Second Chance Dad (Aspen Creek Crossroads Book 2)

by Roxanne Rustand

“I never hide. You just don’t know where to look. And frankly, that’s fine by me.”

  She spun around and found her quarry shadowed in the doorway of a log building at the edge of the clearing. Roughly the size of a three-car garage, its weathered exterior blended into the forest as if it had stood there for a hundred years.

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Answering a phone or a knock on the door would be common courtesy.”

  “Of which I possess very little. So please, if you don’t mind—”

  “I want to help you, Dr. McLaren.”

  “And I just want to be left alone.” He stood straight and tall, a formidable and darkly handsome man who might have been at home in a boardroom or with a badge on his chest in the Old West, and his words rang with the finality of someone who didn’t intend to see her again. “I thought I made that clear at the grocery store yesterday. So good day, Ms…”

  “After my phone calls and the business cards I left on your door, I’m sure you know my name by now.”

  He tipped his head in slight acknowledgment as he awkwardly turned away, and she could see he was leaning even more heavily on his cane than usual. He winced, stilled for a moment, then started to close the door.

  A flash of desperation shot through her. “Look, I’ve got four clients in their eighties and nineties, and they all have the courage to make their lives better.” She strode across the clearing. “What are you afraid of? That therapy will hurt? That you’ll fail?”

  He paused, but didn’t turn back to face her. “That isn’t your concern. I am not your concern.”

  “There, you’re wrong.” She stopped in the door way, effectively preventing him from shutting it in her face. “For whatever reason, Grace seems to have a particular interest in you, so giving up is not an option.”

  “Maybe I just don’t care. Look, I’ll call her and let you off the hook. Last I heard, I have the right to decline medical services.”

  “No.”

  That earned a snort of irritation. “And why not?”

  White knuckling his cane, he slowly turned back to face her. The lines of tension bracketing his mouth and sheen of perspiration on his forehead betrayed just how much the movement cost him.

  She’d tried polite professionalism. She’d tried challenging his pride. Now, she could only bare her heart. “Because you are too young to live like this, with a disability that we can fix. You have too much to offer this world.”

  Pain flickered in his eyes. “And what would you know about that?”

  “Well, you obviously have a medical degree. You could be doing some good around here. We have so few doctors in this county—and the ones we have are retiring left and right. Wouldn’t it be better to work again, instead of just moping around this place?”

  “I’ll never go back into medicine again.” His voice was harsh. “It’s time for you to leave.”

  “Then…try to get better just for yourself. Take away some of the pain you live with every day.”

  A muscle ticked along the side of his jaw as a tense silence lengthened between them.

  “Why,” he asked wearily, “does this matter so much to you?”

  “Initially it was because my boss insisted, but now you’ve become the biggest challenge in my caseload, Dr. McLaren,” she admitted. “And I cannot fail. You need help, and I need a job—right here in Pine County.”

  The hard line of his mouth softened. “And why does that matter? There’s a big world out there.”

  She locked her gaze on his, willing him to give her a chance. “Family reasons. Important reasons.”

  “You are one stubborn woman,” he said on a long sigh.

  And with that, she knew she’d won. She tried to contain a grin of victory, then simply gave up. “One of my most endearing traits.”

  “Yeah. Endearing.” He eyed her with renewed suspicion. “We’re talking about next week or the week after. Right? Not today.”

  “You’re on my schedule for Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at four-thirty—”

  “Three times a week?” A pained look crossed his face.

  “For starters. We’ll cut back gradually as time goes on.” She looked at her watch. “But we’ve already used up a good part of your time and I can’t stay late today, so maybe we can start your assessment on Monday instead.”

  A wry look flashed in his eyes. “Big plans, tonight?”

  “With the two most important men in my life.”

  He blinked at that. “Good. Then you can be on your way.”

  He gripped his cane and slowly crossed the distance from the outbuilding to the cabin, the stiff set of his shoulders and awkward gait belying his effort to walk with an even stride.

  Her heart caught at what that effort cost him, and she had to stop herself from moving to his side to help. “You won’t be sorry, Dr. McLaren. This is the first day of a new life for you. I promise.”

  He was already sorry, and that rust bucket of an old car of hers hadn’t even made it down the lane to the highway.

  If it hadn’t been for that humiliating incident at the grocery store, he would not have capitulated. Ever.

  He’d certainly fallen before on his home turf. Had felt weak and helpless and useless.

  But that incident in public, with a gaggle of shrieking teenagers surrounding him and a motherly store clerk murmuring comforting platitudes in his ear more suited for a three-year-old with a scraped knee, had been the final straw.

  He deserved an eternity of penance for what happened to his wife. He had probably deserved to die with her. But to be on the floor, helpless and pathetic and dizzy, the object of pity, wasn’t something he wanted to experience ever again.

  And then there was Sophie herself.

  Today, her expression of concern and gentle insistence had made him want to rebelliously refuse. Yet something about that sprinkling of freckles over her pert nose and the hint of humor dancing in her eyes had made him want to get to know her a lot better, too.

  Because of that and more, he was back to wavering; not wanting her coming back here for deeper reasons than he wanted to think about.

