Reunited With Her Army Doc

Eric didn’t understand, though, because he craved leadership and authority. Consequently, they’d argued for days. He’d wanted her to keep the promotion. She hadn’t. Simple as that then, simple as that now. She hated being pushed by him, hated pushing just as much, and she wasn’t about to do that to Caleb. “Anyway, have a good time, Dad. Give Dora my love and tell her we’ll get together soon. I think I’m going to pull some late hours working tonight, so maybe we can figure out something for later this week.”

Henry scooted across the porch, gave Leanne a quick kiss on the cheek, then practically ran down the steps and out to his truck, like a man in love who was bursting to see his woman. It was kind of cute, she thought, a little envious that no one had ever been that eager to see her. Except Caleb, when they’d been kids. And that didn’t count.

Leanne spent the next hour in her dad’s home office, staring at a pile of folders, each one containing something she needed to read. Yes, her dad kept his records the old-fashioned way, even though the hospital had upgraded to a nice computer system, and she’d been urging him to do the same at home. “Just read them,” she told herself, as she picked up a particularly fat one, stared at it for a moment, then tossed it back into the pile.

So, what was bugging her? Being home again? Missing Eric? Caleb’s aloof reaction to her? She didn’t know, didn’t particularly care because, true to her sentiments toward admin work, she wasn’t in the mood to get down to business. Which meant all the paperwork confronting her got shoved aside for the time being, and she went to fix herself a cup of hot tea instead.

As the tea kettle whistled, Leanne glanced at her watch, saw that it was almost three o’clock, and decided it was time to refocus. Maybe text Eric. Right now, he would have finished up with his two-thirty appointment and be on his way to a half-hour break. Same routine every day. Never varied. In his office, lock the door, Do Not Disturb.

But this afternoon she wanted to disturb, so she pulled out her phone and texted.

Video chat coming up. Head to your computer.

She waited a moment for his response, but it didn’t come, so she tried another text.

Eric, where are you?

This time she took a smiling selfie and attached it. But there was still no response. So...

Eric? You there?

Two minutes later came a reply.

Give me ten, babe. Tied up now.

She waited ten, wondering why he was tied up on what was supposed to be his break, then pulled out her personal laptop, since her dad’s computer had been around since the dinosaurs, and connected to Eric. Her first reaction when his face came on screen—he looked frazzled. Flushed. Hair mussed, a little sweaty. Her second, he worked too hard. “I miss you,” she started.

“Miss you more,” he responded, looking past the computer camera to what would be the office door. “How’s Marrell?”

“Small. Am I interrupting something?” she asked, noting how preoccupied he seemed.

“No. Just wrapping up some work. Ready to give you my undivided attention now. Anyway, you’ll do fine there. Just start counting off the days until you come back to me.” And finally, he gave her that smile, the one she’d always counted on to make her feel better.

“Easier said than done,” she said, relaxing back into her chair. For whatever reason, she’d been a little edgy going into this chat, but seeing Eric’s smile fixed all of that. “Especially when every day is going to be the same as the one before and the one after.”

“Can’t be that bad.”

“It would be better if you were here.” Even though he’d hate the place. Eric had no patience for small towns, small hospitals, small anything.

“It would be better if you were here,” he countered. “So, tell me what’s happened that’s got you upset? And before you ask how I know, I can see it in your beautiful face. That little worry line between your eyes that pops up occasionally is popping, and it concerns me, Leanne. I don’t like seeing you that way.”

“I’m fine, Eric. Just a little stressed-out. But dealing with it.” She reached up to feel for that worry line and, sure enough... “I met with an old friend today.”

“Boyfriend?” Eric asked.

“No, nothing like that. We were friends when we were younger, that’s all.” Good friends for a while. “When I was five.”

Eric chuckled. “Let me guess. He’s seen what a beautiful woman you’ve grown into and he wants you back.”

She shook her head. “Hardly. He’s not very...friendly.”

“So, what did your unfriendly friend do that’s causing that wrinkle?”

“Actually, I don’t know.” And she didn’t. It had been a strange meeting. “But I got the impression he wanted to get away from me as fast as he could.”

“Why would any man in his right mind want to get away from you?”

“Just preoccupied, I think. He’s heading up our family practice clinic here. He’s also a war vet and a single father. I just...just expected him to be a little more open, or friendly.”

“Well, we all have our stories, don’t we?” He shifted in his chair, and glanced away from the monitor for a moment. Then back at her. “Our secrets, our excuses. So just allow the man his privacy, babe. I’m sure he needs it, for whatever reason.”

