by Lynne Gentry
Maxine’s startled daughter turned. It took her only a millisecond to take in the woman who’d caught her trying to breech the quarantine sign. “Maddie. You look great.” She wrapped Maddie in a brief, overly perfumed hug. “Mom said you saved Parker’s life.”
Nellie had matured into a knockout. Short shorts accented her long legs and the seductive off-the-shoulder top accented her motive.
Suddenly conscious of her dirty scrubs, Maddie crossed her arms over her chest. “Maxine told me you were...”—she paused and choked back a sudden and surprising wave of jealousy—“helping Kathy take care of Parker’s ranch while I take care of Parker.”
Nellie waved off Maddie’s jab as if it had been offered as praise. “There’s so much to do, especially now with Ryan pushing a walker and Kathy working night and day to help that sweet baby adjust.” Feline-shaped green eyes offset Nellie’s creamy complexion. Calm and concern sparkled in her unusually demure expression. “Isn’t Isabella just the cutest thing you’ve ever seen? Busy, but so cute.” Nellie’s mane of silky amber hair reminded Maddie that a fire was always burning just below Nellie’s sugary smile.
All she had to do was poke at the embers and this whole I-care-so-much façade would go up in smoke. “She’s beautiful.”
“She keeps asking for her Paki...” Nellie let her questions trail off, her cat-like eyes evaluating Maddie’s willingness to slip her information as her long fingers toyed with the thin gold chain at her neck. Maddie smiled, hoping her silence would end the conversation. Instead, Nellie pressed on, “Well, anyway, I promised the cute little thing I’d come to town and check on her daddy, maybe let her Facetime him for a quick second.”
Maddie pointed to the KEEP OUT sign on the door. “I’m afraid seeing Parker is out of the question.”
“Surely that silly quarantine doesn’t include friends who are caring for his family. Right, Maddie?”
She did not like hearing Parker’s nickname for her rolling off Nellie’s forked tongue any more than she liked having her professional opinion discounted...an opinion she’d worked hard to perfect. “Everyone.”
“Then how are you getting in?”
“I’m his doctor.”
“Not his wife.” Nellie tilted her head, her eyes taking in Maddie’s scrubs and disheveled appearance. “But I guess it pays to have connections.”
“Pays to go to school for years and work your tail off.” Success with Dr. Boyer had made her bold, but from the narrowing of Nellie’s eyes, it had also made her reckless.
“Just because you don’t want Parker doesn’t mean no one else does.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The preacher’s daughter has always believed she was entitled to the attentions of every man within a hundred-mile radius. But as soon as they get too close, you move on. Where’s it going to stop?”
“Nellie, you should go.”
“My mother drove by the diner and saw you having dinner with Dr. Boyer.” She leaned in close enough to smell her breath mint. “You can’t just waltz back into Mt. Hope and scoop up the only available bachelor between here and civilization and keep your claws in the sweetest man who ever lived.”
Small towns. Big gossips. Ugh. Another reason she couldn’t wait to get to Atlanta. “I didn’t know you’d laid claim to Mt. Hope Memorial’s chief of staff.”
“You’ll move on. Not soon enough, but you will. You always do. And when you’re gone, I’ll be here to pick up the pieces.” Nellie swung her purse over her bare shoulder.
“Doctor or cowboy?”
“I’m not as picky as some.” Nellie’s long legs carried her toward the exit with the stealthy strut of a lioness. The girl was heading back to her lair. She’d regroup and return to the game with her bent-out-of-shape claws sharpened and ready for the perfect moment to pounce.
Maddie took a second to let her elevated blood pressure idle back to normal. Why should she care who Nellie pursued? Or what tricks she employed to ensnare them? Nellie’s accusations of Maddie’s intentions to capture the attention of every guy who even looked at her were unfounded during their teenager years and they were completely off track now. Maddie didn’t want every guy that came along.
She only wanted Parker.
