Willowleaf Lane

by Thayne, RaeAnne

  He was about to say no, he didn’t need a damn drink, but he suddenly noted Charlotte was trying to send him the kind of nonverbal message that always baffled him.

  “Uh, sure,” he said, hoping he had guessed right.

  She smiled a little and gestured for him to follow her to the water cooler in one corner, away from the tables.

  “Sorry. She really is almost done,” she said in an undertone. “The beading seemed to help distract her a little. It was Taryn’s idea. Peyton was...agitated about having to go to the doctor.”

  “Tell me again what happened?” He pitched his voice low to match hers.

  “It was so strange. She got up to use the ladies’ room and one minute she was walking, the next she was on the floor, completely unresponsive. I don’t know how long she was out, to tell the truth. Claire thought it was less than a minute. I thought it had to be much longer. Regardless, when she woke up, she wasn’t particularly surprised and said it had happened before, more than once.”

  “This doesn’t make any sense. If she’s been passing out, why wouldn’t she tell me?” He hated the gulf between him and his child. The hardest part for him was that he thought things were getting better.

  The day before, they had gone for a hike and to the movies. She hadn’t yelled at him all day, though she had seemed abnormally subdued—and she hadn’t eaten popcorn, he remembered, only a couple of the Jolly Joes he liked.

  “I’m sorry I don’t know,” Charlotte answered, blue eyes filled with compassion. He wanted to drown in her concern for his child, just hold her close and hang on.

  “I can tell you that girls hit a certain age and it can sometimes be tough to talk to their fathers about...female things,” she went on. “I remember I got my first period a few months after my mother died. I can’t even tell you how mortified I was when I had to tell Pop I needed certain supplies.”

  She understood, far better than he did, what his daughter was going through.

  “Will you come with us to the doctor?” he asked on impulse.

  She stared. “Me?”

  “Peyton likes you. She trusts you. She might be willing to say things to you and the doctor she doesn’t feel comfortable saying to me.”

  She glanced at the table where Peyton worked, and he saw concern mingled with a clear affection that warmed him. “She doesn’t like me very much right now. Not after I insisted on calling you.”

  “I’m sure she understands deep down you were only looking out for her.” He pushed his advantage. “I want you there. Peyton isn’t the only one who needs you.”

  Her gaze flew to his. After a pause, she nodded.

  “Yes. All right. Let me clean up my work project and grab my bag.”

  A few moments later he ushered Peyton, wearing her lovely new bracelet and earrings, to the car. Charlotte followed behind and Spence held the door open for both of them.

  “You’re coming with us?” Peyton said in surprise. “I thought you were just leaving at the same time.”

  “Do you mind? I think your dad needs the moral support.”

  Pure genius on her part, to put the onus on him. He was beginning to think he was crazy about Charlotte Caine.

  “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, though,” she went on. “If you don’t want me there, I can always hang out in the waiting room. Or walk home, for that matter.”

  “No. It’s fine. I’m glad you’ll be there.”

  Charlotte sat in the front seat next to him and Peyton climbed into the back. After they pulled out of the parking space, his daughter leaned between the seats.

  “Do you think the tests and stuff will hurt?” she asked Charlotte warily.

  “Maybe. I hope not, but I honestly don’t know. Dr. Harris will probably draw blood, at least, which can be just a little stick and then done. I can tell you Susannah is just about the most gentle person I know, if that helps.”

  A moment later, Spence pulled into the clinic parking lot, a low-slung building near the gleaming new hospital.

  He opened Charlotte’s door first and helped her out. “Thank you for being here,” he murmured to her as he went to open Peyton’s. “You were right. I’m the one who needs somebody to hold my hand.”

  She shook her head, fighting a smile, and he was overwhelmed by the calm peace she offered.

  Susannah Harris was sitting behind a glass partition, talking to a woman he vaguely recognized as someone he had known when he had lived here before, though he couldn’t have drummed up her name for the life of him.

