Family Practice

by Marisa Carroll

  J.R. took the hint. “We don’t have an unlimited budget, remember. Especially not until we find out how much the insurance company is going to pay for the water damage.”

  “Not enough,” Zach’s voice said. Callie glanced away from her father to find her PA standing in the doorway. Her first day in the office he’d worn khakis and an open-throated pale blue dress shirt, but since then he’d shown up in camo-patterned fatigues and olive-green T-shirts beneath his long white lab coat. She didn’t approve of the casualness of his dress but she had to admit the clothes suited his warm skin tone, dull gold hair and military bearing.

  “Is something wrong?” She came out from behind her desk as she noted Zach’s grim expression with a sinking sensation in her chest.

  “We’ve got wiring problems,” Zach announced.

  “Oh, boy,” J.R. muttered under his breath. “That’s not good news.”

  “You’re right. It’s not. Evidently the breaker box is going to have to be changed.”

  J.R. whistled softly. “That’s going to cost a pretty penny. Are you sure?” Zach nodded. “Well, it can’t be helped. Let’s go hear what the man has to say.”

  The two men stepped back so that Callie could lead the way into the staff room at the back of the building. They joined Bonnie Highway, copper-skinned, dark-haired and stout, and Leola Townley, tall and fair with light brown hair and the sharply etched features of her Finnish logger ancestors. They were both staring at the open circuit box as though it contained a nest of snakes. Callie hid a grin.

  Rudy, whom she remembered owned a construction business in town, and a middle-aged balding man in jeans and a wrinkled cotton shirt were discussing the wiring, the inspector pointing out problems with the beam of his pencil-size flashlight, Rudy shaking his head and jotting notes on a clipboard. They broke off as the newcomers entered the room. Zach made a quick introduction, Callie first and then J.R.

  “We have a serious problem here, Dr. Layman,” the man explained. “Whoever put this box in must have wired it up blindfolded.”

  “The building’s over twenty years old. I don’t even remember who the original electrician was,” J.R. admitted.

  Rudy lifted his shoulders in a brief shrug. “Before my time.”

  “It has to be replaced,” the inspector said, his voice pleasant but implacable. “There’s no way I can approve any upgrades to this box. It’s a miracle you haven’t had a fire before now.”

  “How long will it take?” Callie asked. “We’re trying to run a medical practice here.”

  “Three days,” Rudy replied. “Have to go to Petoskey for a bigger box. Then get hold of the power company to shut off the juice. Replace the box, run new wire, run new ground wire, too, put in the new receptacles, then get Art to okay all of it before we get the power switched on again.”

  “Is that as quickly as it can be done?” Callie asked, dismayed. “We’re already behind schedule because of the water break.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Rudy promised.

  “I’ll give you my home phone and my cell number,” the inspector offered. “I’ll come as soon as I can get here when Rudy calls.”

  “Thank you,” Callie said, smiling in relief. “We’re grateful for your cooperation. Can we finish seeing patients this afternoon, Rudy, or do you have to shut off the electricity right away?”

  “I’ll head to the electrical supply place in Petoskey once I figure out everything we need. You go ahead and finish out your day.”

  “Shall I start rescheduling our Friday patients?” Leola asked Callie after Rudy and the inspector had gone outside with J.R. to mark the location of the underground electric cable.

  “That’s a good idea. Don’t you agree, Zach?”

  “Yes, unless you want to set up a tent and examine patients in the parking lot.”

  She wasn’t certain if he was joking or not, so she decided to respond as if it was a serious suggestion. “I don’t believe that’s necessary.”

  “I’ll make sure the meds are taken care of, Dr. Layman,” Bonnie promised. “I’ve still got plenty of room in my basement fridge from the first go-round. Is there anything else you want us to do?” She included Zach in the question.

  “No,” he responded. “Why don’t you switch on the answering machine and take a lunch break while you have the chance?”

  “Yes,” Callie agreed, wishing she’d thought of suggesting it first. “It’s almost 12:30. You both are already late for your break. Our afternoon patients will be showing up before you know it.”

  The phone at the reception desk rang and both women rolled their eyes. “You get our lunch bags out of the fridge,” Leola said, “and I’ll answer the phone.”

  “I’ll call the Petoskey hospital and inform them what we’re up against,” Zach offered, pulling his stethoscope out of his coat pocket and wrapping it around his neck. For a split second as she watched his movements, Callie remembered the heat and strength of his touch on her arm and she shivered. “We’ll have to get their okay to close the office Friday.”

  “I guess we have no choice. We can’t function without electricity.” More work-arounds, more improvising, more confusion, more failures. “I should never have left Ann Arbor,” she said before she could stop herself.

  Zach gave her a long, steady look. “Hey,” he said. “Rudy’s the Marine, not me, but it’s time we apply a little Corps philosophy to the situation.”

  “What philosophy would that be?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Improvise. Adapt. Overcome,” he said.

  “Improvise? Adapt? Overcome? I don’t understand.” She hated how uptight and prissy she sounded, but she was not in the mood for word games.

  “We’re improvising like hell right now, right?” He grinned, a very appealing, very handsome grin.

