A Man She Can Trust

Hal nodded decisively. “You’re a good man. Thorough. Never should have left town, if you ask me.”

Over the past week, a cadre of the old-timers had trooped into the office, one after another.

Grant had the distinct feeling that a campaign was afoot, after three had given him marital advice, two had told him that he’d been negligent in leaving his father’s practice last fall, and every last one of them had made sly, oblique comments about Doc Jill Edwards being far too pretty to—as crotchety old Leo Crupper had put it—“wither on the vine.”

Grant steeled himself for the inevitable pep talk from Hal. And sure enough, the old guy hesitated at the door and turned back, one gray brow raised.

“The missus doing well?”

“Fine. Just fine.” At least, Grant thought so. He hadn’t seen her for a week now, except for the occasional glimpse of her Sable.

He had a feeling Jill wanted to avoid him just as much as he wanted to avoid her.

Hal fixed him with a piercing look. “You aren’t getting any younger.”

Well, at least he took a different approach from Warren’s other cronies. Who’d probably, now that Grant thought about it, been sent by Warren himself.

“None of us are,” Grant replied.

“You got no kids,” Hal said bluntly. “No grandkids for Warren, and there’ll be none for you either, down the road, if you wait too long.”

Remembering how many grandkids Hal had already disinherited—and then added back into his will—Grant just smiled. “They are a joy, aren’t they? Every last one of them. No matter how unique.”

“Er…exactly,” Hal gave him a narrow look, then stood in the doorway as he shouldered into his coat. “When should I come back?”

Grant flipped the page on the planner lying open on the desk. “Tomorrow’s Friday, and I need to take off early. How about next Tuesday. Another ten o’clock?”

“Good enough.” He clenched his fingers into the thick crown of his beaver-fur hat. “How’s Warren?”

“Much better. He got his IV out yesterday and has started rehab. He’ll be home in a week or two, and not a minute too soon. He’s been climbing the walls.”

“Bet he has. Man never misses a day on the golf course from Easter ’til Thanksgiving, barring snow. He isn’t one to sit around.”

“Well…he’s agreed to take it easy for a few months, if I stay to help out.”

“You’re a good son, coming back like this to take his place. A real good son.”

Grant rounded the desk and walked him to the front door, then flipped the Open sign in the door to Closed as Hal headed down the sidewalk toward Waltham Drug.

At the open doorway Grant took a deep breath of icy, pine-scented air. Thankful, he admitted to himself, that he’d had a reason to come back home to Blackberry Hill for a while.

A couple of blocks down the street, on the corner of Birch and Main, he could see the front corner of Jill’s office, and that brought back all the reasons why he shouldn’t have.

Clean breaks were the best. Especially when there was no hope of ever changing the past, and no wish to create a future.

Yet he’d run into Jill almost every day at the hospital when he’d stopped to visit Dad.

The irony was that apparently they’d both been changing their schedules to avoid each other—and for once in their lives, they had been in perfect harmony.

But in a few weeks Dad would be on his feet and out of the hospital, and then there’d be no need to intrude on Jill’s territory. And that would make life a heck of a lot easier.

PROCLAIMING THAT HE was bored silly on the Skilled Care unit of the hospital, Warren had called the law office at eleven o’clock, noon, one o’clock, and then—apparently he’d been napping—not until almost four.

Grant glanced at the caller ID, amused, as he tapped the speaker button. “Hey, Dad.”

Warren sucked in a sharp breath. “There’s not a client with you?”

“Your friend Hal left a few minutes ago.” Swiveling his chair, Grant looked out the window at the early winter darkness. “Even if there was, I’d guess most people around here know that you and I are related. I’ve been calling you ‘Dad’ since I was in diapers.”

“Doesn’t sound professional.”

Grant had visited Warren every day when he was in the ICU in Green Bay, and had figured he would settle down once he was transferred back to Blackberry Hill. But with each passing day it was becoming more obvious that he viewed his ongoing hospitalization as a form of incarceration.

“How are you feeling?”

“Never better.”

“Not tired at all? The surgeon in Green Bay said—”

“The doc is nuts. I’m fine as frog hair and going stir-crazy in this place. Let me tell you, the day I decide to retire is the day you’ll have to lock me away.”

