A Weaver Holiday Homecoming

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  Ryan had been noticeably quiet on the issue, too.

  “Thank you, Nina.” She slipped the pile of snapshots from the birthday party that she’d been studying back into the paper envelope and left it on her desk. Kathleen had taken most of the photographs, and when Ryan had driven Mallory and Chloe to Braden yesterday to find a bed and a collar truly worthy of Aber-crombie, they’d dropped the film off at a one-hour developer.

  No digital cameras for Kathleen.

  She preferred the old-fashioned method.

  Whichever her preference, she’d managed to catch a lot of images. Not just from the party, but from the day that Chloe and Ryan had made the snowman.

  So many of them with Chloe and Ryan. Chloe and Ryan and Mallory.

  It was as if Kathleen had been determined to portray them as the family that they were. And weren’t.

  And Mallory knew that if she’d really wanted to disabuse Chloe of her notion that they were going to stay in Weaver now, she would have found time. Either during that day trip to Braden. Or before Chloe’s bedtime last night. Or in the morning before she’d dropped her off at school.

  She let out a sigh and slipped her stethoscope around the collar of her sweater as she went down the hall to the examining room. She pulled the chart from the pocket on the wall beside the door and the name on it jumped out at her.

  Courtney Clay.

  Frowning a little, Mallory glanced through the chart and, after knocking softly on the door, she went inside. Courtney was sitting on the exam table, paging through a magazine. She was fully dressed in a pair of pale blue scrubs.

  Mallory shut the door softly. “You don’t look like you’re here for a routine exam,” she said calmly, which was the reason Nina had listed. “Which makes sense since your chart here shows that Dr. Yarnell gave you a physical less than half a year ago.” She set the chart on the counter and sat down on the round, rolling stool. “Are you all right? Do you have some health problem you didn’t want to tell Nina about?” Ryan’s sister certainly wouldn’t have been the first patient to come in on some pretext, though Courtney was the first nurse Mallory had ever experienced doing so.

  Courtney folded the magazine and set it on the chair next to the examining table. “I want to know what you’re doing with my brother.”

  Mallory inhaled, letting the statement settle while her thoughts whirled. She rolled her pen between her palms and wondered how Ryan would want her to answer, how much Courtney actually knew. They’d told Chloe the truth just two days ago, and the only other people to know were Kathleen, and Ryan’s parents.

  Other than physically giving Mallory a wide berth ever since the mistletoe business—and what had come before—he’d made no mention that he’d intended to share the news with anyone else, yet. Since she’d already introduced enough into his life by bringing Chloe to Weaver in the first place, she’d figured it should be his business how he chose to proceed with his own family.

  Even though she’d been sleepless with a raging need to know. Not just because of Chloe, but because of him.

  If she could just figure out what it was that he made her feel, she’d be much better able to deal with it. Instead, she felt constantly on edge.

  She looked at his sister now. Courtney and Ryan had such different coloring, but there was definitely a similarity in the straight, fine line of their noses, the sweep of their brows.

  Traits that Chloe shared.

  “What has Ryan said?”

  Courtney’s eyes were shadowed. “If he’d said anything to me, do you think I’d resort to this?” Her long fingers lifted, encompassing the small examining room. “Ryan barely talks to me anymore, Dr. Keegan. Not since he…came back. I don’t even know why. But obviously, he’s involved with you, so if I have to find out from you what’s going on, then I will.”

  There was such pained confusion in Courtney’s face that Mallory’s heart hurt for her. She set aside her pen. This wasn’t a doctor-patient moment. “This is really something you should work out with him.”

  “He was always pulling me out of one scrape or another. Ready to blow this pop stand, he’d ask me, and then he’d take me home. He even saved my life once.” She pulled up one of the short sleeves covering her shoulder to reveal part of a faded scar that continued beneath the fabric. “I was twelve years old and playing in the park in town on the swing set. Swinging high and jumping off?”

  Mallory nodded.

