From Brooding Boss to Adoring Dad (11 page)

There weren’t any maybes, though. Not real ones. He was a doctor, and he knew. Knew from experience, knew from his heart because he could feel a band around it right now, squeezing it, trying to break it. Cancer touched other people. Touched his patients. But it had never touched someone he … he was coming to care about.

Cancer. That explained so much.

Turning, Adam crashed through the front door then stood in the entryway in the dark for a moment, trying to make sense of it, taking deep breaths, trying to steady his pulse. Most of all, still willing another explanation to reach up and grab him. But it was no use. The thought of Erin and cancer intertwined in his being as one, burrowing its pernicious way in, not letting go. In response, or protest, or mad-as-hell anger, he threw the hairbrush as hard as he could, threw it at nothing but the darkness, heard it hit the wall and fall to the floor in two pieces. Then he stubbed his toe on one of the two chairs in his cottage and swore at the top of his lungs. Not for the pain shooting up his foot but for … for so many other things he couldn’t even define.

Davion glanced over at Erin, who was changing the bandages on Tadeo’s hands. “He’s been sleeping most of the night. Woke up a couple of times, asked for Adam, then went right back to sleep when he realized he was in the clinic.”

“And Pabla hasn’t come by to see him yet?”

“She won’t,” Davion said, too matter-of-factly.

The burns looked better than she’d hoped for. The red wasn’t quite so angry, and the blistering not as extensive as she’d expected. All in all, Tadeo was one lucky little boy. Not counting his guardian, though. Erin didn’t like
her, wouldn’t even try pretending that she did. “Why won’t she?”

“I mean, she took him in because there was no one else. But she doesn’t care about him. Barely takes care of him. And let me tell you, Pabla Reyes is one mean lady, doesn’t treat other people nicely either. She worked for my mother for a few days, nearly ran off all the customers she was so rude to them. My mother won’t even let her come to Trinique’s any more, not for any reason.”

“And no one knows why she’s this way?”

Davion shrugged. “Some people are difficult just because they want to be. Don’t need a reason.”

That much was true. Although, admittedly, her father had done a good job of protecting her from the abrasive side of life as much as he could. In her life, she’d rarely encountered disagreeable people like Pabla. “What happened to Tadeo’s parents?”

“Don’t know for sure. Never asked, never heard anybody say much about it, one way or another. That’s the thing about living out here. People take things as they are, don’t get themselves bothered with things that don’t matter. Tadeo lives with Pabla. She’s not good to him, but she doesn’t hurt him either. He gets food, he gets clothes …”

“Does he get schooling?”

“He’s smart, but I don’t know.”

“He’s a good little boy,” she said, while she replaced the gauze on one hand then began to remove the dressing from the other hand. “He deserves …”

“Adam.”

She looked over at Davion. “You’re right.” And Adam needed Tadeo maybe even more than Tadeo needed him. But life wasn’t always that simple. People didn’t always get together because they needed each other.

“Too bad we don’t get to choose those things.” Davion
stood ready with fresh gauze, watching intently as Erin went about the second dressing. By now, Tadeo was beginning to rouse.

“Sometimes we do, though,” she said. “My father chose me.”

“And would you have chosen him?” he asked.

“In a heartbeat.”

“No mother?”

No mother, not including those first five years of her life … and even then, her memories of her birth parents were so dim they nearly didn’t exist. “No mother.” Funny how she couldn’t even picture them now. They were faded snapshots, no clear images caught on them any longer.

“I didn’t mean to,” Tadeo murmured in a groggy haze. “Tell him I’m sorry.”

“I know you are,” Adam said, stepping up to the bedside. “Accidents happen, and I’m not mad at you.”

“But
Stella
,” Tadeo cried, as huge tears started sliding his cheeks. “She got burned up. I didn’t mean to, and I tried to make the fire stop.”

“It’s a boat, Tadeo. Boats don’t matter. Someday, maybe I can get another boat we can work on together. But right now the important thing here is you. You’re what matters, the only thing that matters, and I’m not mad at you.”

“And he’s doing very nicely,” Erin said. “The burns are already beginning to look better.”

