The Doctor's Not-So-Little Secret

by Cindy Kirk

  Abby gave her a searching look and Melissa couldn’t help thinking that even with the worry lines on her forehead, Abby seemed to glow tonight.

  “It is about them, isn’t it?” Abby murmured. Though Melissa’s arms were full, her sister reached around the plates and cutlery to give her a hug. “Trust me, baby sister. Everything will be just fine.”

  Melissa dearly wanted to believe her and as she returned to the dining room, she did her very best to ignore the ache of fear that something infinitely dear was slipping away.

  * * *

  “Hello? Are you still in there?”

  His friend Greg’s words jerked Josh out of his daze and he glanced up. “Yeah. Sorry. Did you say something?”

  “Only about three times. I’ve been asking your opinion about the champagne and all I’m getting in return is a blank stare. You’re a million miles away, man, which is not really helping out much here.”

  This just might be the most important day of his life. Who could blame a guy if he couldn’t seem to string two thoughts together?

  “Sorry. I’ve got a lot of things on my mind.”

  “And champagne is obviously not one of those things.”

  He made a face. “It rarely is. I’m afraid I’m more of a Sam Adams kind of guy.”

  “I hear you. Why do you think I asked you to come along and help me pick out the wine and champagne for tonight?”

  He had wondered that himself. “Because my car has a bigger trunk?”

  Greg laughed, which eased Josh’s nerves a little. He had to admit, he had liked the guy since he met him a year ago when he first started dating Melissa. Josh was married to Melissa’s sister, Abby, and if things worked out the way he hoped, they would be brothers-in-law in the not-so-distant future.

  “It’s only the six of us for dinner,” Greg reminded him. “I’m not exactly buying cases here. So what do you think?”

  He turned back to the racks of bottles. “No idea. Which one is more expensive?”

  Greg picked one up with a fancy label that certainly looked pricey.

  “Excellent choice.” The snooty clerk who had mostly been ignoring them since they walked in finally deigned to approach them.

  “You think so?” Greg asked. “We’re celebrating a big occasion.”

  “You won’t be disappointed, I assure you. What else can I help you find?”

  Sometime later—and with considerably lightened wallets—the two of them carried two magnums of champagne and two bottles of wine out to Josh’s car.

  “I, uh, need to make one last quick stop,” he said after pulling into traffic. “Do you mind waiting?”

  “No problem. The party doesn’t start for another two hours. We’ve got plenty of time.”

  When Josh pulled up in front of an assuming storefront a few moments later, Greg looked at the sign above the door then back at him with eyebrows raised. “Wow. Seriously? Tonight? I thought Abby was jumping the gun when she said she suspected you were close to proposing. She’s always right, that beautiful wife of mine. Don’t tell her I said that.”

  Josh shifted, uncomfortably aware his fingers were shaking a little as he undid his seatbelt. “I bought the ring two weeks ago. When the jeweler told me it would be ready today, I figured that was a sign.”

  “You’re a brave man to pick a ring out without her.”

  Panic clutched at his gut again, but he took a deep breath and pushed it away. He wanted to make his proposal perfect. Part of that, to his mind, was the element of surprise.

  “I found a bridal magazine at Melissa’s apartment kind of hidden under a stack of books and she had the page folded down on this ring. I snapped a quick picture with my phone and took that in to the jeweler.”

  “Nice.” Greg’s admiring look settled his stomach a little.

  “I figure, if she doesn’t like it, we can always reset the stone, right?”

  “So when are you going to pop the question?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet. I thought maybe when I take her home after the party tonight, we might drive up to that overlook above town.”

  “That could work.”

  “What about you? How did you propose to Abby?”

  “Nothing very original, I’m afraid. I took her to dinner at La Maison Marie. She loves that place. Personally, I think you’re only paying for overpriced sauce, but what can you do? Anyway, after dinner, she kept acting like she was expecting something. I did take her along to shop for rings a few weeks earlier but hadn’t said anything to her since. She seemed kind of disappointed when the dessert came and no big proposal. So we were walking around on the grounds after dinner and we walked past this waterfall and pond she liked. I pretended I tripped over something and did a stupid little magician sleight of hand and pulled out the ring box.”

