The Doctor's Forever Family

by Marie Ferrarella

  He didn’t see how looking up at the sky could be constituted as fun.

  Tina could almost read his thoughts. It amazed her how in tune she was with this man.

  “You can make a whole evening of it,” she said, trying to convince him. “Pack a picnic basket, drive into a field, throw a blanket on your car and just lie across the hood and lean back on the windshield, looking up.” Tina called it by its official name. “Stargazing,” she explained. “You should try it sometime.”

  Actually, it didn’t sound half-bad, he decided. “I’ll need a guide.”

  Was he asking her out in a roundabout fashion? The next moment, she told herself that she was letting her imagination get carried away. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Her smile dimpled her cheeks. “Hard to miss an open field and stars, though.”

  “Everything’s better with company,” he reminded her. Dan watched in fascination as her eyes crinkled.

  “You have a point,” she agreed.

  He had more than that, Dan realized, as he recognized the faint stirrings he felt. It meant he wasn’t as numb as he’d thought he was.

  But having emotions made him feel disloyal to his brother’s memory. He couldn’t forget why he came to Forever and that sooner rather than later he would leave.

  TRUE TO HER WORD, their first stop was the sheriff’s office. Dan rounded the hood quickly and helped Tina out of the car, although she looked as if she’d do just fine without his aid.

  Walking into the single-story building with her, Dan was surprised to be greeted by the deputies as if he’d always been a familiar face around Forever. It nudged at a warmth within him that he’d thought long since atrophied.

  Rick crossed to him, shaking Dan’s hand warmly even though it was less than twenty-four hours since he’d last seen him. “What can I do for Forever’s newest citizen?” he asked.

  Dan didn’t bother correcting the lawman’s misconception. They’d find out soon enough that he wasn’t planning on remaining in the town. Still, he saw no point in a discussion at this point. Whenever a replacement turned up, then he’d tell these people that this was merely just a temporary stop for him.

  For now, there was business to tend to. “Tina said you could lock this up for the night for me.”

  Rick raised a quizzical eyebrow. “And this would be?”

  In response, Tina deposited the contents of the manila envelope onto his desk.

  “This,” she elaborated.

  Rick stared at the pile of money. “You have a little thing going on the side, robbing banks?” he asked wryly.

  “My office manager remembered to charge people for coming in,” Dan explained before he realized that the sheriff was only kidding.

  Rick laughed and clapped him on the back. “I’ll take care of it,” Rick assured him, sweeping the cash back into the envelope. And then he stopped as a thought occurred to him. “You want a receipt?”

  Dan shook his head. “No need. I trust you,” he said as he left the office with Tina. He thought of something as they walked out onto the sidewalk. “If everyone’s so honest around here, why do we even need to lock up the money until morning?”

  “Well, there’s such a thing as too much temptation,” she told him. “Some of the people around here aren’t as well off as others and they could really use a hand up to get by. But, for the most part, you’re right. The money would be safe left in your drawer.”

  “Then why did we just bring it to your brother-in-law?”

  “Mostly for your benefit,” she said honestly. “I figured being from New York City and all, you wouldn’t sleep right knowing there was all that money lying around downstairs, calling out to every burglar in a fifty-mile radius.” She managed to state the whole thing without grinning, but it hadn’t been easy.

  “You’re making fun of me,” Dan accused genially.

  Tina saw no point in denying it.

  “I am,” she agreed, “but only a little bit.” She held up her thumb and index finger, keeping them less than an inch apart to show him just how little.

  He liked the way humor lit up her eyes. Dan had more than a sneaking suspicion that nothing in the night sky, even in this rural place, could compete with it.

  Chapter Nine

  At approximately six-thirty in the evening, the diner was doing a brisk amount of business, but there were still a couple of empty booths to be had. Because this was her territory, Dan let the woman who had bailed him out today pick out a table.

