“Yes,” she said simply, her eyes fixed on his face. “I’ll be here.”
“Despite the rough couple of weeks we’ve had between us?”
“Despite that.”
He fought to hide a rush of adrenaline. She was staying. “I’m glad to hear that.” He didn’t say any more, afraid he might yet scare her off. She went on talking about her grandparents.
“Although, if I’d taken the cruise-ship offer, I could see my grandmother dragging my grandfather on a sailing trip. She generally gets what she wants that way.”
“And you also won’t have to keep worrying about how to explain to them about Eno’s condition without breaking doctor-patient confidentiality.”
Her smile faded and her eyes grew troubled. “Is it wrong of me to be relieved that the news will come from Eno and Miriam themselves? I’ve been so torn. It’s been difficult not to confide in my dad these past days.”
“No one wants to be the bearer of bad news, Callie. Having an M.D. behind your name doesn’t inoculate you from that.”
“It’s going to be hard on all of them. They’ve been friends for so very many years.”
“You’ll be there for them. And your dad will, too.”
She ran her finger around the rim of the wineglass. “Yes, I’ll be here for them,” she said, and for him, for them both, it was a reaffirmation of her decision to stay in White Pine Lake. There should be bells and whistles, confetti, balloons dropping. Instead they sat quietly and went on talking. “It seems strange, though, being the grown-up, the one who knows the secrets. I’m not sure I like it.”
“It’s never easy, that part of our work.”
“No, it’s not. But there’s the baby coming. That will take their minds off Eno’s illness.”
“How do Ginger and your grandmother get along?”
“Well enough. My grandparents haven’t been home much these past couple of years.” Callie tapped her foot against the table leg, the only sign of agitation she let come to the surface. “With my mom, it’s another story. She and Grandma are oil and water. But I don’t want to go there tonight.”
He longed to reach out and take her in his arms, gather her close and take her cares away. Callie was a healer, a fixer. Her family meant more to her than anything. He wished he could promise her that she’d be able to make everything all right, to make them into one big, happy blended family, as she wished. But he knew she probably wouldn’t succeed. There were too many competing personalities, too many old hurts and new allegiances.
Finally she said, “Ginger can hold her own with Grandma. It’s funny, if you’d asked me that question a few weeks ago, I would have answered exactly the opposite, but not anymore. My stepmother’s got a spine. I’ve been underestimating her, I’m sorry to say.”
“Are you and Ginger becoming friends?”
“We’re not quite there yet, but I hope we soon will be.”
Her eyes slid toward the window. “It’s almost dark. What time is it? I must have left my watch on the sink.”
“It’s going on ten.”
“Goodness, it’s getting late. I’m keeping you up.”
He laughed; he couldn’t help it. “Callie, it’s Saturday night. I won’t go to bed for a couple of hours.”
She laughed, too. “Are you heading over to the White Pine for karaoke?”
“Not tonight.”
“Thanks again for a wonderful dinner.” She stood up and he recognized his cue to leave. It was still raining softly, and the twilight had deepened to true night. Lightning flickered on the horizon and thunder rumbled far out over the dunes. She scanned his face, gauging his mood. He met her scrutiny head-on as he rose from his chair.
“I’m fine, Callie,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about me, too.”
She smiled a little tremulously. “Did I have my doctor face on?”
“Yes,” he said.
“If it storms, it won’t bother you tonight?”
“They almost never do anymore. Last night was the exception, not the rule. But you could come with me anyway.”
She studied his face a moment longer. “You’re teasing me again. Please don’t. We should say good-night.” If her eyes had been as sure as her voice, he would have followed her bidding, but they weren’t.
He couldn’t restrain himself any longer. He reached out and took her into his arms.
“I’m falling in love with you, Callie.”
Her eyes widened with alarm. “No, don’t say that.”
“Why? I know what I want, and I want you. For now. For always.”
She put her fingers to his lips. “Please, don’t. We have so many things to work out between us. There’s so much we have to learn yet about each other.”
“I know what I need to.”
“Zach, how can you be so sure? All we do is argue. How can we work on a personal relationship when we’re still finding our way with our professional one?”
His lips twitched. “Making up will be one of the perks of our relationship. Tell me you love me, Callie. Because you do.”
“I can’t,” she said, her eyes shimmering with tears she was too proud to let fall. “I’m not ready. I’ve already made one momentous decision today. That’s my limit.” She tried to smile. “It’s not in my nature to be wild and spontaneous. I don’t go cliff diving or bungee jumping or believe in love at first sight.”