  “Anyway, I swung too high and got tangled in the chains on the way down. I was unconscious when he found me. I woke up in the hospital and he was right there with me. Ready to blow this pop stand?” Her voice cracked and she blinked hard, smoothing down her sleeve. “I wasn’t even supposed to be at the park. My father was on duty and my mother was at the hospital and I was supposed to be walking home from school. But I’d stopped off at the park. Ryan was home on leave from the navy. I wasn’t even a half hour late and he went looking for me.”

  “Good thing,” Mallory breathed. It was no wonder Ryan had overreacted when Chloe had broken her arm.

  “He was always my hero. I was devastated when he went missing. We finally had a memorial service for him.” Her eyes met Mallory’s. “And then last winter, he walks back into our lives on the night Axel and Tara got married. It was a miracle. I can live with the fact that he’s changed. Because he’s back and he’s alive and that’s the bottom line. Since he’s started seeing you, he’s looked alive. Okay. Happy. I heard he’s even moved out of that damn motel and into a house right by you.” She glanced around the examining room. “I just want to know that he’s going to stay that way.”

  “Courtney—”

  “I know you’re not here to stay. So what happens to my brother when you go, Dr. Keegan?”

  She sighed a little, dismayed. “I understand your concern.”

  “Do you?” Courtney’s chin gained a stubborn angle that was distinctly like her brother’s. “Have you lost a brother?”

  “I lost my mother when I was fifteen,” she countered softly. Gently. “And my sister seven years ago. And there’s no possibility that either can come back.”

  Courtney’s impossibly beautiful face fell. “God. I’m sorry.”

  Mallory covered Courtney’s hand with her own. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about. You’re Ryan’s sister. You know him far better than I do. Give him time.” Look how far he’d come in just the few weeks since he’d learned about Chloe. The man was full of caring, if only he allowed himself to show it. And she wished she could tell Courtney that, if only to point out what was possible.

  Courtney’s hand turned in hers, though, squeezing with obvious urgency. “Do you care about him?”

  Mallory’s lips parted but the words caught in her throat. Yes, she cared about him. He was her daughter’s father.

  He’s more than that.

  She mentally batted at the whispering thought. “It’s more complicated than that, Courtney.”

  “Why? Because he’s Chloe’s father?”

  She started with surprise. “He did tell you, then.”

  “Not likely.” Courtney let go of Mallory’s hand and slid off the examining table to pace the close confines of the room. “Everyone in town is talking about it.”

  Mallory nearly choked. “How? Why? We haven’t told anyone.”

  At that, Courtney almost looked amused. And a little pitying. “You really aren’t used to living in a small town, are you. Gossip, Dr. Keegan, is Weaver’s largest industry. If my mother hadn’t called me this morning to clue me in to what y’all have been hiding, then I would have gotten to hear the news from Bonnie Tanner. She was busy serving it up this morning in the hospital cafeteria, along with the oatmeal.”

  “Tanner. Jenny Tanner was at Chloe’s birthday party.”

  “She’s Bonnie’s daughter.”

  Mallory exhaled. Of course. Mallory hadn’t been talking about their personal business with anyone else. Ryan hadn’t been, either.

  But Chloe?
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  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

  “For what? Obviously Chloe’s the reason you came to Weaver.”

  “And she’s responsible for the change you’ve noticed in your brother. It has nothing to do with me.”

  “I think you’re wrong about that. So I’m just asking you to, well, to be careful.” Her expression was serious. “He’d want to strangle me if he knew I was talking to you like this.”

  Mallory could well imagine. “You’re trying to watch out for your big brother,” she said. And that was something she also understood. She’d tried watching out for Cassie.

  “Yes.” Courtney looked awkward for a moment. “Well. Anyway, I should let you get back to your real work. I just didn’t want anyone overhearing us, and this was the only place I could think of.”

  “The examining room is out of bounds for gossip?”

