Summer Shadows Page 10

  Celia giggled suddenly. “Poor Uncle Walter took advantage of graduation to prove he wasn’t quite the Milquetoast I thought he was. He slipped me an envelope graduation night. ‘Hardship pay,’ he called it. The envelope contained a cashier’s check for five thousand dollars.”

  Abby laughed. “I think I like Poor Uncle Walter.”

  “Everybody does, though they pity him more.”

  Both women fell silent for a minute, a comfortable silence that signified an ease with each other. Celia was filled with hope. Maybe Abby would be the friend she was longing for.

  Abby rose and limped to the bed. She straightened the already straight sheet and blanket covering the girls. Celia had to smile at her care of the girls, almost like they were hers.

  “So,” Abby asked as she took her seat, “do you like massage therapy? Was it worth the terrible year?”

  “I can’t believe how much I love it. I’m helping people, making them feel better. Pinky—that’s my boss at Seaside Spa—she’s great too.”

  “How long have you been there?”

  “Two months. I just hope she understands about tomorrow.”

  “What happens tomorrow?”

  “I can’t let the girls go back to the same baby-sitter, not after today. So I’ll have to stay with them.” She smiled at her daughters’ sleeping forms. “Besides, I’ll probably have to take Karlee home.”

  “Is there any reason why I can’t watch the girls?” Abby asked.

  “What?” Celia looked at the woman she’d met less than an hour ago.

  “I’d like to watch them. I like kids. I’m a children’s librarian.”

  Lord, is she an answer to my prayer, or would I be foolish to trust her? I know I like her, and I appreciate her coming to check on Karlee. But let her have the girls for the day? “I don’t know.”

  “You’d be doing me a favor.” Abby pressed her argument. “It would help relieve my guilt, and it would be like having Maddie back for a day.”

  A knock on the door saved Celia from having to give an answer before she had time to think. “Come in.” She jumped to her feet as a man in a white jacket with a stethoscope sticking out of one pocket walked in. The doctor had arrived.

  “Hello, Ms. Fitzmeyer. How are you this evening—or should I say tonight?”

  Celia stepped forward, hand extended. “Dr. Schofield. I’m so glad to see you.” When had doctors gotten to be so handsome? Her pediatrician when she was a kid was a wizened old man who looked like the trolls in the books at school and who had hair growing out of his nose and ears. He was nice enough, a very good doctor, but handsome? Never. Sean Schofield belonged on the cover of GQ.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been so late in getting to speak with you.” His smile was charming. “It’s been a long day.”

  “Tell me about it.” Celia smiled back.

  Dr. Schofield moved to the bed and looked at the sleeping girls. He glanced up, flashing his killer grin at Celia again. “You have beautiful daughters.”

  He couldn’t have said anything to please her more, and she was certain he knew it. Still it was wonderful to hear. She watched as he quickly and efficiently checked Karlee without waking her, though the little girl made a terrible face when he checked her eyes with his little flashlight.

  “She looks fine.” He straightened, sticking his flashlight back in his pocket. “Chest’s clear and pupils are equal and reactive. The brush burns and bruises look terrible and will hurt her for a while, but they aren’t serious. I checked the films of her arm. The break isn’t complicated and should heal quickly.” He looked at the sleeping child again. “She’s a lucky pup. If nothing unforeseen happens, she can go home tomorrow morning. The paperwork should be finished about nine.”

  Celia let out the breath she’d been holding. “I was certain you were going to tell me some terrible medical something that everyone else had been keeping from me.”

  Dr. Schofield laughed, flashing beautiful white teeth. He made certain he included Abby in the smile as he started toward the door. “No such thing. Karlee’s in very good shape.”

  Thank You, God. “Do we come to your office about her arm, or do we go to the orthopedist?”

  “The instructions will be with her release papers. You just sign on the dotted line tomorrow, and Karlee’s all yours.”

  Decision time. Celia’s stomach churned. She glanced at Abby, who looked solid and trustworthy. She was kind and compassionate and understanding. Celia knew that from their conversation. She was gentle with the girls. She had been a mom, and she was a children’s librarian. The woman knew kids.

