Читать книгу Prognosis: Romance - GINA WILKINS - Страница 8

“Aunt Shannon, watch me!”

“Aunt Shannon, catch!”

“Aunt Shannon, I’m swimming. See?”

“Aunt Shannon, Aunt Shannon!”

The woman who was obviously “Aunt Shannon” laughed as she turned from one side to another in the hip-deep water of the lake, trying to respond to the half dozen children competing for her attention. From his lounge chair in a shady spot on the beach nearby, James Stillman watched her in fascination.

Somewhere in her mid- to late-twenties, she wasn’t exactly beautiful, though he found the expressive face framed by a mop of red curls to be very intriguing. She looked a little familiar, but he couldn’t remember ever meeting her before—and he couldn’t imagine that he would have forgotten if he had.

Her slender body was nicely displayed in a bright yellow bikini that bared just the right amount of fair skin to be neither too modest nor too brazen. He hoped she was wearing sun-screen. Though it was late afternoon and the most dangerous UV rays were beginning to fade, it was still sunny enough to cause a burn if she wasn’t careful.

Or was that just the scientist in him fretting? He’d been accused many times of being too serious about everything.

He watched as the woman picked up a little boy and tossed him a few feet away into the water. The boy, who might have been three or four, bobbed to the surface sputtering with giggles. He begged, “Do it again, Aunt Shannon!”

“No, me. Me,” a little girl of perhaps five insisted. Splashing from within the confines of a snug yellow-and-orange life vest, she dog-paddled ahead of him. “Throw me, Aunt Shannon.”

A brunette woman, lounging on a towel not far from where James sat, looked in that direction momentarily taking her attention from the thick paperback in her hands. A ginger-haired man dozed beside her. “Jack. Caitlin. Settle down,” she called out, then returned her gaze to her book.

Her words had no visible effect on the children, who continued begging their aunt to play with them. Another boy, maybe seven or eight, floated on a neon-blue air mattress a few feet deeper in the water. He splashed his arms vigorously to propel the mattress forward, calling for Shannon to admire his navigational skills.

A girl who appeared to be about the same age as the boy on the raft tossed a purple beach ball into the waves, then swam to retrieve it. Occasionally she threw it at Shannon, who caught it deftly and lobbed it back. Two other girls, obviously twins, whom James estimated to be about ten years old, played nearby, vying to see who could float the longest without dropping her legs. They called out regularly for Shannon to determine the winner.

All of the children surrounding her had some shade of red hair, he noted. There were a few other families playing in the designated swimming area of the popular central Arkansas lake, but they were farther down the beach, giving Shannon and her boisterous nieces and nephews plenty of room to frolic. Brightly colored buoys strung together with yellow cording marked off the generous swimming area, protecting it from the ski boats and fishing boats skimming past on the lake and leaving behind waves to delight the swimmers.

From somewhere behind James, another red-haired woman who resembled Shannon enough that she had to be an older sister, wandered up with a ginger-haired toddler on her hip. The woman wore a modest, one-piece black swimsuit; the baby sported a swim diaper. She set him down and let him splash in the shallow water lapping at the hauled-in sand that made up the beach area. “Kyle, don’t go too far out,” she called to the boy on the float.

He waved impatiently at her and paddled harder while she turned her attention back to the baby.

Resting his head against the collapsible lounge chair he’d brought with him, James shifted his dark glasses on his nose and crossed his legs at the ankles. He wore navy swim trunks and a thin, pale gray T-shirt. His beach sandals sat on the brown sand beside the chair and a warm breeze tickled his bare feet. Considering it was an August Saturday afternoon, the heat wasn’t too bad here by the waters of Greers Ferry Lake. He’d already had a long swim along the buoy line and had spent the past two hours resting, sipping bottled water and reading, though he’d brought a medical textbook rather than the usual beach read.

