“Remember when that medical practice efficiency analyst crunched our numbers last year?”
She made a face. “That horror show of a man who expected us to keep a running total of the minutes we spent with each patient so we could find ways to ‘trim the fat.’”
“Fourteen minutes of face time. That was his recommendation.”
“No, no,” she said. “Eight minutes! That was his recommendation. Eleven, but only if the patient had a life-threatening condition.”
“I remember what you told him.”
She felt her cheeks redden with heat. “Not my most shining hour.”
“Your best hour,” he said. “The hour I—”
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t say it.” It was too soon. Too impossible. Too scary.
“There’s something happening between us. It’s been growing for a long time. I think it’s time to see where it leads us.”
“My period’s due next week. I guess we’ll know where it’s leading us then.”
“This isn’t about a baby,” he said, refusing to back down. “This is about us. Who we are when we’re together.”
She made a show of peering up at the sky. “Not even a full moon up there tonight. You’re crazy all on your own.”
“Not crazy enough,” he said. “If I really was crazy, we wouldn’t be standing here talking. You’d be in my arms.”
Her sister’s music, painfully sweet, dangerously powerful, encircled them like a shimmering mist. Ripples of sensation washed over her. An awareness of change, of doors opening in rooms she had yet to discover, a glimpse of something she could only imagine.
“Deirdre said people used to believe harpers used their music to cast spells.”
“Maybe it isn’t the music,” he said quietly, taking her hand in his.
And because she didn’t know what to say, she held on tight and said nothing at all.
Chapter Nineteen
Every Friday morning a group of local women gathered at Annie’s Flowers for coffee and jelly doughnuts. If you asked Claudia, none of them needed either the caffeine or the carbohydrates, but the younger generations lacked the well-honed sense of discipline of her own peer group.
Of course, they liked to pretend they were gathering to work on the enormous quilt they planned to donate to Warren Bancroft’s museum to commemorate the lives of local fishermen who had been lost at sea. Claudia knew better. More gossiping than quilting went on during these Friday morning get-togethers.
Her dear friend Roberta could barely thread a needle—she blamed her arthritis, but Claudia suspected it was sheer willfulness—but that didn’t keep her from joining the group each Friday and partaking liberally of raspberry doughnuts.
“You have powdered sugar on your upper lip,” Claudia informed her during a lull in the conversation.
Roberta reached for a paper napkin and laughed. “I suppose that’s God’s way of telling me I’ve had enough.”
“I would think your waistline would be telling you something, too,” Claudia said, then instantly regretted it when she saw the stricken look on her friend’s face.
Roberta dabbed at her mouth, then crumpled the napkin in her hand. “And you were wondering where your Susan got her sharp tongue.”
Claudia let out a long sigh and patted her dear friend’s arm. “I’m sorry, Roberta. I’m a tad on edge today.”
“Oh?” Roberta still sounded aggrieved.
She leaned closer to her friend and lowered her voice. “Does Susan seem different to you?”
Roberta glanced toward Susan and Annie, who were doing hand piecing at the other end of the table. “Well, she does need a touch-up.”
“Her mood,” Claudia persisted. “Does she seem crabbier than normal?”
“She’s that age,” Roberta said with a shrug. “The moods come and go.”
“It’s more than moodiness,” she said. “I think—”
“Morning, everyone!”
Eight pairs of eyes looked toward the doorway to the workroom, where Dr. Ellen’s sister stood with that gigantic horse of a dog.
“Deirdre!” Annie leaped to her feet and hurried over to hug the young woman. “I thought you were leaving for Bar Harbor today.”
“Around lunchtime,” she said, waving a greeting at everyone. “I wanted to pick up something for Ellen before I left.”
“How sweet!” Roberta practically cooed. Sometimes the woman didn’t have the sense of a goose.
“Take a look at some of the stained-glass items,” Sweeney called out. “They’re pricey, but they last longer than flowers!”
The woman had no shame.
Annie rolled her eyes and linked arms with Deirdre. “And to think I was dumb enough to open my doors to my competition!” She winked over her shoulder at Sweeney, who threw back her head and laughed one of those bawdy laughs that made Claudia’s bones rattle.
She pushed back her chair.
Susan looked up from the piece of cloth she was mangling. “Where are you going, Ma?” Her daughter never had been very good at detail work.
“I’m going to see if I can offer any assistance.”
“Don’t forget to take notes,” Susan said.
They all burst into good-natured laughter, a fact she chose to rise above.
Deirdre was standing in front of the refrigerated display case they used to store the blooms.
“What do you think, Mrs. Galloway?” Deirdre gestured broadly toward the profusion of flowers. “Annie thinks Ellen is a larkspur type, but I think of her more as a daisy kind of girl.”
“She sometimes wears a crisp, lovely carnation scent. Perhaps a mass of pure white carnations with some glossy foliage would be just right.”
Deirdre beamed a smile at Claudia, who couldn’t help but be charmed, even if she could see the young woman’s bra through her gauzy shirt. “That’s perfect!” She kissed Claudia first on the right cheek, then on the left. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Galloway!”
“Call me Claudia.”
The smile grew even wider. “Claudia.”