Eric was right, of course. Whatever had caused Caleb to be the way he was, it was none of her business. In fact, the only thing that was her business was if he’d be suitable to head the hospital. “I asked him to take over here. Dad says he’s qualified, and that would certainly be a great solution for me.”

He grinned knowingly, arching sexy eyebrows. “It would get you back here to me quicker. I don’t know how I’m going to go three months without you, even if we do get to meet in the middle from time to time, as we’d planned.”

“Like next weekend?” Their first planned get-together. She’d made reservations at a quaint little bed-and-breakfast, and if things well...

“Afraid I’ve got to change that. I’m going to cover for one of the doctors here who needs the time off.”

“But you need the time off, too,” she protested.

“I do. But this comes with the job.”

“Well, then, darn the job,” she said, not even trying to hide her disappointment. “What about the weekend after?”

“Not sure yet. I may have to represent the hospital at a conference, and if I can’t get someone to go in my place, I’ll be running down to Portland to do it myself. But maybe the second weekend of next month?”

“That’s four weeks, Eric! I thought we were going to do better than that.”

“Schedules happen, babe. You know that.”

Yes, she did. And they always seemed to happen with Eric. A lot. “So, in the meantime...”

“Send me sexy selfies.”

She forced a laugh. “What would the good people of Marrell think, if they knew?”

“That your man misses you in ways they’ve probably never even thought of.”

* * *

It had been three days since Leanne had asked him to take charge of the hospital, and he’d been successful in avoiding any thought of it as the clinic had suddenly turned busy. Good excuse for putting it out of his mind, he decided while he escorted Mrs. Gentry down the hall to the reception area to schedule her next appointment. “Like I told you, it’s not serious—yet. It’s poison ivy, and the shot I’ve given you should start to clear it up, plus the pills I’ve prescribed will finish that. But you’ve got to take those pills,” he warned the woman, fighting to hold his concentration. This past hour, Leanne had crept into his thoughts more than he was comfortable with. Her changes. His trust issues. Especially way she looked... And while his patient’s condition was annoying to her, it just wasn’t enough to hold his undivided attention. “Do you understand me? Your poison ivy is close to spreading to your eyes, and if that happens, it will turn into a serious situation.”

“I’ll do my best, Caleb,” she told him, then reached up and patted him on the cheek. “You’ve grown up to be such a nice, polite boy. I always thought you had it in you to do good things. Even when you were acting out the way you did.”

Sally Gentry was his grandmother’s next-door neighbor. He’d played in her yard, eaten her homemade cookies, drunk her lemonade. Now he was her doctor, and she’d brought him cookies and lemonade today. “Just take care of yourself. Promise me?” It was tough treating old friends, knowing things about them that their doctor didn’t have a right to know. He wondered how Henry had done that for the past forty years, how he’d separated the doctor from the friend or neighbor. Wondered if he could. Or if the town would let him, considering how most of them remembered him, remembered what he’d done.

“Ruth and I are cooking together tonight, if you’d like to come over for dinner.” Ruth Carsten was his grandmother, and she and Sally spent a lot of time together now that they were both widows. “We’re fixing your favorite fried chicken.”

“I appreciate the offer, Mrs. Gentry, but Matthew and I have other plans.” Actually, they didn’t. But a night spent with two octogenarians fussing over him wouldn’t sit well with Matthew, especially when all he wanted to do with his evenings right now was learn Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu, Opus 66, for his upcoming audition with Hans Schilling. Caleb didn’t want to interrupt his son’s regular habits any more than they’d been disrupted by moving here. “Send my love to my grandmother, though, and tell her Matthew and I will drop by in a couple of days.”

Patients came and went for the next couple of hours, and Caleb kept himself busy, all the while trying not to think about the jerk he’d made of himself with Leanne. And make no mistake about it, he’d been a real jerk. Rude. Almost hostile. He’d known their meeting would be inevitable, and difficult, but he’d reckoned he’d put away some of his teenage feelings for her a long time ago. Had hoped that he wouldn’t react to her the way he had the last time they’d seen each other—the day when he’d been hauled out of Marrell in handcuffs, in the back of a police car.

But no. One look at her, and he’d turned right back into that hurt teenager who’d let himself become the object of some serious bullying. And her plaything. Good old Caleb, there when she’d needed him, rejected when she hadn’t. Made fun of in all those times in-between. Apparently, where Leanne was concerned, he hadn’t moved too far away from the boy who’d been too hurt and confused to know how to respond. He wasn’t sure he knew how, even now.