It had been pure impulse that made him toss the chair and a cooler of bottled water and sandwiches into his car and make the hour-long drive from his condo to the lake. A free Saturday was so rare in his schedule these days that he’d figured he had to do something to celebrate. He could have invited some of his friends to come with him, but he figured they were all busy on such short notice. His only friends these days were fellow medical students—specifically, the four other members of the study group he’d joined three years earlier.

He knew Anne’s husband was in town and, since Liam traveled extensively, they would want to spend every spare minute together. Connor spent free weekends with his wife and almost-nine-year-old daughter. Newlyweds Haley and Ron were busily looking into residency programs in places that interested them both. Between those commitments and their hectic schedules as fourth-year medical students, none of them had much spare time. They were rarely able to take off on impulse.

He’d awakened that morning with a restless desire to get outside the confines of the hospital and his condo. The lake had been the first destination to pop into his head. He’d attended a class barbecue here in July, and he’d had such a nice time he decided to recapture the lazy good mood that day had inspired.

He quickly discovered it wasn’t quite the same being here by himself. He’d had a pleasant day, but when he’d realized he was surrounded by families and groups of teenagers, he had become aware of his solitude. He was well accustomed to spending time alone and was content with his own company for the most part, but he supposed he’d become a bit spoiled by belonging to a tightly-knit group for the past three years—the first time in his almost thirty years he’d felt that close to anyone.

Maybe that was part of the reason he’d been so entertained watching the attractive Shannon and her family. Safely camouflaged behind the lenses of his dark glasses in his shady nook, he’d watched them play since they’d descended on the beach almost an hour earlier. At first he thought she might be the mother of some of the redheaded kids, but he’d since decided none of them were hers.

“Hey, Karen,” she called to the woman with the book. “Tell my lazy brother to wake up and come play with us. Come on, Stu, get in the water.”

The man dozing on the towel grumbled.

“Come swim with us, Daddy,” the little boy Shannon had been tossing called out.

Stu sat up with exaggerated reluctance, stretching and yawning. At the water’s edge, the toddler tripped and fell face-first into the wet sand, resulting in a wail that got everyone’s attention. His mother righted him quickly, dusting off his chubby little legs and splashing water to divert him from his cries. “He’s okay. Just startled him,” she said.

Reassured, the others again started badgering Stu to join them in the water, everyone looking his way and laughing now.

James glanced idly past Shannon. Out by the buoys in the deeper water, the blue air mattress bobbed on the wake of a passing ski boat. Just as he straightened in his chair to look more closely, he saw a small red head emerge beside the floating mattress, then go beneath the water again, one hand flailing above the surface.

Tossing his sunglasses aside, he leaped from his chair. Dashing past the startled mother and toddler, he dived into the water just beyond where Shannon stood, striking out for the mattress with long, distance-eating strokes. He’d been out there earlier and he knew the water was a good twelve feet deep at the buoy line.

He heard someone scream behind him. Heard a woman yell, “Kyle!” Heard a splash and sensed someone following him through the choppy water, but his focus was on the empty float and the spot where he’d last seen the boy.

Drawing a deep breath, he ducked beneath the surface, peering into the sediment-filled lake water and seeing nothing. He came back up for a quick gulp of air, then went back under, swinging his arms wide in hope of finding…

There. His fingers closed around wet skin. A flailing leg caught him in the stomach hard enough to make bubbles escape his mouth. Ignoring the pain, he grabbed hold of hair and skin and kicked upward, hauling the boy with him.

He gasped for air. Then released his breath in a sigh of relief when he heard the child in his grasp coughing and sputtering.

“Kyle!” Shannon swam up to them, her expression horrified. “Are you all right?”

The boy was trying not to cry, but not succeeding very well. “I fell off the float,” he said, his words broken by racking coughs as James supported him. “I swallowed some water and I choked and I couldn’t start swimming.”

“Let’s get him on the float and tow him in,” James suggested, his arms still wrapped around the boy’s chest as he treaded water for both of them.