The thought hit her harder than if Nellie had hauled off and slapped her.
Air squeezing from her lungs, Maddie turned from Parker’s door and started toward the opposite exit. She didn’t want Parker or a life of hiking boots and sacrifice. She wanted heels and financial security. She barreled toward the stairwell door and a place to think.
Halfway down the hall the elevator dinged and her brother stepped out. “David, what are you doing here?”
“Visiting the sick.”
“It’s well past visiting hours,” she snapped. “Do I need to instruct the Story sisters to notify the prayer chain that no one can see Parker? Not even the pastor?”
“I came to see you.”
“I’m not sick.”
“Can’t a brother check on his sister?”
“If you’ve come to bug me again about making time for a family dinner, you’re wasting your time. I’m not going to feel guilty for working my tail off or putting in the extra hours.”
“We’ve hardly seen you since you roared into town.”
She set her feet. “Parker’s not out of the woods yet.”
His eyes cut toward Parker’s door. “There’s a fine line between helping and hurting.”
“Nellie tattled on me, didn’t she?”
The same impish grin he used to give her every time she’d nailed him on racking up another of grandmother’s under-the-table gifts curled the corner of his lips. “She might have sent me a couple of seething texts.”
“Something to the effect of: make Maddie stop thinking she can have every guy that’s breathing.”
“Okay.” He took her arm. “Somebody needs coffee.”
“I just had dinner.”
“Robin’s a nice guy.”
“Did Nellie text you about him, too?”
He smiled at her rising ire, which only made her madder. “Robin and I shoot hoops a couple of times a week at the junior high. He texted me that you weren’t nearly as mean as I’d made you out to be.”
She shook her head, marveling more at the change in her older brother than the lack of privacy in this small town. David had always been the smart one. She’d become a doctor to prove he wasn’t the only one with brains in the family. Like him, she’d left Mt. Hope two minutes after turning in her high school cap and gown. But David had been so intent on ensure a future so different than their parents, he’d gone a step further and studied abroad. And yet, here he was. Living in the house where they’d grown up. Preaching from the pulpit their father had filled for years. Married with two kids. And completely content with his choice to come home.
Her eyes narrowed. “This town will never need surveillance cameras as long as the gossips are alive and well.”
“The trick to throwing off the busybodies is to give them something juicy, but benign, to talk about. Keeps them busy while you go and do what you really want.” Putting his teasing aside, David’s face softened. “Momma said you were meeting Robin to hash out the terms of your ability to care for Parker.”
“It’s settled.”
“How does Parker feel about having you so close?”
“I haven’t told him.”
“Because?”
“Because I don’t want him to think there’s more to my hospital-privileges campaign than simply that he’s sick and I’m an infectious disease specialist.”
Relief registered on David’s face. “Parker’s a smart guy. He’ll get it if you tell him that.”
“If I wanted your advice, I would’ve asked for it.”
“Since when?” David kissed her cheek. “Just promise me you won’t be stupid and give my friend hope where there is none.” David wheeled.
“He’s my friend, too,” she
shouted at her brother’s back.
“That ship sailed when you went east and he went south.” He threw over his shoulder. “Both of you were too stubborn to call.” He left her standing in an empty hallway with nothing but accusations to consider.
Why couldn’t men and women just be friends? Parker made her laugh. She made him think. He helped her lighten up. She helped him buckle down. He would never have gotten around to going to Guatemala if...if she hadn’t...what?
Left him.
The truth was another hammer blow to her heart. David was right. Real friends don’t run away.
Gut heavy with the need to apologize to Parker and to prove to herself that she and the guy she’d known since first grade could be friends again, she went to Parker’s door and knocked lightly.
“It’s open.” The strength in her patient’s voice prickled her skin.
She stepped inside. “It better not be. You’re in quarantine.” She was pleased to see Parker sitting up in bed and jabbing a spoon at the dinner tray in front of him.