“I believe in love at first sight. And so does your dad. You’re his daughter.”
“I’m also uptight and straitlaced. You’ve pointed that out to me more than once.”
He shook his head, making no attempt to hide his smile. “Deep down you’re the opposite of straitlaced. You’re filled with all kinds of spontaneity and even a tiny bit of mischief.”
“I’m never spontaneous. I’ve been taught to keep my distance, to look at every possibility, to never take risks. You trust your instincts. You act on them. I can’t do that.” She took a deep breath. “Not yet.”
“Aren’t some things worth making a leap of faith? Aren’t we worth it?”
He lowered his head and kissed her long and hungrily. At last she did what he wanted her to do and melted against him. But her hands were still caught between them, denying him that last sweet intimacy.
“Promise me you’ll think about it, Callie. About us.”
“I promise.” She reached up on tiptoe and laid her mouth against his.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
T
HE
KISS
WENT
ON
and on. Callie’s heart beat in rhythm with Zach’s. Stars began to sparkle behind her eyelids because she had forgotten to take a breath, and her ears were ringing like choir bells. Still, she leaned into the kiss and yielded to the strength and comfort of his body. All the barriers she’d erected to keep distance between the two of them, between Zach and her heart, all the arguments she’d just put forth suddenly seemed as insubstantial as mist on the lake. They could make this work. She could have it all. Zach and her career and a family, all here, in White Pine Lake, as she’d always dreamed. Zach lifted his head and she could breathe again. The stars winked out as she opened her eyes, but the ringing in her ears didn’t stop. “Uh-oh,” he said. “It’s your phone.”
“What?” She blinked and took a step away from his intoxicating nearness. The temperature hadn’t changed but she felt chilled the moment she left his arms. She shivered. “I should answer it.” She gathered her scattered wits. “I have to answer it.”
Zach nodded, picked up her cell from the table and handed it to her. “Dr. Layman.” She answered automatically before she registered the caller ID number.
“Callie.” It was her mother’s voice, breathless and filled with pain. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry to be calling so late.”
“It’s not late, Mom,” she said calmly, though her heart had begun to beat hard again, and not because of the pleasure of being held in Zach’s arms. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve done the stupidest thing. I’ve broken my wrist. At least, I think it’s broken. It hurts so much.”
“What happened?” Callie was already looking around for her purse and the keys to her Jeep. “Did you fall?” Had she been out in the barn this late at night? Or had she tripped in the house? Falling with the hands outstretched was the most common way to break a wrist.
“No. No, I didn’t fall. When it started to rain, I went to shut the window in the dining room and the spring came out of the pin and the window dropped on my hand.” The farmhouse had old-fashioned, heavy wooden double-hung windows that stayed open with metal pins that were spring-loaded and fit into small holes drilled into the frame. If the pins released unexpectedly and were not eased down, the window dropped with a great deal of force. “My wrist is swollen. I can’t move my fingers and it hurts so badly.” She sounded as if she might cry.
“Have you put ice on it?”
“I did but now I’m out of ice, too.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“I heard. FOOSH?” Zach asked, using the acronym for
fall on outstretched hand.
He was already moving to the door.
“No, the window dropped down on her wrist.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“Yes,” she said honestly, “but it might be faster in the long run if you meet us at the clinic instead.”
He nodded. “All right. It’s your call, Doctor. I’ll have the X-ray machine ready when you get to the clinic.”
She wondered if he felt as off balance and shaken by their just-concluded conversation and the kiss that had ended it as she did. If he did, he didn’t show it. She hoped she didn’t, either.
“Zach, about what just happened...”
“You’re not off the hook, Callie. Sooner or later you’re going to admit you love me, too, but I’m a patient guy. I can wait. Now we’ve got work to do.” He waved her toward the door and reached into his pocket for his keys.
Callie led the way into the misty, rain-washed night. She waited impatiently for a break in the stream of cars and golf carts clogging Lake Street and wheeled the Jeep out onto the pavement. Zach did the same, but turned in the opposite direction toward the clinic. Once she was past the business district, traffic thinned out and the drive to the farm was uneventful, although the night was pitch-black and she was careful to watch for the telltale shine of deer eyes along the sides of the road. The security light on her mother’s farm stand guided Callie into the lane that served as a driveway. She parked as close to the house as she could manage and hurried up the gravel walkway to the back porch. The ground was covered with cedar chips from the morning’s tree cutting, and the smell of pine was heavy in the air. She let herself into the house and called her mother’s name.