Shannon nodded and looked toward the bank. “He’s okay,” she shouted toward the crowd that had gathered to watch anxiously from the beach. “We’re bringing him in.”

Bobbing in the water, she grabbed one end of the rubber float. “I’ll steady this while you get him on it.”

James nodded and looked at the boy, who had almost stopped coughing but began to look a little ill. “You’ll be fine, Kyle,” he assured him. “I’m going to hoist you onto your mattress, okay? Can you help steady yourself?”

Kyle nodded weakly. “I can swim,” he muttered, clinging to what little pride he had left. “I just choked on some water.”

“That happens sometimes,” James replied matter-of-factly. “Okay, on three. One, two, three.”

With the final count, he lifted the kid up and onto the mattress. While Shannon kept the float from tilting, Kyle grabbed the edges to keep his balance until it stopped rocking. Confident the boy wouldn’t fall off again, James took hold of the rope attached to the top and struck out for the shore with Shannon swimming steadily on the other side of the mattress.

Leaving all the other kids on the shore, herded over by the woman who’d been reading earlier, Stu waded out to meet them as soon as their feet touched solid ground. Well, James’s feet touched. Being several inches shorter, Shannon had to swim a little farther before she could stand.

“You okay, Kyle?” Stu asked the boy.

“I’m okay, Uncle Stu,” Kyle murmured, looking both weary and mortified.

The mother of the toddler thrust her youngest child into the other woman’s arms and dashed out to knee-deep water to clutch Kyle as Stu lifted him off the mattress. “You’re okay, baby? You’re sure you’re okay?” she asked, patting him down as though looking for injuries.

“I’m okay,” Kyle repeated, squirming. “Geez, Mom, don’t call me ‘baby’ in front of everyone.”

Now that her fears were somewhat relieved, fear turned to anger. “I told you not to go out that far. What were you thinking?” she scolded.

The boy’s pouting lips were turning blue and he was beginning to shiver as his own emotional reactions flooded through him.

“You should probably get him out of the water and wrap him in a towel,” James advised. “Don’t want him to go into shock.”

The calm advice brought everyone out of their panic-driven paralysis. Stu carried the boy to shore, where his mother grabbed a large, thick beach towel imprinted with cartoon superheroes and wrapped him snugly inside it. The non-related bystanders who’d gathered to gawk wandered back to their own pursuits, leaving the family gathered around Kyle.

“Kyle drownded,” one of the younger kids said in awe.

“He didn’t drown,” Shannon said firmly. “He just came much too close.”

Turning to James then, she gazed up at him with liquid green eyes. “I don’t want to think about what might have happened if you hadn’t been here. We thought we were watching them all so carefully.”

The faint tug of familiarity nagged him again. Had he seen her somewhere before? She gave no sign of recognizing him.

“It’s easy for kids to slip under the radar,” he replied, thinking of the cases he’d seen in the emergency room when he’d done his pediatrics rotation last year. Many of the children brought in there had been injured when their adult supervisors had turned their backs only for a few moments.

Scooping her wet red hair away from her face, she grimaced. “We weren’t careful enough,” she said in self-recrimination. “Kyle really does swim well, and I guess we—I—thought he was okay on his float. I didn’t realize he’d drifted so far out, or that he would fall off and be too startled to remember his swim training.”

Drawing a deep, unsteady breath, she stuck out her dripping right hand. “I’m Shannon Gambill. Thank you for saving my nephew.”

He wrapped his fingers around her hand. The feel of wet skin to wet skin was as pleasurable as it was somewhat unsettling. “James Stillman. It’s nice to meet you, Shannon.”

Shannon had been aware of the man watching her while she’d played with her nieces and nephews. Not in a creepy sort of way—and she had well-developed creep-dar. He looked like a man who was using a day off to do some rather heavy reading, judging from the size of the book he’d perused. Maybe just escaping from drudgery for a few hours. She liked to go off on her own sometimes to recharge her batteries and think in blessed solitude. She’d assumed he was doing something similar since he didn’t seem to be accompanied by anyone.

