The Doctor's Daughter. Judith Bowen
what would he know about child care or baby-sitters? His niece, Tammy, was arriving Sunday and he’d find out soon enough how much was involved in looking after children.
Lucas dropped her and Robert off at her parents’ house at the top of the hill, insisting that he’d get a friend to help him unload the bunk beds at his old apartment. After that, he said, he’d have his hands full getting settled into his new place. He seemed about to add something else—had he been going to ask her to help?—but apparently thought better of it. She was amazed to realize she felt let down that he didn’t ask. It would’ve been fun helping him arrange his furniture, and a way to pay him back a little for the outing they’d had today.
Robert wanted to in the hammock that hung between two huge linden trees at the back of the Lake property, so Virginia went in through the kitchen door. She heard murmurs from the sitting room when she entered the house. Her mother must have company.
She’d paused to open the refrigerator door to inspect the contents for a cold drink when she heard the raised voice of her aunt Lily beyond the swinging doors of the kitchen.
“But, Doris, you have to insist she tell you who the boy’s father is. I know Virginia’s headstrong—she’s always been a handful—and I realize what you and Jethro have had to put up with over the years, but don’t you see? People are already asking. What am I supposed to tell them? That no one knows?”
She heard her mother’s soft, fretful reply and suddenly Virginia lost her thirst. She shut the refrigerator door quietly and went up the back stairs to the room she and Robert were sharing.
Busybodies. All of them. Especially Aunt Lily. What if Robert had overheard that remark? Virginia felt her face flush. They made her so mad. What business was it of theirs? What was it about small towns that made everyone so dam nosy? It’d been like that when she was a girl here, and apparently nothing had changed.
Had she expected it would have changed?
No. Lucas had said, “Who really cares, except Robert?” Maybe Lucas believed that. But Glory was the same as it had always been. She was sure unmarried pregnant girls were still said to have gone to the city to take a hairdressing course, or gone to stay with a distant aunt to go to school.
Some things never changed. But she had. And the town of Glory would realize that soon enough.
CHAPTER FIVE
LUCAS STEPPED OVER a cardboard box and nodded to one of Gus McCready’s employees, who was just clearing up the last of the paint, brushes, rollers and drop cloths, ready to leave after a week spent painting the place. Another employee had already carried ladders to the van.
The house looked terrific. Lucas took a deep breath, noting the pungent fumes of the last coat of cream semigloss that had been applied to the woodwork. The walls were a soft sage green throughout, with a deep mustard for his study on the main floor, room that had once served as a bedroom for the Murphy family. The kitchen walls had been painted a soft butterscotch color with the kitchen cupboards, doors and framework all done in the same cream color as the woodwork in the rest of the house. The Portuguese tile countertop and black-and-white-checkered vinyl floor were new and shining.
Lucas had always been drawn to color. He wasn’t sure if it was his native ancestry or just a personal preference, but color always made him feel good, and he wanted to feel good in this big Second Avenue house he’d bought. This was home now.
Lucas made his way up the broad staircase. He’d had the hardwood floors refinished on both levels, and the deep walnut tones gleamed in the latemorning sunlight. Upstairs, the four bedrooms were all painted in an off-white, except for his, which was a restful but rich café au lait, again with the cream woodwork. A small Oriental carpet added a touch of luxury. He was glad he’d bought the bedroom furniture at an auction when he’d first moved to Glory and kept it in storage while he lived at Mrs. Vandenbroek’s. Now, polished and sturdy, the old-Ontario armoire and dresser and chest of drawers fit into the room perfectly. The matching double bed was going into one of the bedrooms, which he planned to use as a guest room. Antique or not, Lucas had no intention of squeezing his six-foot-three frame into an old-fashioned double bed. A king-size model was coming this afternoon, along with the other furniture he’d ordered from Cooper’s.
Lucas strode into the en suite bathroom, which one of McCready’s crews had converted from a small bedroom or sewing room. Now the room was ready, complete with modern fixtures and ceramic tiles. Lucas felt something he’d never really felt before as he looked over his new home. Pride. Pride of ownership.
The house was too big for one person, no question. It had been the Murphy-family home for three generations. A lot of kids had grown up here, slid down the banisters, played in the attic, swung from the trees in the backyard.
Tammy would be here for a while, until Theresa was ready to take her back again. Who knew when that might be? Maybe he’d hire a housekeeper who could do the cooking and cleaning for him and his niece. And maybe one day he’d fill this house with his own children. It was a house that ached for family life. Lucas had enjoyed bachelorhood, but from time to time he felt that he should make a change. Get married. Settle down.
Somehow, Virginia Lake’s coming home to Glory had put the idea right back in his head.
That reminded him—he glanced at his watch—he’d promised her he’d put Robert’s bunk beds together after lunch. There wasn’t much to do, just fasten a few screws and do some assembly work on the ladder and headboards. He was happy to offer and even happier when she accepted. Her father could have done it or she could easily have done it herself if she’d borrowed a few of her dad’s tools, but he had the feeling Virginia didn’t get on too well with her folks. She seemed awfully anxious to move into his old apartment and get settled in with her son.
Lucas could see a person not getting on all that well with Doc Lake. He had to be close to retirement age, in his midsixties, but was still head of surgery at the Glory Memorial Hospital. He was tall, lean and iron-haired, and was said to have an uncompromising personality. Definitely he had a certain unassailable position in this town, as a senior doctor often did, regardless of his temper. Lucas had to admit his memories weren’t the best. Doc Lake had done all he could to blacken Lucas’s name around Glory when word had spread that he and Virginia had spent the night together after her graduation. It didn’t matter that his own daughter had told him nothing had happened or that Lucas had gone to his office and told him the same thing.
And even if something beyond a little moonwatching and stargazing and kissing had gone on, so what? It wasn’t as though the doctor’s daughter was the town virgin. Everyone knew how she’d carried on with Johnny Gagnon, and it wasn’t as though Lucas was from a part of town any worse than the Gagnon clan’s. Frankly it had irked the hell out of Lucas at the time, the doc’s attitude, considering Lucas had been well on his way to making something of himself.
Maybe some things were too hard to change—like a person’s skin color and the preconceived ideas of a small-town elite.
Well, those days were past, Lucas thought, whistling as he climbed into his pickup for the short ride over to Virginia’s new apartment. Now the town fathers were more than happy to have him date their daughters. Lucas didn’t harbor any grudges. He was too confident in his own abilities. But he had to admit he did enjoy their shocked expressions when he showed up in his BMW—ten years old but in perfect shape—with a big smile on his face and flowers for their womenfolk.
Virginia was at the apartment cleaning windows. She answered the door to his light knock—it seemed odd to be knocking at what still felt like his own door—dressed in shorts and a stained T-shirt, her hair tied back in a kerchief, her nose smudged with grime, her freckles vivid against her pale skin. She looked like a fairy-tale cleaning lady. Cinderella. He glanced down. Canvas sneakers. No glass slippers for this Cinderella—yet.
“Hey, didn’t think I’d catch you here,” he said, taking off his own sneakers at the kitchen door. He could smell fresh floor wax. “I’ll have Robert’s bed fixed in a jiffy.”
“I