  But he didn’t have her cell number, and calling the Home Health office meant risking the chance of having Grace answer the phone. He certainly wasn’t taking her on again.

  The cell phone on his belt vibrated. Lifting it, he read the screen and sighed, debating about answering. But failing to answer would only spur more calls and eventually, a harried trip from Sacramento by his only sibling, followed by more hovering and overt concern than he could handle.

  “Josh,” Toni exclaimed. “When you didn’t answer last night and early this morning, I was starting to panic. I told Tom that I was going to have to book a flight if I didn’t reach you by this afternoon.”

  Tom, a quiet, friendly guy with the energy level of a ninety-year-old, was the exact opposite of his overly anxious wife, and had probably been trying to calm her down with little success. How the man managed to live with such a whirlwind of energy was truly a mystery.

  “I’m fine, Toni. Phone reception is just iffy here.”

  “But when you didn’t answer—”

  “What do you think might happen? I’m perfectly independent. In good health. Content.” None of it was true, but allaying her worries meant keeping her where she belonged—at home—instead of having her descend into his life again for a weekend or longer. He loved her. He knew she loved him. But in this case, distance was the best antidote to an awkward situation.

  “I worry so about you, Josh…all alone, so far out of town. What if you fell? Got hurt?”

  It would be what I deserved, he thought grimly.

  “That isn’t going to happen.”

  “I still want to bring you back here to live with us.

  I could take you to that rehab clinic downtown—they have wonderful results. My friend Angela’s mother had a stroke, and they—”

  “I have a therapist here.”

  She fell silent for a lo
ng moment. “You what?” Her voice grew cautious, laced with doubt. “You have a…physical therapist? In Aspen Creek?”

  He gave a short laugh. “The medical care in Wisconsin is excellent, you know. We do have rehab available.”

  “But I thought you’d refused to go through with it. You said…they couldn’t do you any good.”

  “I felt it was a waste of my time and theirs. But I’ve now got scheduled appointments.” He winced at the admission. “Three times a week, with home health. The therapist comes to the cabin.”

  “Well, I’ll be,” she breathed, her voice tinged with awe. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in ages.”

  “Yeah, well…you don’t have to worry now, okay?”

  “You—you’ll keep me posted? Let me know if there’s anything I can do?”

  “No worries, sis. One of these days I’ll be so good that I’ll drive on down to see you. Maybe we can go hiking in Yosemite, like when we were kids.” It was a lie—an impossibility. He regretted leading her on. Yet he knew it was what she wanted to hear, and at least this time, his words held a grain of truth. He was starting rehab, even if didn’t expect to continue for more than a few sessions.

  He’d long since given up, and soon Sophie would, too, just like the others.

  “I love you, Josh. I’ll call again next week, okay?”

  “Sure. Love you, too,” he added out of habit, though there was so little warmth left in his heart that the words rang false, even to him.

  Sophie studied the last prescription bottle on the windowsill above the kitchen sink, then put it back and gripped the edge of the sink with both hands.

  “I thought you said you’d been taking your meds,” she said evenly, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice. “Some of these bottles have the same number of pills since I counted them two days ago.”

  The wooden legs of his chair screeched against the hardwood floor as Gramps pushed away from the kitchen table, stomped across the room and disappeared into the living room.

  She heard a squeal of hinges and a thud as he sank into his favorite old recliner and pushed back to elevate the footrest. The television blared to life.

  She followed him into the living room with his medications and a glass of water. “You need to take these,” she said, handing him the pills. “The little green ones are for your heart. And the Lasix is—”

  “I know what it’s all for. I just don’t need to follow that quack’s advice, every single day. He prob’ly gets a kickback on all of this stuff.”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  “Anyways, my dad lived to a hundred. He didn’t start going to a doctor till he was ninety-nine and he died within a year. If he’d just stayed home, he probably would’ve lived to a hundred-ten.”

  Sophie already knew his speech by heart. She’d even heard Eli reciting the words at home sometimes because he’d heard them so many times. “Please, Gramps—just take your pills so your heart doesn’t have to work so hard. I want you to be here the day Eli graduates from high school. Don’t you?”

  As always, the old man’s expression softened at the mention of his great-grandson’s name. He grudgingly downed the tablets and capsules. “There. I hope you’re happy.”

  She gave him a kiss on his whiskery cheek. “I am, whenever I come to see you. I’ll go clean up the dishes, okay?”

  He nodded, his eyes fastened on the TV screen, where someone was winning a trip to Jamaica on Wheel of Fortune.

  Eli, curled up on the couch with a book on the history of Harley-Davidson motorcycles, didn’t even look up when she tousled his hair on her way back to the kitchen.

  Sophie eyed the messy counters, where peanut butter and jam lids had been left off their jars and the bread wrapper unsealed. A half empty glass of milk sat there, too, though it was anyone’s guess for how long. The faint scent of sour milk filled her nostrils as she drew closer. The floor needed sweeping and scrubbing, and if there was time she’d need to vacuum the living room once his favorite show was over.