Her older sister, Stacy, finally stopped hovering over Kyle to thank his rescuer. With typical exuberance, she threw her arms around James’s middle, saying, “Thank you so much for saving my son. You’re a true hero.”

Shannon was rather amused by the “hero’s” dumbstruck expression. It was obvious he wasn’t accustomed to being embraced by tearful strangers. Somewhat awkwardly, he patted Stacy’s shoulder, then carefully disentangled himself.

“Anyone would have done the same,” he assured her in a self-conscious mumble. “I just happened to notice the boy was in trouble.”

Her green eyes shining, Stacy shook her red head stubbornly and gazed up at him with an unsteady smile. “You were amazing. The way you just dived in and swam out there to save him… You should be given a medal or something.”

James’s cheeks were rather pink now. He glanced at Shannon as if begging for rescue, himself.

Smiling, she took pity on him, stepping forward to nudge her sister gently back a few inches. “This grateful mother is my sister, Stacy Malone. The twins are her oldest daughters, Briley and Baylee. You’ve met her son Kyle, of course, and the little one is Sammy.”

Stacy reached out to clutch James’s arm again. “I wish my husband, J.P., was here to thank you, too. He’s working today, so he couldn’t join us, but I know he’d want to express his gratitude for what you did for our family.”

James cleared his throat. “Um—”

Pushing his emotional sister aside, Stu stepped up to take her place, extending his right hand to James. “Stu Gambill—Stacy and Shannon’s older brother. It’s nice to meet you, James.”

Looking relieved by Stu’s matter-of-fact tone, James shook his hand. “The pleasure is mine.”

His rather old-fashioned phrasing matched the image Shannon was getting of him. She took pride in forming very accurate first impressions; it was almost a gift, as she’d bragged on more than one occasion. Maybe two or three years older than her own twenty-five years, he seemed very proper and scholarly, despite the muscles nicely defined by his wet T-shirt and swim trunks. Not shy, exactly, but reserved.

His hair was black, his eyes the color of rich, dark chocolate. His features were classically handsome—too masculine to be called “pretty,” but definitely appealing. Not quite her type—even if he was extremely attractive—but he seemed nice, nonetheless.

Did he look just a little familiar? If so, she couldn’t remember why.

Stu motioned to the woman at his side. “This is my wife, Karen. Our kids—Ginny, Jack and Caitlin. We’re what you might call a prolific family,” he added with a chuckle, waving toward the noisy cluster of siblings and cousins.

“Speak for yourself,” Shannon murmured, drawing a glance from James.

“Can we go back in the water now?” Ginny asked, clutching her purple beach ball and edging toward the shoreline. Her cousin’s misadventure was already consigned to a dramatic memory.

Kyle’s teeth had stopped chattering and Shannon was relieved to see his color was almost back to normal. The freckles across his cheeks no longer stood out as dramatically as they had when he’d been pulled from the water, pale and panic-stricken. She wouldn’t forget that look for a while, she thought with a hard swallow.

“I want to swim, too,” Kyle insisted, squirming out of the towel his mother had wrapped so tightly around him he could hardly move. Shannon suspected he wanted to prove to everyone that his near-drowning hadn’t made him afraid to go back in the water. Kyle’s innate recklessness was the bane of his harried mother’s existence.

“No more swimming right now,” Stu proclaimed. “It’s almost time to eat,” he added, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the chorus of protests. “I bet Grandpa and Uncle Lou have already got the coals heating back at the picnic area.”

“And don’t forget we’re having homemade ice cream for dessert,” Karen reminded them.

That was enough to divert the kids’ attention from water sports. They snatched up towels, toys and shoes in preparation to return to the picnic area.

“Are you by yourself today?” Shannon asked James.

He nodded. “Rare day off. It seemed like a good time to swim and read.”

Exactly as she’d surmised, she thought smugly. “My family’s having a cookout. We always have enough food for at least a dozen extra people. We would love to have you join us for burgers and ice cream.”