  As he followed behind Tina, he found his path littered with cheerful greetings sent his way. At first, he thought the hails were all directed at Tina, but when a senior citizen on a counter stool specifically used his name when he extending his greeting, Dan realized that the people in the diner were saying hello to him, as well.

  The entire scenario made him think of a scene directly out of a popular classic sitcom where everyone was purported to “know your name,” uttering a greeting the moment someone walked through the establishment’s door. Behavior like that was foreign to him. One day here and everyone acted as if he’d been born and bred in the town.

  The New Yorker in him found it suspect. But another, small part, the part that had been the man to whom Warren had looked up to, had to admit that he was somewhat warmed by the genial atmosphere.

  The moment they sat down at the table, Miss Joan made a beeline for the booth to take their orders herself. Or rather, to take his order.

  “I already know what you’ll be having,” she told Tina, making a quick note on the small, old-fashioned pad she kept in the pocket of her apron. “She has the same thing every night when she eats here,” Miss Joan whispered to him in the spirit of sharing a confidence.

  Dan looked at Tina, raising a curious eyebrow. Waiting to be enlightened.

  “It’s chicken salad on rye,” Tina confessed. She lifted her slim shoulders in a half shrug, then let them fall again. “What can I say? I’m dull.”

  Dull, he thought, was not a word he’d use to describe her. If anything, she struck him as the exact opposite. There was something very stirring about her that he hadn’t quite been able to put into words. Maybe it was better that way.

  “Stable and dependable,” Miss Joan was saying, erasing the word Tina had used to label herself. “Nothing wrong with that. Besides, I make a pretty mean chicken salad sandwich,” she told Dan with pride.

  “All right, then make that two,” Dan said. Closing the menu, he surrendered it back to Miss Joan.

  Tina glanced at her watch and frowned. “Maybe you’d better wrap mine up to go, Miss Joan.” The latter looked at her in question. “I really should be getting back to look in on Bobby and take him home.”

  “Don’t you worry about him. Bobby’s doing just fine,” Miss Joan assured her. “I just called your sister not fifteen minutes ago to check on him. He’s back to his old self. Got so much energy he’s wearing her out, Livy told me. So sit. Eat,” the woman instructed in a no-nonsense voice that wasn’t to be questioned or challenged. “Catch your breath. Bobby’ll still be there when you finish your dinner.”

  “I’m not all that sure if Olivia will be,” Tina commented. These days, it was all Olivia could do to drag herself through her day. With one more month of pregnancy to go, her sister was more than ready to have the baby now and get back to her old self.

  “It’s good practice for her,” Miss Joan tossed over her shoulder as she started walking back to the counter. “Lets her know what she’s going to be in for. She’ll be a mama in less than a month,” was the woman’s parting comment.

  Shaking her head, Tina laughed softly under her breath. “She keeps closer tabs on Olivia’s pregnancy than Olivia does,” she commented to Dan.

  He found her smile to be warm, appreciative and completely captivating as she added, “I think Miss Joan’s practically adopted all three of us.”

  Certainly sounded like that to him, he thought. Curiosity nudged at him, prompting him to ask, “Doesn’t she have any family of he
r own?”

  Tina thought for a moment, then shook her head. “I know she’s buried a few husbands but I’ve never heard anything about her having any children, which is really a shame. She’s so good with Bobby.”

  “It’s easier being good with other people’s kids. If something doesn’t go right, you’re free to back away and give the kid back to his parents,” he said.

  “That’s awfully cynical, Daniel,” she observed.

  This was the first time she’d used his name. He liked the sound when she said it. But his opinion on the matter didn’t change.

  “It’s a cynical world, Tina,” he countered.

  “No, it’s not,” she contradicted stubbornly. “It’s what you choose to make it.”

  Silent for a moment, Dan studied the woman sitting across from him. She really believed what she said. Outside of Warren, he hadn’t thought they made selfless and optimistic people like that anymore. People who obviously focused on only the good in their fellow human beings.

