by Loree Lough
She’d known young Michael Josephs for many months now, more than long enough to predict that, if she shared Levi’s promise, it would be met with ridicule and smirks instead of joy or gratitude. Julia might ask the help of the Almighty, too, if she thought it would do a bit of good. But experience had taught her that prayers for herself fell on deaf ears. God may indeed answer the pleas of good people like Levi and the rest of the Gundens, but He surely didn’t waste time performing miracles for people borne of drug-addicted felons.
She fired up her car and waved through the open window.
“I will pray for you, too,” Levi called as she backed down the drive. “I will pray that God makes you get married to Doctor Thomas. Like Papa says, you two will make a handsome couple, and together, a good strong family, too!”
Maybe since the prayers would come from an innocent child, loved completely by God, He’d see fit to answer them.
“A girl can dream,” she said, picturing Simon’s handsome face.
Chapter Seven
The creamy white sweater had been on his front seat for weeks when Simon decided that enough was enough. Every time he’d moved it, his calloused, clumsy hands had left tiny snags in the tight-woven knit. Worse, its scent and softness reminded him of Julia’s silky hair. He’d done his best to exercise patience, waiting for the Lord to let him know “go” or “no go.” But it hadn’t been easy.
He wondered why last week, when he hadn’t needed diversions, the clinic had all but overflowed with sick and injured pets. His surgery schedule had rarely been fuller, and he’d seldom gone home more exhausted. The past few days, having to concentrate on putting a dachshund on a diet or curing a calico’s ear infection would have been welcome distractions from thoughts of Julia.
Today he’d return the sweater, even if it meant tucking it into a plastic bag and leaving it on her porch. Even if it meant he couldn’t see her gorgeous face or hear her pretty voice. “I’m not good at being left in a holding pattern, Lord,” he muttered. “I’m all for doing things Your way, but please, can’t You meet me halfway?”
“What’s that, Doctor Thomas?”
Wincing, he kept his back to the counter. “Nothing, Debbie. Just thinking out loud, I guess.”
Man, but he missed Alice. Not only had she organized every aspect of his clinic until it ran like a well-tuned engine, but she’d never poked her nose where it didn’t belong, either. Debbie performed her duties well enough, but in the month since she’d taken Alice’s place, things had fallen through the cracks. Debbie never picked up the phone by the second ring like Alice did, never put away the files before leaving for the day. She didn’t call patients or their owners by their names, wouldn’t tidy magazines on the waiting room tables, and refused to wear scrubs. You’re just spoiled, he’d tell himself every time she did something to annoy him. Which was often. Admittedly, Alice was a hard act to foll—
“You know what they say about people who talk to themselves….”
Debbie giggled. Not a merry, musical sound like Julia’s, but a high-pitched twitter that set his nerves on edge. He didn’t trust himself to ask what “they” said. Instead, Simon grit his teeth and waited, knowing she’d tell him whether he liked it or not.
Flipping long blond hair over one shoulder, she tilted her head. “That’s one way to make sure somebody’s listening,” she singsonged, batting her false eyelashes.
Forcing a grin, Simon nodded. “Ahh,” he said.
She thrust out one hip and propped a fist there. “I hope you’ll take this in the spirit of which it’s intended….”
Every muscle in him tensed. If he had a lick of sense, he’d fire her on the spot. Send her packing, right this minute, with a month’s pay and a promise to provide a great recommendation. But she was his cousin’s neighbor, and he’d agreed to give her a chance. “That bum of a husband of hers walked out,” Casey had explained, “left her high and dry and with a kid to take care of.” It had been Simon’s bad luck that the news came on the same day Alice handed in her resignation. And though she’d agreed to stay one week, to help train her replacement, Simon made no secret of his doubts that Debbie could be trained. “She’ll do great,” Casey insisted. “Debbie was Dean’s secretary before they got married, see, so she can walk right into the job!”
Simon surely didn’t condone that the man had abandoned his wife and child. But he thought he understood what might have driven him to it.
