Home for Christmas: Return to Promise / Can This Be Christmas?. Debbie Macomber
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and the way she eyed Frank, as though she expected him to leap in and express his opinion.
“Annie seems to like her,” Dovie said, “but with this new pregnancy, she’s spending less and less time at the bookstore. Really, I hate to say anything….”
“I tell you, the woman’s a homewrecker,” Frank announced stiffly.
“Now, Frank.” Dovie placed her hand on her husband’s knee and shook her head.
“Dovie, give me some credit. I was in law enforcement for over thirty years. I recognized that look the minute I saw her.”
Phil frowned, now starting to feel seriously worried. “You think Nicole Nelson has set her sights on Cal?”
“I do,” Frank stated firmly.
“What an unkind thing to say.” Still, Dovie was beginning to doubt her own assessment of Nicole.
“The minute I saw her, I said to Dovie, ‘That woman’s trouble.’”
“He did,” Dovie confirmed, sighing. “He certainly did.”
“Mark my words.”
“Frank, please,” she said, “You’re talking as though Cal wasn’t a happily married man. We both know he isn’t the sort to get involved with a woman like Nicole. With any woman. He’s a good husband and father.”
“Yes,” Frank agreed.
“How did you hear about her taking dinner out to Cal?” Phil asked. It worried him that this troublemaker was apparently dropping Cal’s name into every conversation, stirring up speculation. Glen was the one who’d mentioned it to Phil—casually, but Phil wasn’t fooled. This was his youngest son’s way of letting him know he sensed trouble. Phil had weighed his options and decided his advice wasn’t necessary. But it seemed that plenty of others had heard about Nicole’s little trip to the ranch. Not from Glen and not from Ellie, which meant Nicole herself had been spreading the news. She had to be incredibly naive or just plain stupid or…Phil didn’t want to think about what else would be going on in the woman’s head. He didn’t know her well enough to even guess. Whatever the reason for her actions, if Jane heard about this, there could be problems.
“Glen told Ellie,” Dovie said, “and she was the one who mentioned it to me. Not in any gossipy way, mind you, but because she’s concerned. She asked what I knew about Nicole.” Like Dovie, Ellie didn’t want to involve Annie.
“Do you think anyone will say something to Jane?”
Dovie immediately rejected that idea. “Not unless it’s Nicole Nelson herself. To do so would be cruel and malicious. I can’t think of a single person in Promise who’d purposely hurt Jane. This town loves Dr. Texas.” Dr. Texas was what Jane had been affectionately called during her first few years at the clinic.
“The person in danger of getting hurt here is Cal,” Frank said gruffly. “Man needs his head examined.”
Phil had to grin at that. Frank could be right; perhaps it was time to step in, before things got out of hand. “Mary always was better at talking to the boys,” he muttered. “But I suppose I’d better have a word with him….”
“You want me to talk to him?” Frank offered.
“Frank!” Dovie snapped.
“Someone has to warn him he’s playing with fire,” Frank blurted, and glanced at Phil, obviously expecting him to agree.
Phil shook his head. “Listen, if anyone says anything, it’ll be me.”
“You will, won’t you?” Frank pressed.
Reluctantly Phil nodded. He would, but he wasn’t sure when. Sometimes a situation righted itself without anyone needing to say a word. This just might be one of those cases.
He sincerely hoped so.
Jane stood at the foot of her father’s hospital bed reading his medical chart. Dr. Roth had allowed her to review his notes as a professional courtesy. She frowned as she studied them, then flipped through the test results, liking what they had to say even less.
“Janey? Is it that bad?” her father asked. She’d assumed he was asleep; his question took her by surprise.
Jane quickly set the chart aside. “Sorry if I woke you,” she murmured.
He waved off her remark.
“It’s bad news, isn’t it?” he asked again. “You can tell me, Jane.”
His persistence told her how worried he was. “Hmm. It says here you’ve been making a pest of yourself,” she said, instead of answering his question.
He shook his head, but wore a sheepish grin. “How’s a man supposed to get any rest around here with people constantly waking him for one thing or another? If I’d known how much blood they were going to draw or how often, I swear I’d make them pay me.” He paused. “Do you have any idea what they charge for all this—all these X rays and CAT scans and tests?”
“Don’t worry about that, Dad. You have health insurance.” However, she knew that his real concern wasn’t the expense but the other problems that had been discovered as a result of his broken hip.
“I want to know what’s going on,” he said, growing agitated.
“Dad.” Jane pressed her hand to his shoulder.
He reached for her fingers and squeezed them hard. For a long moment he said nothing. “Cal wants you home, doesn’t he?”
She hesitated, not knowing what to say. Cal had become restive and even a bit demanding; he hadn’t hidden his disappointment when she’d told him she couldn’t return to Promise yet. Their last few conversations had been terse and had left Jane feeling impatient with her husband—and guilty for reacting that way. In retrospect, she regretted the entire conversation and suspected he did, as well.
“Your mother and I have come to rely on you far too much,” her father murmured.
“It’s all right,” Jane said, uncomfortably aware that Cal had said essentially the same thing. “I’m not only your daughter, I’m a physician. It’s only natural that you’d want me here. What’s far more important is for you and Mom not to worry.”
Her father sighed and closed his eyes. “This isn’t fair to you.”
“Dad,” she said again, more emphatically. “It’s all right, really. Cal understands.” He might not like it, but he did understand.
“How much time do I have?” he shocked her by asking next. He was looking straight at her. “No one else will tell me the truth. You’re the only one I can trust.”
Her fingers curled around his and she met his look. “There are very effective treatments—”
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