Wild Honey. Veronica Sattler
hospital wouldn’t force you to cancel if they were short-staffed, would they?” Jill asked worriedly.
“Relax. I reminded Dr. Harper of it just yesterday, and all signals are go.”
“Good,” Jill said, “because I’ve got something to tell you with regard to those three weeks.”
“Shoot.”
“Well, David and I were discussing it, and we think it’s super that you’re doing this with Matt.” Jill paused, wanting to phrase this exactly right. Randi was an excellent mother, despite being a single parent with a career. She’d taken great pains, since Matt’s birth, to arrange her life to accommodate a child. No, not just accommodate. Matt was a priority in everything she did.
She hadn’t gone to work at all for the first year of her son’s life, dipping into her savings to support them. And when she went back to nursing, she frequently took night duty to allow her time with Matt during the day. Jill had helped, too.
As an interior decorator working out of her office at home, she’d been able to juggle her schedule; between the two sisters, they’d managed to raise Matt with very little outside assistance.
But as Jill saw it, there were problems lurking on the horizon. She worried about how Randi would manage after the wedding, when Jill left to make her home with David. She also worried her sister might actually be spending too much time with Matt, for every free moment revolved around the child. This hadn’t been a bad thing when Matt was an infant, but as he grew older, Jill feared Randi was in danger of overdoing it. A child needed love and affection as much as food to grow up whole and healthy; but just as too much food was a bad idea, so was too much affection; it could be smothering.
And the signs were already there. Randi’s concern for Matt bordered on the overprotective. She hired a sitter—even the older woman who lived up the block and whom they’d known for years—only as a last resort; when Jill couldn’t stay with Matt, Randi frequently canceled an engagement rather than leave him with someone else.
And Randi never spent recreational time alone; her vacations always included Matt. She didn’t seem to think she sometimes needed time for herself, to recharge her batteries.
So when Randi had mentioned this vacation on the Eastern Shore, Jill had discussed her concerns with David, and they’d come up with a plan.
“Listen, Randi,” she said, “Mart’s a great kid, and I know how much you wanna be with him. Still, wouldn’t you enjoy at least part of those three weeks by yourself?”
Randi blinked, looking bemused. “By myself? Whatever for? You know how much I—”
“—love Matt and adore spending quality time with him—I know, I know. But what about you? Didn’t you just admit to needing some R and R?”
“Sure, I did, and I intend to get it—with Matt.”
Jill sighed. “Come on, sis, get real. Matt’s a super kid, and we all love him to bits. But you know as well as I do he’s a real live wire. A weekend with him can wear you out. Where’s the rest in that, huh?”
“Jill, I just couldn’t leave him while I—”
“Not even for a trip to Disney World with me and David?”
There was a moment of silence as Randi took in Jill’s grinning face. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Never been more serious in my life. David and I are going there the week after next, and we’d like to take Matt.”
“But why? Aren’t engaged couples supposed to want, uh, time with each other?”
Jill shrugged. “We already have a lot of that, with both of us living in the same town and the ability to set our own work hours.” An architect who owned his own firm, David could arrange his schedule to suit Jill’s, so the two shared lots of their own quality time.
“And besides,” she added, “we need Matt.”
“Huh?”
Jill’s grin was ear to ear now. “What good is a trip to Disney World without a little kid along to help you enjoy it? It’d be almost as bad as Christmas without children. We need kids for these things—to keep the magic in them.”
Randi shook her head and smiled, despite her reluctance to accept the proposal. Vacation without Matt? She’d feel…naked somehow. Hadn’t she rearranged her life to include her son wherever she could?
“Aw, come on, sis,” Jill pressed. “This would be a terrific opportunity for the kid, and you know it!”
Chuckling, Randi addressed an invisible witness. “Now she appeals to my conscience. You’re a rat, Jill the pill.”
Jill laughed unabashedly. Randi was weakening and she knew it. “Furthermore,” she added, “it isn’t as if you’d be missing beach time with Matt entirely. He’d go with you for the first week. Then we’d pick him up at the cottage and drive to Florida with him, while you get the rest you need.”
Randi sighed. It made perfect sense. Which, of course, coming from Jill, was to be expected. Jill had always been the sensible one, even as a child, whereas Randi had been the dreamer. As a child. When had she stopped? Somewhere on the road to adulthood, she supposed. Dreams were all well and good, but they didn’t put food on the table or clothes on your child. And they didn’t protect you from—
“Randi?” Jill’s concerned voice cut across Randi’s thoughts. “What’s the matter, sis? You looked awfully worried there for a moment. Did I say something?”
“You sure did, you sneak. Everything needed to convince me I’d be a selfish meanie not to agree to your plan.”
“Does that mean…”
“You win! Matt goes to Disney World—and I go crazy for two weeks, trying to occupy myself without him.”
‘Oh, I don’t know,” Jill said as she jumped up to hug her. “A little crazy might be just what the doctor ordered.”
But as Randi hugged her back, Jill’s words triggered an image. Doctor… Travis McLean, former med student, was now certainly a doctor, though in what capacity she hadn’t found out. Travis McLean…Matt’s father. What would it have been like for Matt to have known him? she wondered. To have his mother and father show him Disney World, instead of an aunt and her fiancé?
With an inward sigh, she swept these questions from her mind. It was too late to worry about such things. But as she and Jill began to discuss the forthcoming vacation, a remnant of unease remained….
TRAVIS GUIDED his rental car along the narrow shaded streets of Georgetown’s Heights section. He ignored the stately homes with their manicured lawns and picturesque gardens that made up the posh residential neighborhood. He’d seen it before. One of those homes belonged to his family. But no McLean was in residence now. They always went to their Virginia estate in June, staying through September to escape Washington’s notorious summer heat.
Not that he’d drop by if they were here. He was persona non grata with the lofty McLean clan, thanks to his spiteful tyrant of a father, and there was nothing to be done about it. In his own way, your father loves you… Travis’s mouth twisted angrily as Judith McLean’s words echoed through his mind. If that was love, he was damned lucky to have escaped it.
His features steadied with resolve when he spied the entrance to Georgetown University up ahead. His mother had mentioned that Sarah was taking summer courses. With the aim, he supposed, of finishing in three years. He found himself grinning. His sister was a straight-A student with energy to burn. Just like her to be in a hurry!
The