have taken over my life,” Ginger said, seeming to relax a little.
“You’re craving sweet potatoes? That’s a new one.”
Ginger laughed. “Nothing so healthy, I’m afraid. Anything salty and crunchy and sweet.” She threw up her hands. “Every kind of junk food. It’s driving your dad crazy. Thank goodness we live above a restaurant. I can always raid the snack rack by the cash register, even in the middle of the night.”
“She set off the alarm once.” Brandon snickered. “The fire department came and everything. You can ask Dad.”
Ginger flushed an unbecoming red. “Oh, let’s not,” she said. “Go tell Mac that Callie will want dinner in, oh, about twenty minutes or so?”
“Twenty minutes. Great.”
“And I’ll remind her not to forget the cinnamon butter for your potato,” Brandon offered. “It’s my favorite.”
“Mine, too.”
“All right.” Brandon gave her a thumbs-up and took off at a trot.
“Are you sure it’s not too much trouble for me to shower here? I could drive out to Mom’s farm.” She was embarrassed. Ginger must assume she was as unreliable and unprepared as her mother. She didn’t appreciate the comparison one bit.
“That was going to be part of the surprise tomorrow,” Ginger said. “The elderly couple who always rent half the double cottage for six weeks had to cancel due to health issues. It’s small but so much nicer than the ‘mini suite’ at the Commodore Motel the committee picked out for you.” Her tone of voice when she said “mini suite” suggested the Commodore Motel wasn’t the nicest in town by a long shot. Callie was relieved she wouldn’t be staying there. “The cottage is all ready for you to move into as soon as you’ve cleaned up and eaten dinner. Peace and privacy. Well, a place of your own, anyway,” she added cryptically.
“Thank you.” She couldn’t quite keep the relief out of her voice. She loved the tiny duplex cottage on the lakeshore. And it was within walking distance of the White Pine and only half a mile from the clinic. She could bicycle to work—if her old bike was still hanging from the rafters in the garage.
“I’m glad you’re pleased. Your dad said you would be.” Ginger didn’t sound as convinced as J.R. apparently was. “The other side is rented, so it won’t be all that private, but it’s the only property not booked solid for the season.”
“It is my favorite, and I’ll love it, neighbor or no neighbor.” But the duplex was income for her dad. She couldn’t just move in during peak tourist season. “I’ll make up your shortfall on the rent. I’m sure the Physician’s Committee bullied Dad into giving them the same rate they were getting from the manager at the Commodore.”
“Settle that with your father over dinner,” Ginger said, waving off Callie’s suggestion.
Dinner with Dad. Callie couldn’t believe how much she wanted just that. There would be no expansive emotional display from J.R. when she came into the bar. When he caught her eye, he would smile at her, jerk his head in a signal to meet him in the kitchen at the old Formica table with its eight well-worn chairs—the “Cook’s Corner,” as her grandmother had named it years before Callie was born—where the staff ate. He would give her a quick, awkward hug, pull out her chair, set a steaming plate of fish before her and straddle the seat beside her so he could watch her eat. He wouldn’t scold her for not calling to say she was coming a day early, but she would apologize anyway because she had caused Ginger distress. He would tell her not to worry, that it was okay. It’s good to have you home, Callie girl, he would say. And that would be all she needed to hear. She would be home, and everything would be right with the world, because J.R. Layman could make it so.
At least, it had seemed that way to her when she was a child. But she wasn’t a child any longer, and J.R. had new responsibilities and a new family to keep safe from the big, bad world. She was on her own now, and that was the way it should be. She couldn’t pretend it didn’t hurt to be the outsider in this new family grouping—it did hurt—but that didn’t mean she intended to stand aside and do nothing to improve the situation, if for no other reason than to make things easier on her dad. She would do what she could to make them all a family.
“C’mon, Becca, you’re on the clock until nine, remember.” Her stepmother’s strained voice brought her back to the moment at hand. Ginger held out her arms, attempting to gather her daughter close. Becca sidestepped the embrace. Ginger hesitated a moment, her arms still outstretched, and then she dropped them to her side. “We really are happy to welcome you home, Callie.” Her smile didn’t falter but her eyes were bleak. So, the unhappy vibe Callie had picked up on when Becca had told her about switching bedrooms hadn’t been her imagination. There was some tension between mother and daughter over the new baby’s arrival, and perhaps between her father and his new wife, too?
Suddenly all the insecurity she’d been experiencing since she’d agreed to take the position at the clinic returned in a rush, almost overwhelming her determination to help her family. Developing relationships with her stepmother and stepsiblings and finding her own place in a new blended family was yet another complication to add to the weight of uncertainty over her sojourn to White Pine Lake. At least she had options if she couldn’t stay.
It was going to be a very long summer.
CHAPTER THREE
THUNDER RUMBLED OVERHEAD and Zach swung his feet over the edge of the bed. He rested his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands, staring down at the scarred pine floor. It was barely daybreak but he wouldn’t be sleeping any more. Something about the long, rolling rumble of a storm coming in off the big lake reminded him of Afghanistan. There weren’t a lot of thunderstorms in that far-off, arid country, but there was a lot of gunfire. The one aspect he didn’t like of living near a big body of water was the really loud thunderstorms. Occasionally, they still triggered a bout of PTSD, and he didn’t want that happening with his brand-new roommate just on the other side of the wall.
He’d grown up on the edge of the California desert, shuffled from one foster home to another. He had no idea who his parents were, his people, but he suspected somewhere in his lineage there had been at least one sailor. He’d been fascinated by the sea as a child, and now as an adult by the great inland seas so nearby. The day after he graduated from high school, he’d left the last foster home he’d been placed in and joined the navy. He’d thought he’d spend the next four years surrounded by water, maybe even assigned to an aircraft carrier, but instead he’d ended up in Afghanistan. Twice.
In White Pine Lake there was water everywhere he looked, exactly as he’d envisioned as a child, but he still didn’t like thunderstorms.
He pulled on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. Rudy had advised him early on not to wander around in his skivvies while he was living in White Pine Lake, and his old Marine buddy had been right. It wasn’t unheard of for someone to come knocking on his front door at any hour of the day or night for free medical advice. He wondered how his new neighbor, the uptight Dr. Layman, would handle that aspect of a small-town practice. Not well, he’d guess. He wondered what she was doing here at all.
Actually, the answer to that one was easy enough. She was a Layman. Knowing J.R., hearing the praises of J.R.’s father and—from the old-timers who remembered that far back—his father sung throughout the town, it was because of an overdeveloped sense of duty, not because practicing medicine in
