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A Full House
Nadia Nichols
Dr. Annie Crawford is hoping for a peaceful summer on an isolated farm in northern Maine. She's happy to escape her hectic New York life and to spend time getting to know her troubled teenage child. But the two are not alone for long.First comes Nelly–the puppy Annie's ex promised their daughter. Then comes Lily, the elderly owner of the farm, whose son wants her to stay in a nursing home. Lily wants nothing more than to return home. And finally Lieutenant Jake Macpherson–the cop who arrested Annie's daughter– shows up with his own little girl.Now Annie's got a full house…and a brand-new family.
“Dr. Crawford, we’re holding your daughter.”
Annie Crawford listened to the words, but for a long time they didn’t register. The man’s deep voice continued. “This is Lieutenant Macpherson of the twenty-third precinct. We picked up Sarah about an hour ago with a carload of teenagers and about a half ounce of marijuana.”
“I’m sorry,” Annie finally managed to say, “you must be mistaken. My daughter’s home in bed.”
There was a polite pause. “You may want to come down to the station. I could give you directions.”
“That won’t be necessary. I’ll just call home and confirm that Sally is there.” Without waiting for a response, Annie hung up and then dialed her home number. The phone rang five times before Ana Lise picked it up, her Copenhagen accent heavy with sleep.
“Ja, she’s in bed, Doctor. It’s after midnight.” Ana Lise sounded bewildered by the question.
“Please check.”
Moments later the housekeeper returned to the phone. Her voice was no longer puzzled or sleepy. “She’s gone. I do not understand this. She is nowhere in the apartment.”
“Damnation!” Trepidation made Annie breathless as she picked up the receiver again to dial the police station.
Dear Reader,
Maine is a place people come to for its unspoiled beauty as well as its graceful and timeless ability to heal weary souls battered by a fast-paced world.
In the innkeeping business one meets many wonderful and interesting people, and while this is a fictional story, it was born of a series of real-life encounters with people who were doing just what Lieutenant Jake Macpherson and Dr. Annie Crawford—hero and heroine of A Full House—seek to do.
Lily Houghton represents all elderly people faced with losing their independence. She wants to remain on the saltwater farm she loves, but after she breaks her hip in a fall, her son decides she’d be better off in an assisted living center, and lists her home with a local Realtor. Annie Caldwell rents it for the summer, and to find out the rest of the story, dear gentle reader, you must open the pages of this book.
If you’ve never visited the grand state of Maine, by all means put it on your list. E-mail me at www.harraseeketinn.com, and I’ll help you plan a vacation you’ll never forget. I’d love to hear from you.
Sincerely,
Nadia Nichols
A Full House
Nadia Nichols
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Zilla Soriano, my much-appreciated editor.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER ONE
THERE WAS A TIME when Annie Crawford looked forward to the unknown challenges she would face at work and the split-second, life-and-death decisions she made every day. But gradually, over the years, those feelings had changed. What she thought about now when she faced another shift was how long and stressful it would be and how desperately tired she was of holding people’s lives in her hands.
These days, in those rare moments of quiet that sporadically punctuated her chaotic world, she dreamed of being someplace else. Someplace warm, where gentle winds blew all the clouds away. Someplace serene and peaceful, where tall grasses grew and where sometimes, in the midst of this lush green field, there grazed the most beautiful herd of wild—
“Horses,” a man’s voice said, interrupting her reverie.
She blinked, lifted her chin out of her hand and gazed up at the broad, friendly face of the man who was lowering himself into a chair across the hospital cafeteria table from her. He was dressed in casual clothes and looked wide awake despite the lateness of the hour.
“For one incredibly hopeful moment I thought you might have been dreaming about me,” he continued, nudging a second cup of coffee across the table toward her. “But when I saw the sheer rhapsody of your expression, I knew it had to be that dream about the wild horses in the field of green grass.”
Annie accepted the coffee with a slow smile. “There were five of them, and one was a jet-black stallion with a white star. Matt, what are you doing here on your night off? What time is it?”
“Just after midnight. I stopped by to check on Bonnie Mills on my way home from having a few beers at Gritty’s.” Dr. Matt Brink tasted his coffee and made a face. “So, what’s shaking?”
“For a Saturday night it’s been downright boring, so I checked on her myself about an hour ago. She was sleeping like a baby.”
“Still is.” Matt grinned. “She’s going to be walking soon, I’d stake my job on it.”
“That’s the kind of miracle we need more of.” Annie lifted her cup and stared at the black brew briefly before taking a sip. She also made a face and sighed. “Listen, I’ve been thinking…”
“About the beauty of the Adirondacks in spring?” Matt asked hopefully, and Annie shook her head with a rueful laugh. Matt had been prodding her for weeks to commit to a hiking and camping trip.
“Matt, how many times do I have to tell you that I can’t go? I have a thirteen-year-old daughter and I can’t just—”
“I know,” Matt interjected, raising a placating hand. “She’s going through a very difficult period in her life called adolescence and you absolutely cannot leave her without maternal supervision until she is married with several grown children of her own.”
