Almost a Family

by Roxanne Rustand

  “But you like fly-fishing best?” Tyler leaned over to study the box of tiny flies Connor had set on the ground.

  “I do for rivers and streams, especially in shallow water. I think fly-fishing is the hardest to master and the most fun.”

  Drew gave him a bored glance. “So how hard can it be?”

  “You think it’s easy?” Connor handed him a fly rod. “A skilled fisherman can land a fly in front of a trout’s nose from thirty feet or more. It’s called ‘presentation’ of the fly, and it takes endless practice to develop it to perfection. That’s what makes it so interesting—the challenge.”

  He walked several dozen yards away and spread a sheet of paper on the ground, weighting it down at each corner with small rocks. When he got back to the boys he lifted his own rod and demonstrated the whipping, back-and-forth blind casting motion that built up the speed of the line, then landed his weighted fly squarely in the middle of the paper.

  “Who’s next?”

  Tyler looked up at him in awe. “I think I need a bobber pole instead.”

  Connor chuckled and moved behind him, with his hand on the rod just behind the boy’s. “Just relax. There’s no fly on the end, just a very small weight. Rod in your right hand, coil this extra line in your left…let me move the rod. Okay…there you go. Good job! Now, I’m going to let go, but you keep practicing your cast. Okay?”

  Tyler’s motion was awkward. The tip of the rod wobbled wildly in the air. But when his fly landed some twenty feet away and off to the left, the delighted grin on his face would have charmed the hardest heart. “Wow!” he exclaimed, pumping his fist in a victory motion. “This is cool!”

  “Great job, Tyler!” Erin called out. “Now, Drew—how about you? Are you ready?”

  He glowered at her as he gripped the rod with two fists and awkwardly waved it back and forth over his head. Given the set of his jaw, he was probably embarrassed and very afraid of appearing foolish, especially in front of an audience.

  “Just relax, Drew. This rod has a good amount of flex to it, so it doesn’t take much effort. Just let the line float—”

  The tippet at the end of the line snaked past Drew’s head. The tiny weight snapped against his ear. With a yowl, he dropped the rod.

  “This sucks,” he yelped. A small drop of crimson blood welled at the crest of his ear. “Who wants to do such a stupid thing, anyway?”

  “Oh, Drew!” Her voice filled with dismay, Erin started toward him, but Connor gave her a pointed look and shook his head.

  “I got myself in the eye when I first started,” he said mildly, leaning over to pick up the rod. “I had a shiner for a week…and I was in med school. Looked like I’d been in a gang fight, but the girls all thought it was cool.”

  Drew wavered, his bravado slipping. He was clearly on the verge of stomping toward home.

  Connor leaned over to look at the wound. “Bet that hurts. Ears are mighty sensitive, but it’s just a little nick.” He clapped the boy on the shoulder, man-to-man. “Ready to try again?”

  Drew’s mouth worked. His gaze slid to Lily and Tyler. Then he set his shoulders and accepted the rod. “I guess.”

  “Good.” Connor slipped behind him and placed his hand on the rod next to Drew’s. “The key is to start right, so you don’t have to unlearn the wrong technique. Even adults have one heck of a time when they start out.”

  Drew grunted in assent.

  “Now, follow the motion. The rod is like an extension of your arm. Feel it?” Connor coached him through a dozen dry casts, then stepped to one side, well out of the way, and watched in satisfaction as the boy became smoother, more adept.

  “Excellent! Now, you boys can just keep practicing for a while. Drew—you move way over by the tuft of tall grass. Tyler—stay right here.”

  Connor gave them a wide berth and headed over to Erin and Lily, who’d settled on a grassy spot along the bank.

  “Very nice, Connor,” Erin murmured. “Drew needs small successes like this. Learning is hard for him, and he tends to be impatient—especially in school.”

  Connor dropped onto the grass next to her. “The boys wanted to try this, or I wouldn’t have started something quite so challenging. Still, maybe he’ll have fun working at it. Do you want to have a go?”

