Last Chance Hero (4 page)

“If you're moving in today, that's all the more reason to come for dinner. You probably won't have a thing in the house to eat,
and the Dip 'n' Dine closes early, you know. Shall we say about 7:00? You come too, Andy.”

Something in Miss Elizabeth's tone, warm as it was, said she wasn't used to being told no. Jess looked to Andy for support, but he just gave the cat one last scratch behind the ears and stood up.

“Sounds great. I wouldn't miss it.”

Jess felt a wave of frustration. Leave it to Andy not to get that someone was going to have to fix that dinner, and it probably wasn't going to be the elderly lady leaning on the cane. But it appeared now that the dinner was going to take place whether Jess came or not. She tried to will her annoyance from both her expression and her voice.

“Well, then, thank you, Miss Elizabeth, and 7:00 it is. What can I bring?”

“Just your own sweet self. Oh, and just call me Elizabeth, honey. Most folks do. You too, Andy. You're all grown up now. It's okay.”

“All right then, Elizabeth.” Andy stopped and considered, as if he were tasting his words. “Nope. Doesn't sound right. Sorry, Miss Elizabeth.”

“I'll see you at 7:00 then. And thanks again.” Jess glanced at her watch. The movers weren't due till about 10:00, but still, she had a lot she needed to get done before she met them.

“I can't tell you how much I'll be looking forward to it.” Elizabeth smiled and turned to go back inside. “Are you coming, Sam?”

As if he understood her, the cat stopped rolling on the sidewalk, jumped to his feet, and led the way. Jess watched Elizabeth ignore the ramp leading to her front door and carefully make her way up her front steps. Jess gave her one last wave and headed down the road, Andy beside her.

“What were you thinking, saying you'd love to come to dinner with almost no notice at all?” She gave Andy's shoulder a little shove.

“What? You said you'd come too.”

“Only after you did. Did you give any thought to the fact either Lainie or Ray is going to have to come home and fix dinner for us?”

“Ray or Lainie? Why?”

“Well, who else? Elizabeth can hardly walk. You don't think she's going to cook, do you?”

Andy grinned as he broke into a slow jog. “Here's your first bit of really useful Last Chance advice: never make the mistake of underestimating Elizabeth Cooley.”

Jess basked in a sense of accomplishment as she brought her car to a stop outside Elizabeth Cooley's gate just before 7:00. Not only was all her furniture in place and her bedroom nearly unpacked, but she had found her way back to Elizabeth's without having to ask directions. Okay, considering the size of Last Chance, maybe that wasn't all that much of an achievement, but she felt good about it nevertheless. And fresh from a shower and wearing clean clothes, she was feeling pretty darn good and actually looking forward to the evening.

Andy's pickup pulled up behind her car as she got out, and she waited for him on the sidewalk.

“I'd have been happy to come pick you up.” He joined her on the walk and held the gate open for her. “I drove right by your house on the way over here.”

“How'd you know where I live?” She hadn't seen him since he left her at the motel and jogged off somewhere. Maybe
he
was the stalker.

“Could be the moving truck with California plates parked outside your house most of the day. Did I mention I drive by on the way to and from my house? We're practically neighbors.”

“Oh.” Jess was beginning to feel a little foolish and more than a little full of herself.

“Hey! Glad you made it.” Ray came out the front door and stood on the porch with his hands in his pockets. “Come on in. Gran has dinner just about ready.”

The small living room Jess stepped into was neat and full of wonderful aromas. Sam, looking like a gray-and-white loaf, observed their arrival with gravity from the back of the sofa. Lainie greeted them from a recliner where she was stretched out with her feet up.

“Hey, welcome! I'd get up, but someone would probably start yelling at me if I did.”

“You stay right where you are.” Elizabeth, a little pink-cheeked, emerged from the kitchen and crossed the room to greet them with a hug. She walked with a slight limp, but the cane was nowhere in sight. “So glad you came. And don't you look pretty. I'd never dream you'd spent the day moving.”

“How about me? Do I look pretty too?” Andy bent to kiss Elizabeth's cheek.

“You're a mess. That's what you are.” Elizabeth laughed. “But then you always were. The way you and Ray could get around me should make you ashamed.”

“Yeah, right. No one easier to fool than you, Gran.” Ray perched on the arm of the recliner, and Lainie smiled up at him.