“Feels more like I’m suffering one of those time-outs Mom used to give me whenever I let bugs loose in my room to see which ones ate the corn.” He pointed to a bowl of melted Jell-O. “Bet your dinner was better than mine.”
A healthier color peeked from beneath the dark stubble on his face. He’d showered. His unruly mop was dark and slicked back, curling above the neck of his hospital gown. His eyes were clearer, grateful, and studying her carefully. Guatemala had hardened his muscles and softened his soul. A disturbingly attractive combination.
“Dinner was better than I expected.” Maddie ventured closer. “Juicy burger. Salty, hot fries.” She taunted him with the seductive licking of her lips. “Frosty chocolate shake. It was classic Ruthie at her finest.”
“Your bedside manner has not improved.” He dropped his spoon on his tray. “You know the nurses call you the Wicked Witch of the west wing, right?”
She raised her hands and cupped her fingers into claws. “Come here, my pretty.” When he didn’t laugh at her Wizard of Oz imitation, she pushed his bedside table clear of his reach and stepped closer. “Lucky for you, I’m the witch who’s going to have you eating more of Ruthie’s burgers and fries than you can stand in a few weeks.”
He snorted and shook his head. “Another one bites the dust.”
“What does that mean?”
“Dr. Boyer caved, didn’t he?”
“Caved?”
“Boyer may look like a Greek god, but it’s good to know he’s a mere mortal after all... just like the rest of us poor suckers.”
She stiffened. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t pretend you didn’t know that all you had to do was bat those killer lashes of yours and you’d get your way.”
She perched on the side of his bed. Tempted as she was to put a kink in the line running to his IV pole, she reeled in her anger. She’d always known cutting him loose would hurt him badly. Seeing the pain he still carried was something altogether different. “I’m sorry I haven’t called since we, you know, went our separate ways.” She wanted to reach for him, to offer excuses but he deserved for her to keep her distance as much as he deserved the truth. “I was scared,” she whispered.
“Of what?”
“Everything.” The time for vague excuses had passed. “Of becoming my mother.”
“Do I look like your dad?”
She smiled. “You could be his clone...not physically...although you’re both big as a mountain...but you think like him. What mattered to him matters to you.” She ticked off her list. “Faith. Family. Frugality.”
“And that’s bad because...?”
“Because his ideals killed him.”
“I thought he died of a heart attack.”
“Broken heart...from years and years of serving and getting nothing back.”
He let out a long, slow breath. “Your dad loved ministry.”
“You don’t know the stress.”
“I’m sorry it was hard...on him, your mom, you.”
“When he left us, it nearly killed my mother. I can’t do that...be left with nothing to fall back on.”
“I’m not going to die.”
“You almost did.”
Parker held out his hand in truce. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Isabella. I wanted to call but I didn’t think you’d want to listen.”
Without any hesitation, she linked fingers with him. His grip was calloused from four years of manual labor, but his hand swallowed hers with the same security she’d always felt in his presence. “I’m listening now.”
He squeezed her hand in a show of gratitude for her support. “You remember Gabriella?”
Maddie’s stomach sunk. “The pretty clinic nurse from South Texas?”
Parker nodded. “She and I became good friends.” Did his pause imply he’d wanted more? “Very good friends. And—”
“You know, it’s really none of my business who you...” She tried to pull away from the burn between their palms but he wouldn’t let her go.
“No, it’s not like that.” He laughed at her distraught face. “You’re jealous, aren’t you?”
“I’m concerned.”
“Concerned?” he pressed, squeezing harder.
“Okay, I’ll admit to curious.”
“Curious?”
“As to what kind of girl Parker Kemp would befriend.”
“You know what kind.” His gaze held her tight as his grip.
She shook her head slowly. “Parker, we’re just—”
“Friends. Same as always.” He eased his hold, releasing her as easily as he’d let her go four years earlier. “You really need to work on your bedside manner.”