  Dr. Harris looked just as he remembered, lean and athletic, with short-cropped gray hair and snapping brown eyes.

  She didn’t wear a lab coat, just jeans and a T-shirt, with a stethoscope around her neck.

  She was someone else who had been kind to him. It was another of those humbling moments. All this time, he had been thinking he hated Hope’s Crossing and couldn’t wait to leave and make something of his life. Now that he was back, he was confronted everywhere he went by people who had done nothing but try to reach out to an angry lost young man.

  He kissed her cheek. “Susannah. You’re looking as lovely as ever.”

  Her weather-etched face creased into a smile. “And you’re just as full of B.S. as ever.”

  She stepped away. “Hi. You must be Peyton. I’m Dr. Harris.”

  Peyton seemed to find the low pile of the commercial-grade blue carpet fascinating. “I told everybody, I don’t need a stupid doctor,” she muttered.

  “Then it’s good you’ve got me, isn’t it? I don’t mean to brag but I’m a pretty smart doctor.”

  Spence saw surprise and even a little amusement in the quick glance Peyton flashed the doctor.

  “Come on into an exam room. We’ll try to get you out of here quick.”

  “I can wait out here,” Charlotte said, hanging back a little, obviously reluctant to intrude.

  Peyton shook her head. “No. It’s okay. You can stay. I would...like you to stay.”

  After a pause, Charlotte smiled and gave Peyton a little hug and the sight of them together made his chest ache, for reasons he couldn’t have explained.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  FORTY-FIVE MINUTES—and several vials of blood, an intensive physical exam and a lengthy interrogation of Peyton—later, Spence stared at Dr. Harris.

  “You want to keep her overnight? Are you serious?”

  “Her electrolyte level is low. Dangerously low. We need to get this young lady hydrated and the fastest method to do that is through an IV. This way we can keep an eye on her, run an EKG and bring in a couple specialists.”

  Peyton’s panicked gaze flashed among him and the doctor and she gripped Charlotte’s hand tightly. “I’m not sick. I just passed out.”

  He put aside his own dismay at the news and ran a hand over her hair, aware she needed comfort and support right now. “It’s only for a night, kiddo. I’ll stay with you the whole time, I promise.”

  “They won’t let you do that, will they?”

  The disbelief in her voice burned. Did she really think he didn’t care enough to help her through this? He had so much ground to make up, a dozen years of mistakes.

  “I’ll sleep on the floor of your hospital room, if I have to,” he promised her.

  “It won’t come to that,” Susannah said, her tone dry. “All the rooms at Hope’s Crossing Hospital have a convenient couch that folds down into a bed. I can’t promise it will be comfortable but at least it’s better than the floor.”

  Peyton glowered at all of them. “I hate this. I’m not sick.”

  Dr. Harris gave her a long, steady look that was firm but not without compassion. “You might not be sick, but you haven’t been eating the way you should, have you?”

  His daughter’s gaze fel
l and she shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess not.”

  Dr. Harris touched her hand gently. “Your body needs the right kind of food to survive. Now I need to talk to your father out in the hall for a moment while we make some arrangements. Will you be okay in here?”

  “Does Charlotte have to leave, too?”

  “I’ll stay right here,” Charlotte promised.

  “Thanks,” Peyton said.

  Deeply grateful for Charlotte’s presence, Spence followed the doctor out into the hall.

  “In addition to the dehydration,” Susannah said bluntly, “I believe Peyton is on her way to being malnourished.”

  He stared at her. “How can she be malnourished? This isn’t some third-world country. I feed her. The housekeeper feeds her. I can’t believe this.”

  “Spence, she’s about fifteen pounds underweight for her demographic and her teeth are already showing signs of enamel breakdown.”

  Everything inside him went still.

  “So she does have an eating disorder?” He couldn’t even comprehend how they had come to this grim pass in the space of only a few hours.