“Well, I'm glad you're back home, Andy. And I'm glad you're here too, Jess. It's about time Last Chance got its own doctor. Now, you just sit right here on the sofa and I'll bring you some iced tea. Dinner will be ready in a minute.”

“Let me help.” Jess moved toward the kitchen.

“No, I'm all but done.” Elizabeth waved her to the sofa. “You just sit right there and rest a bit. Ray, honey, come get the tea for me, will you?”

Ray followed her into the kitchen as Jess and Andy sat down. Lainie grinned from the recliner.

“Ray and I came down to take care of Gran when she fell last winter, but you can see who's taking care of who. When we told her she had another great-grandbaby on the way, she just told me I had worked my last day at the Dip 'n' Dine. This was our compromise.” She held out her hands. “I can work for at least a while as long as I spend an hour or so here with my feet up when I get home every day. And this recliner is Gran's personal throne, so when she turns it over to me, you know she means business.”

“But if your pregnancy is going well, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to work as long as you're comfortable.”

“Tell that to Gran.” Lainie laughed. “Better yet, don't. Believe me, an argument with Gran is not to be entered into lightly. But I may call you in for reinforcements next time Gran decides it's time for me to quit.”

“Just let me know so I can get out of here in time.” Ray came back in carrying two glasses of tea, which he handed to Jess and Andy. “No one listens to me anyway.”

“Awww. Poor thing.” Lainie stroked her husband's arm when he came to sit on the arm of her recliner again.

Jess took a sip of her tea and leaned back against the sofa cushions. She was glad she had been more or less forced to accept Elizabeth's invitation. If the evening so far was a harbinger of her life here in Last Chance, she was going to be very happy.

J
ess never thought of herself as a food fanatic, particularly. She just ate sensibly, as she saw it—whole grains, plenty of steamed vegetables, lean meats and fish, and fresh fruit. She would never express it, but secretly, she wondered how anyone could eat any other way. Now she knew. Elizabeth's table held some of the best-tasting food she had ever eaten in her life.

“Have some more chicken.” Elizabeth passed her the platter of golden fried pieces. “One little piece of white meat can't have filled you up.”

“Oh, but it did.” Jess held up a hand to ward off the platter. “With the mashed potatoes and gravy, and all those vegetables, and the biscuits, I'm completely stuffed.”

Elizabeth passed the chicken on to Andy, who speared a drumstick before passing it on to Ray. Undeterred, she picked up the basket of bread. “Then at least have another biscuit while they're warm and some of this plum jam. It was my mother-in-law's recipe, and I've made it every year for about as long as I can remember.”

Jess eyed the biscuits. She really did feel as if she were about to pop, and she had eaten more bread tonight than she usually ate in a week, but those biscuits were beyond anything she had ever tasted. The battle she fought with her conscience was short, brutal,
and over in the amount of time it took her to smile and accept the basket offered her. “Thanks. Maybe just a half.”

“Tell us more about this office you're opening here in Last Chance.” Elizabeth tried to pass the nearly empty bowl of mashed potatoes to Lainie and then to Ray. Both declined. “We had a doctor here years ago when my children were small, but when he passed on, no one took over his practice and everyone just got used to going on up to San Ramon.”

“So I hear.” Jess shrugged. “In fact, just about everybody I've met has told me how happy they are that Last Chance has its own doctor, and then in the same breath told me that they already have a doctor in San Ramon who's been looking after them for years. Not that I'm trolling other doctors' practices.”

“Well, I'll be your first patient.” Lainie smiled at Jess. “I don't have a long history with some other doctor. And I'd love it if I didn't have to run up to San Ramon to see a doctor.”

Jess couldn't miss the quick glance Ray and Elizabeth exchanged before Ray cleared his throat. “Um, Lainie, you don't have a long history, but you have already seen a doctor. Do you think it's a good idea to switch now? I mean, he already knows you and everything.”

“I've had one appointment, and I saw a nurse practitioner. She just confirmed what we already knew, gave me a bunch of vitamins, and told me I should come back in about six weeks to see the doctor.” Lainie reached for the last biscuit and broke it open on her plate. “Pass me that gravy, would you, please?”

When the gravy was passed in silence and no other conversation was forthcoming, she looked up. “What? I'm eating for two now, you know.”

