Home To The Doctor

Chapter Four

Ethan forgot about the wine and looked at the woman across the table from him. “What are you talking about?” he asked, entirely certain that her mind was not going down the same road as his. He might have wanted her to visit him again, but not to fix a “problem,” at least that’s not what he would have called it. Feeling lust for someone wasn’t a problem, unless the other person didn’t reciprocate.

She drank more wine before her eyes lifted to meet his. He heard her take a breath before she said, “I have something to show you,” but she didn’t move to show him anything. Instead, she kept speaking in a rush. “You know I was brought up here and lived with my folks in the house behind his office before I left to go to college, then medical school?”

He hadn’t thought about that chronology of events, but they made sense. She grew up, left, became a doctor. He nodded and she continued.

“I usually work at a clinic in Seattle, the Wayfarer Medical Care Center.” He’d never heard of it. “A month ago, my father called and asked if I’d come home to cover his practice for him while he took a long-needed vacation.”

She was a good daughter obviously, and probably a good doctor, but what did that matter to him? “And?” he asked as he fingered the stem of his wineglass.

“Okay,” she said, releasing a breath as if she’d reached a marker that was totally invisible to him. “My father has this idea to expand his facilities on the island to a small four-bed clinic for emergencies and light surgery, so he could give the islanders more than general medical aid. Right now he doesn’t have the space or the equipment and has to pack them off to the mainland, or order a helicopter for emergencies. But if he had the extra room, it would be terrific.” She paused, staring at him as if he could follow what she was talking about. He didn’t.

“And?” he repeated.

She frowned, and he had the oddest feeling that he hadn’t understood the way she’d hoped he would. She reached into the pocket of her jeans and extracted a folded envelope. “And this.” Honestly, he was more interested in the way high color touched her cheeks as she spoke and the brush of freckles across her nose than anything she had said or had in her hand.

He reached for her offering, looked down at it and was taken aback to see an envelope with his company logo on it. The address was on the island, her father’s medical offices.

“Go ahead and read it,” she said.

He opened the envelope and took out a letter written on his corporate stationery. He skimmed the contents and recognized a formal “quit” notice for the property on the main street. Whatever lease agreement there had been with his company for use of the land and property was being terminated.

“Why are you showing me this?” he asked as he looked at her.

“It’s your company,” she said, leaning toward him, her dinner totally untouched. “You’re taking the property back. You’re canceling the lease. You’re putting my family out of their home and the medical offices. You’d be closing the only doctor’s office on Shelter Island.” She bit her lip before adding, “My dad’s lived there for thirty years, and my mom did until she passed away ten years ago. I never knew the land and buildings weren’t his, but I’m positive they were never late on the rent. My father is a man of his word.”

Ethan sat back. “I never said he wasn’t.”

She flashed a glance at the paper still in his hands, then looked back at him, the earnestness in her expression deepening the color in her cheeks. “Why are you doing this, then?”

He felt as if he’d been blindsided. She had been on the beach, walking, he’d called her up, they’d sat down to dinner. God knew what he’d hoped might happen when he’d invited her in for a drink, but it sure wasn’t sitting here talking business and being forced to explain anything to her. “I’m not. This is from our acquisitions and development division, and I don’t have a thing to do with it.”

She sat there silent for what seemed an eternity, but he didn’t miss the look of displeasure on her face. Wrong answer, he told himself. Really wrong.

“But you are the head of the company. It’s your company. What you say goes.”

“That’s a simplistic view of the situation,” he said as he pushed the letter back in the envelope. “I don’t do day-to-day work on the front lines. It’s called delegating. The divisions in the corporation run their business, and as long as they don’t lose money, I don’t interfere.”

She sank back in her chair, her expression puzzled. “So you don’t have control of your own company?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You said—”

“I know what I told you,” he said, a bit shocked that his irritation was starting to displace some of the good feelings he’d had since she’d shown up on the beach. “What do you think I can do to fix your problem?”

“Can you stop this eviction?”

“I don’t think so,” he said, surprised by the touch of bitterness in his voice.

“Then I want you to sell me that property and the one adjacent to it.”

The bitterness deepened. It was becoming clear her visit today had been about business, all business. That was probably why she’d smiled when she’d spotted him outside and why she’d agreed to dinner. He wasn’t vain enough to think every woman wanted him, but he thought he read people a hell of a lot better than he’d read this woman. She’d likely come by when she’d found him after the fall and been disappointed that he’d been too out of it to talk about the lease. He just bet she’d been annoyed at that. “Talk to acquisitions and development.” He tossed the envelope onto the table next to her plate. “Talk to a man named Jaye Fleming. He’ll have all the answers for you.”

She didn’t move to pick it up. “I was hoping you could look into it for me and give me a figure.”

His appetite was completely gone now. He pushed the plate away and downed the last of his wine before he spoke again. “A and D sent that to you for one of two reasons—nonpayment on the contract, or they aren’t going to renew the option on the lease because they have development plans for the property. Since you think your father wasn’t in arrears on his payments, my best guess is the land is slated for development.”

“What development?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

She exhaled in frustration. “But you own the company.”

“We’ve already established that and how it works.”

“But you—”

“I let my subordinates run their divisions,” he said, cutting off what he knew she was going to say. “If A and D wants that land, they’re going to develop it.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know.”

She looked as exasperated as he felt. “Can’t you find out?”

He could make one call and ask, but he found he didn’t want to. “Call them yourself and ask for Jaye Fleming. He’ll know all the ins and outs of the situation. A hell of a lot more than I do.” He crossed his arms over his chest, knowing he looked defensive. He didn’t care. He was suddenly very tired and his leg was starting to throb. “He should be in the office at nine in the morning.”

“Okay,” she muttered. “I’ll call him. Maybe he’ll understand that they’re taking away our home and the only medical center on the island.”

“Maybe he will,” he said, and he actually hoped Fleming could say something to make her understand their side of it.

She reached for the envelope. “Thanks.” He really wished that she would smile again. But she didn’t. “Can you let him know I’ll be calling him at nine?”

“Sure. What about dinner?” he asked, motioning to the untouched food.

She didn’t even glance at the plate. “I’m not very hungry anymore.”

He knew this was over, whatever “this” had been at the start, and the sooner she left, the better. But that didn’t stop him from asking, “Are you sure?”

She nodded and stood, then crossed to the couch to get her jacket. “Yes, I’m sure,” she said as she slipped on her coat and tugged at her cuffs.

“Do you need a ride back to your place?”

She shook her head and met his gaze. “No, I’ll just go back the way I came.”

“It’s dark,” he said, pointing out the obvious.