The Prodigal M.D. Returns

“In part. Ike and Jean Luc have been investing in the town and adding buildings here and there.”

“Ike? You mean the bartender at the Red Dog Saloon? Your friend, Ike LeBlanc?” Growing up, Ike and Shayne had been friends. He remembered the man as being outgoing and gregarious, while his cousin, Jean Luc, had been the quiet one. He couldn’t picture either as entrepreneurs.

Shayne nodded, straightening the collar on his lab coat. “He’s branching out.”

Following Shayne into the main reception room, Ben shook his head. He never thought progress would come to Hades, a place that had seemed frozen in time when he’d lived here. “I’ve missed a lot, haven’t I?”

“Yeah, you have. But you can catch up.” Shayne realized that he shouldn’t count on his brother so soon. Ben had a long way to go before he proved himself dependable. “If you’re serious about staying.”

“Very serious.” Whatever else Ben was going to say was temporarily placed on hold as he looked out the window that faced the front of the clinic. He saw a willowy-looking blonde holding on to two little girls. The twosome seemed determined to pull as far away from each other as possible, taking their mother with them. He glanced at his watch again. A shade before seven. “Looks like you’ve got patients.”

Shayne glanced at the appointment book that Alison had left opened for him on her desk. Right beside it was a computer tower holding the exact same information. Sydney teased him and called him her lovable dinosaur, but he’d always preferred paper and pen. It made him feel more hands-on and in control of a situation. Software could whimsically swallow up all the information just when he needed it most.

“That would be Heather and her two girls, Hannah and Hayley,” Shayne told him.

“Heather?” The instant he repeated the name, bits and pieces of memories came flying back to him. Memories he realized he had all but forgotten. Memories that made him smile.

She looked thinner, he thought. And prettier, although definitely more harried.

“Heather Kendall. Ryan,” Shayne clarified. He couldn’t remember if Ben had left Hades before or after Heather had married Joe Kendall.

Ben stepped away from the window but continued to look at the woman and her daughters. All three were unaware that they were being observed.

“I know who she is.”

Ben’s quiet tone caught Shayne’s attention. He vaguely recalled that there’d been something between Ben and Heather, but then, at one point or another there’d been something between Ben and every female under the age of fifty in Hades. Never mind that the men outnumbered the women in Hades by seven to one and any woman had her pick of men. Every female Shayne knew of had chosen Ben at one time, and he had chosen them.

About to unlock the front door, Shayne paused, looking at his brother. “You okay?”

Ben shook off the memory of one exquisite night by the lake and skin softer than silk.

“Like I said, I’m fine.” He flashed a grin. “Nothing more coffee won’t help.”

“Coffeemaker’s in the back,” Shayne told him. “Feel free to pitch in. Alison hates making coffee.” Flipping the lock, he opened the double doors and smiled down at the two energetic little girls. “Hello, Hannah, Hayley.” He looked up at Heather. “You’re early.”

As she struggled with her daughters, who were now tugging harder, not just to avoid each other but to get away altogether, Heather offered Shayne a smile that was just a little weary around the edges.

“I know. Lily’s giving me the morning off, but Beth just called me to say that she’s not feeling well and won’t be coming into the restaurant. That leaves Lily juggling the breakfast crowd on her own.” Lily had been good to her, coming to her rescue when Joe was killed in the cave-in and offering her a job. She’d been the world’s worst waitress, but Lily had stuck by her. Leaving her in the lurch was not the way to repay her. “I hate doing that to her.”

Shayne shook his head. “If I know Lily, she’ll get Max to wait on tables.”

Max Yearling was Hades’s lone law enforcement officer. He was also Lily’s husband. Like Jimmy Quintano, Lily had come to Hades by way of Alison, who in turn had found her way to Hades because of Luc. Luc had gone to Seattle on vacation and on his first day there, had come to her rescue when someone had attempted to mug her. It was because of Luc she’d learned about Shayne and his clinic. Eager to make a difference, she’d come up to the tiny town to work. Her siblings had come to visit. And one by one, each had lost their hearts, not just to the land but to the people bound to it.

