Sandcastles Under the Christmas Moon

by Vickie McKeehan

  “A doctor who made house calls?”

  “Yep. Sounds hard to believe these days, but back then that’s what country doctors did. They delivered babies at home, stitched up major cuts there, or doled out meds from their little black bag, no office visit required.”

  “Must’ve been nice having a dad like that.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about yours?”

  “Mine had to work a lot. But sometimes when he had a day off he’d take me to the beach right over there.” Beckham pointed to a sandy strip of ground. “We’d bring a cooler filled with drinks and some sandwiches and spend all afternoon building sandcastles.”

  “He sounds like a great father.”

  “Yeah, he was pretty good while he was around.”

  All at once Beckham got a pull on his line. “I think I snagged something!”

  “Looks like. Hold tight and reel him in.”

  When a bright olive and blue fish popped to the surface, Beckham squealed in delight. “Look at that. It’s so big and almost too pretty to eat.”

  “Want to toss him back?”

  “No. Do you?”

  Quentin grinned as he unhooked it from the line. “Not really. Tandy said rockfish make a tasty meal.”

  “We should at least find out, right?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “I don’t know how to clean it, though.”

  “We’ll figure it out…later after we’ve caught more.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that. Let me bait the hook this time. I watched you earlier. I think I can do it by myself.”

  “Give it a try.”

  “What’s it like back in Tahoma?”

  “Beautiful scenery, but cold in the winter. So much snow you can pick any mountain and spend hours skiing. Ever been?”

  “Nah, I’m not very athletic.”

  “It’s never too late to learn. Maybe we’ll go sometime.”

  They caught one more rockfish and a couple of lingcod.

  From the boardwalk, Sydney watched Quentin interact with a skinny brown-haired boy. And realized how good he seemed to be with kids. She decided there was no time like the present to eat a little crow.

  “Who’s your friend, Dr. Blackwood?”

  Quentin’s eyes widened when he spotted her standing behind them. He zeroed in on her pair of mint green shorts that showed off her tanned legs. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s a public pier. I was out for a walk. Besides, I thought I needed to apologize to you for my behavior last night. I was way out of line.”

  “What changed your mind overnight?”

  “About ten minutes after you walked off I realized I’m not interested in finding a new job. I like the one I have. I’d like to try to work through this and start over.”

  “If that’s an apology, I accept. This is Beckham Dowling.”

  “Nice to meet you, Beckham.”

  “Sure. Same here. Why is it you don’t like the doc very much?”

  Sydney’s cheeks blushed red. “I’ve explained that Dr. Blackwood and I just got off on the wrong foot. Sometimes that happens with adults, misunderstandings and all occur even when you try your best to get along. If we’re okay for tomorrow, then I should be getting back to the house. I left bread baking in the oven.”

  “You bake your own bread?” Beckham asked.

  “Sometimes.”

  “It was nice of you to hunt me up,” Quentin said with a nod. “I’ll see you bright and early Monday morning.”

  After a few more hours, they’d caught several surf perches and a couple of calico bass.

  “I have to call it quits, Beckham. I have to go to a dinner at Doc’s house.”

  “Then what will we do with all this fish?”

  “You mean after we clean them? You’re taking them home and having a fish fry for your grandmother.”

  Beckham beamed from ear to ear. “I could do that. Don’t you want any?”

  “Why don’t you bring me some of what you cook up…later. You do know how to cook, right?”

  “I make a mean mac and cheese. And I fix sandwiches. But I’m not sure I know how to fry a fish.”

  “It’s easy.” Quentin proceeded to walk him through the steps that would assure a tasty grilled result. “And remember, there’s no such thing as too much batter or too much butter. Don’t be stingy with the butter for a crispy taste.”

  Six

  To go to Doc’s house for dinner, Quentin showered and put on clean clothes, clothes that didn’t smell like he’d spent the past hour scaling and boning fish.

  Doc lived north of town with his wife, Belle, on a ten-acre spread where he could keep his horses, and go fishing in the pond he’d stocked.

  As Quentin crawled out of his Woodie, he didn’t have time to admire the lay of the land before two huge dogs bounded up wearing lopsided grins. The mastiffs used their tongues to slobber friendly kisses all over his trousers.

  “They don’t mean any harm,” Jack hollered from the porch.

  “Good thing, since I’d already be down for the count if they meant to attack me, no doubt overpowered by a pair of massive jaws. You have great taste in guard dogs.”

  “These two? They’re as docile as babies. Meet Fanning and Bennett.”

  “Interesting names.”

  “There’s a story behind them. About two years ago, one of our vets, Keegan Bennett, found a pair of pups abandoned in a box, dumped at Wilder State Park just about starved to death. She and Cord, the other vet and her husband, nursed them back to health. Once the pooches were ready for a home, Keegan sweet-talked Belle into taking them. Belle wanted their names to reflect the two veterinarians so...”

  Quentin took turns giving both canines rubs behind their ears. “When you’re the town doctor you really do get involved with the people on every level.” He realized for the first time in four weeks he was looking forward to that kind of interface. He’d missed the intricacies of living in a small town.