“Matt…”
He heaved a frustrated sigh. “I know,” he repeated. “You’re sorry.”
Annie smiled. “You’re impossible.”
“I’ve been thinking, too,” Matt said, leaning toward her. “Why not bring her along?”
“Bring Sally?”
“It’ll get her out of the city and away from those friends of hers that you don’t like. The fresh mountain air and sunshine would do her a world of good.”
Annie’s beeper chirped and she reached automatically to silence it, checking the extension. ER. She groaned wearily. “Let me guess. Knife wound to the abdomen inflicted by a drug dealer upon a possessive pimp who tried to talk down the price of a gram of crack for one of his girls.” Annie pushed to her feet and eased a cramp in the small of her back. She smiled down at Matt. “Be seeing you around, pal, and thanks for the coffee.”
“Ask Sally,” Matt pleaded as she swiftly departed. “I betcha she’d love to go on a camping trip.” She waved a hand at his words as she pushed through the cafeteria doors but didn’t look back.
THE SIGHT OF BLOOD didn’t bother her and never had, but Annie sometimes felt as though she should be wearing a full biologic suit when she dealt with some of the shady members of the knife-and-gun club that routinely passed through the ER on a Saturday night. The man she now confronted was being restrained by two uniformed policemen. Male, mid-twenties, black eyes burning with fear and hatred. Blood spurted from his upper thigh while two gloved medics tried vainly to staunch the flow. “We can’t get him to hold still,” one of them tersely stated the obvious, his face beaded with sweat and dark with frustration. Blood was everywhere. “Gunshot wound. Looks like it’s nicked the femoral.”
Annie pulled on gloves and protective glasses and leaned into the youth’s face. She spoke three terse sentences in fluent Spanish, and the struggling instantly ceased. The cops looked at her in amazement as the medics quickly secured the pressure bandage. “What did you say to him?” one of them asked.
Annie smiled grimly. “I told him that if he didn’t hold still I might accidentally cut off his cojones because I was extremely inexperienced and the bullet hole was in a very ticklish spot.” She waved her hand. “Let’s get him down to Number Two operating room. They’re still fixing the overheads in One.”
The bullet wound was just the first in a string of injuries typical on a Saturday night. Somewhere between declaring the victim of a single car accident dead on arrival and monitoring the condition of an infant admitted with severe flu symptoms, Annie fielded a call from her ex-husband. “Hello, Annie,” Dr. Ryan Crawford said from some five hundred miles north in Bangor, Maine. “Sorry to bother you at work but I haven’t had much luck reaching you at home, either, thanks to your hostile housekeeper. You busy?”
“It’s pretty quiet now but that won’t last for long, so hurry up and state your case.”
“Still the same old Annie,” Ryan said dryly. “It’s about our daughter. I’d like her to spend the summer here, or at least part of it. Did she tell you?”
“She mentioned it,” Annie said stiffly, turning her back on the nurse’s station. “I’m not sure it’s such a good idea. She’s going through a very difficult time…”
“I know. Adolescence. Been there.”
“Not as a young girl you haven’t.”
“Annie, why do you feel so threatened by my wanting to have Sally visit? Trudy and I would love to have her, and she told me she wants to come.”
Trudy. Annie’s grip tightened on the receiver. Three months after their divorce was finalized, Ryan had tied the knot with Trudy, a medical transcriptionist from his office. It was Annie who had asked for the divorce, citing irreconcilable differences that had nothing at all to do with another woman, or so she thought. Ryan’s obvious involvement with Trudy had surprised the hell out of her.
“Hasn’t Trudy got enough to think about with the baby? It’s due pretty soon, isn’t it?”
“Seven more weeks. And in case you’re interested, it’s a boy. Trudy wanted to know ahead of time so we could get the nursery ready. If Sally came up she’d be here for the birth. She’d get to meet her brother on day one. She’d be a part of it all, and Adam would be a part of her life.”
“Adam?”
“Trudy named him. Adam Beckwith Crawford.”
“Beautiful.”
“Oh, come off it, Annie, don’t be so bitter. Let Sally come. It’ll be good for her. She’ll love our place. It’s on the outskirts of the city, big yard with trees, big garden, an easy drive to the ocean. It’ll be a good break from New York. All kids need fresh air and sunshine, even if some doctors don’t. And face it, Annie. You’re so busy you’re hardly ever around for her.”
Annie’s beeper chirped again. She checked the extension as she silenced it. ER again. “Gotta go.” She hung up the phone abruptly and hurried down the corridor. He had a hell of a nerve saying something like that to her. Even if some doctors don’t.
“Don’t what?” one of the ER nurses asked as she burst through the doors. Annie felt the blood rush into her face. She hadn’t realized she’d spoken out loud. She dove into her next case with grim determination. Baby girl. Four months old. Severely dehydrated from a combination of vomiting and diarrhea. Damn the man. Even if some doctors don’t…never around for Sally… What did he know about being a parent, the two-timing bastard? He’d done precious little parenting with his first child.