  “I suppose we are,” she admitted reluctantly.

  “Next we adapt so we can overcome this latest cluster...fluff,” he said, hesitating until he came up with a sufficiently mild substitute for what he’d obviously really wanted to say. “We just got handed Friday off whether we wanted it or not. Do you have plans?”

  “My plans were to be here doing what I was hired to do.”

  “Now you have room on your calendar to do something else.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Go fishing with me.”

  “Absolutely not,” she said. “That’s an absurd suggestion. If we do anything together it will be to discuss which of our patients you’ll be assigning to my care. We have put it off long enough.”

  “Why can’t we do that after we’ve gone fishing?”

  A little curl of anger stirred inside her. He’d avoided discussing transitioning some of his patients to her, as if he didn’t want to give them up, as if he didn’t think she could hack it. This man was getting on her nerves.

  “Stop making light of the situation, Zach. We’d get more done here working in the dark than we would after we’ve been out on the lake in a boat.”

  The humor faded from his eyes. “I’m sorry, Dr. Layman. You’re right. It was a bad idea. If you want to talk about the patients, we can do that from home. We don’t need the internet or access to the hospital network. We’ll do it low-tech. I’ll give you thumbnail sketches of our patient roster and you can choose the ones you consider the best fit. Is that acceptable?”

  “Yes.” She was ashamed of losing her temper. It was unprofessional. She hated appearing unprofessional. “Yes, I agree that would be a better solution. We should have done it days ago.”

  “In a perfect world we would have. This is not a perfect world. I’ll be over at eight.”

  “Eight?” She’d hoped she might be able to sleep in for an hour or so in the morning.

  “Improvise, adapt, overcome, Dr. Layman. Remember? I still plan on goin
g fishing. So the earlier we get started, the earlier we get done.” He gave her a two-fingered mock salute and strolled off toward his office, leaving Callie without a word to say.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CALLIE SAT QUIETLY, moving the base of the old-fashioned garden swing with her feet, letting the sunlight shining through the leaves of the big maple in her mother’s yard dance against her closed eyelids.

  She had never imagined her mother would end up returning to White Pine Lake, and certainly not to the farm her bachelor-farmer great-uncle had left her. But as always, Karen Freebeing—the name she had chosen for herself when she joined a commune in Oregon—had defied expectations and done just that, raising Angora goats and free-range chickens, and making videos of her off-the-grid lifestyle that were surprisingly popular and even profitable.

  Today Callie was just very glad to have a place to get away from the clinic—and Zach Gibson.

  High summer was her favorite season on the farm. The warm breeze whispered overhead, in the distance a tractor started up in a neighboring field, but it was a long way off and didn’t interfere with her drowsy thoughts. In the paddock by the barn, her mother’s Angora goats grazed, the babies bleating in high-pitched alarm whenever their mothers drifted too far away. Closer by, bees buzzed among the flowers, and the long-handled well-pump creaked and groaned as it settled a little in its sleep.

  A nap would be nice, just a quick one. She hadn’t been sleeping all that well. The duplex seemed smaller than she remembered and the soundproofing not quite as good. On some level, she seemed to always be aware of the man on the other side of the dividing wall. So it was nice to have a couple of hours to unwind after the hectic morning of electrical malfunctions and yet more rearranging of schedules and appointments at the clinic. She had to admit she was looking forward to the day off tomorrow, at least the part that would come after her meeting with Zach Gibson.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Karen said, setting a tray of lemonade and a crockery bowl of popcorn down on a rusty wrought-iron table beside the swing.

  “Oh, Mom, I didn’t hear you coming. I must have dozed off for a minute or two.”

  “You work too hard. You always have. You should slow down and smell the roses.”

  “I am taking your advice, although it’s mint I smell and not roses.”

  “The Girls have been looking for grubs in the mint patch, I suspect.”

  “Yes, they have. They’ve been giving me the evil eye ever since I sat down here.”

  “Must be Miss Fancy Pants and Evangeline, then. This swing is their favorite spot.” Her mother’s Buff Orpington chickens all had names and, Karen swore, personalities. They were pets as well as a source of income. Karen sold their eggs and they also starred in a series of their own videos.

  “They don’t take kindly to trespassers,” Callie said as she accepted the cold glass of lemonade and scooted over a little to make room for her mother on the glider. When Karen sat down, the glider swayed harder, and Callie held out her vintage water-lily-patterned glass to keep lemonade from splashing over the edge.

  “Sorry,” Karen said. “I’ve put on a couple of pounds the last few weeks. Too much strawberry shortcake.” Her mother was tall and long-legged, full-figured but not overweight. She favored long skirts, peasant blouses, and vests and sweaters she knitted herself from the fiber of her goats. Her hair was long and straight and today she had it piled on top of her head, held in place by a leather-covered comb.

  The two big red-gold hens they’d been discussing bustled forward from beneath the sunflowers and began eating the popcorn kernels Karen tossed to them.

  “Mmm, the lemonade is wonderful,” Callie said, closing her eyes as she savored the cool drink. “Just what I needed to sweeten my day.”