  “Did you do the whole drop-to-your-knee thing?”

  “Yeah. It seemed important to Abby. Women remember that kind of thing.”

  “I hope I don’t forget that part.”

  “Don’t sweat it. When the moment comes, whatever you do will be right for the two of you, I promise.”

  “I hope so.”

  The depth of his love for Melissa still took him by surprise. He loved her with everything inside him and wanted to give her all the hearts and flowers and romance she could ever want.

  “It will be,” Greg said. “Anyway, look at how lousy Frank and Diane’s marriage started out. Their honeymoon sounded like a nightmare but thirty years later they can still laugh about it.”

  That was what he wanted with Melissa. Thirty years—and more—of laughter and joy and love.

  He just had to get through the proposal first.

  Chapter Two

  by Christine Rimmer

  “Frank. The light is yellow. Frank!” Diana Morgan stomped the passenger-side floor of the Buick. Hard. If only she had the brakes on her side.

  Frank Morgan pulled to a smooth stop as the light went red. “There,” he said, in that calm, deep, untroubled voice she’d always loved. “We’re stopped. No need to wear a hole in the floor.”

  Diana glanced over at her husband of thirty years. She loved him so much. There were a whole lot of things to worry about in life, but Frank’s love was the one thing Diana never doubted. He belonged to her, absolutely, as she belonged to him, and he’d given her two beautiful, perfect daughters. Abby and Melissa were all grown up now.

  The years went by way too fast.

  Diana sent her husband another glance. Thirty years together. Amazing. She still loved just looking at him. He was the handsomest man she’d ever met, even at fifty-seven. Nature had been kind to him. He had all his hair and it was only lightly speckled with gray. She smoothed her own shoulder-length bob. No gray there, either. Her hair was still the same auburn shade it had been when she married him. Only in her case, nature didn’t have a thing to do with it.

  A man only grew more distinguished over the years. A woman had to work at it.

  The light turned green. Frank hit the gas.

  Too hard, Diana thought. But she didn’t say a word. She only straightened her teal-blue silk blouse, re-crossed her legs and tried not to make impatient, worried noises. Frank was a wonderful man. But he drove too fast.

  Abby and her husband, Greg, were having them over for dinner tonight. They were on their way there now—to Abby’s house. Diana was looking forward to the evening. But she was also dreading it. Something was going on with Abby. A mother knows these things.

  And something was bothering Melissa, too. Diana’s younger daughter was still single. She’d been going out with Josh Wright for a year now. It was a serious relationship.

  But was there something wrong between Josh and Melissa? Diana had a sense about these things, a sort of radar for emotional disturbances, especially when it came to her daughters. Right now, tonight, Diana had a suspicion that something wasn’t right—both between Melissa and Josh and between Abby and Greg.

  “Remember Venice?” Frank
gave her a fond glance.

  She smiled at him—and then stiffened. “Frank. Eyes on the road.”

  “All right, all right.” He patiently faced front again. “Remember that wonderful old hotel on the Grand Canal?”

  She made a humphing sound. “It was like the rest of our honeymoon. Nothing went right.”

  “I loved every moment of it,” he said softly.

  She reminded him, “You know what happened at that hotel in Venice, how they managed to lose our luggage somewhere between the front desk and our room. How hard can it be, to get the suitcases to the right room? And it smelled a bit moldy in the bathroom, didn’t you think?”

  “All I remember is you, Diana. Naked in the morning light.” He said it softly. Intimately.

  She shivered a little, drew in a shaky breath and confessed, “Oh, yes. That. I remember that, too.” It was one of the best things about a good marriage. The shared memories. Frank had seen her naked in Venice when they were both young. Together, they had heard Abby’s first laugh, watched Melissa as she learned to walk, staggering and falling, but then gamely picking herself right back up and trying again. Together, they had made it through all those years that drew them closer, through the rough times as well as the happy ones… .