He looked startled again by the impulsive invitation, but Stacy jumped on the suggestion immediately. “Oh, yes, please do, James. Our parents would love to meet you.”

“Oh, but I—”

“Our family’s a little crazy, but a fun bunch,” Stu chimed in. “If you don’t mind sharing burgers with a few bees and a gang of rug rats, you’d be welcome.”

“No bees,” eight-year-old Ginny announced confidently. “Grandpa brought Cinderella candles.”

“Citronella,” Karen corrected her daughter with a smothered smile.

“I wouldn’t want to intrude,” James said.

Studying his face, Shannon thought he looked tempted by the invitation, even though he seemed to feel obliged to demur. That was all the impetus she needed to smile up at him and urge, “It wouldn’t be an intrusion at all. Our family loves making new friends. And after what you’ve done for us, we consider you a friend already.”

He pushed a hand through his wet, black hair, his dark eyes steady on her face. “Then I would be pleased to accept. On one condition. You have to stop thanking me. I was happy to be of assistance, but any of you would have done the same thing if you’d seen a boy in trouble.”

She laughed. “Well, you’ll probably have to endure my parents’ expressions of gratitude when they hear the story, but after that I promise we’ll drop the hero treatment, if you like.”

“I’d like,” he agreed with a faint smile.

She stuck out her hand. “Deal.”

His eyes glinting with amusement, he shook her hand again. Once again, she was aware of an odd tingling when they made skin-to-skin contact. She’d thought that was only an anomaly the first time. No surprise, really, she assured herself. After all, the guy was good-looking. And his long-lashed eyes were striking enough to make a healthy young woman’s heart flutter a little.

She was a healthy young woman.

His fingers tightened for only a moment around hers—as if she weren’t the only one aware of a spark between them—but then he released her and stepped back, his expression politely neutral again. “I’ll get my things.”

The others went ahead toward the picnic area, the three adults shepherding the seven children up the asphalt road, a task Shannon silently compared to herding cats. Slipping her feet into her sandals, she drew a loose, thin, white cover-up over her bikini. The sleeveless, thigh-length garment clung a bit to her damp suit, but it was cool, comfortable and modest enough to satisfy her mother and aunt.

She towel-dried her collar-length curls while James donned his sandals, draped a towel around the neck of his wet T-shirt and folded his chair. He tucked the chair beneath one arm, then picked up the small cooler and thick book that had been sitting beside it.

“I’ll drop these things off at my car,” he said. “It’s parked at the edge of the day area. I have some dry clothing in the car. I’d like to change before eating.”

“Of course. The changing rooms aren’t far from the tables we’ve claimed.” Imitating him, she looped her towel around her neck to free her hands. “Can I help you carry something?”

“That’s not necessary. I’ve—”

But she had already relieved him of the heavy hardcover tome as she fell into step beside him toward the parking lot. She discovered in surprise that it was a medical reference book. “Textbook of Infectious Diseases?” she asked in surprise. “Holy kamoley. You consider this beach reading?”

Amused by her wording, he shrugged. “It’s the only thing I have time to read at the moment.”

“You’re a doctor?”

“Medical student,” he corrected her. “Just started my fourth year.”

“Oh.” She wouldn’t have been surprised had he said he was a doctor, because she’d pegged him as a professional man from the start, but she hadn’t expected him to still be in school. “Is medical school as tough as everyone says?”

“It’s challenging,” he said neutrally.

She would be willing to bet he was at the top of his class, and that the material came more easily to him than to others. He had an air of quiet competence that made her think he didn’t often fail at anything he attempted. She’d bet he was the single-minded, long-term-planning, never-give-up type, too.

She watched as he placed his folding chair into the back-seat of a sleek, expensive hybrid car and drew out a small, designer-label duffel bag. Money, she decided immediately. A social conscience, but no worries about paying his bills. Privileged background—private schools? Lifelong country-club membership? Social-register girlfriends?