  “Another day, maybe. I need to get Lily back up to the house so she can do her homework, and I need to do mine.”

  Connor leaned forward to catch Lily’s eye. “Do you have lots of schoolwork to do?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Math and a book report.”

  “What’s your favorite subject?”

  “Science.” She beamed. “I got to go to a science fair last year, with my frogs.”

  “Science was always my favorite, too.” He wanted to ask her more.

  About what she liked to watch on TV.

  What she liked to eat.

  He wanted to find out everything about her, to savor each detail and then catalog it away for the future, but Erin was standing up and motioning to the boys, and the sun was already slipping behind the trees.

  Frustration welled in Connor’s chest as he realized that there never would be enough time—not while he was merely a guest, who might stop by for a meal or a brief visit, then go back to his own, silent house.

  “Connor.” Erin gave him a curious half smile. The boys were already halfway across the meadow toward home, carrying the fishing poles, and Lily was lagging along behind them. “You sure are quiet tonight. Are you coming with us?”

  His thoughts jerked back into the present. “Yeah.” He grabbed the handle of his tackle box and tucked the spare rods under his arm. “I guess it’s been a long day.”

  “Thanks for coming over. I know it’s Lily you want to see, but this meant a lot to the boys, too.”

  “They can keep those rods.” He fell into step with her and they walked back to the house. “I’ll come again as soon as I can and work with them some more, and then we’ll try out the stream.”

  The kids had already disappeared into the house by the time Connor and Erin reached his Tahoe.

  “By the way, I had the strangest visit from the security guard at the hospital today,” she murmured.

  He faltered, then caught himself as he began stowing the equipment in the back of the vehicle. “Really?”

  “He was outside the hospital early this morning and noticed a Lincoln Town Car with a Green Bay General Hospital parking sticker in the window. It was in one of our staff spaces, so he went over to tell the driver that he could park even closer—in the visitor area—if he came again.”

  “Oh?”

  “The man didn’t answer, and he took off down the road like he was possessed. The guard thought it was so odd that he wrote down the guy’s license plate number. What do you know about a Dr. Wayne Bloom?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CONNOR HESITATED, debating over just how much to say to Erin about Wayne Bloom.

  Wayne had been resentful of Connor from their first encounter—a situation in the E.R., when Connor stepped in to help with a severe trauma patient and had been, perhaps, a little less than diplomatic about Wayne’s lack of speed and decisiveness.

  The patient survived. Wayne’s resentment festered, and apparently deepened when he was passed over for the coveted chief of internal medicine position three years later.

  That the man was too volatile for the position had been Connor’s private opinion. That the man imagined that Connor would try to influence his former father-in-law, the hospital’s chief of staff, had bordered on the bizarre.

  “Bloom,” Connor said after a long pause, “is an internist in Green Bay. I think he’s been there for several years.”

  “So you know him, then.” She visibly relaxed. “You practiced there, too, right?”

  “Yes, I did.” Connor slid his fly rod into its case and snapped it shut, then put it in the back of his SUV. “He’s not a friend, but I do remember seeing him.”

  “Good, then. I had a
word with Beth—she’d left the reception desk for fifteen minutes and didn’t have someone cover for her, so nobody saw him walk in. We just can’t be careful enough these days.” Erin handed him the last fishing rod. “Are you coming to the meeting at the hospital next Monday night?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” he said dryly. “From what I hear, some people have definite ideas as to what should be done with any money you raise.”

  She hooked her thumbs in her front pockets and leaned against the vehicle. “Such as?”

  He closed the back of the Tahoe and turned toward her. “Well, Leland thinks…”

  The last, rosy hues of sunset warmed her skin, wrapping her in a soft glow and adding mysterious depths to her dark eyes. The scent of her—wild-flowers and fresh linen—compelled him to move closer.

  His gaze locked on hers, and he simply forgot to speak.

  “Leland?” she coaxed. But her eyes sparkled with feminine awareness, and her voice sounded low and sultry. “Not that I, um, care much about him right now.”

