The Makeover Prescription

by Christy Jeffries

  “Drew said he ran into you guys in Boise not too long ago and she seemed friendly.”

  Another grunt.

  “I hear she’s a hotshot brain surgeon over at Shadowview. Doesn’t seem like the kind of woman you normally go for.” Kylie, along with the rest of his family, knew how to rattle him into giving them even a small sliver of information. And he felt his tight-lipped determination slowly slipping.

  “Who said I was going for anybody?” Kane asked after swallowing a bite of scrambled eggs. Not in a burrito this time, though, as he’d learned that he preferred his breakfast in plain sight.

  “You want a menu, Kylie?” Freckles asked before setting down a glass of orange juice in front of his sister. The café owner’s question was rhetorical since menus were usually used only by the tourists who filled up the place on weekends.

  “No, thanks. I think I’ll have a ham biscuit. To go, please. I can’t remember the last time I actually had time to sit down and eat a real meal.”

  “Babies and jobs will do that to a woman.” Freckles winked. “Speaking of jobs, Kane, has my niece been getting home from work at a reasonable hour?”

  He kept his eyes locked onto the plate of food before him, not wanting to witness his sister’s ears physically perk up at that information the way Mr. Donut’s floppy ones lifted whenever a delivery truck rolled down the street. “I wouldn’t know, ma’am. I’m usually gone by the time she gets there.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” Freckles said, leaning against the side of their booth. Now both Kane’s and Kylie’s ears were at full attention.

  “Why’s that?” Kylie asked Freckles, and he was thankful he’d be able to get more information without having to be the one to get his gossip-free hands dirty.

  “She works crazy hours and has absolutely no social life. It ain’t normal, I tell you.” Freckles shook her head.

  Kane glanced at the woman’s neon-green sneakers, snakeskin leather pants and fuchsia polka-dot suspenders. Freckles really wasn’t the best one to be defining normal.

  “Is she happy, though?” Kylie asked before taking a drink of orange juice and settling back in her seat. Since the chatty waitress hadn’t put in her order yet, nobody was going anywhere for a while. At least, that’s what Kane told himself to alleviate his guilt at sitting here like some nosy busybody instead of asking for his check and hauling butt out the doors painted to look like the entrance to a saloon.

  “I can’t really tell,” the older woman said, then put her hand on her hip. “What do you think, Kane? You probably see her more than me. You think Julia’s happy?”

  He scrunched his nose, not wanting to be a part of this conversation at all. “How should I know? I barely talk to her.”

  “See?” Freckles said. “The girl doesn’t talk much to anyone. Probably because her parents were big on that whole ‘children should be seen and not heard’ child-rearing method. I tried not to be too opinionated since I rarely made it out there except for the occasional holiday, telling myself that they were doing what they thought was best, pushing her to excel all the time. But kids need to play, to have fun. And they were just so structured with her. Not that Julia knew any better. I just wish my sweet little niece knew how to cut loose now and then.”

  Kane thought of Julia’s regularly unmade bed and the dishes she’d left in the sink each morning after heading for work. Apparently her housekeeping skills were something she’d decided to cut loose on. But mentioning that seemingly personal tidbit of information to her aunt, who ran a tight ship in her kitchen, would be somewhat of a betrayal to his client. Plus, he liked holding on to a bit of knowledge about Dr. Smarty-Pants that no one else was privy to. Oh, the secrets one discovered when given unrestricted access to another person’s house.

  “It sounds like we need to get her out more,” Kylie said, and Kane recognized the mischievous glint in his sister’s eye.

  “Not everyone is a party girl like you, Kylie,” Kane grumbled, more to himself than anything, because he could see Freckles quickly warning up to the irresponsible suggestion.

  “That’s what I’ve been telling her.” The waitress wagged a long purple-painted fingernail in the air. “I even signed her up for an online dating website.”

  “Any success with that?” Kylie leaned forward. He had to wonder if these women realized they were trying to manage Julia’s life as much as her parents once had. Only in the opposite direction.