“But his hands are going to have to stay bandaged for a while,” Adam said, “and I doubt Pabla is going to take care of him while he’s bandaged. Which means …”

“Which means, the three of us have our work cut out for us,” Davion said, backing toward the door. “And with that, I’m going home. Going to sleep for a while, going to study, going to sing and hope for big tips. Let me know when you need me here, and in the meantime I’ll check with a few
of the ladies in town who might be able to come in and stay with him.” He grinned, saluted the lot, then walked away.

“You don’t have to be involved with this,” Adam said. “I can do it.”

“Is this because you don’t want me to help? Or is it that you don’t need me? Because I’m involved here, Coulson. I’ve told you that before. Like it or not, I’m part of it. Tadeo’s going to need constant care for a while, and even with some of Davion’s ladies dropping by, you’re going to need more help with Tadeo than you realize.”

“And you didn’t come to Regina to play.” He glanced down at the boy, who’d drifted back to sleep. “To play nursemaid. It was my boat, my responsibility. I’ll take care of things.”

What was it with him? One minute he was brushing her hair, the next he was practically hurling her out the door. “You’re really a whole sack of mixed messages. Do you know that, Coulson?”

“What I know is that. Why the hell didn’t you tell me? Did you think that I wouldn’t figure it out eventually?”

“Tell you what? What would you figure out?” Her heart lurched. She knew he knew. But he was a good doctor. Why wouldn’t he have guessed it?

“Cancer, Red. You had cancer, didn’t you?”

“What makes you think I had cancer?”

“Your hair. You’re not an obsessed person, not self-involved at all, but you’re overly sensitive about your hair. I’ve seen it before. Seen how people become so obsessed or overprotective of their hair when it finally grows back. They don’t cut it, they don’t let people touch it. They run off in near-hysterics when there’s a suggestion of cutting.”

“So, I have a thing about my hair, and you immediately
jump to the cancer conclusion? And I didn’t run off in near-hysterics. I was in a hurry to get to work.”

“It wasn’t about work, Red,” he said gently. “And you did mention a difficult childhood. So, am I wrong about this?
Please,
tell me I’m wrong.”

“Is it any of your business if I did have cancer? And I’m not saying that I did. But if I’d had cancer when I was younger, why would you even care?”

“Did you, Red?” His voice was suddenly so soft, so sympathetic, she barely recognized it.

“Why do you need to know? What possible difference would it make about anything? ”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. I suppose I could say something like I’m curious, and leave it at that. But if things work out for you here, we’re in this for the long haul … colleagues. I think that entitles me to … to something.”

Colleagues. Well, that just about said everything, didn’t it? No point in keeping it to herself because it didn’t matter if he knew. Colleagues kept their relationship on a surface level. Nothing deep, nothing involved. Not even a friendship. So there was no point in holding out for anything more. “OK, I had acute lymphocytic leukemia. Primary bout and two recurrences.” Now he knew. Let the pushing away begin. Because once people knew, they did start to push away from her. Some did it slowly, trying to be polite. Some just broke into a dead run. For some, though, it was simply the emotional distancing until the separation was so tenuous it simply snapped. However it happened, they always left, except for a very few—her father, Serek and Alvinnia, Mrs Meecham. And Coulson? She honestly didn’t know what he’d do. “Totally recovered now. Done with by the time I was fourteen, in case you’re interested,” she said, drawing herself up defensively on the outside but feeling very wobbly on the inside. One bout of cancer and
they were supportive. Two and they became wary. Three and they found it hard to even be in the same room with her. Out of sight, out of mind. That’s what she’d always pretended had happened to her parents. They’d simply walked away and forgotten to come back. It made her life simpler that way.

“And that’s why the children’s hospital is for long-term critical care. It makes sense now.”

She wasn’t sure where this was going, wasn’t sure what to do. Most of all, she wasn’t comfortable, and she wanted to get away from him. Go off somewhere by herself for a few minutes and bury those longings he’d been dredging up in her because now, no matter what else happened, they didn’t matter. She’d been there before, been the recipient of the same apprehension and uncomfortable feelings. It’s the way her life worked. She was used to it, and most of the time it didn’t matter. But, then, most of the time she didn’t allow herself the feelings she knew she had for Coulson. Because this day always came, and she knew what would happen at the end of it. “Look, I’ve got to meet an architect in a few minutes. Can you sit with Tadeo for a while?”

