“And I did, too,” David added a second later.
She placed a hand over her heart, whether to feel it beating or to calm it down she couldn’t determine.
“David...”
“We’re still at the hotel. My mother will take him home tomorrow.”
“I’d like to see...him.”
You.
“We’re in Rooms 148 and 150.”
“I’m on my way.”
Madness, that’s what this is, Spring thought fifteen minutes later as she made her way down the carpeted hall of the hotel toward the rooms inhabited by the Camden family. She could and should turn around and head to a saner locale.
But she was a doctor, and a patient needed a house call.
“Whatever you have to tell yourself,” she muttered as she knocked on the door to Room 148.
She hadn’t even thought to bring her emergency medical bag with her. It was tucked in her trunk with other essentials like galoshes, for stomping around the areas at the farm that had vernal pools, and collapsible crates often needed to haul things from estate sales and historic sites being restored. Also apparently locked in the trunk of her car was her good sense. She’d been born with a lot of it, but she had lost it the moment she met David and Jeremy Camden.
Spring was about to turn and run when the hotel room door opened and Charlotte Camden greeted her.
“Dr. Darling! I’m so glad you could stop by. Jeremy is going to be thrilled to see you again. He’s been asking about you. Come on in.”
Charlotte wore a flowing silk paisley caftan and was a gracious hostess in their temporary home.
“I just put on a pot of coffee,” Charlotte said. “It’s the hotel’s complimentary blend, but it’s not bad. Would you like some?”
“Sure. Yes, thank you,” Spring answered as Charlotte gestured for her to have a seat on the sofa.
“The boys will be right over,” Charlotte said, nodding toward a partially open connecting door.
Spring heard a squeal and then a giggle from the other room. She smiled. The sound of a child’s giggle was a good thing.
A moment later, her little patient let out a whoop and ran toward her. She saw a brown body fall on the floor and then a blur of blue launched itself toward her. Spring caught him up with practiced ease.
“My Spring! You came to see me.”
She nuzzled his nose. “Of course I did. How are you feeling?”
“Daddy keeps asking me that, too.”
“That’s because we want to make sure you’re all better,” she said as she walked to a chair Charlotte had pulled out at the table. “No tummy aches?”
He shook his head.
She sat with him in her lap. “And how’s that bandage?”
He lifted up his pajama top so she could see. “Daddy put on a new one. He said he didn’t want you to...”
“Hi, Spring,” David said from the doorway, where Jeremy had dropped his teddy bear.
Thinking of the conversation with her sisters, Spring smiled. She wondered what bit of information the little boy had been about to blab.
“Hello there,” she said as she wrapped her arms around Jeremy as if to keep him closer for just a bit longer.
“Here you go, Dr. Darling,” Charlotte said, placing a plain white mug of steaming coffee on the table, close enough to reach but far away enough to prevent an accidental spill if Jeremy squirmed. “And here’s some sugar and creamer.”
“Thank you,” Spring murmured, her eyes still on David.
What was it about this man that was so compelling? He was for all intents and purposes the enemy when it came to her interests, and she knew she shouldn’t be consorting with said enemy. But Spring the woman seemed to have little interest in what Spring the historic conservationist and preservationist wanted. It was a frustrating dichotomy when she let herself think about it.
So she decided that for now she wouldn’t think. She would just feel. And this felt right.
She had a sweet little boy in her arms and his gorgeous father was standing there looking like a study in contradictions.
“I got new ’jamas,” Jeremy reported, holding out the top of a multicolor Care Bears pajama top. “I got new Pooh, too.”
“Did you now? And which one is your favorite?”
“Pooh!”
David approached with Beau, and Jeremy let go of Spring long enough to reach a hand out for his bear.
“Beau ate some banana,” the boy reported. The bear just barely missed the coffee, which Spring pushed farther back on the table.
“And did he like it?”
Jeremy nodded. “I had oatmeal with a banana.”
Spring glanced up at David. “Good job.”
“Jeremy, darling. I think it’s time for you to say good-night to Dr. Darling,” Charlotte said.
The boy’s lower lip trembled as if he might start crying.
Spring pressed a kiss to his head. “My patients have to get a good night’s sleep. Doctor’s orders.”
He nodded, as if hearing the go-to-bed request from Spring carried more weight than the words of his grandmother.
“It was good seeing you again, Jeremy,” Spring told him.
“Will you and Daddy tuck us in?”
Spring’s heart skipped a beat. She looked at Charlotte for an explanation for the inexplicable request.
“Beau,” Charlotte said.
Spring’s gaze darted up to David. He unsuccessfully tried to conceal a grin behind his hand.
“If it’s all right with your father,” Spring finally answered him.
“Of course,” David said, pushing off the door frame and heading to the pot of coffee to pour himself a cup.
Jeremy gave Spring the big sloppy kiss that only a four-year-old could bestow. She hugged him close for a moment and then set him on the floor. The boy yawned and placed his hand in his grandmother’s.