  And, come to think of it, there was bound to be laundry to take home…assuming Gramps had thought to shower and change his clothes since she’d been here two days ago.

  She poured some detergent in the sink and started running the hot water, stacked up the dirty dishes from the past two days, then turned to grab a saucepan from the stove.

  The acrid stench of charred food filled the air when she lifted the lid. She grabbed a knife and poked at the petrified mass inside. Whatever it was—canned chili? The casserole that she’d dropped off for him?—had turned hard as granite.

  The wonder was that he hadn’t managed to set his kitchen on fire. “I thought you were only going to use the microwave from now on,” she called out.

  He probably couldn’t hear her over the decibel level of the television, but he likely wouldn’t answer anyway. And if she pushed too hard, he’d be all the more cantankerous. It was a fine line.

  If he started refusing her assistance, he’d be in a nursing home by year’s end, and that would probably kill him. He still fiercely defended his independence and swore he’d never give up his little house.

  Biting her lower lip, she moved to the arched doorway leading into the living room and considered the gruff old man staring at the TV between his slippered feet. Illuminated in eerie blue light from the screen, he looked as if he’d been cast in marble, the deep, shadowed valleys of his wrinkled, sagging flesh cut in slashing strokes bracketing his mouth.

  He was frustrating. Stubborn. Gruff. But after the Lord, she loved Eli and Gramps more than anyone else in the world. As soon as the next commercial came on she knelt at his side. “You could have caused a fire, reheating those leftovers. I don’t want you using the stove any longer. Promise?”

  “Hhhmph.”

  “I mean it,” she said with a teasing grin. “That’s why I brought over the set of microwave containers. You could put the leftover pizza from tonight on a plate and just nuke for a short time, at lunch tomorrow. You don’t need the oven.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “And another thing—I’m working full-time now, so I can’t drop in during the day like I did when I was in school. But Margie could—”

  “She don’t need to stop in here, with all that fluttering around. Treats me like I was three.”

  “She means well. You know she does.”

  Margie had taken well to her stepgrandson, but she and her father-in-law had been like oil and water from day one. It was no surprise that the two of them usually ended up at odds now that he needed more help yet resented the loss of independence it represented.

  “And don’t be sending your dad over here, either.”

  That was yet another rocky relationship, made worse by her father’s critical personality and Gramps’s impatience with any sort of interference from his only son.

  He silently stared ahead and aimed the remote at the television to increase the volume.

  Back in the kitchen she studied the stove, then pulled it away from the wall a few inches and reached behind to pull the plug. Gramps would forget. He’d use it anyway. And then he might just burn the whole house down with him in it.

  Chapter Four

  Sophie hovered at the door of the children’s area in the bookstore, watching Eli and Cody Mendez sitting cross-legged on the carpet with a stack of books between them.

  The motorcycle books were definitely Eli’s, she thought with a touch of affectionate exasperation, while Cody had gathered an eclectic collection of books on dogs, cowboys and vintage Star Wars toys.

  They weren’t playing together. Not even conversing, but seeing Eli with the son of Elana Mendez, the part-time bookstore clerk, made Sophie’s heart warm.

  Lost in his own world of an obsession with motorcycles and with his weak social skills among his peers, he rarely played with other kids. She could often see the way they distanced themselves when he started reciting complex statistics and facts about his favorite topic.

&nbs
p; But Cody, who walked with a pronounced limp and who had been on the run with his mother from her abusive ex-husband until they’d found a stable life in Aspen Creek, had his own unique issues and was as close to being a friend as Eli had ever had.

  “They were both really good about staying quiet during our book discussion. You can leave him here for a few hours if you’d like,” Beth said, looking over her shoulder as she made a fresh pot of coffee at the table in the back of the store. “Elana works until noon, so Cody will be here.”

  “I hate to impose.”

  “Are you kidding?” Beth chuckled. “He’s company for Cody, and he’d be studying those books until midnight if you let him. Two of the books are brand-new to the store, so he hasn’t seen them. I ordered them with him in mind.”

  Sophie gave her friend an affectionate hug. “I do need to take Gramps grocery shopping and get his laundry started,” she admitted. “And it will be hard to tear Eli away.”

  Beth’s eyes filled with sympathy. “How is your grandfather doing?”

  “Independent as ever…or he thinks so, anyway.” She shuddered, remembering the pan of chili that had scorched on the stove. “But he’s not yet to the stage where we can make him give up his home.” “So what’s going to happen when your dad and stepmom move to Florida—will they take him along?”

  “That would sure be interesting. Dad isn’t patient with Gramps, and Gramps still resents Margie. Big-time. If the three of them were all more forgiving it would be a lot better for everyone. But I guess we know that isn’t likely to change.”

  “So you’ll take over completely when they go south. Lucky them.”

  “Honestly, I’m already doing it for the most part except for home repairs. And I’m glad to do it.” Sophie stepped farther away from the door to the children’s area and lowered her voice. “Gramps may be a crotchety old guy on the surface, but he was the only one who stood by me when…well, you know. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him now.”

  Even now the old hurt sometimes resurfaced, along with the memory of her father’s tirade when he’d told her to never show up on his doorstep again.