“Dad, how long has it been since you took a vacation—really went somewhere and did something fun?”

During the long silence they both remembered Marie Edwards’s unexpected death at fifty-five from an aneurysm. Three years ago.

Grant had been working at a prestigious firm in Chicago, but Warren had been so devastated over the loss of his wife that Grant and Jill had come home to help him cope with his practice and his grief.

After Warren’s subsequent heart attack, the intended few months had somehow evolved into several years…with Jill working at an established family practice in town and Grant busy at the Edwards Law Office.

The purchase of a house had signified a commitment to stay for good.

One more painful irony, among the many.

“…so maybe I will.” Warren cleared his throat. “What do you think?”

Grant shook himself out of his memories. “About what?”

“I should call him. Haven’t been down to see him since he and your Aunt Jane built their new house. I expect we could get in a little golf.”

Grant blinked. Uncle Fred and Aunt Jane? Florida?

“That is, if you don’t mind staying on for a while longer.” The hopefulness in Warren’s voice faded as he added, “But I shouldn’t even ask. You’d probably rather move ahead with your own career, and with my secretary gone, the job is damned inconvenient. Doretta sure picked a bad time to retire.”

“I’ve already planned on staying for several more months, anyway. I don’t mind working alone.” Grant smiled to himself as he recalled Dad’s confrontational relationship with his strong-minded secretary of the past thirty years. “It would do you a world of good to get away for a while. And when you get back, you can hire a nice paralegal.”

At a tentative knock on his office door, Grant glanced at his wristwatch. Five o’clock. He’d turned the door sign to Closed when Hal left, which accounted for the knock. “I’ve got to hang up, someone’s at the door.”

Grant dropped the phone back into its cradle and rounded the desk. Out in the waiting area, he pinned a welcoming smile on his face as he opened the front door.

And looked down into the lovely face of the woman who’d helped destroy his life.

JILL LINGERED IN the exam room after her last patient of the day left, dictated her progress note into a recorder then popped out the microcassette and strolled to the front office.

Donna Iverson, her office nurse, looked up from a file drawer and grinned. “For once, you’re actually done on time. Amazing.”

“It is—especially in the middle of flu season.” She put the cassette into an envelope and dropped it into a drawer of the receptionist’s desk. “After rounds at the hospital, I’m going home for a long, hot bath and a good book.”

Middle-aged and motherly, Donna frowned and shook a finger at her. “You need to get out more. Have some fun. What about that nice assistant manager down at the bank? I swear, if that man isn’t interested in you, I’ll eat my stethoscope.”

The man was a pleasant, earnest sort of guy. He’d certainly be Mr. Dependability…and just the thought made Jill stifle a yawn. “I’m not even divorced yet and, frankly, I can’t even imagine dating again. But what about you?”

Donna gave a flustered wave of her hand after she pushed the file drawer shut. “It’s not so easy, getting back into the swing of things at my age. My brother Bob and his family are here in town, though. Grandkids. Plenty to keep me busy. But you…”

“I’ve finally got a practice of my own. The house of my dreams. A very devoted cat.”

“You’ve got one very weird cat, and a very big house to ramble around in. You know, my bachelor cousin Irwin lives down in Minocqua, and—”

Laughing, Jill held up a hand. “Stop. I’m sure he’s a great guy, but I really don’t want to meet anyone. Ask me again in about five years.”

Loyal to a fault, the nurse had stood staunchly by Jill during the difficult last months of her marriage, and she still spoke Grant’s name with a sniff of distaste.

“Well…just keep Irwin in mind. He’s great with kids. Has a good job in real estate. And,” she added triumphantly, “he’s never been married, so you wouldn’t be taking on all that extra baggage.”

I’d just have all of my own. Jill nodded politely as she shouldered into her red wool pea coat and wrapped a long black scarf around her neck. “You should get going. All of this will be waiting for you tomorrow.”

“Just another few minutes.” Donna’s expression grew somber. “Say hello to Patsy, won’t you? Tell her I’ll stop in tonight with some new magazines.”

“She’ll be happy to hear that.” Jill pulled on her gloves, wishing she could offer more hope for Donna’s neighbor. “She may not be very talkative, though. We had to increase her morphine last night.”

