The Promise

by Robyn Carr

  “I don’t much, either,” he said. “But I do find I like to cook. I couldn’t leave Cooper. He’s perfectly useless on his own, and he does need me around. He’s talked a bit about hiring on some new help, but there’s no evidence he’s done anything about that. I wish he’d get on with it because I’m game to help him around the bar, but I’m not crazy about serving. And there ain’t nothing to cook there. Bear in mind, I have to be around those kids. I don’t know that anyone would see to it they get to go fishing if not for me.”

  “That’s pretty obvious. But how many hours a day can one man work? Living in Elmore and all?”

  “Well, that has come up as a problem,” Rawley said. “Cooper did offer up that apartment over the bar, but that wouldn’t be right. I think that place is the guesthouse now. But I’m looking for a change or two. I been in that bar five years now, and I don’t know if you noticed, it just keeps getting busier.”

  “I noticed,” she said with a smile.

  “I like it quiet.”

  “And you’d like to cook.”

  “I guess that’s right. I don’t mind stocking, cleaning, opening early, closing up. I like to get in a little fishing, work a little on the truck. I particularly like to cook with you. I hope that doesn’t put you off.”

  She leaned back in her chair and smiled. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were making me a proposal of some kind.”

  “Some kind, but what kind I can’t say.” He cleared his throat. “I wonder if we should keep cooking together. I can do the heavy lifting and make sure what cooking you need gets done.”

  “And that’s all?” she asked.

  “Ain’t that enough?” he asked.

  She just chuckled and shook her head. “For the time being,” she said. “What am I paying you for that?”

  “Can’t I just have all the good food I can handle?”

  “You could stand a few pounds, I guess. And I can use the help.”

  “The way I see it, Miss Carrie, you need the help, I need a little company, and who knows? Maybe I won’t live in Elmore forever.”

  “Don’t get any ideas, Rawley Goode. I like living alone!”

  And he flashed her a very handsome smile, showing off his false teeth. “I haven’t had a passable good idea in a hundred years, Miss Carrie.”

  And so they left it at that. He wanted to work less at the bar, more in her catering kitchen and he liked her company.

  A match made in heaven.

  Twelve

  Peyton quickly learned that the people of Thunder Point had their own ideas about what was and was not their business. Scott remained thoroughly professional on the job and completely respectable about demonstrations of affection in public when they weren’t on the job, but people still regarded them with twinkling eyes and sly smiles. When they went to the high school to provide athletic physical exams, she overheard one of the high school boys make a cute comment about “the doc’s new girl.” It made Peyton blush and Scott laugh.

  “Come over to dinner tonight,” Scott said. “Let’s grab something from Carrie’s. I’m on call, but it will probably be quiet.”

  “Famous last words,” she said.

  “It’s okay. Gabby and Charles are on duty if I get called. They’re staying in tonight. We won’t see them unless I text her and tell her to come upstairs for the kids.”

  “Does she have a whole apartment down there?”

  “Close. No kitchen, but a little refrigerator, a microwave and lots of space. It’s a nice suite with a big bathroom. They’ll fix something to eat upstairs and then hide away, watch TV, whatever. If I’m on call, they have date night at home so Gabby can take care of the kids if I’m called out. She’s going to be irreplaceable.”

  “How are you going to replace her?”

  “For call-outs, with Devon and Spencer. Right now, Eve is willing to do a lot of babysitting during clinic hours. She’ll be in school full-time so I’ll have to get a backup sitter, but Devon has some ideas. She found a preschool-slash-day care for Mercy and Jenny, Will will be in school, and they have an after-school program for working parents. We’re ironing out the details. Devon was educated in early childhood development, and she’s the perfect person to find our next solution. Come over for dinner. When the kids go to bed, we can curl up on the couch and...talk.”

  “You don’t want to talk!”

  “I love to talk to you,” he said. “And do other things.”

  Of course, she went. The four of them had spaghetti and meatballs from Carrie’s deli while Gabby and Charles had a pizza downstairs. When the kids were bathed and in bed, they curled up on the couch and made out like a couple of teenagers while Gabby and Charles were probably doing the same thing downstairs. “This is crazy,” she said. “Don’t you feel strange, making out up here while your babysitter is making out downstairs?”

  “I feel young,” he said with a smile. “This is all I have to offer tonight. It’s Gabby’s night off, unless I’m called for an emergency. Tomorrow night she’s on, and I can come to your house. If you feel like company.”

  Peyton toyed with the idea of saying no, that she needed a night off, but she couldn’t. She didn’t want a night off. And she was aware that their time together was running out. She might take that job in Seattle if it was just too good to pass up. But she knew that if he came to her house without the kids, they would do much more than talk. She might climb him like a tree. And she trembled at the thought.

  She couldn’t resist him. It was enough to make her think about whether she needed that greater income offered by the surgeon. There was something about making love with Scott that rang all her bells and whistles. He was just a small-town clinic doctor. He had no power in the medical community, in any community. His picture would never be on the cover of Medicine Today. He didn’t even have a website. He needed a website! He was not a mover and shaker.... Okay, he moved and shook a little in Thunder Point, but you’d never know it; he was treated like a friend, a pal, a buddy. He didn’t influence people, make things happen anywhere but in his small bubble. He helped people where he could and sure, people noticed, but they weren’t important people.

