Unexpected Daughter

“Nice to see you,” Cade called as Norma hurried down the path.

“You, too.”

He stood for a minute, watching Dylan toss the line of each pole into the water.

“She seems like a nice lady.”

The girl studied him between her long lashes. “She is. I’ve been staying with her since we moved here three years ago, after my grandmother died. We’d been living with her and my aunt in Layfayette, but my mom wanted to come here.” She stopped abruptly, as though she had decided she’d shared too much.

He waited for another minute, then remembered he needed to be emptying boxes. He had to go to the clinic in the morning to start learning the office routine before his uncle left. Doc Wheeler had tried to get him to wait until Monday, but he figured he’d need as much time as possible with the old man there, so going in on a Thursday made sense to him. What else would he be doing other than shuffling boxes around?

“I don’t have a dad.”

He jerked his attention to the girl, wondering where that statement came from.

She must have realized his confusion. “You asked if my mom and dad worked in town. I told you my mom did, but I don’t have a dad. I mean, I do have one—I guess everybody does—but I don’t know him. He didn’t want kids, so he left before I was born.”

Cade couldn’t be sure what had brought on that outburst but Dylan had returned to eyeing her cork, anxiously waiting for a fish to take it under.

“I’d say that was his loss.”

She gave a soft smile. “Why don’t you have children?”

He decided he definitely should have stayed in the house. Kids asked too many questions. “I don’t know. I guess I’m waiting for the right woman to have them with.”

Dylan rubbed her thumb against her pole and seemed to ponder that for a moment. “You mean, you’ve never met a woman who could be the right one? Not once?”

It took him a second to answer. When he did, the words were much more wistful than he had intended. “I did once. But she didn’t feel the same way.”

“And I’d say that’s her loss.”

He laughed at the silly grin she sported. He saw the end of one pole bob and noticed her cork had gone under the water. Swinging the pole in the air, she brought the silvery catfish to the bank.

“I knew there were fish here, Mr. Wheeler,” Dylan shouted and grabbed the fish to remove it from the hook.

Cade smiled as she grappled with the slippery thing. “I better get back to unpacking. And you can call me Cade. None of that mister stuff.”

The girl nodded, busy sliding the fish into a bucket of water she’d brought. Cade had always liked the fact that having fun in Cypress Landing often didn’t include a party, a golf course or a group of people you didn’t care anything about. Maybe spending time here wouldn’t be so bad.

DYLAN HELD HER POLES as she watched Cade walk back to his house. Tossing the lines into the water again, she looked at her watch and decided she might as well go. She pulled the lines in and wound them around the poles, then dumped the single fish back into the water.

“I’ll be back for you another time,” she whispered.

She started down the path to Mrs. Norma’s house. Her friends would say Cade was cute, and he was. But he was older too, maybe even older than her mom. He was fun like a dad might have been if she’d had one. She twisted around to get one last look at him before he went inside and decided she wouldn’t tell her mom she’d met Cade right away. She might not like Dylan being friendly with a stranger. Her mom and Cade would be working together, and soon enough, he wouldn’t be a stranger. If she ran and jumped in the car when her mother came to pick her up, Mrs. Norma wouldn’t have time to tell her. She smiled at her neat plan and hurried on to the house. Maybe this wouldn’t be such a boring summer after all.

THE SMELL OF HAIR SPRAY in the nurse’s thickly teased gray hair had become noticeable. At least, it had Cade crinkling his nose. For the fifteenth time this morning, she frowned and gritted her teeth at him because he had to ask her where to find something, bandages this time. Either Mary Carson was mad about his being there or else she was generally in a bad mood. He wasn’t sure which. Today he’d run nonstop from patient to patient, often dressing wounds and giving a shot while Mary was busy helping his uncle. They’d had to eat their lunch of take-out po’ boys in the little kitchen at the back of the clinic in between seeing patients. Cade knew one thing was certain: the nurse practitioner would not be going off on Thursdays anymore with the clinic’s only other nurse in tow to see patients for free somewhere in the backwoods. When Uncle Arthur left, she’d have to stay and help him here. No wonder his uncle’s heart was bad, if he had to work with this little help. Sighing, Cade pushed open the door to one of the examination rooms, prepared to dress another wound.

“I’M GOING TO CALL and have the receptionist make you an appointment to get hyperbaric treatments for the sore on your calf.” Cade took a final look before pressing the last piece of tape on top of the dressing. He still had another patient waiting and the hands of the clock were already approaching half-past five.

He noticed that both the older man on the table and his wife standing next to him looked perplexed, which told him he’d forgotten to use people speak instead of doctor talk.

“You need to go to Baton Rouge and have special treatments to help your leg get better. You’re diabetic, which means you don’t heal as easily as most.”

The woman fidgeted with her threadbare handbag. “What’s a hyperbark treatment?”

Cade made a mental note to be clearer in the future. He’d been accustomed to his patients often having as much knowledge as he did concerning their diseases and potential treatments.

“It’s nothing to be worried about. They’ll put you in a special machine that puts you under pressure. It makes your body heal faster.”

“How often I gotta go?” the man asked, wiping at the last few wisps of oily gray hair on his head.

“I don’t know. It could take several treatments.”

“I ain’t got the time or transportation to get to Baton Rouge several times. I need to work, and my old truck can’t take long trips.”

“It’s less than an hour.”

“That’s a far enough piece for some folks.”

“Your leg might never get well if you don’t go.”

The man glared at him, and Cade tried to maintain his most professional demeanor and not show his ever-shortening temper.

“Where’s little Brij? She always fixes me up fine without any trips out of town.”

“I don’t know Brij. But I know you need to go to Baton Rouge.” Cade’s voice modulated an octave or two louder than he’d intended.

“I wanna see Brij and see what she thinks!” the old geezer responded in a voice that rattled the walls. Behind Cade the door to the room swished open and he dreaded the sight of the scowling Mary Carson.

“What’s the problem?”

He didn’t look up immediately, but he noted that this wasn’t Mary’s voice.

“I’m trying to talk with a patient, if you don’t mind,” he barked, turning angrily toward the door. He’d really had enough of people second-guessing his opinion. He was the damned doctor, after all.

“Brij, I got another sore on my leg.”

The old man sat quietly waiting as doctor and intruder stared at each other. Cade knew shock registered on his face, but he couldn’t control it. Brij was obviously short for Brijette, a name he would’ve shot to the moon and back to keep from hearing again. Now the woman had materialized in front of him.

“What are you doing here?” He tried not to wad the patient’s chart in his hand.

She stepped into the room, shutting the door behind her. Green scrubs skimmed over more curves than he remembered, but her silky hair remained jet-black. He wondered, when she let it loose from the tight knot, if it would flow halfway to her waist like it used to. The skin on his chest tingled at the memory of the midnight strands washing across his body, and his hand rubbed the tingling spot automatically, as if the silken pieces had actually touched him.

“I work here.” She passed in front of him to stand next to the patient while he tried to drag his mind to the present, to remember the truth about her.

“You can’t.”

She glanced at him, then began pulling at the tape on the dressing he’d applied only minutes ago. “I can and I do. But don’t you think we should discuss this later?”