  “You’re welcome to move in here if being too close to J.R.’s new wife and kids is too much of a strain.”

  “It’s not Ginger and the twins that are stressing me out.” That wasn’t precisely the truth, but close enough. “And you know you and I are too different to get along well even in a house this size.”

  Karen didn’t press the invitation. Their relationship had improved as Callie matured. In her own way Karen had done her best to make amends for the years she’d been away, and Callie had done her best to try to forget how much her mother’s desertion had hurt. But there was still a thin, transparent barrier between them, and so far neither of them had made an attempt to strip it completely away. Perhaps they never would.

  “What possessed that man?” Bitterness seeped into Karen’s tone and she threw the next handful of popcorn hard enough that the kernels overshot the hens and landed in an overturned bushel basket planted with yellow and white daisies and pink waterfall petunias. The chickens clucked in annoyance.

  Callie didn’t have to ask what Karen meant. “He fell in love with her, Mom.”

  “And where has it gotten him? Fifty years old and about to become a father again. He’s the laughingstock of White Pine Lake—”

  “Mom, change the subject.” She wasn’t going to go that route with her mother today. She suspected that Karen was still a tiny bit in love with J.R. But there was no going back for any of them and Callie had stopped indulging the fantasy of reuniting her parents many years ago.

  Karen sighed and patted Callie’s hand. “Sorry, baby. Letting the bad vibes get the better of me today. I should fire up the sauna and indulge myself in a good purging. What’s on your agenda for the weekend?”

  “House hunting,” Callie said, although she hadn’t actually planned on it until that moment.

  “Hmm,” Karen said, aiming the next handful of popcorn so it fell like a puffy white shower on top of the hens’ heads. “Too close for comfort with Doc Hottie on the other side of the wall, huh?”

  “What are you talking about?” Callie hoped she wasn’t blushing. “No, it’s not Zach. Well, mostly it’s not Zach. The duplex is income property, after all, and sort of out of my price range now that it’s high season.” She could afford the rent on the duplex for a couple of months, but as she suspected he would, her father had refused to accept it. “And besides, it’s too small.”

  “Too small? Don’t try to flimflam me.” Her mother rolled her eyes. “It’s Zach. He’s a hottie,” Karen repeated, fanning herself with one hand. “Every premenopausal woman within twenty miles flocks to him for sympathy and hand-holding. And a bunch of the older ones who ought to know better, too.”

  Callie took a moment to consider what her mother had just said. Karen had spoken lightly and more than half-teasingly, but there was probably a lot of truth in her observation about the town’s ladies. She wondered how Zach handled the unwanted attention. Very professionally, she was certain, and probably with good humor, she admitted grudgingly to herself, but would he be trying to transfer a gaggle of disappointed female patients onto her shoulders? Did he want her to take them to avoid the hassle and not because he recognized her skill? She would have to make it perfectly clear to him that she wanted a mix of patients of all ages and both sexes, not just women’s care. She would have to be very firm on that point when they met in the morning.

  “Of course, if he was in a relationship, they wouldn’t be quite so pushy,” Karen continued, and Callie caught herself tilting her head just slightly to listen to what her mother had to say.

  “He’s dating someone?” She wished she had enough self-control not to ask the question but she didn’t.

  “Not that I’m aware of,” Karen admitted. “And I would have heard, believe me. The gossip chain in this town moves at the speed of light.”

  “I don’t know anything about him, really,” Callie confessed. “Just little things. He grew up in California and served as a navy medic attached to a Marine unit for two tours in Afghanistan. That’s how he met Rudy and eventually ended up here.”

  Karen nodded
. “I don’t think he has family, or if he does they are all out west. He eats most of his meals out. That’s another favorite pastime for the older women in town, feeding him. As for some of the younger ones, like I said, it’s not his stomach they’re interested in.” She sighed a little wistfully. “Although I have to admit it’s a very nice flat one. And those shoulders—”

  “Hang on, Mom, I’m getting up,” Callie said, forestalling any more comments on Zach Gibson’s physique. She put one foot onto the floor of the glider and the other on the ground before she scooted off the seat. The glider rocked, forcing her to take a quick step to avoid landing with her face in a pot of nasturtiums. “I will never get the hang of getting out of this thing,” she grumbled.

  “You’re going already? I hoped to talk you into staying for supper.” Karen sounded disappointed.

  “I promised Dad I’d have supper with him and Ginger and the kids,” she said cautiously. She had to be careful how she handled these kinds of situations with her mother. Luckily she’d had a lot of practice over the years. “I haven’t spent any more time with them than I have with you this week.” She wasn’t overly thrilled about the prospect of making small talk with her stepmother and stepsiblings after the day she’d had, but she hadn’t been able to refuse the invitation, just as she hadn’t been able to convince her conscience that a visit to her mother could wait a few more days. “I’ll come out any day next week you want me.”

  Karen’s expression lightened. “The kale is ready to pick and I’ve been hungry for creamed kale and new potatoes.”

  Callie made a little face. Karen rolled her eyes. “All right, I’ll add some ham. How does that sound?”