Okay, maybe she was getting a little carried away with her predilection for making sweeping assumptions based on early impressions, she decided, reining in her imaginings. Her family had warned her she was going to be disappointed or even hurt someday when one of her first impressions turned out to be way off the mark. But because she believed at least most of her guesses about James were close to reality that meant they couldn’t be less suited. She kept her smile friendly rather than flirty when she handed him his textbook and told him she would meet him at the picnic area after he’d changed into his dry clothes.

James needn’t have worried about finding Shannon’s family after he changed into a green polo shirt and khaki cargo shorts. He spotted the clan as soon as he walked into the day-use area of the surrounding wooded campgrounds. They had claimed two picnic tables and a charcoal grill, from which smoke was streaming.

It was immediately obvious that he was expected. As soon as he appeared, a woman who looked like an older, blonde version of Shannon and Stacy dashed forward to greet him, holding out both hands in welcome. She caught his hands in hers, squeezing as though she would really prefer to be hugging him, the way Stacy had earlier. “Thank you so much for saving my grandson. Our family owes you such a huge debt of gratitude.”

He’d braced himself for this, but it didn’t make it any easier. He wasn’t at all comfortable being treated like a hero just for doing what anyone else would have done under the circumstances. For that matter, one of the other adults would probably have seen Kyle’s predicament only a moment or two after James had. He was just glad he’d been able to help.

“Okay, Mom, you’ve embarrassed James enough,” Shannon said, fondly nudging her mother back a few inches. “Let Dad thank him and then we’re going to cut the man some slack and let him eat a burger in peace.”

A man with a ring of hair that might once have been red circling a glossy bald head stepped forward to offer a hand to James. “Hollis Gambill. Consider yourself thanked again.”

The man’s calm, but sincere tone reminded James of Stu. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“Call me Hollis. You answer to James or Jim?”

“Either, but I generally prefer James.”

Hollis nodded, apparently making a mental note of the preference as he motioned toward the people crowding around him. “This is my wife, Virginia. And my brother, Lou, and his wife, Lois.”

Hands were shaken all around and then James was towed toward the picnic tables, where the adults he’d met at the swimming area were all either cooking, setting out supplies for dinner, or supervising the seven children making noisy use of the nearby playground equipment. Stacy was one of the supervisors and she barely took her eyes off Kyle. James suspected that young man’s adventures were going to be closely monitored for the foreseeable future.

He offered his assistance with the dinner preparations, but was assured everything was under control. “Shannon, get your guest something cold to drink,” her mother ordered. “The food will be ready in just a minute.”

“Our guest, Mom,” Shannon corrected in a murmur. “What would you like, James? We have beer, bottled water, diet cola, fruit juices….”

He interrupted with a chuckle. “Bottled water will be fine. Thanks.”

She handed him a plastic bottle with a teasing, “Here you go, Doc.”

“Doc?” Her aunt Lois set down a stack of paper plates and studied James from the other side of the concrete picnic table where he’d been urged to have a seat. “You’re a doctor?”

“A medical student,” he corrected. “Fourth year.”

She waved a hand dismissively. “Can you write me a prescription for those little yellow pills that perk me up when I’m feeling peckish? My doctor at home is being a real fuddy-duddy and he won’t let me have any more, but I told him I don’t overuse them. I just like to have them around when I need them.”

Though he’d been warned it could happen, it was the first time he’d actually been hit up for a prescription. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mrs. Gambill. As a medical student, I’m not allowed to write prescriptions.”

“Honestly, Lois,” Shannon’s mother scolded her sister-in-law. “This nice young man is going to think you’re a druggy. Don’t go pestering him for pills.”

“But I—”

“I’m sorry if Lois put you on the spot,” Virginia continued to James, ignoring Lois’s protests. “She isn’t really a drug addict.”

He struggled against a smile. “I didn’t think so.”

Virginia turned then to her daughter-in-law. “Karen, you should have the doctor look at that rash on Caitlin’s back and tummy. Maybe he’d know what’s causing it.”

