Beneath a Southern Sky

by Deborah Raney

  “I’m looking forward to working with you, Daria. I’ll see you Monday morning then. If you could come in a few minutes early and fill out all the tax forms, that would be great.”

  She nodded politely and busied herself with putting Natalie back in the carrier for the ride home.

  Through the rest of the day and late into that night, thoughts of Nathan ensnared her. Seeing an attractive man holding Nate’s baby, the baby Nate had never seen—hadn’t even known about—and feeling the gentle touch of a masculine hand on hers, had brought the memories bolting back. She missed him desperately.

  Six

  Now I suppose you’d need a place to park your car?” The sprightly, grey-haired woman’s mild accent bespoke her German heritage. “I told Kirk you could park your car right up here and use our back door.” With one broad motion of her plump arm, Dorothy Janek indicated the end of the driveway, which widened toward the back of the house.

  “That would be wonderful,” Daria told her. “Actually I don’t have a car yet. But I’ll be using one of my dad’s vehicles for a while—until I’ve saved a little money—so I’ll still need a place to park,” she added quickly.

  They were standing in front of the apartment Dr. Hunter had told her about. She had arranged to see it today and was immediately taken with the charming, countrylike setting. The main entrance to the upstairs apartment was on the south side of the house; the narrow stairway spilled down to a rather rickety side porch.

  “You can use the back entrance,” Mrs. Janek said. “We had a bachelor living here before. We didn’t know him from Adam, and I certainly didn’t want him in and out our door just anytime he pleased. But we can’t have you falling down those stairs with that precious bundle in your arms. And come winter, those steps are slicker than a greased pig. No,” she said decisively, barely stopping to take a breath, “you’ll use our back door.”

  Daria hid a smile. The Janeks didn’t know her from Adam either, but she wasn’t going to point that out just now. “That would be wonderful, Mrs. Janek,” she said instead.

  Huffing energetically, her ample bosom heaving, the old woman led Daria through the back door and up the stairs to the apartment. Carrying Natalie in her arms, Daria followed her prospective landlady.

  Pointing out the large closets and hardwood floors, Dorothy Janek bustled importantly around the little apartment that took up the entire second story of the old farmhouse. Originally a warren of five bedrooms, the space had been recently remodeled to open lovely views of the leafy tops of the ancient elms that stood sentinel around the house. “My grandparents built this house when they came over from Germany in the late 1800s. It was in the country back then, but Bristol just sprang up around them, and before they knew it, they lived in town!” she chuckled.

  An oak staircase, which opened onto a large L-shaped living area, split the upstairs hall. Daria could picture a small dining table at the head of the stairs just outside the kitchenette. The pantry had recently been painted, judging by the acrid smell that permeated the room when she opened the door.

  Two adjoining rooms at the back—divided by heavy oak pocket doors—would be perfect for her bedroom and Natalie’s nursery. And between the kitchen and bedrooms was a small bath that still had an old claw-foot bathtub and freestanding basin.

  “We really intended to replace the tub when we remodeled,” the landlady apologized, “but we would have had to take out the wall to get that monster out of here, so we just left it be.”

  Daria loved the quaint coziness of the apartment—and the fact that it was just a few blocks from Dr. Hunter’s veterinary clinic. She would still have to make the trip to the farm and back with Natalie each day, but at least she would be able to come home for lunch.

  “I’ll take it,” Daria told the elderly woman when they had circled back to the living room.

  “Oh, that’s just dandy, honey. We were hoping to get somebody nice and quiet in the place.”

  Daria laughed nervously. “You might not think we’re so quiet when Natalie starts screaming at three o’clock in the morning.”

  “Ach,” Dorothy Janek waved the thought away as though it were a pesky fly. “The sound of a baby crying isn’t noise! It’ll be music to our ears. Besides, she’ll be sleeping through the night before you know it. You just enjoy every minute with this little one. She’ll be off to college in the wink of an eye.” She reached out and squeezed the baby’s toes affectionately.

