A Soldier's Return ; The Daddy Makeover

by RaeAnne Thayne

“Don’t be in too big of a rush. How many times have I heard you tell your patients that true healing takes time?”

  His father made a face. “Do you know how annoying it is to have your own words thrown back in your face?”

  She laughed. “It’s for your own good.”

  “I know.” He gestured to the brace she wore. “What happened to your wrist?”

  Her gaze shifted to Eli, and he thought he saw a soft brush of color soak her cheeks. “It’s a long story. Let’s just say Fiona was in a strange mood this morning and I fell. But it’s feeling much better. Your son checked it out for me.”

  Whether she had wanted him to or not. She didn’t say the words, but he had a feeling she was thinking them.

  “That’s good to hear. He’s a good boy and an excellent doctor. I’ve been waiting for him to come back so he can meet you.”

  Oh, no. That sounded entirely too much like matchmaking. He had to cut that off before Wendell got any inappropriate ideas.

  “We’ve met, Dad. You remember. Melissa and I went to high school together for a year, though I’m older. I knew her ex-husband, too.”

  “My dad got married again and his wife is going to have a baby.”

  Melissa gave her daughter an exasperated look, and Eli had the feeling she wasn’t thrilled with Skye for sharing that particular nugget of information.

  “Yes,” she said. “We’re very happy for them both.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got a lot on your plate,” Wendell said. “That makes your visit mean even more. A visit would have been enough, you know. You didn’t have to bring along a huge care package, so heavy your strong seven-year-old daughter could barely carry it.”

  “It’s only a few things, I promise. The fancy packaging always makes baskets look bigger than they are.”

  Except for that fleeting glance, she seemed to be avoiding looking at him directly. Why? Had he done something wrong that day in the office? There had been a little awkwardness early on, but Eli had thought by the end of the day they had started to establish a bit of a comfortable rhythm.

  Skye nudged the basket closer to Wendell. “Open it. I want to see if you like the stuff we picked out.”

  “I’m sure I will love everything. It came from you, so of course I will.” He smiled at the girl, who beamed back at him.

  His father’s rapport with both Melissa and her daughter didn’t surprise him. Wendell loved people, one reason his staff adored him and his patients returned to him for generations.

  “Go on,” Skye pressed. “Open it.”

  He helped his father out by setting the basket on Wendell’s lap, then watched as his father went through the contents. There was nothing elaborate, but all the gifts seemed thoughtful and sweet—a paperback mystery he knew Wendell would adore, a book of crossword puzzles, a box of chocolates and a bag of lemon drops, a journal, a soft-looking knit throw that would feel perfect on chilly spring mornings.

  His father was delighted with all of it.

  “Thank you so very much,” he said after he had unearthed each new delight. “How did I ever get so lucky to have you both in my life?”

  “We’re the lucky ones,” Melissa said with a smile.

  “I don’t have a grandpa and he doesn’t have a grandkid, so Dr. Wendell said we can both pretend we belong to each other,” Skye informed Eli.

  It warmed his heart that Melissa appeared to watch out for his father. She struck him as someone who couldn’t help caring about others. He had witnessed it all day. Even with her own injured wrist, she had been kind and caring to each patient they had seen.

  “What are you two up to tonight, besides coming here and making my day?” Wendell asked them.

  “We’re going to have pizza,” Skye informed him. “It’s Friday and we always have pizza on Friday. Sometimes we make it ourselves and sometimes we order it from a pizza place and sometimes we go out. Tonight we’re going out.”

  “Nice. Where are you heading?”

  “We’re going to A Slice of Heaven.”

  “Oh, good choice,” Wendell said. “It’s one of my favorites. Have you been there yet, son?”

  Considering Eli had only been back in town for thirty-six hours and had been working or sleeping for most of that time—or visiting his father—hitting all the local hot spots hadn’t exactly been on his priority list. “Not yet.”

  “You can’t miss it. Trust me,” his father said.