  “You bet. Come on in. Just for you, Belle’s made her infamous pork roast with homemade biscuits. And there’s enough to feed an army.”

  With the dogs underfoot, Quentin hung up his jacket in the entryway and glanced around. “So this is what a real home looks like that isn’t under construction.”

  “How’s that coming along?” Jack asked.

  “Slow.”

  “Am I glad to see you,” Belle crooned as she walked out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. “You, Dr. Blackwood, are my hero, taking this practice off Jack’s hands is a godsend and I don’t intend to ever forget what you’re doing for us.”

  “So you’ve said about twenty times,” Quentin uttered with a grin. “As I recall, you did promise me a generous bonus. Part of the deal is you throw in home-cooked Sunday dinners for the first six months. This one doesn’t count. I’m depending on those meals, Belle, for survival.”

  Belle hooted with laughter and waved the rag in her hand. “Don’t you worry about that. I’m prepared to keep my word and even throw in lunches delivered to your door at the office if you want.”

  Quentin sent her a charming smile, wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “You’re overselling this. It makes me wonder what horrors you’re keeping from me.”

  She patted his chest. “The people here are wonderful. I won’t lie though. It will take them some time to warm up to you. They’ll obviously miss Jack. But give them a few weeks and they probably won’t even remember Jack was ever there.”

  “Yeah. Right.” Quentin caught the brief glances between the couple. “Okay, what’s up with you two? I’ve had the good news, now hit me with the bad.”

  “Jack wants to talk to you in his study before supper.”

  Curious as to what surprises might be in store for him, Quentin simply nodded. “Okay. I guess it’s easier to drop a bombshell in a homey setting instead of at the office.”

  Jack slapped him on the back before leading him into his study. “None of that n
ow. There are no hidden disclosures you need to know about before we sign the papers on Friday, nothing sinister going on.”

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to put a ding in my good mood?”

  The study was a roomful of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that showed the Prescotts loved to read. Everything from historical to mystery to romance. There were two worn, comfy chairs positioned in front of the fireplace, where it looked as if Belle and Jack spent hours curled up with their favorite novel.

  “Take a seat,” Jack offered. “What I have to say won’t take long.”

  “Time to unburden your soul and confess your sins, Dr. Prescott?”

  Doc linked his fingers together and smiled, his lined, tanned face filled with concern. “You aren’t far off the mark. You never asked how all this went down.”

  “If this is about Scott Phillips recommending me, he already mentioned it.”

  Jack’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “It’s a little bit more complicated than communicating with a ghostly apparition.”

  “Not you too?”

  “Don’t expect me to enlighten you about Scott Phillips. There are some things about the town you’ll have to find out for yourself. When patients start reporting that they’ve seen a man who’s been dead for years hang around their place, it’ll be up to you to deal with it.” Jack held up a hand. “Just let me say what I have to say. I knew your uncle Douglas Bradford for decades. He’s the main reason Belle and I settled on retiring here. For four years Doug and I were college roommates. I went on to medical school at Northwestern while Doug came back home to California and forged a career teaching engineering at UC Davis.”

  Quentin tried to remember who his college roommates had been and couldn’t recall a single face or a name. “You kept in touch with each other over the years.”

  “Oh, we did. More than emails. In addition to our standing poker game once a month, we got together for dinner and drinks. We took turns hosting suppers—Belle and I would go out to Davis and then he and whoever he decided to bring with him would drive into San Francisco for the weekend. We often tried to one-up the other on how fancy we could make the meal.”

  “Where are you going with this?”

  “As you well know, Doug never married.”

  “If you’re about to tell me he was gay, I already know that.”

  “Fact versus fiction is up to you to figure out, but that isn’t where I’m going.”

  Quentin narrowed his gaze like a laser beam right into Doc’s eyes. “You said you knew my father. This doesn’t have anything to do with my dad, does it?”

  Jack looked like an admonished child. “Let’s just say I knew of your dad, but mostly through the accounts Douglas gave me, which included updates on you.”

  “I think I’m beginning to get the gist.” Quentin eyed the older man. “Why, you sly old fox. You treated my uncle before he died, didn’t you? My guess is you talked him into leaving me that rundown piece of property in town just so I’d have an excuse to come down here for a visit.”

  Jack leaned back into his leather desk chair, a wry quirk on his mouth, and linked his fingers together a second time. “Now Quentin, that’s purely speculative on your part. Truth is, during those last months before Doug died, he needed a physician and a friend, someone he could trust—”

  “And legal counsel no doubt,” Quentin interjected. “You strong-armed him into writing me into his will.”

  “Strong-armed is a powerful word. I merely kept bringing you into the conversations I had with him by pointing out that he had a nephew who could easily step into my shoes here in Pelican Pointe. As you know, up to then, I’d had zero luck recruiting anyone from my pool of contacts. No one wanted to relocate to such a small town and take over a general practice.”

  “But then I got shot.”

  “You did. And I’m sorry such an unfortunate incident ended your surgical career. But a door opened, or shall we say an opportunity. Your uncle loved this town. It’s always been a quiet place but full of possibilities. When he retired from teaching he moved here and took to the people so much that he ran for mayor.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “I didn’t have to goad him about you coming here because as soon as I brought it up, he embraced the idea of leaving you something.”