She didn’t have the heart to tell him lab rats didn’t expect her to babysit their emotions. “Don’t change the subject.”
He looked at her, weighing the risks, then slowly began to wade back into her confidence. “Gabby and I hung out a lot...until this new doctor from Brazil came to do a stint at the clinic. Perez was a great guy. We all liked him, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that with Perez on the scene, Gabby and I would never be more than friends. I’m not as slow as I used to be at spotting the signs.” His pause was a peek into the hurt she’d inflicted and didn’t know how to heal. “She was in love with Perez. They married quickly, and had Isabella ten months later. They asked me to be her godfather.”
“Isabella’s not your daughter.” Maddie couldn’t believe the relief pumping through her veins.
A shadow passed over Parker’s face. “She is now.”
“Are you going to help me make the puzzle pieces fit or leave me to guess how this happened?”
“Three weeks ago, Perez had to make an early morning run up the mountain to help deliver a baby for a woman who’d labored all night. If he had to do a C-section, he’d need help. So Gabby agreed to go along. They were only going to be gone a couple of hours. I offered to watch Isabella.”
Parker swallowed and Maddie felt her own body stiffen as he prepared to deliver the rest of the story. “By nightfall, I knew something was wrong.” His gaze drifted past her and, from the tears forming in his eyes, crashed smack into a painful memory. “So I left Isabella with Flory, the woman I rented a room from, and went looking for them. I didn’t find them until the next morning.” He swiped his eyes. “You remember how perilous some of those switchbacks can be, right?”
“Yes,” Maddie whispered, both dreading the heartbreaking details of what he found and desperate to hear them.
His watery gaze searched hers for the strength to speak. “Their jeep had been swept down the mountain by a mudslide.”
Her heart broke for the young love snuffed out so early and for their precious daughter orphaned in an instant. “I’m so sorry, Parker.”
“We all were.” He let out another pained sigh. “Anyway, once I got past the shock of losing my friends, I realized something had to be done about Isabell
a.”
“So you volunteered to raise her?”
He shook his head. “I wasn’t even married. How could I be a father?”
“Then why did you...”
“You know how the clinic hounds any American staffer or volunteer to stay current on their paper work?”
“Yes.”
“When Gabby and Perez made their will, they asked me if I’d also serve as the Isabella’s legal guardian. I agreed...I mean, what were the odds it would ever come up, right? After all, they were young and healthy and...so in love.”
They stared at each other. Neither speaking. Love didn’t protect people from hurt.
Maddie swallowed back tears. “But surely Gabriella’s family or someone in Perez’s family would want her.”
Parker shook his head. “Sadly, neither of them had another soul in the world. Loneliness was the thing that drew Gabby and Perez together.”
Common ground. The glue for any relationship. She and Parker were oil and water. They were about as opposite as two people could possibly be. She’d been a fool to entertain the possibility they could even be good friends. “But—”
“I did some pretty quick soul searching. Was going to call my parents to talk it through with them, but before I had the chance, Mom called me crying. She was so upset about Dad’s injury. I didn’t have the heart to break news like this over the phone. I planned to tell her when I brought Isabella home. I knew the minute she saw her, she’d agree that I’d made the right decision.”
“Decision?”
His eyes, now clear and resolute, no longer asked for understanding. “I’m all Isabella’s got. And I’m going to raise her like she’s all mine.”
“Adopt her?”
He nodded. “After I get the legalities sorted.”
“Are you sure? This is a big step?”
“Is it so hard to imagine me as a father?”
Frankly, it wasn’t. He’d always had a way with kids. The summer they were junior high camp counselors, the kids had lined up to be on Parker’s team. Her face sobered. “You’re over twenty-five. Somewhat mentally stable. And don’t have a known criminal background. Isabella could do far worse.” She smiled wanly in an attempt to communicate her attempt to lighten the situation with a joke.
