The Doctor's Secret Son. Deb Kastner

      Chapter One

      Medical emergencies were few and far between in Serendipity, Texas. Delia Rae Ivers wasn’t sure she’d ever readjust to the sleepy pace of the town where she’d been born. She hadn’t so much as visited for years, and now suddenly she was living and working here. After a busy emergency room setting at the Baltimore hospital she’d interned at, being a small-town doctor was going to take some getting used to.

       She leaned back in the leather chair behind her desk and stretched wearily. She was a doctor, not an accountant, and squinting at numbers for hours as she examined the small medical clinic’s financials and then entered them into her computer was not her idea of fun.

       “Riley, buddy, are you finished counting the gauze rolls?” she called to her son. They’d arrived in town only five days ago, and Riley hadn’t yet met any kids his age, so Delia had given him small tasks to do around the clinic to keep him busy and out from underneath his grandparents’ feet.

       “I’m done, Mom.” Riley peeked his head around the corner of the back office door and a lock of shaggy black hair flopped over his forehead. No matter how he tried to comb it, his thatch of hair stubbornly spiked hopelessly in every direction.

       “And the boxes of gloves? Did you get those, too?”

       “Yeah, I did.”

       Delia’s gaze dropped to the toy car her son was clasping in his left hand. Clearly he was getting bored counting medical inventory, and she couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t exactly the most exciting job in the world, especially for a nine-year-old boy. Gentle waves of love lapped in her heart. Riley was her world, and had been from the moment he was born.

       “I have another project for you,” she informed him, pinching back the smile that would give her away.

       Riley groaned. “Oh, Mom.”

       “I think you’ll like this.” She let her smile emerge. “You know that little alcove—room—in the back corner of the waiting room? The one that’s set up for kids to play in?”

       Riley nodded. His eyes glinted with interest, but she could tell his concentration was still focused on the car in his hand.

       “I bought a video game system and a small television to hook up in there so the older kids have something to do while they wait.”

       “Way cool!”

       She chuckled. Now she knew she had her son’s full attention.

       “I need to get it hooked up. Think you can do that for me?”

       At age nine, Riley was heads-and-tails above Delia in the electronics department. When it came to video games and televisions, and even computers, he already knew more than she ever would. She had no doubt that he’d have the system up and running in no time. As she’d said, it was for the kids; but most especially, it was for Riley. She knew there’d be times he would be stuck at the clinic waiting for his mom to finish work. Now he’d have something to keep him occupied.

       “The TV and the video system are already in the room, so whenever you’re ready…” Her sentence drifted to a halt as Riley sprinted from the room. Delia smiled.

       Poor Riley hadn’t wanted to move, especially two weeks before Christmas and Delia couldn’t say that she blamed him. This wouldn’t have been her first choice, either—or any choice, for that matter. But her mother, with her worsening multiple sclerosis, needed the kind of care only a nursing facility could give her—or a live-in doctor.

       Delia had the right training. Could she do any less for the family she loved?

       She’d soon discovered she was needed in other ways, too. Her email had been overflowing since she’d announced her return. Friends were quick to remind her that old Doc Severns had retired a few months back, and the entire town was without a practicing M.D. Serendipity’s clinic had been closed. Now that Delia had moved back, she intended to take over the practice. Not only would she be able to help her own mother, but she could also make a real difference in the community—to the friends and neighbors she’d grown up with and still cared about.

       She sighed and brushed her long, straight black hair back with her fingers. Even with all of the dynamic changes in her life, it wasn’t so much the future that weighed so heavily on her mind.

       It was the past.

      Zach Bowden, to be precise.

       Serendipity’s own James Dean in faded jeans and a white T-shirt, with dreamy poet eyes and bad boy ways. Trouble with a capital T. The man she’d left behind but had never forgotten. The only man who’d ever completely captured her heart.

       And her worst nightmare.

       Zach was the reason Delia had left town so suddenly all those years ago, and he was the reason she’d never returned to Serendipity, not even to visit. Even with all the time that had passed, he was the reason she was having such a hard time concentrating on the books. She couldn’t get him out of her mind.

       Serendipity was a very small town. Sooner or later the two of them would cross paths, and when they did, Delia had no doubt that her life would go into a tailspin.

       So, for that matter, would Zach’s, when he found out the truth about why she’d stayed away.

       And Riley?

       Her decision to move home had everything to do with her son, who had recently started asking tough questions about his father, painful questions Delia had been unable to answer. It was her deepest fear that Riley would be the one most injured by the choices she’d made—and was making now.

       A persistent knot throbbed behind her left eye. She rubbed her temple to relieve the pounding pain. Between accounting and Zach, it would be almost impossible for her to avoid a headache, both literally and figuratively.

       No matter how she felt, she had to press on. The only way to look to the future here in Serendipity was to settle the past. Do the right thing—whatever that was. For Delia, the lines between right and wrong had been cloudy and gray for years.

       She tried to turn her mind back to the present, but she found it difficult to concentrate. Math had never been her strong suit. She retrieved the pencil she’d tucked behind her ear and wiggled the computer mouse so the screen would come back to