by Kris Calvert
“Yeah, well,” Sam said. “You never know what it’s like for someone until you have to walk in their shoes, right?”
I looked up at her. I wanted to ask the question. I was dying to ask the question. It was right on the tip of my tongue. Every time I opened my mouth, I wanted it to come out, but it didn’t. I stared at her, lost in all that was Samantha Peterson, and suddenly my mouth took over my mind. “Sam?”
“Yes?”
“Are you still in love with Daniel?” There. I said it. It was out in the open.
She sat in silence, seemingly searching the back property of Lone Oak for an answer. I didn’t say anything, waiting for her response, whatever it was going to be.
“I love him,” she said, still looking out into the distance. “I’ll always love him.”
“I understand.” I nodded, looking away from her for the first time all day.
“I don’t think you do,” she said, lightly touching my shoulder to draw my attention. “I’m not in love with him. Does that make sense?”
“I don’t know, Sam. I’m just trying to get a handle on things, that’s all.”
“It’s hard to explain. I’ll always love him, but I can’t spend the rest of my life thinking about what’s behind me. I have to think about what the future holds. I have to do it for me, and for Dax. What’s the saying? Life is for the living.”
I stared into her blue eyes and nodded.
“Did I say too much?” Sam asked, her face suddenly sad.
“Of course not.”
“Look, I know Dax and I are a package deal—two for the price of one. We’re not what men are looking for. I say that, because I was so leery of introducing Dax to you. I don’t want him to get attached and—you know.”
I couldn’t speak. I could only stare at her face and calm the battle in my heart.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
I nodded and we sat in silence for what felt like an eternity. She looked away, lovingly watching Dax sleep.
“Sam, I…”
Samantha looked back to me and I saw what I wanted my life to look like in her eyes.
Say it. Just say it. Tell her you’re falling in love with her. Tell her. Say it. I’m falling in love with you.
“Sam,” I repeated.
“Yes?”
“Sam… I–”
“Mommmeeee?”
“I’m right here, Dax,” she said, waving to him and quickly standing. As she walked away, she turned. “Hold that thought.”
“Can we go see the horses now?” asked Dax from across the pool.
“Sure thing, Chief.”
*
Sam changed Dax’s clothes in the pool house and I walked back to the house to get clothes from my room.
“Can I get you anything?” Miss Celia asked as I stormed through the back door.
“No, Celia. But thanks,” I muttered, clearly upset.
“Everything okay, baby?”
“Just going upstairs to change and look for my manhood.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m gonna take Dax horseback riding with me. I need to change.”
“Okay, honey,” she said, concerned. “You sure you’re okay?”
I nodded and walked away. I got to my bedroom, pissed as hell at myself for not telling Sam the truth. Why couldn’t I just say the words? I love you, Samantha Peterson.
I took off my swim trunks and found a pair of boxer shorts in the drawer. I slid on my favorite jeans and kept the same T-shirt. I sat on the edge of the bed and took a deep breath. I would never be the man my father was. I didn’t even know why I was trying. As I left the room, I stopped and walked to my dresser. Taking off my gold crest ring and tossing it onto the valet, I took a good long look at myself in the mirror—disgusted. “What was I thinking?”
18
SAMANTHA
I arrived at Autumn Valley early Monday morning. It’d been a full weekend with Mac and Dax and I was anxious to get back to the files on my desk. I walked into the admin office and turned on the lights. It was only seven a.m. and I was the first one in. I locked the main door behind me and made my way down the hall to my office. Turning on the lights, I saw the piles and piles of paper covering my office and thought perhaps I was the butt of a joke. It was, after all, April first—April Fool’s Day.
I followed the stacks from my desk to the paper trail that led into the boardroom. It looked as if I’d not only received the information I’d been begging for, I’d also received every note, piece of paper, contract and memo ever taken at Autumn Valley. Suddenly my quest for information had turned into a needle hunt in a haystack.
I sighed heavily, but decided it was exactly what I’d asked for. Now it was up to me to figure it out. My plan was to quickly go through each paper and separate the stacks into categories. Everyone and everything was getting its own file and I was gonna get a handle on this bitch once and for all.
James Miller, the man who never left a paper trail, surprisingly penned a note to me and left it on my desk. It was a list of the types of physicians he wanted me to begin to recruit: general internal medicine, internal medicine with an emphasis on geriatrics, an orthopedic surgeon and at least two new physical and occupational therapists. It all seemed reasonable, but nothing was going to happen until I managed the mess at hand.
I pulled the phone from my purse and sat it close to Dax’s picture so I could find it in the piles if Mac called. I desperately wanted to text him, but things had ended awkwardly last night. I didn’t know what I would say if I did text him. We’d spent a wonderful day together and Dax loved him, but I made sure to explain again at bedtime that Mac and I were merely friends. Still, I had plans to see Mac tonight. He was going to pick me up at the office, and we were going to dinner in town. I decided I wouldn’t text him just yet. He was probably sleeping anyway.