  A good marriage.

  Until very recently, she’d been so sure that Abby and Greg were happy. But were they? Really? And what about Melissa and Josh?

  Oh, Lord. Being a mother was the hardest job in the world. They grew up. But they stayed in your heart. And when they were suffering, you ached right along with them.

  “All right,” Frank said suddenly in an exasperated tone. “You’d better just tell me, Diana. You’d better just say it, whatever it is.”

  Diana sighed. Deeply. “Oh, Frank…”

  “Come on,” he coaxed, pulling to another stop at yet another stoplight—at the very last possible second. She didn’t even stomp the floor that time, she was that upset. “Tell me,” he insisted.

  Tears pooled in her eyes and clogged her throat. She sniffed them back. “I wasn’t going to do it. I wasn’t going to interfere. I wasn’t even going to say a word…”

  He flipped open the armrest and whipped out a tissue. “Dry your eyes.”

  “Oh, Frank…” She took the tissue and dabbed at her lower lid. If she wasn’t careful, her makeup would be a total mess.

  “Now,” Frank said, reaching across to pat her knee. “Tell me about it. Whatever it is, you know you’ll feel better once we’ve talked it over.”

  The light changed. “Go,” she said on a sob.

  He drove on. “I’m waiting.”

  She sniffed again. “I think something’s wrong between Abby and Greg. And not only that, there’s something going on with Melissa, too. I think Melissa’s got…a secret, you know? A secret that is worrying her terribly.”

  “Why do you think something’s going on between Abby and Greg?”

  “I sensed it. You know how sensitive I am— Oh, God. Do you think Abby and Greg are breaking up? Do you think he might be seeing someone else?”

  “Whoa. Diana. Slow down.”

  “Well, I am worried. I am so worried. And Melissa. She is suffering. I can hear it in her voice when I talk to her.”

  “But you haven’t told me why you think there might be something wrong—with Melissa, or between Abby and Greg. Did Abby say something to you?”

  “Of course not. She wants to protect me.”

  “What about Melissa?”

  “What do you mean, what about Melissa?”

  “Well, did you ask her if something is bothering her?”

  Another sob caught in Diana’s throat. She swallowed it. “I couldn’t. I didn’t want to butt in.”

  Frank eased the car to the shoulder and stopped. “Diana,” he said. That was all. Just her name.

  It was more than enough. “Don’t you look at me like that, Frank Morgan.”

  “Diana, I hate to say this—”

  “Then don’t. Just don’t. And why are we stopped? We’ll be late. Even with family, you know I always like to be on time.”

  “Diana…”

  She waved her soggy tissue at him. “Drive, Frank. Just drive.”

  He leaned closer across the console. “Sweetheart…”

  She sagged in her seat. “Oh, fine. What?”

  “You know what you’re doing, don’t you?” He said it gently. But still. She knew exactly what he was getting at and she didn’t like it one bit.

  She sighed and dropped the wadded tissue in the little wastepaper bag she always carried in the car. “Well, I know you’re bound to tell me, now don’t I?”

  He took her hand, kissed the back of it.

  “Don’t try to butter me up,” she muttered.

  “You’re jumping to conclusions again,” he said tenderly.

  “Am not.”

  “Yes, you are. You’ve got nothin’. Zip. Admit it. No solid reason why you think Melissa has a secret or why you think Abby and Greg are suddenly on the rocks.”

  “I don’t need a solid reason. I can feel it.” She laid her hand over her heart. “Here.”

  “You know it’s very possible that what’s really going on is a surprise anniversary party for us, don’t you?”

  Diana smoothed her hair. “What? You mean tonight?”

  “That’s right. Tonight.”

  “Oh, I suppose. It could be.” She pictured their dear faces. She loved them so much. “They are the sweetest girls, aren’t they?”

  “The best. I’m the luckiest dad in the world—not to mention the happiest husband.”