  Before Daria left, she wrote the Janeks a check for the first month’s rent plus the small deposit they required. Though the expense depleted the small savings account she had from Nate’s insurance, she drove back to her parents’ farm with a deep sense of accomplishment and excitement.

  “We’re going to make it just fine, Nate,” she whispered into the silence of the car. “Oh, thank you, Lord, for providing this apartment. It’s perfect, just perfect. Thank you, Father, for taking care of us.”

  She prayed easily during the rest of the drive back to the farm, giving thanks and making her needs known to her heavenly Father. If only it would be so simple to break the news to her earthly father.

  Daria’s first day on the job was scarcely an hour old when she realized that it was going to be as frenzied as any she’d ever spent in the wilds of Colombia. She had just finished a quick tour of the clinic and was sitting at the desk in the reception room trying to figure out the computer, when a pickup truck raced into the parking lot, kicking up gravel. Through the window, she watched as a man in coveralls jumped out of the passenger seat and ran into the clinic.

  “Where’s Dr. Hunter?” he demanded, his voice on the edge of panic. “My dogs got hit on the highway. I got ‘em out here in the truck. They’re hurt pretty bad.”

  “I’ll get Dr. Hunter right away,” she said with more confidence than she felt. She started toward the back, but the veterinarian had apparently overheard the ruckus and was already on his way down the hall. He raced past her, motioning for her to follow him outside.

  She went, feeling useless standing beside Dr. Hunter while he assessed the dogs’ injuries right there in the parking lot.

  “This here’s Bess,” the man told the doctor, rubbing the head of a small English setter.

  “Hey, Bess,” Dr. Hunter spoke soothing words to the dog, as though she were human. He inspected two deep gashes on her hindquarters and said, “We need to get these cuts sutured right away. This gash on her flank is awfully deep.” He rubbed the dog behind the ears, then turned his attention to the larger dog, a male setter that was whining pathetically.

  “Feels like we’ve got a broken bone in this front leg,” he said, palpating the leg carefully. “But it’ll have to wait until we get Bess sutured. I don’t want her to lose any more blood.”

  Now he turned to Daria. “Travis is out on a call, and Jennifer won’t be in until after school. Carla doesn’t work on Monday mornings, so you’re it, Daria. I’m going to need your help in surgery.”

  It was an order, not a request, and Daria quickly realized that her job was going to entail much more than answering phones.

  Trying not to let Dr. Hunter or the farmer see how badly her hands were shaking, she followed the two men—each carrying a dog—into the surgery room. Dr. Hunter sedated the larger dog and got it settled in a cage, then he prepared to suture the deep wounds the smaller dog had sustained.

  “This will be your baptism by fire, Daria,” he told her under his breath as he scrubbed his hands in the corner basin of the small examining room. “Ever assisted with surgery before?”

  A memory of a day in Colombia flashed through her mind, and she tried to push the gory scene away as she answered, “My husband was a doctor. I helped him sometimes. But I don’t know anything about all this.” She nodded her head to encompass the room’s array of sterile equipment.

  “I’ll talk you through it. Mostly I just need you to hand me instruments.” He showed her how to scrub with special antiseptic soap, giving her a quick review of
the procedure he was about to do.

  They went to the table where the dog’s owner stood attempting to soothe the frightened animal.

  “Malcolm, why don’t you come around here. Stand on this side and hold her head, talk to her. It’ll help calm her.” Dr. Hunter gently pulled the edges of the deep wound apart and irrigated it with sterile water from a syringe. The owner turned white, and Dr. Hunter added quickly, “You don’t have to look.”

  Those words brought the memory crashing back again. Daria moved in close to the stainless steel table and gripped its side for support. The memory intruded and, in her mind, she was back in Colombia, standing beside Nate over a crude table where a tiny girl lay screaming. The toddler had fallen on a sharp rock and sliced a deep gash in her forehead. There was blood everywhere, and the child’s mother was as hysterical as the wounded girl. Nate had needed Daria’s help to restrain the toddler so he could clean and close the wound.