It was Jess who broke the uncomfortable silence. “Well, as you say, you have about six more weeks before you need to see a doctor. I'm sure you and Ray will be able to decide the best course
for you to take.” She watched Lainie ladle the cream gravy, rich with chicken cracklings, over the split biscuit. “Although I'd like to send over some information on prenatal nutrition, if you wouldn't mind. He may be little right now, but he's growing at a rate you wouldn't believe, and I know you want to make sure he's getting everything he needs.”

Lainie's fork stopped midway to her mouth. “What are you saying?”

“Nothing, nothing at all.” Jess laughed. “Just thinking a little nutritional information might not hurt, that's all.”

“Well, that may be, but all I can say is there is a whole valley of folks around here whose mamas ate pretty much what's on this table, and they're all doing just fine.” Elizabeth braced her hands on the edge of the table to help herself to her feet. “Now, who's ready for some peach cobbler? The peaches came from the tree just this afternoon.”

“Let me help.” Jess started to get up. She had the uneasy feeling she had just stepped on some toes, but Elizabeth waved her back into her chair.

“No, you just stay where you are. Ray's going to give me a hand, aren't you, honey?”

“Sure.” Ray still hadn't said much since Lainie announced that Jess would be her doctor, and it may have been Jess's imagination, but he did seem awfully eager to jump up from the table and help Elizabeth.

Jess could have kicked herself for introducing so much awkwardness into what had been the most pleasurable evening she had spent in a long time. Trying again, she turned to Lainie with a smile. “So, how have you been feeling?”

“I'm feeling great.” Lainie planted her elbows where her plate had been as Ray took it to the kitchen. “I felt a little queasy a couple
of mornings last week, but other than that I've been just fine. And as you noticed, there's nothing wrong with my appetite.”

Jess cringed a little. She had always struggled with this tendency to call things as she saw them, and she had wound up regretting it more times than she'd like to remember.

“Well, if you sit down to meals like this every day, I can see why.” Jess tried again, hoping her smile was a little more confident than she felt. “Have you been taking your vitamins?”

Lainie nodded, and Andy pushed back his chair and jumped to his feet. “Hey, I'm just sitting around like third base. Let me help.” He grabbed the nearly empty fried chicken platter and carried it to the kitchen.

Jess sighed. For the last eight years, she had been eating, breathing, and sleeping medicine—with not a whole lot of sleeping, now that she thought about it. Would there ever come a time when she could have a simple conversation without clearing the room in the process? She took a deep breath and tried again.

“So, Lainie.” She pasted what she hoped was a friendly smile on her face. “I hear you're from California too. What part? I'm from Mill Valley, just north of San Francisco.”

“LA. Long Beach area, mostly.”

By the time the table had been cleared and Ray and Andy had placed dishes of warm peach cobbler in front of them, Jess had discerned that other than starting out in California and winding up in Last Chance, New Mexico, she and Lainie had little they could claim in common. Lainie had been tossed out to fend for herself at fourteen, and she had not only survived but through God's grace found her way to Last Chance and to him. The tiny house she shared with her husband and his grandmother was the first real home she had ever had, and it would always be a palace to her.

Jess, on the other hand, had never wanted for anything—except
maybe time and sleep. She wasn't even saddled with the monstrous burden of student loans that most new doctors labored under. Her parents, both physicians themselves, had seen to it that she had whatever she needed. Where Lainie's parents could only be called criminal in their negligence and neglect, Jess's family had been and still was close, using what little free time they did have to enjoy and nurture each other. Her parents had always supported her childhood ambition of practicing rural medicine, and even if, as the years passed and the dream never wavered, they did occasionally turn the conversation to more lucrative disciplines of medicine, they never seriously tried to talk her out of it.

She looked across the table at Lainie, who was laughing up at Ray, and found herself wishing two things. First, she would love it if Lainie did decide to come to her for her obstetric appointments, although it was pretty clear that if Elizabeth and Ray had anything to say about it, that might not happen. And second, she really hoped she and Lainie would be friends—close friends. Whatever her early circumstances had been, Lainie was funny, confident, and easy in her skin. Jess liked that.

Elizabeth sat down and picked up her spoon. Everyone else at the table followed suit, and not for the first time that evening, Jess found herself eating until her spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl.