The two headed back through the open door, and David pulled out the chair opposite of Spring’s and took a seat. He doctored his coffee and took a sip.
“Thank you for coming to see him. It means a lot. You’ve made quite an impression on him.”
At a loss for words, Spring nodded and reached for her own cooling cup of joe.
“And on me,” he added. “I’m sorry about the way things happened yesterday.”
“You were doing your job,” she said.
“And you yours. Or at least your other job.”
She smiled. “I wear many hats.”
“And which one are you wearing now?”
Spring wondered the same thing and thought about her response before answering. “When I called you, I was the preservationist. When I got to the door over there, I was a physician.”
“And now?”
She caught her breath.
Was she ready to jump off this cliff? She was pretty sure there was no net below, just jagged rocks on one side of the crevasse and possibly feathers for a soft landing on the other.
“Would you like to go to dinner with me?” she asked.
“Dinner?”
She flushed. “Well, not dinner for two,” she clarified. “I’m in a supper club, the Magnolia Supper Club. We meet once a month to try out new recipes, have some good food and good conversation. It’s a small group of what my sister Winter, who is definitely not a member, calls ‘hoity-toity foodies.’ My mother more graciously says the supper club members have discerning palates. We were supposed to meet the other night, but there was a burglary at one of the member’s business.”
She snapped her mouth shut as if suddenly realizing that she was babbling.
“I’d love to,” he said. “When is your next meeting?”
“Tomorrow night,” she said. “If that’s okay. I know it�
��s short notice. I—”
“What time should I pick you up?”
She smiled. “I can drive.”
“I won’t hear of it,” he said. “If you’re supplying dinner, the least I can do is provide the transportation.”
“All right,” she said. “How about I swing by here at six and I’ll give you the directions. Canapés are at six forty-five. It gives everyone time to arrive and for us to have our business meeting, such as it is. That lasts about five minutes as we pick the next theme.”
“What’s tomorrow night’s theme?”
“It’s a surprise,” she said.
Charlotte’s head poked through the door. “He’s all ready for you,” she told them.
As Spring and David rose, Spring confided, “I’ve never tucked anyone in before. Exactly what is involved here?”
“Sometimes a song, sometimes a story.” He held his hand out to her. Spring slipped hers into his. “Just follow my lead.”
Despite his earlier yawn, Jeremy was sitting on his knees in the middle of the double bed when David and Spring entered the room. Beau was right next to him.
When he saw them, he scrambled under the covers and came back out with a picture book. “This one!”
“Story night,” David whispered to Spring. “We’ve read that one so many times, I think Jeremy can recite it word for word.”
The boy got himself and his teddy bear under the light blanket and held the book up for them. Spring watched as David tucked first Beau and then Jeremy in, smoothing the sheet and the blanket over them both.
“Face washed?”
“Check,” Jeremy said.
“Teeth brushed?”
“Check.”
“Toes tickled?” David said, easily finding the boy’s little feet under the covers.
Jeremy giggled and wiggled. “Daaaddy.”
David grinned and sat on the edge of the bed. He patted the space beside him for Spring to join him. She did, and a moment later she found herself entranced in the interaction between father and son as David read a short story about a slow train, a fast turtle and a little boy.
By the time he finished, she could see Jeremy was about to nod off. He held on to Beau, though. She heard a little voice say, “Now I lay me down to sleep.”
When the prayer was completed, Jeremy turned onto his side, facing them. “I love you, Daddy. I love you, Dr. Spring.”
Tears welled in her eyes. She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. “Good night, Jeremy.”
“G’night.”
Spring rose, and wiped at her eyes, hoping David hadn’t seen her sudden sentimentality.
“I’ll be on the other side,” she said in a low voice, then headed toward the relative emotional safety of the next room.
David reached up and turned out the light over Jeremy’s bed.
“Daddy?”
He glanced down at Jeremy. “What’s up, buddy?”
“I want Dr. Spring to be my mommy.”
Chapter Ten
“I’m glad you invited me to join you,” David said. “It will be nice to be in the company of adults eating real food.”
Spring smiled. “Had your fill of kids’ meals and bananas?”
“Just the places that serve them,” he answered. “You were right about his appetite and energy returning. When he went flying into your arms last night, it was like nothing had ever happened.”
“Children are resilient that way,” she said.
He and Spring were en route to the farmhouse for the Magnolia Supper Club’s dinner party. A twinge of regret sparked through Spring. She’d invited him to the gathering under false pretenses.
She’d gone to their hotel yesterday to lure him to this dinner. But something had happened to her while in those rooms with David, Jeremy and Charlotte Camden. The invitation she’d extended to him in that moment had been sincere. She really wanted to have dinner with him. But not this way.
Cecelia was right; this wasn’t the way to go about getting him to see their point of view on the matter. If anything, it was likely to turn him off, backfiring in her face.
She glanced over at him. “David, I have a confession to make.”
