a long way from White Pine Lake. How did you end up here?”
“I like water,” he said, “and Rudy boasted they had lots of it where he came from. He was right.”
“You and Rudy served together?”
“He was my buddy and my patient,” Zach said. Now, why the hell had he said that? The storm had shaken him more than he realized. He didn’t want to talk about Afghanistan and the things that had happened there. If Rudy wanted to tell her about the IED attack that had cost him half his leg, that was his business, but Zach wasn’t going to. He set his teeth and remained silent.
She tilted her head and gave him a long, straight look, then nodded slightly. “I see. Afghanistan is off-limits. I accept that.” She reverted to their previous subject. “We could use some rain, though. It’s pretty dry.”
Maybe he’d been too quick in judging her; she’d picked up on his reluctance to talk about his past and hadn’t pressed him on it. He just hoped she did as well with her patients. He relaxed, confident he had himself under control again. It was getting easier as time went on and the flashbacks became fewer and less intense. “Yeah, we could use a good shower or two.” Last winter there hadn’t been a lot of snow, so too-little rain in the summer months increased the danger of wildfires in the heavily wooded national parkland surrounding the town. “I’ll water the planters before I leave this morning. That should guarantee at least a little rain.”
The corners of her mouth turned up in only a slight smile, but it was enough. It transformed her face and made him catch his breath. He wondered what she would look like if she really let go. Spectacular, he suspected.
“Same with washing your car. Works every time,” she said. “I’ll take my turn later in the week.”
“It’s no trouble. I’ve been taking care of them all summer.”
“So I’ve noticed,” she said drily. “When was the last time you deadheaded the petunias?”
“Uh, you’ve got me there.” Did she always have to be in charge? Be the one to give the orders? But her next words surprised him.
“We’ve got joint custody of the landscaping now, so I’ll do my share. How’s this for a division of labor—you water, I’ll weed. Deal?”
“Deal.” He considered holding out his hand to shake on the agreement but found himself reluctant to do so. He remembered how the softness of her palms against his that first day had electrified his nerve endings and then refused to fade away. Better not to touch her at all, no matter how casual the contact. Anyway, she’d probably take it as an insult, call it inappropriate conduct. She kept both her hands wrapped around her coffee mug as she rose from her seat. “Good. That’s settled. I’d better go. I have some things I need to research before office hours start.”
He considered taking the reference to office hours as an opening to talk about their working arrangements. The situation was awkward for all of them at the clinic right now, as most of the patients were on his schedule and there was little chance to discuss which of those patients would be least upset to be moved to her care, as the doctor in charge.
So over the past couple of days, he’d taken the established patients while Callie had dealt with the walk-ins. She’d spent the rest of her workday reviewing their procedure list, making notes on her laptop, discussing with Bonnie and Leola the changes they would like to see when the clinic was remodeled, and generally avoiding being alone with him.
This practice wasn’t as structured as the military. The chain of command was clear as mud. Outside of the mandatory guidelines and protocols the hospital imposed on them, they had to work out their own routine, and Zach preferred to do that in private. The sooner the better. He opened his mouth to start the ball rolling but he’d waited too long.
“I’ll see you at the clinic,” she said, her hand already on the screen door handle as another long, low peal of thunder rumbled out over the lake, fainter than before and even farther away, as she had predicted. “It will be a zoo today with the carpet cleaners in the waiting room and the electrical inspector coming at noon. We’ll have to keep a pretty strict schedule this morning to have room for him.”
“I don’t like to rush my patients,” he said. There was no way he was going to turn into a clock-watching corporate sawbones just because she wanted to clear the schedule over the noon hour.
Nonetheless, he had to admit she was right—he was heavily booked. He was going to have to keep people moving through at a steady clip, whether he wanted to or not.
“I’m not asking you to rush any of your appointments, but I also don’t approve of patients sitting in the waiting room for too long,” she said, all starchy and nose-in-the-air. She was very much on her high horse again, no hint of the incandescent smile he’d witnessed earlier, no softening of her professional demeanor. The humorless and by-the-book Dr. Layman had returned.
“Neither do I.”
“Good, then we do agree on something.” It wasn’t quite a question but he chose to respond as if it was.
“Yes, Dr. Layman, I guess we do.”
* * *
“HI, DAD, WHAT ARE YOU doing here?” Callie looked up from the chart she was attempting to decipher. The White Pine Lake Community Health Center had not yet gone digital in its record keeping. Zach Gibson might not be entitled to an M.D. after his name but he sure had the chicken-scratch handwriting that usually accompanied the title.
“Ezra Colliflower asked me to sit in on the electrical inspector’s walk-through. He’ll be gone all day delivering a load of lumber to the mill in Gaylord.”
“Good. I’d rather have you here than Ezra. He’s scared me ever since he caught me and Gerry Forrester mushroom hunting in the woods out by his place and threatened to come after us with his chain saw. I still say we were on the other side of his property line, but he acted as if we were stealing his family jewels or something.”
“You did have a heck of a bag of morels,” J.R. reminded her. “I’ve never tasted better. Worth their weight in gold.”
Callie sighed, remembering her haul of succulent fungi. “Hmm. Maybe he did have a reason to be angry, but I still say we were on the right side of the line on state ground. Twenty years hasn’t mellowed him, either.He’s still bad-tempered and cranky.”
“He wouldn’t be Ezra if he changed his habits,” J.R. said with a grin. Her father was a handsome man, just under six feet tall, with a full head of steel-gray hair and skin permanently bronzed by years of exposure to wind and sun and the cold temperatures of long northern winters.
“Rudy and his gang finished the subfloor in the lab section this morning. Hopefully they’ll have the new laminate flooring installed as soon as the electrical inspector gives the okay on the additional wiring. Bonnie and Leola are thrilled by the layout for the new electrical outlets. They’re tired of running extension cords all over the place whenever we get a new piece of equipment.”
“I’m glad you brought it to my attention. Zach said he’d intended to bring the subject up himself but you beat him to it.”
Zach hadn’t mentioned any of that to her. But to be fair she hadn’t spoken to him about her conversations with the female staff. She should have. They were on
