He pulled a card from his pocket and wrote a number on it. “If you have any concerns or questions, don't hesitate to call me. Here is the number for my answering service.” He cleared his throat once. Twice. “I know Anna doesn't have a phone. I'll need . . .” Three times. “I'll need your phone number so that I can call and check on your mammi tonight, if you don't mind.”
Cassie thought her face might burst into flames. He had tried very hard to get her number in the parking lot, and she had been clever enough to evade him. But now she'd have to give it to him for Mammi's sake.
Her only consolation was that Dr. Reynolds seemed as uncomfortable about it as she did. She had refused to give him her number. Under normal circumstances, he didn't seem like the type of guy who would keep hounding her about it.
“If it makes you feel better,” he said, glancing at Mammi, “I feel like a jerk asking for it.”
He cracked a smile. She did too.
She repeated her number, and he punched it into his phone and grinned. “I promise I'll delete this at the first sign of temptation.”
“Temptation?”
“If I'm ever tempted to call and ask you out.”
Mammi looked up from her knitting. Dawdi didn't budge from his
Sports Illustrated
. “Oh, how nice,” Mammi said.
Why was her pulse racing? This was Zach Reynolds, for crying out loud. She lowered her eyes and put her hand to her cheek to hide the blush. “Thank you.”
A smile played at his lips as he fell silent and briefly tinkered with his phone. “Okay,” he said. “I need your phone number again.”
“What?”
“Just now I was tempted to call and ask you out, so I deleted your number, just like I promised.”
Cassie had never blushed so much in her entire life. She had to remind herself that all the doctor wanted was another notch on his bedpost. It was all guys like him ever wanted.
“Is it okay with you if I change my promise a little?” he asked.
She nodded doubtfully.
“I promise to call you only if I need to discuss something about your mammi's condition.”
“Okay,” she said. Only after she said it did she realize she'd been holding her breath.
He smiled and turned his full attention to Mammi once again. “Are you ready, Anna?”
“Did you give Cassie your phone number?” Mammi said, as if the doctor's phone number were more important than her pending surgery.
“Yes, and she's got all the instructions.”
Mammi put her knitting away for good this time. “Can I call you tonight, Doctor?”
“Yes, call me anytime you like, and I'll call to check on you too.”
Mammi reached over and took Cassie's hand, then grabbed Dr. Reynolds's hand as well. “And when will you come and visit us? Felty, do you have a piece of paper?”
Dawdi looked up and smiled at Mammi. “Sorry, Annie. Didn't bring any.”
“I've got to have something, Felty dear.”
Dawdi tore a corner out of one of the pages in his magazine and handed it to Mammi. “Is this okay?”
Mammi took the paper, wrote on it, and handed it to the doctor. “Here is our address. Just plug it into the map on your phone, and you'll be able to find us.”
“I don't think I can do that,” Dr. Reynolds replied.
Mammi furrowed her brows. “Don't you have the map on your phone? Cassie tells me everybody has one.”
The doctor squeezed her hand reassuringly. “I don't usually make house calls. But you can always reach me on the phone.”
Mammi squeezed the doctor's hand. She must have really been serious. Cassie could see her knuckles turn white. “Doctor, I would feel so much better if you came to visit me. What if my foot falls off? What if I die and leave my children bereft of a mother? What about my sixty-four grandchildren and hundred and three greats?”
Dr. Reynolds didn't lose that gorgeous, reassuring smile as he tried to divert Mammi's attention. “Sixty-four grandchildren. That's amazing.”
Mammi would not be sidetracked. “One thing you need to know about the Amish is that we really need our doctors to visit us.”
Cassie stiffened. Mammi had seemed so confident only a few minutes ago. Maybe the fact that she was about to go into surgery had just hit her. Mammi didn't often talk about her own death. Cassie leaned across Dawdi, still looking at tattoos, and patted Mammi's hand. “It will be all right. I'll take good care of you.”
“I'm sure you couldn't have a better caretaker,” the doctor said.
Dawdi pried his gaze from the magazine. “It's no use trying to work things out right now, Annie Banannie. There's plenty of time after your surgery.”
Mammi shrugged and seemed to sigh with her whole body. “You're right as usual, Felty. I've got two months to recover. We've done a lot more with a lot less time.”
