by Radclyffe
Presley pulled her lip between her teeth. “Is she, really? Stupid happy, I mean?”
Flann cocked her head, studied her. Presley was a confident, aggressive woman and, rumor had it, a total ballbuster in the boardroom. She’d never seen her uncertain. “You’re not serious, are you? She’s crazy about you. Why, is there a problem?”
“No, it’s just…she’s so special, you know?” Presley grimaced. “And I don’t have a lot of practice at this kind of thing.”
“You mean love?”
Presley nodded.
“Well,” Flann said, “I’m certainly not one to talk, but Harper knows what she wants and she wants you. That should be it, right?”
Presley let out a long breath. “You’re right. I’ve just got jitters, I guess.”
“Family coming in for the wedding?”
Presley looked pained for a second and her jaw tightened, her expression suddenly reflecting the Valkyrie she was, unafraid to battle to the death. “No. My parents are too busy and my brother—let’s just say he’s not happy with the way things turned out here. He got outmaneuvered, and his ego hasn’t recovered.”
“He sounds like an ass. Sorry for saying it.”
“That’s okay. Abby’s here, and Carrie. I’ll have friends here, and that’s enough.”
Flann circled the desk and kissed her cheek. “You’ve got lots of friends here. And a family.”
“Thanks, it means a lot to me that you’re okay with me and Harper. Because Harper would never be happy if you weren’t.”
Flann worked up a grin. “Hey. You and Harp don’t have to worry about me. I’m good.”
“If anything changes—”
“Just enjoy the wedding planning, and don’t worry about anything else.” Flann hurried out before Presley could start probing any deeper into her relationship status, or lack thereof. She wasn’t like Harper. She wasn’t looking for a relationship. Harper was the heir—the one who’d be carrying on the family name, the family legacy, the Rivers dynasty. She wasn’t even a spare. All she wanted was a little uncomplicated companionship.
“See you at the game,” Carrie called.
“I’ll be waiting,” Flann tossed back as she jogged out down the hall and back toward the hospital, her domain. She took the stairs to the second floor and the ICU, wondering if Abby Remy would still be there. Trying not to wonder why a shot of adrenaline hit her in the gut when she thought about it.
Chapter Five
Flann pulled down the drive at the homestead and parked behind Harper’s pickup under the porte cochere. As she got out of her Jeep, the smell of supper mixed with fresh-mown grass enveloped her. The wafting scents carried her back to the hot summer days of her youth, and a tug in her chest made her long for simpler times. Shrugging away the whimsy, she strode around the back of the house and leapt up the two stairs onto the back porch.
Her mother called, “Shoes!”
“They’re clean,” Flann called back.
“Use the mat.”
Grinning, she scraped her soles on the worn straw mat by the screen door. Most of the family was already congregated around the big trestle table in the middle of her mother’s kitchen. The weather was too warm for a fire in the deep brick hearth at the far end, and the windows above the counters along one wall were all open, letting in the aroma of honeysuckle and lilacs. Platters of baked chicken, potatoes, roasted vegetables, and biscuits filled the center of the table. Her father sat at the end closest to her in his white shirt and dark trousers, and her mother, in a cotton boat-necked floral print dress, sat at the opposite end, as it’d always been all Flann’s childhood. Harper sat on the left across from Margie, who was pretending not to read from the eReader propped against the table in her lap as she ate. Carson and the baby were missing, and she’d likely not be seen until Sunday dinner. Her husband Bill had finally come home from Afghanistan, and after the family met him at the airport, he and Carson had stayed close to home to reconnect.
Flann flopped into her chair next to Harper, grabbed an empty plate, and filled it with food. “This looks great, Mama.”
“Long case?” her father asked, buttering a flaky biscuit. “I thought you just had a hernia repair this afternoon.”
“Fractured wrist came in about five.” Flann filled a glass with fresh milk. Her father always seemed to know what she and Harper, and most other docs at the Rivers, had going on. “Jimmy Hawkins.”
“Damn,” Harper said. “I just saw him last week in the office for a work physical. He got that summer job lifeguarding at the lake. I hope he doesn’t lose it.”
“Trying to keep the cast on him is going to be a major challenge.” Flann grinned. “But if he follows orders, he’ll only miss the first week of the season.”
“Was his mama there?” Ida asked.
“Yep.”
“Then he’ll mind.”
“I was out of the hospital most of the day,” Edward said. “I didn’t get a chance to meet the new ER chief.” He looked pointedly at Flann. “I heard you did, though.”
Flann turned slicing and buttering her baked potato into a work of art while she considered her answer. Parsing her words at the family table was something new, but Harper was sitting right next to her, and now, by extension, Presley was too. She guessed Harper and Presley would share everything, the way her mother and father did. The family, the concept of their unity that had been with her all her life, seemed blurry now. When Carson had married Bill, they’d welcomed him into the family, but he’d been deployed for a large part of their marriage. Now that he was home, and Harper and Presley were getting married, the core of the family would be changing. Something else she needed to get used to.
“Abigail handled things well. She looks to be well-trained,” Flann finally said.
