The Doctor's Secret Son. Deb Kastner

in.

       Besides, she hadn’t had much of an opportunity to reconnect with her old friends—except for the occasional email, and that just wasn’t the same thing as face-to-face contact. She was anxious to hear what they’d been up to recently.

       Eventually she’d bring Riley along with her and introduce him to the town. She hadn’t planned to return to Serendipity, but she was here now and she had to face reality. People were going to start asking questions about Riley. Someone was bound to do the math, and like it or not, the truth would eventually come out.

       It was imperative that she protect Riley against the gossip that was sure to arise—and better that she tell Zach the truth before he found it out any other way.

       Soon. But not today. Right now, she had enough on her plate just getting the clinic open.

       She pulled her hair back into a smooth ponytail and checked her makeup before leaving the clinic. She didn’t know why she bothered—Serendipity was a country town with country ways. Hair and makeup were simple here.

       Her heavily lined boots clapped loudly against the wood-planked sidewalk as she headed for the café. The ever-present Texas wind had a strong nip to it, and she pulled her wool coat more closely around her neck.

       Her mind drifted as she walked. Nothing in the scenery was any different than she remembered from her youth. Serendipity was a settlement unchanged by time, looking nearly identical to what Delia imagined it must have looked a hundred years ago.

       It was her perspective that had changed. Her heart. And now she was more confused than ever.

       Catching up with old friends and announcing the opening of her clinic weren’t her only reasons for visiting Cup o’ Jo. She wanted to know more about Zach before she introduced him to Riley. It was better to be prepared than to be taken off guard, and she’d seen enough in her interaction with him to realize things were different now.

       Zach had been a passionate boy, but self-centered in his every thought and action. He’d gotten her into all sorts of trouble—encouraging her to ditch class, driving recklessly with her on his motorcycle—even getting her arrested. It was hard for her to fathom that he could change so completely, even given the ten years since she’d seen him. Leopards could not change their spots, and neither, Delia believed, could Zach Bowden.

       Once a troublemaker, always a troublemaker—right?

       Still, he hadn’t asked if he needed to stay around and help her out with Spence, nor had she indicated in any way that he should have. They both knew it wasn’t a paramedic’s job to play the nurse, but that was exactly what Zach had done.

       Maybe there was hope.

       As she neared the door of the café, she noticed a man up on a ladder, leaning precariously to one side as he fastened a string of icicle Christmas lights on the eaves with a staple gun. The sun was behind him and she could see only the shadow of his profile, but nevertheless she immediately recognized him—not with her eyes, but with another, deeper sense.

       It was Zach.

       Her heart lurched into her throat and it took all of her willpower not to turn on her heels and walk the other way. Sure, she wanted to talk about Zach and learn more about him, but she wasn’t ready to see him again. Not yet.

       The only thing that stopped her from fleeing was the very real possibility that he had seen her walking up. But, because of the glaring sunlight, she couldn’t tell for sure. He certainly didn’t acknowledge her in any way, nor did he stop what he was doing.

       Setting her jaw, she moved past him and into the small café without so much as greeting him. Maybe it was best if they ignored each other.

       For now.

       Delia stepped inside and then stopped, stunned, as she looked around the small establishment. Whereas the town hadn’t changed at all, the inside of Cup o’ Jo had been entirely renovated. Jo had turned it into Serendipity’s own version of a contemporary internet café, with computers lining the back wall and a printer whirring in the corner.

       Despite the high-tech upgrades, the homey feeling Delia remembered from her childhood somehow remained. Perhaps it was the mouthwatering smell of fresh pastries emanating from the kitchen.

       Jo, her red curls bouncing right along with her ample figure, approached Delia with a vigor that belied her seventy-plus years.

       “As I live and breathe. If it isn’t Miss Delia Rae Ivers, all grown up and looking just gorgeous,” Jo exclaimed in that boisterous but exceedingly friendly way Delia remembered well from childhood. She’d missed the woman, who was like a second mother to her—and to most of the town. “I’d heard you were coming, dear, but how I managed to miss when is beyond me. If I’d have known you’d arrived I would’ve had Phoebe bake you a welcome-home cake.”

       At the sound of her name, a very pretty and very pregnant woman, who Delia guessed to be about her own age, turned from the pastry bin where she was stocking and waved at Delia.

       “Phoebe is my nephew Chance’s wife,” Jo explained. “And as you can see, I’m about to have a grand-nephew or niece.” She paused and chuckled. “Or is that great-nephew-slash-niece?”

       Jo chuckled and waved her hands. “Oh, well. Whatever. I’m just excited for the baby, no matter what his or her technical relation might be called. I’m ready and waiting to smother the little one with love.”

       Delia chuckled and nodded to Phoebe. “Congratulations on your baby. You’re welcome to stop by my clinic for the rest of your prenatal care if you’d like.”

       Phoebe smiled. “Thank you. I will.”

       “But back to you,” Jo inserted, making a speed-of-light U-turn to her original subject, “How long has it been now since you’ve stepped foot in Serendipity?”

       Delia realized that the patrons in the café, mostly friends and neighbors from her youth, had stopped what they were doing to see what all the fuss was about. She wasn’t shy, so she didn’t let it bother her. This was as good a way as any to announce she was back in town and had reopened the medical clinic, even if it wasn’t quite what she’d had in mind when she’d walked in the door.

       “Ten years,” said a bubbly, high-pitched female voice from behind Delia’s left shoulder. “I ask you, what kind of a friend leaves for ten years without even visiting her friends for the holidays?”

       Delia turned to find herself wrapped in the animated embrace of her three best friends from high school—Mary Travis, Alexis Granger and Samantha Howell, who were all talking and squealing in turn. There was a good reason the boys on the football team had labeled them the Little Chicks when they’d been freshmen in high school—even now the chirping sound was unmistakable.

       “It’s good to see y’all,” she said, although she knew she’d never be able to express in words how much these women really meant to her. While she’d had friends in Maryland, they were nothing like the Little Chicks. She’d been too wrapped up in medical school and her residency, not to mention single-parenting Riley, to make any truly close connections on the east coast.

       “Did you see Zach outside?” Alexis queried, giving Delia’s shoulders another tight squeeze. “He’s hanging the Christmas lights for Jo.”

       Her heart dropped into the pit of her stomach and thrashed around in burning waves.

       “I…yes. I saw him,” she said, hoping that would be enough of an answer to stave off further inquiries.

       She wasn’t surprised her friends were asking her about Zach. He’d been her boyfriend all through high school. They didn’t know the whole story, of course, because she hadn’t told them. Other than her parents, she hadn’t told anyone.

       But she was going to have to tell them, and soon—keeping the most important part of her life a secret was wearing on her. And, at the moment, it was making her feel a little queasy.