As I went through the papers, I noticed my photo of Daniel sitting on the credenza. I stared at him for a moment and made the conscious decision to put the picture frame inside the drawer. I wasn’t ready to put him in my own lavender box, but it was time to make a clean start, and this was a good beginning for me. Mac had opened up my heart to love again and I wanted to see where it led without looking back.
“Good morning, Miss Samantha,” Miller chimed from my open door.
“Good morning, Mr. Miller,” I replied, taken aback.
“I see you’ve found the files we’ve left for you at your request.”
“Yes. Thank you for being so cooperative.” I laughed, motioning around the room at the stacks of files and papers.
“Well, I have to say, you asked for it.”
“I most certainly did,” I replied as he nodded and turned to leave.
“Oh,” he said, coming back to the door. “Did you get my memo with the recruiting needs for the next six months?
“Six months?” I asked with surprise. “No, I didn’t see a timeline on the memo if there was one.”
“Six months,” he said tersely, wagging a finger. “Time to get crackin’, Miss Peterson. I would hate to have a better record than you recruiting doctors when it’s your sole job and I run everything else around here.”
“Yes, sir.” I smiled, but all I could think was, you arrogant little ass.
By mid-morning, I’d plowed through a quarter of the paperwork and receipts and still hadn’t heard from Mac. I was a little worried, but tried to concentrate on the work at hand. So far, what I had organized was mostly dinners, hotel rooms and tickets to Alabama football and NFL games. I’d found conferences that doctors, board members and even Mr. Miller had gone to—all at the expense of the Physicians Development Corporation. I wanted to get through at least half of it by lunchtime.
I was on the floor behind my desk when I heard a knock at the door.
“Samantha?”
“Yes?” I asked, rising to my feet to find King standing in my doorway looking as handsome as ever.
“Good morning. Am I disturbing you?�
�� he asked in his deep soulful tone. This man could make any word sound sexy.
“No, I’m just trying to wade through some of the papers from this past year for the PDC. Please, have a seat.” I motioned to one of the chairs in front of me.
“How’s your head?”
“It’s still a little sore,” I admitted, rubbing the base of my neck.
“Really?” he asked, raising a concerned eyebrow. “Do you mind if I take a look?”
“Not at all.” I walked around my desk and met him head on. He smelled terrific. Everything about him screamed sex.
“It’s right here.” I touched the base of my head, turning my back to him.
He gathered my hair in his hand and moved it to hang over one shoulder, leaving my neck exposed, sending a shiver down my back.
“Take my hand and show me,” King crooned in his low and sultry voice.
I took his hand in mine, and brought it to the back of my head, slowly circling the small lump that still remained.
“Oh, excuse me,” Stacy chirped as she walked into my office without knocking. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had—company.” She put her hands over her eyes as if she’d walked in on us naked.
“May I help you, Miss?” King inquired, looking for Stacy’s name.
“Stacy,” she answered. “I’m Stacy Little. Mr. Miller’s secretary, well assistant, well he likes to call me his secretary.”
Here we go again.
“Whatever,” King quipped, not taking his hands from my head or introducing himself. “I get the picture.”
“Stacy?” I asked as King continued to touch the back of my head, sending a thrill through my entire body. “Did you need something?”
“No, not really. I just wanted to know if you got all the papers you needed. But, clearly you have everything you need back here.”
“I think it feels okay, Sam,” King said to me, ignoring Stacy. “Have you had any headaches?”
“I’ll just be going.” Stacy left the room, flashing me a hateful look.
“Do you remember the three words I gave you on Friday?”
“Rose, Dinner, Hill.”
“Very good,” he said, taking my shoulders in each of his enormous hands and flashing me a killer smile. His teeth looked extra white next to his dark, sun-kissed skin.
“Have a seat. I have a couple of questions for you if you have time,” I said, taking my place behind my desk again and hoping he wouldn’t notice the blood that’d rushed to my cheeks, undeniably showcasing the effect he had on me. This man was sex in a lab coat, and I suddenly felt incredibly bad for any woman who had to disrobe for him for purely medical reasons.
“Sure,” he agreed. “Fire away.”
“When Mr. Miller recruited you,” I asked as I pulled his contract from my pile, “You were given a signing bonus and a guaranteed salary for five years, correct?”
“That’s correct.”
“And as part of your bonus, the remainder of your school loans would be paid off?”
“Well, yes and no.”
I remained silent and questioned him with one raised eyebrow.
“It was standard in an Autumn Valley contract to pay off any school loan debt to the incoming physician. But I didn’t have any school loans.”
“I see. That makes sense.”
“I told Miller because they didn’t have to incur that expense to acquire me for the facility that I would take the average payout for med school loans as part of my bonus, paid once a quarter for the next five years.”
Past experience had taught me that doctors in general focus on patient care and have relatively poor business practices. I was impressed with King’s ability to strike the deal he did.
“Do you mind if I ask you what kind of perks you received when Miller was recruiting you?
“I don’t follow.”
“NFL games? Any conferences paid for by the PDC?”
“Sure, I don’t know if I remember all of them. I did an Aspen, Colorado trip that was paid for by PDC or Autumn Valley on elder patient care and the Affordable Healthcare Act last winter.”