“You’re really, really handsome when you smile like that….”
Groaning inwardly, Simon pretended to busy himself by flipping through a file. Too bad Casey hadn’t mentioned that Debbie never learned to type or balance a checkbook. That she didn’t know how to file in alphabetical order or take a proper phone message. At the close of her first week in the clinic, when Casey inquired how Debbie had fared, Simon had put it as gently as possible: “I don’t know if this is gonna work, Case. She ought to have found her sea legs by now.”
“Aw, give the girl a break,” Casey had said, winking. “She hasn’t worked outside the home in years. She’ll pick things up. Just be patient.”
How much patience is a guy supposed to exert in one lifetime? he wondered. Wait for Georgia to say “okay” to parenthood. Wait for God to give him the go-ahead with Julia. Wait for Debbie to blossom into a top-notch secretary. Wait for—
“…so you really, really ought to do it more. Lots more.” She giggled again, as if to underscore the point.
Now just how was he supposed to react to that? If he said thanks, she’d think he liked the way she so blatantly flirted with him—all day, every day. Simon decided to err on the side of caution and merely nodded. “Phone’s ringing,” he said absently.
“Oh, so it is.” Another giggle. “Guess I oughta get that.”
He watched her half run, half skip back to the front counter. Maybe some guys would find a woman like this attractive—sexy even—but not this guy, he thought. Then he pictured Julia, petite and curvy, a lady in every sense of the word, with a smile that could melt butter and eyes as big as—
“It’s Casey!” Debbie hollered. “Silly me, I thought he called to talk to me. Shows you how well I understand men.”
Simon reached for his phone…just as the blinking light went out.
“Oops,” she said. “Looks like I cut him off.” And shrugging, she added, “No big deal. If it’s important, he’ll call back, right?” And with that, she plopped onto Alice’s stool and inspected her fingernails.
He had to ask himself if Debbie really was infuriating or if she just seemed that way in comparison to Julia. Hands behind his head, he leaned back in his desk chair as her image floated through his mind. Rocking forward, he grabbed his cell phone, scrolled to her number, and hit SEND. As it rang, he whispered, “Let her answer, let her answer, let her answer….”
Debbie suddenly appeared in the doorway, startling him so badly that he nearly dropped the phone. “What’s that, Doctor Thomas?”
Simon pointed at the phone.
“Oops,” she repeated. “Sorry.”
As she backed out of his office, he said, “Close the door, will you please, Debbie?”
From her shocked expression, the casual observer might have guessed he’d given her a good dressing-down. She closed the door, all right, with an unnecessarily loud slam. Using his free hand, he massaged taut muscles in his neck and grumbled under his breath. “You’ve got to do something before she drives you outta your ever-lovin’—”
“Hello!”
Instantly, Simon relaxed and smiled. “Hey there, pretty lady,” he heard himself say. “Are you missing a sweater?”
Rats! he thought, listening to the rest of the message. Must’ve been a godsend, getting her answering machine instead of the real thing. Because if her recorded voice made his palms sweat and his ears hot, he could only imagine what would have happened if she’d actually picked up the phone.
They’d been talking, a few minutes here and a few minutes there, a coup
le nights a week since their date. So why was he feeling so nervous this time? Especially considering that he had her sweater to use as his excuse for calling….
Simon hung up then sat back and fished through his wallet for the business card she’d given him at the wolf sanctuary. JULIA L. SPENCER, ASSISTANT PUBLIC DEFENDER, in embossed black Times New Roman font, appeared beneath the Lancaster County seal. Wonder what the L stands for? On the back of the card, in large feminine script, she’d written her home and cell numbers, along with her address. Something told him her middle name, like Julia herself, was anything but ordinary.