“I’m not a doctor yet,” he reiterated. “I’m a medical student.”

“Bet you’ve seen a few rashes, though, haven’t you?”

“Well, I—”

“Caitlin. Come see Grammy, sweetie.”

“But I—”

“We did warn you the family’s crazy,” Shannon murmured, standing close behind him and not even bothering to hide a wry grin.

Because he wasn’t sure what to say in response to that, he didn’t even try. Little Caitlin, the five-year-old with hair that glowed almost neon orange, dutifully lifted her shirt upon her grandmother’s instructions, baring her tummy to James’s reluctant eyes. A blotchy pink rash splashed her skin, extending to her back when she turned around. James was relieved when they merely told him it was also on her bottom, rather than stripping her down to prove it.

“It doesn’t really look like heat rash to me,” Shannon’s mother fretted. “And it’s definitely not measles or chicken pox, because she’s had her vaccinations. I know what they look like, anyway. What do you think?”

“Probably not heat rash,” James agreed, trying to recall his days in the outpatient peds clinic. “It looks like contact dermatitis to me. Have you changed laundry detergents lately?”

“No,” Karen replied, straightening her daughter’s clothes. “I’ve used the same one since she was born.”

“I noticed the rash is only where her clothing touches,” he explained.

Everyone looked at the child, nodding to agree with his comment.

“Actually, Stu’s been doing the laundry this week,” Karen said thoughtfully, looking toward her husband. “I’ve been busy with other things. Stu?”

Turning from the smoking grill, her husband asked, “You need something, honey?”

“You’ve been using the regular laundry detergent this week, haven’t you?”

“Sure. Same kind we’ve always used,” he replied.

Virginia sighed in disappointment that their guest had been proven wrong.

“It was only a guess,” James said with a slight shrug. “I’m afraid I don’t know what’s causing the—”

“I did change fabric softeners, though,” Stu called out. “We ran out and another brand was on sale. Smelled good, so I thought I’d try it.”

Virginia beamed at James. “Well, there you go. She’s allergic to the fabric softener.”

“A sensitivity to it, perhaps. Probably not a true allergy,” he said.

Caitlin had already dashed off to play with her siblings and cousins again, her fun unimpeded by the rash that had concerned the adults.

“That was very clever of you,” Lois said to James, patting his shoulder approvingly. “Are you sure you can’t prescribe my little pills?”

“I’m sure, Mrs. Gambill.”

“Oh, call her Lois,” Virginia ordered. “And I’m Virginia. If you say Mrs. Gambill, Lois and Karen and I are all likely to answer.”

“Meat’s ready,” Hollis announced, setting a huge tray of steaming burgers and franks in the center of the table. “Stacy, you and Karen go ahead and fix the kids’ plates and let them start eating so the rest of us can enjoy our dinners.”

“Sit by your guest, Shannon,” her mother ordered, motioning toward the bench beside James. “You’re in the way here.”

Shannon heaved a sigh and moved to slide onto the bench beside him. “You’re in for it now,” she warned him in a low voice, her smile both mischievous and contagious. “Not only are you the hero who saved my nephew, you’re a doctor. I should warn you that the whole family will try to fix us up during the meal.”

“Fix us up?” he repeated.

“Yeah. They’ve been trying for months to match me up with someone. After all, I had my twenty-fifth birthday last spring, and I’m single and unattached—which, you can probably tell, is unheard of in this family of early breeders. You must look like a prize stud to them.”

Her blunt phrasing took him aback for a moment, but then she laughed. Her green eyes sparkled with humor and her grin was an invitation to share a secret joke with her.

It was an offer he couldn’t resist. He laughed, too, earning them approving smiles from Shannon’s mother and aunt. This, of course, only made them laugh harder.

James couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d laughed out loud like this. It felt pretty damned good, he decided, still smiling when he turned to the heaping plate of food his hosts nudged encouragingly toward him.