The Doctor's Forever Family. Marie Ferrarella

elbowed the deputy out of the way to get to him.

      The woman had hazel eyes that seemed to go right through him, as deeply penetrating as any X-ray machine he’d ever encountered.

      “Hello, I’m Joan Randall. Everyone around here just calls me Miss Joan.” She made no attempt to hide the fact that she was looking him up and down as if he was a piece of merchandise. “So you’re the new doctor,” Miss Joan declared in a voice that was one part gravel, two parts aged Kentucky bourbon.

      There was that word again, he thought. New. He banked down the urge to ask about the “old” doctor. They’d think he was being antagonistic, and he didn’t mean to be. Ever since the fatal cab accident, he was having trouble finding a comfortable zone for his emotions. They kept flaring, bouncing all over the place, taking him with them.

      He’d shift from sarcastic to contrite to cynical to humble. And sad, always sad, no matter what kind of front he put up. Coming here had been a duty, a responsibility he knew he had to shoulder. But wanting to be here was a whole different matter.

      The woman who’d introduced herself as Miss Joan smiled at him. Her X-ray eyes smiled, as well. “Dr. Warren Davenport, right?” The X-ray eyes crinkled. “Welcome to Forever.”

      “It’s Daniel,” Dan corrected her. “Dr. Daniel Davenport.”

      A slight confused frown edged away the smile on the woman’s thin lips. “I thought for sure they told me your first name was Warren,” she said, referring to the people she’d spoken to on the phone in her quest to secure a physician for Forever.

      It was through her efforts, as she relentlessly bombarded the American Medical Association with requests for a doctor, that Forever’s situation, she’d been told, had come to Warren Davenport’s attention. He’d been looking for some place where he could make a difference and Forever needed a dedicated doctor.

      “Was there a mistake in the paperwork?” she now asked the young man before her.

      The people in the diner seemed to tighten the circle around them. Dan doubted that it was just his imagination at work. Good thing for him that he wasn’t claustrophobic, he thought.

      “No, no mistake, Warren was supposed to be here. But there was an accident.” He tried his best to sound detached as the words slowly left his lips. He had no intention of sharing his pain with anyone, least of all a town full of strangers.

      “Was he badly hurt?” Miss Joan asked, concerned. He noticed that she still hadn’t released his hand, although she had stopped pumping it.

      His throat felt dry, scratchy, as he stoically replied, “He was killed.”

      “Oh.” Miss Joan appeared genuinely stunned. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He felt her squeeze his hand in what he assumed was a comforting gesture. “You’ve got the same last name. Was he a relative of yours?”

      “He was my brother.” Dan congratulated himself for not choking on his reply.

      The woman’s hazel eyes filled with compassion. The same look was mirrored in the eyes and faces of the people standing closest around him. For a moment, he was caught off guard.

      Were they all pretending to be sympathetic?

      After all, neither he nor his brother were anything to these people. Other than the obvious, that Warren was supposed to have come here to open up his practice, why would any of these people even care that he’d died? They’d never met Warren and as for him, well, they didn’t know him from Adam. How could they pretend to know or feel his pain? “I’m really sorry to hear that,” Miss Joan murmured.

      She sounded so sincere, he could almost believe that she meant it—if it didn’t seem so impossible to him. She splayed her bony hand against her chest to emphasize what she was about to tell him.

      “I’m the one who wrote to your brother. Actually,” she amended, “I called and wrote letters to the AMA. They finally referred me to your brother.” Her eyes met his and again, he had the eerie feeling that she could look right into him. “We only spoke the one time. But even then, he seemed like a very nice young man to me. Compassionate and caring,” she added.

      That described his brother to a T, Dan thought. Warren had been the good brother, he had been the wild one. And now, he thought heavily, he was the only brother. “He was.”

      Disappointment entered Miss Joan’s voice. “You didn’t have to come in person to deliver this news. I—we—would have understood.”

      Just for a second, Dan saw his way out of this prospective prison sentence. He could just nod, go along with the woman’s interpretation of the situation and leave this speck of a place. Her assumption was his ticket back to New York. No one would be the wiser.

      No one but him.

      He’d made a promise. A promise to Warren that he would take his place until someone else more suitable could be found. Sure, he’d made the promise silently in his heart because Warren had been killed instantly when the taxi they were in had been slammed into by that swerving SUV.

      But he wouldn’t be able to look himself in the mirror each morning if he broke this promise to his dead brother.

      Getting through each day was hard enough for him as it was. He couldn’t shake off the mantle of blame for this, for Warren’s death. If he hadn’t prevailed on Warren and dragged him out—

      This wasn’t the time, Dan silently upbraided himself. The woman with the X-ray eyes would pick up on what he was thinking.

      “I realize that,” he said to the diner owner. “But I didn’t come to tell you about my brother’s untimely death. I came to Forever to take his place. Warren would have wanted me to,” he felt obligated to add. He didn’t want any of the people in town to be grateful to him. He didn’t deserve gratitude.

      The solemn mood that had begun to descend over the diner when they heard about Warren’s death suddenly evaporated as Dan’s words sank in.

      Not one to leave anything to chance or misinterpretation, Miss Joan asked, “Then you’re going to be our doctor?”

      “Yes.” He wanted to add that it was just until another substitute could be found, thereby giving himself the escape hatch he so badly needed. But something prevented him. Maybe he didn’t want to leave himself open to endless attempts to persuade him to think otherwise. Or maybe, since they looked so happy to finally have a physician in their midst, he didn’t want to be the one to rain on their parade.

      Whatever the reason, for the time being he kept his qualifying phrase to himself.

      The moment Miss Joan heard the word yes, the redhead’s porcelain-fair face broke out in a huge smile that overtook her entire countenance.

      “I see that selflessness runs in your family,” she pronounced.

      The last thing Dan wanted was to be regarded in the same light as Warren. They were nothing alike. Warren was the good one, the saint. The one who had entered medicine only with the thought of easing pain and giving back.

      Dan began to deny Miss Joan’s assumption—and to ask for the use of his hand back—but he never got the opportunity to do either.

      Releasing her grip, the ginger-haired woman in the light gray and white waitress uniform managed to surprise him again by throwing her arms around him and enveloping him in a fierce bear hug.

      “Welcome to Forever, Doc,” she declared, a slight catch in her voice.

      If he didn’t know better, he would have said that he’d just crossed over to the other side, a place from which there was no return. As it was, an uneasy feeling rippled through him as Miss Joan continued to hug him, effectively pinning his arms to his sides. He didn’t like being put up on a pedestal. It only made it that much easier for him to fall.

      To his surprise, Miss Joan whispered something against his ear. “Any time you get the urge to just talk, feel free