A Child Under His Tree Read online

  Tyler scrunched his face and swung his leg a few more times before nodding. She set the thin coloring book on the table beside him and rummaged in her purse again until she found the plastic baggie full of the washable markers he preferred over crayons. “Which color first?”

  “Red.”

  She extracted the red marker and handed it to him. She knew from experience that if she gave him the entire pen collection, he’d have them scattered everywhere within seconds and she wasn’t particularly in the mood to scramble around the floor in her dress and high heels picking them up. She would have changed out of the outfit she’d worn to the lawyer’s office if there had been time before Tyler’s appointment. But they’d worked him into the schedule as a favor when they could have just as easily referred him to the hospital to have his cast repaired.

  “Was I born yet?”

  “Were you born yet when?”

  “When you used to work here.” He stretched out on his stomach and attacked the robot on the page with his red pen.

  “You were born in Idaho, remember?”

  He giggled. “I don’t remember being born.”

  “Smarty-pants.” She pushed the jackets over the back of the chair and sat. “I worked for Dr. Cobb before I moved to Idaho. Before you were born. Before I became a nurse.”

  “What was Grandma Gette?”

  “Grandma Georgette had the farm,” she reminded him calmly. Small as it had been. Her mother had grown vegetables and raised chickens, though the lawyer had told Kelly the chickens had gone by the wayside a few years earlier. Which explained the broken-down state of the coops now. “The bedroom you slept in last night was my bedroom when I was your age.” She hadn’t been able to make herself use her mother’s room. Instead, she’d slept on the couch. It was the same couch from her childhood, with the same lumps.

  “But then we went to Idaho.”

  “Yes.” It had been one of the best decisions she’d ever made in her life. She held up the baggie. “Want another color yet?”

  He stuck the tip of his tongue in the corner of his mouth, considering. “Green.”

  They exchanged the markers. “Your robot is going to look like a Christmas robot.”

  He grinned, clearly liking that idea. “Santa robot.” He held up his cracked cast. It, too, had started out a bright red. But in the weeks since he’d gotten it, the color and the various drawings and signatures on it had all faded considerably. “Santa’s gonna know where I am, right?”

  “Santa doesn’t come until Christmas. That’s almost two months away. We’ll be home long before then.”

  “Not before Halloween, though.”

  She shook her head. Halloween was less than a week away. “I don’t think so, buddy. I’m sorry.”

  “Gunnar’s gonna trick-or-treat without me.”

  “I know.” She rubbed Tyler’s back. “I’ll figure out something for us to do on Halloween.” It wouldn’t be answering the door to trick-or-treaters, that was certain. Even back when she’d been a kid, children didn’t voluntarily knock on Georgette Rasmussen’s door. Not unless they were on a dare or something.

  “I wish we didn’t have to come here.”

  “I know.” She propped her elbow on the table and rested her head on her hand. “I wish that, too. We’ll only be here in Weaver for a little while, though.”

  It felt like months since she’d had a moment to draw breath, when it had really only been three days since she’d gotten the call about her mother. One day to absorb the news that the woman she hadn’t spoken to in six long years had died of a sudden heart attack. One day to pack up and drive nine hours from Idaho Falls to Weaver, Wyoming. One day to meet Tom Hook, the attorney who’d contacted her in the first place.

  That’s the way she meant to continue. Dealing with things one day after another until she and Tyler could go back home where they belonged in Idaho. Then she could examine her feelings about losing the mother who’d never wanted to be her mother in the first place.

  She pushed away the thought and started to cross her legs, but the doorknob suddenly rattled and she heard muffled voices on the other side of the door. She sat up straighter and brushed Tyler’s hair back from his eyes again. “You’ll like Doc Cobb. He’s one of the nicest men I’ve ever known.”

  “Is that why my middle name is Cobb?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Considering everything her onetime boss had done for her, she should have stayed in better contact with him. She held up the baggie. “Put your marker away for now.”