Before Wiley came into his life, Simon hadn’t given much thought to anti-lawyer cracks and quotes. Then the prosecutor’s office called on him to provide “expert testimony” against the creep who’d tortured the dog. In addition to Simon’s professional opinions, the prosecuting attorney entered frightening photos into evidence and called on the man’s neighbors, who recounted terrified howls of agony that woke them night after night. The defense attorney argued that without eyewitness testimony or other evidence to prove the breeder had inflicted the hideous injuries, the judge had no choice but to let the bully off with nothing but a stern warning.
That’s when Simon’s opinions of defense attorneys had changed.
Talk about irony, he thought, his hand hovering above the phone. There he sat, trying his best to find a loophole in his self-imposed “wait for God’s guidance” rule so he could deepen his relationship with a gorgeous lady lawyer. A defense attorney, no less.
With a sigh and a shrug, he lifted the handset. While he waited for Julia to pick up, Simon propped one foot atop the other on his desk. “Public Defender’s Office,” said a gravelly voice.
“Uh, Julia Spencer, please.”
“She’s in court. Any message?”
“No.” Simon looked at her cell phone number. He’d call and record a message there as soon as he got rid of this short-tempered guy. “But thanks.”
The man hung up without another word, underscoring Simon’s not-so-positive opinion of public defenders. Life experience had taught him to trust his instincts. Dozens of times it had saved him from scratches and bites at the clinic. Almost as often it kept him from second dates with women, lined up by well-meaning friends, who had no more in common with him than…than Debbie.
His gut told him Julia was an okay gal. If she behaved a little weird from time to time, if she acted like a woman with a secret, well, Simon hadn’t been born yesterday. People with no skeletons in their closets were few and far between. But with God on his side, he could handle anything her past might throw at him.
In college and med school, he’d aced every math and science exam and earned stellar grades in English and history. But subjects that delved into the human psyche? Simon considered himself lucky to have squeaked by with high Cs. He credited the so-so scores to his “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” mentality. And his attitude for folks who needed shrinks? He had no patience for the self-involved who sought counseling and therapy every time they spotted a zit in the mirror.
He stared at her business card, but instead of the county’s seal, he saw her big, long-lashed golden eyes and the smile that glowed with beautiful innocence, despite her chosen profession. Did he really have what it might take to get her through some tough emotional times? Or was he letting himself be fooled by her lovely face?
More reason than ever to pray for God’s input. Simon tucked her card into his lab coat pocket and tossed his stethoscope onto the desktop. His forehead leaning on both fists, he closed his eyes tight. “Lord,” he prayed, “You’ve read my heart, so You know how much I’ve come to care for Julia in this short time. Show me the way, Father, because I get the feeling she’s survived lots of disappointments, and I sure don’t want to be yet another—”
“Are you okay in there?”
Simon opened his eyes and saw Debbie’s silhouette through the opaque glass of his office door. Slapping one hand over his eyes, he whispered, “Lord, grant me patience….”
“Hello? Doctor Thomas?”
“I’m fine, Debbie,” he said, maybe a little louder than he should have.
He watched as her shadow turned toward the waiting room. “We’re done for the day. With scheduled appointments, that is. Okay if I leave a little early?”
He wanted to ask if she’d done the filing. If she’d written checks for the statements that had arrived that morning. Wanted to find out if she’d taken any messages while he sat behind his closed door, pondering the sanity…or the craziness…of pursuing Julia. “Sure, go ahead,” he called instead. “See you in the morning.” Once she’d gone for the day, Simon would check on all those things, and if they needed to be done, he’d do them himself. Same as he had yesterday. And the day before. And every other day since he’d hired her. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do. “Man, do I miss Alice,” he said, standing.
“What’s that? Hard to hear through the closed door….”
Chuckling, Simon hung his head. “Go home, Debbie,” he all but shouted, “and have a wonderful, wonderful evening!” Would he ever get used to her, after years of Alice’s efficiency?
One glance at the untidy stack of patient files on the corner of his desk answered his question. If God aimed to teach him a new lesson, He was off to a dynamite start. Because if Simon didn’t learn patience working with Debbie? Well, then, he simply wasn’t capable of learning it at all.