“Here I am.” Karen was sitting at the kitchen table, pale and heavy-eyed from weeping. She held her arm high against her chest, her hand and wrist wrapped in an old, soft linen kitchen towel. “What a stupid, stupid thing to do. I tried to wait until morning to call you but it hurts so badly and I can’t move my fingers anymore.” She began to cry. “How will I ever take care of my animals with only one hand?”
“Shh, Mama,” Callie soothed. “It will be all right. Let me take a look at it.”
Compartment syndrome.
The diagnosis leaped into Callie’s mind. It was caused by crushing injuries to the long bones of the body, which increased pressure within the damaged muscles and cut off blood flow. Untreated it could result in the loss of the limb. One of the presenting symptoms was pain out of proportion to the injury. Maybe she should just bypass taking Karen to the clinic and head straight for the hospital? She wished she’d let Zach come along with her after all. He would decide if she was overreacting. She shook off the jolt of near panic. She could make this diagnosis as well as he could. “Mom, let me check your wrist,” she repeated more firmly.
Karen moaned, cradling her arm. “It hurts, Callie.”
“I know. I know.” She held out her hands; reluctantly Karen lowered her injured arm to the table so that Callie could unwrap the towel and remove the plastic bag that had once held ice cubes but now was filled with tepid water. Karen’s hand and wrist were badly swollen, a long bruise across her forearm already turning blue and purple, but the skin was not broken and the bones appeared to be in alignment. Gently, Callie lifted her mother’s middle finger. Karen gasped and cried out loud.
“Don’t. It hurts.”
“If you’re in too much pain, we can go straight to the emergency room.” Callie kept her eyes downcast, not letting her mother see how shaken she was.
“No, I don’t want that. It will take half the night to get there and it’s already late.” She started to cry again.
“Okay,” Callie said calmly. “Let’s just go to the clinic and get an X-ray. Zach’s already there waiting for us.”
“Yes,” Karen said, her expression lightening just a little. “Yes, that’s better. I hate hospitals.” She attempted a smile and Callie smiled back. Her mother had always suffered from what her grandmother Layman called “white-coat syndrome.” Hospitals made her very nervous. It wasn’t rational, Callie knew, but it was a common enough phobia.
“Zach’s your practitioner, so we’ll let him decide if you should go to the hospital, okay? Have you taken anything for the pain?”
“I made some willow-bark tea,” Karen said. “It didn’t help very much.” Willow-bark tea contained a compound also found in aspirin and had been used as an anti- inflammatory and pain reliever for thousands of years. In Callie’s medical opinion, it didn’t work very well, but she wasn’t about to have that argument with her mother right now.
“We’ll get you something stronger when we get to town.” Callie grabbed a sweater to throw over her mother’s shoulders and gently got her into the Jeep. Fifteen minutes later, driving as carefully as she could to avoid potholes and rough pavement, she ushered Karen into the small room at the clinic that held the X-ray machine. Zach was waiting for them, looking incredibly handsome with his hunter-orange stethoscope around his neck, a stubble of dark blond beard shadowing his jaw and his hands in the pockets of his well-worn fatigues.
“You made good time,” he said, catching Callie’s eye for a heart-stopping second before transferring his full attention to her mother. “Have a seat on the stool,” he said to Karen, who was still clutching her injured hand nervously to her chest, “and let me see what we’ve got here.” He smiled reassuringly and dropped to one knee beside the stainless-steel table. He gently examined Karen’s bruised and swollen hand, promising to be as gentle as possible. Callie slipped out of the little room to the medicine cabinet for pain medication and a muscle relaxer while Zach conducted his exam. She didn’t remove the medication from the bottles but set them on a small table by the door with a plastic glass of water. Karen was Zach’s patient; it would be up to him to administer the medication.
When Callie reentered the room, Zach glanced at the pill bottles and indicated his approval of her choice with a quick nod and a grin. It said more plainly than words that they were working as a team now. “Here’s something to help with the pain.”
Karen held out the palm of her good hand without an instant’s hesitation, even though she was usually leery of taking medication from big pharmaceutical companies. “Thanks,” she said and swallowed the pills with a few sips of water.
“We’re going to step into the other room while I get the shots,” Zach explained as Callie draped a lead-lined cape over her mother’s shoulder and abdomen so that only her wrist and forearm would be exposed to the radiation. Then she followed Zach to the control panel behind a short dividing wall equipped with a large pane of glass so that they could see and communicate with their patient while not being exposed to the X-rays themselves.