  Diana leaned toward him and kissed him. “You are a very special man.” She sank back against her seat—and remembered how worried she was. “But Frank, if this is a party, it’s still not it.”

  “It?” He looked bewildered. Men could be so thickheaded sometimes.

  Patiently, she reminded him, “The awful, secret things that are going on with our daughters.”

  He bent in close, kissed her cheek and then brushed his lips across her own. “We are going to dinner at our daughter’s house,” he whispered. “We are going to have a wonderful time. You are not going to snoop around trying to find out if something’s wrong with Abby. You’re not going to worry about Melissa.”

  “I hate you, Frank.”

  “No, you don’t. You love me almost as much as I love you.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “More. I love you more.”

  He kissed her again. “Promise you won’t snoop and you’ll stop jumping to conclusions?”

  “And if I don’t, what? We’ll sit here on the side of the road all night?”

  “Promise.”

  “Fine. All right. I promise.”

  He touched her cheek, a lovely, cherishing touch. “Can we go to Abby’s now?”

  “I’m not the one who stopped the car.”

  He only looked at her reproachfully.

  She couldn’t hold out against him. She never could. “Oh, all right. I’ve promised, already, okay? Now, let’s go.”

  With a wry smile, he retreated back behind the wheel and eased the car forward into the flow of traffic again.

  * * *

  Abby opened the door. “Surprise!” Abby, Greg, Melissa and Josh all shouted at once. They all started clapping.

  Greg announced, “Happy Anniversary!” The rest of them chimed in with “Congratulations!” and “Thirty years!” and “Wahoo!”

  Frank was laughing. “Well, what do you know?”

  Diana said nothing. One look in her older daughter’s big brown eyes and she knew for certain that she wasn’t just imagining things. Something was going on in Abby’s life. Something important.

  They all filed into the dining room, where the walls were decorated with posters of the Grand Canal and the Tuscan countryside, of the Coliseum and the small, beautiful town of Bellagio on Lake Como. The table was set with Abby’s best china and tall candles gave a golden glow.

  Greg
said, “We thought, you know, an Italian theme—in honor of your honeymoon.”

  “It’s lovely,” said Diana, going through the motions, hugging first Greg and then Josh.

  “Thank you,” said Frank as he clapped his son-in-law on the back and shook hands with Josh.

  Melissa came close. “Mom.” She put on a smile. But her eyes were as shadowed as Abby’s. “Happy thirtieth anniversary.”

  Diana grabbed her and hugged her. No doubt about it. Melissa looked miserable, too.

  Yes, Diana had promised Frank that she would mind her own business.

  But, well, sometimes a woman just couldn’t keep that kind of promise. Sometimes a woman had to find a way to get to the bottom of a bad situation for the sake of the ones she loved most of all.

  By the end of the evening, no matter what, Diana would find out the secrets her daughters were keeping from her.

  Frank leaned close. “Don’t even think about it.”

  She gave him her sweetest smile. “Happy anniversary, darling.”

  Chapter Three

  by Susan Crosby

  Abby Morgan DeSena and her husband, Greg, had hosted quite a few dinner parties during their three years of marriage, but none as special as this one—a celebration of Abby’s parents’ thirtieth wedding anniversary. Abby and her younger sister, Melissa, had spent weeks planning the Italian-themed party as a sweet reminder for their parents of their honeymoon, and now that the main meal was over, Abby could say, well, so far, so good.

  For someone who planned everything down to the last detail, that was high praise. They were on schedule. First, antipasti and wine in the living room, then chicken cacciatore, crusty bread sticks and green salad in the dining room.

  But for all that the timetable had been met and the food praised and devoured, an air of tension hovered over the six people at the table, especially between Melissa and her boyfriend, Josh, who were both acting out of character.

  “We had chicken cacciatore our first night in Bellagio, remember, Diana?” Abby’s father said to her mother as everyone sat back, sated. “And lemon sorbet in prosecco.”