Doctor to the Rescue. Cheryl Wyatt
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Boom if he can eat sherbet, he can help clean Tia’s room.”
Tia’s face popped out of the puppet stage curtain. She pointed sideways. “He’s right here.” Tia glared at her dad. “Tell him yourself, Mister Meanie Fox who takes baby rabbits away from their mothers.”
Tia wore bunny ears and a matching cottontail.
Ian’s jaw clenched.
Bri didn’t miss the pain Tia’s words had lashed across his eyes. Bri tensed like a witness to a car wreck.
Flashes of Eric’s rage at his nephew spilling a shake in his Corvette came to mind. Then how her ex had railed her all the way to the car wash for “stupidly inviting the kid along.”
But Ian didn’t blow. He calmly pulled the fox puppet off his arm. Set it in the box. Knelt face-to-face with his daughter. Love never left his eyes. “Tia, I know it’s hard when things change and we don’t want them to. But that doesn’t mean we can leave someone’s home a mess.”
“Ours could sparkle clean and it would still be a mess. You don’t do anything right. Not bedtime stories or bath time or eggs or Christmastime or nothing! Especially your icky eggs! And your animal pancakes are stupid! They don’t look like air force aardvark fairies at all!”
“Aardvark fairies?” Bri blurted before she could think.
“Yes. They fly in and eat all the bugs.” She glared again at Ian. “He has ants in his house and I hate living there. We don’t even have a tree or cookies and Santa is coming in—” Rant paused, she counted on her fingers and gasped. “Three days!”
Ian looked about to scold Tia for speaking disrespectfully, but his cell phone rang. He viewed the screen. Relief hit his face.
“Excuse me.” He carried plates to the sink with one hand and answered his call with the other. He went to Bri’s deck to speak, eyes flitting her way through a window.
Bri put leftovers away. “Tia, let’s get toys picked up.”
“Can you go to Sully’s with us?” Tia asked as they worked.
“Um, well...” She didn’t want to barge in on daddy-daughter time. Plus, her arm was really hurting.
Tia grabbed Bri’s good hand and squeezed. “Please?”
Ugh. She was a heartbreaker, this kid. Bri eyed Ian, who walked in with a neutral expression. Too neutral. “Was that Caleb?” Bri pegged.
“Yes. He’s fine. Said to tell you he loves you but not to call. He’ll be out of range for three weeks. He’ll call you—and me—when he’s back at base.”
She gritted her teeth, and felt as if she was the only one not in on the full conversation.
Bri fought hurt that Caleb didn’t speak to her and that Ian didn’t encourage him to. Why? Was Ian as thoughtless as Eric? Or was Caleb imminently marching into more serious combat danger?
“Miss Bri’s going to Sully’s with us,” Tia announced.
Bri stiffened, ready for Ian’s explosion. Eric never liked when his pals had included Bri in their get-togethers.
The only thing that ignited on Ian’s face was a smile. “Awesome. Tia, did you and Boom pick toys up?” Ian went to check the play area behind Bri’s burgundy-and-blue-striped couch, leaving Bri to wonder why she tended to compare the two men.
It wasn’t as if she was interested in Ian. She was simply becoming involved in his life because she was babysitting Tia. That was all.
Bri’s unease had nothing to do with how handsome his jet-black hair looked in a fresh buzz. Or how his broad chest filled out a black leather jacket.
Nothing at all.
Chapter Three
Nothing at all was wrong with his heart. So why Ian’s pulse skipped upon sight of a tall blonde jogging the lakeside trail ahead on his run the next morning, he had no idea. Especially since she resembled Bri. Platinum ponytail brushing her back with each athletic footfall, white wisps fluttering in the breeze, easy as her one-armed stride.
Wait. One arm? He sped up. Looked closer.
That was Bri.
Instant annoyance hit that he’d taken a second look.
“Hey, Crash!” he called so he wouldn’t startle her by just running up next to her. “Cool the turbojets.”
She turned and nearly tripped over a rut. Alarm sliced through him. He reached to steady her as they slowed. “Close call.” He eyed the hot-pink cast that had given her away.
“Not as close as the goose who nearly took me out.”
“It is called Gosling Way,” he teased, referring to the walk-run trail adjacent to Duckshore Drive, which circled the water and led to Lakeview Road. It connected the trauma center and Landis Lodge to a residential area around Eagle Point Lake, where he and Mitch had homes built while overseas and planning this trauma center amid what felt like a million combat surgeries.
Bri’s cheeks were red and her breathing labored enough he knew she’d been running awhile. “Where’s T?” she huffed.
“Tia’s still sleeping. Kate’s watching her in the doctor’s lounge for me.”
Bri looked at him sharply. “At the trauma center?”
“Since I don’t have a call room in my home, yes.”
Bri veered off on the Gosling Way trail that led to Eagle Point Lake’s pavilion behind EPTC. Ian followed, sensing she had something to say. Once she caught her breath, she pulled the lone iPod plug from her ear. That she only wore one and let the other dangle told him she was a serious runner, same as him.
“Still planning on the Library marathon?”
She nodded, and swigged water. “Yeah. You?”
“Yes. I’d be in trouble otherwise.”
“That’s right. I heard you helped Lauren’s grandpa Lem organize it to fundraise for community projects.”
“How’d you hear that?” He propped a foot on a concrete picnic table beneath the covered pavilion. It needed a new coat of paint. But like everything else in Eagle Point, money was tight, so upkeep of public parks suffered. Ian aimed to change that. If he was raising Tia here, he wanted it to thrive.
He realized Bri never answered. He leaned in.
She nibbled her lip. “Kate and Lauren organized a prayer and praise gathering here on Tuesday nights. They named it PRAYZ.” Bri drew a fortifying breath, as if afraid to say the rest. “Mitch comes. He requests prayers for you and the trauma center a lot. He wants your fundraising efforts to succeed.”
He eyed his watch. “I should get back. Tia will be waking soon.” He turned back. “Be careful with your—”
“Arm. I know.” She fell into step beside him, but for some reason all he wanted to do was get away. From her and the weird way it made him feel for people to air his personal life in public. And who prayed at a lake, anyway? Mitch, of course. Yet, he knew Mitch and his prayers were why Ian had made it through his divorce and deployments intact. He sighed. “Thanks for...never mind.”
He wasn’t convinced yet the prayers were working.
“Did you get called in again last night, Ian? You seem...”
“Beastly?” he bit out. Held her gaze and didn’t dare let his face soften. “Yeah. Saturday nights are almost as bad as Friday with drunken accidents and parties. No one died, though.”
“That’s good.”
“That’s debatable.”
She paused. “That means...?”