The Prodigal M.D. Returns

Heather made another attempt to collect herself. She wasn’t that wide-eyed twenty-three-year-old Ben had made love with by the lake that last summer before he abruptly disappeared. She was years older than the seven that had passed. Life’s requirements had done that to her. They had made her a mother twice over, as well as a wife, then a widow.

These days she found herself being a caretaker, her mother’s keeper, in addition to being the sole support of her little family. Most of the time, she was also her mother’s chief source of money, as well.

Her mother.

Oh, wow. Martha Ryan was going to have a lot of choice things to say once word of Ben’s return reached her. Even if she said nothing to her mother herself, and she didn’t really intend to, the woman would find out. Word always spread in Hades.

Anticipation coursed through her veins. Her mother had never liked Ben. Whenever she did mention his name, Martha Ryan always compared him to the husband who had first deserted her and then divorced her through a lawyer he’d retained in Wichita, Kansas. As she grew older, Heather ceased to hold her father’s disappearance against him. Instead she began to understand why he’d gone. It had a great deal to do with self-preservation.

She felt Ben’s deep-green eyes on her and did her best not to squirm. Not to react at all. She succeeded marginally. But then, she’d heard that stone statues reacted to his gaze.

Heather cleared her throat. “Are you back?” she managed to ask, fervently praying she’d sounded at least a little aloof.

Her cool demeanor, if attained, was spoiled by Hayley’s very plaintive and accusing wail. “Mama, you’re squeezing my fingers off.”

Heather instantly loosened her grip. “Sorry, baby,” she murmured under her breath. Even as she uttered the words, she could feel several shades of pink dash up the sides of her throat. The colors spread even more rapidly to her cheeks.

“No need to hold on to her so tightly,” Ben told her genially. He looked down at the younger girl. “She’s not going anywhere, are you, Hayley?”

Hayley, like every female over the age of twelve months, instantly responded to both his tone and his smile. She shook her head madly from side to side, her eyes never breaking contact with his.

“Uh-uh.”

The next moment she was tugging her hand away from her mother’s grasp. The second she was free, she slipped her hand into his, accompanying the action with a huge smile aimed directly at him. Unknown to her five minutes ago, the man had suddenly become the center of her universe.

That’s the way it usually was, Heather thought ruefully. Every girl she’d gone to school with had a crush on Ben.

He didn’t remember her being this pretty, Ben thought. Or this silent. For a moment he forgot that Shayne was her doctor. “Do you have time for a thorough exam?” he asked her. When he saw Heather’s eyes widen in surprise, Ben realized that he had left off a few crucial words that might make the difference. “Of the girls,” he added. “Just to put your mind at rest.”

Beside him, he heard Shayne’s impatient intake of breath. He’d stepped on toes again. But no one else was in the clinic and there was time to be thorough. What he recalled most about practicing here with Shayne was that they’d always been rushed to see as many patients as they could within the space of a day.

“That’s okay. You don’t need to bother. The rash was only on their arms.” It took everything she had not to turn and run, clutching her daughters to her. Her own voice sounded almost breathless to her as she answered.

C’mon, Heather, get a grip.

Heather tamped down an onslaught of erupting nerves. She needed to calm down before she made a complete idiot of herself.

Very carefully Ben examined the arms of first Hannah, then Hayley before making his pronouncement. He addressed his conclusions not to Heather, but to her daughters, who appeared to absorb his words as if they were tiny little sponges. Their eyes shone at being treated like adults.

“I’m happy to tell you girls that there’s no rash here now. Guess the yucky medicine made it go away.”

“Guess so,” Hayley agreed, solemnly nodding her head.

Hannah said nothing, only looked at him with her wide green eyes. When he returned her gaze, she suddenly turned shy, shifting closer to her mother. Though part of her face was buried in Heather’s shirt, Hannah kept one watchful eye on him.

Heather pasted a smile on her lips as she turned to Shayne. “I guess this means I’m not going to be late after all.” She glanced at her watch. “If I hurry to get the girls back home.”

“Need a ride?” Ben offered. He was aware of the sharp look that his brother gave him. But it was too late to gracefully rescind his offer.

