Home To The Doctor

“Is that it?”

James shrugged. “That’s about it.” Then he did an abrupt change in the conversation. “They’re having a bachelor party for Joey next Wednesday. In a week. I told them I’d let you know.”

A bachelor party? God, who would have thought that Joseph Lawrence would even consider marriage again after the mess that had been his first marriage? It was strange the twists and turns life took. Hell, Joey was getting married, and old Dr. Kelly’s kid had walked into his life out of the blue. He chuckled softly to himself.

“What’s so funny?” James asked with a raised eyebrow.

Ethan ran a hand over his face, then rested his head back on the leather of the chair support and sighed. “Life.”

James didn’t ask for any clarification of that one word, but said, “Ring if you need me,” before taking off.

Ethan heard his retreating footsteps on the wooden floor, and called out, “Tell Isabel to bring down breakfast in about an hour.”

“You’ve got it, boss.” The other man returned. “Any other orders?”

He hesitated, then said, “Find out an address for Dr. Kelly’s daughter…so I can send a payment for services rendered.”

“Sure thing,” James said without bothering to hide the chuckle in his voice at Ethan’s choice of words.

MORGAN SAT in her father’s office in the old building where he’d practiced medicine on Shelter Island for as long as Morgan could remember. It looked the same—cluttered, worn and comfortable—but now it seemed so small to her. She couldn’t remember ever thinking that until she’d come back this time. The huge desk took up most of the space, and sagging shelves of medical books took up the walls. Morgan exhaled and tipped back in the swivel chair, turning it enough to see out the single window to her left.

The building was on the water side of the main street of Shelter Bay, with her dad and mom’s house in back. Across the street, there was a series of specialty shops that had sprung up since she’d last been home. The offices had a side view of the bay, but the house had one that came close to being as good as any on the island. Not as spectacular as those views from the Grace estate, but pretty impressive nonetheless.

Her last appointment of the day had left and it was late, almost six o’clock. Rain came down in mists, driven by the wind skimming in over the rough waters of the sound. She’d thought about Ethan Grace off and on during the day and had even considered calling the estate to make sure he was okay. Then she remembered the woman she’d finally found at the main house and her assurances that “Mr. Grace would be well taken care of.” That someone called James would take care of everything.

Ethan Grace had a staff and he had money, which was certainly more than she had. She was the lone doctor on the island right now, and as far as money went, if she had enough she would have helped her father update his equipment, and maybe figured out how to start a four-bed clinic that he’d only dreamed of for years on the property next door. There was no hospital on the island, and when a medical emergency came up, patients were transported either by ferry or by helicopter to the mainland. Sometimes that wasn’t good enough. Her father, a pure idealist, dreamed of being able to offer decent emergency care. She’d never understood how he could, given the money it would take to build the clinic, but he’d never given up on the idea over the years.

Dreams came easily, but reality with her father was another matter. She’d always known she’d come back here sooner or later to help her father and possibly take over for him. Somewhere in the future, the very distant future. Having the new clinic would be terrific, if it could happen. Until then, they had to make do with what was here, but she knew her father wasn’t at all comfortable with the current limitations of his equipment and facilities. She wouldn’t have been, either, if she’d had to practice here instead of just visiting.

More staff would have been nice, she thought as she sat forward and reached for the thick stack of mail that had been piling up over the past few days. She sorted through the envelopes, more than aware that quite a few were bills. A couple could have been payments, but a certified letter that Sharon Long, her nurse/receptionist, had signed for that day stopped her. Morgan noted the return address, E.P.G. Corporation, Development and Acquisitions Division, along with a Seattle address that she knew was in the business district. She hesitated before she finally opened it and scanned the correspondence.

It was a very formal letter with wherefors and forthwiths sprinkled liberally through it. From what she could gather, the lease on the building that housed her father’s offices and all other structures wouldn’t be renewed in March. Her throat tightened. Their home was included. She was stunned. She’d never known that her father rented the property. He’d built the offices, she thought, or maybe that was just what she’d assumed. Maybe they’d been there when they moved here and he fixed them. She didn’t really know; she’d been a baby when he’d opened the offices.

Morgan stared at the letter, but the words didn’t change. The E.P.G. Corporation was putting her father out. She knew that he couldn’t have known about this before he left last week. If he had, he never would have gone, and he wouldn’t have talked about the possibility that the land next to them might be going up for sale in the near future. “We just have to get the money,” he’d told her the night before he left. “I have some saved, and I’ve got a good enough reputation to get a sizable loan, but getting all of the equipment will be hard.” He’d grinned at her. “But we’ll do it someway or another.” Always the optimist, whether reality bore it or not.

Her mother had been the grounded one, and her father the dreamer. A terrific doctor but still a dreamer. And he’d signed a simple lease for all of this, including their home.

Morgan reached for the phone to call her dad, but drew back suddenly. She couldn’t call him and give him the news. He’d barely arrived at the house he’d rented in Arizona for the month. She looked down at the letterhead on the notice, then reached for the phone again and dialed the first number listed.

