“I can take care of myself,” Shannon replied.
Megan angled her head to one side, giving her a bemused look. “We all know that. Sometimes it’s nice to have someone take care of you for a change.” Megan patted Shannon on the shoulder. “I should go. I promised I’d flip burgers for the barbecue. You coming?”
“I think so,” Shannon said. “If Ben wants to.”
“Looks like Hailey is convincing him to stay,” Megan replied, slipping her purse over her arm. “Catch you later.”
Shannon looked over to her sister, who was clinging to Ben’s arm, her face holding that pleading look Hailey had down to an art.
“You’ll really enjoy it and the food will be great. I promise,” Hailey was saying. “I think Kerry donated a bunch of pies, which are amazing in their awesomeness.”
“Leave him alone,” Shannon told her sister as she joined them. “Your nagging is unnecessary. We’re going.”
Hailey immediately let go of Ben’s arm. “Well, that’s just peachy keen,” she said, giving her sister a broad smirk.
“You know, for a teacher, your vocabulary is rather limited,” Shannon said, forestalling any other comment her unpredictable sister might make.
“My vocabulary is precisely pitched to my audience. The sensibilities of grade-two children need not be inundated with multisyllabic words,” Hailey returned, giving her sister a playful nudge with her elbow to show that Hailey wasn’t done with her and Ben. Yet.
“I smell burgers,” Natasha said, pulling on Dan’s arm. “And I’m hungry.”
“I echo the sentiment,” Hailey said. She tucked her arm into Dan’s and together they left.
Shannon waited a moment, as if to give her some buffer space from her sister, then turned to Ben.
“Are you sure about this? You still have a chance to back out.”
Ben grinned down at her. “I’m sure. I think it will be a lot of fun.”
“Okay. But this is a small town where everybody knows everybody’s business.” The comment she had overheard in the bathroom at the wedding hung at the back of her mind. “Just be prepared for, well…” She paused, trying to find the right way to tell him what to expect.
“Comments? Questions? People wondering what a gorgeous girl like you is doing with a homely guy like me?” He angled her a crooked smile.
Shannon felt her misgivings fade away in the face of his humor. “Something like that. Except for the homely-guy part.”
He shrugged her concerns aside. “I can hold my own.”
With that confident comment ringing in her ears, the two of them stepped out of the church. Before they crossed the street to the park where the picnic was being held, Ben caught her hand in his. He gave it a squeeze and together they walked across the street.
* * *
“I know your mother absolutely loves having you around,” Angela Beattie, an elderly lady, was saying to Ben as he forked the last bite of pie into his mouth.
The barbecue was still going strong, but he already had eaten a burger and turned down a hot dog and was finishing off his second piece of pie. The pecan had been recommended by Shannon; the lemon meringue he held now had been foisted on him by Angela, a friend of his mother’s from book club.
“Your mother was telling us at book club that you’re a doctor?” Angela fairly beamed up at him, her wrinkles almost obscuring her bright blue eyes. “I know we sure could use a doctor around here. We’re so short at the hospital, though I’m sure young Shannon could tell you that very same thing.” Angela patted his hand. “Why, I think you should apply. I’m sure you’d get a job lickety-split.”
Ben wiped his mouth with his napkin, holding his plate with the other and simply nodded in response. “I probably could” was all he could say.
Angela reached out to take his plate. “Here, I’ll take care of that. Could I interest you in some banana cream? Kerry makes the best banana cream pie. It melts in your mouth.”
Ben held up his hand. “No. Thanks. I’m full.”
“Some blackberry cobbler?”
He shook his head, glancing around the people milling about the park, looking for Shannon. Couples stood in the bright sunshine, older people sat on chairs in the shade of trees, children ran through and around the groups, yelling, laughing and in general having fun.
A man in stained blue coveralls, holding two hot dogs, was talking with another man also in coveralls. Ben doubted they had attended the church service, but no one seemed to mind their presence. In fact, Angela Beattie approached the coverall-clad men and Ben was sure she was offering to get both of them one, if not two, pieces of pie.
“Sorry for ditching you,” Shannon said, coming to his side. “Kerry needed a hand cutting up some pies.”
Ben looked her way, surprised at the little jolt her presence gave him. She wore a fitted yellow dress with a black leather belt at the waist. The color brought out the reddish tints in her auburn hair and enhanced the sprinkling of freckles on her nose.
She looked like summer.
He was obviously smitten, which, to his surprise, was okay with him.
“I’ve been busy while you were gone,” he said. “Pete, the real-estate agent, offered to show me some houses. I just got offered not one, but two pieces of pie by Mrs. Beattie.”
Shannon’s laugh was like a little gift making him think he might actually be funny.
“Looks like she’s working on Cliff Rubinski, as well,” she said as she lowered herself to the empty lawn chair behind her.
“You know him?” Ben asked as he joined her. “Something tells me neither he nor his friend came to church this morning.”
“He doesn’t go to church, but he shows up at every church event. Looks like he and Drake just came off the job.”