  “You could come with us,” Skye offered with that charmer of a smile. “Mom says maybe we can even get cheesy bread. They have the best cheesy bread.”

  “It’s been a long day,” Melissa said, a trace of defiance in her voice. “I need a few carbs to the rescue.”

  He wanted to suggest she also might need to rest and ice her wrist, but he didn’t want to stand in the way of a girl and her carbs.

  His father shifted on the bed and yawned, his mouth drawn and his eyes clouding with exhaustion.

  “We should go,” Melissa said, picking up the hint. “Come on, Skye.”

  “Do you have to?” Wendell said, though Eli heard the exhaustion in his voice.

  “I should go, too, so you can get some rest. That’s the best thing for you, in case your doctor hasn’t mentioned it.”

  “He has,” Wendell said glumly. “I hate being in this hospital bed.”

  “You know what they say about doctors making the worst patients. Try to behave yourself. I’ll stop by tomorrow.”

  “Thanks.”

  His father rolled over, and Eli could tell he was already dozing off. He followed Melissa and her daughter out of the room.

  “That was thoughtful of you, bringing a care package to my father,” he said when they were out in the hallway. “It obviously touched him.”

  “Dr. Sanderson has been nothing but kind to us since we moved back to town. It’s the very least we can do, giving him a few things to help him pass the time while he’s laid up. He’s a wonderful man, your father.”

  “He is.”

  “Seriously. I’ve worked with a lot of jerk doctors in my day and your father is a breath of fresh air, as compassionate to his staff as he is to his patients.”

  “It’s always good to hear my own opinion confirmed by those who work closely with him.”

  “Not gonna lie. He’s my favorite of all the doctors I’ve ever worked with. You have big shoes to fill.”

  “My feet will never fit in those shoes. Why do you think I haven’t come home before now to try? I just have to do my best to stumble along as best I can while I’m here.”

  That was probably more revealing than he intended, at least judging by the probing look Melissa sent his way. He opted to change the subject. “So you’re off to have pizza?”

  “Yep. Like I said, we always have pizza on Friday night,” Skye told him. “Pizza on Friday, Tacos on Tuesday. The rest of the time, we like to mix things up.”

  He found it charming that she included herself in the meal-planning process. As precocious as the girl seemed, he wouldn’t be surprised if she could fix a gourmet meal all by herself, given the chance.

  “That’s good. You wouldn’t want to be too predictable.”

  “What are you having for dinner?” Skye asked him.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t crossed that bridge yet. Unfortunately, I do not have a pizza-on-Friday tradition, but it sounds good.”

  More than likely, he would head back to his father’s house and make a sandwich or heat up a TV dinner—neither of which sounded very appetizing compared to the carbtastic wonders of A Slice of Heaven.

  “You could come with us,” Skye suggested.

  He glanced at Melissa, who looked taken aback by the invitation. She didn’t seem crazy about the idea, yet Eli was surprised at how very much he wanted to accept. The idea of eating alone again at his father’s
house held no appeal.

  “I don’t want to impose on your night out together.”

  “We eat together every night,” Skye said. “Besides, pizza always tastes better when it’s shared. It’s a scientific fact. Anyway, that’s what my mom says.”

  “Funny. I don’t remember learning about that in school.”

  He sent a sidelong look to Melissa, who shrugged and blushed at the same time.

  “You must have missed the breakthrough study. Plus, when you share a pizza, the calories don’t count.”

  “Good to know. I wasn’t aware.”

  “But you’ve probably had a long day,” she said. “Don’t let us pressure you into it.”

  He should gracefully back out of it. She didn’t want him there anyway. But he found he wasn’t willing to do it. He wanted pizza and he wanted to spend more time with her. Neither craving was necessarily good for him, but that didn’t seem to matter.

  “I haven’t had pizza from A Slice of Heaven in years. Now that you’ve planted that seed, I’m afraid nothing else will do except that. Thank you for inviting me.”