“Elizabeth, I honestly can't remember having a meal I enjoyed more.” Jess finally put her spoon down and leaned against the back of her chair. “I thank whatever gods there be that you were outside this morning when Andy and I came by. I wouldn't have missed this meal for anything.”

This time there was no mistaking it. Andy, Ray, and Lainie did exchange glances, but Elizabeth didn't bat an eye. “Well, I'm thankful too.” Her blue eyes crinkled in a smile. “I hope this is just the
first of many meals you take at this table. Now, why don't you all go on into the living room, and I'll get things put up in the kitchen.”

“Nope.” Lainie got to her feet and put her hands on Elizabeth's shoulders to direct her toward the living room. “It's your turn at the recliner. I'll get these dishes done in no time.”

“Nope.” Ray stacked all five empty peach cobbler bowls into one tower, causing his grandmother to gasp a little. “You go sit down too. Put your feet up on the coffee table if Gran will let you get away with it. And take Jess with you. I'll do the dishes and Andy'll help. Right, Andy?”

“You bet. It'll be just like old times.” Andy scooped up a handful of silverware and winked at Jess over his shoulder as he headed for the kitchen. “Miss Elizabeth treated everyone like her own. If you were here at mealtime, there was a chair at the table for you. If you were here at bedtime, she found a place for you to sleep. And if chores needed to be done, you did those too.”

“I remember those old times.” Elizabeth shook her head. “It didn't always work out well for the kitchen.”

“Give us some credit, Gran. We might have grown up a little in the last, oh, fifteen years or so.” Ray tried to balance an iced tea glass on his forefinger and caught it as it fell.

“Ray! For pity's sake, be careful!” Elizabeth marched across the room to snatch the glass from his hand, but Ray held it out of her reach.

“Just teasing you, Gran. We'll be careful.” He grinned and put the glass on the counter just inside the kitchen door. “Go on in and sit down. We'll join you in a little bit.”

Even after Elizabeth was settled in her recliner with her feet up and her crocheting on her lap, she seemed to keep an ear directed toward the kitchen, flinching whenever a dish clanked too loudly against another.

Lainie laughed. “Seriously, Gran. Ray does know what he's doing. He's no stranger to the kitchen, I promise you—no matter what he's tried to make you believe since we came back.”

“I know. I'm just not used to having men in my kitchen unless they're eating, that's all.” Elizabeth rearranged the afghan she was crocheting and wrapped the yarn around her fingers again. “Take that sofa cushion, honey, and put it under your feet. You'll be more comfortable.”

Lainie did as she was told and turned to Jess. “How about you? Want to put your feet up too?”

“No, I'm good.” Jess smiled at the laughter coming from the kitchen. “Sounds like they're having a good time in there.”

“Those two would.” Elizabeth shook her head. “They were as different as they could be when they were boys, what with Andy playing every kind of sport you could think of and Ray wanting to draw or paint all the time, but they became best friends as soon as they met in grade school and stayed friends until they both went off to college. Andy was over here so much I came to think of him as one of my own.”

“Ray's told me about Andy practically living here.” Lainie adjusted the sofa cushion under her ankles and leaned back against the sofa. “He never said much about going to Andy's house, though.”

Elizabeth's face took on an expression that was hard to read, and she turned her attention to her crocheting. “No, they didn't spend much time over there. And that was fine with me. I always loved having my boys right where I could see them. But tell us about you, Jess. What was your family like?”

Jess had the feeling that the subject had been deftly and firmly changed, but she complied and told Elizabeth about growing up in Mill Valley.

“My sister's three years older than I am, and she's a research
cardiologist in San Francisco. She's the smart one in the family and I'm really proud of her.”

“It sounds like you've got a whole family of smart people.” Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “I don't see how you can all be doctors and say one of you is the smart one.”

“You don't know Catherine. There's smart and then there's scary smart. She got her MD and PhD at the same time and is doing some pretty impressive work at UCSF.”

“I hope I do get to meet her someday. I'd like to meet all your family.” Elizabeth looked up as Andy and Ray came in. “All finished in there already?”

“Yep.” Ray turned the piano bench and straddled it as Andy took the remaining empty chair. “Didn't break more than two plates and a bowl. Oh, and that little blue bird that's always been on the shelf over the sink? It's sort of toast too. Hope you don't mind.”