“I suppose you know what he does?” Ben asked.
“He and Drake drive gravel trucks for the Fortuin brothers. They’re doing some work on Coal Creek Road.”
As Shannon returned the wave of a young girl with a pink streak in her hair, he asked, “So who is that girl?”
“Lacy Miedema. Works at Mug Shots. You should know that.”
“I’ve only been there a couple of times.” He glanced around the crowd. “So let’s see how good you really are at this.” He zeroed in on a prospect. “How about that older man sitting at the table with my mother and your nana. Glasses. Has a cane. Wearing the straw fedora.”
“Too easy. Nicholas Anderby and he’s the grandfather of that young boy over by the gazebo who’s flirting with the girl who looks like Julia Roberts.” Shannon’s eyes flicked over the gathering. “The Julia Roberts lookalike is the daughter of the woman at the pie table, who in turn is the sister of that lady playing with the little kids at the playground, who is—”
Ben laid a finger on her lips, catching the sparkle of fun in her eyes. “I get it. You know everybody.”
He removed his finger and she grinned up at him. “I’ve lived here since I was twelve. I work in the hospital. I’ve probably treated half of the people here.”
While she spoke she nodded at another young couple, who waved at her as they walked past.
“There’s something unique about that,” he said quietly. “Being so connected to a community.”
Shannon shrugged, but Ben could see she wasn’t as indifferent to his comment as she seemed. “I’m thinking I might miss this more than I think.”
Her casual comment sent a jab of ice through him. Miss this, meaning miss this town when she was gone. He should’ve known she still had her plans in place.
And why should she change them? He had no definite objectives and while things were so fragile between them, he didn’t dare offer her an alternative.
Did he?
“I’m s
urprised you still want to leave a place that is such a part of you,” he said, trying to sound as offhand as she was. It was a valid question after all. “There’s community here and a real sense of people watching out for each other. I think that’s hard to walk away from.”
Shannon wrinkled her forehead, as if weighing his words. “I heard a comedian once say people move away from their hometown because it’s the only way to outrun your nickname.” Her hand came up and twirled a tendril of hair around her finger. “Maybe it’s also a way to leave your reputation.”
He hesitated a moment, but decided to plunge in and lay the past out on the table. “What reputation are you trying to leave, then?”
She kept slowly twirling, her eyes seeming to look backward into her past. “Jilted bride.”
The words came out quietly, but Ben could see the pain they caused her.
He couldn’t stand it and took her hand in his, turning him to face her. “You know you are so much more than that. That is not who you are unless that’s how you see yourself.”
Shannon’s smile was gentle, as if humoring him. “Maybe, but it’s also how people perceive me. At the wedding I overheard a girl…heard her wonder why I took you to the wedding a year after your brother dumped me.”
“Don’t you think that might simply be a throwaway comment? Just an offhand observation? Some retelling of the history of this town?” He pointed to her knee. “If someone asked you, in a couple of months, how your knee is, which looks really good by the way, would you think they see you as The Girl Who Cut Her Knee, or would you think it’s merely some piece of information they have on you. Just like you know Lacy Miedema works at Mug Shots and Cliff Rubinski drives a gravel truck and likes to come to church events even though he doesn’t come to church.”
Okay, that was a speech and a half, but he couldn’t stop once he got going. And the pensive look on Shannon’s face was encouraging.
“Not that long ago you told me about the two parts of ourselves. How we see ourselves and who we want to be. I think I should add to that. How we think others see us. I think your perception of how others see you is not reality.”
She nodded hesitantly, as if in agreement but still unsure. “You might be right.”
“So how do you see yourself?”
Shannon tightened her grasp, then looked down at their joined hands, as if trying to find an answer there. “I used to see myself the way I think the town does. I used to think I was the poor girl that got left, not quite at the altar, but within striking distance.” She laughed lightly, then looked up at him again. “That’s changing, however.”
He hardly dared hope it was because of him, but as their gazes held he sensed it might be.
“And, as an addendum to the whole identity issue, I don’t think of you as Arthur’s brother anymore, either. To me you’re just Ben Brouwer. Well, not just Ben Brouwer, I mean only Ben Brouwer,” she added with a self-conscious laugh.
A light breeze picked up and swirled around them as if erasing all the doubts and concerns that had hung around them the past while. Relief slipped through Ben, and he felt he and Shannon had come to an important turning point. Now they could move on without constantly looking over their shoulders at the past.
“Ben Brouwer is what my passport says,” he joked.
“While we’re talking about identity,” she continued, “I think you need to acknowledge exactly who you are, as well.”
“We’ve already talked about me,” he said with a light laugh. So much for leaving the past behind. She was determined to bring this part of his past up repeatedly.
“Well, yeah, but I don’t think the issue was resolved,” Shannon said quietly.
Silence drifted up between them, an easy, comfortable silence, broken by the shouts and laughter of the people around them.
The community that Shannon knew so well. The community he felt a yearning for.
“The local hospital desperately needs another doctor,” she said, pushing on. “And a doctor is who and what you are. You’ve tried to push it aside, but I can tell you haven’t been able to suppress that part of your identity.”
