Grant’s heart squeezed at the sincerity in his son’s voice. Beau was truly the child who most took after his mother, quiet and thoughtful, sensitive to the needs of everyone around him.
All of Grant’s protective instincts had come out with his son since the accident and Grant knew his behavior sometimes rankled Beau’s masculine pride. Brooke’s attitude toward her twin brother had always been one of adoration. Though she teased him mercilessly at times, she made no secret of her love for him. The one thing the accident had not damaged was their relationship.
“Looks like you’re getting a good start,” Lauren told Beau. “Since you just moved here you might not be aware of the great health services program we have at the high school.”
Beau shifted in his seat and gave her more of his attention. “Health services? Here?”
Lauren had a smile that seemed to encompass everything about her. “I know Dogwood Springs is the Missouri outback to you. No problem. I don’t blame you since you’re from the big city. Still, our school system is ranked with the best in the country, not just the state. If you take a health services course you’ll be able to do some on-site training at the hospital.”
Beau’s eyes came alive and his self-consciousness fell away. “How old do I have to be?”
“Sixteen.”
Even Brooke lost her bored expression for a moment and leaned forward. “You mean he’d get to give shots and everything? He’d love that. Mom and Dad got him this doctor set for Christmas one year and he wanted to put real needles in the syringe. Guess who was always the patient.”
“He wouldn’t give shots but he could take vitals,” Lauren said. “Most important, he would be in on patient cases and be a part of the medical world.” Lauren slowed the truck and turned onto an even rougher dirt track. “Of course, I’m sure it won’t be as exciting in our ER as it would be in some big St. Louis trauma center.”
“Not as dangerous either,” Grant said. “Inside the hospital or outside. And the variety here is better. It seemed all I ever saw at the trauma center were life-and-death situations. The stress level was always high. Here I get everything from nosebleeds and sore throats to industrial accidents and heart attacks. I’ll take this any day.”
Brooke gave an ostentatious yawn and reached out to nudge Grant’s arm with her fingers. “You’re a born hick, Dad.”
“That isn’t a bad thing,” Lauren said. “There’s a lot to be said for small towns. We do have a lot of variety in our emergency room, and in a small town everybody knows everybody else. The patients are better than the local paper for keeping us up with the latest news.” Lauren pulled beneath a stand of sycamore trees and parked the truck. “We’re here.”
***
Archer was just stepping out of the house in his fishing clothes twenty minutes late to pick up Evan when his home phone rang. He looked at the clock. It was probably Evan wondering where he was. Lauren wouldn’t be calling from the creek because her cell phone didn’t get reception there. If he didn’t answer, Evan should know he was on his way. He should share his cell phone number with more people but then the interfering deacons could sink their teeth into him no matter where he was.
Still, someone could be calling with an emergency.
Before the phone could stop ringing, Archer fumbled with the door, rushed back inside, and grabbed the receiver. Couldn’t let those devoted people down even if they did plan to fire him because of some rumor straight from the evil—.
“Hello?”
“Yes…hello? Is this Archer? Archer P-pierce?” The words tumbled through the phone in waves of broken tension. Definitely female.
“That’s me.” He frowned when he recognized the voice. “Gina?”
“I think…is Lauren…do you know where she is?”
“Yes, but she’s out of phone service. I’m here, though. Are you feeling sick? Do you need help?”
“Please…help me. They’re all around me. They won’t shut up. They won’t leave me alone. I can’t concentrate.” There was a soft gush of air and then a sob.
“Who are you talking about? Who’s there? Are you at home?”
“I’m at work. I didn’t…don’t want to tell…I’ve got to get away.”
“No Gina, wait! Get to the emergency—”
The line disconnected.
Archer dialed the hospital. By the time he was transferred to Gina’s department she’d left her desk. He gave a quick account of the problem to the woman on the phone then hung up and ran out the door.
Three weeks ago Gina had cut her bare feet. What would happen to her this time?