Edward regarded her silently.
Her mother passed her a bowl of green beans. “Vegetables.”
“You know I don’t really like—” At a sharp look from her mother, Flann let that battle go and took some of the steamed beans.
Ida said, “I think we can assume that anyone Presley hired would be well-qualified. How did the two of you get on?”
Flann gritted her teeth. Of course her mother would get to the point. She always did. “We got along fine. Dealing with her is the same as with any other consultant.”
“Mmm,” Ida said. “Except, in this case, you are the consultant.”
Flann put her knife and fork down. “That’s true.”
“And you’re used to being at the top of the food chain,” Ida remarked casually.
Edward coughed on a laugh. “Those of us in medicine wouldn’t necessarily agree with that, my dear.”
“Nor do I, necessarily,” Ida said with a hint of Southern sweetness. “But I wager that’s not the way Flannery looks at it.”
“There’s not going to be a problem,” Flann said, more for Harper’s benefit than anyone else’s. She was tired of the subject already and wanted to put it to rest. Hoping to divert the attention from her feelings about Abigail, she tried for a change in topics. “Presley tells me she has a teenager.”
“Oh hey,” Margie said, looking up from the eReader, “I met him today. At the library. Blake.”
“Did you invite him to supper?” Ida asked.
“No, but I offered to show him around town. He seems kinda shy. You know, he’s a city kid, so I guess everything here seems weird.”
“All the more reason to invite him and his parents to dinner so they’ll feel welcome.”
“Okay, the next time I see him, I will.” Margie went back to her reading, instantly absorbed.
“There’s just Abby and Blake,” Harper said. “Presley invited them over to her place on Saturday.”
“As she should,” Ida said, “but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t also.”
“I’ll see to it,” Harper said, and Ida nodded.
Edward said, “How are things coming along with the purchase of the White place?”
“So, Carrie’s going to move into your place,” Flann said.
“Seems like a good solution,” Harper said. “The caretaker’s place is move-in ready and I’m leaving most of the furniture. She won’t have much to do and she’ll be close by all of us.”
Flann considered the possibility of spending the night with Carrie at the old caretaker’s house on her parents’ homestead—if they got further than one date. Assuming Carrie called her. She supposed she could put her Jeep in the barn if she didn’t want to advertise her personal comings and goings. She could work it out if and when the time came.
“It’s a pretty big place,” Ida said casually. “What’s it got—four, five bedrooms?”
Harper grinned. “Four besides the master, which we figure will be about right. I guess it’s a good time to let you know we’re thinking about adopting as soon as we can.”
Everyone at the table stopped eating and stared at her.
“Well,” Ida said finally. “That’s welcome news. The sooner the better, because you can never have enough grandchildren.”
Flann looked away before Harper got a look at the shock in her eyes. Harper married with kids. The picture had never occurred to her before, although why not, she couldn’t imagine. Harper was practically a carbon copy of their dad. A family physician who made house calls and always would. Rooted in the community, born to head a family. Of course Harp would want her own family as soon as she could, now she’d found the woman she would make a life with.
“That’s a splendid idea,” Edward said. “How long do they expect the process will take?”
“Cool,” Margie added. “Can you get two at once?”
“Yes, possibly,” Harper said, laughing. “As to how long, I don’t know. The agency says the average time is a year to two, but we could get lucky.” Harper lifted a shoulder. “We’re flexible about things like age or ethnicity, as long as we have a healthy child. The rest will be up to us, then, right?”
“All a child needs,” Ida said, “is love. You let us know if there’s anything we can do, and when the time comes, with the two of you working, I expect to be lending a hand in that child’s care.”
“Thank you, Mama,” Harper said softly.
When dinner was finished, Flann helped Harper and Margie clear the table while her mother and father retired to the back porch with a glass of wine.
As soon as the last dish was dried, Margie said, “I’m going into the village for a while. See you.”
“See you,” Flann said.
“Be careful on your bike,” Harper called as the back door slammed.
Alone in the kitchen, Flann searched for a neutral topic of conversation, something she’d never had to do with her sister before. The silence drew on until it felt awkward.
“So what do you think?” Harper said finally.
“What do you mean?”
“About the kids thing.”
“I think the two of you will be great parents.” Flann meant every word from the bottom of her heart.
“Big change, though, huh?”
Flann grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator, flicked off the top on an old bottle opener screwed to the undersurface of the wooden counter, and handed it to Harper. She opened one for herself. “It’s about time. You probably should’ve been married five years ago. You were made for it.”
Harper laughed. “It feels now like that’s the truth, but I didn’t know how much I wanted it until I met Presley.”
“Then I guess that’s a sign you found the right woman.”
“So about the wedding,” Harper said. “We’re going to have it here, of course, and we both want pretty traditional.”
Flannery laughed. “No surprise there either.”
“So you’re going to stand up with me, right?”
Flann’s chest tightened. “Harp, I’ll always stand with you. No matter what.”
“Thanks.”
“That’s a dumb-ass thing to say. You don’t thank me for being your sister.”
“How about for being my friend?”
