Family Practice

by Marisa Carroll

  “I can’t go swimming in my clothes.”

  “Why not?” he asked.

  It was impossible.

  Outrageous.

  Not something a respected physician did with her PA.

  At least, not in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. But under the stars on a night when there was no moon, she would love to swim with him.

  She was determined not to reveal how much he’d shaken her. “I don’t think so,” she said forcefully, as though each word was a talisman of some sort to protect her from giving in to what she wanted most to do. Join him.

  “Coward,” he said very softly.

  “I guess I am.” She should feel in control of the conversation. After all, he was gazing up at her from what should have been a subservient position. But she didn’t feel in control. He was much too close yet too far away.

  He surged up out of the water and pivoted on his hands. Now he was close enough to reach out and touch, water dripping from every inch of his muscular, sun-bronzed body. The movement caught her off guard. Their eyes locked. Was he going to kiss her again? Here, where someone watching from a fishing boat or walking along the narrow sand beach might spy them? She hoped he wouldn’t. She hoped he would. His eyes were dark, his expression unreadable. “Want to tell me what’s got you so spooked?”

  Not too long ago she would have put him off with a noncommittal response. Instead she said, “The committee met today. They made me an offer.”

  “Is it one you can’t refuse?”

  She managed a smile. “I haven’t gotten the details. They want to meet with me on Monday.”

  “Don’t let them run roughshod over you.”

  “That’s exactly what my father counseled.”

  “He’s a smart man. They’ll bring up your family’s record of service to the town and plead poverty and make you feel guilty for asking for a living wage.”

  She laughed, relaxing a little. Last night hadn’t been a fluke. They had gotten past some invisible barrier, at least the biggest of the ones between them—trust. She trusted his judgment. She trusted his integrity. She could speak her mind and not fear betrayal. “I’ll do my best. I always have the cruise-ship offer to hold over their heads.”

  “Exactly. Now, how about that swim?”

  His change of subject unsettled her. She had hoped they could go on talking like this, but evidently he wasn’t going to make the final call for her any more than her father had.

  She shook her head. “Cold water does not get rid of cedar pitch.” She spread her arms to show him the streaks of cedar resin on her skin.

  “What were you doing? I thought you were picking vegetables.”

  She explained what had happened with the tree and the change of plan.

  “You’ve got a couple of bad scratches there,” he said. “Better let me put something on them after you shower.”

  She shivered at the mental image of his long, strong fingers stroking her skin. “Thanks,” she said, “but I’m capable of doing that myself.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way, Callie,” he said, his eyebrows drawing together in a slight frown.

  “I know you didn’t,” she said, sighing. “I’m tired. It’s been a long day.”

  “And last night was a long night.”

  “You are okay, aren’t you?” She searched his face. He didn’t seem as haunted and drawn as he had last night, but he did look like a man who was slightly exasperated with her. Oddly enough it didn’t upset her as much as it would have twenty-four hours earlier. She enjoyed being able to knock him off balance once in a while, too.

  “I’m right as rain, and to prove it I’ll fix you supper.”

  “I’m too tired to eat. I’m having my mom’s chips and salsa, then calling it a night.” Suddenly she was exhausted. The adrenaline rush of learning her professional future was assured—if she wanted it—and being this close to Zach, dripping wet and handsome as the dickens, was just too much.

  “Chips and salsa? No way, unless you’re talking appetizers. I’m fixing bluegill fillets and grilled veggies with corn-bread muffins. And ice cream for dessert. I might even have a halfway decent bottle of wine we can open.”

  “I—”

  “Come on, Callie. You have to eat. I have to eat. We might as well do it together.”

  Her willpower deserted her, as it did all too often lately where Zach Gibson was concerned. Oddly enough, so did her exhaustion. “It all sounds delicious. I accept your kind invitation,” she said, inclining her head formally. But a strand of hair worked its way out of the elastic and flopped over her eye, spoiling the effect. He reached out and brushed it away, his touch as light as a dragonfly’s wing. She shivered again but with pleasure. He snatched his hand back but didn’t apologize.

  “Dinner will be ready in half an hour. Or do you need longer?”

  “That will be fine.”

  * * *

  “ANOTHER GLASS of wine?” She had been staring for a couple of minutes at the small amount of pale gold liquid left in her glass as she twirled the stem between her fingers, obviously lost in thought. Zach hadn’t interrupted her reverie, happy to be able to study her intriguing face without her noticing. But at his words, she looked up at him and blinked, and he had to brace himself against the full effect of those amazing, changeable hazel eyes. Greens and browns and flecks of gold, all swirling together like the leaves and needles of the popples, birches and tamaracks in autumn. He wondered how he could have ever considered her looks merely ordinary. Striking was the word he’d use to describe her now.

  “No, thanks. One is enough tonight. I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open.”

  “I’ll take that excuse as a result of your strenuous day and not because you’re eager to call it a night and get me back to my own side of the cabin.” They were eating at her little bistro table in front of the window, watching as the clouds grew low and dark and a light rain advanced in gray sheets across the ruffled surface of the lake. The rain had begun to fall, a whisper-light mist, just as he’d taken the foil-wrapped packets of grilled fresh vegetables and bluegill fillets off the heat.