  “That’s a little hard to believe since I hadn’t heard from him since he came to my college graduation back in Baltimore. Let’s see, that was fifteen years ago.”

  “An oversight that Douglas felt extremely guilty about.”

  “Right. Your long talks with him must’ve proved very effective. Doug’s will got me here and Kinsey closed the deal. Why are you telling me this? I’m buying your practice no matter what little secrets you and Doug kept to yourselves.”

  Relief broke out on Jack’s face. “Nothing so major as that, but Belle and I felt you deserved to know the details.”

  “Kinsey Donnelly is a very persuasive lawyer.”

  “She is. Never underestimate our local attorney. She can be a force when she gets her mind set on something. You should remember that for the long term. She’s a wonderful ally, a great person to have on your side in a legal battle if it should ever come to that.”

  “Apparently the same thing could be said for you. Do I need to worry about legal battles, Jack, and malpractice suits?”

  “No. But I’m not without an agenda here, Quentin. I told you that upfront in our very first telephone conversation. At this stage of my life keeping Belle happy is a big part of that. She wants me to spend more time out here on the ranch and a lot less time driving into town five days a week, worrying myself to death over my patients, especially the stubborn ones who refuse to get a damn shot for pneumonia or the flu, or vaccinate their babies. You should know there are several like that around here who have stubborn written across their foreheads. It’s at this point in the conversation I should tell you about the other end of the spectrum. They’ll be patients who’ll show up at your house at all hours of the day or night. They’ll want medical attention for everything from common stomach ailments to broken bones. You’ll get sidetracked at dinner parties for advice on how to treat common ailments, back pain, you name it. You’ll get interrupted in the middle of…intimate moments.”

  “Jack, I’ve spent the past ten years on call. I haven’t been out of medicine so long that I’ve forgotten the routine. I know what it’s like to answer the phone in the middle of the night and get called in to take care of a head-on collision that happened out on the highway.”

  Jack put his hands up. “I’m just trying to cover all the bases so you know what you’re up against.”

  “I take it Belle’s been fed up with this type of thing for longer than just a couple of years.”

  “You could say that. I just want you to know that this isn’t like the big city ER.”

  “So I’ve been told. I get it. I’ll eventually grow tired of people coming and going in and out of my house at all hours of the day and night.”

  “Well, I might point out that you don’t have a Belle around to put her foot down and keep them at bay like I did. Opening the clinic seemed to put a stop to it…for the most part. But still, on rare occasions, we’ll get someone who stops by on a Sunday morning with an emergency or what they consider to be one. They’ll interrupt breakfast or knock on the door at five in the morning. It’s best if you make it clear from the start that patients should come to the clinic during regular business hours.”

  “Delivering babies would be the exception to that.”

  “Of course. So now you know the whole story of how you got here.” But even after that explanation, Doc noted the stern look on the younger man’s face didn’t go away. He chewed his lip. “You still perturbed at me?”

  “Nah. What would be the point of that? I’m here, aren’t I? Besides, what else did I have to do back in Lake Tahoe but sit around and feel sorry for myself? There is something I wanted to talk to you about, though. Actually it’s a
someone. This person came to my attention and I think she might fit into your stubborn category, someone who might need persuading to come into the office for a checkup.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Did you ever treat a woman by the name of Dowling? She has a grandson named Beckham.”

  “Charlotte Dowling? Sure, but not in a long time. In fact, now that you mention it, I haven’t seen her around town since last spring. When she did come into the office, it was probably five years back. Sydney could tell you the exact date of her visit. Even though Sydney wasn’t with me back then, she could look it up in the files. One thing about Sydney is she pushed me to update my records. Once she came on board, within six months all our files were kept in a database on the computer.”

  “She sounds very thorough with recordkeeping. But let’s get back to Mrs. Dowling for a minute. Do you remember the reason for her visit?”

  “As I recall, she’d dropped a glass pitcher on her concrete patio, stepped on one of the broken shards and couldn’t get the last fragment out. She’d tried so many times on her own to dig it out, probably for a week, that she’d wedged it deeper into the foot almost to the tendon, got it infected so much that toxins had formed in her bloodstream. Hadn’t had a tetanus shot in twenty years either. Took Charlotte a month to fully recover enough to start walking again. Why do you ask about her?”

  “Because I met her grandson yesterday, went fishing with him this morning.”

  “Beckham? He must be ten or eleven years old by now.”

  “Thirteen going on thirty. The boy is skinny as a rail and underfed almost to the point of malnourished. He looks like he could use three meals a day instead of scrounging for what little he comes across in the garbage cans around town.”

  Doc’s eyes went wide. “You’re kidding? Things are that bad at home?”

  “I believe they are. Think about it. Their only source of income has to be Charlotte’s social security check. That’s very little money to stretch for the entire month. Plus, Beckham tells me his grandmother has a bad cough and won’t even consider seeking medical attention for it.”

  “See, I didn’t exaggerate about that. These people seem reluctant to bring Medicare into the equation. There’s that solid core of people who are just like Charlotte and refuse to see a doctor until it’s too late.”