Chapter 18
“My pole’s jerking!” Brooke exclaimed less than three minutes after Lauren cast the line and handed her the fishing rod. “What should I do now?”
Lauren looked up from the fishhook she was baiting. Sure enough, Brooke’s line was taut. “Tug hard to set the hook then reel it in like I showed you.”
Brooke jerked on the pole hard enough to decapitate a trout and stumbled backward over a rock. She caught herself and turned to see if anyone was watching. Everyone was.
Lauren retained her sober expression with difficulty. How were the kids of Dogwood Springs Baptist Church going to handle Brooke Sheldon?
“Okay I got it. I think.”
“Keep reeling,” Lauren said. “Bring it on in to the bank.”
“But it’s so wiggly, and it—aack! What is that?” Brooke screeched. “That’s a fish? Lauren, you take this thing! This is not—” With another screech she threw the rod toward the water and scrambled across the rocky shoreline away from the creek. “I can’t do this!”
“No Brooke, wait!” Lauren shoved her own fishing rod into Grant’s hands and leaped forward to rescue Brooke’s catch. It hadn’t escaped and she reeled it in. It wasn’t until the taut line pulled the wriggling body up above the water’s surface that she discovered Brooke was right.
It wasn’t a fish.
“Snake!” Brooke’s scream split the peace of the little fishing hollow and echoed from the cliffside across the creek as she did a skittering dance across the rocks. “I told you! I can’t believe this!”
Lauren couldn’t stifle her laughter. “Relax Brooke, it’s a plain brown water snake. It isn’t going to hurt us.”
“Isn’t going to hurt us!” Brooke shrieked in outrage. “Dad, I’m going back to St. Louis. I’m calling Grandma tonight and she’ll come and get me. If she doesn’t I’ll catch a bus or hitchhike. I mean it, Dad! This place is crawling with snakes! And don’t forget the spider I saw when we parked. You know I hate those things!”
Lauren laid down her fishing rod and grabbed the line, still entertained by the sound of Brooke’s outraged chatter. “Hey Brooke, watch this.” She grasped the head of the poor struggling snake just behind the spot where the hook had caught it.
Brooke screamed again and Lauren winced. Okay, that was a bad idea but she’d truly wanted to prove the little thing wasn’t dangerous.
“He’s just scared. See? Even if he bit me he couldn’t hurt me. Have you ever had a puppy?”
Brooke crossed her arms and nodded. “This is not a puppy.”
“But a puppy can bite harder than this fellow.”
“Puppies do not slither through the water and sneak up on people.”
“Still, this guy’s harmless. He didn’t even swallow the hook. See? It just pierced his side. As soon as I release him he’ll slip back to the creek and head downstream with the current. Grant, would you give me my tackle box?”
“You can’t be serious.” Brooke backed away, eyes and mouth wide open.
Without a word Grant put down Lauren’s pole, carried the box over to Lauren, set it down, opened the lid, and reached for a set of wire cutters.
“Are you crazy?” Brooke cried. “Just cut the line!”
“We can’t,” Grant said. “We’ve got to get the hook out or the snake could get snagged and suffer a miserable death.”
Lauren looked up
at Grant with fresh respect and saw from his calm expression that, unlike his daughter, he wasn’t the least bit intimidated by the snake.
“Then kill it now so it won’t suffer.” Brooke’s voice lost its edge of panic and instead was filled with a thick thread of frustration.
“No.” This soft reply came from farther down the creek and they all glanced up to see Beau coming toward them with his first catch. “First do no harm.”
“Oh no, don’t you start too, Doctor Beau. And what is that thing you’re carrying, a minnow? I’ve seen bigger fish than that in Grandma’s aquarium.”
To Lauren’s surprise and relief, Brooke was sidetracked. Though her theatrically disgusted voice continued, it was now focused on Beau’s measly catch. Lauren and Grant snipped the hook in two and gently removed it from the snake. Then while Brooke had her back turned, Lauren took the snake to the creek and released it. Beau kept his sister occupied throughout the operation.