What surprised him most, though—totally shocked him—were the other feelings coming to surface. Ones where all he’d wanted was her attention. Ones that had carried him from a little-boy crush into a teenage heartbreak over a love he couldn’t have. He’d hated her for what she’d done to him, but he couldn’t help loving her at the same time. And some of those feelings were churning up in him now. Not that he loved her anymore, because he didn’t. But the memories of that young love were surprisingly vivid, and stirring.

“I’m out of here,” he told Betty, his secretary, on his way through the door, still trying to shake off all images of Leanne. He needed to concentrate on Matthew now. Not her. “Have a good evening.”

“You, too, Caleb.”

He smiled at her use of his name. Everyone in town knew him or his family, and everybody called him Caleb. He didn’t mind, but then again, he wondered about Henry, who had the same familiarity in town but was never addressed as anything but Doctor. Maybe it was the age difference; more age equaled more respect. Or maybe the town still saw him as Martha and Tom’s embarrassment. Well, that was Marrell, wasn’t it?

“Headed home?” Leanne asked, catching up with Caleb in the parking lot.

He drew in a deep breath, promised himself he would be civil, and caught himself being fascinated by the way the late-day sun danced with the auburn of her hair. Too fascinated. He immediately went into standoff mode. Took a step back from her. “Going to go get Matthew first. My folks watch him during the day,” he said, forcing his stare to the black asphalt beneath his feet, a much safer place to stare.

“Any plans for dinner? Because Dad and Dora have been fishing all afternoon again, and since you turned me down for the last fish fry, I thought the two of you might like to join us.”

It was a tempting offer, and he appreciated that Leanne hadn’t been so put off by him the other day that she was extending this invitation, but he still wasn’t easy with it. He’d never been one to give much credence to people who claimed they needed closure, but he wondered if he, himself, had needed it all those years ago. Or even now? “Thanks, but Matthew’s practice...”

“You’ve got to eat, Caleb. Couldn’t he take a break for an hour or so, and the two of you come to the house? I mean, I don’t know what happened between us the other day, but I’d like to have the chance to start over, on a better footing.”

He cleared his throat. “Sorry about that. I’m not usually that rude.”

“I don’t remember you ever being rude.”

He smiled, forcing himself to relax. No, he hadn’t been. Not up until the very end. More like he’d always been unsuspecting. Until he’d snapped. “Oh, I’m sure I had my moments. You probably weren’t there to see them, though.”

“We all have our moments, don’t we? Good, bad, somewhere in between, all subject to rising up and taking over without notice.”

Caleb laughed. “Some of us more than others.”

“Well, it’s forgotten. Or, better, you owe me one. Next time I have my moment, you’ll be cordial about it and maybe invite me to a fish fry.”

She reached out and laid her hand on his arm, a simple, casual gesture that caused a spark to run the whole way up to his shoulder. “Maybe we will stop by for a little while after all,” he said, wondering why the tingle was still lingering. Wondering why he liked her, even though he didn’t want to. Liked her sensibilities. Saw a depth in her he’d never seen before. “So, what time do you want us?”

“About seven. Will that give Matthew enough time to get some practicing in? I figured that by the time you picked him up and got him home...”

He was pleased that she’d thought to schedule around his son’s habits. It improved her status with him a little more. Something else he didn’t want to happen. But, despite it all, Leanne was happening to him. Again. Only this time he was older. And warned. “That’ll give him an hour and a half, which isn’t enough, but he’ll have to deal with it.”

“Then we’ll see you at seven,” she said, giving his arm a final squeeze before she trotted off to her car.

He watched her for a moment, still curious about the tingle she’d caused in him. He remembered it from all those years ago—every time she’d touched him...although always casually. “Damn,” he muttered, willing himself not to watch her. Not to take in her curves, notice her gentle bounce as she walked. But he couldn’t. She’d always been the prettiest girl in Marrell. And now she was stunning. Something way beyond pretty. Yet something he wasn’t going to get caught up in, again. He’d done that once and, and no matter what your age—young, old, somewhere in between—being played with hurt. Leanne had played hard with his life once, and he wasn’t going to let her get close enough to do it again.

* * *

“It’s so nice meeting you, Matthew,” Leanne said, bending down to greet the boy. He looked just like Caleb, except where Caleb’s hair was more of a sandy blond, Matthew was a definite towhead. But they had the same blue eyes, and Matthew especially had the same shy smile she remembered on Caleb years ago.