Heather was already edging her way over toward the front door, drawing Hannah with her. Hayley was another story. “I have my car.”

“I’ll go with him,” Hayley volunteered eagerly, her eyes all but lighting up.

Shayne interceded. Without looking at Ben, he squatted down to Hayley’s level. “Sorry, honey, but I need him here. He’s a doctor,” Shayne told her.

Hayley’s perfectly shaped, tiny golden eyebrows knitted themselves over her nose as she pondered what Shayne had just told her. Looking up at her new hero, she asked, “You’re like him?”

Shayne placed his hand on his brother’s shoulder as if for the little girl’s benefit. “He’s working his way up,” he responded before Ben could say anything.

Ben flashed a grin at his brother. “And I’ve got a long way to go.”

“But you’re bigger,” Hayley pointed out in earnest, looking from one man to the other.

Amused, Ben assured her, “Size doesn’t matter in this case.” Glancing toward Heather, he noticed that Hannah was now burying her face in the fold of what there was of her mother’s skirt.

Heather had a great pair of legs. But then, she always did have. He remembered watching her practice cheerleading moves on the field while he and his friends were supposedly listening to the coach give orders. He allowed himself a moment to appreciate the view. For old-time’s sake.

“Is there anything else while you’re here?” Shayne asked her.

Heather shook her head, a little emphatically in Shayne’s estimation. “No. Thank you.” She felt behind her for the doorknob. Finding it, she held on as if it represented her ticket to freedom. “I can pay you around the middle—”

Shayne waved away her words. “Follow-up care. See you girls later.”

“Um, yes. Thank you,” Heather stammered. With a quick nod at Ben, she turned on her heel and left the premises. She had to almost drag Hayley in her wake. The latter, her gaze intent on Ben, waved madly as she disappeared down the front steps of the porch.

Shayne waved back even though he knew that the attention was centered exclusively on Ben. The door closed and he turned to face his brother.

“Looks like you’re a hit with the under-three-foot set,” he commented. Glancing at the day’s appointments, he saw that the next one wasn’t scheduled for another half hour—provided there were no emergency phone calls.

He knew better than to count on that. But he did need a caffeine hit.

Since Ben had neglected to take his blatant hint about making coffee, Shayne made his way to the back room and the barren coffeepot. Of late, at a very minimum, he found himself averaging a cup an hour. It was an unabashed intent on his part to stave off exhaustion. The feeling seemed to haunt him more and more these days, though he kept that to himself. Given Sydney’s penchant for reading him like a book, he knew it was only a matter of time before his “secret” was out. Hopefully, by then his energy would make a reappearance of its own volition.

“Not entirely,” Ben replied, following him into the back. He leaned against the doorjamb, watching Shayne move about the cramped area. With a discarded dinette table in the middle, surrounded with four chairs, the room wasn’t big enough for both of them to move around, and he didn’t want to crowd Shayne. “Her older girl looks as if she’s afraid of me.”

“Hannah,” Shayne said. “Hannah’s shy. She’s always been the quiet one in her family. She was born without making a sound.” He smiled. “Heather used to bring her in, concerned because Hannah didn’t cry. I told her to be grateful. Once Hayley was born, she realized she’d had a good thing with her firstborn.”

Ben nodded, only half listening. Another question had occurred to him. Try as he might, he couldn’t see the petite, delicate Heather married to Kendall, a big, burly man who looked far more at home handling steel beams than holding something as fragile as Heather in his arms. “How’s Joe Kendall doing? Is he still a miner?”

“Not these days,” Shayne told him dryly. Putting the filter in its proper place, he measured out several heaping tablespoons of coffee and then added very little water. The pot began making noises as it heated the water. “He’s dead.”

“What do you mean, ‘dead’?”

“The usual definition,” Shayne responded mildly. He replaced the plastic lid on the can of coffee and put it back into the tiny refrigerator Sydney had given him. “Not breathing. Body decomposing, or in Joe’s case, already decomposed.” He turned from the coffeemaker and glanced at his brother. “Did you sleep through the basic course in medical school?”

“I mean dead how?” Ben pressed. “How did her husband die?”

“Cave-in at the mines.”