  Anticipation rushed through Connor, even as warning bells sounded at the back of his mind. He ran his hands slowly up her arms, watching as her breathing grew shallow and her lips parted.

  He was in deep trouble, he thought dimly, as he lowered his mouth to hers. She melted against him, curving her arms around his neck and drawing him even deeper into the kiss, until arousal burned through him. He wrapped an arm around her lower back and pulled her closer, wanting…

  From someplace far away came a distant voice, but he ignored it and lost himself in the deep pleasure of her sweet mouth and soft, sensual curves.

  And suddenly she was gone. Her eyes wide, she stared at him from an arm’s length away. “Oh, my…”

  “Erin—phone!” Drew stood on the porch of the cabin, silhouetted against the lights inside. “Are you out there?”

  She gave Connor a regretful smile. “Sorry, do you want to come in for a while?”

  He wanted to stay, but what he craved right now was something he shouldn’t wish for. Not when they had no future together. Not when there were children in the house. And after that kiss, he was in no condition to be seen.

  “Another time, maybe.”

  She reached up, framed his face with her hands and kissed him lightly. “Maybe so.”

  And then she turned and headed for the house, leaving him standing in the dark. Alone.

  IF NOTHING ELSE, Connor learned a good lesson on Tuesday night. Play with fire, and you could get burned. Give in to temptation, and you might as well chuck the whole idea of sleeping well in the foreseeable future.

  Each evening after supper, he stopped by Erin’s place and took the boys down to the stream, where he helped them work on their casting skills while Scout and Maisie romped with Lily nearby. Erin joined them, sitting some distance away while she worked on a lapful of documents, but now and then he would glance her way and see her watching pensively.

  She’d carefully avoided being alone with him since that last kiss, but he found himself thinking about her at night, after he turned the lights out. During the day, whenever the rush of appointments at the clinic slowed down. And when he came to spend time with the kids, he found himself seeking her out for hours of conversation long after the children went to bed.

  Stephanie had dressed impeccably. She’d never stepped out of the house without flawless makeup, perfectly coiffed hair. Who knew that faded jeans and an old red Wisconsin Badgers sweatshirt could be so appealing?

  On Friday evening, he arrived at six o’clock with two large pepperoni pizzas, a couple of bottles of pop and a plan.

  “Supper’s ready,” he announced when Erin answered his knock on the door. “This is for Haley and the kids. Would you like to go to a movie with me and have dinner after?”

  Startled, she backed up a step and let him walk in the door. “Pizza.” She inhaled the aroma and smiled. “It smells heavenly.”

  The babysitter appeared at her shoulder with her backpack slung over one shoulder and car keys in one hand. “Wow—that’s Luigi’s pepperoni supreme,” she breathed. “People drive clear over from Henderson to order it.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Connor handed her one of the boxes. “How would you like to stay awhile longer and earn some extra money? Say…until midnight, at double your day rate?”

  “You’ve got a deal!” She swung her backpack to the floor and headed for the kitchen. “I’ll get the plates.”

  “Wait a minute.” Erin watched Haley disappear into the kitchen, where all three kids whooped with joy. Plates clinked, silverware rattled as they set the table in record time. “This is really nice of you, but—”

  “When was the last time you went out?”

  “Um…”

  “With me.”

  She sputtered into helpless laughter. “I guess that would be…never.”

  Haley popped her head around the corner. “Go, Mrs. Lang. On Friday nights the theater in town runs ‘blockbusters from the past’ as double features, and they have the best popcorn in the whole world. You can even butter it yourself.”

  Connor watched an array of emotions play across Erin’s face, but before she could say no, he stepped closer and caressed her arm. “Consider it your good deed for the day. I can’t even remember when I last went out on a weekend.”

  “Well…”

  “Good! I’ll go home and change, and let Maisie out of the house for a few minutes.” He bent down and brushed a kiss against her cheek. “I’ll be back by six-thirty.”