“Good job,” Grant said under cover of Brooke’s harangue.
Lauren looked up at him. “Thanks Doc. You didn’t do so badly yourself.”
He nodded graciously with a slow appreciative smile. Grant Sheldon had dark gray eyes the color of a lake on a cloudy day, with firm straight brows that often belied a keen appreciation for humor. As Gina had remarked recently, he was an attractive man and Lauren felt comfortable with him. It didn’t seem to matter to him that her face was scrubbed free of makeup and that her baggy old clothes probably stunk of bait by now and that he’d been witness to even worse in the past weeks when she’d been sick.
“Thanks for putting up with Brooke,” he said softly as his twins—mostly Brooke—continued their friendly insults several yards away. “I should have warned you about her. Down deep she has a tender heart but her irritability hormones have kicked into overdrive the past year or so.”
“I work with teenagers at church, remember? I just hope you don’t expect me to patronize her.”
“I’d be horrified if you did. She’s bad enough already.” Grant chuckled and glanced at his arguing children before his attention once more focused on Lauren. “I’m glad you invited us to come with you today. I’m having a good time.” The way he said it made Lauren wonder if having a good time was a rare experience for him. “Even more important, believe it or not, I think my kids are enjoying themselves. They love to argue.”
“I heard that, Dad,” Brooke said suddenly from close behind Lauren. She looked at their bloodstained hands suspiciously. “What happened to the snake?”
Lauren made an obvious show of looking at her watch then she glanced toward the road. “I wonder where Archer is. He should have arrived with Evan by now. I hope everything’s okay.”
“You let it go, didn’t you?” Brooke accused, though to Lauren’s surprised, gentleness laced the girl’s voic this time. A hint of a smile hovered in her eyes as she caught and held Lauren’s gaze.
“Yes. I don’t like to take a life unnecessarily.”
Brooke made a face. “Tell that to the poor worms you sacrificed to the hook god. So where did you put him? He probably crawled into the tackle box to hide and then he’ll slither out while we’re cruising down the highway at a gazillion miles an hour and you’ll panic and lose control of that hillbilly machine you call transportation and—”
She caught herself and her eyes widened. She shot her brother a quick apologetic look and immediately changed the subject. “Oh well, whatever. Lauren, who’s this Archie guy? Is he your boyfriend?” She reached down and cautiously opened the lid.
“Archer’s my pastor.” Lauren bent to help before Brooke could scatter her carefully organized gear onto the rocky bank.
“Is he married?”
“No.”
“Is he old? I mean, older than…well, you know what I mean. Is he too old for you?”
Lauren gave Grant a look of confusion and found it mirrored on his face. “He’s thirty-three.”
“So if he hasn’t taken a vow of celibacy or something why aren’t you dating him?”
“Have you decided to become my personal matchmaker?”
The teenager continued to select and then discard sinker after sinker. “Never hurts to look to the future.”
“Brooke.” Lauren waited until the girl looked up at her. “I’m not dating anyone, okay? Get used to it. Amazingly, life goes on even for us senior citizens.”
Brooke’s dark eyes sparkled with humor before she directed her attention once more to the contents of the tackle box. “Don’t you have any bait in here that doesn’t writhe in pain when you try to attach it to the hook?”
“I did bring a little bag of Limburger cheese and some chicken livers but I don’t think you—”
“That’s good. Where is it?”
“Brooke,” Grant said, “Limburger cheese doesn’t smell too—”
“I don’t care about the smell, I just don’t feel like killing any more innocent animals today.” She reached into the box and pulled out a sinker that would anchor a small rowboat.
“Let me help you with that,” Lauren said. “Bring your gear and we’ll hike upstream a bit. You’ve probably scared all the fish away from this spot anyway.”
To Lauren’s surprise Brooke followed her without protest. “So what’s this teen group like at your church?” she asked when they were out of earshot of her family. “Are there any hot guys?”