A very pleasant female voice announced, “You have reached the offices of Development and Acquisitions for the E.P.G. Corporation. Our offices are closed now, but if you know the extension of the party you wish to contact, please enter it now or leave a message after the tone.” Morgan hung up and dialed the second number. This time a man answered. “You’ve reached the main offices of the E.P.G. Corporation. How may I help you.”

Morgan tried to explain the contents of the letter, but the man politely but firmly cut her off. “Ma’am, that’s a matter for our development and acquisitions department. I can give you their number if you’d like?”

“I have it,” she said. “I just need to talk to someone and not a recording about a property on Shelter Island.”

“You’ll need to call back during office hours and I’m sure that someone can help you then.”

“What office is this?”

“Corporate towers, ma’am. And everyone is gone for the day.”

“There’s no one—?”

“Ma’am, even if Mr. Grace was in town, he’d have left by now.”

Mr. Grace? She felt the blood drain from her head and she asked, “Ethan Grace?”

“Yes, ma’am, but he’s not here, and even if he was—”

She put the phone down, cutting off his polite response. Ethan Grace. She wasn’t sure what the P stood for, but now she knew what the E and the G stood for in the company name. It was his corporation. The Graces owned a lot of the island, she knew that, but she’d never suspected that they owned this place and she’d never known his company’s name. Or that the building and home could be pulled out from under them this way.

If she’d known about the letter yesterday, she could have spoken to Ethan when she’d found him half-conscious in his bedroom, but now he was “being taken care of,” and there was no way she could go back there again. She stopped that thought. She’d walked onto the beach yesterday without any trouble. She’d gone up the stairs and entered the house without anyone stopping her. If she did it once, she could do it again. And he was the boss, injured or not, over everything.

Speaking directly to him, instead of someone in one of his many corporate divisions, sounded sensible. That was another thing she’d learned at the clinic—the fewer people between you and what you needed, the better everyone was in the end. If she could convince Ethan to renew the lease, her father wouldn’t have to know about the notice. If she was incredibly lucky, she might even be able to convince Ethan to sell the complete property to her father, if they could get the money somehow. Besides, it would be bad PR for the company to just shut them down.

She stood and placed the letter back in the envelope. After slipping it into her pants pocket, she braced herself to face Ethan Grace again. The man she’d found last night had been vulnerable and in real pain. And when she saw him again, she knew it would be a different situation completely. He was regarded as a genius in the business world, but he was also known to be hard-hitting, bordering on ruthless and giving no quarter to anyone. Traits, she was sure, he shared with his pirate ancestor. But instead of sailing to the south and pillaging and plundering small settlements, he was headquartered in Seattle and he used, from what she heard, a corporate jet or helicopter to pillage and plunder floundering companies. He would be a formidable match.

A knock sounded on the office door and Sharon peeked inside. Middle-aged, she was dressed in jeans, a T-shirt worn under an open blue smock and tennis shoes. She had a pleasant face and was usually smiling, but this time she looked a bit contrite. “Sorry, I forgot to get this to you,” she said as she handed her an envelope.

Morgan took it and looked down at her name scrawled in black ink just under what appeared to be an embossed monogram. “What is it?” she asked.

“Don’t know. He just said to give it to you.”

“He who?” she asked as she looked up at the other woman.

“The guy who brought it. Don’t know him. Never saw him before.” She had her jacket over her arm and was obviously in a hurry to get going. “Forty or so, preppy, gray hair and great smile. Drove a huge black SUV with tinted windows.”

It didn’t sound like anyone Morgan knew, either. “Okay, thanks.”

Sharon said what she always did when she left for the day, “Safe trip home,” then laughed at her own joke. Morgan lived right behind the building, all of fifty feet from the office.

“Same to you,” Morgan responded, not able to muster a laugh this time. Not when she knew that her father could lose that very home—and the offices—within three months.

She turned, looked down at the envelope Sharon had handed to her and tucked her forefinger under the flap to open it. Inside was a folded sheet of paper along with a smaller piece of paper that fell to the floor. Picking it up, she saw it was a check for two hundred dollars. She was stunned to read the person’s information in the top left corner.

E.P.G. Corporation. Then she read the accompanying letter. Thanks for your help. If this isn’t sufficient, please bill the address at the top. The signature was a tangle of letters that she could barely make out, but she had no doubt it belonged to Ethan Grace. He was paying for her services. She suddenly smiled. And he’d just given her the opening she’d been looking for to contact him in person again.

Chapter Three

“Did you give the check to the doctor?” Ethan asked as James came into the makeshift office in the guest house.

James’s graying hair was damp from the rain outside, and the shoulders of his beige jacket were dark. “Yeah, it’s done.”

“Good, good.” Ethan pushed back in his chair, careful to keep his bad foot safely resting on the ottoman. “Was it enough?”

“Don’t know. I gave it to her receptionist. She said the doctor was in with a patient and that she’d be a while, so I left it with her.”

Ethan dropped his pen on the contracts he’d been scanning, and sank back in the leather swivel chair. After sitting at his desk for the better part of the day, his shoulders and injured leg had cramped. He wore shorts because they were easier to put on than long pants, with a plain white shirt he’d left unbuttoned.