was none.
“Well? What did the good doctor have to say?”
“Nothing much.”
“Did he mention me?” she couldn’t prevent herself from asking.
“Nope, can’t say he did. Does that disappoint you?”
“Of course not.”
“Is there any reason he should mention you?”
Valerie was sorry she’d brought up the subject. “Not that I know of.”
Her answers seemed to make him smile. “So you like my doctor?”
“He’s been wonderful to you,” Valerie said.
“I wasn’t talking about me,” David told her gruffly. “I’m referring to you. You’re attracted to him, aren’t you, Valerie? You were never very good at hiding your feelings.”
“I’ve never met a man who appeals to me more,” Valerie said truthfully. There was no point in trying to deceive her father. He knew her all too well, and he understood her better than anyone, sometimes better than she understood herself.
“He feels the same way?” The question was calm, as though he were speaking to a child.
Valerie lowered her eyes before shaking her head. “It’d never work, and we both know it.”
She expected an argument from her father, was even looking for one. She wanted him to tell her she was wrong, that love could work when two people were committed to each other. That it wouldn’t matter how dissimilar they were, how differently they viewed life. That nothing mattered but the love they shared.
Her father, however, didn’t respond.
Discouraged, Valerie said goodbye and returned to the waiting room. On her way, she saw that Norah sat talking to another doctor at the end of the hallway. She was grateful her sister had left, because she needed time alone to think.
If she wanted evidence that people with very different personalities could fall in love and make the relationship work, she need look no further than her own parents. The story of how they’d met and fallen in love was like a fairy tale, one that, as a child, she’d never tired of hearing.
Her father had gone to university and obtained his degree in business administration. Armed with his dreams, he’d built a financial empire and became a millionaire within a few years. Then he’d collapsed with rheumatic fever, nearly losing his life. While he was in the hospital recuperating, he’d met a young nurse. David knew the moment he met Grace Johnson that he was going to love her. It never occurred to him that she’d refuse his marriage proposal.
Several months of relentless pursuit later, he’d convinced Grace to marry him. Despite the fact that she was deeply in love with David, Grace had been afraid. She was a preacher’s daughter who’d lived a simple life. David was a business tycoon who’d taken automation technology to new industry heights. Grace’s fears about a marriage to David Bloomfield were warranted. But over the years, love had proven even the most hardened skeptics wrong, and the two had lived and loved together until her mother’s death a few years before.
Her own romance wasn’t going to have a fairy-tale ending, the way her parents’ had. Her father knew it, too, otherwise he would’ve been the first to encourage her.
Her father, however, had said nothing.
Valerie was working in the den on her laptop, putting files in order, when she saw the red car hurtle down the driveway. She thought, for one hopeful moment, that it might be Colby, but then remembered he drove a maroon Buick. Still, she hastened to answer the door.
It was Charles Tomaselli, looking tired and frustrated.
“Have you heard from Stephanie?” he demanded without so much as a greeting.
Her sister’s absence had been weighing on Valerie’s mind, too. She’d done everything she could think of; she’d even placed a call to the American Embassy in Rome, with no results.
“I haven’t heard a word. I don’t know what could’ve happened to her.”
“How late is she?”
Valerie had to think for a moment. In the past week, she’d lost all track of time. “Norah was the last person to speak to Steffie,” she explained. “Let me see—that was just before Dad’s surgery. Steffie thought she’d be home within twenty-four hours.”
“That was forty-eight hours ago.”
He didn’t need to remind her, Valerie thought irritably. “She’s coming by way of Tokyo.”
“Tokyo? She’s flying to Oregon via Japan?” Charles snapped.
“I gather she didn’t have much choice.”
“Don’t you think you should be making some inquiries?” he asked gruffly.
“I already have. Tell me who else I should call and I’ll be happy to do so.”
Charles settled down on the top porch step, resting both elbows on his knees. “I have to tell you, Valerie, I’m worried. She should’ve been here before now.”
“I know.”
“I have some friends, some connections,” Charles said absently, “and I’ve checked with them. But they can’t find any trace of her on the flights scheduled out of Rome. If she isn’t here by tomorrow afternoon, I don’t think you have any alternative but to contact the authorities.”
Valerie swallowed tightly, then nodded. She could slap Steff silly for putting them through all this worry.
“She’s okay, Charles,” Valerie said after a moment.
“What makes you so sure?” He turned to look up at her.
“I … don’t know, I just am.”
Charles stood agilely, his gaze leveled on the long narrow driveway that led in from the road. “I hope you’re right, Valerie. I hope you’re right.”
Valerie hoped so, too. And she wondered if his concern for Stephanie meant as much as she thought it did.
Norah came back from the hospital a half hour later, talkative and lively. “I can’t get over how much Dad’s improved in such a short time.”
Valerie took the shrimp salad she’d prepared for their dinner from the refrigerator. Salads were her specialty. That, and folding napkins. She could do both without a hitch.
For the first time since her arrival, Valerie had spent most of the day away from the hospital. When her father had suggested she leave, she’d initially felt a bit annoyed. But as she revisited the life that had once been hers in this quiet community, she accepted the wisdom of his advice. She had needed to get out, to breathe in the serenity she found in Orchard Valley and exhale the fear that had choked her from the moment she’d received Norah’s frantic message. Then, after her walk, she’d come back to the house, and because she’d never been idle in her life, she’d set up a communications center in her father’s den.
“I’m going back to work, starting tomorrow,” Norah announced between bites of lettuce, shrimp and slices of hard-boiled egg. “The hospital’s understaffed, but then when isn’t it? I’ll still be able to see Dad, maybe even more often than before. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course I don’t mind. You do whatever you think best.”
“You’re not going to leave, are you?” Norah asked, rushing the words. “I wouldn’t do this if the hospital didn’t need me so badly.”
“I realize that.”
Norah took another forkful of salad. “You’re quiet tonight. Is anything wrong?”
“Not really.”