  Tyler rolled onto his side and sat up but missed the bag when he dropped the marker. It rolled under the table.

  “Good aim, buddy,” she said wryly and crouched down to reach blindly beneath the metal base.

  She heard the door open behind her just as her fingertips found what she was looking for. “Sorry for the wait,” she heard as she quickly grabbed the marker.

  She was already smiling as she straightened and turned. “Doc—” The word caught in her throat, and all she could do was stare while everything inside her went hot.

  Then cold.

  Not because good old Doc Cobb, with his balding head, wildly wiry gray eyebrows and Santa-size belly was standing there.

  But because he wasn’t.

  Instead, the man facing her was six-plus feet of broad shoulders and very lean, un-Santa-like man. Sharply hewn jaw. Unsmiling mouth. Dark, uncommonly watchful eyes. Even darker hair brushed carelessly back from his face.

  Seeing Caleb Buchanan was like being punched in the solar plexus.

  She hadn’t seen him face-to-face in nearly six years. But there was no mistaking him now.

  And no mistaking the fact that—while she was blindsided at the sight of him here in Weaver, when he should have been a surgical resident somewhere else by now—he didn’t seem anywhere near as surprised by the sight of her.

  Well, duh, Kelly. Her name was written plainly in Tyler’s medical chart. How many Kelly Rasmussens could there be, particularly in the small town of Weaver?

  The young blonde nurse stepped between them as she rolled the cast saw unit into the room.

  Panic suddenly slid through Kelly’s veins and she snatched up their coats from the chair.

  “You can stay,” the nurse assured, looking as cheerful as ever. “The machine looks more intimidating than it really is.”

  Kelly’s mouth opened. But the assurance that she was perfectly comfortable with the saw stuck in her throat. She didn’t dare look at Caleb. And Tyler was starting to look alarmed.

  How could she explain to any of them her urgent need to flee?

  Caleb took a step past her, approaching the exam table. “I’m Dr. C, Tyler. We’ll have you fixed up in no time.”

  The nurse patted Kelly’s arm comfortingly as she moved the saw next to Caleb. “He’s going to cut off your cast and put the new one on,” she chirped. “Did you decide what color you want?”

  “Red.”

  “Again?”

  “I like red.”

  One part of Kelly’s brain observed the scene. The other part was imagining herself grabbing Tyler and running for the hills.

  “I was expecting Dr. Cobb,” she blurted.

  The nurse blinked, clearly surprised. Kelly felt an insane urge to laugh hysterically. The practice was still clearly Cobb Pediatrics. The sign on the outside of the building said so. When Kelly had called for an appointment, that was the greeting she’d received.

  “He’s on sabbatical,” Caleb said. “Put your coats down, Kelly. It’s been a long time, but you’re here and your son’s cast needs to be replaced.”

  Your son.

  She let out a careful breath, finally daring to glance his way as he set the medical chart on the counter next to the sink before flipping on the water to wash his ha
nds. He was wearing an unfastened white lab coat over blue jeans and an untucked black shirt. “How’d you break your cast, Tyler?”

  “Sliding down the banister at my mother’s house,” Kelly answered before Tyler could say a word. She knew it was silly not to want her son talking to Caleb, but she couldn’t help it. And she felt sure that Caleb would have already read the information the nurse had recorded in Tyler’s chart. “I would have taken him to the hospital if I’d known the doctor was away,” she said to the nurse.

  “No need for that.” Just as Kelly had spoken to the nurse, Caleb aimed his comment at Tyler. “Banisters are pretty cool. How’d you break your arm in the first place?”

  “Jumping out of a tree,” Kelly answered again. Even though it took her closer to Caleb than she wanted to be, she edged closer to Tyler. Every day that she looked at her boy, she could see his father in him. How could Caleb miss the similarities that were so obvious to her? “Sabbatical where?”