“Yes,” said the doctor with a wink. “Everything's going to be fine. And those sixty-four grandchildren are going to get a big kick out of your scar.”
Mammi still held Cassie by the left hand and Dr. Reynolds by the right. She brought her hands together and placed Cassie's hand in the doctor's. A bolt of electricity traveled up Cassie's arm at the mere touch of Zach Reynolds's skin. Surely her face glowed a lovely shade of purple-crimson.
“Right now,” Mammi said, “the only grandchild I'm concentrating on is Cassie. And I know neither of you will disappoint me.”
“We won't,” Dr. Reynolds said, chuckling and looking as if he were surprised and pleased to be holding hands with her.
When the doctor didn't seem all that inclined to let go, Cassie slipped her hand from his and attempted a carefree smile to match the doctor's. “I won't disappoint you either, Mammi.”
Mammi grinned like a fat kitty swimming in a bowl of cream. “I know you won't. I'm never wrong about these things.”
Chapter Five
With bowl in hand, Zach sank onto his threadbare secondhand sofa and propped his feet on the short metal filing cabinet that also served as a coffee table. He had to stretch a little as he reached for the three remotes sitting on the arm of the sofa. One remote to turn on the TV, one to change the channel, and one to work the volume. He wasn't quite sure how he'd ended up with so many remotes, but at least the ancient TV worked and the cable box didn't spark and hiss like the last one.
Not really interested in watching, he turned on the TV more for background noise than anything else. With his fork, he twirled the long, curly noodles in his bowl. Oriental-flavored ramen noodles with hot dog slices probably had as much nutritional value as a shoebox, but they were easy to fix and tasted pretty good after a long day at the hospital. His grueling schedule over the last few years had made him less picky about what he put into his mouth.
Still, what he wouldn't have given for a thick slice of Giordano's Chicago-style pizza at this very moment.
And maybe another look at the angel.
The most beautiful girl he'd ever laid eyes on, and he couldn't even talk her into a date with him. There must be something fundamentally wrong with him. She'd looked past the straight teeth and the crooked nose and the doctor title. Had she been able to see into his heart? Could she tell just by looking how flawed and confused he was? And how angry he felt?
It wasn't just that she was pretty. If she'd been merely pretty, he would have been able to walk away from her rejection unscathed. There were lots of pretty girls who would jump at a chance to date Dr. Zach Reynolds. Her bearing, the way she carried herself had made Zach look twice, but the way she'd cared about the little Amish girl, the deference she paid to her grandparents, the kindness with which she treated him even though she didn't want to date him, were all astonishingly attractive qualities.
Earlier today, Zach had walked out of surgery to see Cassie engrossed in a conversation with Cheryl, the grumpiest nurse in the hospital. She didn't like anybody, and she complained about everything, but there Cassie had been with her arm around the prickly nurse, listening to her problems and offering kindness and sympathy. Cassie was like a one-woman ministry.
Sweet, unpretentious, kind people like her were pretty rare.
Why would a girl like her ever give a guy like him a second glance? Girls like her dated . . . Who did girls like her date?
Navy SEALs? Saints? Archangels?
He didn't know, but it was a sure bet they didn't date mere mortals like Zach Reynolds.
With bowl and fork in one hand, he slipped his phone out of his pocket and scrolled to her name. Cassie Coblenz. Pretty, smart, determined. Very good to her grandparents.
And completely uninterested in Zach Reynolds.
Dr. Zach Reynolds.
It took him about ten seconds to memorize her number. He wanted to commit it to memory just in case he lost his phone or accidentally deleted it.
He'd never accidentally delete it. Someday she might change her mind about him. He'd be ready.
He laid his phone on the sofa and stuffed another bite of ramen noodle with hot dog into his mouth. He wouldn't hold his breath for Cassie. His face would turn fluorescent blue before she would ever agree to go out with him.
He had almost secretly snapped a picture of her with his phone after Anna's surgery this morning, but he had thought better of it. He might have felt a twinge of desperation when he thought about not going out with her, but taking a secret picture was kind of creepy, and he wasn't the stalker type.
Maybe he could look her up on Facebook.
Lots of people did that.