Lauren shrugged. “I’m too ancient to notice.” She sank down on a boulder beside a quiet pool of water and scooted over so Brooke could join her.
“What about this Evan kid who’s supposed to be here?” Brooke didn’t sit down but walked over to the water’s edge and started tossing pebbles into the water. “I know he’s only fifteen but is he anywhere close to having a birthday?”
Lauren heard the despair in the girl’s voice and allowed a brief moment of empathy. She knew what it felt like to be lonely for the company of members of the opposite sex, despite what she’d said. “I think you’ll just have to meet him, Brooke. Give it some time.”
“Sure, I can do that.” Brooke’s tone made it clear that sixteen-year-old girls did not find fifteen-year-old boys appealing or “hot.”
“Were you active in your church in St. Louis?” Lauren asked.
Brooke nodded, picked up a pebble, and tossed it into the water. Her expression grew pensive. “Mom and Dad dragged us to church all the time.”
“My parents did the same thing.”
“I bet they didn’t drag you away from all your friends and move you to the sticks two years before you graduated.”
Lauren studied the girl’s features for a moment. Brooke Sheldon was one of the most beautiful young women Lauren had ever seen. She had widely spaced eyes the same color as her father’s, with thick lashes and perfectly arched eyebrows. Her chin came to a delicate yet very firm point that characterized her disposition perfectly. To Lauren’s surprise, she felt another twinge of sympathy for Brooke that went far past compassion for this initial phase of homesickness.
Physical beauty could be a curse.
Lauren had known from a young age that people referred to her as the “pretty one” of the McCaffrey sisters, though she’d never been able to see it herself. She’d been the tomboy of the family, usually with dirt under her fingernails and on her face. She helped Dad on the farm along with her two younger brothers while her sisters helped Mom in the house.
To Mom’s disappointment, Lauren had never dated much in high school. She’d had lots of invitations but for some reason the guys she went out with couldn’t seem to understand why she didn’t want to get physical.
That was when she discovered that most men didn’t look past her face or her body. They weren’t interested in what lay in her heart.
Brooke tossed a final pebble and turned to slump onto the boulder beside Lauren.
“I know you miss your friends,” Lauren said. “I miss mine.”
“So why did you move?”
“I’m the only one of
my siblings not married yet. Too much pressure, not enough decent guys.”
“At least you weren’t forced to leave them. I was. Mom wouldn’t have made me leave. Does Dad care? No.” She picked up another pebble and tossed it.
“Good dads always care; they just don’t always know how to communicate it. My dad’s like that.” Lauren re-baited her hook. “I don’t remember him actually saying the words I love you but he didn’t have to. He showed his love by the way he talked to me—or actually by the way he listened while I talked and talked and talked.”
Brooke sighed. She got up from the boulder and picked up her rod. “So are you going to teach me how to cast this thing?”
Lauren shook her head and stood up with her own rod. This kid could wear a person out in a hurry. After five minutes of instruction and awkward casting that landed the hook in the water less than half a dozen times, Brooke gave a frustrated groan and slumped once more against the boulder.
“I thought you knew how to fish,” Lauren said. “Beau said your family went to the river.”
Brooke shrugged. “It didn’t take. You didn’t answer my question. If you were going to leave home, why didn’t you actually go someplace?”
Lauren continued to cast. “Dogwood Springs is a place.”
“No, it’s a non-place. It’s cut off from the whole world. These people practically speak a different language.”
“It doesn’t take too long to learn the dialect,” Lauren said. “I like small towns. I’ve never lived in the city except when I went to nursing school and I was glad to get back home afterward.” She reeled the line in and turned.
Brooke had her arms crossed over her chest, teeth biting into her lower lip as she stared into the water. The child was hurting. Anyone could see that.
“Brooke, it’ll probably take you a while to get used to the slower pace but couldn’t you at least wait until school starts before you pass judgment? You might surprise yourself and like it here, crazy as that may sound.”
There was a long silence and then Brooke sighed. “I don’t have a choice, do I?”
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