Patsy Halliday had been the picture of good health just three months ago at her annual physical, but last month she’d come in with severe headaches. An MRI revealed a fast-growing tumor that the surgeons couldn’t completely remove, and soon her three young children would lose their mother.

Life was so terribly unfair.

Jill slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder and went out the back door of the clinic, lost in thought. She barely felt the cold as she started her car and waited for the defroster to melt away the haze on her windshield.

Cases like this one kept her awake at nights; made her rethink every decision a dozen times, and made her pray for miracles when everything on the MRI report and labs told her there was little hope.

Cases like this made her want to live every day to the fullest, because they illustrated with cruel finality just how little control you had over the future.

Yet now she was going home to an empty, cavernous house, with only a demented cat and the whispers of old ghosts to keep her company.

“Quite an exciting life you lead,” she muttered to herself as she pulled out of the back parking lot, waited for several cars to pass, then turned north on Main.

The deep tire ruts in the snow grabbed at her tires as she drove slowly enough to keep ample distance between her and the car ahead.

The single stoplight in town turned yellow at her approach and, despite her best intentions, she glanced at the Edwards Law Office on the opposite corner.

She drew in a sharp breath.

Dressed in khaki slacks, a blazer and a shirt open at the throat, Grant was at the open door, talking to a woman who stood with her back to the street.

The woman rested her hand on his forearm for a moment, then stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. She turned and hurried down the steps to an all-too-familiar red, vintage Cobra parked in front.

At the car, she turned back and waved at him, her long, too-bright auburn hair whipping in the wind.

Jill’s heart gave an extra, hard thud. Natalie.

The old hurt welled up inside her and she sat frozen through the green light until the car behind her honked.

She hadn’t wanted to believe the rumors last fall. Even now, perhaps this wasn’t what it seemed. But Natalie’s advances a moment ago certainly hadn’t been rebuffed.

Since Grant had come back to town, he and Jill had carefully tried to avoid each other, but small towns didn’t allow for a lot of space. Seeing him again had made her feel a little…wistful. Made her start reviewing the past. Made her second-guess all that had gone wrong.

But those regrets were a waste of time.

Grant could do whatever he liked, with whomever he liked, and it didn’t matter one bit. He was a free man.

And seeing the woman who’d destroyed the last hope for their marriage drove that fact home with blinding clarity.

CHAPTER FOUR

JILL PAUSED AT the door of Patsy’s hospital room to study the rainbow of crayon drawings taped to the wall, the untidy bouquet of flowers on the bedside table.

Zoe’s work, Jill thought sadly. The four-year-old loved to handle the flower arrangements delivered to the room, beaming as she plucked one bloom after another and presented them to her mother.

What was it like, seeing your mommy lying so still in this hospital bed, with the steady snick of an IV pump marking off the seconds?

Patsy’s head turned on the pillow, her weary eyes lighting with recognition. Her hand dropped to the white cotton blanket, and a small tape recorder fell from her grasp.

Jill caught it just before it hit the floor.

“Thanks,” Patsy whispered. “I’m…trying. So hard. I need…time.”

The effort to speak clearly exhausted her, and Jill felt renewed anger at the doctor who’d originally misdiagnosed this poor woman. The HMO system that had refused to cover the tests that might have caught her cancer earlier. And especially, at the callous husband who’d walked out on her right after her diagnosis.

No one deserved to die young.

And no one deserved life more than this young mother of three who, until recently, had operated a day-care program in town and had selflessly reached out to others in need.

Jill fingered the stack of audio cassettes on the bedside table. “Your children will treasure these.”

Patsy’s gaze veered to the tapes, then back to Jill. “The kids will have my memories…of them when they were small. I want them to know…how much I love them. That I’ll love them forever.”

“They’ll never have any doubt.”

“Zoe won’t even remember me, really.” Patsy winced and fell silent for a moment. “She’s so young.”

“But she’ll have these tapes, with your voice. She’ll have photos. Do you have home movies?”

“Some.” A faint smile flickered at the corners of her mouth. “I’m always on the other side of the camera, though.”

