Dr Di Angelo's Baby Bombshell

Darby followed her mother into the living room and helped clean the juice puddle.

Watching her mother, Darby noticed the dark circles beneath her eyes. Dark circles she hadn’t really noticed—probably because she’d been so distracted with worrying about Blake and his reaction to her family, worrying about her family’s reaction to Blake. She also noticed the fatigue plaguing her mother’s face, the deepening wrinkles, the slight tremble to her hand when she wiped the towel across the floor.

Her mother had shingles. Not the end of the world, but how long had she been suffering, ignoring the pain? Why hadn’t she let Jim drive her to Pea Ridge to be checked? Why hadn’t she mentioned the rash to Darby when they’d talked on the phone earlier in the week? Even if her mother didn’t understand why she’d become a doctor, why she’d had to get away from Armadillo Lake, she knew she was a darn good one.

When they’d wiped up the last of the juice from the scuffed hardwood floor, Darby met her mother’s gaze and felt as if she was five years old.

“Mom,” she began, before they stepped back into the kitchen, “you didn’t have to ask Blake about your rash. I would have checked it for you.”

“Nonsense.” Re-entering the kitchen, her mother waved her hand. “He’s a real doctor.” She shot an admiring glance toward where Blake sat talking with Darby’s father. “No sense in you having to worry yourself over some little rash.”

A real doctor. What was she? A pretend one?

Darby sighed.

Might as well be, since she was faking everything else this weekend.

Blake didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that Darby was irritated with most of her family.

As the youngest of five children, and the only girl, her family treated her as if she were incapable of doing anything for herself. At each point Darby attempted to do something, even if it was only to refill her glass of tea, someone jumped in and did the task for her. Couldn’t they see what a talented young woman she’d grown into? How much their attitude annoyed her?