“Okay, that helps me understand how he managed some items,” I said with an exasperated sigh.
“I’m glad I could shed some light on all of it, but wouldn’t James know the details?”
“Well, you would think,” I droned, lowering my voice. “But unfortunately, what I have is a lot of paper and not many clear cut answers.”
I shifted in my chair to stand and King came to his feet, sensing we were finished. “I don’t want to waste anymore of your time, Dr. Giles.”
“Dr. Giles?” He smiled, questioning my sudden formality. “Please, Sam. Call me King. And you are hardly taking up my time. I’d like to get to know you better.”
I knew what he meant, and from the look on his face, he knew I understood. But I didn’t want to lead one man on while daydreaming about another. “I’d really like that too. Thank you, King,” I said, shaking his hand. “And thank you again for coming to my rescue the other day in the break room.”
“Damsels in distress are one of my specialties,” he said as he took my hand from the business shake and turned it over slowly bringing the top of it to his mouth for a lingering kiss.
I nodded. “I’m sure they are.”
“Have a good day, Samantha.”
I was unable to speak after his quiet and formal advance. As he walked out of my office, I knew in my heart that Southern gentlemen were a breed all their own.
I sighed heavily and wondered why I hadn’t heard from Mac.
*
It really wasn’t like him. Maybe Mac was visiting with his mother this morning because I’d occupied so much of his weekend. Pushing him temporarily from my thoughts, I’d worked through lunch hoping to get ahead. But with the amount of paper piled in my office and the boardroom, it didn’t feel like I was making much headway.
“How’s it going in here?” Miller asked, barging into my office.
“Slowly but surely,” I replied. “I should be through the majority of it by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Good, good.” He repeated himself as if one wasn’t enough. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“I could use some more file folders.”
“You’ll find all the supplies you’ll need in the boardroom.”
I pulled my phone out from under a pile of receipts, hearing a buzz, and hoped for a text message from Mac, but there was nothing.
I pushed myself from behind the desk and walked to the boardroom for the file folders. Distracted by Stacy’s high-pitched voice, I couldn’t help but overhear her fussing.
“I don’t care what you think,” she whispered in a hiss. “You’ll do as you’re told or I’ll put you out on the street. Or worse, you can find your worthless father and see if he’ll pay your bills. You’re not screwing this up for me. Do you understand?”
I opened the supply closet at the end of the room and turned on the light. It was an amazing place filled with every kind of office supply imaginable, and it smelled like the first day of grade school. I took a box of fifty file folders and a couple of post it notes and shut the door.
“Just get it done,” Stacy spat into the phone. “I’ll see you at home. Don’t forget to check my crockpot.”
I walked into the lobby, wanting her to know I’d overheard her conversation. “Stacy?”
“Oh, I didn’t see you there.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yes.”
I expected a better explanation as to why she was threatening someone on the phone, but I truly didn’t care. I dropped the supplies on my desk and rolled my neck and shoulders. I could feel the tension in my body. I wanted to think it was from all the tedious office work, but I knew better. I looked at my phone again. Where are you, Mac?
It was probably a bad idea to introduce him to Dax. And although I hated to admit it, I knew deep down I was in love Mac Callahan. I was in love with him and he was going to
leave. I felt like my roller coaster ride was already getting bumpy, and I needed Mimi.
I kept my phone in my hand, walked out of the office and began to make my way to Mimi’s suite. Walking slowly, I searched the hallways like a fourth grade school monitor, hoping to have a chance to run into him—a chance to talk with him. By the time I made it to Mimi’s, I’d been stopped three times and was thankful for the delay. The longer I roamed the halls, the better chance I would have to see his face.
“Mimi?” I called as I knocked and eased my head around the partially open door.
“Yes, dear?”
Walking in, I was surprised to find her in bed. “Mimi? It’s almost two in the afternoon. Not feeling like yourself today?”
“Honey, I haven’t felt like myself since George Bush was in office,” she rasped.
“Which George Bush?” I asked, hoping to cheer her up.
“Read my lips.”
I nodded. “It’s been a while.”
“You seem to be in a good mood today.”
“I’m okay. I’m worried about you,” I confessed, pulling up a chair. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”
“Don’t worry about me, worry about yourself. What’s going on?”
“I’m just wading through a bunch of files, trying to get ready to recruit some doctors. They all finish their residencies at the end of June, so I only have what’s left of the spring and summer to get some of the specialties Miller wants. Especially with the upcoming expansion, we’ll need more physicians to handle fifty new suites.”
“Sounds like you have a handle on it, Sam.” Mimi sat up. “Do you have a handle on Mac Callahan yet?”
“I’m supposed to see him tonight.”
“You need to tell him.”
“Tell him?”
“Tell him that you love him. If I’ve learned anything in my long life, it’s if you love someone, you have to tell them.”
“I love you, Mimi.”
“I know you love me, honey. But you can’t spend the rest of your life making babies and living happily ever after with me.”
I nodded, thinking about my conversation with Mac.
“What are your plans for tonight?”
“He’s picking me up here. We are going out to dinner, I think.”