He nodded. Didn’t say a word. And she left. Didn’t look back. Didn’t cry. What was the point?

T
WO
days had raced by since the big revelation, and Erin had encountered Coulson coming and going, but that’s all. A friendly wave, a quick hello was as far as it went between them except when it came to medical dealings, then they talked about Tadeo or other patients. Nothing more. It was pleasant, but bland. No more little barbs, and she was surprised how much she missed that. But that’s how it was going to be with them, and she’d just have to get used to it. Now it was business as usual. They’d settled into their routine.

“You sound tired,” Algernon commented. “I’m worried about you, Erin. Are you taking good care of yourself? Getting enough rest? Eating properly?”

Erin switched the phone to her other ear and settled back into her chair. Sighed loudly. She was in her own cottage now. Not quite set up the way she wanted, but it would do. “I’m fine, Dad. Just busy getting the hospital ready. I’m also helping in the clinic here and taking care of a little boy who burned himself.” Her dad always worried too much. And he was perceptive. Could hear everything in a sigh or an inflection. “I’ve got people coming and going at the hospital now, doing renovations, and I’m talking to suppliers, starting to make purchases.”

“And that young man … Dr Coulson? Have you two—?”

“Colleagues,” she interrupted before he could imply anything. “We’ve established our medical relationship and I think it will be fine.”

“Well, doesn’t that just sound clinical.”

She knew where he was headed with this, and didn’t want to go there. “Because it
is
clinical. That’s all it is.”

“I talked to Serek the other day. He told me this Dr Coulson had a
look
in his eye for you. He also said that you light up around Dr Coulson. Is there anything to that?”

Ah, yes. Her dear, sweet godfather doing her father’s matchmaking bidding. “Uncle Serek is wrong,” she said, fighting hard to avoid all inflections so her father would make no more assumptions. “Coulson and I are almost to the place where we can tolerate each other, but that’s as far as it goes with us. And you two need to quit trying to pair me off with every man who comes within a mile of me. I’m fine without one, fine doing what I’m doing right now. Oh, and in case you’ve forgotten, you’re not exactly the right person to be matchmaking for me, Mr Confirmed Bachelor. You find yourself a woman first then we’ll see what we can do to find me a man. Until that happens, though …”

Algernon laughed. “Now you’re sounding like you.”

This was the first time she’d heard him laugh in months, and it immediately brought tears to her eyes. Which meant he’d know she was crying, and would probably jump to the wrong conclusions and worry even more. “Look, Dad, I’ve got to run,” she said, fighting back the sniffles. “It’s my turn to go sit with Tadeo for a while. He’s getting restless, wants to get up and play, and it’s taking everything we can do to keep him still.”

Algernon didn’t comment right away. There was a gap
in the conversation, a long pause, and she knew he was hearing her emotion. All of it. “Look, I’ll call you later tonight. OK?” she asked, anxious to end the conversation now.

“He’s more than a colleague, isn’t he?” he asked. “Answer the question before you hang up, Erin. Is Adam Coulson more than a colleague?”

“No,” she whispered. “He is not.”

“But you wish …”

“What I wish, Dad, is that you’d quit worrying about me. I’m fine. My health is good, I’m keeping busy. Everything’s good.”

And it was. Maybe not in her father’s definition of the word, but the more she got involved in the life she truly wanted, the better she would be. And Adam Coulson. he was incidental to her plans. She’d fix that in her mind and, sooner or later, it would implant there and make it so. “Where’s Tadeo?” she asked Davion ten minutes later.

“Pabla came to get him. Said Tadeo had chores he needed to do, that we couldn’t keep him any more.”

“Chores? Did you tell her he shouldn’t be working? That he can’t have his bandages taken off yet, and he still needs bed rest and medication, and absolutely must keep his wounds clean?”

Davion, who was stocking the storeroom shelf with the meager supplies Coulson had brought back with him from Port Wallace, nodded. “I told her everything, but she said to leave them alone. That she doesn’t want us butting in any more.”

“And Coulson knows this?”