  She paused, then gave a smile that seemed only a little forced. “Great. Do you remember where the pizza parlor is?”

  “I could probably find it in my sleep. I’ll meet you there.”

  “See you.” Skye tugged on her mom’s hand. “Let’s go. I’m starving!”

  She followed her daughter out of the rehab center, and he watched them go for a moment before following closely behind.

  As delicious as the wood-fired pizza was at the beloved seaside pizzeria, he found Melissa and her daughter even more appealing.

  Chapter Three

  In her long and illustrious history of bad ideas, inviting Dr. Eli Sanderson out to grab pizza with them had to rank right up there with the lousy perm she got in seventh grade and losing her virginity to Cody Fielding after the prom her junior year.

  Technically, Skye had invited Eli, but Melissa should have figured out a polite way to wiggle out of it, for all of their sakes.

  Why had Skye invited him along? Her daughter did love Dr. Sanderson Sr., but she usually wasn’t so spontaneously open to strangers.

  Maybe her daughter had responded, as Melissa did, to that air of loneliness about Eli. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was just something sad about him. A shadow in his eye, a particular set to his mouth.

  She had tried hard to teach Skye how important it was to be kind to others. Okay, maybe she tried to overcompensate a little on her end, knowing her daughter wouldn’t receive similar lessons on the rare occasions she was with her dad. Maybe she had tried too hard, if Skye was going to go around inviting random gorgeous men to share their Friday-night tradition.

  So much for her lectures all day about keeping her head on straight around him. That was fine advice in a professional setting when he was her boss but might be harder to remember in social situations.

  It was no big deal. They were only sharing pizza. A Slice of Heaven had notoriously fast service, even on the weekend. With any luck, they could be seated, served and out of there within an hour. Surely she could manage to control her hormones for sixty lousy minutes.

  “I like the second Dr. Sanderson,” Skye said from the back seat as they drove to the restaurant. “He seems nice...maybe not quite as nice as the first Dr. Sanderson, but better than Dr. Wu or Dr. Charles. Whenever they used to talk to me, they never even looked at me. It’s like they didn’t think a kid could have anything important to say.”

  How did a seven-year-old girl become so very perceptive? The doctors in the clinic where Melissa worked in Honolulu before coming back to Cannon Beach had treated her that way, too, as if her opinions didn’t matter.

  “They were very good doctors,” she said.

  “But are they nice humans?”

  That was an excellent question. She hadn’t been sorry to leave, though her coworkers had only been one of the reasons she had moved from Honolulu back to Oregon. Her mother was here, for one thing, and she found she missed being close to Sharon.

  And the cost of living had been prohibitive. She had stayed in Hawaii for the last few years mostly because Cody had lived there and she wanted to do all she could to keep Skye’s father in her daughter’s life. His visitations had become so few and far between as he traveled around on the professional surfer circuit that her efforts had begun to seem laughable. When he had told her the previous summer he was moving again, she had given up trying.

  Skye needed a stable home base. Melissa couldn’t keep dragging her from town to town, hoping Cody would eventually start paying attention to their child. She had tried for years after the divorce, then decided being closer to her own mother would provide more benefit to her child than infrequent, disappointing visits with her immature father.

  Melissa would have loved four or five children, but life hadn’t worked out the way she planned. Good thing the one daughter she had was so amazing. Skye was smart and kind and amazingly intuitive for a child.

  “Can I play pool tonight at A Slice of Heaven?”

  And persistent. Once an idea took root in her head, she could never let it go.

  “If there’s an empty table, maybe. Otherwise, nope,” Melissa said as she pulled into the pizzeria’s restaurant, the same answer she gave every time they came.

  The people who hung out at the popular restaurant and played at the three tables in the back were serious about the game. They were probably good humans, but they weren’t at all patient with a seven-year-old girl just learning how to wield a cue.