  They were just regular people. And that was exactly who he wanted to be.

  But when they made love...

  That was it, she thought. They made love. Love was what they were doing. With Ted it had been sex. But even though Ted had said the words, she hadn’t really felt loved.

  Scott hadn’t said the words, and yet he was completely convincing. She felt them. With each passing day, the thought of saying goodbye to him became more impossible to imagine.

  * * *

  One Saturday they took the kids south to California to see the largest stand of redwoods in the area—they were magnificent. They picnicked, hiked through the woods, hugged trees. The following weekend they drove north of Coos Bay to Echo Beach and Canon Beach where the haystack rocks offshore were the most stunning. It was so chilly on the water, they had to dress warmly and snuggle close. The four of them had many dinners together, and twice Scott was called to the hospital, and once a Thunder Point resident called his cell phone in the evening with concern over an injury on his foot. It was a deep cut that he’d closed and been treating himself, and now it was worse with a mysterious red line running up his leg from the site of the wound. Gabby was called upstairs to be on duty for the kids, and Peyton went with Scott to the clinic where Scott cleaned the wound, stitched it and loaded the guy up with antibiotics.

  If the whole town didn’t have his cell phone number or if Scott had been on ER duty at another hospital, it could have meant a trip to another town’s emergency room for the man. Or she would be the only other option. She could have met a patient at the Thunder Point clinic. If she was still in town.

  But a person had to be out of town sometimes and, while Peyton could treat and prescribe for patients, an MD usually had to sign off on her work. So Scott made arrangements. Scott’s clinic hours were Monday thr
ough Friday, nine to five, and he always answered his cell phone, but a man needed days here and there when he could be completely unavailable. To that end, a doctor from an urgent care in Bandon agreed to trade off practices with him from time to time. Dr. Stewart was a young, ER-certified physician, looking for more income, and was willing to be the doctor on call to Thunder Point if Scott could return the favor now and then. Scott’s patients could call Dr. Stewart when Scott was away, and Dr. Stewart’s patients could call Scott in emergencies.

  The first time for this new partnership was coming up in another week. Scott and the kids were following Gabriella back to Vancouver; he was pulling a trailer with her belongings. The kids couldn’t be left behind—the coming separation was going to be difficult enough.

  “I can keep the clinic open if Dr. Stewart will work with me,” Peyton said. “He can sign off on any procedures that come up while you’re away, but we’ll stall most of the appointments until you’re back in town.”

  A few days before the scheduled departure to Washington, Peyton had dinner with Scott and the kids. He was on call and his phone rang. There was a family with a bad flu in the ER, and the youngest was two years old. They were all sick, dehydrated and feverish.

  “I’ll text Gabriella to come upstairs, and then I’ll take off,” he said.

  “Don’t bother her,” Peyton said. “I know the bedtime drill. I’ll get the kids settled. Gabby doesn’t have much time with her beloved Charles before she has to leave Thunder Point.”

  “Are you sure? I know how you feel about being taken advantage of in off hours.”

  “I’m good,” she said. “Just go. Maybe you won’t be too long.”

  * * *

  There was one thing about being the ER doctor on call, it was very rare that Scott felt his time had been wasted. This night there was much more to the story than a family with the flu. It was carbon monoxide poisoning from a dysfunctional water heater. A mom, dad, four-year-old and two-year-old had come to the ER The kids had low-grade fevers while mom and dad were just sick as dogs. Scott had to decide what the devil it could be if he ruled out fever. Then he asked if they were the sole inhabitants of the house and learned that Grandma and Grandpa lived there, as well. The fire department was dispatched, two more patients were admitted, the water heater was turned off and the house aired out.

  All this took quite a while.

  Scott texted Peyton as he was leaving the hospital, but she didn’t respond. He wondered if she had fallen asleep in the fort again. That thought made him smile.

  If Peyton knew how much he fantasized about her joining their family, about a life with her, he feared she’d run screaming into the night. He had no idea how to pursue her, but he was moving as cautiously as he could. He knew a little about what she’d been through with Ted and gathered it had more to do with being stuck with his bratty kids than with him. Scott couldn’t guarantee his kids would always behave; he often wondered if he didn’t just find them way more precious and sweet than other people might. One thing for sure—they were his responsibility. Not hers.

  And if his kids weren’t enough of a wild card, how about the grandmothers? Holy Jesus, they made him want to run away! They were each high maintenance in their own way—his mother could be domineering and controlling, Serena’s mother could be wheedling and manipulative. When they weren’t bickering, they were forming an alliance, with him as the common enemy. While he and Serena lived in Vancouver, the grandmothers, both widows, competed for time. “She got Thanksgiving, so I get Christmas.” Even though they invited each other to all family events. They disagreed on how to take care of the children, fought over what discipline was appropriate and what was not and who was the better cook or more nurturing grandma or whatever. They’d been like that even when Serena was alive. When Will was born, Serena’s mother took up residence in her daughter’s house, staking a claim as the mother’s mother. Scott’s mother had snidely asked, “If I drive past the house slowly, will you please hold the baby up in the window so I can see him?”

