From Brooding Boss to Adoring Dad (4 page)

Nodding, Erin added, “And Algernon Glover is my father.”

“A respected gentleman. I’m impressed. Surprised, but impressed.”

“I was impressed, too, the first time I met him. And after all these years, he still impresses me.” She stopped, looked ahead, held her breath. “Is that my hospital?”

“That’s it. And all those buildings to the north. Adam told me that he’s put up a dividing line, and you’re not to cross over it. That everything on the other side is private property.”

“The rope?” She had to laugh. There was a slack rope tied loosely from palm tree to palm tree—in places it dipped into the sand. A lame, funny gesture, actually.

“I told you he’s stubborn. And if you haven’t looked at your bill of sale at the back of the deed he gave you last night, he’s added a provision on the end of it.”

She pulled the paper from her pocket, thumbed through the few pages and, sure enough, he’d penciled it in. A fence? “How like him!”

“Good fences make good neighbors!” Adam shouted, stepping out from a copse of palms. His side of the line, of course.

She jumped. “Why do you sneak up on people that way?”

“Why are you always so jumpy?”

“Look, I’ve got to go,” Davion said. “I’m helping in the clinic this morning and the patients are probably already lining up. They heard there’s a lady doctor here and they
want to see her.” With that, he trotted off, crossed under the rope, and headed toward the larger of three buildings she could see on the other side of Coulson’s group of palm trees.

Erin strolled over to the dividing line, but didn’t cross it. “Are you serious about the fence?” she asked him.

His answer was a grin and a shrug. “Just trying to keep things honest between us.”

“It’s a rope, Coulson. Not even a taut rope.”

“A fence by any other name …”

“And how do I know this so-called fence is the true dividing line? Maybe it’s well over on my side and you’re cheating me of something I rightfully own.”

“What you rightfully own, Red, are the buildings, and the easement all the way down to the beach. I was being generous, giving you this little strip along the side here, because I thought, at some point, you might like to put in a better drive up to the hospital’s front door. But I could take it back, if you don’t want it.”

“And what do you want in additional payment, Doctor? A case of glasses to smash?”

“Stubborn, and with a temper, too. You’re actually pretty cute when you’re acting like that. It sets off the sparks in your green eyes.”

“Hazel. Not green.” She gave in to him with a laugh. “So, is this how the neighbor relationship is going to work between us? We’re going to stand back and spar at each other from across the … rope?”

“Unless you want to build a real fence. Doesn’t have to be a tall fence. Maybe six or eight feet.”

So, what was it about Adam Coulson that disarmed her? Here she was, standing on her side of this convoluted boundary he’d strung up, arguing almost into a seduction with him. It wasn’t that she wanted to be seduced, wasn’t
that she particularly wanted to be friendly. But now they were practically face-to-face, and all she could think was how good he smelled—all masculine and tropical, maybe with a hint of lime.

“Look, I know you’re enjoying yourself playing gatekeeper at your rope, but am I going to have to ask permission to cross over so I can go to work? Provided you still want me to come and work.”

He swooped low, in a courtly gesture. “Permission to enter. And work.” Said with a grin. “Oh, and lunch.”

“Lunch?”

“You know, that meal that comes in the middle of the day?”

“You’re asking me to lunch?”

“Not a date, Red. A discussion. Since you’re going to be handling some of my medical load for a while …”

“Wait a minute. How did one morning at your medical clinic turn into me handling part of your medical load for a while?”

“I’m busy and it’s you who’s drawing them in, so it’s up to you to take care of them. I just thought I’d be civilized about this and go over some of the details with you.”

“I’m not taking over your practice, Coulson. Just giving you a couple hours of my time.”

“A couple of hours?” He pointed to the throng of people standing around one of the cottages on his side of the line. “They’re here for you, Red, and I don’t think you’re the kind of doctor who’s going to turn them down.”

She studied the people for a moment. Mostly women and children. A hard draw she couldn’t refuse to see, and she hated it that he had figured her out so well, so quickly, so easily. “When you say lunch, do you mean lunch as in two chairs at the dividing line, you on your side, me on mine?”

“Well, if that’s the way you’d like it, sure. Why not? But I was thinking we could go back to Trinique’s, have Kaven fix us his famous jerk nyamwich, I’d suggest the chicken, and bammy strips. Best on this side of the island.”

Food for the gods. Her mouth was already watering. “My father makes a good nyamwich … jerk chicken or beef, lettuce, tomato … Is Kaven’s served on coco bread?”

