Daddy On Call. Judy Duarte

in the rear of the room where they took a seat. So much had changed, yet the past hung over them like a black storm cloud that threatened to burst in an angry downpour.

      Her brother, Kami, had only been fourteen when he’d died, run down in the middle of the street by drug dealers. Had Luke not broken his promise, Kami would have been home and safely tucked in bed.

      And Leilani still would have him.

      But she’d be darned if she’d mention anything that would open up a conversation about the tragedy that tore them apart. Or the fact that Luke had not only led her brother astray, but led him to his death.

      Instead, she broached the subject of Carrie’s baby boy. “Dr. Gray is trying to ward off contractions until the medication that assists lung development kicks in.”

      “At this point, each day in the womb makes a big difference,” Luke said.

      “Do they know whether he suffered any brain damage during the beating?”

      “The initial ultrasound looks good,” he said, as though unwilling to discuss the possibility.

      She watched as he opened his burrito, spooned in a load of salsa, then rewrapped it and took a hearty bite.

      “And what about Carrie?” she asked.

      “It’s still touch and go right now.”

      They ate quietly for a while, which should have been comforting. But for some reason, the silence was unsettling, and she felt compelled to fill the void.

      “They arrested Joel Graves,” she said. “The perp.”

      “Good.” Luke took a thirsty swig of juice. “It was a brutal beating, and he was obviously out of control. Why did he tear into her like that?”

      “Jealousy,” she said.

      “Sounds like she made a bad choice of boyfriends.”

      “Carrie grew up in a dysfunctional home,” Leilani explained. “And her parents abused her. She ran away when she was sixteen and married a guy who ended up beating her, too. She entered a battered womens’shelter in Los Angeles a few years back, got counseling, took some college courses, and relocated to Phoenix. But while she was there, she got involved with Joel and soon learned that he was prone to violence.”

      “Sounds like she’d be better off remaining single,” Luke said.

      “She recently came to that conclusion, too.”

      He took another drink of orange juice, nearly finishing the glass. “If Carrie was living in Phoenix, what was she doing in San Diego?”

      “She works for an advertising agency and had a chance to transfer. She’d broken up with Joel, but suspected that he wasn’t happy about the split. So she used the opportunity to put some distance between them. For a while it appeared that he’d accepted that the relationship was over. But apparently, he got wind of her pregnancy and that really set him off.”

      “Is the baby his?” Luke asked.

      “No. And she wasn’t cheating on him, either. She went to a sperm bank.”

      When Luke didn’t comment, she let the subject drop.

      “How’d you meet her?” he asked.

      “I’m a social worker and counseled her at the shelter in L.A.”

      In fact, Carrie had been her first project. No, that’s not true. Luke had been her first project.

      At one time, and for the past twelve years, she’d thought she’d failed with him. But maybe not. It’s possible that he’d taken to heart some of the things she’d told him.

      “It’s a good profession for you to pursue,” he said. “You always did have a thing for strays and underdogs.”

      She supposed that was a result of growing up in the home of a minister and his wife. But Luke’s turnaround hadn’t been as easy to see coming.

      “What about you?” she asked. “What made you decide to go to medical school?”

      It wasn’t a tough question, but Luke wasn’t sure how honest he wanted to be.

      Her brother’s death had been influential—but in a negative way. After Kami died, Leilani and her family blamed him. And when she returned to Hawaii for the funeral, she never came back to San Diego, never contacted him. Never answered his calls.

      The guilt and grief threatened to destroy him, so he’d easily fallen back into his old lifestyle to escape. Only the drinking, carousing and fighting became worse than ever before.

      Did he want Leilani to know all of that?

      Did he want her to realize she and her family had been right about him all along?

      He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “One night, I met a police detective named Harry Logan. The guy has a real knack with hard-ass kids and saw something promising in me. He took me under his wing, encouraged me to go back to school, then helped me get a job at a hospital. Medicine fascinated me, and I decided to become a doctor.”

      “Harry must be a special guy.”

      “He is. And there are quite a few young men in and around the San Diego area who consider him the father they never had.”

      Luke was one of them.

      His real dad had been an alcoholic college professor and had run off with a graduate student when Luke was just a kid. And his mom had never been able to recover from the emotional blow. At least not while he’d been in his formative years and could have used a functional parent in his corner.

      He’d loved his mom—and the fact that he’d failed her when she’d needed him most would haunt him for the rest of his days. But when he was a kid, she seemed to think she was the only one who’d been abandoned and was hurting, so he’d found it easier to avoid going home.

      By the time he’d become a teenager, they had moved to a run-down apartment in the inner city—not far from where Leilani’s aunt lived. And with no one to encourage him or keep him in line, he began hanging out with the wrong crowd.

      Luke might have been a natural-born rebel, but he suspected that having a half-decent father probably would have kept him from getting into too much trouble.

      When he met Leilani, she was a college-bound senior who’d recently moved in with her aunt. And his hormones had done what the teachers hadn’t been able to—got him to knuckle down and study.

      Had Kami not died, Luke might have become a doctor anyway—because of Leilani’s influence. She’d believed in him and had made him want to be the kind of guy she could respect.

      “Having a father to look up to is important for a boy,” she said now, obviously thinking about the baby her friend was carrying.

      Leilani had always been compassionate, always concerned with the feelings of others. And Luke could see the grief and worry etched on her face.

      He reached across the table and placed his hand on hers. “You can’t get personally involved like this. It’ll drag you under if you let it.”

      Luke’s touch sent a shiver of heat up Leilani’s arm, and she nearly bolted. But before she could pull away or argue about her decision to get involved with Carrie or anyone else who reached out to her, Luke’s name blasted over the intercom.

      “Dr. Wynter, dial zero-five-six. Dr. Wynter, dial zero-five-six.”

      “Excuse me.” He stood, then picked up his tray. “I need to take that.”

      Leilani watched him go, watched the way he swaggered out of the cafeteria with confidence and pride.

      Just seeing him again had resurrected memories of what they’d once had and lost. What he’d thrown away by being negligent and acting carelessly.

      When