Maybe not.
He picked up his phone again and resisted the impulse to scroll to her name. Instead, he checked his messages. Only one, from Blair saying she'd be in Stevens Point at the first of March. Did he want to get together?
Not really. He'd broken things off when he'd graduated from medical school. He hadn't invested enough in the relationship to make it work long distance when he'd never seen it working out long term anyway. Blair was a career woman through and through. There wasn't anything wrong with that, except Zach wanted kids, lots of kids, and Blair practically broke out in hives at the mere mention of children. But the real problem was that Blair didn't seem real, as if she put on a mask every morning when she got out of bed and never showed her true self to people. She acted out a part, and Zach was just another cast member in the movie of her life.
He didn't want to be a cast member.
His phone vibrated and lit up with a picture of Mom. His mom seldom called him. When he left for college, she had told him that she didn't want to be one of those annoying mothers who called three times a day to check up on her son. But she had gone overboard and hardly called him at all. She had told him that she didn't want to hover. The only times they talked were when he called her, two or three times a week. He liked to think that she needed him, but it was definitely a lopsided relationship. He wasn't too proud to admit that he still needed to hear his mom's voice every once in a while, and he wanted her advice and encouragement now more than ever.
“Hey, Mom. Is everything okay?”
“Relatively,” she said, which wasn't an answer at all. “How did your surgery on that Amish lady go today?”
“It went good. Dr. Mann says I have steady hands.”
“It's all those years of piano.”
“Or maybe all those years of picking cherries.”
A pause on the other end of the line. “You're never going to thank me for those piano lessons, are you?”
Zach smiled. Mom had forced him and his two older brothers to take piano lessons until they were in high school, predicting that they would thank her later. At about age twelve when Zach had started to eat and breathe soccer, he had promised his mom that he would never, ever thank her for making him play the piano. It was a running joke, especially since he and his buddies had formed a band in high school with Zach on the keyboard. Mom wouldn't let him live it down.
Zach took a bite of ramen. “I
will
thank you for signing me up for soccer.”
“Am I interrupting your dinner? I can call back.”
“I can eat and talk,” Zach said.
“Mac and cheese again?”
“Ramen with hot dogs.”
“Have you found any good restaurants in Shawano yet?”
“Nope. I don't get out much.”
“Well,” Mom said, “You need to find a surrogate mother to feed you a home-cooked meal.”
Other moms might have told their sons that they needed to find a girlfriend, but not his mom. He liked that she never once asked him if he was dating some nice girl. She never mentioned grandchildren or tried to make him feel guilty for not going to church. She was just his mom, who loved him no matter how much she thought he was screwing up his life.
She and Dad had taken him to church faithfully for seventeen years. He'd memorized fifty scriptures at Bible study camp. He'd even taken a purity pledge before high school. But he just hadn't had the heart for all that fluff after Dad died, and Mom had witnessed his fall.
Of course she thought he was screwing up his life.
“So,” Mom said, “what I've called to tell you is I've broken my arm.”
Zach nearly spilled his noodles all over his thirty-year-old sofa. “What? Mom, what happened?”
“I tried to clean out those stupid gutters and fell off the ladder.”
“Mom, I told you not to do that yourself. A woman your age shouldn't be on a ladder.”
“Oh, for goodness' sake, Zach, I'm only fifty-five.”
“Too old to be on a ladder,” Zach said.
“Just wait until you're fifty-five. You'll be embarrassed that you thought I was old.”
Zach gave up on his noodles and set them on the filing cabinet. “Mom, I'm coming home in June. Save all that stuff for me to do.”
“You won't want to come home if all I do is make you work.”
For the thousandth time since he'd left California for college, the guilt and anger slammed into him. He should have gone to school closer to home. He should be there for his mom. If God hadn't taken his dad, Mom would have someone there to take care of her.
His brother Drew lived in Japan with his wife and baby boy, and his brother Jeff was in Saudi Arabia with the State Department. Zach was the closest one to home. “Maybe I can get a little time off next month. I could spend a few days.”
“You'll do no such thing. Stay there and finish your residency.”
He ran his fingers through his hair. She was right, but it didn't make him feel any better. “What did the doctor say? How bad a break is it?”