  “That’s a tough thing to diagnose in a forty-five-minute office visit. Let’s start with getting her hydrated and go from there. You’re lucky. We’ve got an excellent psychiatrist here in Hope’s Crossing who specializes in eating disorders. I’ll have her do an assessment in the morning, while Peyton is an inpatient, and we can get more information,” Dr. Harris said.

  “Forget about the tests and assessments and specialists. What do you think?”

  “The signs are there,” she admitted, after a moment’s hesitation.

  “Why the hell didn’t I see them?”

  She touched his shoulder. “To use familiar terminology to you, you had several strikes against you in that department. I’m speaking in generalizations here. Forgive me. But fathers as a rule aren’t as observant when it comes to their daughters’ eating habits and any physical changes. Add in a move to another state and a new job and I think it’s completely understandable if you overlooked this.”

  He shouldn’t be at all surprised, he thought on reflection. If Peyton did suffer from an eating disorder, the seeds for it may have been sown early. Jade had always been a control freak when it came to her food, dieting, weighing each mouthful, obsessing about calories.

  He remembered now that she had made more than a few derogatory comments about Peyton’s eating habits. He should have said something, damn it, but by that point everything he said that could remotely be considered criticism, constructive or otherwise, set Jade off into a screaming fit.

  He should have stepped up anyway. Instead, he had chosen avoidance, thinking he was keeping the situation from escalating.

  Regrets did him no good, not when he had a troubled daughter to help.

  “This is completely new territory for me. Can we...fix it?”

  “We can’t. We are pretty helpless, except when it comes to making sure she receives the tools she needs to understand the problem. This one is up to Peyton.”

  He didn’t know when he had ever felt so powerless. Susannah must have sensed it. She placed a hand on his arm again. “Spencer, your daughter strikes me as a very smart girl. When she understands the harm she’s doing to herself, I hope she’ll see how important it is to take care of herself. She’s going to need ongoing counseling. In some cases, parents opt for intensive inpatient counseling, but let’s tackle one thing at a time. As I said, we’ll start by hydrating her and getting some decent nutrition in and go from there.”

  When they returned to the exam room, they found Peyton and Charlotte huddled over Peyton’s cell phone, looking at photographs of her friends in Portland.

  “It’s going to take me a few moments to set things up with the hospital and find you a room. Meanwhile, you can hang out in here or in the waiting room. Whatever is more comfortable.”

  “This is fine.” Spence made the decision for all three of them.

  “Peyton, can I get you anything?” Dr. Harris asked.

  “Maybe a blanket. I’m a little cold,” she answered.

  “I have just what you need. Give me a second.”

  The doctor returned a short time later with a white blanket. “This is my favorite thing about feeling under the weather. We have a blanket warmer here in the office. I’ll tell you a secret. Sometimes I take one out just to sit and do paperwork. Don’t get too comfortable, though. I’ll be back in just a moment.”

  She left again and Peyton wrapped in a blanket and curled up on the exam bench. She had dark circles under her eyes, Spence saw, and her skin looked so translucent, he could see the pulse of blood beneath it.

  He became aware that Charlotte was also gazing down at his daughter, and he felt as if a few more strands braided together in the subtle connection between them.

  “Thank you for being here,” he murmured to her. “I’m sorry we took up your whole evening. You probably had plans.”

  She shook her head. “Nothing concrete. I was thinking earlier that I would drive up to Snowflake Canyon to check on Dylan, but I can call him. He might even answer his phone. And I can always go up another night.”

  She had far more experience than he did with ill people. This was new to him. Before this, his hospital experiences had been limited to the terrifying but exciting period around Peyton’s birth and his far more miserable shoulder surgery.

  “It’s going to take you time to settle into a hospital room,” she said. “Can I get you anything? You’re going to need dinner. Evie texted me a little while ago that she brought my SUV over. I can go pick something up for you.”