  “Just between me, you and the fence post...” Freckles looked around, and Kane decided that Scooter and Jonesy, the two old cowboys sitting at their usual booth and blatantly listening in to the conversation, must be the fence posts. “She met a man for coffee two days ago and said he was nice enough. But since I set up her account, I have the password and decided to go onto the website and do a little snooping. I looked the guy up and found out that he had no job and claimed to be in what he called an ‘open relationship.’” Freckles used her fingers to add air quotes to the last part.

  Kane found his fingers clenching again. She was supposed to be a doctor. A genius. Didn’t the woman know how to screen these guys? This was why he’d offered to help her meet someone in the first place. Julia didn’t know a blasted thing about men or how they thought. At the rate she was going, best case scenario was that she’d get matched with some sleazy dirtbag who would embarrass her at the hospital fund-raiser.

  Worst case scenario, she was setting herself up for someone to take advantage of her. The woman’s heart was as big as the third-story turret on her home. She was prime pickings for some gold-digging, power-hungry loser who would come into her life and start changing things around. Like putting in a tacky man cave where the formal library should be, or wanting to knock down the gabled roofline to install a satellite dish. Or sending Mr. Donut off to doggy reform school—which, frankly, wouldn’t be a bad thing since the pooch had been sneaking into Kane’s tool bag whenever it was unattended and, so far, had ferreted out a crescent wrench, two Phillips screwdrivers and a tape measure. He’d even blamed the basset hound for eating one of the paintbrushes he’d been using to stain the balustrade along the second floor and had been about to rush the poor, senseless animal to the emergency vet in town. But then Kane realized he’d accidentally left the brush on top of the stepladder when he’d gotten a phone call from one of the guys in Drew’s therapy group.

  Which was why Kane now went through Julia’s house every morning after she’d left, making sure she hadn’t left any food or other dangerous items sitting out where the dog could get them. Besides, Kane needed an organized workspace. He didn’t do well with messes or distractions.

  He was in his own world, having no idea how he’d wandered down the mental road from Julia’s asinine online dating plan to his missing tools, when he overheard his sister say to Freckles, “I have a great idea. Why don’t you and your niece come for Thanksgiving dinner?”

  Wait. What Thanksgiving dinner? The one Kylie had just roped him into attending? The one his sister had said she needed him at to run interference on his domineering parents? Well, just their father, really. Mom always took a backseat to his old man’s crazy schemes.

  But before Kane could suggest that subjecting anyone to the overbearing presence known as Bobby Chatterson would swear poor Julia off social gatherings forever, the older woman gave Kylie a grateful smile. “We’d love to, hon. Thanks for the invite.”

  “I’ll ask Drew and Luke to invite one of their single Navy friends. There’s bound to be someone we can set her up with.”

  “You’d do that for her?” Freckles’s heavily lashed eyes opened wide.

  “Of course. If you promise to bring a few dozen of your famous buttermilk biscuits for dinner. Maybe a dessert or two?”

  “You’re on,” the waitress said, five inches of jangling silver bracelets clinking together when she stuck out her hand to shake
on the deal.

  The sound reminded Kane of what shackled prisoners must have heard as they were being marched to their execution.

  * * *

  “Are you sure I’m not underdressed?” Julia asked her aunt when they drove up and parked in the circular drive of the Gregsons’ lakefront house.

  “You look beautiful, Sug.” Aunt Freckles reached over and patted the knee of her niece’s black tailored slacks, which were expensive and well cut, but also very understated.

  When Julia was growing up, formal dinners meant long, elegant dresses and heirloom pieces of jewelry from the built-in safe in her mother’s dressing room. However, judging by her aunt’s choice of a brown leather miniskirt and tall moccasin boots, the people of Sugar Falls celebrated the holidays a bit more casually. Freckles’s orange sweater with the words Gobble Gobble stitched on the front was a far cry from any of the fancy clothes in Julia’s own sparse closet.