He took his eyes off the road for a moment. Long enough to ensure that Spring had his undivided attention. “No confessions or apologies tonight,” he said. “Let’s just enjoy the evening.”
“But...”
He reached for her hand, primly folded in her lap. “No buts,” he said. “Tell me more about this supper club of yours. How did it get started, and how did you all come about the name?”
This was safe territory, Spring knew. And in telling him about the club, she could add that members were frequently involved in town events, all the members being longtime residents of Cedar Springs.
“It started as something of an accident,” she said, twisting in her seat to face him. “There were a couple of us at a charity event. The dinner was the usual rubber-chicken affair, but the caterer got a little overly creative with the asparagus and the dessert was something that was better off left as individual ingredients in the pantry.
“Gerald Murphy, you’ll meet him tonight,” she went on, “said something to the effect of ‘I wish there was a place I could go to guarantee a decent meal.’ Someone else said, ‘Well, in that case, stay home and cook it yourself.’ And somehow that led to three of us getting together at one of our houses and the subsequent times each of us brought a friend. And then since we were a group, someone suggested a formal arrangement and a name. The rest is cuisine history.”
“How about the name?”
“That came from Cecelia. You’ll meet her tonight, as well. We were at her place, and she had a lovely centerpiece of magnolia leaves and blossoms. So we became the Magnolia Supper Club. Tonight is a makeup dinner, so to speak,” she said.
“Because of the break-in?” he asked. “You mentioned a burglary. What happened?”
She told him about the incident at Step Back in Time Antiques. “Police still have few leads,” Spring said. “I’m not sure what had Gerald more upset, the burglary or the cancellation of the dinner.”
“Are you...close to this Gerald?”
Something in the tone of his voice, or maybe it was the bit of hesitation she detected, had Spring wondering if maybe he was wondering for personal reasons. So she took care with her answer.
“As close as friends can be. Why?”
He shrugged, and in that movement Spring sensed that there was, indeed, more than idle curiosity on his part.
“When I called you that night, the night Jeremy was sick,” he clarified, “you answered the phone thinking I was Gerald.”
Spring’s brow furrowed. “I did?”
He glanced at her. “You answered and just said, ‘Gerald, I’m not giving you a script for Valium.’ I figured script was a shortcut for prescription and that you’d need to be pretty close to someone to answer a late-night call with that kind of...specificity.”
Spring smiled. “When you meet Gerald, you’ll understand. His business partner’s wife calls him her special-needs second husband.”
“He has a disability?”
“Only if the Americans with Disabilities Act has suddenly started classifying chronic persnicketiness and an overactive use and abuse of hyperbole as a protected disability. Gerald is a lot like the neatnik of The Odd Couple, the type where everything must be just so or it makes him crazy. We’d clash like oil and water in any relationship other than friends.”
He nodded. “That’s good to know,” he said quietly and gave her a sidelong glance.
Spring’s insides did a little tumble. “Why is that?” she asked, unable to keep the tremble from her voice.
“Lessens the competition,” he said.
“Oh.”
This time when he glanced her way, there was a smile playing at his mouth, and the butterflies in Spring’s stomach took flight. What she couldn’t be sure of, though, was the cause of the butterfly swarm. Was it the undeniable attraction she felt toward the man—an attraction that was evident even when she’d thought he was homeless and living in a hotel? Or was it the latent guilt about what she’d set in motion for this evening?
Not too much later, she directed him to the turn off to the farmhouse. Several cars were parked on the grass in front of the house.
“Just pull in wherever you want,” Spring said. “It looks like Gerald and Cecelia are here already. Cecelia has a key.”
“This is beautiful,” David said as he parked.
“Thank you,” Spring said. “The house itself dates to the early nineteenth century. You’ll see the rooms that are original and the ones that have been added over the years as the family either grew or grew tired of the original footprint, which was small. The ceilings are lower in the original five rooms of the house.”
David got out of the car and came around to open Spring’s door for her. She murmured her thanks.
“Five rooms,” he said. “That was large for the period. We’re talking the early 1800s, right?”
She nodded as she slipped her hand into his. “Yes, 1825. There was a kitchen and a front room and three bedrooms. A double outhouse was over there,” she said, pointing to an area near a copse of cedar trees. “They were highfalutin,” she added with a laugh. “Wealthy for the time. The Darlings always had a lot of children. In the case of the great-great-grandparents who built the place, there were the two of them, their seven kids and eventually all of their many children and grandchildren. That’s one of the reasons my mother is so frantic about us producing grandchildren. She has a huge house like all of the Darlings for generations and not one of us has presented her with a baby to spoil.”
“Was marriage and kids not something you wanted?”
“It’s not that I don’t want a family,” Spring said. “I always thought by this age I’d have kids in middle school, that I’d be shuttling little ones to soccer and ballet and piano lessons.”
She stopped talking, and David stopped walking. They were at the base of a large oak tree; its branches provided shade for the side of the house.
The Single Dad Finds a Wife Page 11