  He lifted the bottle. “Just a drop?” he coaxed.

  “Just a drop,” she agreed. He poured an ounce or two into the stemware he’d conned out of Mac when he’d dropped off a plastic bag of frozen golden morel mushrooms he’d found in an overgrown cow pasture one May afternoon, and sat the bottle down. “Everything was delicious, thank you. I’m glad my being late didn’t spoil anything.”

  “That’s the great thing about propane grills,” he said, stretching his legs out in front of him. She had her legs crossed at the knee, swinging one foot. She was wearing strappy little sandals and the pale pink polish on her toes matched her fingernails. Her lips were a darker shade of pink and very, very kissable. “You never have to worry about the coals not being ready.”

  He had outdone himself in the culinary department tonight, he decided with a little mental chest-thumping. The fillets were flaky and moist, the veggies just right and the corn bread some of the best he’d ever made. He’d even scored a couple of points with the choice of ice cream—black walnut. He owed Mac for that tidbit of information.

  “I was a couple minutes late because I got another phone call.”

  “Want to tell me about it?” He tightened his hand on the wine bottle instead of letting go. Who had she been talking to? A patient? A friend? Another man?

  “It was my dad calling again. He’s decided to attend the meeting Monday to lend moral support. He knows Ezra Colliflower has been a boogeyman in my life since I was a little girl.”

  “I’d be surprised if J.R. could stay away.”

  She smiled and his heart slammed against his chest wall. “That’s not all he had to say. It seems my grandparents are on their way here from
Arizona. They left this morning. They should be arriving sometime Tuesday afternoon.”

  “Didn’t Eno say they weren’t planning to visit for another couple of months?” He’d never met J.R. Senior and his wife, Evelyn.

  Her hair, still damp and smelling of lavender shampoo, was pulled up in an untidy knot on top of her head, a more casual style than she allowed herself during office hours. As it dried, soft, curling tendrils had begun escaping all around the nape of her neck. She looked relaxed and content, sexy and sweet all at once. A far cry from the uptight, humorless woman who had arrived in the midst of the office flood a month before. “My grandmother says she never expected to be lucky enough to have another grandbaby, and she wants to be here when he or she is born. They’re flying into Marquette and they’ll stay with my grandmother’s cousins. They have a place on the far side of the lake.”

  “You’re glad they’re coming, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said, her smile luminous.

  “And by the time they get here, you’ll be able to tell them you’re home for good.” He didn’t quite make it a question but she responded as if he had.

  “Yes,” she said simply, her eyes fixed on his face. “I’ll be here.”

  “Despite the rough couple of weeks we’ve had between us?”

  “Despite that.”

  He fought to hide a rush of adrenaline. She was staying. “I’m glad to hear that.” He didn’t say any more, afraid he might yet scare her off. She went on talking about her grandparents.

  “Although, if I’d taken the cruise-ship offer, I could see my grandmother dragging my grandfather on a sailing trip. She generally gets what she wants that way.”

  “And you also won’t have to keep worrying about how to explain to them about Eno’s condition without breaking doctor-patient confidentiality.”

  Her smile faded and her eyes grew troubled. “Is it wrong of me to be relieved that the news will come from Eno and Miriam themselves? I’ve been so torn. It’s been difficult not to confide in my dad these past days.”

  “No one wants to be the bearer of bad news, Callie. Having an M.D. behind your name doesn’t inoculate you from that.”

  “It’s going to be hard on all of them. They’ve been friends for so very many years.”

  “You’ll be there for them. And your dad will, too.”

  She ran her finger around the rim of the wineglass. “Yes, I’ll be here for them,” she said, and for him, for them both, it was a reaffirmation of her decision to stay in White Pine Lake. There should be bells and whistles, confetti, balloons dropping. Instead they sat quietly and went on talking. “It seems strange, though, being the grown-up, the one who knows the secrets. I’m not sure I like it.”

  “It’s never easy, that part of our work.”

  “No, it’s not. But there’s the baby coming. That will take their minds off Eno’s illness.”

  “How do Ginger and your grandmother get along?”

  “Well enough. My grandparents haven’t been home much these past couple of years.” Callie tapped her foot against the table leg, the only sign of agitation she let come to the surface. “With my mom, it’s another story. She and Grandma are oil and water. But I don’t want to go there tonight.”

  He longed to reach out and take her in his arms, gather her close and take her cares away. Callie was a healer, a fixer. Her family meant more to her than anything. He wished he could promise her that she’d be able to make everything all right, to make them into one big, happy blended family, as she wished. But he knew she probably wouldn’t succeed. There were too many competing personalities, too many old hurts and new allegiances.

  Finally she said, “Ginger can hold her own with Grandma. It’s funny, if you’d asked me that question a few weeks ago, I would have answered exactly the opposite, but not anymore. My stepmother’s got a spine. I’ve been underestimating her, I’m sorry to say.”

  “Are you and Ginger becoming friends?”