  “Florida,” the nurse provided. “Six more months yet. He’ll miss all of Weaver’s lovely winter.” She widened her eyes comically. “Poor guy.” She draped a blue pad over Tyler’s lap. “You’re lucky today,” she told him. “Dr. C is going to take your cast off himself. He doesn’t do that for just everyone.”

  Kelly’s nerves tightened even more. But she could see Tyler’s alarm growing as he stared at the saw. She dumped the coats on the chair again and rubbed her hand down his back. No matter what she felt inside, her son’s welfare was first and foremost. “It’s a special kind of saw, buddy. Only for cutting through casts. It won’t hurt a lick.”

  His eyes were the size of saucers. “How do you know?”

  “I had a broken wrist once, too. Remember I told you that?”

  “She did,” Caleb concurred. In a motion steeped in familiarity, he reached out his long arm and snagged two gloves from a box next to the sink. “She was fourteen years old.” As he worked his fingers into the blue gloves, she hated the fact that she noticed he wore no wedding ring. Not that the absence of one proved anything.

  Not that she cared, either way.

  The lie was so monumental she felt herself flushing.

  “Flew right over the handlebars of her bicycle,” he was saying. “Saw the whole thing. I’m sure your mom remembers that day very well, too.” His eyes snagged hers for the briefest of moments, and she looked away.

  The nurse handed him the saw. “This’ll be loud, Tyler, but your mom’s right. It won’t hurt,” Caleb said. He turned it on and the loud whine filled the room.

  Kelly didn’t want to, but she moved out of the way so he had more room to maneuver. Only then did she realize she was still clutching the plastic marker. She it inside her purse then moved back to the opposite corner near the door.

  The noise from the saw was short-lived. After only a few minutes, Caleb turned it off and handed it back to the nurse. Then he used the long-handled spreader to separate the gap he’d just cut in the fiberglass cast. “Doing okay there, Tyler?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Tyler was obviously over his alarm and watched as Caleb worked. “You knew my mom before I was born?”

  The knot in Kelly’s throat doubled in size.

  “Sure did.” He took up a pair of scissors and began snipping through the padding next to Tyler’s skin.

  “That was a long time ago, huh.”

  “Sure was.” Caleb flicked another glance her way. What he was thinking was anybody’s guess. As a young man, she’d been able to read every thought he had.

  Now his expression was completely unreadable.

  Could he recognize his own eyes looking up at him from Tyler’s face and not show any reaction at all?

  Then he focused on Tyler again as he pulled open the fiberglass cast and slid it gently away from Tyler’s forearm. “Still doing okay, buddy?”

  “His name is Tyler,” Kelly said tightly. She was the one who called her son “buddy.”

  “Tyler Cobb Rasmussen,” Tyler piped proudly. “That’s my whole name.”

  “Cobb!” The nurse exclaimed. “What a coincidence.”

  Hardly that. But Kelly had no desire to explain anything to the nurse. As it was, she wondered just how close Caleb and Doc Cobb had gotten over the years. Even though the elder physician had been the one to refer Kelly to a professional associate of his in Idaho Falls, she had never told him why she’d been so anxious to leave Weaver. Aside from her mother, Kelly had never told anyone in Weaver that she’d been pregnant when she’d left.

  She crossed her arms tightly and returned Caleb’s look with a hard-won impassive look of her own. Mentally daring him to make some comment. Some observation.

  But none came.

  Instead, with the nurse’s assistance, he had Tyler’s arm recast in short order. Leaving the young blonde to clean up the small mess that remained, Caleb threw away his gloves, washed his hands again and scribbled in the chart before holding it out for Kelly. She took it, but he didn’t immediately release it, and her nerves ratcheted tight all over again. She tugged a little harder on the chart and he finally released it.

  “I was sorry to hear about your mother.”

  Her jaw felt tight as she flipped open the chart to scan the contents. She wished she could find fault with the notes but couldn’t, so she closed the folder with a snap. She wanted to ask him why he was sorry, but that sounded too much like something her mother would have said. “Thank you.”

  She wondered if she imagined his faint sigh before he went on to explain that the nurse would give them information on cast care.