“How about getting some film of you and the kids here—maybe down in the lounge? You could be reading to Zoe, or telling some old stories from when you were young. I’ll bet we can get one of the nurses to run the camera.”

“K-Kurt got it.”

In a divorce that had been far from equitable, if the rumors were true. “Then I’ll bring in mine,” Jill said briskly. “How about that? I’ll bring it in tomorrow, and leave it at the nurse’s station with a few extra blank cassettes.”

“Not sure I’m ready for prime time,” the younger woman said, touching the wisps of her thin hair. But the grateful expression in her eyes spoke volumes.

“There are people who will never be beautiful, no matter how perfect their hair. But you? Your kids will treasure every moment. And once the tapes are transferred onto DVDs, the copies will last forever. Or so I was told,” Jill added with a smile, “by the young guy at the electronics store who sold me a DVD/VHS dubbing machine.”

“Thank you.”

She was so clearly exhausted that Jill glanced at the clock on the wall. “I need to let you get some rest, so you’ll be ready when the kids arrive.” She picked up the chart at the end of the bed and studied the nurse’s notes and lab reports. “You know that you can still request hospice if you change your mind?”

“No. I want home…to be happy for them. Not a place where they watched me…die.”

“Hospice can get you back here before that point, if you still want to,” Jill said gently. “They’ll help you be comfortable, and they’ll help your children deal with all of this.”

Yesterday Patsy had refused to even discuss it. Now, she blinked away the moisture in her eyes. “For them, then…if it will help.”

“I don’t think you’ll regret it.”

“I could go home and stay for a little while? With this?” She lifted a fragile hand toward the IV pole. “And I…could come here when…when…”

“Everything, just as you wish.” Jill put the chart on the window ledge and sat beside Patsy on the bed. She took one of her hands. “The nurses tell me you’ve been refusing your morphine.”

“Makes me too…fuzzy. I need to visit with my kids.” She managed another faint grin. “Alison says it makes me sound drunk.”

Her nine-year-old daughter probably knew about that kind of behavior all too well, given who her father was. The thought of that jerk—an arrogant, self-righteous dentist who’d had an affair with his hygienist, then abruptly moved to Green Bay and filed for divorce—set Jill’s teeth on edge. “But what about your pain control?”

“Okay.” Patsy sank deeper into the pillow. Her eyes fluttered shut and her breathing deepened.

Her heart heavy, Jill watched her for a moment, then she picked up the chart and headed for the door.

Even after two years in family medicine, she still found it impossible to accept that a stroke of terrible luck could strike anyone, anytime.

Patsy’s husband hadn’t asked for shared custody. He hadn’t arranged a single visit since he’d walked out.

And soon three young children were going to be left in his care, because their loving mother was going to die.

“HEY, ROSS. GREAT NEWS!” his mom gushed into the phone. She giggled, breaking away from the call to tell Tony to leave her alone, and Ross could just imagine what the guy was doing. Pawing her, probably. Playing vampire at her neck.

Tony’s smarmy possessiveness over his mom had made Ross’s stomach churn from day one, and he’d so wanted to land a fist right in the creep’s smug face. The guy was way older than she was, for one thing. And there was something about him that made Ross’s skin crawl.

He started to hang up when she came back on the line breathless and laughing. “Sweetie, you’ll never guess! Tony and I are going to Reno—we’re getting married!”

He froze, unable to speak.

“We’re leaving tomorrow on an early flight. It will be so cool! We’ll take in some of the shows, and I hear the food is great. Tony knows of a little chapel where they have real flowers and everything…. Are you still there? Did you hear me?”

Ross mumbled something unintelligible into the receiver.

“Look, I know you’re gonna be real disappointed, but it’s just me and him going. He got a great deal on tickets and a hotel for two. And,” she added after another burst of laughter and the sound of Tony’s voice in the background, “it is our honeymoon.”

“Y-you planned this all along.” Ross swallowed hard. “You took me up here so you could go to Reno?”

“Of course not, sweetie. It…it just sorta came up. Just last night, in fact. Isn’t it exciting?”

Just sort of came up? The week after she’d dumped him in Grace’s lap? The false cheerfulness in her voice told him she was lying, which just made it worse. “Yeah, right. Exciting.”