When Zach was satisfied he had the right shots, Callie left the protected area and moved to stand beside her mother. Karen laid her head wearily against Callie’s stomach as though she were now the child and Callie the parent. Callie stroked the back of her head where her hair was coiled into a heavy braid. She was wearing a caftanlike robe and leggings, and the hand-knitted sweater Callie had grabbed for her was soft against the palm of Callie’s hand. “Mom, why don’t you go lie down on the couch in the break room? You’ll be more comfortable there.”
“First let me put a brace on that wrist, Karen,” Zach said, coming up beside them with a soft foam cast. “This will support your wrist and help relieve the pain.”
“Thank you.” Karen smiled up at him rather dreamily. The pain pill and muscle relaxer were beginning to take effect. “It’s not throbbing quite so badly.”
“Just what I wanted to hear.” Zach moved her finger again very gently. She winced but didn’t cry out in pain as she had before when Callie had done the test. A positive sign. Maybe she had been too pessimistic about the compartment syndrome. She hoped so. “Callie and I will take a look at your pictures and we’ll decide where to go from there.”
Callie led her mother down the short hall to the break room. The small room was adjacent to the rear entrance of the clinic, and it held a microwave, a coffeemaker and an old leather sofa that someone had donated at some point. Callie helped Karen lie down and found a couple of thin pillows—the disposable ones they used on the exam tables—and a much-washed cotton blanket from the linen cabinet in the hall storage closet. “How’s that?” she asked, placing one pillow behind Karen’s head and positioning the second on her abdomen to elevate her injured hand.
She laid her good arm over her eyes. “The room’s spinning a bit. I’m feeling a little tipsy.”
“It’s just the meds. Relax and try to rest.”
“Callie, how long will I have to wear a cast?”
“A few weeks, Mom.”
“How will I take care of the goats? And The Girls?”
“We’ll work something out. I’m sure the Zimmer boys will be able to give you a hand. And I’m here for you, too.”
“You have enough on your plate without taking up sustainable-farm living. You never liked that life, anyway.”
“That’s true enough,” Callie conceded with a grin. “But it doesn’t mean I can’t do it.”
Karen gave a little sniff. “And my spinning and knitting? Oh, dear, what if it doesn’t heal right and I can’t do handwork anymore?”
Callie knelt beside the couch and patted her mother’s shoulder. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. If need be, Zach and I will consult with the orthopedists at the hospital. Your hand will be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Very well, Dr. Layman,” she said and sighed contentedly. “I like the sound of that. Dr. Layman. Have I told you that before? Have I told you how proud I am of you? My beautiful daughter, the doctor. Every mother’s dream.”
“Yes, you have told me, but
beautiful
is going a little overboard,” Callie said, smiling at her slightly rambling compliment.
“It certainly is not,” Karen insisted but her voice slurred a little on the last words. “You are lovely.”
“That’s the meds talking.”
“That’s your mother talking,” Karen said firmly.
“I won’t be a minute,” Callie promised. She dimmed the lights as she left the room and hurried to the X-ray room. Zach had the pictures already clipped to the light board as well as on the flat-screen computer monitor in front of him. “How bad is it?” she asked, her eyes going to the larger image.
“Clean break,” Zach said, indicating the thin, dark line across the ulna, the long bone of the forearm. “The bones are in alignment. The fracture should heal without any complications.”
“Are you sure? I was afraid it might be compartment syndrome. She was in so much pain. She couldn’t move her fingers.”
“She’s got a nasty bruise, but I don’t think the damage is serious enough to produce compartment syndrome. It’s usually a result of a far more traumatic injury in an acute form—car accidents, explosions, things of that nature.” His tone suggested he had encountered such injuries in combat situations. She nodded, deferring to his greater experience. “She’s never shown any indication of chronic compartment syndrome, has she? Swelling, numbness, transient paralysis.”
Callie shook her head. “No, nothing like that.”
“Then I think we’re safe in ruling it out.”
“Those windows are really heavy and Mom has a small frame for her weight.” Callie voiced her last reservation.
“I’ve got a call in to the hospital. Someone will be on call in Orthopedics. The camera’s up and running on the new system. We’ll get a consult.” All the while they’d been talking, Zach had been keying in his notes on Karen’s injury and treatment. She watched his long, strong fingers at work and marveled at how gently he had held and manipulated her mother’s injured hand. So many contrasts to this man.
Strength and gentleness. Dark and light.
Would she ever understand him well enough to anticipate his moods, read his emotions as some longtime partners, as married couples, sometimes seemed to be able to do? It was a tantalizing scenario.