  “Yeah.” She slipped her gleaming hair behind her ear and plucked her coat off the hook on the wall. “I suppose you’ll all be at the Christmas festival on Saturday?”

  It would have been nice to say that she’d barely given the matter any thought, but it would have been a lie. Both Chloe and Kathleen had talked about the town’s holiday event. As had every one of the patients that Mallory had seen almost since she’d arrived in town. “I haven’t made plans to,” she said honestly.

  “The whole family will be there. Seems right that you guys be there, too.”

  Mallory really didn’t imagine that Ryan would voluntarily put himself in that setting, but she kept the thought to herself. The man was full of surprises, after all.

  So, really, what did she know?

  “We’ll see.” She picked up the medical file and walked with Courtney out to the reception area. “Are you off for the day?”

  Courtney shook her head. “Haven’t been in yet. I’m on from five to five.”

  “Long night shift.”

  “It’s not so bad. It’s usually pretty quiet. Thanks again.” Courtney smiled at Nina and headed toward the door.

  Mallory wasn’t certain what she’d done to earn any thanks, but she watched until the younger woman had gone out the door. Then she looked at Nina. It was straight up four o’clock and the woman was already wielding her keys over the filing cabinets, locking everything up tight. “Are you going to the Christmas festival, Nina?”

  The other woman’s shoulders looked rigid. “I don’t have a date.” Her voice was tight.

  “I thought it was more of a family kind of thing.”

  Nina looked over her shoulder. “Ending with a dinner-dance,” she said as if any dunce should know. “A woman doesn’t go to that sort of thing without a date.”

  Mallory stifled the urge to ask Nina what century she was living in. “What about going with your girlfriends?” She wouldn’t hazard a guess to Nina’s age, but figured she probably had ten years or so on Mallory. “Couldn’t you go with a group and not worry about a date at all? That’s what I used to do back home.” On those rare occasions that she’d not been working and had actually done something that didn’t involve Chloe.

  Which only made Mallory think back to how long ago that had been.

  “Why do you care?” Nina’s voice was so particularly waspish that Mallory felt the sting.

  “I really don’t know,” she snapped back, only to regret it as soon as she did. “Nina, I don’t know what I’ve done to upset you, but we’ve got to work together for a while yet and—”

  “That’s right,” Nina interrupted. She yanked her purse out of the bottom drawer of her desk and slammed it shut. “As if I need any sort of reminder from you that Dan needed to get away from his life here so badly he had to go to Asia! If you hadn’t come here, he would never have left.”

  She flew out the door so fast that Mallory barely had a chance to absorb what she’d said. But the door opened again barely a second later. “Nina—”

  It was Ryan who entered, though, and her mouth went dry at the sight of him.

  “You always have women racing out of your office like that?”

  Even though they hadn’t discussed any specific plans, she half expected to see Chloe on his heels. But the door softly swung shut after his entrance and there was definitely no Chloe. “That was Nina,” she said absently. “I think I finally know what her problem with me is. Where’s Chloe?”

  “With your grandmother and Abercrombie.” He unzipped his jacket, surveying the interior. “I went by your place after I finished up out at J.D.’s place, but they banished me from the house.”

  Somehow, she didn’t think he’d come straight from his cousin’s place. She’d only seen him in T-shirts or sweaters and jeans, but today he had on an ivory button-down shirt that looked suspiciously like silk tucked into the waist of very finely tailored charcoal trousers. Hardly the kind of clothing to wear working around a barn and horses.

  “Christmas gifts,” Mallory deduced, trying not to give in to her raging curiosity or the desire to stand there and drool a while. Why did the man have to look so good?

  “Not for me, I hope.”

  She let out a laugh. “Why not for you? Who else would they be for if they didn’t want you around?”

  He shoved his hand through his hair, looking distinctly disconcerted and she was ashamed to take more than a little pleasure in it since so often she was the one who felt off-kilter.

