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“I’ve got plenty of tact, Bugs.” She grinned. He’d always hated that nickname. Probably hoped he’d left it behind in grade school, when he gave Billy Alderson a black eye. “I just know it doesn’t work with you.”
Warren snorted.
“But I’ve got some good news for you—I saw your son talking to Dr. Jill out in the hall, just a few minutes ago. It must be wonderful to have him back, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yeah. And it’s good to see you. Are you my nurse this shift?”
“Just until Marcia gets here. She had some car trouble.”
“Stop back again, would you? It’s nice…just talking about old times.”
The past couple of days had been more hectic than usual, with a spate of mid-winter injuries and illnesses—influenza, broken legs and ankles from winter sports, bronchitis and pneumonias—and until today she hadn’t given him more than a quick greeting.
The loneliness in his eyes touched her heart. “Of course I will.”
Grant knocked lightly and walked in, following Dr. Jill. From the strained expression on Jill’s face and the rigid set of Grant’s shoulders it was all too clear that they still barely tolerated each other’s presence.
It was such a shame. Jill was one of her closest friends in the hospital and her ex-husband was still Grace’s lawyer—a fine and caring man. How could things have gone so wrong between them?
Grace took one last look at the rate on the IV pump and started for the door to give them privacy.
“How’s he doing today?” Jill asked, stopping Grace.
It was a question intended to keep her there—perhaps as a buffer—because every last detail of Warren’s day was clearly documented in the interdisciplinary notes section of his chart.
“Quite well,” Grace murmured. “His vitals have been normal for the past twenty-four hours. I’d like you to take a look at his IV site, though. I think we’ll need to restart it sooner than scheduled.”
Jill moved to the bed and smiled in greeting, then inspected his arm. “She’s right, Warren. Vanco is hard on the veins. We’ll have to change your IV at least twice before you’re done.”
Warren scowled. “Do whatever you damn well please and then leave me alone.”
“Dad—”
“It’s okay,” Jill said, sparing Grant a chilly glance and then turning her attention back to Warren. “No one likes being here. Right?”
He fixed his stony gaze on the wall just over her head.
The similarity between Grant, Jill and Warren almost made Grace smile. They were strong, intelligent people—and all of them had definite opinions. When the three got together, sparks flew.
Grace silently commiserated with Jill above the patient’s head, then gathered her tray of supplies and slipped out the door.
GRANT LEANED BACK in his father’s ancient, leather-upholstered desk chair and smiled. “So you’re saying you want to rewrite your will again, Mr. Walthan?”
Hal pursed his lips and studied the ceiling, apparently deep in thought. “Mebbe.”
“You’re not sure.”
“I’m thinking about it. My fool grandson…” The old man’s heavy neck wattle jiggled as he shook his head in disgust. “Tattoos.”
“Tattoos.” Grant drummed a forefinger on the thick client folder he’d pulled. It held at least four other versions of the man’s will, all drafted within the past year, all disinheriting one family member or another. “You want to disinherit him because he got tattoos? They’re pretty common these days.”
“He’s got snakes crawlin’ up one arm. A black widow spider crawling down the other.” Hal drew his bushy white eyebrows together. “Not the kind of appearance the town expects of a Walthan.”
“Pretty soon you’re going to run out of relatives. And, if it appears you’ve been capricious, unduly influenced by anyone or have made some…unusual…decisions, there could be family members who try to contest.”
“Your job is to make sure that can’t happen.” The elderly pharmacist set his jaw. “Then just let ’em try.”
Grant jotted a few more notes on the legal pad in front of him. “I’ll write up a new draft, then. When you come back in, I’ll ask you to go over each of your wishes—with a witness present—and I’ll videotape proof that you appeared to be of sound mind. I’ll also ask you for a handwritten summary.”
Hal nodded decisively. “You’re a good man. Thorough. Never should have left town, if you ask me.”
Over the past week, a cadre of the old-timers had trooped into the office, one after another.
Grant had the distinct feeling that a campaign was afoot, after three had given him marital advice, two had told him that he’d been negligent in leaving his father’s practice last fall, and every last one of them had made sly, oblique comments about Doc Jill Edwards being far too pretty to—as crotchety old Leo Crupper had put it—“wither on the vine.”