  “Now help me get these biscuits inside. I hear Kylie and Drew had Kane install one of those fancy double ovens in the kitchen, so I hope she won’t mind me popping them in to bake before dinner. We can come back for all the pies.”

  Kane? Would he be here? Julia’s hand trembled slightly as she reached for the passenger door handle. Certainly Drew wouldn’t invite one of his patients for dinner. Not that Julia knew how they did things in smaller towns, but she couldn’t imagine her mother ever entertaining her own patients.

  She looked around at the other cars in the driveway and didn’t spot his Bronco anywhere. Maybe she should’ve made more inquiries ahead of time. Not that she minded seeing him. But she hadn’t had an actual conversation with the man in almost a week. Just notes in passing about built-in bookcases for the den or the delivery of the mahogany armoire she’d bought at an antiques shop in downtown Sugar Falls.

  After the way her body had been responding to him lately, she hadn’t even trusted herself to speak to him on the telephone. Which was maybe an overreaction on her part, because there were quite a few things she needed to speak to him about—like the way he assumed she wouldn’t mind taking care of his pet.

  She’d made the mistake of leaving a note for him regarding the low-calorie dog food she’d picked up for Mr. Donut, and Kane had apparently taken that as an invitation to leave his dog there overnight indefinitely. Then she’d come home from a grueling eighteen-hour day last Wednesday to find that he’d also taken the liberty of bringing over some fancy stuffed pillow for the basset hound to sleep on. Perhaps she should’ve told him that his pet didn’t bother with the bed at all when it seemed more comfortable using her air mattress.

  She exited the car and walked toward the rear of Freckles’s turquoise Ford Flex, still brooding about the dog. It wasn’t like she could blame Mr. Donut. The bedding Kane had picked out for her temporary bed was very plush and luxurious, even if she had learned the hard way to check under the down comforter for various tools that the animal liked to hide there.

  “So, who else is coming for dinner?” Julia whispered to her aunt as she balanced a tray in one hand and straightened her necklace with the other. The pearls had been in her family for generations and, besides her mom’s watch, was the only piece of jewelry she’d brought with her when she’d moved to Idaho. It was also the only thing she had to liven up the pale gray cashmere sweater she’d opted for rather than accepting her aunt’s offer to buy them matching turkey-themed tops.

  “Just the Gregsons and the Chattersons,” Freckles replied before an oversize teak door opened and a boy with curly blond hair launched out of it.

  “Did you bring the chocolate pie, Miss Freckles?”

  Wait. Did she just say the Chattersons?

  As in, her moody contractor?

  Before Julia could question whether she was seeing double, a duplicate boy darted out.

  “What other kinds of pies did you bring?” The other boy asked. In less than a second, two bouncing blond heads were on either side of her and peeking into the rear hatch. “You want us to help you carry stuff, Miss Freckles?”

  The older woman, who could match anyone in energy, didn’t miss a beat. “Yes. And yes. Sug, allow me to introduce Aiden and Caden Gregson, two of the finest dessert connoisseurs the town of Sugar Falls has ever seen.” Her aunt patted each twin’s head as she said his name, but Julia had no idea how anyone could tell them apart. “Boys, I’d like you to meet my niece, Dr. Julia Fitzgerald.”

  “Our Uncle Drew is a doctor,” one of the boys said. “But he’s just the talking kind. He doesn’t even have those plastic gloves in his office, so he can’t make cool balloon hands or nothing. What kinda doctor are you?”

  “Okay, monkeys,” Drew Gregson called from the front porch, his arm wrapped around the waist of a tall redheaded woman. “Let’s allow our guests to come inside the house before you ask them a million questions.”

  The boys ran back and forth as the striking couple made their way to their car.

  “Hi, I’m Kylie Gregson,” Drew’s wife said, her smile and handshake almost as exuberant as the constantly moving twins. “We’re so glad you could join us for Thanksgiving, Dr. Fitzgerald.”