Shayne smiled to himself. In a way, the town’s history was like one long, intricate nursery rhyme, with one family member following another. Hades now boasted of four Quintanos, three of whom were married to Yearlings, while Alison, who had come to him originally to become an accredited nurse practitioner, was now married to Jean Luc.

“I’d rather she didn’t. I need the job,” Heather told him, only half joking.

Hannah, her six-year-old, was struggling to break free and make a dash for the front parking lot. “I don’t want a shot,” Hayley protested vehemently, her lower lip quivering as tears began to fill her eyes.

“No shots today,” Shayne promised. “Just a check-up to see if that nasty rash you and your sister have been passing to each other has finally cleared up.”

“A nasty rash?” Ben repeated in mock disbelief as he came forward. He looked from one girl to the other, appropriately wide-eyed. “You two girls don’t look as if you’d have a nasty rash.”

“We did,” Hayley, the more outgoing of the two, declared. She pointed a finger at her older sister. “Hannah got it first because she was playing in the bushes Mama told her not to.”

Fear faded as Hannah took offense, embarrassed in front of the stranger. “Was not.”

Hayley fisted her free hand at her waist the way she’d seen her mother do. “Was, too.”

Ben got down on one knee, refereeing. “I bet that old bush just jumped up at you and grabbed you, didn’t it, honey?”

The excuse clearly appealed to Hannah, who nodded her blond head vigorously, sending her curls bouncing up and down. “Uh-huh.”

“Gotta watch out for those magical bushes,” Ben agreed. “They’re fast. Where did it grab you?”

Hannah never hesitated. She pushed her sleeve up immediately, exposing her right arm. She pointed to an area that had been an angry pink only a couple of days ago. “Right here.”

Still on his knee, Ben examined the area carefully. “Looks like it’s gone to me.”

“Mama rubs this yucky stuff on us,” Hayley told him, moving aside her own sleeve to show him that her skin was clear as well.

“That’s because she loves you.” Ben looked up at Heather. “Right, Mama?”

Heather forced herself to nod her head, her eyes almost glued to the man talking to her daughters. Her voice had deserted her around the same time that the temperature in the room had gone up twenty degrees and the lights had suddenly dimmed to the point where she had to struggle to keep from slipping into darkness herself.

She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, its cadence echoing the refrain that kept repeating itself in her head: He’s back.

Ben’s back.

Chapter Three

“Looks like both your girls are doing very well,” Shayne told Heather. Or the woman that had been Heather until a couple of minutes ago, Shayne thought as he glanced at the shell-shocked expression on her pretty face. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who’d been caught off guard by his brother’s sudden reappearance in town. “Heather,” he added for good measure.

When the girls’ mother gave no indication that she had even heard him, he repeated her name, a bit more forcefully this time. From all appearances, Ben had lost none of his magnetic pull nor any of his effect on women.

Shayne shifted until he was directly in front of her. Almost amused, he passed a hand in front of her face. It was a beat before she even blinked.

“Heather,” he deadpanned, “how long have you had this hearing loss?”

It took all she had to pull herself out of the mental abyss into which she’d unexpectedly sunk. Shaking off the mental cobweb as best as she could, Heather looked at Shayne.

“What? Oh, I’m sorry, Doc Shayne, it’s just that, well—” Words deserted her.

“Yes,” Shayne said, glancing toward Ben, “he has that effect on all of us.” There was only the slightest hint of sarcasm in his tone.

“No, no, I mean—” Flustered, Heather struggled to get a hold of herself. “I’m just surprised to see—to see Ben back, that’s all.” Trying to address Shayne, her eyes were still drawn to Ben as she spoke.

Damn, she was doing it again, tripping over her own tongue. But then, as her mother had enjoyed pointing out, she’d never been one of those women for whom composure was second nature. Composure wasn’t even remotely residing in her neighborhood at the moment.