  “We’re not quite there yet, but I hope we soon will be.”

  Her eyes slid toward the window. “It’s almost dark. What time is it? I must have left my watch on the sink.”

  “It’s going on ten.”

  “Goodness, it’s getting late. I’m keeping you up.”

  He laughed; he couldn’t help it. “Callie, it’s Saturday night. I won’t go to bed for a couple of hours.”

  She laughed, too. “Are you heading over to the White Pine for karaoke?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Thanks again for a wonderful dinner.” She stood up and he recognized his cue to leave. It was still raining softly, and the twilight had deepened to true night. Lightning flickered on the horizon and thunder rumbled far out over the dunes. She scanned his face, gauging his mood. He met her scrutiny head-on as he rose from his chair.

  “I’m fine, Callie,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about me, too.”

  She smiled a little tremulously. “Did I have my doctor face on?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “If it storms, it won’t bother you tonight?”

  “They almost never do anymore. Last night was the exception, not the rule. But you could come with me anyway.”

  She studied his face a moment longer. “You’re teasing me again. Please don’t. We should say good-night.” If her eyes had been as sure as her voice, he would have followed her bidding, but they weren’t.

  He couldn’t restrain himself any longer. He reached out and took her into his arms.

  “I’m falling in love with you, Callie.”

  Her eyes widened with alarm. “No, don’t say that.”

  “Why? I know what I want, and I want you. For now. For always.”

  She put her fingers to his lips. “Please, don’t. We have so many things to work out between us. There’s so much we have to learn yet about each other.”

  “I know what I need to.”

  “Zach, how can you be so sure? All we do is argue. How can we work on a personal relationship when we’re still finding our way with our professional one?”

  His lips twitched. “Making up will be one of the perks of our relationship. Tell me you love me, Callie. Because you do.”

  “I can’t,” she said, her eyes shimmering with tears she was too proud to let fall. “I’m not ready. I’ve already made one momentous decision today. That’s my limit.” She tried to smile. “It’s not in my nature to be wild and spontaneous. I don’t go cliff diving or bungee jumping or believe in love at first sight.”

  “I believe in love at first sight. And so does your dad. You’re his daughter.”

  “I’m also uptight and straitlaced. You’ve pointed that out to me more than once.”

  He shook his head, making no attempt to hide his smile. “Deep down you’re the opposite of straitlaced. You’re filled with all kinds of spontaneity and even a tiny bit of mischief.”

  “I’m never spontaneous. I’ve been taught to keep my distance, to look at every possibility, to never take risks. You trust your instincts. You act on them. I can’t do that.” She took a deep breath. “Not yet.”

  “Aren’t some things worth making a leap of faith? Aren’t we worth it?”

  He lowered his head and kissed her long and hungrily. At last she did what he wanted her to do and melted against him. But her hands were still caught between them, denying him that last sweet intimacy.

  “Promise me you’ll think about it, Callie. About us.”

  “I promise.” She reached up on tiptoe and laid her mouth against his.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE KISS WENT ON and on. Callie’s heart beat in rhythm with Zach’s. Stars began to sparkle behind her eyelids because she had forgotten to take a breath, and her ears were ringing like choir bells. Still, she leaned int
o the kiss and yielded to the strength and comfort of his body. All the barriers she’d erected to keep distance between the two of them, between Zach and her heart, all the arguments she’d just put forth suddenly seemed as insubstantial as mist on the lake. They could make this work. She could have it all. Zach and her career and a family, all here, in White Pine Lake, as she’d always dreamed. Zach lifted his head and she could breathe again. The stars winked out as she opened her eyes, but the ringing in her ears didn’t stop. “Uh-oh,” he said. “It’s your phone.”

  “What?” She blinked and took a step away from his intoxicating nearness. The temperature hadn’t changed but she felt chilled the moment she left his arms. She shivered. “I should answer it.” She gathered her scattered wits. “I have to answer it.”

  Zach nodded, picked up her cell from the table and handed it to her. “Dr. Layman.” She answered automatically before she registered the caller ID number.

  “Callie.” It was her mother’s voice, breathless and filled with pain. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry to be calling so late.”

  “It’s not late, Mom,” she said calmly, though her heart had begun to beat hard again, and not because of the pleasure of being held in Zach’s arms. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ve done the stupidest thing. I’ve broken my wrist. At least, I think it’s broken. It hurts so much.”

  “What happened?” Callie was already looking around for her purse and the keys to her Jeep. “Did you fall?” Had she been out in the barn this late at night? Or had she tripped in the house? Falling with the hands outstretched was the most common way to break a wrist.

  “No. No, I didn’t fall. When it started to rain, I went to shut the window in the dining room and the spring came out of the pin and the window dropped on my hand.” The farmhouse had old-fashioned, heavy wooden double-hung windows that stayed open with metal pins that were spring-loaded and fit into small holes drilled into the frame. If the pins released unexpectedly and were not eased down, the window dropped with a great deal of force. “My wrist is swollen. I can’t move my fingers and it hurts so badly.” She sounded as if she might cry.