awful day in court, as it had so many times since then. “She works in a free clinic and doesn’t receive a regular salary,” Vivian Riordan had told the judge. Which was true. She did. But when Anthony had been alive, finances hadn’t been an issue and it hadn’t mattered. At least, she hadn’t thought it did at the time. “And she’s gotten rid of her babysitter so now she takes my granddaughter to work with her in that clinic. It’s no fit place for a child to spend her day, playing among all those sick people.” True in part. She couldn’t afford the babysitter now. She could barely afford their one-room apartment. And, yes, Meghan had gone to work with her, but Della always kept her separated from the patients. It had been the best she could manage under the circumstances and, selfishly, she had enjoyed having more time with her daughter.
Not only had Anthony, and Anthony’s parents, betrayed her, the judge had, too, when he’d taken away her little girl. Somehow she’d never equated her meager lifestyle to being a bad parent, but he had. He’d looked at what had been taken away from Meghan and not what Meghan still had—a mother who cherished her and would do whatever it took to provide for her. Then he’d pronounced Della an unworthy parent and had given her six months in which to make herself worthy again.
So now, after all those betrayals, Della simply didn’t trust. She couldn’t. Which was holding her back from accepting this offer. She’d accepted the Riordans’ generosity and it had cost her Meghan. With this offer now, all she could wonder about was the real cost.
“Twenty-four hours, Dr Riordan. Then the offer is off the table.”
“I understand.” So many things could happen in twenty-four hours. A husband could die. His adulterous affairs could be exposed. The solicitors could give you seventy-two hours in which to vacate your home because it, and everything in it, were going into foreclosure to pay for your husband’s extravagant habits.
Or, in twenty-four hours, the road to a new life could unfold. “I’ll let you know first thing tomorrow morning,” she said.
“I’ll be anxious to hear your decision, Dr Riordan.”
“So will I, Mr Armstrong. So will I.”
Twenty-four hours later
* * *
She’d cried all the way from Miami to Boston. Sniffled off and on, and a couple times broken into out and out sobs. It had got so bad the man sitting in the seat next to her on the airplane had asked the flight attendant for another seat. Then she’d cried at the baggage claim, at the taxi stand and all the way up the coast to Connaught, the tiny little harbor town where she’d caught the boat over to Redcliffe.
Naturally, she’d cried all the way over to Redcliffe, too, and now, as they approached the island, and her face was bloated and red, she was afraid the people there would take one look at her and send her back. But, damn it, she already missed Meghan. She’d missed her even before her last goodbye kiss. And it wasn’t like the Riordans wouldn’t take good care of her. They adored her and they would take very good care. But Meghan wasn’t theirs to care for, and leaving her behind with them was the hardest thing Della had ever done in her life. It hurt far worse than losing her husband had, but by that point in the marital relationship she had been practically void of feelings for him anyway. She would have been totally void of feelings had she known then about all his proclivities and what they would cost her.
She looked out to the dock. About a dozen people were mingling there. “They wouldn’t happen to be waiting there for someone else to arrive, would they?” she asked Cecil, the captain of this boat. He was an older gent, weather-beaten face, bushy beard, genuine smile.
“They’ve been anxious ever since they heard you’d agreed to the offer. It’s not always convenient to go across the water to the doctor, especially when the weather turns bad. Makes a body sicker than it was just to get there and back. So they were mighty glad when you accepted.”
Twenty-two hours ago had been when she’d accepted. She hadn’t taken much time to think it over because it was this or, well, she didn’t know what. Something else would have turned up eventually, but there was no predicting how long eventually would have taken. And six months minus three weeks wasn’t an awfully long time in which to start over and make a go of it. So she’d accepted, spent the evening at Meghan’s kindergarten play then packed up and stepped onto the airplane. “What happened to the last doctor?”
“Went to the big city. New York, I think. I didn’t talk to him myself, but I heard he didn’t like being isolated all the way out there by himself. Not married, no one around…”
“He didn’t live in the village?”
“No, ma’am.”
He said that like she should have already known it, and suddenly she wondered what else Foster Armstrong had failed to mention. Or perhaps hadn’t known to mention.
“Is it awfully far from the village?” Suddenly, she was seeing the village at one end of the island and her house all the way at the other, with nothing but wilderness in between. That was a very sobering thought for a city girl. Sobering and daunting.
Cecil chuckled, and his beard bobbed up and down. “No, ma’am. Nothing on the island is far from the village as long as there’s a good road to take you there.”
“Would there happen to be a good road to take me where I’m going?”
“Nice little road, actually. Used to be well traveled when Doc Bonn lived out there. Even when Docs Beaumont and Weatherby were there. I expect it grew up some over the years.”
“Three years since the last doctor,” she stated.
“More like three and a half, if I recall.”
Curiosity was getting the better of her now. “How long was he here before he left?”
“Don’t rightly remember for sure, but I think five, maybe six…”
“Years?”
He shook his head. “Weeks. Not quite as long as Doc Weatherby. He lasted three…”
“Years?”
“No, ma’am. Months. Three months, give or take a few days.”
“And it took Dr Beaumont all this time to sell his practice?”
“Funny how that turned out, because it took Doc Weatherby almost that long, too. Both times the island finally resorted to pitching in.”
Della looked down at the boat deck to see if her heart had just sunk through the boards, because it sure felt like it did. Then she started to cry again as they chugged slowly into the harbor.
* * *
She wasn’t what he’d expected. Not at all. Somehow, he’d pictured the next doctor on Redcliffe to be a large woman. Stout. Rough and tough. But she was tiny. Barely five feet, blond hair. Delicate. Sam Montgomery stepped back into the crowd awaiting her arrival and watched Dr Della Riordan step off Captain Cecil’s boat and take a good, long look at her surroundings. She wasn’t at all sure of herself, either. And…was that a horrible allergy going on with her? Her face was red and puffy, her eyes swollen, and she was blotting her nose like she belonged in bed, under the covers, vaporizer going, sipping hot chicken and noodle soup. She had to be sick, and other than the fact that she looked like someone who needed an IV and oxygen, she was probably very pretty.
Poor thing. She was about to be mobbed and the doctor in him wanted to do something to help her out of that spot. But the doctor in him was also charged to stand back and simply observe. Then report. He wasn’t to be obtrusive, wasn’t to be particularly helpful. Some involvement was acceptable but not so much that he actually had a say, or a way in how the new doctor would set up her practice. All that because the previous medical practices here had such a spotty history, the medical board was keen to see this one done to proper standards. In other words, it was a test that