Newborn Needs a Dad. Dianne Drake

patient, one walk-in and done a regular pelvic exam on one of the staff nurses. It wasn’t an overwhelming schedule, which was fine with her. Working again felt good. She’d missed it, and she was glad to be back in any capacity.

      Neil, who was sitting on a chrome stool across from her, looking all rigid and uncomfortable whilst reading an outdated medical journal, glanced up, took off his reading glasses and tucked them into his pocket. “Did you have a good first day? It wasn’t too much for you, was it?”

      “Good first day, yes. Too much, no. In fact, it was a little slow.”

      “Like I said earlier, you’ll learn to appreciate those lulls since they don’t come too often.” He put his journal aside, and stood up. “Look, are you up to a quick dinner? We’re not busy right now. Fallon is down the hall stitching up a kid who took a header off his bicycle, and that’s all we’ve had this past hour. So I was thinking about going across the street to the café before I have to come back and spend the night in emergency on call. You’re welcome to join me, unless you have other plans.”

      “Plans? My plan this time yesterday was to go back to Chicago and get my condo ready to sell. Now here I am, working in a place I’d never heard of until…” she glanced at her watch “…twenty-nine hours, forty-two minutes ago. Meaning no plans, and I’ve love to join you.”

      “So, what do you eat?”

      “Lately, everything I can get my hands on. A little light on meat, but other than that no dietary restrictions, no self-imposed taboos. Just point me in the direction of food and I’ll show you what I eat.”

      “Then you’ll love Catie’s Overlook, because they fix a little bit of everything.” Neil hurried down to exam three to check on Fallon, who was coming along nicely with her patient. In fact, the procedure was finished and she was at the lollipop stage—the hardest part of the ordeal, trying to get her young patient to choose between red and green. Neil took a look at the stitches, wrote an antibiotic prescription, gave the boy both the red and the green, and sent him home with his mother. Then off with his white lab coat and on with his denim jacket. A quick gesture to Gabby and they were on their way.

      “So what’s the specialty of the house?” she asked. Heading down the hall, his strides were long, and his heels clicked briskly on tile floor. She liked that confidence in him, liked the way he held the door open for her but didn’t overstep his bounds by taking hold of her arm as she half expected him to do. “And are the portions huge? Because I eat a lot these days. I tell myself it’s because Bryce is going to be an athlete and he’s storing up the calories early.”

      “Bryce?”

      “My son. I’m calling him Bryce Evans, after my father.” She sighed wistfully. “That was the first decision I made after I found out I was having a boy. A fitting tribute, I think.”

      “I take it your father’s not with you any more?”

      Not her father, not Bryce’s father. Things should have been different. “Not any more. Just when I was ready to make the big move, he made a bigger one. Too young, too soon.”

      “I’m sorry, Gabrielle. I get the feeling you and your father were close.”

      “We were.” Stepping up onto the curb, she stopped for a moment as Bryce kicked, and laid a hand on her belly. Then she smiled. “But it’s an amazing circle of life, isn’t it? I lose one Bryce who meant the world to me, and another one’s about to enter my life who means even more.”

      

      What an amazing woman. He didn’t think he’d ever met anyone like Gabrielle Evans before. Confident, selfassured. Maybe a little too defiant with her self-reliance, probably a reaction to her having a baby alone. He guessed that she probably fought against things she didn’t have to, but that was OK. It made her even more interesting. So why was it that he’d met her now, when the timing was so wrong on so many different levels? “Table for two, Helen,” he said to the waitress who greeted them at the door. “Oh, and this is Dr Evans. She’ll be working as our obstetrician for the next few weeks.”

      Helen looked down at the lump under Gabby’s coat with a dubious frown, then nodded. “Which Sister?” she asked. Catie’s Overlook boasted the best view in town—windows overlooking each of the Three Sisters.

      “Older Sister. Better view, more lights.” Not that it really mattered, since he’d seen each of the Sisters from every angle more times than he could remember, but he thought Gabrielle might like the nicer view.

      “Angela Blanchard works up there,” Gabby commented as Neil pulled out the chair for her.

      It was quaint, old-fashioned, all wood, and surprisingly not as uncomfortable as it looked. But on the other side of the room there were cozy, romantic booths, where several couples sat all tucked into each other. He’d done that, once upon a time. In fact, he’d brought Karen here, and he’d been the one so distracted by the moment that he hadn’t noticed the obvious—that she had eyes for him, but not him alone. Well, not any more. He’d sworn off relationships a while ago, and he wasn’t yet in the mood to swear back on. If he ever did, there would be no cozy booths and candlelight, though. Next time, it was going to be a matter of practicality. His one and only promise to himself was head before heart. A down-to-earth partnership.

      “She came into the clinic today,” Gabby continued.

      “Grumpy?” Neil asked, as he took his seat, purposely keeping his back toward the row of romantic booths. “She usually is lately.”

      “No, not grumpy. More like frustrated with her situation. And with her inactivity. So I gave her permission to return to work, be active again on a limited basis, which is what she wanted. It had a pretty good effect on her mood.”

      “Ah, going against Walt Graham’s sage advice to stay home and keep your feet up for nine months. His wife had seven children, and we always teased that she kept getting pregnant so she could take the nine-month holiday. Because Walt wouldn’t let her do a thing. He waited on her hand and foot, and hired someone to do it for him when he wasn’t there.”

      “And…”

      “He was lost after she died. Lost a lot of the joy in his life, I think. Woke up one morning a few weeks ago and said it was time to do something else, and he did. He quit his practice. Now he’s out hiking in the woods, skiing, doing the things he never had time to do before. But he’s a good man, and a good doctor with old-fashioned ways.”

      “He sounds a lot like my father. Dad always had my mother on a pedestal. It’s hard for me to even imagine the kind of love he had for her, but I think that’s what Walt Graham must have had for his wife, because Dad never got over her after she died. Never dated, never looked at another woman, never took off his wedding ring.”