  “Think I’ve got that covered,” Kelly said.

  One corner of his mouth kicked up in an imitation of a grin. It wasn’t a real one. Despite the intervening years, she could still tell the difference between real and fake with him. He turned back to Tyler and stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Tyler Cobb Rasmussen.”

  She felt vaguely dizzy but her little boy giggled as he manfully shook the offered hand. “Nice to meet you, Dr. C.”

  “No more sliding down banisters, okay? At least for now.”

  Tyler nodded. “I promise.”

  Sure. Easy for Caleb to elicit the promise, whereas Kelly needed to be constantly on alert where her rambunctious, active son was concerned.

  Guilt squeezed her stomach. If she’d been better at her job, Tyler wouldn’t have been on that banister in the first place.

  And they could have avoided this trip to Doc Cobb’s office altogether.

  She rubbed at the pain between her eyebrows.

  “You all right?”

  She dropped her hand. She didn’t want or need Caleb’s concern. All she wanted was to escape unscathed with her son. “I’m fine.” She retrieved her purse from the chair in the corner and looped the leather strap over her shoulder before lifting Tyler off the table and handing him his jacket. She went ramrod stiff when Caleb cupped her shoulder. “It was good to see you.” The touch was as brief as it was light and shouldn’t have felt like it burned.

  Yet it did.

  Then he opened the door and left the room.

  Kelly could have collapsed with relief.

  “We all love Dr. C,” the nurse commented as she tore off the protective paper from the table and rolled out fresh. “He’s so great with the patients.” She smiled impishly. “And pretty great to look at, but don’t tell him I said so.”

  Kelly wrapped her fingers around her purse strap and clutched her own jacket to her waist. “How long has he been here?”

  “Almost a year now.”

  The nurse didn’t seem surprised by the question. But then she probably fielded lots of questions from single mothers about the handsome Dr. C. Kelly’s fingers tightened even more on the leather strap. “I’m surprised,” she mused casually. “I’d heard he was on the surgical track. D
idn’t even know he’d switched to pediatrics. Is he here permanently?”

  “We’re all hoping so.” It was hardly the definitive answer Kelly wanted, but the nurse pulled the door open wider as she led the way from the room, pushing the saw unit ahead of her. She smiled brightly at Tyler. “Take care of that cast like Dr. C said, okay?”

  “I will.” Tyler tucked his left hand in Kelly’s. “Can we have ice cream?”

  The vise around her nerve endings eased up as she looked down at his hopeful face. Everything she did in her life was worth it when it came to her precious boy.

  Even facing his unknowing father.

  She leaned over and kissed Tyler’s nose. “After dinner.”

  “When’s dinner?”

  “Trying to tell me you’re already hungry?”

  He nodded.

  She led him through the rabbit warren of hallways until they reached the exit where the billing desk was located. The white-haired woman sitting at the desk was a welcome sight. “Mary Goodwin! You’re still here? You were threatening retirement even when I used to work here.”

  The woman laughed. “I tried a few years ago. Went stir-crazy after only a few months and begged Doc Cobb to give me back my job. I heard you were back in town. Haven’t changed a single little bit, either. Still as pretty as a picture. How’s married life?”

  Kelly faltered. “Excuse me?”

  Mary looked awkward for a moment. “I... Nothing. You know how word gets around in these parts.” She focused quickly on the paperwork in the chart. “No follow-up appointment?”

  Kelly hesitated. Had Doc Cobb told people that she’d gotten married? It was far more likely that such a story had originated with her mom. Though for what purpose, Kelly couldn’t imagine. “We’re only here for a few weeks. I’ll take Tyler to his regular pediatrician back home when it’s time.” She handed over her credit card before pushing her arms into her jacket sleeves. “You can put the co-pay on that.”

  Mary ran the card. “I saw your mother’s obituary in The Weaver Weekly.” She set the card and the printed charge slip on the desk in front of Kelly. “My condolences.”