coat. Magnolia did not wait there on the porch of Chatam House in the cold January sunshine so he could admire her frugal, androgynous style, however. Like her phone call reminding him that he had promised to take Eva to retrieve her personal belongings from her impounded van, this did not bode well for his peace of mind. Inwardly he sighed.
“What has she done?”
Magnolia waved a gnarled hand. “So far as I know Eva hasn’t done anything but eat and read. I am deeply concerned with her spiritual condition, though, especially as I suspect she is very unwell.”
Magnolia stood no taller than his shoulder, but when she looked up at him with those stern, steady amber eyes of hers, she—more so than her sisters—made him feel all of ten years old again. He resisted the urge to clear his throat and shuffle his feet.
“You already know that she has a brain tumor. Beyond that, I cannot tell you a thing.”
“Such frightening words, brain tumor,” Magnolia mused, turning away, “but I don’t have to tell you that.”
“No.”
“Still, great strides have been made in treatment.”
“Indeed.”
“Many new treatments are now available.”
“True.”
“I understand that some tumors are now treated with drugs alone.” She looked over her shoulder then, pinning him with a gaze so direct that he knew he was being probed. He was almost glad that he didn’t have answers to give her, answers he could not have given her, anyway, for ethical reasons.
“Some,” he returned succinctly.
As if admitting defeat or drawing an unhappy conclusion, she nodded. “And God is still in the healing business.”
“He is.”
She turned to face him again, her chin aloft. “We’ve come to the conclusion that we need to get her to prayer meeting.” The we being Magnolia and her sisters, of course, for whom he would do just about anything, as they well knew.
“Tonight, you mean.”
“The sooner the better, wouldn’t you say? All things considered.”
Well, she had him there. Given Eva’s condition and the fact that she would be staying only long enough to let her scalp wound heal, it didn’t make any sense to delay.
“I assume you want me to convince her to attend the meeting.”
Magnolia’s mouth twitched. “I think that in this instance Dr. Gorgeous might have more influence than Penny Loafers, Silk-and-Pearls and Kindred Spirit, not to mention Easter Egg.”
Brooks rolled his eyes. “Oh, brother.”
“Although Hilda the Muffin Queen runs you a close second at this point,” Magnolia informed him from behind her hand.
He laughed. “So her cognitive abilities are not seriously impaired, then.”
“Or at least she knows which side of her bread is buttered. Literally,” Magnolia teased.
Brooks reached out an arm to escort her into the house, saying playfully, “I think Eva is rubbing off on you.”
“She does have a winsome way about her,” Magnolia admitted.
“That’s one way of putting it,” Brooks muttered, letting them into the warmth.
“I believe you’ll find her in the library,” Magnolia told him.
Brooks unbuttoned his overcoat and walked across the foyer to the open door of the library antechamber. A large red mahogany conference table surrounded by chairs took up most of the space. Beyond that was a small office with a double desk topped by a computer and a broad, lovely space furnished floor-to-ceiling with shelves filled with books. A trio of comfortable chairs flanked by lamps had been arranged around a long low table suitable for a tea tray, of course. Brooks walked past the conference table and the door to the office, turning into the library proper.
He did not at first see anyone. Then a slender foot clad in a black stocking kicked into the air, prompting him to look past the tea table.
“Eva?”
The foot went down, and her head popped up, a smile breaking across her face.
“Doc!” She reared up onto her knees, obviously having been reclining on her stomach on the floor. “You remembered.” Beaming, she clutched a book against her chest.
In truth, she had not been far from his thoughts all morning. Then again, he found himself all but unable to speak as she laid the book on the table and got to her feet. She stood before him covered chin to toes in black spandex, a single large colorful scarf tied about her slender waist above one hip, and yet her garb left absolutely nothing to the imagination where her shape was concerned. And how shapely she was!
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