“What good nyamwich isn’t on coco bread?”

“And the bammy?”

Adam smiled. “Cassava flour and secret ingredients. He won’t tell anybody what they are, but I caught him smuggling yams in one day.”

“A yam bammy? That’s a new one on me. Guess I could be persuaded to try it.”

“So, that’s a yes?”

She nodded. “That’s a yes, but only for the yam bammy.” She stepped under the dividing line then looked back over her shoulder at her hospital. “I have a condition, too. You give me a guided tour of my property and all its buildings. Tonight.”

“That’s cruel, you know.”

“But who better than you? Besides, you get the fence, so I get the tour. It’s only fair.”

He sighed. “What’s fair is you selling me back what’s mine, and leaving me the hell alone.”

She laughed. “As they say, all’s fair in …”

“War and war.”

“That’s your version?”

“Not until this very moment. So, in the meantime, how long has it been since you’ve done an obstetrical exam? Because Breeon Edward is due anytime now.”

“I’m a pediatrician,” she said, following along behind him on their way to the clinic.

“That’s close enough.”

“Close enough? I haven’t delivered a baby since medical school.”

“But in the whole scheme of things you do know where babies come from?” he teased.

“Of course I know where babies come from.”

“Then Breeon will be happy to see you.”

“I don’t know, Coulson. All this for a yam bammy?” Of course, a yam bammy was unique. But, then, so was Adam Coulson. She had an idea, though, that he was an acquired taste, the way a good bammy was. Even so, she’d stick to the bammy! It was safer.

T
HE
clinic wasn’t at all what she’d expected. Actually, she didn’t know what she’d expected, but this wasn’t it. It was sparse, just a tiny waiting room with several wooden chairs and two scantily stocked exam rooms. Basic, functional and neat. Tidy almost to perfection. Each exam room contained one exam table, a very old-fashioned type possibly fifty years out of date, one supply cabinet, a sink and a stool. There was room enough to turn around, barely enough room for much more. But the paint was fresh. White. Spotless. Everything very professional, including the white jacket Coulson handed her.

“We don’t have much in the way of medical amenities here, but looking the part gives our patients more confidence in us,” he said as he tugged on his knee-length white coat. “Shows respect for them, too. Like they matter enough for us to be professional.”

That was almost as surprising as everything else here. It was all bare bones. The cabinets she peeked into contained almost nothing. The locked medicine cabinet he showed her had so few medications to choose from there was almost no point in locking it. And as far as instruments … there was a dearth there as well. Bare bones, yet in some strange way impressive. An admirable doctor making do with so little. “It’s …”

“It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen,” he finished for her. “You probably didn’t even know that medicine existed on this level, did you? ”

“I’m not that sheltered,” she said defensively.

He chuckled. “Sure you are. Rich doctor, probably from a rich family … You handed me a few hundred thousand dollars for ten acres of land and some buildings that, in Jamaica, is worth much less than half of that. Which tells me until this very moment you didn’t know about medicine on my level.”

“OK, I’ve had advantages, and I’m not ashamed of it. My father came from a working family who did well for themselves, and I benefited from that. But that doesn’t mean I’m sheltered.” Although right now she did feel that way.

“Well, sheltered or not, we’ve got people lining up outside, waiting to be seen. You get the women and children, I get the men.” He pointed out the window to a group, all sitting in various types of plastic chairs. The ones she’d seen from afar earlier. Some were reading, a couple of the women were sewing, children were playing. Two of the men were engaged in a game of checkers. It was a casual, friendly scene.

“Then it looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me, because the women and children outnumber the men three to one, which means I also get Davion to assist me.” She pulled on the white coat and almost drowned in it, it was so large. “Perfect fit,” she said, rolling up her sleeves, and, in fact, looking forward to seeing patients.

Adam straightened the jacket’s collar, his hand accidentally brushing over the line of her jaw. Goosebumps immediately leapt to her arms. “Davion’s good. The future best doctor in Jamaica. So.” He held up the one stethoscope. “This is it, and the tubing is brittle. I have one blood-pressure cuff, not calibrated, and not able to be calibrated
it’s so old. So be gentle if you need to use them, and use them sparingly because they don’t have much life left in them.”

She noted the patches of tape on the stethoscope, and was glad she’d asked her dad for a new one. Next time she talked to him she was going to ask for a blood-pressure cuff and who knew what else. “The medical authority on the island doesn’t provide you with any kind of assistance?” she asked.

