The Sergeant's Secret Son. Bonnie Gardner
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much help. So much for trying to keep the premiums low…
Macy sighed and pushed her car door open. Last night when it was still raining, at least, the interior had remained dry. Maybe she could postpone the repairs until the more serious damage around town had been taken care of. The building might not look pretty right now, but it was functional.
She just wondered how long she could put off the repairs. The clinic barely broke even most of the time. Many of her patients paid what they could, some in produce or jellies and jams, and others depended on less-than-adequate insurance programs. And many times she’d done with less to make sure that her staff was paid. At least, she lived in Aunt Earnestine’s house free and clear.
A vehicle pulled up, and Macy turned around to see if she already had a patient. She was pleased to find a utility truck turning into the parking lot.
“Morning, Doc,” the driver said as he climbed out and tipped his hard hat. “Figured getting your power back on was a priority.”
“Yes, thank you,” Macy said as she stepped out of her own car. Just seeing the power truck was enough to energize her and brighten her day. And her clinic, she thought with a wry chuckle.
Maybe the situation wasn’t quite as desperate as she’d first imagined.
She collected her medical bag and purse and hurried to unlock the front door. If she didn’t hurry, she wouldn’t be organized before the first patient arrived today.
THE HARD WORK kept Block from thinking about the interview scheduled for later that week, or wondering about Macy or the change in the town. He had mixed emotions about Lyndonville. When he was growing up it had seemed such an unfriendly place, and for a kid growing up on the wrong side of the railroad spur, life had not been easy. Yet, people he cared about lived here.
He cut the power to the chainsaw and stopped for a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow. If he’d thought about it, he could have brought a sweatband from his workout clothes, but he’d had to make do with a red railman’s bandana the guy from the drugstore had given him. Funny, he didn’t even know the man’s name.
Block had been one of the first in line to purchase a gas-powered chainsaw when the hardware store opened, and now he was working his way through the town, clearing streets and cutting up broken limbs wherever he was needed. He’d learned to use the saw in the air force, and cutting down broken limbs or cutting up fallen trees wasn’t that much different than creating and setting up an airstrip out of nothing in the middle of nowhere. And he was doing something useful.
He looked up and was surprised to discover that he’d worked his way over to Macy’s clinic. Had his choice of direction been intentional?
A tree, uprooted by the storm, was balanced precariously against the roof. Torn shingles littered the ground like fallen leaves, and there wasn’t a soul in sight who seemed to be doing anything about it. The clinic was busy, though, if the number of cars in the small parking lot was any indication.
Block stepped inside the door and threaded his way through a maze of patients on hard plastic chairs and asked the harried receptionist if she needed the tree taken down.
The woman looked up, a wary expression on her face. “How much?”
Block suspected there were already people out there charging exorbitant fees for work, but he wasn’t one of them. “It’s on me,” he said as the phone rang. “I just want to help.”
“Have at it,” the woman said with a weary smile. She turned to answer the phone.
He hadn’t seen Macy, and maybe he should have checked with her, but the woman hadn’t hesitated when she’d told him to go ahead, so he figured it was all right.
“I’VE TAKEN a throat culture, Mrs. Pelham, but I don’t think it’s…strep—” Macy stopped at the sound of thumping on the roof. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear it was footsteps.
“Sometimes we have squirrels in the attic,” she said to her patient’s mother. If it was a squirrel, it was a very big squirrel, she thought as she wrote out a scrip for an antibiotic. “I’m going to give you a prescription, but don’t fill it until I get the labs back and call you. Chances are, by the time the tests come back, Cassie will be feeling her old self again anyway. Just give her lots of liquids and let her eat if she’s hungry.” She gave Mrs. Pelham, a new mother, a reassuring smile.
Before Mrs. Pelham could respond, the sound of a chainsaw at close quarters ripped through the air.
“What the…!” Macy went to the window and opened the venetian blinds just as a large mass of green and brown fell past the window and landed on the lawn with a thump.
She turned back to Mrs. Pelham. “Do you have any other questions?” Macy asked. “I hate to rush you, but I have to find out what’s going on.”
“No, ma’am, I understand.” The woman gathered up her baby and assorted paraphernalia and turned toward the door.
Macy left the chart on the exam table and brushed past the woman and child in the hall and hurried out to the reception desk.
“Do you know what’s going on?” Macy asked the receptionist as she headed for the door.
Bettina looked up from a phone call and said, “A guy came by and asked if we’d like to have the tree taken down. He said he wouldn’t charge, so I said to go ahead.”
“You didn’t check with me first?”
Bettina gestured toward the teeming waiting room. “I didn’t think I needed to bother you.”
Macy sighed. “You could have warned me. Who is it?”
The receptionist shrugged. “I don’t know. Sure is good-looking, though. He could definitely be Mr. October in some hunk-of-the-month calendar.”
“I’m going out to check on our benefactor, and then I’ll be back for the next patient.”
She stepped outside and shaded her eyes with her hands to see who was up on her roof. With the sun in her eyes, all she could see was a silhouette, but if the silhouette was any indication, hunk was right.
“Hello, up there. Can I speak to you for a minute?”
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