Grant steeled himself for the inevitable pep talk from Hal. And sure enough, the old guy hesitated at the door and turned back, one gray brow raised.
“The missus doing well?”
“Fine. Just fine.” At least, Grant thought so. He hadn’t seen her for a week now, except for the occasional glimpse of her Sable.
He had a feeling Jill wanted to avoid him just as much as he wanted to avoid her.
Hal fixed him with a piercing look. “You aren’t getting any younger.”
Well, at least he took a different approach from Warren’s other cronies. Who’d probably, now that Grant thought about it, been sent by Warren himself.
“None of us are,” Grant replied.
“You got no kids,” Hal said bluntly. “No grandkids for Warren, and there’ll be none for you either, down the road, if you wait too long.”
Remembering how many grandkids Hal had already disinherited—and then added back into his will—Grant just smiled. “They are a joy, aren’t they? Every last one of them. No matter how unique.”
“Er…exactly,” Hal gave him a narrow look, then stood in the doorway as he shouldered into his coat. “When should I come back?”
Grant flipped the page on the planner lying open on the desk. “Tomorrow’s Friday, and I need to take off early. How about next Tuesday. Another ten o’clock?”
“Good enough.” He clenched his fingers into the thick crown of his beaver-fur hat. “How’s Warren?”
“Much better. He got his IV out yesterday and has started rehab. He’ll be home in a week or two, and not a minute too soon. He’s been climbing the walls.”
“Bet he has. Man never misses a day on the golf course from Easter ’til Thanksgiving, barring snow. He isn’t one to sit around.”
“Well…he’s agreed to take it easy for a few months, if I stay to help out.”
“You’re a good son, coming back like this to take his place. A real good son.”
Grant rounded the desk and walked him to the front door, then flipped the Open sign in the door to Closed as Hal headed down the sidewalk toward Waltham Drug.
At the open doorway Grant took a deep breath of icy, pine-scented air. Thankful, he admitted to himself, that he’d had a reason to come back home to Blackberry Hill for a while.
A couple of blocks down the street, on the corner of Birch and Main, he could see the front corner of Jill’s office, and that brought back all the reasons why he shouldn’t have.
Clean breaks were the best. Especially when there was no hope of ever changing the past, and no wish to create a future.
Yet he’d run into Jill almost every day at the hospital when he’d stopped to visit Dad.
The irony was that apparently they’d both been changing their schedules to avoid each other—and for once in their lives, they had been in perfect harmony.
But in a few weeks Dad would be on his feet and out of the hospital, and then there’d be no need to intrude on Jill’s territory. And that would make life a heck of a lot easier.
PROCLAIMING THAT HE was bored silly on the Skilled Care unit of the hospital, Warren had called the law office at eleven o’clock, noon, one o’clock, and then—apparently he’d been napping—not until almost four.
Grant glanced at the caller ID, amused, as he tapped the speaker button. “Hey, Dad.”
Warren sucked in a sharp breath. “There’s not a client with you?”
“Your friend Hal left a few minutes ago.” Swiveling his chair, Grant looked out the window at the early winter darkness. “Even if there was, I’d guess most people around here know that you and I are related. I’ve been calling you ‘Dad’ since I was in diapers.”
“Doesn’t sound professional.”
Grant had visited Warren every day when he was in the ICU in Green Bay, and had figured he would settle down once he was transferred back to Blackberry Hill. But with each passing day it was becoming more obvious that he viewed his ongoing hospitalization as a form of incarceration.
“How are you feeling?”
“Never better.”
“Not tired at all? The surgeon in Green Bay said—”
“The doc is nuts. I’m fine as frog hair and going stir-crazy in this place. Let me tell you, the day I decide to retire is the day you’ll have to lock me away.”
“Dad, how long has it been since you took a vacation—really went somewhere and did something fun?”
During the long silence they both remembered Marie Edwards’s unexpected death at fifty-five from an aneurysm. Three years ago.
Grant had been working at a prestigious firm in Chicago, but Warren had been so devastated over the loss of his wife that Grant and Jill had come home to help him cope with his practice and his grief.
After Warren’s subsequent heart attack, the intended few months had somehow evolved into several years…with Jill working at an established family practice in town and Grant busy at the Edwards Law Office.
The purchase of a house had signified a commitment to stay for good.
One more painful irony, among the many.
