“Bottled water will be fine. Thanks.”
She handed him a plastic bottle with a teasing, “Here you go, Doc.”
“Doc?” Her aunt Lois set down a stack of paper plates and studied James from the other side of the concrete picnic table where he’d been urged to have a seat. “You’re a doctor?”
“A medical student,” he corrected. “Fourth year.”
She waved a hand dismissively. “Can you write me a prescription for those little yellow pills that perk me up when I’m feeling peckish? My doctor at home is being a real fuddy-duddy and he won’t let me have any more, but I told him I don’t overuse them. I just like to have them around when I need them.”
Though he’d been warned it could happen, it was the first time he’d actually been hit up for a prescription. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mrs. Gambill. As a medical student, I’m not allowed to write prescriptions.”
“Honestly, Lois,” Shannon’s mother scolded her sister-in-law. “This nice young man is going to think you’re a druggy. Don’t go pestering him for pills.”
“But I—”
“I’m sorry if Lois put you on the spot,” Virginia continued to James, ignoring Lois’s protests. “She isn’t really a drug addict.”
He struggled against a smile. “I didn’t think so.”
Virginia turned then to her daughter-in-law. “Karen, you should have the doctor look at that rash on Caitlin’s back and tummy. Maybe he’d know what’s causing it.”
“I’m not a doctor yet,” he reiterated. “I’m a medical student.”
“Bet you’ve seen a few rashes, though, haven’t you?”
“Well, I—”
“Caitlin. Come see Grammy, sweetie.”
“But I—”
“We did warn you the family’s crazy,” Shannon murmured, standing close behind him and not even bothering to hide a wry grin.
Because he wasn’t sure what to say in response to that, he didn’t even try. Little Caitlin, the five-year-old with hair that glowed almost neon orange, dutifully lifted her shirt upon her grandmother’s instructions, baring her tummy to James’s reluctant eyes. A blotchy pink rash splashed her skin, extending to her back when she turned around. James was relieved when they merely told him it was also on her bottom, rather than stripping her down to prove it.
“It doesn’t really look like heat rash to me,” Shannon’s mother fretted. “And it’s definitely not measles or chicken pox, because she’s had her vaccinations. I know what they look like, anyway. What do you think?”
“Probably not heat rash,” James agreed, trying to recall his days in the outpatient peds clinic. “It looks like contact dermatitis to me. Have you changed laundry detergents lately?”
“No,” Karen replied, straightening her daughter’s clothes. “I’ve used the same one since she was born.”
“I noticed the rash is only where her clothing touches,” he explained.
Everyone looked at the child, nodding to agree with his comment.
“Actually, Stu’s been doing the laundry this week,” Karen said thoughtfully, looking toward her husband. “I’ve been busy with other things. Stu?”
Turning from the smoking grill, her husband asked, “You need something, honey?”
“You’ve been using the regular laundry detergent this week, haven’t you?”
“Sure. Same kind we’ve always used,” he replied.
Virginia sighed in disappointment that their guest had been proven wrong.
“It was only a guess,” James said with a slight shrug. “I’m afraid I don’t know what’s causing the—”
“I did change fabric softeners, though,” Stu called out. “We ran out and another brand was on sale. Smelled good, so I thought I’d try it.”
Virginia beamed at James. “Well, there you go. She’s allergic to the fabric softener.”
“A sensitivity to it, perhaps. Probably not a true allergy,” he said.
Caitlin had already dashed off to play with her siblings and cousins again, her fun unimpeded by the rash that had concerned the adults.
“That was very clever of you,” Lois said to James, patting his shoulder approvingly. “Are you sure you can’t prescribe my little pills?”
“I’m sure, Mrs. Gambill.”
“Oh, call her Lois,” Virginia ordered. “And I’m Virginia. If you say Mrs. Gambill, Lois and Karen and I are all likely to answer.”
“Meat’s ready,” Hollis announced, setting a huge tray of steaming burgers and franks in the center of the table. “Stacy, you and Karen go ahead and fix the kids’ plates and let them start eating so the rest of us can enjoy our dinners.”
“Sit by your guest, Shannon,” her mother ordered, motioning toward the bench beside James. “You’re in the way here.”
Shannon heaved a sigh and moved to slide onto the bench beside him. “You’re in for it now,” she warned him in a low voice, her smile both mischievous and contagious. “Not only are you the hero who saved my nephew, you’re a doctor. I should warn you that the whole family will try to fix us up during the meal.”
“Fix us up?” he repeated.
“Yeah. They’ve been trying for months to match me up with someone. After all, I had my twenty-fifth birthday last spring, and I’m single and unattached—which, you can probably tell, is unheard of in this family of early breeders. You must look like a prize stud to them.”
Her blunt phrasing took him aback for a moment, but then she laughed. Her green eyes sparkled with humor and her grin was an invitation to share a secret joke with her.
It was an offer he couldn’t resist. He laughed, too, earning them approving smiles from Shannon’s mother and aunt. This, of course, only made them laugh harder.
James couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d laughed out loud like this. It felt pretty damned good, he decided, still smiling when he turned to the heaping plate of food his hosts nudged encouragingly toward him.
Chapter Two
It was, to say the least, an interesting meal. The Gambill clan was as colorful as their hair. They talked a lot, and everyone at once, so it was sometimes hard to follow all the conversations going on around him. He tried to keep them all straight—the men talked about baseball, Karen and Stacy chatted about their kids, Virginia and Lois seemed determined to learn everything there was to know about James, Shannon kept up a running beneath-her-breath commentary, and the kids interrupted every few moments with requests, tattling