“It’s still a good thing you’re up there with Grace,” she added quickly. “Tony’s real busy with the bar and all, and…well, you know.”

“Yeah.”

“I’d think you could at least be happy for me.” Her voice took on a petulant edge. “You know how we’ve struggled.”

She’d never noticed that Tony was a real jerk toward Ross. She’d been defensive and even angry when he tried to tell her, because she didn’t want to hear it.

In return, Ross had never tried to hide his own disgust. Especially not after he’d seen the bastard coming out of a late-night movie with another woman, though Mom had refused to hear a single word against her latest lover.

A chill settled over Ross as he dropped the receiver into its cradle; a feeling of emptiness so huge that if he’d been a few years younger, he might have just sat and bawled.

Grace had tactfully left the kitchen when Ross answered the phone, and from out in the living room he’d heard the sound of her bustling around. Now, she appeared at the kitchen door. “About ready for school? I’ll give you a ride.”

“Nah.” He grabbed his jacket from the back closet and shouldered on his backpack. She’d offered every day of his first week here, and every day he’d refused. With no school bus service for the town kids he could be dropped off like a grade-schooler or he could get there on his own. No contest, there—even if it meant eight blocks of snow-packed streets through the bitter cold.

“Are you sure?” Biting her lip, she glanced outside. “It’s five below and windy this morning. The streets aren’t that good, either. People don’t even try to ride bikes here this time of year, and I really don’t mind—”

“No.” Before she could push any further or worse, ask him about the phone call, he jerked open the back door, unchained his mountain bike and hoisted it down the steps.

He slung a leg over the bike and sped down the long hill toward Main Street without a backward glance. He didn’t have to look back to know that Aunt Grace was watching him from the porch, her arms folded across her chest and her brow furrowed with worry.

Her house was small, and she’d probably heard some of the conversation.

The roughly plowed street caught his front tire. He wobbled wildly for a split second, then righted himself and eased into the track of a car. Great—I might as well break my neck and be done with it.

As cold as it was in this godforsaken place, he was already so numb he probably wouldn’t even feel a thing. The phone call this morning almost made him wish he had the courage to let it happen.

For now, he had a place with Grace. But what about later?

Moving back with Mom would no longer be an option. Though Tony had a creepy way of being nice to his mom while getting her to wait on him, his whole personality changed when she wasn’t home. He swore a lot, slammed things around and got his kicks out of trying to be intimidating.

It didn’t take any imagination to guess how much he’d dislike having a teenage kid around.

A gust of wind kicked up a blinding cloud of snow at the intersection of Oak and Lake. A dark shape suddenly materialized at his left. Coming too fast…

Ross slammed on his brakes and jerked the bike to the right. Skidded sideways. From far away he heard a heavy thud and someone screaming.

For one dizzying moment he felt as if he were weightless, spinning, disoriented. And then the ground rushed up to meet him.

THE HOSPITAL’S ONLY male nurse, Carl Miller, met Grace at the door of the E.R. “He’s in Room 3. Dr. Reynolds is with him right now.” He tipped his head toward the waiting room. “The girl who hit him is here, too, and her father is on the way. She’s pretty upset.”

Grace nodded and hurried down the hall, her damp shoes squeaking on the highly polished floor.

A heartbeat after she’d received the call, she’d grabbed her purse and coat without a thought for snow boots, gloves or scarf. Now, with snow melting inside her shoes and her hands tingling, she wrapped her arms around herself and tried to stop shaking. I never should have let him leave home like that. I should have made him sit down and talk.

But she knew just how far she would’ve gotten. She’d had him for over a week now, and still hadn’t made it past his sullen anger. He’d been less talkative with each passing day.

At the door of the room she said a silent prayer, then hid her worries behind a bright smile and stepped inside.

A bag of saline hung from the IV pole at the other side of the bed. No ventilator, though. Thank God. No frantic rushing to get the boy to surgery. And of the four doctors who had privileges at this hospital and could be on call today, Connor Reynolds and Jill Edwards were the very best.

Dr. Reynolds was bent over the bed with his stethoscope on Ross’s bare chest. He straightened at the sound of Grace’s squeaky shoes, a reassuring smile on his lean, handsome face. “Ross had a mishap, but he’s going to be fine.”