“Assistance goes to the public hospitals and medical facilities. And those are mostly in the larger cities, serving the majority of the population base, as well as the tourists. It makes sense, to keep the medicine where the majority of the people are. Out here … we’re on our own. We get lots of sympathy and emotional support from the health ministry and the rest is up to us. Overall, they’re doing a fairly good job of administering health care throughout the island, especially with the limited resources they have. But there are still areas like this where medical care is hard to come by, either because the people don’t want to travel to seek it out or they can’t.”

“So you’re the equivalent of the old-fashioned country doctor, the one who goes to the patient rather than having the patient come to him.”

“Something like that.”

And he supported his medical practice out of his own pocket. That, if nothing else, was certainly painting a different picture of him than the one she’d originally seen. “Look, Coulson, I think I had an attitude about your working at the bar. That’s before I knew …”

“It buys the penicillin,” he said, shrugging. “Sometimes, you do what you have to do.”

“I’m sorry about that penicillin remark, too.” She took the battered stethoscope from his hand then the blood-
pressure cuff. “And to show you how much, I’ll buy the bammy. Now, I’m going to go see the pregnant woman first. She looks like she needs to get home and get comfortable more than anybody else here.” Erin glanced out the window, watched her sitting uncomfortably in a green plastic chair, watched the way she clung to her husband’s hand and the way he rubbed the small of her back with his other hand. It was nice. In a way, she envied the woman.

“First child,” Adam explained. “Due in a couple of weeks, and I’m hoping you can convince her to go to one of the hospitals, because I can’t. Oh, and I do have a speculum you can use to examine her. Davion will get it for you.”

Thirty minutes later, after as a good an exam as Erin could give Breeon Edward, she tapped on the door of the exam room where Adam was examining an older man. “Can you step out here for a minute?” she asked, when he opened the door a crack. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“Give me five minutes,” he said.

Erin used those five minutes to try out her powers of persuasion on Breeon. “Having your baby in a hospital is a good thing because they have different ways to help you, and your baby.”

Breeon shook her head. “My husband can’t take me. Leron drives the bus that goes to the villages and he can’t take the time off work. But that’s OK. We can have the baby here, and everything will be just fine.”

“What if I could find someone else to drive you to a hospital so Leron wouldn’t have to take off work?”

Breeon gave her head a firm shake. “My mother is here, and my sister. The hospital won’t let them help. Doc Adam can do this, and Trinique, if she gets back. And now that you’re here, you can help, too, if you want. But no hospital.”

That was the end of the argument. Breeon slid down off the exam table and headed to the door. “Doc Adam is checking me every two days now, so I’ll see you in two days. Good morning, ma’am Doc.” With that, Breeon exited, grinning from ear to ear as Leron met her in the hallway.

Only Erin wasn’t grinning when she met Adam in the hallway moments later. “It’s breech,” she said.

“Damn,” he muttered. “She’s had a rough pregnancy. Carrying too much baby for her small frame. But I didn’t expect this.”

“Well, not only is it breech, she won’t go to the hospital. Refuses.”

“Did you tell her the baby’s breech?”

Erin nodded. “Explained the best way I know how about what the delivery is going to be like if the baby doesn’t turn back, including the possible complications to both her and the baby—umbilical cord prolapse, oxygen deprivation, neurological damage. Told her she’d be better off in a hospital where they could take all the necessary steps to make it an easier delivery, and also take care of any difficulties that might arise. But she has all the confidence in the world in you and Trinique, and she’s not going to be talked out of her decision to have this baby right here. I even offered to find her a ride to a hospital since her husband can’t take off work.”

“Pretty much the same arguments I’ve been using for weeks, before the baby went breech.”

“Well, maybe it will turn back. A good many of them do before the birth. And I do know of some pre-birth techniques she can use that might help that baby turn. I think I’ll talk to her about them day after tomorrow, at her next appointment.”

He arched his eyebrows. “You’re going to be here day after tomorrow, seeing patients?”

She hadn’t even thought about that. Certainly hadn’t meant to commit to it. But that’s exactly what she’d done and, truthfully, she was worried about Breeon. Having faith in your physician was good, but Breeon’s faith overshadowed the practicality of the matter. She was going to have a difficult birth, one way or another, and this clinic wasn’t set up to do an emergency Cesarean section, if that’s what it came to. Wasn’t set up to do any sort of emergency procedure on the baby either, and that particularly bothered her. “I suppose I could, if you need some help. Or I could just come over and talk to Breeon.”

“I never refuse a volunteer. But don’t expect payment in bammys for every little thing you do.”