  Maybe there was something in the water, he thought, amusement tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  Miss Joan came by to bring them both coffee and then returned a second time with the promised sandwiches. The latter, he discovered after a single bite, actually did turn out to be the best chicken salad he’d ever eaten. The woman hadn’t exaggerated.

  They chatted through the meal and he found Tina exceedingly easy to talk to. It was hard to believe that a couple of days ago, he hadn’t even known that she existed.

  Fortunately for him, the conversation was so effortless and engaging because he slowly became aware of the fact that, for all intents and purposes, he seemed to be on display in the diner.

  Whenever he glanced around, he caught someone blatantly watching him. A few did it so intently as to scrutinize his every move. Either that, or doing their damnedest to piece together what he was saying to Tina from across the room.

  “Do people read lips around here?” he asked, leaning forward so that only Tina could hear him. He deliberately placed his hand so that it blocked a clear view of his mouth.

  Which only seemed to draw her attention to it, Tina thought. He had a nice mouth. A generous one. She caught herself wondering what it felt like, having that mouth pressed against hers.

  She forced herself to focus on his rather strange question instead. “Miss Joan does, but I don’t know about anyone else,” Tina replied. “Why?”

  Again his eyes swept around the area. A few people made eye contact and actually waved at him. What was that about, he wondered. “Because they’re watching us so intently, I thought maybe they were trying to read our lips.”

  Tina smiled indulgently. He didn’t understand. But he would. Eventually.

  “You’re new here. People are trying to find out whatever they can about you. As the ‘mystery’ man, it’s only natural that you’d be the object of curiosity. You’ve given them something to talk about.” She could see he wasn’t happy about being the center of attention. That meant he had no ego, which was nice. “Don’t worry, they’ll stop looking soon enough.”

  “Was it like that for you?” he asked, curious.

  She didn’t need to think. It hadn’t been all that long ago. “Pretty much. Actually worse,” she amended. “You’re the noble young doctor, here to cure whatever ails them and make them feel good. I, on the other hand, was the single mother whose boyfriend almost wound up killing her.”

  He stopped eating and stared at her, debating whether she was being melodramatic, pulling his leg or telling him the truth. When she didn’t follow up with a grin, he had an uneasy feeling that it was the last choice. “Seriously?”

  She nodded, the picture of solemnity. “Very seriously.”

  Funny, she hadn’t talked about this at all since it happened, not even with Olivia. But something about the look in his eyes just made the floodgates open and the words began to pour out.

  “I had an uneasy feeling that things weren’t exactly right with him and I managed to talk Don into letting me leave our son on Rick’s doorstep—I didn’t even know he was the sheriff at the time. It was just a handy front stoop as we drove out of town.

  “Bobby had been crying for most of the morning and had really gotten on Don’s nerves—not that he was the patient type to begin with. Don kept threatening to ‘shut Bobby up permanently’ if he didn’t stop crying, so it wasn’t too hard to talk him into leaving Bobby behind.”

  Dan watched her incredulously. “And you just put him on a stranger’s doorstep? Just like that?”

  She didn’t know if he was judging her or just trying to understand. “It was either that, or risking having something awful happen to him. I went with the better odds.”

  “Why didn’t you just leave with Bobby?”

  A humorless smile twisted her lips. “Don wouldn’t have liked that,” she told him in a flat voice. “I was desperately trying to keep him from going off around people. At that point, I honestly didn’t know what he was capable of,” Tina admitted.

  She was young, beautiful, intelligent. It didn’t make any sense from where he was sitting. “How did you get mixed up with him in the first place?” he asked.

  There was an ironic glimmer to the smile that came to her lips. “Haven’t you heard? Women have a tendency to fall in love with bad boys. I certainly did. And Don was a prime A example of a bad boy.”

  Dan wondered what she’d say if she knew that he’d had a reputation as being one of those bad boys she was talking about. One of the last women he’d seen as a resident had called him that, saying that was how she knew there was no holding on to him.