“…so maybe I will.” Warren cleared his throat. “What do you think?”
Grant shook himself out of his memories. “About what?”
“I should call him. Haven’t been down to see him since he and your Aunt Jane built their new house. I expect we could get in a little golf.”
Grant blinked. Uncle Fred and Aunt Jane? Florida?
“That is, if you don’t mind staying on for a while longer.” The hopefulness in Warren’s voice faded as he added, “But I shouldn’t even ask. You’d probably rather move ahead with your own career, and with my secretary gone, the job is damned inconvenient. Doretta sure picked a bad time to retire.”
“I’ve already planned on staying for several more months, anyway. I don’t mind working alone.” Grant smiled to himself as he recalled Dad’s confrontational relationship with his strong-minded secretary of the past thirty years. “It would do you a world of good to get away for a while. And when you get back, you can hire a nice paralegal.”
At a tentative knock on his office door, Grant glanced at his wristwatch. Five o’clock. He’d turned the door sign to Closed when Hal left, which accounted for the knock. “I’ve got to hang up, someone’s at the door.”
Grant dropped the phone back into its cradle and rounded the desk. Out in the waiting area, he pinned a welcoming smile on his face as he opened the front door.
And looked down into the lovely face of the woman who’d helped destroy his life.
JILL LINGERED IN the exam room after her last patient of the day left, dictated her progress note into a recorder then popped out the microcassette and strolled to the front office.
Donna Iverson, her office nurse, looked up from a file drawer and grinned. “For once, you’re actually done on time. Amazing.”
“It is—especially in the middle of flu season.” She put the cassette into an envelope and dropped it into a drawer of the receptionist’s desk. “After rounds at the hospital, I’m going home for a long, hot bath and a good book.”
Middle-aged and motherly, Donna frowned and shook a finger at her. “You need to get out more. Have some fun. What about that nice assistant manager down at the bank? I swear, if that man isn’t interested in you, I’ll eat my stethoscope.”
The man was a pleasant, earnest sort of guy. He’d certainly be Mr. Dependability…and just the thought made Jill stifle a yawn. “I’m not even divorced yet and, frankly, I can’t even imagine dating again. But what about you?”
Donna gave a flustered wave of her hand after she pushed the file drawer shut. “It’s not so easy, getting back into the swing of things at my age. My brother Bob and his family are here in town, though. Grandkids. Plenty to keep me busy. But you…”
“I’ve finally got a practice of my own. The house of my dreams. A very devoted cat.”
“You’ve got one very weird cat, and a very big house to ramble around in. You know, my bachelor cousin Irwin lives down in Minocqua, and—”
Laughing, Jill held up a hand. “Stop. I’m sure he’s a great guy, but I really don’t want to meet anyone. Ask me again in about five years.”
Loyal to a fault, the nurse had stood staunchly by Jill during the difficult last months of her marriage, and she still spoke Grant’s name with a sniff of distaste.
“Well…just keep Irwin in mind. He’s great with kids. Has a good job in real estate. And,” she added triumphantly, “he’s never been married, so you wouldn’t be taking on all that extra baggage.”
I’d just have all of my own. Jill nodded politely as she shouldered into her red wool pea coat and wrapped a long black scarf around her neck. “You should get going. All of this will be waiting for you tomorrow.”
“Just another few minutes.” Donna’s expression grew somber. “Say hello to Patsy, won’t you? Tell her I’ll stop in tonight with some new magazines.”
“She’ll be happy to hear that.” Jill pulled on her gloves, wishing she could offer more hope for Donna’s neighbor. “She may not be very talkative, though. We had to increase her morphine last night.”
Patsy Halliday had been the picture of good health just three months ago at her annual physical, but last month she’d come in with severe headaches. An MRI revealed a fast-growing tumor that the surgeons couldn’t completely remove, and soon her three young children would lose their mother.
Life was so terribly unfair.
Jill slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder and went out the back door of the clinic, lost in thought. She barely felt the cold as she started her car and waited for the defroster to melt away the haze on her windshield.
Cases like this one kept her awake at nights; made her rethink every decision a dozen times, and made her pray for miracles when everything on the MRI report and labs told her there was little hope.
Cases like this made her want to live every day to the fullest, because they illustrated with cruel finality just how little control you had over the future.
