Alone At Last

by Red Rose Publishing

  Hope grimaced. Val had her dead to rights. “We can drive up tomorrow then.”

  “P.J. decided not to drive up alone since I’m going to be working late, he’s going to wait for me, and I know you hate riding with the two of us.”

  “You guys fluctuate between arguing and making out—while he’s driving. That’s just not safe!”

  “Look,” said Val, “I don’t see where you have a choice here. James already agreed to pick you up. How do you think he’s going to feel if I call him back and tell him that you don’t want to ride with him?”

  “I…but…damn it,” Hope sputtered.

  “Okay, so I’ll see you at the cabin tonight.”

  Hope could practically hear the shit-eating grin in her best friend’s voice. “Yeah, bye.”

  This time, Hope refrained from slamming the receiver.

  She pulled out another wipe and then looked down at the baby she’d so recently dropped. “How am I going to make it through this?” she mumbled.

  The brown glass eyes of the baby she was holding stared up at her unblinking, yet somehow—still mocking.

  Chapter Two

  Hope pulled her already packed suitcase from the closet and wheeled it to the front door. James was due in less than ten minutes and she still hadn’t trained her body not to get all out of whack at just the thought of being in close quarters with him. She kicked her suitcase and frowned when the pain didn’t distract her from her impending panic.

  A sharp knock on the door beside her made her jump. A quick look through the peephole and her lungs began to deny her air again. After a few quick breaths, she pulled open the door and attempted to smile.

  James walked into the house and smiled. “Val said you need a ride,” he said glancing around the living room.

  Hope bit her lip as she memorized his appearance…she’d learned to imprint him on her brain in a matter of seconds…years of practice. He wore a fitted gray t-shirt, worn dark-washed denim jeans, and slender chocolate brown loafers. His hair was wind-blown, falling into his dark eyes. The late afternoon temperature drop had put some red in his cheeks.

  “So,” James continued in her silence, “are you ready?”

  “I just need to get my coat.”

  “I’ll take your bags to the car.” He picked up the suitcase and glanced around again. “Just this one bag?”

  “Uh…yeah…just the one.” Hope hurried over to the coat closet and pulled out her wool pea coat.

  James left with her bag and she let out a groan before tossing the coat over her arm and making sure the house was locked up.

  James was holding the passenger’s door open when she got to the end of the walk.

  “Let’s hit the road,” he said putting a hand on her elbow to help her into the black Chevy Tahoe Hybrid.

  “Yeah,” said Hope watching his trek to the driver’s side through the windshield. “Let’s hit it.”

  James pulled up to the cabin and leaned across Hope in the passenger seat to have a good look. “This wasn’t what I was thinking when Val said cabin.”

  Hope leaned closer to the window, and away from his scrumptious aroma, to look up at the three-story log house tucked into the firs and evergreens. There was a wrap-around front porch lined with rocking chairs, luxurious furnishings were viewable through the large windows. The two upper floors had wrap-around balconies and French doors.

  “It’s not exactly keeping with the rustic aesthetic,” she mumbled.

  “Fifty bucks says there’s a hot tub in there somewhere.”

  Hope smiled when he winked at her. “A hundred says it’s on one of the balconies,” she challenged.

  “I’ll take that action,” said James with a nod. “Wait here while I take the bags inside.”

  “I can help with the groceries,” she offered.

  James glowered at her. “Just wait here.”

  Hope watched as he schlepped his two medium sized bags, her suitcase, and the paper bags full of groceries into the cabin. He jogged down the porch stairs and pulled open her door.

  “Ready?” he asked with a grin.

  She accepted his extended hand and hopped out of the SUV. “You don’t have to treat me like—”

  “A lady?” James finished. “I disagree.”

  Hope pulled her hand from his and laughed nervously. James led her into the house and she couldn’t stop her eyes from bulging at the accommodations. She’d certainly gotten an inkling of the grandeur by the outside of the three-story mansion, but the furnishings were beyond what she could have imagined. The living room was as big as the entire first floor of the house she and Val shared. An impossibly large beige rug took up almost the entire floor space. The furniture was a traditional couch, two loveseats, and chaise in deep burgundy. The mantle of the brick fireplace was large enough to accommodate fifty Christmas stockings. While the house was in fact a cabin, considering the entire thing was made of logs including the pillars throughout the living room, it wasn’t exactly the Little House on the Prairie cabin. It was more like a Link-N-Logs McMansion.

  Hope glanced up the staircase.

  “We should explore upstairs and pick out our bedrooms before Val and P.J. get here.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Hope said heading upstairs behind him, enjoying the view of his ass in those jeans.

  At the top landing, Hope followed James as he opened each door and looked inside. The first one was a bathroom, the second a walk-in linen closet filled with towels and bed clothes.

  “What about this one?” he said walking into the third door they opened. It was the master bedroom. The furnishings and decorations were pastel colors, the duvet across the king size bed was covered in pale pink roses. Hope wrinkled her nose and headed for the bathroom. The pink tiles and scalloped shell double sinks matched the theme in the bedroom.

  “It’s a little girly,” she told James who was standing by the picture window.

  “True; but check this view.”