“Not that either.” Flann scrubbed her face. She hadn’t been doing a very good job of letting Harper know she was happy for her. Too busy feeling sorry for herself. “Is falling in love and getting married turning your brain to mush?”
“Only sometimes.”
“I think Presley is great, and the two of you are going to be super together.” Flann grinned. “As for the kids thing? Bring ’em on. We need new blood for the softball league, and we can get started training them up.”
Laughing, looking younger by a decade, Harper took a long pull on her beer. “So, how do you really feel about Abby?”
Flann tensed. Had Harper read something in her face earlier? Because Abby Remy kept intruding on her thoughts. A lot more than a new professional colleague, even one who’d effortlessly moved in on her territory, should have. She kept remembering the quick sure movements of her hands as she examined the patient, the steady certain tone in her voice, the focus in her eyes. She was a strong woman, attractive just for that. And then there was the elegant curve of her cheekbones and the sensuous lift of her lips, on the rare occasions when she smiled, and the dynamite shape in a tight, curvy-in-all-the right-places body. Thinking about Abby’s body was a really bad idea, since heading down that path would only lead to disaster. She only had to spend five minutes with Abby to know she wasn’t the kind of woman to cut loose for a night and then walk away with a smile and a wave. And those were the only kind of women Flann wanted to think about—fun-loving, field-playing women just like her. “Presley made a good call. Having someone competent in the ER so we don’t have to worry when we can’t get there right away will take a load off us all.”
“I’m glad you’re okay with it,” Harper said. “Presley really likes her. They were pretty tight in college and then—well, you know how it is when you get to med school. You have a tough time keeping any kind of relationship going with anyone most of the time, and they haven’t really seen each other for a while. But the connection is still there.”
“Yeah, I got that when I talked to Presley earlier. She told me a little about when she and Abby were in college—pretty impressive,” Flann said, “that Abby made it through college and med school and residency while raising a kid.”
That was another really good reason to keep her distance. Single women with kids were like mama bears—protective and reluctant to let anyone close. Rightly so, but not for her.
“Dad did it,” Harper said, “but he had Mama. I don’t see how he could’ve done it and set up his practice without her.”
Flann glanced toward the back porch where her parents were spending a rare few minutes alone together. Even now a lot of the people in the area wanted her father when they had a medical emergency, and he was often called out at night or came home after dinner was long over. Always, her mother had been there for all of them. Her father was Harper’s hero, but her mother was hers. Harper would be the best of both of them, but Flann had always known she wasn’t cut out to be a family woman. She hadn’t even been able to hang in there when Katie was dying. The loss cut her heart out and she’d barely managed to say good-bye, let alone stand strong. She swallowed down the familiar guilt. “I’m sure things will work out fine. Abby has handled a lot tougher situations than relocating, it seems to me.”
Harper set the empty bottle on the drain board. “It’s going to be a challenging transition for her and her son. Moving from the city up here is just part of it.”
“Well, Abby’s got Presley, and that will help a lot.”
“I don’t know…”
“What?” Flann had never known Harper to be reluctant to discuss anything. “What’s going on?”
Harper blew out a breath. “Abby told Presley a big
part of the reason that she moved up here was to give her son a new environment, a new place to finish high school.”
“Teenager troubles? Drugs or something?”
“No, nothing like that. Apparently, Blake identifies as trans. He had some trouble with the transition at his old school and Abby thinks a fresh start with new kids will help.”
“Whoa,” Flann said. “That’s got to be a challenge for both of them. Is this the kid Margie met today?”
“Yeah.”
“She didn’t say anything.”
“Maybe she didn’t think anything of it—or doesn’t think it’s her place to say. A lot of kids their age are cool with different gender identities, even up here where being out about differences isn’t as common as in the city. I haven’t had a single kid in my practice talk about gender issues, and I’m sure some have questions.”
“Neither have I,” Flann said, and suddenly, she wanted to know a whole lot more. “You know, it’s about time we did a few repairs to that barn at the Whites’ place, don’t you think?”
“There’s a lot of things that need repairing,” Harper said, seeming not to notice the change in topic.
“How about Saturday afternoon?”
Harper gave her a long look. “I’ll tell Lila to make sure she leaves plenty of extra food for supper.”
Chapter Six
Abby pulled into the drive at sunset. Her commute had taken less than ten minutes. Amazingly, she’d saved an entire hour of travel that she’d usually spent on the subway in a haze of fatigue. Now she actually had a few hours to spend with Blake when she wasn’t so tired all she wanted was to stretch out and not think about work or finances or what might lie ahead for her child. She left her bag by the front door and walked through the big living room, scanning the loft at the top of the staircase that was Blake’s new bedroom. No lights up there, and a silent house. “Blake?”
“Out here,” Blake called from the back porch.
Abby stopped to pour a glass of iced tea she’d made in the morning, carried it outside, and sat down next to him on the top step. From here any sound from the street was muffled and the only thing to see was pastureland. The stillness was unnerving and suspiciously restful. She wondered if she’d ever get used to the absence of the barely controlled energy that defined city life. “What are you doing?”