“I don't know. Eight weeks in a cast. It's not a very convenient time. I have to finish the decorations for the auxiliary bazaar.”
“Maybe you could turn it over to someone else.”
“I'm not too bad with one hand. I don't want you to worry. I debated about telling you at all, but I figured someone would post it on Facebook eventually, and you'd be mad that I kept it a secret.”
“I wish I could help from two thousand miles away.”
“I know, but I can't imagine you'd be very good at tissue paper roses,” Mom said. “Paper roses made by me with one hand will probably still look better than paper roses made by you.”
“You're probably right.”
“I could use a few prayers,” Mom said, almost as an afterthought. She didn't often bring up religion with Zach, but this was an emergency. She thought prayers helped.
“If it will make you feel better, Mom, I'll send a prayer up tonight.”
“It will.” She paused, as if letting the idea of prayer soak in a little. “You can do something else.”
“What?”
“Find someone in Shawano who needs you. If you do something nice for someone else, the good karma is bound to get back to me.”
Zach chuckled. “One minute you're a Christian, the next you're a Buddhist.”
“Christians believe in karma. âCast your bread upon the waters and you shall find it after many days.'”
“Okay, Mom. I know better than to get into a Bible discussion with you.”
“Get some sleep, Zach, and find a restaurant that will serve you a few vegetables.”
“This ramen contains parsley flakes.”
“Good night, son.”
“Love you, Mom.” When he finished his residency, he'd find a practice close to home so he could look out for his mom. He'd see to it that she never had to climb a ladder again.
He'd lost his appetite. He slowly picked the hot dogs out of the noodles and popped them into his mouth. The grocery store was still open. Maybe he should go buy a head of lettuce or something. He imagined himself eating a whole head of lettuce like an apple. That had to be three or four servings of vegetables right there.
His phone vibrated again.
“Hello, Dr. Reynolds? This is Patti Gordon from the answering service. You know that Amish woman you did surgery on today?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I think she called me. She told me her name was Anna and that she really needed to talk to you. I told her I'd have you call her, but she said she really needed you to come to her house.”
Zach thought of Anna's granddaughter and smoothed his hair with his fingers. “Did she say what was wrong?”
“No. I told her if she had an emergency to go to the hospital, but she hung up the phone. I tried calling back, but no one answered.”
“Thanks, Patti. I'll see if I can reach her.”
Even though he had it memorized, Zach opened the address book on his phone and scrolled to the forbidden number. He stared at it, picturing the blonde angel with the red scarf. Would she be mad if he called?
Blonde angel or no blonde angel, Anna wouldn't have tried to contact him unless something was wrong, and his first concern had to be for his patient. Anna had come through surgery well, but she was eighty-four years old. Age was always a risk factor, no matter how routine the surgery.
His fingers shook, actually shook, as he highlighted Cassie's number and pressed the screen to connect. He cleared his throat. It wouldn't do anything for Cassie's confidence in him as a doctor if he sounded like a lovesick teenager.
The phone rang and rang. And rang. What? Cassie didn't even have voice mail? He hung up and tried again. Three times. Had a burglar come and tied them all up? Or had there been a fire, and they were all out on the front lawn watching their house go up in flames?
Anna was supposed to be at home, and someone responsible
with a phone
was supposed to be with her at all times. Where were they? Had they gone to the emergency room and left Cassie's phone sitting on the kitchen counter?
Zach stood and paced the room a couple of times before trying the number again. No answer. If Anna were a normal patient, he would have given up by now, figuring she'd call back if she really needed to talk to him. But Anna was not a normal patient. Zach didn't know enough about the Amish to decide if he should be concerned or not.
It only took him about ten seconds to make the decision. He'd feel much better if he knew for sure that Anna was all right. Besides, Anna had her heart set on a visit from the doctor. Mom would say it was good karma.
He shoved his hand into his back pocket and pulled out the ripped corner of the magazine that Anna had written her address on.
Huckleberry Hill, Park Road, Bonduel, Wisconsin.
What kind of an address was that? Maybe Huckleberry Hill was an Amish old-folks home. He looked it up on his phone. No listing for an old-folks home in Bonduel under Huckleberry Hill. He hoped this wasn't a wild goose chase.