  She was worried about him. Her friends cared for her and she, in turn, wanted to take care of him. He didn’t quite know how to handle that. Typically, only the people he paid bothered to worry much about his needs.

  He glanced over and saw Peyton’s eyes were closed, her breathing even.

  “I’m not at all hungry right now but I probably will be. I guess I should be modeling healthy eating—fueling my body when it needs it.”

  “I’ll pick something up for you and be back as soon as I can.”

  She walked over to Peyton. When she saw his daughter was sleeping, she brushed a gentle, barely there hand over her hair, and Spence felt a lump rise in his throat.

  “I don’t want to wake her. Just tell her I’ll meet you at the hospital once you’re in a room.”

  “I will.”

  As she turned to leave, he couldn’t help himself. He reached out and folded her into his arms and held on tightly, drawing all the comfort he had needed from the moment she had called him to come to the bead store.

  “Charlotte. Thank you. The words are ridiculously inadequate. Just...thank you.”

  Her smile seemed a little strained but she hugged him back for a moment, then stepped away just as Susannah Harris bustled back in with an armload of papers.

  * * *

  THE SUN WAS beginning its gradual slide behind the mountains, sending long shadows across the parking lot when she walked outside the clinic to her car. Evie and Taryn were such sweethearts, to bring her car over for her. What a lucky stroke that she had thought to leave her keys with them before she had rushed out with Peyton and Spencer.

  She stopped for a moment, lifting her face to the warmth of the August evening, staggered by all that had happened in such a short time.

  Her heart ached for Peyton. Poor thing, to feel she had to starve herself in order to control a world that had become terrifying and tumultuous. Charlotte should have spoken up. She could kick herself for staying quiet when she first began to fret about the girl’s thin bones and unnatural pallor.

  Eating disorders could be debilitating, even deadly, if not addressed in time. She could only pray Peyton would be able to accept help, work thr
ough her demons and return to a much healthier attitude toward food.

  She opened her car door and climbed inside. A small bag rested on the front seat and when she opened it, she found the necklace she had been working on, completed now, in addition to a matching bracelet and earrings.

  Oh, her dear friends, probably putting aside their own work to finish her project. Emotions surged through her, hot and intense, and her chin wobbled. Tears began to seep out—tears of gratitude for the friends she loved, tears of worry for Peyton and for Spence...and a few for herself.

  She was becoming entirely too enmeshed in Spence’s life. She remembered that moment in Susannah’s office when he had clung to her, and she had wanted to give him all the strength he would need to help his daughter over this tremendous hurdle.

  What was she going to do when he didn’t need her help anymore with A Warrior’s Hope, with Peyton?

  She couldn’t bear to think about it.

  * * *

  HER ERRANDS TOOK longer than she intended. In Hope’s Crossing, she could rarely just run into a store and pop back out. The relationships here were too intertwined for that, and usually she hated being rude to neighbors and friends by refusing to stop and chat.

  Normally she loved the quiet pace, the friendly conversation, but this time she was filled with a sense of urgency.

  She stopped first at her friend Madeline’s clothing store and managed to squeeze inside just before closing.

  Fortunately, Maddie had just what Peyton needed in the trendy teen section where Charlotte knew Taryn and her friends liked to shop.

  Next up, she stopped at Sugar Rush and just narrowly avoided being tangled in a dispute her assistant manager was having with one of the seasonal workers.

  Afterward, Charlotte was fortunate enough to find a parking spot halfway between the café and Dog-Eared Books & Brew. In the interest of conserving time, she called in her order to the café and headed for the bookstore while she waited for the food to be ready.

  She was in the young adult section poring over her options when Maura spotted her and waved.

  She headed over, her arms full of books to be shelved. The bookstore owner craned her neck to look into the basket, snugged into the crook of Charlotte’s elbow. “Wow. Your reading tastes have taken a little eclectic detour lately. I like it.”