“Let’s take the kids out to dinner tonight. Someplace they like.”

“Ted, I can’t do this for you. It has to be your family now.”

“I understand. You’re right. But before I have to go cold turkey, let’s go out to dinner. We’ll go early. Then if you want to drive down to the farm, you won’t get there too late.”

She thought about it for a moment. It was Thursday. Right now she was desperate for the farm, if only to recover a little and get her bearings. “I’ll hang around till Pam and Nicholas come home from school, until Krissy gets up from her nap. I want to tell the kids goodbye, but then I’m leaving. You take your kids out. Or even better, order something to be delivered. You guys have talking to do. I want to have a couple of days with my mom—she always sets me straight. And I want to get to Thunder Point by Sunday, so I’m ready to get back to work by Monday morning.”

“Is that all it is? Work?”

“It’s a good job, Ted. It’s very satisfying.”

“That doctor, is he a good doctor?”

She nodded. “He’s amazing. He has to take care of a whole town with a wide variety of problems, and they don’t have as many resources as a lot of people do. He can’t just refer them all the time. You have no idea how they’ve come to depend on him.” She smiled. “And he can’t identify rashes at all. He has an online program to help him.”

“Does he have children?”

She nodded. “Small children. They’re four and five, and their mother is deceased.”

Ted whistled. “Is he good at that, too?”

“Outstanding.”

“What does he do that’s so outstanding?”

“Well...he lets them make the dining-room table into a fort with lots of blankets, and he gets in it with them. Sometimes he falls asleep there. If he has a babysitting problem, they come to the clinic and watch their movies or read books while he sees patients. Most of all, he talks to them and keeps them very close.”

“And that’s good?”

“It’s the kind of stuff kids remember...sleeping in the fort, reading stories, digging holes on the beach, watching Dad at work....”

“I’m a fool. I blew it with you,” Ted said.

“I don’t know about that, Ted. I’m sorry about what Krissy’s going through, what you’re going through, but I think where you and I are concerned, we’re in better places. You have a second chance with your family that you wouldn’t have if someone was taking care of it for you. And I like the direction my life is going.”

Eighteen

“What do you hear from Peyton?” Devon asked Scott during a quiet moment in the clinic. The last scheduled patient of the day had left, and it was just the two of them. Scott would stay a little longer while Devon rounded up their kids. “I thought she’d be back by now.”

“She texted that she’s spending a couple of nights with her folks at the farm,” he said, not making eye contact.

“Texted?” Devon asked. “Have you talked to her?”

“We’ve talked a couple of times....”

“A couple of times?” Devon asked.

“She’s been very busy with whatever Ted has her doing.”

“Well, I don’t think it was Ted, exactly. I got a pretty long email from her while she was sitting in the reception area of a counselor’s office waiting for one of his screwed-up kids to finish a session. She said it was a messy and complicated situation, and she’d explain later. So, what was the situation?”

“I have no idea,” Scott said.

“How can you have no idea?”

He finally looked up. “I take it Ted’s daughter, a fifteen-year-old, is pregnant. I assume Ted couldn’t handle it. Beyond that, I didn’t ask.”

“Why didn’t you ask?”

He sighed. “There needs to be more? If she had wanted me to know, she would have told me.”

“Or maybe she wanted you to ask!”

“I’ll ask when I see her,” he said. “In fact, I’ll try to arrange it so I can ask her when you’re around, so you can get the answer, too.”

“Wow, you’re so irritable. You miss her, I guess.”

“Of course I miss her,” he said. Then he looked at Devon with earnest eyes. “Listen, I know you love Peyton. She’s been amazing here and I hate to see her go, but I think we should be realistic. I don’t think she’s going to stay here.”

“Oh? Really? Is she going to take that job in Seattle?”

“She hasn’t said. But there’s also San Francisco, near her sister. She and her sister are very close, and there’s a new baby.”

“What did she say to make you think she won’t stay here?” Devon asked. “Because I kind of got the impression she was real happy here.”

“I think this worked out for her for a while. But we know it’s not the pay she deserves, and her talents exceed the needs of this little clinic.”

“I’ve never heard her complain,” Devon said. “You’re acting weird. You’re hiding something.”

“I’m not hiding anything, don’t be ridiculous. I think that if we’re practical, we should accept that Peyton has bigger fish to fry.”

“What fish? See, you’re being very strange. I’ve gotten pretty close to Peyton, and she never mentioned any bigger fish to me.”

Scott took a deep breath. “It’s very reasonable that Peyton would be attracted to a high salary, and she can command one. It’s not a crime to like nice things. I like nice things, too, but this is more my speed. This is where my heart is. I happen to like what I do. But Peyton grew up a poor farm girl. I’m sure she’s striving for a lot more, and I don’t blame her.”

Devon was staring at him. Her mouth hung open. “Did you really just say that?”

“Say what? I just said a lot of things.”

“Scott, Peyton isn’t motivated by material wealth. And she’s not a poor farm girl....”

He chuckled. “I guess that car is just a red herring....”

“That car of hers isn’t that big a deal to her. She said she kind of regrets it. But forget about the damn car—she’s thirty-five and in a high-end career field. She hasn’t had anyone to spend her money on except her parents and nieces and nephews. She bought herself some nice things. But not because she’s a poor farm girl!”