Family Practice Read Online Free PDF Page B

was living in White Pine Lake, and his old Marine buddy had been right. It wasn’t unheard of for someone to come knocking on his front door at any hour of the day or night for free medical advice. He wondered how his new neighbor, the uptight Dr. Layman, would handle that aspect of a small-town practice. Not well, he’d guess. He wondered what she was doing here at all.
    Actually, the answer to that one was easy enough. She was a Layman. Knowing J.R., hearing the praises of J.R.’s father and—from the old-timers who remembered that far back— his father sung throughout the town, it was because of an overdeveloped sense of duty, not because practicing medicine in a small town was what she wanted most in life.
    Well, it was what he wanted, and he intended to hang on to this job with both hands, even if it meant butting heads with her at every turn.
    He’d been willing to make amends after their less-than-stellar first meeting when he’d heard her Jeep pull into the parking space behind the duplex that first night. He’d gotten up off the couch, even though he was bone tired, and walked out into the cool, humid night to greet her and offer a hand to help unload her Jeep. He could hear a radio playing in a nearby cottage, and traffic sounds from Lake Street intermittently drowned out the chirping of crickets and the eerie wail of a loon calling for its absent mate. A small tingle of uneasiness prowled at the edge of his consciousness. A motorcycle going by had masked his footsteps on the gravel, so she whirled in surprise when he spoke, hitting him in the thigh with a big overstuffed duffel bag as she swung around.
    “Oof,” he said.
    “Good heavens, you scared the life out of me. What are you doing here?” She dropped the duffel with a thud, barely missing his foot in the process.
    “I was coming to offer my help unloading your Jeep.”
    They were standing under a streetlight. He could see her face clearly. Surprise at his appearance had widened her eyes momentarily. Now they narrowed with suspicion. “Where exactly did you come from?”
    He hooked his thumb over his shoulder toward the duplex. “Didn’t your dad explain? We’re neighbors. Real close neighbors.”
    “No.” Her lips thinned. “He did not. He just said he knew the cabin was my favorite place and since it had become available—” She put her hands on her hips. “This isn’t acceptable,” she said.
    “Why not? You just said how much you like the place.”
    “What I am worried about is what people will think of us living so close. It’s...it’s not professional.”
    “Come off it, Dr. Layman. This isn’t the Middle Ages. You’re not giving your friends and neighbors enough credit. Why should they care?” She had a point, though. There would be some small-minded people who would raise their eyebrows and wag their tongues—there always were in a town this size. “It’s no different from a coed dorm. Are you saying you’ve never lived in close proximity to a man?”
    “I...” she sputtered. “Of course I have.”
    Did that mean she’d been in a serious relationship? Did she still have a boyfriend? Somehow he didn’t like that idea, although he couldn’t pinpoint exactly why. He didn’t pursue the topic, however, for the same reason he hadn’t elaborated on town gossips. Now that she was here, he didn’t want to scare her off. “Do you believe your dad would have sent you down here if he didn’t trust me to behave myself?” He was beginning to enjoy this. She was so easy to rattle.
    “Don’t be silly,” she said, but she sounded as if the fight had gone out of her. For the first time he noticed the dark circles under her eyes and the droop to her shoulders. She’d had as long and as hard a day as he had. He ought to be ashamed of himself for goading her. “Good. Then that’s settled. You’re staying. It’s late. We can work out some ground rules for sharing the place in the morning so we can both have our