  Daria had assisted Nate with minor procedures before, but she found herself lightheaded and shaky at the grisly sight. Nate had taken one look at her eyes and, apparently seeing the fear in them, had shouted harshly at her, “Daria! Get a grip! I need you! Think of something else. You don’t have to look, but hold her head tightly. Don’t let her move.”

  Now she took Nate’s advice from the past. She took a deep breath and focused on the instruments lined up on the counter beside the table. Dr. Hunter looked her in the eye. “Ready?”

  She nodded bravely, and his eyes crinkled in a smile. “Okay. Hand me the swabs.”

  Daria made it through her first veterinary surgery. Then after making numerous phone calls to reschedule the afternoon’s appointments, she readied the room for the second injured dog.

  By the time they were finished with the surgeries, they were hours behind schedule, but Carla came in to relieve her.

  “Thanks for your help this morning,” Dr. Hunter told her when they finally had a chance to sit down for a few minutes in the office behind the reception counter. “I’m really sorry you got roped into this on your first day on the job.”

  “It’s okay,” she told him. She added dryly, “I’m just glad it was dogs and not hogs.”

  He threw his head back and laughed, a warm, contagious whoop that filled the room. “I wish I could promise you that tomorrow won’t be as wild,” he said, still laughing, “but chances are I’d be lying through my teeth.”

  “Thanks for the warning. But it might have been more, um, appropriate, to warn me before I accepted this job,” she joked, chuckling along with him.

  Their laughter died down, and he turned serious. “Well, you did a fine job. You really did.” He paused a minute as if considering how to phrase something. “You said your husband was a doctor? You were missionaries—South America, was it?”

  She nodded. “Colombia.”

  “I guess I didn’t realize he was a physician.”

  She swallowed hard. “Yes. We went to Colombia just a few months after Nate finished at KU Med Center. There was no clinic in our village, and since there was no airstrip there we had only what little equipment we could take in with us. It was incredibly primitive. But Nate was a good doctor.” She paused, clearing her throat. “It was while we were there that he was killed.”

  He nodded. “I remember seeing the stories in the paper when he…died. I didn’t make the connection when I first met you.” He hesitated again before speaking. “I heard that he was missing for a while before you learned that he’d died.”

  “More than two weeks.” She realized with a little surprise that this was the first time she’d told her story to a stranger. Her friends and everyone at her church already knew her circumstances. Revisiting that time aloud now, eight months later, she felt herself choking up. She cleared her throat again, struggling for control.

  But Dr. Hunter looked into her eyes, unabashed. “What a tragedy. It must have been very difficult for you.”

  “It is very difficult.”

  “Yes.” He shook his head sympathetically, his eyes never wavering from hers. “I’m sorry. I know a little of what it must be like for you. I suppose you’ve heard that I’m also widowed.”

  Daria nodded. Dorothy Janek had told her that Dr. Hunter was a widower. She sometimes forgot that she didn’t have the corner on grief. “Yes, I know that. I’m sorry. Of course you know what it’s like.”

  “It’s been several years—since the accident.” He put his head down, then looked back at her with a sad smile. “It gets easier. Don’t give up.”

  “Thank you.” It was an awkward moment, yet something tender passed between them.

  The phone rang and broke the tension. But later Daria decided that it had felt good to talk about Nate, to affirm his life to someone who hadn’t known him. She felt as though she had taken an important step forward, and she was grateful to Dr. Hunter for making it easy—and for causing her to remember that she wasn’t the only one who had ever lost a love. She tried to picture the kind of woman to whom Colson Hunter might have been married. No doubt she had been a sweet, patient woman.

  The day continued at a frantic pace, and it was midafternoon before Carla finally had a free moment to show Daria how to run some of the office machines and further explain the duties that would be expected of her.

  “These need to be sent out on the fifteenth of each month.” Carla was reviewing the billing procedure when Dr. Hunter stepped into the office. “And you can work on updating the medical files whenever you have time.”