  Hope hesitated, but went ahead and stood beside him. The forest pitched downward below them. It seemed like the cabin was the top of the world. Farther down the mountain, a few puffs of smoke snaked up from the treetops.

  “The view is nice,” Hope admitted, “but then you have to turn around and see this.” She turned away from the window and gestured to the room.

  “Yeah, you’re absolutely right.” James followed her out the door and shut it behind them. “We’ll let Val and P.J. have that room.”

  She laughed and opened the next door, then the next. “How many damn bathrooms are in this place?”

  James went for the next door. “There can’t be three bathrooms in a row.”

  That bedroom was perfect. The entire room was a study in brown and blue, the queen bed had wrought iron head and footboards.

  “I like it,” they said at the same time.

  “Oh,” James said, “well, you should have it.”

  Hope didn’t like the way he was looking at her, as if she’d asked him the answer to some impossible trivia question like the atomic weight of Uranium or the shoe size of the eighth President of the United States. She felt a blush forming on her cheeks. “Uh…no…that’s okay.” She turned away from him and put her hand on the dark brown duvet. “This is more of a guy room anyway.”

  She was already halfway to the next room by the time he caught up.

  “If you want that room, you should have it,” he said putting a hand on hers, stopping her from opening the knob.

  “No,” gasped Hope pulling her hand from beneath his, “you should have it. I’m sure I’ll find one I like better.”

  “Hope…”

  She held up a hand. “I want to keep looking.” She opened the door to another bathroom, then an office with a computer, fax machine, and shelves of thick hardback books.

  Finally, she opened the door to a bedroom and smiled. “This one is mine,” she whispered walking across the hardwood floor and Persian rug. She climbed onto the oak sleigh bed and ran
a hand over the patchwork quilt. Hope glanced at the landscape paintings against the sage green walls.

  James leaned against the nine drawer dresser and smiled. “Nice…very nice…check out the fireplace.”

  Hope covered her grin with both hands. The stone fireplace was magnificent and almost as tall as James! “This is definitely my room.”

  “Cool,” said James, “I’ll bring up your bag.”

  “Okay,” she said pulling her cell phone out of her pocket. “I’m going to call Val and see if they’ve gotten on the road yet.”

  James nodded as he left the room.

  Hope’s fingers flew over the keypad.

  “You’ve reached Val’s phone…as if you didn’t know. Leave a message.”

  She didn’t leave a message. Instead she ended the call and muttered some choice curse words.

  “Where are you?” Hope hissed into her cell phone. Val’s line had gone straight to voicemail—again. “You said that you and P.J. would meet us here by seven. It is now…” she glanced at her watch, “…nine-thirty and you’re not here. You better call me!”

  Hope prayed that her friend was physically fine and had just temporarily forgotten how to operate a phone.

  “Did you get her?” James asked when she walked back into the cabin.

  “No. I just hope she’s okay.”

  He nodded. “I guess it’s a good thing we got groceries.”

  “Are you hungry?” she asked, noting that her own stomach was complaining a bit.

  “Starved, you know what I’d love?” His smile made her want to turn away.

  “What?”

  “The chicken and dumplings that you make.”

  Hope smiled; James had given her many compliments about her grandmother’s recipe. “I believe I can be persuaded, as long as you’re willing to help.”

  “I’d love to help.”

  They set up in the kitchen, working in amiable silence as Hope concentrated on making a big pot of the stewed chicken and handmade dumplings. She advised him on how to roll the biscuits to the correct thickness and cut them with a drinking glass since they didn’t have any cookie cutters. An hour later, dinner was almost done; Hope stirred the pot slowly, and snuck glances at James as he sat on a stool, his upper body leaning heavily over the island. His eyes were trained on her, but his expression was vacant, his eyes far away so she knew he wasn’t actually watching her.

  “James, are you okay?”

  He blinked. “Damn, I’m sorry. I’m just distracted, I guess.”

  “Is it something you want to talk about?” Hope watched as his face changed from concern to apparent relief.

  “One of my kids just got hospitalized.”

  Hope nodded. She loved the way he called his patients his kids. She couldn’t help but picture him with kids of his own; throwing a ball around, chasing monsters from the closet, tucking them in.

  “What happened?”

  James pinched his nose and sighed. “Shaken Baby Syndrome.”

  “Oh no,” Hope breathed feeling tears burning at the back of her eyes.

  “Yeah,” James muttered. “What kills me is the fact that I called Children’s Services about this family before.”

  Hope nodded but didn’t trust herself to speak yet.

  “Their first kid came in with a broken arm over a year ago. The x-ray showed multiple spiral fractures in various stages of healing. So I called and reported my findings. Three weeks later, I called back to check on the case and it was dropped.”

  “Dropped?” she repeated.

  “Yeah,” James said with a humorless chuckle. “They said there was insufficient evidence, but I know the truth.” His voice wavered and Hope’s heart clenched. “The parents are white and wealthy. They said the right things, live in the right neighborhood, you know the type.”