  But the fact remained that she didn’t know Abby. Not really.

  Then she thought of Pinky’s reaction to her missing the busiest day of the week with no forewarning. She’d missed a half day three weeks ago when the baby-sitter had a doctor’s appointment. Pinky hadn’t been very happy, and she knew in advance then.

  Celia had ten clients scheduled—three half hours and seven hour-long massages. How would Pinky ever find someone to cover for her? Where would she find someone? It would all be lost income. Celia could deal with it even if it meant taking some of Poor Uncle Walter’s nest egg, tucked safely away in a money market that he had recommended. But what about Pinky? The spa was a relatively new business venture, and Celia knew her boss was nowhere near being financially secure. Pinky was a single mom, but her kids were teenagers, able to fend for themselves when necessary. Would she remember what it was like to have babies? To have nowhere to turn? Celia caught her breath at the thought of losing this job she so desperately needed. And if she lost her medical coverage, how would she ever pay for Karlee’s medical expenses?

  Oh, God! She took a deep breath. I’m trusting You, Father, to make this be all right. Besides, I don’t know what else to do.

  “I won’t be picking her up tomorrow,” Celia said. “My friend Abby will be getting her because I have to work.”

  Dr. Schofield smiled at Abby but spoke to Celia. “It’s a good thing you mentioned that. Without your prior written approval, we wouldn’t release Karlee to anyone but you.”

  “Then let’s sign those papers,” Abby said, suddenly looking very tired. “It’s been a hard day.”

  Dr. Schofield nodded, his expression full of understanding. “I know what you mean.”

  “Abby saw Karlee’s accident,” Celia explained.

  Dr. Schofield stopped in his tracks. “What?”

  “Now if I could only remember what I saw.” Abby gave a wry smile.

  Dr. Schofield looked confused.

  “Hysterical amnesia,” Abby explained. “That’s what they called it.”

  The doctor cleared his throat. “Are you feeling well enough to watch little Karlee tomorrow?”

  “Oh, I feel fine. No injuries or anything. Just a blank spot in my memory that I pray fills in quickly.”

  At the nurses’ station, Celia was given the proper papers to sign to authorize Abby’s getting Karlee. She signed with a flourish.

  “If there is any trouble with Karlee tomorrow, don’t hesitate to call me,” Dr. Schofield told Abby. “I don’t want you having any problems, especially if I can fix them for you.”

  Celia watched with interest as he turned the full power of his personality on to Abby, who flushed under the blaze of his smile. He nodded good night and disappeared into another room. Celia turned to Abby.

  “I can’t thank you enough for what you’re doing.”

  “It’s my pleasure, believe me. Now I think I need to go home and get some sleep if I’m to have two beautiful girls for guests tomorrow.”

  Celia walked slowly back to Karlee’s room. Once again God had provided. Hadn’t He?

  Twelve

  MARSH THREW HIS arm across his eyes and groaned. Where was she, for heaven’s sake? Where did a woman new to town drive off to in the middle of the night? Had the day been so traumatic that she’d given up? Had she driven all the way back to Scranton? Somehow he doubted that.

>   He punched his pillow and rotated his shoulders, trying to find a comfortable position. He groaned again. Not only had the blinking colon of the readout on his bedside clock radio kept him awake for hours, but concern about Abby had given him a king-sized headache. It couldn’t have hurt more if a pair of pileated woodpeckers had been thonk-thonking against his skull. His pupils were dry and gritty, and it felt like little gremlins with pitchforks were poking them. His stomach gurgled in displeasure at all the aspirin he’d already taken. Another and he’d overdose, he was certain, but at least he’d stop worrying about her.

  No. She hadn’t gone home to Scranton. No matter how many other things she might be, she wasn’t—he sputtered as he tried to come up with the right words; that’s what came of being a writer: you edited even your own thoughts—she wasn’t lacking in courage. Feisty, determined, spunky little creatures like her didn’t run home to Mama and Papa, not when the whole point of being here was to get away from them.

  So where had she gone? He tossed and turned and worried, then tossed and turned and lectured himself about the foolishness of worrying. She was an adult. She was allowed to go wherever she wanted. She could take care of herself.