Annie pulled a twenty-gallon bucket of paper-white carnations from the cooler and plopped it down on the workbench. “Modest, showy, or holy cow?”
Deirdre laughed and Claudia heard more than a touch of Dr. Ellen.
“Modest,” Deirdre said. “I’d like to go for holy cow, but since I’m charging it to her account, I figure I’d better settle for just show.”
It took every ounce of Claudia’s self-control to keep from locking eyes with Annie across the mountain of flowers.
Stanley the giant dog ambled over to Claudia and nudged her hand with his head. She had grown quite fond of the dog over the last few days and caressed him behind his left ear.
“You’re just a big baby,” she said, bending down as far as her creaky bones would allow. “Just a big sponge for love.”
“I think you’re one of his favorites,” Deirdre said. “He looks downright goofy when he sees you, Claudia.”
“He reminds me of Bear,” Annie said as she clipped a stack of flower stems.
Claudia’s eyes misted over with tears. “Dear Bear! I haven’t thought of him in years.” She smiled at Deirdre. “Bear was a mixed breed much like Stanley. He helped me raise my brood.”
“Bear was part shepherd,” Annie said. “He could corral a group of kids faster than their parents could.”
“Ellen bought your house, didn’t she?” Deirdre asked.
Claudia nodded. “There are many happy memories there.”
They chatted amiably about dogs and houses while Annie arranged the carnations in a beautiful white basket then added some dark and glossy greenery.
“You must be glad to have your automobile back again,” Claudia observed as she straightened out one of the stems in Annie’s arrangement.
“Oh, my car is nowhere near ready,” Deirdre said.
“So how are you planning to get to Bar Harbor? A rental?”
“Actually Scott, the mecha
nic, is driving me up. He has to stop at Lincolnville for a part, and he said Bar Harbor is on the way.”
Claudia and Annie locked eyes.
“It’s not on the way?” Deirdre asked, looking from one to the other.
“Not exactly,” Annie said with a grin. “Let’s just say he must like your company.”
“A great deal,” Claudia added.
Deirdre had the grace to blush. It really was quite becoming.
“There you go,” Annie said, handing the basket to the red-haired young woman. “Twenty-two dollars, including tax.”
“Put it on my sister’s tab,” Deirdre said breezily. “I’ll write her a check.”
Annie didn’t bat an eye. She wrote out a receipt for Deirdre, who folded it and stuffed it in the pocket of her flowing skirt. “Can you send flowers to Cambridge from here?”
“We can send flowers to Timbuktu, if you’d like.”
“I’ll settle for Cambridge,” Deirdre said with that Ellen-like smile. “I want to send some tulips to my father.”
Claudia could almost see her daughter’s ears wagging behind the workroom curtain.
Deirdre and Annie quickly settled on a style and a dollar amount. Deirdre dictated a five-word message—Feel better soon. Love, Dee—and Annie phoned in the order.
“Put it on Ellen’s account, too?” she asked blandly.
“Why not?” Deirdre laughed gaily. “He’s her father, too.” If Susan’s ears were twitching before, they must have separated themselves from her head by now.
Her daughter exploded from the back room the second the door jingled closed behind Deirdre and the dog.
“I couldn’t believe my ears!” her daughter crowed. “She buys a present for Ellen, then charges it to her sister’s account!”
It seemed to Claudia that mention of Billy O’Brien of Cambridge was a more interesting discovery, but to each her own.
Annie shot her best friend the quelling look that she had mastered since becoming a mother. “None of our business, Susan. They have their own arrangements.”
“What if Ellen doesn’t want to pay you? What then?”
“Then I’ll worry about it.” Annie turned to Claudia. “Was she this nosy as a kid? I don’t remember her being quite this bad.”
Claudia chuckled. “Unfortunately it’s a family trait.”
The three women rejoined the quilters in the workroom. Susan picked up her mangled piecework. “If you ask me, she could stand to lose a few pounds.”
Sweeney poked her with the tip of her motorcycle boot. “Except for Claudia, everyone at this table could stand to lose a few. So the hell what.”
“That gauzy stuff isn’t very flattering.”
“It isn’t to my taste,” Claudia said to her daughter, “but it actually looks very good on her.”
Next to her, Annie pretended to faint while the other women burst into laughter.
“I can admit when I’m wrong,” Claudia said. “She’s very soft and feminine. The style suits her.”
Annie looked toward Susan. “Scott certainly must think so. How did he ever convince Jack to give him the afternoon off?”
Susan had the poor piece of fabric in a death grip. “Jack gave him the afternoon off’?”
“Scott’s driving Deirdre up to Bar Harbor,” Annie said. “You didn’t know?”
“Why should I?” Susan snapped. “I don’t work there. How come you know?”
Poor Annie looked very uncomfortable pinned beneath Susan’s fierce Galloway scowl. “Deirdre mentioned it.”
“Just now,” Claudia said. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear it when you were listening at the door.”
Her daughter threw the square of fabric onto the table and leaped to her feet. “I absolutely do not need this shit today.”
“Susan!” Claudia snapped.
“I’m not fifteen anymore, Ma,” she said, slinging her purse over her shoulder.