  “Please, call me Julia,” she started, but before she could thank her hosts for their invitation, her voice trailed off as her eyes were drawn back to the front of the house where a hatless, clean-shaven Kane Chatterson stood.

  He was here. And he was dressed up. Her vocabulary went on sabbatical and her muscles felt about as firm as the yeasty circles of raw biscuit dough lining the baking sheet she was trying not to drop.

  “Is Fitzgerald one word or two words?” Caden—or was it Aiden?—asked as he grabbed Julia’s hand, breaking her out of the frozen trance she’d fallen into the moment Kane had appeared on the front porch. “Because when Carmen marries my dad, her new name is going to be two words. But we won’t have to call her Officer Delgado Gregson on account of she’ll be our mom.”

  Julia blinked several times. Who were these kids and what in the world were they talking about? If her overwhelmed head hadn’t been spinning at their rapid-fire sentences, she might have been tempted to command her unsteady body to retreat inside Freckles’s car and get her pulse under control. Julia wasn’t used to children, and she especially wasn’t accustomed to ones who were so welcoming and friendly. Kane smiled at her as he grabbed the tray of biscuits from the hand not enclosed in the smaller, damper one of Aiden or Caden Gregson.

  “Welcome to crazy town,” he said low enough for only her to hear. “You want to come inside and meet the rest of the circus?”

  Her heart fluttered up into her throat and all she could manage was a nod. The proximity of his voice, coupled with his rare smile, was enough to make her agree to jump into a cage of dancing lions with him if that’s what he’d asked.

  “Miss Freckles brought a ton of dessert, Uncle Kane,” one of the twins said as they led the procession of baked goods up the front steps. “Which means we can have that pie-eating contest, after all.”

  Uncle Kane? He was related to these people? The assumption that he was Drew’s patient, along with every other preconceived notion she’d made about the man was suddenly replaced by an empty void, leaving her anxious to figure out the answers to refill it.

  “I hope you boys know better than to challenge your Uncle Kane to any kind of contest,” said a man who looked exactly like Drew Gregson, minus the glasses. “They don’t call him ‘the Legend’ for nothing.” He turned to Julia and grinned. “Hi, I’m Luke and these little pie-eating chatterboxes are mine.”

  The name Legend would imply that Kane was legendary at something. Unless it was for his ability to go hours without saying a single word or ever mentioning the fact that he had family living nearby, Julia couldn’t imagine what kind of contest Kane might win. Instead of asking for clarification, though, she shook hands with the boys’ father, and then with more people o
nce she was ushered inside.

  Drew and Kylie’s Craftsman-style home boasted an open floor plan with a long counter separating the great room from the elaborate kitchen, making it easy for the guests to interact with each other over the chaos of pots and pans. A pair of matching pink baby swings swaying out of sync, the blaring television and some sort of board game were set up in front of it.

  Julia had never been more thankful for her uncanny ability to remember names and faces, because there were a lot of twins in this extended family. And somehow, Kane was related to them all.

  Luke, a Navy recruiter and Drew’s twin brother, introduced her to his fiancée, Carmen, an officer with the Sugar Falls Police Department.

  The connection that surprised her most was that Kane and Kylie were siblings. Although now that she finally saw Kane without his usual hat, the physical resemblance between the vivacious mom and the quiet contractor was apparent as they both got their hair color from their father.

  Bobby Chatterson was a bear of a man and kept young Aiden and Caden engaged in what appeared to be a high-stakes game of Battleship. From what Julia could tell, the man wasn’t technically their grandfather, but the boys lovingly called him Coach, and he would launch a full tickle attack when he caught one of them sneaking looks at the coordinates of his small plastic submarine and destroyer.

  As soon as Mr. Chatterson found out that Julia was not only in the Navy but also an officer he was quick to enlist her as his teammate against the two adorable but sneaky opponents.

  “Are you sure I shouldn’t be helping cook or something?” Julia asked when Freckles and Carmen joined Lacey Chatterson, Kane’s mom, near the double oven.