After she’d walked away, seen seven more patients and was on her way over to Trinique’s for lunch, she wondered exactly what she had expected. One thing was certain. It hadn’t been Adam Coulson. He was off-putting yet, in some strange way, fascinating. The truth was, she admired his dedication to something he believed in, even if that dedication was trying to maneuver itself into her path. Sure, he was hoping she’d fail so he could get his property back, and he wasn’t shy about admitting that. But he wasn’t really wishing her ill, doing that. The thing was that her success meant his failure, and his success meant her failure. It was an odd place to be, and if she cared to examine the situation even more closely, which she did not, she’d probably discover that in some ways she and Coulson were alike. Also, she’d probably see that she liked Coulson. Which was the reason why, halfway to the bar, she stopped, turned round and went back to her hospital. It was time to have a look at it. Food could wait, so could Coulson. Those were all peripheral distractions. Her hospital was not.

Not surprisingly, the front door was open. In fact, there was no lock on it. So she stepped inside and stood in the small lobby, just looking around, trying to picture it the way it would look in a few weeks, after she’d turned it into the place she wanted it to be. The lobby wasn’t much larger than Coulson’s waiting room and, to be honest, she was a little disappointed with that as it had looked larger in the photos he’d sent via the internet. But there was nothing she could do about that short of moving walls or building on, and there wasn’t time for either of those right now. Maybe later. Right now she’d have to find a way for a lobby that seated ten, at best, to work.

Maybe move the reception desk out. It was small, but in the way. And the couple of small end tables … they didn’t need to be there either. Yes, this could work, and suddenly she was feeling a little more optimistic.

Her optimism grew as she approached a set of swinging double doors separating what she guessed to be the treatment areas and patient rooms from the lobby. Stepping up to the doors, she stood on tiptoe, peeking in rather than going in. Even though she owned it now, it frightened her because it was only just dawning on her that this was her reality. Her
only
reality. Her future. And it seemed so … uncertain.

“It’s going to need work,” Adam said. “No one has occupied it as a medical facility for the better part of thirty years. A group of missionaries came in, built the hospital and several of the outbuildings for patients’ families who had nowhere else to stay, and they operated the medical facilities here for about five years, then left.”

“Why’d they leave?” she asked Adam.

“I’ve heard different stories. The area was too remote to be convenient … take the hint for your children’s hospital, by the way. I also heard there weren’t enough patients to
keep it running … something else to consider in opening a children’s hospital. Whatever the case, they evacuated during a hurricane and never came back … I’m not sure anybody knows the real reason. My guess is that they had good intentions that simply didn’t work out the way they wanted. It happens. Could happen to you.”

“You just don’t give up, do you?” she asked, laughing.

“No, but maybe you will.”

She shook her head, still smiling. “Don’t think so, Coulson. It’s a nice facility. A little smaller than I expected. But I like it.”

“The bus only goes from village to village. We have service to the larger cities only three times a week, unless you have a car. Which makes a nice facility inconvenient for anyone not from the local area. Think about it, Red. You can’t have a hospital if nobody comes.”

“They’ll come!” she exclaimed. “And being so remote is perfect.” Her children didn’t need to be bothered by the outside world. Here they’d find peace, as well as peace of mind. Two very essential ingredients in the healing process … something she knew immeasurably well.

“Well, your idea of perfect and mine aren’t even close. Because if it were me trying to open up a hospital for any patients other than local, I’d be pretty concerned about the isolation.”

“I’m not, though. And I don’t look at this as isolated. I look at it as … separate. Set apart.”

“I’ve got to hand it to you, Red. You’re certainly the proverbial cockeyed optimist. Always seeing things the way you hope they’ll be and not how they are.”

“I guess maybe I am.” She shoved through the double doors, fully expecting him to follow. Naturally, he did. “And just so you’ll know, this hospital isn’t going to fail and you’re not going to get it back.”

He chuckled. “That sure of yourself, are you?”

“Sure enough that I’m already having the bronze name plaque made.”

“You know what they say about the best-laid schemes, don’t you, Red?”

“The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley".
The poet Robert Burns had been in a despondent place in his life when he’d written those words, and she’d been in that same kind of despondent place so many times, feeling her own plans go astray. But not this time. Her life was good now. She was looking forward, not backward. “What they say about
my
best-laid schemes is that they are so meticulously organized, they’ll work out the way they’re meant to.” She smiled bravely, even though, deep down, she didn’t feel that brave because she knew how it felt to want something very badly and not get it.