Davion turned around. “Adam went to check on Breeon Edward. Today was her day to come in, but she wasn’t up to it so he went to her. So, no, he doesn’t know anything
about Tadeo yet. Don’t expect he’ll be too happy about it when he comes back, though.”

That was an understatement if ever she’d heard one. Coulson was going to be livid. “Maybe I should go talk to Pabla, tell her how important it is that Tadeo keep his hands bandaged and clean.”

“I did. I gave her some clean bandages and she threw them on the floor. She didn’t care, Erin. And if I were you, I wouldn’t be messing with that lady. She was in a bad mood when she took Tadeo. I told you before, she’s mean to the bone.”

Mean to the bone maybe. But someone had to look out for Tadeo and since Coulson wasn’t here, she felt it had to be her. Felt it in her gut, felt it in her heart. “I can be pretty … mean, too,” she said.

Davion laughed at that. “You don’t know how to be mean, Erin. You’ve got a good heart, and right now you’re thinking about how you’re going to go to Pabla Reyes and convince her to make things good for Tadeo. That somehow a miracle will take place and she’ll relate to you in a rational way. Which she will not do. And you’re not going to be
mean
about it, even though you know how she’s going to act toward you.”

“Am I that transparent?” she asked, on a discouraged sigh.

“Yes.” He grinned. “That transparent.”

Well, that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. First her father was reading a whole host of things into what he could hear over the phone, and now Davion was doing the same … reading her like she was a book. An open book. That was the thought that kept running through her head for the next several hours as the carpenters showed up to start building walls in her hospital, and as one of the locals started to install the first of the pickets in the fence Coulson
had suggested. She had plumbers on hand, as well as five of the local women who were eager to earn money painting walls. Her hospital was a mass of activity and her presence there was pretty much unnecessary. In fact, she was in the way. And, as it turned out, Davion didn’t need her at the clinic as no one was there.

So, since nothing in the hospital’s progress needed her supervision, and she wasn’t going to go chasing after Pabla, she had time. Time for the beach, she decided on a whim. Why not take a couple of hours and just go and relax? Tell people where she’d be in case anyone needed her. The day was warm, the sky a perfect blue, the water so inviting. why not?

Twenty minutes later, she spread her beach towel in the sand of a fairly secluded little patch of beach. It was hard to imagine, but this was hers. Actually, it belonged to the hospital, but since the hospital was hers … she had a beach! Or a part of one, as the other half still belonged to Coulson.

She pulled off her robe, looked at her conservative black one-piece suit and was overcome with the desire to buy something flowery and skimpy. She wouldn’t, of course. But wearing something like that for Coulson, and seeing the expression on his face.

“Not a chance,” she quipped, dropping down on her towel. After applying a dab more sunblock to her arms and legs, she lay back and stared up at the sky, trying to empty her mind of everything. No hospital, no worries about her dad or Tadeo. Definitely no Coulson. The harder she tried, though, the more she failed. Especially the part about Coulson. He filled every last nook and cranny, and wouldn’t let go. It was aggravating that even in the couple of hours off she was treating herself to, she couldn’t truly get away. OK, maybe she wasn’t trying hard enough. Maybe
it was time to divert her attention, do something other than being idle.

The ocean in front of her took care of that whim. While she wasn’t about to go swimming alone, there was no reason why she couldn’t go wading. Just splashing about in the surf, wandering in just to her knees. It had been a long time since she’d been to a beach. These past few years her water activities had been limited to taking a shower and an occasional workout in the staff lap pool at the hospital where she’d worked. For her, personal time had always come at a premium. There were too many things to do, too many things to accomplish, and squandering precious time on frivolous endeavors was such a waste. The truth was, she didn’t relax very well. Didn’t know how. When she’d been young, and hadn’t known if she had a future ahead of her, she hadn’t been able to relax. Then, when she’d known she was going to have that future, she had been too busy making up for lost time to relax. So it didn’t surprise her that as she waded out, and the wet sand oozed between her toes, she felt almost … decadent.