  Right. If he believed that, he’d be sound asleep.

  It was two o’clock in the morning when she finally pulled into the driveway. 2:03 to be exact, if the fluorescent digital readout on his radio was correct. 2:03! He rolled to a sitting position on the edge of the bed, then staggered upright. He glared at Fargo, sprawled over two-thirds of the bed, snoring softly.

  “How can you sleep, you big idiot?” He reached over, thwacking him gently on his rump. “We’ve got trouble on our hands.”

  Fargo lifted his head and turned sad eyes on Marsh, his disappointment in his master for awakening him most obvious.

  “Give me a break, you mutt. That was just a love tap. Now come on. We’ve got to make sure she’s okay.”

  Fargo looked at him a minute longer, blinked, yawned, and collapsed back on the bed. He stretched his huge body another couple of feet, now occupying three-quarters of the mattress. In nanoseconds his soft snore competed with the hum of Abby’s motor. Marsh knew that when he returned, the entire bed would be filled with somnolent rottweiler.

  With a final disgusted look at Fargo, Marsh stumbled across the room and grabbed his jeans. As he stuffed his legs in them, he muttered several uncomplimentary things about her under his breath. How had he ever gotten stuck with such a renter?

  A children’s librarian. He pushed his feet into his Top-Siders. What could be safer than a children’s librarian? He pulled a T-shirt over his head. He remembered how pleased he’d been when he saw her occupation on the rental agreement. After all, everyone knew that children’s librarians were quiet, timid women who spoke in whispers, baked lots of brownies, smiled a lot, and left their landlords in peace.

  Instead, he had gotten stuck with a skinny, quirky, opinionated cat lover who cited obscure women in history to justify her every move and who in one day had destroyed his tranquility.

  Surely, Lord, I haven’t been wicked enough to deserve her!

  Her car’s motor died. He pictured her pulling her key from the ignition. Now she would need him. As he stomped outside to play her knight in shining armor, he could think of only one reason for a single woman to be coming home at two in the morning. He knew too that if she had been partying at the clubs on the mainland and had had too much to drink, she’d never make it up those steps unassisted.

  Why he felt uncomfortable about letting her fall down said stairs, breaking her pretty little neck in the process, he wasn’t sure. He just knew he didn’t want her blood on his hands. Nor did he want a lawsuit if all she did was break her legs.

  But he knew one thing for certain: He wasn’t going to carry her up those stairs all summer. Not by a long shot. He’d install one of those little seats that ran along the railing like a miniature ski lift first. Rather that expense than the ruination of his back, not that she weighed enough to ruin his back. It was the principle of the thing.

  He rubbed his stomach as he stood in the shadows of his porch. The flounder stuffed with crabmeat he’d had for dinner was still swimming vigorously around in his belly. What he wouldn’t give for a giant roll of Tums. He sighed, rubbing a temple with one hand and his midriff with the other. He didn’t think that even his father had ever peeved him as much in so short a time as she did, and that was saying something.

  She was such a contradictory package. On one hand she had needed his help big-time after the hit-and-run, when she’d understandably fallen apart. On the other she was determined to be independent at almost any cost, taking after all those historical ladies who did whatever it was that they did. If she could remember all those crazy women, keep their dates and activities straight, he bet she’d even memorized all the millions of little categories in the Dewey decimal system.

  He sighed and watched her climb out of her car. Those first couple of steps when she didn’t know he was watching would tell him a lot. Of course with her bad hip she looked tipsy even when she was as sober as the proverbial judge.

  When she stood, the line of her back and the slump in her shoulders, silhouetted by the streetlight, screamed fatigue. She took a couple of steps, her limp more pronounced than he’d seen all day, even after the rescue of the kid next door. He squelched the unexpected burst of sympathy. It was her own fault for staying out half the night.

  He stepped out of the shadows and stood, hands on his hips.

  She gave a little scream and grabbed her chest.

  “It’s me,” he said, irritated at himself for scaring her and at her for being scared. He dropped his hands to his side so he wouldn’t loom.