  “Most bad boys don’t turn out to be psychopaths,” he pointed out to her. Had she been drawn to this Don person because she had a need to fix things? To heal people who were broken?

  “No, they don’t,” Tina agreed. “But Don was. He was in a class all by himself. After I put Bobby on Rick’s doorstep, Don couldn’t wait to tear out of town. When I asked him where we were going, he got this strange look in his eyes and said we were seeing a friend of his just over the border.

  “When he wouldn’t tell me the guy’s name, we got into an argument and suddenly Don’s stepping down hard on the gas, driving straight toward a tree. When I screamed for him to stop, he laughed and said it was too late. We were going out in a blaze of glory.”

  A shiver worked its way down her spine as she recalled the awful events of that day and the terror that had gone through her. She’d been positive she would die in the middle of nowhere, going eighty miles an hour with a man who’d become unhinged.

  “I have no idea why he said that or what came over him,” she admitted. “One minute, Don could be almost sweet, the next, completely deranged.” She shrugged, pushing the entire haunting incident away as she took a deep, cleansing breath. “Anyway, the good thing to come out of that was that Olivia and I wound up living here instead of Dallas.”

  It was obvious that she’d skipped a few sections in her narrative. “Just how did you go from A to B?” he asked her. “From Dallas to here?” Dan added.

  “Olivia was looking for me—Don and I and the baby were living with her in her apartment at the time. I didn’t think she’d come looking for me because all we did was argue whenever she was around. I was pretty horrible to her at the time,” she acknowledged. She still felt guilty about that. “Olivia raised me when our parents were killed so I guess I just rebelled against her because she was my mother figure.”

  Tina pressed her lips together. All that had happened right before Thanksgiving last year. She’d done a lot of growing up since then. She vowed she would spend the rest of her life trying to make it up to her sister for what she’d put her through.

  “When we took off, I didn’t know that Don had stolen some of her jewelry, but I found out pretty fast.” And was horrified that he’d stolen from her sister. “At the time I was cynical enough to think that she came after him because of the jewelry. I know better now.” Her mouth soften
ed as she said, “Olivia came looking for us because she loved Bobby and me and because she knew that Don wasn’t any good for either of us. When we were growing up, Olivia had an annoying habit of always being right.” Tina sighed. “And this was no different. She was right about Don. Right about a lot of things. She told me I was better off without him and she was so right about that.” Tina toyed with her napkin as she spoke, folding and unfolding it. “Looking back, it was like having a cancer cut out. Without Don bringing me down, the world suddenly became a lot brighter.”

  She seemed so down to earth. He tried to picture her driving around the country with an out-of-control boyfriend, and failed. He supposed that people could change, even drastically, given the right set of circumstances.

  “Was it Olivia who decided you should live here?” he asked.

  It wasn’t exactly linear, Tina remembered with a smile. They’d both returned to Dallas first—and Livy discovered she was absolutely miserable that far away from the sheriff with the sexy smile.

  “After Rick came and got her, yes. He came all the way up to Dallas and told her he was willing to change his life around to be with her.” Affection entered her voice. “That was when my big sister decided that a man like that was too good to let get away. And, the truth of it was, Forever had impressed her even though she hadn’t wanted to let it. It impressed both of us,” she admitted. “This is a great place to raise a baby.”

  By that she was referring to her son, he gathered. “Bobby,” he said out loud.

  Tina nodded. “Bobby. And the baby that Livy’s expecting.”

  Dan laughed shortly. “I get the feeling you’re leaving things out again.”

  “Yes, but that’s a story for another time.” Placing the napkin on the table, she smoothed it out as if it might be used again. “Right now, I really do have to be getting back.”

  Her car was still parked by the clinic. “I’ll take you to your car,” he told her, the tone of his voice telling her that this wasn’t up for debate.

  Dan looked around for Miss Joan and spotted her at the far end of the counter. Despite the distance, she was apparently one of the people given to observing him—and Tina. Catching her eye, he raised his hand to draw her over to their table.