“See you in the morning,” he heard her say as the entrance doorbell pinged. And even before the door hissed shut, his right hand wrapped around the phone’s earpiece as the fingers of the left dialed Julia’s cell phone number…and he prayed that God wanted her to answer every bit as much as he did.
Chapter Eight
“I tried to call,” he said when she opened the door. “Guess you haven’t had time to check your messages.”
Julia stood, one bare foot trying to warm the other, in the slightly open doorway. “I was in court most of the day,” she admitted. What on earth is Simon doing here, she wondered, especially at suppertime? “Have you eaten yet?”
He ran a hand through thick blond waves. “Nah. I’ll grab a hot dog or something at the convenience store. I just didn’t want another day to go by without making sure you got this back.”
She glanced at the sweater draped over his right forearm. “Thanks,” she said, taking it. “It’s one of my favorites.” She clutched it to her chest. “It’s white. And white clothes match just about everything else in the closet, you know?”
Julia watched one brow rise on his forehead and concluded that he had no interest whatever in whether or not clothes matched. But if that was true, why did he look so well-put-together himself? With his hair fluttering in the breeze and wearing a slanting grin, faded jeans, and a white shirt cuffed to his elbows, he could just as easily have been on a GQ cover instead of her front porch. And those amazing, gorgeous green eyes that she’d pictured every time they talked on the phone….
Simon shifted his weight from one sneakered foot to the other, hinting that she’d stared a tad too long.
“Well, now that you’ve got your favorite sweater back, guess I’ll hit the road.” He pointed over one shoulder.
One broad and muscular shoulder.
But thankfully he made no move to leave. Instead, Simon pocketed both hands and jangled loose change and car keys. The sound reminded her of Gramps, whose palsied hands couldn’t be stilled even when buried deep in his own trousers pockets.
He reminded her of Gramps in other ways, too, starting with the way he stood, feet planted shoulder-width apart, to the straight-backed way he walked…like a man who knew where he’d been and where he intended to—
“It’s been great seeing you again, Julia.”
The resonant tones of his voice roused her from her reverie. “Sorry,” she said. “Sometimes after a day like this, I tend to zone out. Makes me seem spacey, I know, but really, it’s just me, running through the event
s of the day, trying to figure out if I’ve dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s.” Shrugging, she tucked in one corner of her mouth. There you go again, you little ninny, she scolded, rambling nonsensically. Surely Simon’s day had been just as harrowing. What made her think he wanted a blow-by-blow of hers? “Good to see you, too.”
He headed for the flagstone walk, and when he hit the bottom porch step, he threw up a hand. “See ya, Julia,” he said without turning. “Have a nice evening.”
Wait, she wanted to say, don’t go! “Haven’t you heard? Hot dogs are bad for your health,” she said instead.
Now he stood with one foot on the flagstone, the other two steps up, and balanced a forearm on his knee. “I hope that’s an invitation to share whatever smells so good in there….”
“Spaghetti,” she said, smiling. “I always make more than I can eat, which is downright weird, since I’ve never had to cook for a crowd.”
Simon patted his flat stomach and, in three long strides, stood in front of her. “Don’t you worry, little lady,” he said, “I’m more than happy to be your crowd.”
Taking a step back as he passed, she kicked her high heels aside. “Don’t mind the mess,” Julia said, grabbing her suit jacket from the newel post. “I only got home about fifteen minutes ago and went straight to the kitchen to put the sauce on to warm up. Saturday is my big cleaning day and since it’s only—”
“Shh,” he said, smiling, as he laid a finger over her lips. “Your house looks super, just like you.”
If she stood there blinking and staring much longer, she’d have no one to blame but herself when he suddenly “remembered” a previous engagement. Why in the world would he want to share his supper with a full-grown woman who behaved like an addlebrained teeny bopper? “I’ll just run upstairs and put this stuff away. Make yourself at home,” she said, collecting her shoes and bounding up the steps. “I’ll only be a minute.”