  Hope turned down the burner and put the lid back on the pot. She certainly did know the type. Somewhere along the way society had gotten the idea that only poor, uneducated minorities abused or neglected their children. Her internship as a social worker at a runaway shelter had shed light on the truth to that matter. There were just as many white kids from middle-class backgrounds sleeping on the streets as there were any other races.

  “There is no reason for a three year old to have four separate spiral fractures!” James slammed a fist on the counter.

  Hope put her hand on his fist. “James, it’s not your fault.”

  “I should have tried again,” he sighed. “I should have done something more.”

  Hope walked around the island to stand next to him. “You did everything you could legally do.”

  His dark eyebrows came together as if he was contemplating what she’d just said. Hope put a hand on his shoulder.

  “I keep thinking that there had to be something else. I went over both kids’ medical records a dozen times to find something else I could use. Now this eleven month old is in ICU because her parents can wear that mask.”

  “I’m so sorry James,” Hope whispered, seeing the pain in his eyes.

  “Not as sorry as me.” He leaned into her, resting his head on her arm. Hope slipped her other arm around to envelop him in a hug. She closed her eyes and inhaled the scent of his shampoo and woodsy cologne.

  “Shit,” James said after a few seconds, “I sure as hell know how to bring down a room.”

  Hope retreated to the pot and began stirring again. “There’s nothing wrong with caring about your patients. That’s part of being a good doctor, right?”

  James ran his hands over his face. “I guess.”

  She covered the pot again and turned off the burner. “You know you’re a good doctor.”

  He smiled. “You would think that.”

  “Why wouldn’t I? I may be biased, but this case is the exception, not the rule. At least you weren’t blinded by their bank account.”

  “I don’t know why people like that even have kids. They don’t deserve them.” There was a slight edge to his voice.

  Hope opened the oven and pulled out the tray of hot biscuits. “Dinner is ready.”

  “Exactly what I need,” James said with a grin. “Comfort food.”

  They ate in companionable silence at the kitchen table. It was after eleven when Hope put down her spoon and smothered a yawn.

  James frowned. “You must be wiped…and I asked you to cook this heavy meal and it’s almost the middle of the night.”

  “It’s okay, I like cooking.”

  James smiled. “I know, and you do it well, but you’re practically snoring into your bowl.”

  Hope shook her head. “I guess I am a little tired.”

  “Well, why don’t you head on up to bed and I’ll clean the kitchen?”

  “No, no,” Hope said reaching for his empty bowl. “I can clean up.”

  James pulled the china out of her reach and shook his head. “You hate cleaning the kitchen…and you’re tired…up to bed…doctor’s orders.”

  “Um…okay…goodnight then.” She drug her feet up the stairs, made quick work of getting ready for bed, and collapsed into sleep.

  Chapter Three

  “I’m so sorry, Hope. I have to work!”

  “Valerie, you said you had the entire week off!” It was almost eight on Saturday morning when Val returned Hope’s calls.

  “I did, but one of the girls got sick and my boss asked if I could fill in.”

  “That would be where you say, ‘Sorry no, I’m off next week.’” Hope heard the water turn off in the shower and bit her bottom lip. James was in there, naked and wet, just a few feet away.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can, I promise.” Val was saying when Hope’s mind drifted back into the conversation.

  “I can’t believe you did this,” moaned Hope.

  “I didn’t do anything, I swear.”

  “Yeah, right, Val. If you didn’t set me up, where the hell is P.J.? Are you going to tell me he had to work too?”

  “No, of course not. He’s
still here because he doesn’t want to be at the cabin without me. It’s a three hour drive and he won’t have any fun if it’s the three of you. He’ll be waiting for me to arrive. By staying here, we’ll spend the evenings together and drive up together.”

  Hope sighed. “Maybe we should leave then.”

  “No, we already paid for the week! It’ll be a waste if it doesn’t get used.”

  There was a tense silence before Hope relented. “You’re right, Val. I’m sorry I accused you of setting me up. I’m just uncomfortable.”

  Val laughed. “It’s just James, girl. He’s nobody special and you have nothing to be nervous about.”

  Hope rolled her eyes. Even if Val wasn’t lying about the set up, she was lying about James being nobody special. Her older brother was her hero. He was the only man in Val’s life that was always there and never demanded more than she could give. In fact, James never asked anything of Val. Instead he gave her whatever she needed; money, time, a shoulder to cry on, and unconditional love. If anybody knew that, it was HOPE.

  “Look, Val,” Hope said when she heard footsteps in the hall. “It’s my turn to shower. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “You look great,” James said when she made it downstairs. Hope glanced down at her dark wash jeans and black knit sweater.

  “Thanks,” she shrugged.

  “I made breakfast,” James said as he pulled a plate from the cupboard. “You like your eggs scrambled, right?”

  Hope nodded.

  In a blink she was staring down at a plate of bacon, toast, and eggs. She smiled. “You even sprinkled—”

  “Cheddar on top of the eggs; just the way you like,” James finished. “Here’s your coffee, light cream, heavy sugar.”

  Hope felt a lump forming in her throat. What was it about him remembering her food specifications that had her ready to confess her undying affection for him? He was a doctor; he was supposed to pay close attention to detail. They’d had breakfast together thousands of times over the years. “Thanks, James. This looks great.”