  Skye sighed as they parked and walked toward the restaurant but she didn’t argue, to Melissa’s relief. Her wrist was throbbing, and she really wanted to go home and rest it. She would definitely break out the ice pack after her daughter was in bed.

  A wave of garlic and the delicious scent of the pizzeria’s wood-fired crusts hit the moment Melissa opened the door. Oh, yeah, she suddenly remembered. She was starving. She’d kind of forgotten that while she was talking to Wendell and Eli. Now her stomach growled and she had a fleeting wish that the wisecrack she had made to Eli was true, that none of the calories or carbs of the delicious Slice of Heaven pies counted when they were shared.

  Somehow Eli had made it there before they did. He was inside talking to the hostess and daughter of the owner, Gina Salvaticci, who had been a year or two ahead of Melissa. She had never liked her much, she remembered now. Gina had been friends with Cody before Melissa and her family moved to Cannon Beach, and always acted as if she thought Melissa wasn’t good enough for him. Since the divorce and Melissa’s return to town, she hadn’t necessarily warmed to her.

  If her father’s restaurant didn’t serve such good pizza, Melissa would do whatever she could to avoid her. Fortunately, Gina usually wasn’t here on Fridays.

  But she was here this Friday, and Gina looked as shocked by the changes in quiet, nerdy Eli Sanderson as Melissa had been and she was obviously flirting with him. She touched his arm as she spoke to him and looked at him from under her half-closed lids, her body facing him and her mouth slightly open.

  Melissa felt a sharp kick in her gut, a weird tension, and realized with chagrin that she was jealous of the other woman, even though Eli seemed completely oblivious to any interested body language.

  He looked up when they approached. “Here’s the rest of my party. You said you had a table ready for us?”

  Gina turned and Melissa knew the moment she spotted her. Her gaze narrowed and her hand slid away from Eli. Gina didn’t look at all pleased to see another woman joining him.

  Melissa couldn’t really blame her. A hot doctor coming back to town, even temporarily, was bound to stir up all the single women.

  Not her. She was willing to entertain a friendship with the man but that was all she could give him. She had no room in her life for anything more, especi
ally not a wandering doctor who would be heading off to the next hot spot on the globe the moment his dad had his knees under him again. Been there, done that, with a man whose career was far more important than his family. She would never even consider it again.

  Her priority had to be Skye, and providing her daughter the most stable home life possible, after the chaos of her daughter’s earlier years.

  She smiled to let the other woman know she wasn’t a threat. If Gina was interested in Eli, she should go for it.

  “Right this way,” Gina said coolly.

  She led them back to a fairly good table with a nice view of the sunset.

  “Will this be okay for you?” Gina asked. She looked only at Eli when she asked the question. He in turn deferred to Melissa.

  “Does this work for you and Skye?” he asked.

  “Looks great,” she answered. “Thanks.”

  He reached for the back of a chair and pulled it back. Nobody had held a chair out for her in such a long time, it took Melissa an awkward moment to realize he meant for her to sit there.

  “Uh. Thanks.”

  She really needed to get out more.

  She sat down and Skye plopped into the seat next to her.

  “Can I get a root beer?” she asked.

  They had a pretty strict no-soda/low-sugar rule 95 percent of the time, but Melissa tended to relax a bit on pizza night. “One. A small.”

  “I’ll let your server know,” Gina said. “Here’s a couple of menus,” Gina said. “Our special tonight is the arugula and prosciutto with our house-pulled mozzarella.”

  “Sounds delicious,” Eli said. “Thanks.”

  The next few minutes were spent perusing the menu. Skye ordered her favorite, half cheese, half pepperoni, while Melissa and Eli both ordered the special, along with salads with the house dressing on the side and, of course, an order of their cheesy bread.

  “If I can’t play pool, can I at least go play the pinball machine?” Skye asked. “I brought all my own quarters.”

  “All of them? I thought you were saving up for a new scooter like your friend Alice has.”