She read the thermometer with a fierce scowl and shook her head. Well, he was about to get a second chance at fatherhood. She hoped A.B.C. was a colicky baby and that Trudy made Ryan get out of bed at least half of the time to take care of him. And that Adam Beckwith Crawford gave his parents a tough time with adolescence. Been there. Honestly, the nerve of the man.
She admitted the baby for overnight observation, and while she wrote up the orders for fluid and electrolyte therapy, she reflected on her daughter. Not a bad kid. Mouthy at times, and increasingly distracted and pressured by a chaotic world, but in spite of what her Ryan thought, Annie considered herself a good mother. Almost every morning she and Sally had breakfast together, discussed schoolwork, current events, boys, homework and future plans and dreams. Sally could talk to her about anything, though lately the girl had been too busy hanging out with her friends to talk much at all.
So why, Annie wondered with a strong twinge of anxiety, did Sally want to spend the summer in Maine? Did she really miss her father so much that she’d forsake the cute—Tom Somebody-or-other—boy she’d recently discovered, for the entire summer? Or was she unhappy living with her mother? And the real crux of the matter—if she went to visit her father in Bangor, and if he made life indescribably wonderful for her, would she want to come back?
“Dr. Crawford? Phone call.” The head nurse interrupted Annie’s dark thoughts and she glanced up from the clipboard, startled. She handed the orders to the nurse with a nod of thanks and took the call at the station.
“Crawford, here,” she said abruptly.
“Dr. Crawford, this is Lieutenant Macpherson of the Twenty-third Precinct,” a man’s deep voice said. “We’re holding your daughter here at the station. She’s fine, but she was picked up about an hour ago with a carload of teenagers found to be in possession of about half an ounce of marijuana.”
Annie heard the words spoken, but for a few long moments they didn’t register. “I’m sorry,” she finally managed in a haughty voice, “but you must be mistaken. My daughter’s home in bed.”
There was a polite pause. “You may want to come down to the station,” the calm voice suggested. “I could give you directions…”
“I’m perfectly capable of finding the police station, Lieutenant,” Annie snapped, “but I’m certain that won’t be necessary. I’ll call my housekeeper and she’ll verify that my daughter is in bed. Asleep.” Without waiting for a response, Annie hung up, then picked up the receiver and dialed home.
The phone rang five times before Ana Lise answered, her Copenhagen accent heavy with sleep. “Ana Lise, is Sally home?”
“Ja, of course she is.” Ana Lise sounded understandably bewildered by the question. “She is in bed, Doctor. It is after midnight.”
“Could you please check?”
Moments later the housekeeper returned to the phone. Her voice was no longer puzzled or sleepy. “Doctor, Sally is gone!” she exclaimed. “She is nowhere in the apartment, but…she was here, I fixed her supper, she did her homework at the kitchen table, watched TV for an hour, went to bed at ten just as she always does. But now I do not understand this. She is gone!”
“Damnation,” Annie said, and hung up. Trepidation made her breathless. She picked up the receiver and dialed Matt’s number. His voice, too, was thick with sleep. “Matt? I’m so sorry to wake you but I have to ask you an enormous favor…”
Thirty minutes later Matt was at the hospital to cover for her, bleary-eyed and disgruntled. “You owe me a camping trip,” he said gruffly when she tried to thank him. In her gratitude she nodded in agreement. “You got it,” she promised.
She took a cab to the police station. It was close to 3:00 a.m. and the precinct was nearly as busy as the ER. After asking at the main desk, she was directed to the juvenile holding area where several young people were bastioned in a small room under the supervision of the juvenile officer. Her daughter was among them, looking pale, scared, and so very young. She was talking to a man whom Annie herself would have crossed a busy street to avoid—an unshaved vagrant dressed in throw-away clothes and sporting long, unkempt hair. He had one hand braced against the wall, the other on his hip, and his body was curved in a lazy slouch as he listened, head down, while Sally talked. What on earth could Sally be discussing with a bum like that?
Annie felt a surge of outrage as she marched up to the officer seated at the desk and pointed in disbelief. “Would you mind telling me why that degenerate is talking to my daughter?” she blurted angrily. “He shouldn’t even be in the same room with her! I see his kind in the ER all the time, shot up and cut up, costing the taxpayers big bucks for us to patch their holes so they can go back out on the streets and sell their drugs to young innocent kids like…like these.” Annie gestured to the young occupants, thinking to herself that her daughter was undoubtedly the only innocent among them.
The uniformed officer sat quietly through her angry outburst, then raised one hand in a calming gesture. “That degenerate is Lieutenant Macpherson, the arresting officer.” The cop reached for some papers and pushed them across the desk toward her. “I assume you’re here to sign for your daughter’s release?”