  Grinning at her startled expression, he jogged out to his SUV and whistled as he drove on up to his place, took care of Maisie and headed for the shower.

  The phone in his bedroom blinked at him as he stripped off his clothes. Impatient, he wavered for a split second before hitting the message button.

  His mother, wondering when he was coming home for a visit.

  Leland, wanting to discuss the upcoming meeting at the hospital.

  Ed, making his weekly call to ask after his patients.

  And then a voice he hadn’t ever expected to hear again.

  “I hear you’re at the hospital in Blackberry Hill.” Victor Ralston’s voice dripped venom. “Do they know what kind of man you are, Reynolds? What you’re capable of? My daughter and grandchild would be alive today if not for you. Sleep well, you bastard.”

  With a towel around his waist, Connor sank down on the edge of the bed, braced his elbows on his thighs and buried his face in his hands.

  There wasn’t a day when he didn’t think about the accident, or quietly mourn the loss of his unborn child.

  There wasn’t a day when he failed to remember every detail of that last night, that last argument, or the sound of tires squealing out of the driveway.

  And Victor was going to make sure that never, ever changed.

  CONNOR DIDN’T SHOW UP at six-thirty, or at six forty-five. At seven, Erin tried to call his home number and got a busy signal. At seven-fifteen, the same.

  Frowning, she grabbed her car keys and cell phone from the kitchen counter. “I think I’ll drive up and see what’s going on. Maybe Maisie went wandering when he let her out, or something.”

  The kids and Haley had polished off the first pizza and were busy with the second. Scout sat next to the table, his tail waving back and forth against the polished oak floor, his eyes eagerly following each piece of pizza as it traveled from plate to mouth.

  Haley glanced at the kitchen clock and blissfully took another bite. “The movies start at seven-thirty, so you guys better get going,” she said around a mouthful of pizza.

  Erin nodded. “Ten o’clock bedtime, everyone. And Haley—you can call my cell anytime. I’ll keep it in my pocket and set it on Vibrate during the show.”

  Locking the door behind her, Erin stepped out into the crisp evening air. Already a haze of frost had silvered the long, bowed grasses in the meadow, and overhead the sky was a sea of stars.

  Shivering, she zipped up her light jac
ket and strode to her minivan. An eerie sense of awareness prickled at the back of her neck as she opened the door.

  A dark shape materialized not twenty feet away, at the edge of the clearing, visible in the dim glow of the interior lights. She fumbled for the headlight switch and flicked it on.

  Black on black in the deep twilight, a wolf—a huge wolf—stood staring at her, its eyes burning like pale yellow embers. She stared back from the shelter of her open car door, entranced by the animal’s sheer, primitive beauty and incredible size.

  “I finally got to see you,” she whispered, wishing it would linger. “And you are amazing.”

  But in that brief moment the wolf dissolved silently into the shadows. Were the stories true, about small dogs disappearing? Were there other wolves closer to town, or would this one range that far?

  On her way up to Connor’s place she phoned home and told Haley to let Scout out on the long chain fastened to the porch for a just a few minutes before everyone went to bed, and to bring him right back in.

  At Connor’s place she parked next to his Tahoe. Several lights glowed in the windows. The front door stood open, yet the porch was unlit. Uneasy, she studied the house for several minutes, then tried dialing his phone number once more. Busy.

  She turned off her headlights and scanned the area as she opened her car door. The absolute silence of the surrounding forest enveloped her. The thought of huge creatures lurking there, with golden, glowing eyes and empty bellies, made her pulse quicken as she judged the distance to the house.

  I could call 911, in case something is wrong in there…but he probably just has his phone off the hook and is in the shower.

  Wavering, she stared up at the house—and felt immeasurable relief when a familiar dark form lumbered out of the shadows on the porch. Maisie.

  The old dog came to the top of the steps and woofed a polite sort of greeting, her tail wagging madly.

  Erin strode across the yard and up onto the porch, and bent to give the dog a hug. “You sweetheart,” she said fervently. “I’ll bet you’d like to come in.”