  When Serena passed away, it was even worse. They were both determined to take care of him. It had been torture.

  Not only was he reluctant to tell Peyton how much he cared for her, he had no real experience in this. He’d grown up with Serena; they’d been together since they were kids. She’d passed away when she was only thirty-three. He remembered moments of passion, of sexual hunger, but more common in a relationship over a decade old, there were feelings of security, enduring love, safety, partnership. As a medical student and resident, he could not have managed without a wife like Serena, so supportive and patient. God, the number of times he’d worked sixteen-hour days and left her abandoned, barely talking to her, too tired to have a meal with her unless she came to the hospital, too exhausted for sex, broke and struggling. And yet she’d held so strong, knowing they were headed for a better day. He had adored her. He thanked God for her every day.

  That was the love of his youth, a love they created over time, through hardships and triumphs. It was a love they’d grown into since he was a boy and she was a girl.

  This thing with Peyton was somehow different. Now he was a man who had endured the rigors of loss, a man with a family. He looked at this new love differently. This was a woman, a love he might never have found. The love of his youth, the love that grew between a boy and girl, felt sweet and tempting and hopeful. What he was feeling for Peyton felt explosive. Powerful, complex and consuming.

  He really didn’t want to screw it up.

  Scott wasn’t sure what he should be doing with this romance. He hadn’t truly wooed a woman since he’d convinced Serena to marry him—and that hadn’t been difficult. He was going to have to think very hard, strategize with great cunning, to capture Peyton. She wasn’t a young innocent who had fairy-tale ideas about relationships; she was a grown woman who had been through her own heartaches and disappointments.

  But when he walked into his house, into his bedroom, the woman he found didn’t seem to be the same one he was worried about convincing. She was on his bed, stocking feet, yoga pants and T-shirt, one of his kids tucked under each arm, all of them asleep.

  He couldn’t remember ever loving anyone as much as he loved her. It felt brand-new.

  He quietly changed into his pajama bottoms and slid into bed with them.

  “Um...oh,” she said, stirring. “You’re here. I should go—”

  “Shh,” he said. “Go back to sleep.” He raised up on an elbow, leaned toward her and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Wouldn’t they go to bed?”

  “They were fine. We found a bed big enough for all of us.”

  He smiled. “Happens that way a lot around here.”

  “I figured.” Then, in what almost seemed a choreographed movement, she rolled over, spooning Jenny while Will turned into Scott’s arm, resting his little head on his father’s shoulder.

  She took my children under her wing and rocked them safely to sleep.

  For him, there was no turning back.

  * * *

  Peyton was not surprised by the way the town responded to Gabriella’s departure. Even though, as a college student, her closest friendships were among the coeds and young couples she and her boyfriend socialized with, she was also well acquainted with many in town. The Saturday Scott was helping her load the small trailer to take her and all her belongings back to Vancouver turned into a party. Peyton went over to Scott’s house with a big plate of cookies and found a number of her friends already there with food, music, drinks and good wishes. Someone made a big sign that was hung on the trailer that said, Happy Trails, Gabriella. Devon, Spencer and the kids were there; Cooper, Sarah, the baby—and Ham—came. Al and Ray Anne were there with two of the three boys, Eric Gentry was working at his gas station, but his significant other, Laine, arrived with a platter of submarine sandwiches. Mac and Gina stopped by; Ashley and Eve, the new part-time babysitters, came by to give hugs and wish her well. Even though some of her young fr
iends from the community college she had attended threw her a farewell party the night before, some of them dropped by for a final goodbye. There was a constant flow of people throughout the afternoon.

  This was the kind of place that honored good people, even if they were just passing through. Gabriella had been Scott’s nanny for the past year, and her reputation was solid—she would be missed. This filled Peyton with nostalgia. Even though she’d not been able to wait to take her job abroad after college, couldn’t get on the plane fast enough, her entire huge extended family had shown up at the farm for a spectacular send-off. They’d been armed with messages to Basque family members they’d barely heard about in forty years...and they’d been so proud of her.

  Scott and the kids and Gabriella and Charles left for Vancouver on Sunday in two cars. Peyton and Dr. Stewart would cover Scott’s duties until Wednesday.

  But early Monday evening there was a knock at her door, and Peyton opened it to find Scott standing there holding a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of wine. He was smiling, and his eyes had grown dark and smoky. She had talked to him by cell phone several times Sunday and Monday and had had no idea he was coming home so quickly. There were grandmothers to visit in Vancouver!

  “Scott?”

  “I left the kids with their grandmothers,” he said, smiling. “Got a corkscrew?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming right home? I would’ve showered and changed! Planned dinner or something.”

  “First, a glass of wine,” he said, coming inside and closing the door. “Then a shower for both of us. Then maybe we’ll take our time getting dressed. And if you show the proper amount of gratitude, I’ll take you to Cliff’s for crab cakes and fries.”