumped. “Do you always sneak up on people that way?”

“I wasn’t sneaking.”

“And you didn’t exactly announce yourself either, did you?”

“Actually, I did. I said, ‘Let’s just get this over with.'”

Straightening in the chair and pulling her feet off the porch rail, she was a little sad to have her evening ended so abruptly. It was nice to relax for a while. The ambiance suited her, made her feel mellow. Lately, she hadn’t had time to relax, and who knew how long it had been since she’d felt mellow. “I agree,” she said, standing. “Let’s get this over with. Do you have my deed?”

He handed it over, without saying a word.

She didn’t look at it, though. He wouldn’t cheat her on this, and to look would be to insult him. No need to do that. No need to rub salt in what was obviously a very open, very raw wound. “Thank you,” she said, tucking the paper into her pocket.

“Just like that,” he said, almost under his breath.

“Like what?”

“Like in a split second, it’s gone.” He shrugged. “So that makes us neighbors now, doesn’t it?”

“In proximity, yes, I suppose it does. But we don’t have to be neighborly. I know you didn’t want to sell your land, and I know you resent me for buying it. So it’s OK with me if we’re not friends, not even neighbors who wave.”

“And you think that makes it better for me?”

“I don’t know what makes it better for you, Coulson. I’m just making an offer. I’ll stay away from you, leave you alone, won’t even come to Trinique’s, if it’s better for you that way.” It wasn’t much of a gesture, considering the circumstances. But it was the best she could do.