  “Don’t worry.” She forgot to wonder what he was doing at her office in the first place in favor of taking pity on him. “It’s probably something handmade and edible. Lemon bread. Cookies.” She moved across the reception area to lock the door.

  He looked slightly relieved. “I guess that’s okay, then.”

  She bit back a smile and walked around Nina’s desk to switch the phone lines over to the answering service.

  “Courtney was here?”

  She looked up to see Ryan staring down at the clearly labeled file still sitting on the desk. She picked it up and put it into Nina’s desk drawer since the filing cabinets were already locked. “She came by.”

  His brows twitched together and he followed her up the hallway as she made her way to the rear of the office, shutting off lights as she went. “What for?”

  “Ryan, she’s a patient here.” She shook her head a little. “What do you expect me to tell you?”

  “Is she sick? Pregnant?”

  “For heaven’s sake!” She turned on him, her hands on her hips. “Even if she were—and I’m not saying anything of the sort—I could not discuss it with you without her permission even if she is your sister.”

  He certainly had to understand that particular point, but instead, he simply looked adamant. “I have a right to know if she’s all right.”

  She exhaled. It wasn’t the first time she’d encountered such an attitude from a concerned father or husband, but it was certainly unexpected coming from Ryan. “She’s not all right,”

  she returned, lifting her hand to ward off any jumping to conclusions he seemed ready to make. “But only because she’s concerned about you.”

  She could almost catalog the shutting down of emotion on his face. The tightening of his lips. The smoothing of his forehead. The flattening of his sapphire gaze. “She shouldn’t waste time worrying about me.”

  “Just because you happen to hold that opinion doesn’t mean anyone else does.” She walked into the small break room that was little more than a closet. She shut off the coffeemaker that sat on top of the narrow, short refrigerator and turned off the light. She had to pass within inches of Ryan to do so, and her nerves jangled foolishly. They hadn’t been alone together since Saturday morning in his house, and what had transpired there was dangerously fresh in her mind. “Courtney certainly doesn’t share it.”

  “She came here to talk to you about me?”

  She was beginning to wish she’d simply maintained her silence about the entire matter. Ryan already knew what sort of strain existed between him and his sister. He was also the only one who knew the reason for
it and he wasn’t sharing with Mallory any more than he was sharing with Courtney.

  She headed into Dan’s office since there was nothing left around the place to lock up or shut down. “She asked if we’d be at the festival this weekend.” It was hardly all that Courtney had said, but at least divulging this much didn’t feel like breaking a confidence. “Evidently the news about Chloe is making the rounds. Chloe told one of the girls in her class that you were her father and it’s—” she waved her hand expressively “—apparently gone from there. Your mom told Courtney before someone else could.” Since he hadn’t.

  “Why would Chloe tell some other kid?”

  “Why wouldn’t she? Or didn’t you happen to notice that she was more than a little excited over learning that particular fact?” Excited. Delighted. Even more so over Ryan than she had been about Abercrombie. Which was saying something. “She’s happy to learn that you’re her father, and she wants to talk about it with her friends. Obviously.” And Mallory felt ridiculous for not having foreseen and prevented this very thing.

  She sat down behind the desk and toyed with the thick envelope of Kathleen’s snapshots. Ryan had a set, too, courtesy of the free double prints, and she knew he’d looked through them, because they’d done it while sitting in the close confines of his truck cab outside the photo shop.

  She’d wondered then if he’d seen the same thing in them as she had.

  What looked like a family.

  Her eyes tracked his movements as he paced from one side of the office to the other, stopping now and then to pick up a picture or a book from the collection on the bookshelves that Dan had left and Mallory hadn’t disturbed.

  He was obviously restless and not making any attempt to hide it.

  Which in turn made her distinctly nervous. “Did you come here to talk about Chloe?”

  He finally stopped pacing and pulled an envelope from the inside of his jacket. “In a matter of speaking. Here.” He dropped the envelope on the desk in front of her.

  She drew her fingers away from it. “What’s that?”