Family Practice

“Why not? You just said how much you like the place.”

“What I am worried about is what people will think of us living so close. It’s...it’s not professional.”

“Come off it, Dr. Layman. This isn’t the Middle Ages. You’re not giving your friends and neighbors enough credit. Why should they care?” She had a point, though. There would be some small-minded people who would raise their eyebrows and wag their tongues—there always were in a town this size. “It’s no different from a coed dorm. Are you saying you’ve never lived in close proximity to a man?”

“I...” she sputtered. “Of course I have.”

Did that mean she’d been in a serious relationship? Did she still have a boyfriend? Somehow he didn’t like that idea, although he couldn’t pinpoint exactly why. He didn’t pursue the topic, however, for the same reason he hadn’t elaborated on town gossips. Now that she was here, he didn’t want to scare her off. “Do you believe your dad would have sent you down here if he didn’t trust me to behave myself?” He was beginning to enjoy this. She was so easy to rattle.

“Don’t be silly,” she said, but she sounded as if the fight had gone out of her. For the first time he noticed the dark circles under her eyes and the droop to her shoulders. She’d had as long and as hard a day as he had. He ought to be ashamed of himself for goading her. “Good. Then that’s settled. You’re staying. It’s late. We can work out some ground rules for sharing the place in the morning so we can both have our privacy.”

He bent to pick up the duffel and so did she. They both straightened with a hand on a strap. He tugged and she had the grace to let go without a struggle. “I don’t need ground rules,” she said. “I just believe it’s better if I find another place. We’ll be together quite enough during office hours.” She didn’t give up easily; she’d hold her ground in an argument or a fight.

“Whatever you say, Dr. Layman,” he replied as formally. “But don’t count on finding anything better. It’s high season. The town’s booked solid. No landlord in his right mind will accept the stipend the Physician’s Committee’s willing to pay, except for that old coot at the Commodore. If you’re determined to make up the difference out of your own pocket, you might as well stay here.”

“Fine,” she said, throwing up her hands. “You have made your point, and it’s too late to argue with you any more tonight. Just be careful with that duffel. It’s got my coffeemaker in it and I don’t want it to get broken. I can’t function in the morning without my caffeine.”

That scene had taken place Saturday night. Now, four days later and three days into their working relationship, it was still the longest conversation they’d had so far.

It was shaping up to be a long summer.

He punched the button to start the coffeemaker he’d found in the thrift store and headed for the closet-size bathroom to shower and shave.

Ten minutes later he was on the porch, one shoulder propped against the stone pillar that supported the roof, drinking his coffee while he kept one eye on the leaden skies. He heard the door on Callie Layman’s side of the duplex open. He shifted position slightly so it wouldn’t seem as if he was hiding from her as she sat down in one of the two pine rockers that matched the set on his half of the porch. She was already dressed for her day at the clinic in slacks, a tailored shirt and the long white lab coat that he thought was an attempt to look as much like a man as possible. It didn’t work, though. The curves beneath the layers of fabric were all female.

“Good morning, Dr. Layman,” he said, lifting his mug in salute—might as well be neighborly. He wasn’t going inside just so she could have the porch to herself.

She jumped a little in surprise and hot liquid sloshed over the rim of her coffee mug. “I didn’t see you there,” she said with a hint of accusation in her voice, holding the mug out so it didn’t drip on her slacks.

“Just checking on the weather.” The duplex was about the size of a two-car garage, with doors at opposite ends of a shared front porch. The porch was divided by a screen made from an old pair of folding doors that offered about as much privacy as adjoining hotel balconies. In the past the building had been a garage, then a bait shop and finally used for boat storage before Callie’s dad had remodeled it into two one-bedroom rental units. It was built of native river rock and, with its weathered wood trim and faded green shutters, was solid and sturdy and rooted to its spot on the lakeshore. It was small and cramped and lacking in all kinds of creature comforts like internet service and cable TV, but it suited Zach just fine.

“Looks like the storm might miss us.” He gestured out over the lake with his mug. The air was cool, and mist shrouded the far shore of the lake and clung to the tops of the high dunes in the distance, but when the sun eventually broke through the clouds, it would be a warm day.

“It will,” Callie responded confidently, scanning the dark rolling clouds at the far edge of the lake. She wrinkled her nose. “I can’t smell the rain, so it’s not coming this way.” She tilted her head slightly as though waiting for him to contradict her.

“You think so?” Why couldn’t he just agree with her? What was it about her that made him want to challenge everything she said?

“I know so. I grew up on this lake, remember. And I come from a long line of avid weather watchers.”

“Can’t argue with that,” he conceded.

She nodded, satisfied she’d won the argument. “Just a light show in the sky giving the fishermen time for another cup of coffee before they head out onto the lake,” Callie said as a three-pronged lightning strike arced out of the dark clouds and disappeared behind the dunes. Thunder rolled on like a giant’s chorus of kettledrums. Zach tightened his grip on the handle of his mug and worked to slow his too-fast heartbeat. He forgot the retort he’d been going to make. “Where did you grow up?” she asked before he could come up with another.

“California. Little town in the desert.”

“That’s 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.”