in a frown. “How are you feeling? Any more light-headedness? Nausea? Dizziness?”
He got points for seeming to care that she’d recovered from her faint and for putting that before whatever volatile situation awaited him.
“I’m fine. I’d just worked myself into such a state of terror on the way over here—that’s all it was.”
He blushed again. “Look, I’m sorry I scared you.”
“It’s okay.” But Ally was surprised by how small her voice had become.
“Your mother will be back here soon,” Jake continued anyway. “They’ll probably splint her wrist, give her some pain meds and send her home. You’re going to have to take it from there.”
Basically what he’d told Bubby.
But Ally had had no idea to what extent he’d meant that when he’d said it earlier. Now that she knew what problems her mother was having and that he expected her to confront Estelle, she felt completely overwhelmed.
Jake was waiting expectantly for some kind of answer, so she nodded her head as if taking it from there was exactly what she was agreeing to do—even though she had no idea how she was going to do it.
Apparently he didn’t feel reassured. “I mean it. You can’t turn a blind eye to this. It has to be dealt with.”
“I heard you the first time,” she said, managing a little spunk in defense against his once again demanding directive.
He stared at her as if he still wasn’t convinced he could leave this in her hands. But after a moment he seemed to concede to the other demands on his time. “I have to go. I’ll check with you later, though probably not until tonight.”
Ally didn’t say anything at all to that, but after another moment, he pushed off the examining table and headed out of the room.
He paused at the door and turned those striking dark gray eyes on her again.
“I’m sorry, Ally,” he apologized a third time. “I know this is a lot to handle and none of it is what anyone wants to have to face. But it’s in your mom’s best interests that you do face it,” he said, showing the first hint of compassion since they’d met.
“I’ll see you later.”
Part of Ally would have preferred she never see the man again as long as she lived. Yet another part felt a tiny bit intrigued—and safer—at the idea.
Because as abrasive as the handsome doctor could be, there was also something strong and solid about him that made it seem as if he could handle anything.
And when it came to her mother, Ally wasn’t too sure she could.
Chapter Two
It was after eight o’clock Thursday evening. Jake’s last session had ended at ten minutes before the hour and he was sitting at his desk in the office that adjoined the hospital trying to make his case notes before he left.
Trying unsuccessfully.
He just couldn’t seem to concentrate. Since leaving Ally Rogers at the E.R. he’d done his damnedest to keep his mind on the patients he’d seen. But his thoughts kept wandering back to Ally.
On the few occasions when Estelle had spoken of her daughter, Jake had imagined Ally to be considerably older. After all, he was the age of most of his walking companions’ grandchildren, not their children, so he’d never figured that Estelle’s daughter would be closer to his age.
Young and beautiful…
Yeah, okay, so not only her age had thrown him off.
Ally Rogers was someone any man would have taken a second look at. Which was what he’d been doing from the emergency-room waiting area before he’d even known who she was.
Not too tall—about five-four—she was well proportioned with curves enough for his gaze to linger where it shouldn’t have when he’d first seen her from a distance.
She also had gleaming wavy blond hair that was nearly the color of summer sunshine, cascading around a face that could have been made of fine bone china.
But it was her eyes that had stuck with him most. Bright, rich green, the color of rolling Irish hillsides, sparkling even when she was just coming out of her faint…
Not that it mattered, he reminded himself, fighting off the image. It didn’t matter how beautiful she was. It didn’t matter that she was younger than he’d expected. Neither of those things could excuse neglecting her mother. Or at least what had seemed to him like neglect.
It was a personal sore spot with him and he knew it had roots in his own background. Growing up as he had, without a family of his own, shuffled from stranger to stranger in foster care, had bred in him the conviction that families shouldn’t be taken for granted. If a person was lucky enough to have one, they damn well should appreciate it and be willing to do whatever it took to maintain it.
Jake threw his pen onto his case file and pushed back into his leather chair with a vengeance.
A tough old bird—that was how he’d always thought of Estelle Rogers. She was a woman who didn’t invite closeness, who didn’t exude the kind of warmth that Bubby did. But he tended to take people the way they were, to look for the good in them, and he liked Estelle.
Once he’d gotten to know her he’d found that she had a dry sense of humor, an admirable determination and a generous spirit. She was also always ready to lend a hand to anyone at the senior center who needed it, and until recently, she’d played an unbeatable game of cribbage.
But he felt bad for her—lately because of whatever health issues might be looming, and before because she’d seemed as alone as he was, despite the fact that, unlike him, she did have family. A daughter.
A daughter who, with the exception of a weekly phone call and a few holiday visits, didn’t bother with her mother.
At least, not in the three years that Jake had known Estelle.
Yes, now that he’d met her daughter he was less sure about the relationship between them, but Jake still believed that Estelle was entitled to her daughter’s care, difficult relationship or not. And if Ally Rogers had any decency she’d be more conscientious and make the best of however much longer she might have with her mother, because she was lucky to have a mother at all.
On the other hand, clinically, he had to concede that there might be more going on with the Rogerses than he’d thought, and recognizing that battled with those personal feelings.
Some people could be even tougher on their own families than they were on the rest of the world, and maybe Estelle fell into that category. If she did, making the best of the time she and her daughter had left together could be tricky.
The bottom line at this point, though, was that when Estelle’s health, well-being and future had to be addressed, her daughter was the only one who could address it. Friends didn’t have the same legal authority, if nothing else.
So for Estelle’s sake, he hoped Ally could handle