  She sagged against her car. “Marsh, you idiot. You scared me to death! My heart will never be the same.”

  He sniffed the air. He couldn’t smell any alcohol. He studied her eyes. She had beautiful eyes, black-eyed Susan eyes that a man could get lost in. Not that he was likely to, but he bet other guys did. Probably her dead husband did, or if he didn’t, he should have. Of course her eyes probably hadn’t shot sparks like little yellow petals at the husband. Marsh sighed. Those angry flashes were just for him.

  Whoopee. How fortunate he was.

  Forget black-eyed Susans, man. Think bloodshot.

  He blinked to clear his head, studying her carefully. Her eyes looked fine, what he could see of them in the limited glow of the light above the doorway. Still, you never knew. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course I’m not all right! You scared me to death.”

  “You already said that,” he complained.

  “Don’t ever do that to me again! Do you hear me?” Full of outrage, she swung at him, catching him in the chest with the flat of her hand. “What if I had a weak heart? You could kill a person that way.”

  He rubbed at the spot where her hand had connected. It stung. “I heard you go out at eleven. It’s now after two. I thought maybe you ran into a problem.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him just like that malevolent cat of hers might. “Because you thought me incompetent, you waited up for me?”

  “I don’t think you incompetent.”

  “You’re as bad as my parents!”

  “I am not.” He was insulted. “I was just worried.”

  That stopped her for all of ten seconds. “Do you worry like this about all your renters?”

  “I never had a renter before.”

  “Oh.” She studied him long enough to make him twitch. “I know. A girlfriend you didn’t trust.”

  “What?” He bristled. “You are not my girlfriend.”

  Her chin came up. “A fact for which we both are grateful, I’m sure. Now what was her name?”

  He compressed his lips, feeling like a child who refused to open up for his spinach.

  “Come on. Who was the sweetheart who got away? Or did you give her the boot?”

  When he said nothing, she began guessing, each name more outl
andish than the last. “Imogene? Eugenia? Edwina? Ermentrude? Oh, dear, I’m stuck on e-names. How about Lorelei? Pollyanna? Jadwiga? Lantana?”

  “Almost,” he muttered and wanted to kick himself.

  “Lantana?” She peered at him. “That’s a flower.”

  “Lane. Her name was Lane.” He bit out each word.

  “Old money,” she guessed. “That’s an old money name.”

  “Lane is not a topic open for discussion.” He thought his voice was the epitome of cool, but she heard something anyway. He could see it in the way she stilled, then studied him without the irritation she’d had earlier. Then her mouth gave a slight hitch upward. Somehow he knew he was in for it.

  “Well, whatever your motivation, I think you should know that I spent the evening with a friend.” She put special emphasis on friend.

  A friend? What friend? Where had the friend come from? He didn’t like the sound of this at all. “You don’t have any friends.”

  Her head jerked.

  “In Seaside, I mean. None but me.”

  She yawned, covering her mouth gracefully and ostentatiously with her hand. “That’s what you think.”

  That’s what he knew. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had to abandon Craig and Marguerite and run to the hospital to bail her out earlier in the day. No, make that earlier yesterday.

  She gave a little hoity-toity sniff. “You’d better go back to bed, Dr. Winslow.” She moved past him and grabbed the banister. “My company arrives very early in the morning.”

  “Company?” Company meant noise, people, lack of privacy. He’d wanted to get another chapter done before Rick showed on Sunday. He couldn’t wait for Craig to give Marguerite her comeuppance. Craig had to bring Snelling down too, but it was Marguerite’s chastisement that captured Marsh’s imagination. He was practically salivating in anticipation of Craig’s wit and superiority. “You can’t have company, especially early company.”

  She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Why? Because I don’t have friends?” She took the first step, then turned to smile at him like a princess condescending to acknowledge a commoner. “Tomorrow I shall be Katie Luther and seat vast numbers around my table. The fact that feisty old Martin is missing may slow us down a bit, but I shall encourage loud conversation on issues of great theological import and the boisterous exchange of opinion, political and otherwise. Of course, we shall do our best not to disturb you or your beauty rest,” she said insincerely, “but I make no promises.”