“That’s right. You’re old enough to behave in a civilized fashion.”
Susan stormed from the store without so much as a goodbye.
Roberta turned to Sweeney. “You know all the new expressions,” she said. “What does ‘bite me’ mean?”
Then again, maybe she did say goodbye.
* * *
As if the morning didn’t suck enough, Susan practically fell into Hall’s arms as she left Annie’s Flowers.
“Damn,” he said, steadying her by the elbows. “I hope you have collision insurance, Susie.”
“Why don’t you watch where you’re going?” She pushed herself away from him.
He raised his hands in surrender and took a giant step back. “Was it something I said or did you wake up this way?”
“Not funny. And if anyone suggests an HRT patch, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”
“I’ll warn Ellen.”
It was worse than she thought. Now Ellen Markowitz was the first person he thought of.
“I suppose you’re buying up some more roses for the housewarming.”
“Wrong,” he said. “I’m on my way to the bank.”
She didn’t look as if she believed him as she made to move past him.
“Sorry I didn’t get back to you again last night,” he said, blocking her escape. “I didn’t get in until late.”
“Since when has that ever stopped you?” Jack had been bitching about their late-night gab fests for the length of their twenty-year marriage.
“What did you want to talk about?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Quit pouting, Galloway. You’re too old and I’m too tired.”
“I have to get to work. I have a closing at eleven and a lot of paperwork to put in order.”
“How about I call you tonight,” he said. “Around ten.”
“I won’t be home.”
“Bullshit.”
“Fine,” she said. “Don’t believe me. You’re the one who didn’t return my call. You can work around my schedule this time.”
“I said I got home too late.”
“You could have e-mailed me.”
“Was it an emergency?”
“Damn it. Why don’t you just come out with it? I saw your car turning down Laidlaw Road last night. Quit pretending you were too tired to call me. You were busy with Ellen.”
“And Deirdre.” He grinned. “Stanley was there, too, in case you’re taking a census.”
She felt wild with emotion. She wanted to slap him hard across the face. She wanted to fling herself at him. She wanted to crawl under her mother’s Lincoln and stay there until the feelings passed. What in hell was happening to her? She felt as if she had gone to bed one night a normal, happily married woman and awakened a love-starved menopausal stalker with her sights trained on her best friend. The guy she had buddied around with since kindergarten. He was godfather to two of her children, for heaven’s sake! He had delivered all of her babies, which meant he already knew everything he needed to know about the state of her thighs and liked her anyway.
At least he used to.
He was watching her with those compassionate eyes of his. The man could look at a glass of milk and make it think it was champagne. Was it any wonder he had such a thriving practice? What woman wouldn’t love telling her problems to a man who looked as if he not only cared about her problems but could make them go away with one dazzling smile? Not that he wasn’t a good doctor. He was terrific. It was just that there were lots of good doctors out there, but not many who made you feel that they actually cared when you were hurting or scared or confused.
He was that kind of friend, too. He would have stood up for her at her wedding, but her mother had threatened to disown her if she didn’t ask her sister Eileen to be maid-of-honor.
And it wasn’t a one-sided friendship. She had been there for him, too, over the years. She had held his hand, listened to his problems, tried very hard not to say “I told you so” when his marriages ran out of steam. She was the one who had pushed him to
let Annie know how he felt about her. She was the one he had trusted, the one he had confided in, the one he called late at night after a difficult delivery.
At least that was the way it used to be before Ellen joined his practice. Oh, their friendship was still important to him—he was nothing if not loyal—but Ellen was the first person he thought of now after a tough day, the one whose advice he sought out.
“Suz, what’s going on?” He draped his arm around her shoulder, and this time she didn’t pull away. “You’re not acting like yourself.”
“I don’t feel like myself,” she said, resisting the urge to rest her head on his shoulder. “Everything’s changing and I hate it like hell.”
He understood exactly what she was saying, text and subtext.
“Not everything,” he said. “It just feels that way.”
“Don’t patronize me, Talbot.”
“Like I’d ever try, Galloway.”
“It’s Aldrin.” A small smile broke through her fierce anger. “Remember?”
“You’ll always be a Galloway to me.”
She feigned a punch to his rib cage. “That’s a hell of a thing to say.”
“You still owe me a lobster special at Cappy’s.”
“Okay,” she said, “but this time let’s leave the families at home.” All of them, including the O’Brien-Markowitz sisters.
He kissed the top of her head the way he always used to do when they were teenagers. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
* * *
He hadn’t planned to stop in at the flower shop, but Annie waved him inside.
“She’s in some mood, isn’t she?”
“No comment,” he said, “but I’ve seen her worse.”
“She told Claudia, ‘Bite me.’”
He cracked up despite his best intentions. “You lie.”
“I never lie,” she said as she swept a pile of clippings off the workbench and into the trash. “It’s my only character flaw.”
“What did Claudia do?”
“We stopped short of calling 911, but it was close. I think Roberta is still in shock.”
He couldn’t wipe the impolitic grin off his face. “Who translated for them?”
Girls of Summer (Shelter Rock Cove - Book #2) Page 23