  “That is, when you’re not assisting in surgery,” Dr. Hunter chimed in, winking.

  Jennifer Daly came in after school and took over where Carla had left off, teaching Daria how to use the printer and explaining the filing system. In spite of the boyfriend who came to pick her up at closing time, it was apparent that Jennifer had a serious crush on her boss. She flirted demurely with Dr. Hunter and, when he wasn’t looking, gazed at him through dreamy, hooded eyes. But she was a sweet, personable girl and a good teacher, and Daria enjoyed the time spent with her.

  By the time Daria picked Natalie up from her parents’ and fixed herself a sandwich for supper, she was utterly exhausted. She wasn’t sure how she was going to do this all over again tomorrow, but she was strangely excited at the prospect.

  The following morning found her under Carla Eldridge’s tutelage again. Carla, the clinic’s lone technician, was a single mom herself, with two boys in elementary school. With her petite figure and her pixie haircut, she would have been perfectly typecast as Peter Pan.

  “So your first day wasn’t exactly a breeze?” she said to Daria as the two grabbed a quick lunch behind the reception counter.

  “Not exactly—I don’t mind telling you I was scared to death.”

  “Cole said you did a great job.”

  “Cole?”

  “Dr. Hunter.”

  “Oh. Is everybody on a first-name basis here?”

  Carla nodded and mumbled over a bite of celery, “Oh, don’t even try to call Cole ‘Dr. Hunter.’ He might let you get by with just plain ‘Doc,’ but he asks everybody to call him Cole. I’m surprised he hasn’t corrected you yet.”

  “Well, I haven’t exactly called him anything yet.” She smiled. “So… he said I did all right?” she asked coyly, fishing.

  “He said you were great.”

  “Well, surgery sure wasn’t in the job description. But to tell you the truth, I did kind of enjoy it, at least when it was all over and I saw that everything came out okay.”

  “I don’t want to scare you off, but you’ll be surprised what a receptionist-slash-bookkeeper does around here.”

  Carla’s wry grin worried Daria a little, but she chose not to ask her coworker to elaborate. She supposed she’d find out soon enough.

  “You haven’t met Travis yet, have you?”

  Daria shook her head.

  “You’ll like him, too. He’s very patient, like Cole. They never try to pull the ‘we’re the big bad doctors and you’re t
he lowly peons who work for us’ routine. Even though we are the lowly peons who work for them.” She laughed.

  While Daria finished her sandwich, Carla filled her in on the office politics and small-town gossip. Their lunch was interrupted several times by customers calling to make appointments or coming in to buy supplies.

  The day flew by and then the week, and before she knew it, she had settled into a comfortable routine. Because her off-duty hours were taken up with caring for her daughter, the clinic was really Daria’s only social life. She and Natalie attended worship services with her parents each Sunday morning, but she’d felt so uncomfortable the one time she’d attended the singles’ class there that she’d never gone back. Yet she couldn’t have chosen better friends than her coworkers at the clinic. She genuinely liked everyone she worked with, and there was an easy rapport among the staff. Day by day, she was feeling more confident in performing her duties—even when they sometimes included very un-receptionist-like tasks.

  Natalie was growing like a Kansas sunflower and seemed to be thriving under her Grandmother Haydon’s care. Daria’s parents had adjusted to her and Natalie moving out. She even thought they were secretly happy to have their house back to themselves. Her mother helped her sew new curtains for the apartment—no small feat since there were fourteen large windows to cover. Together they also sewed slipcovers and plump pillows for an old sofa her brother had found at a garage sale. Between her family’s generosity, flea-market finds, and several castoffs on loan from the Janeks’ attic, she managed to assemble a cozy mishmash of furniture and dishes. In no time, the apartment had become a warm haven to come home to each evening. The ache of loneliness was abating and, though Nate still seemed very real to her in many ways, Bristol was slowly becoming her world, her reality. There were times when it seemed as though her life with Nathan in Colombia had been nothing more than a pleasant dream.

  Seven