“Do you have a piano here?” the boy responded, looking around to see if he could spot one.

Caleb stepped up and put his arm around Matthew’s shoulder. “When he gets fixed on something, he has a one-track mind. Right now, he’s fixed on learning that Chopin piece I mentioned. It’s a little above his skill level just yet, but he’s working hard on it.”

“The ‘Fantaisie-Impromptu,’” Matthew said in a little-boy, matter-of-fact voice. “Do you know it?” he asked Leanne.

“I’m afraid I don’t,” she said, smiling. “But I’d love to hear you play it sometime.”

“Maybe. But it’s not ready yet,” Matthew went on to explain. “That’s why I needed to practice more tonight.”

She noticed how serious he was, particularly for his young age, and wondered if he ever let himself be just a child. Go outside and play. Go wading in the creek. Play video games. Or even talk like a boy his age would talk instead of trying to sound like an adult. The way Caleb had when he was that age. “Well, I’m glad you were able to take a little time off, because we have lots of rainbow trout frying, and we’re going to need help eating it all.”

“Broiled is better,” Matthew informed her, folding his arms across his chest and looking up at her. “Healthier.”

Caleb cleared his throat. “Matthew,” he said, “watch your manners.”

“I will,” the child murmured, taking a step back from Leanne. “Sorry.”

“That’s OK,” Leanne said. “Broiled is healthier, but sometimes fried is just plain good.” She smiled at Caleb. “But if Matthew would prefer I broil him a piece, I can do that.”

Caleb shook his head. “Part of the burden of being Matthew is knowing when to be part of the crowd. Isn’t that right, son?”

Matthew nodded reluctantly. “Sorry,” he conceded again, looking up at his dad and frowning. “I like fried, too.”

“Would you like to go out back and watch my dad do the cooking?” she asked Matthew, realizing he was probably bored to death. He was a little boy with a lot on his mind, and it showed on his face. Same serious expression she remembered on Caleb’s face back in the day.

“I’m sure my dad would like the company.”

After Matthew scampered off, she turned to Caleb, led him through the cabin to the porch and said, “He’s a genius like you were at that age, isn’t he?”

“Prodigy and genius...sometimes I think it’s too much intellect for someone so young to handle,” he replied. “Because he doesn’t find much joy in being a little boy.”

“Did you? Because you were that way, too,” she said. “I always remember being in awe of how smart you were. It was like there wasn’t anything you didn’t know.” They took a seat side by side on the porch swing, the way they’d sat when they’d been kids. Same memory almost. Same swing. Except they weren’t swinging, and Caleb looked pathetically uncomfortable. A leftover from the past, she supposed, thinking back to that night he’d been arrested, and the look on his face when he’d been taken away. A look that had broken her heart then, and still did now when she recalled it.

“I had fun. Maybe not the way most people would define fun, especially when you’re that age, but it was OK. Although that level of intellect has its burdens, which is why I worry so much about Matthew. I want him to learn from what I went through, so it doesn’t have to be so rough on him. But there’s that part of me that keeps saying experience is the best teacher, so I’m always walking a fine line with him.” His hand accidentally brushed against her and he immediately recoiled, then moved as far away from her as he could, until he was pressed tight to the side of the swing. “So far, it’s working pretty well.”

“He seems happy and well-adjusted,” Leanne added, wondering if Caleb would be more comfortable if she sat on the chair across from the swing. Also wondering why he didn’t make that move himself since he obviously didn’t want to be so close to her. But she wasn’t going to say anything. Wasn’t going to make the suggestion. It was Caleb’s problem to deal with, if he wanted to. “So, is it tough raising him alone?”

“Sometimes. He really doesn’t demand much, but there are so many times I just want him to be a little boy. I’d love to play ball with him or the two of us go for a hike in the woods. But he’s never interested. Always refuses when I ask, and I won’t argue with him about it or force him to do something he doesn’t want to, as there’s no balance in that, and all I want to do for him is give him a balanced life. One where he knows his choices count, too. I’m sure some parents might force the issue, but I have to take particular care to nurture his abilities, and if he’s happiest practicing or reading—another favorite activity of his—then I support him in that.”

“Which means no baseball?”

“Not for now,” Caleb said, his face so serious it looked almost ominous. “But, as staunch as he is in his likes and dislikes, he’s also flexible, if I can convince him there’s a reason to be. So, I keep my fingers crossed.”

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