“It’s a shallow shoreline here. You can actually go out farther,” Coulson called from the path. He’d been watching her for a few moments, not so much to enjoy the very nice view of Erin as much as he was enjoying the way she went about wading, almost the way a child would. And with so much joy. It was like her life was about
firsts.
doing so many things for the first time. Maybe she was. Maybe her past hadn’t allowed her the same experiences most people had. He could only imagine how tough it had been … sick for so many years, then going to college and medical school. That was a pretty narrow course, and he doubted she would have ever strayed very far from it. She was too …focused, too determined to accomplish her goals
no matter what. Probably the result of so much uncertainty surrounding her leukemia.

But just look at her now! She was beautiful … stunning. The sun catching on glints of her chaotic red hair, her milky-white skin in unsettling contrast to the blue of the ocean waters. Damn, he wanted to fall in love with her. Wanted it badly. And maybe he already had. Another time, another place, he might have been able to act on it. But now it was time to focus on other things. Time to put his own life in order, one way or another. Before Erin, that hadn’t seemed to matter so much. He’d got along. Chased that proverbial impossible dream. Avoided … well, avoided everything he could, pretty much. Now, though, it was changing. She was changing him. Her goals were changing him. Which meant it was time he thought about changing himself. He hadn’t decided how yet. But change was on the horizon as surely as Erin Glover was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen on this beach.

Sucking in a sharp breath and squaring his shoulders, Adam headed toward the surf, not sure what he was going to do once he got there. Not sure that the best course right now wouldn’t be to turn around and walk away. Not sure about anything.

“If I’m not mistaken, this is a private beach,” she said, visoring her eyes with her hand to see him.

Surprisingly, she wasn’t making a scramble for her robe the way he’d expected her to. Thank God for small blessings as his eyes were on feast overload and he didn’t even care that he was staring openly. “And the sales contract gave me privileges here. Actually, more of a right of way through to my section of private beach.” He swallowed hard, deciding it was time to fix his stare somewhere else.

“But you’re not dressed for beachcombing.”

He looked down at his khaki pants and blue button-down
shirt, like he’d momentarily forgotten what he was wearing. “Going down to Port Wallace to catch a shift at the hospital. Had about thirty minutes before I needed to leave, and I thought I’d come to the beach and just relax for a few minutes. I, um.” He deliberately fixed his eyes on a sailboat offshore. Stared at it intently. “I have a little cabana set up on the other side of the cove, and—”

“Davion told you about Pabla taking Tadeo?”

“And I kicked a hole in an appropriate door. You’ll see it next time you’re in the clinic. The hell of it is, there’s nothing I can do about Tadeo except kick that damned hole. Pabla has rights to him, I don’t. At this point, I think if we go after him or even approach him, we’re going to get ourselves into trouble, which is only going to make more trouble for Tadeo.”

“I hate this, Coulson. Hate being so helpless.”

He hated it, too. Right now, though, all he could do was wait, worry and hope. And bide his time, because Tadeo
would
find a way back to him. Of that, he was certain. “Pabla will back off after a while. She’ll get tired of Tadeo again, and quit watching him so closely. It’s happened before.”

“I hope so. Because he’s at such a critical point in his recovery, and it scares me to think about all the things that can go wrong. So, since we can’t fix that situation right now, can I come with you so I can fix someone or something else?” she asked. “Come with you to the hospital, not the cabana.”

That snapped him out of his distraction. “What?”

“To the hospital? Can I go with you? I promised Uncle Serek I’d pick up a shift in Emergency whenever I could, and he told me it’s an open invitation. So.” She stepped out of the water, brushed by him as she went to retrieve her robe. “Let me give him a call, see if he wants me. You
go relax in your cabana, and if they’ll let me have a shift, I’ll be ready to go when you leave.”

“You want to work a shift in Emergency on your time off?”

She smiled. “I miss medicine. I mean, it’s great helping you in the clinic, but I’m third in line after you and Davion, so I really haven’t been of much use. And all this work of getting the hospital set up … it’s necessary. But not what I enjoy doing.”

“You don’t ever relax, do you?” Suddenly the luscious body in the swimsuit was not anywhere near the front of his thoughts. Even though she hadn’t done it in the literal sense, Erin had figuratively shrouded herself in a white lab coat. All doctor, all the time. Admirable, but unfortunate. He doubted she even knew she was so much more than a doctor or a dutiful daughter.

“Of course I do. What you were standing off the path watching was me relaxing.”