Ben tried not to squeeze her hands too hard as his old emotions and frustration washed over him. “I told you how much I sacrificed to become a doctor, how much I lost. I don’t know if I’m able to face the sorrow that is part of being a doctor.”
While Shannon listened she made lazy circles with her fingers over the backs of his hands, traced a scar he’d gotten as a resident when a patient he’d been treating went ballistic and the scalpel Ben had been using flew up and landed on the back of his hand.
The patient, a young man who had overdosed on drugs, died five minutes later.
Shannon stopped her tracing, then lifted her hand. “See that young girl over there? The one on the teeter-totter wearing the blue baseball cap?”
Ben heard the question in Shannon’s voice, then looked over to where she was pointing.
A girl of about seven was laughing as the sun glinted off the blond hair flying around her face. He recognized her, but couldn’t place her.
“Her name is Tracy Thomas. Her father was one of the guys who stood up for Carter and Emma. She came into the E.R. a couple of months ago, choking. Dr. Henneson had to do an emergency tracheotomy. Saved her life. Because this is a small town, it’s common knowledge so I’m not breaking any privacy laws, by the way. Anyone can tell you that story—she’s told it herself enough times. Will even show you her scar.” She glanced around some more, then pointed to a dark-haired teenager sitting off on his own. “Eugene Dorval came in with a gash in his neck and had lost a lot of blood. He could have died, but Dr. Shuster pulled him back from the brink. Again, common knowledge.” She turned back to him, her expression earnest. “I know you said you made many sacrifices to be a doctor and you saw too much death, but here you get to see the results of the good things you do. You get to see the mother whose daughter you saved, the husband whose wife you saved, the families and the friends. Yes, we’ve lost people and, yes, we’ve seen sorrow, but we get to see so much joy and happiness and fulfillment, as well.” She turned to him. “These are all parts of the job, too. In Ottawa you probably didn’t get to see the lives you saved so you can only think of the lives you lost. But I know, for a fact, that you saved more lives than you lost.”
The passion in her voice called to him, igniting a spark of hope.
“You said you made many sacrifices for your job and I know you feel personally responsible for Saskia’s death. I want you to think of all the other sacrifices you made to get to where you did. Can you really turn your back on those, as well?”
Ben held her earnest gaze and the spark flickered and grew. As he looked around the gathering he again felt the yearning that had been growing of late. The desire to be a part of a community. The desire to be anchored somewhere.
Why not here? Why not doing what he had trained for and, as Shannon had said, made so many sacrifices to do?
“I’ll think about it” was all he could say.
“Do that. You would be welcomed with open arms. I think this is a good place for you. I think you could heal here.”
He smiled as he pulled her to her feet. “What about you? Could this still be a good place for you?”
A shadow flitted over her features, but then she gave him a shy smile. “I’ll think about it.”
Still holding his hand, she walked toward a group of people engaged in earnest discussion. “Now let’s go meet some more of the good people of Hartley Creek and find out what Bob Clark and Evangeline Arsenau are having such a lively chat about.”
* * *
Hailey stopped at a shop window on Main Street and tilted her head to one side, studying the mannequin on display. “What do you think? Does that look like a teacherly outfit?”
>
Shannon glanced at the hot-pink skirt and bright orange halter top displayed in the window of Threads, a woman’s clothing store. “Do you want to blind your future students?”
“You might be right,” Hailey agreed, as she started walking. “I have to say I’m a bit nervous about having my own class this fall after working as a teacher’s aide for the past few months.”
“You’ll do fine,” Shannon assured her, slowing down to check out the selection in the window of Chocoholics.
Hailey caught her by the arm and pulled her along the sidewalk. “Don’t even think about it. Because if you go in, I’ll go in and I want to make sure I won’t be waddling down the aisle.”
Shannon felt the tiniest flash of envy at her sister’s future plans, but it was mingled with a deeper happiness that Hailey and Dan had found each other again. “You won’t be waddling. You’ll look lovely.”
Hailey shot her sister a concerned look. “So, how was Carter and Emma’s wedding for you? I mean, she used lots of the stuff you were going to use for your wedding, as well as the same hall.”
“You know, it was fine.”
“You and Ben seemed to be enjoying yourselves at the wedding. I think you danced every dance with him.”
“It was fun.”
“Fun? Ha.” Hailey poked her in the side. “Pretty lame word for what I think happened. When you and Dr. Ben came back to the hall after your little trip down to the river, you floated into the room.”
Shannon knew better than to give her sister any reason to continue so she said nothing. She also knew her heated cheeks would give her away.
“You’re blushing,” Hailey crowed as she held the door open to Mug Shots.
Shannon had been promising Hailey they would get together for lunch. The time for Shannon to leave was fast approaching and Hailey said she wanted to get as much quality time in as possible.
The café was quiet as they stepped inside so she and Hailey had their pick of places to sit. Hailey led the way to the low-slung leather couch parked by the window overlooking the street.
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