want to rule out anything else unless I’m sure.”
“Do you know how much—” the man began.
Spring interrupted. “You don’t have to worry about the cost. Our focus here at Common Ground is wellness and health.”
“I can pay,” he said.
She touched his arm. “It’s all right. Really.”
A little moan from the examination table drew Spring’s attention back to her young patient.
“Everything will be fine,” she assured the boy’s father.
* * *
David didn’t know what was more distressing, Jeremy getting sick while they were out of town or this gorgeous doctor thinking he was some kind of deadbeat who couldn’t pay for his kid’s health-care needs.
And gorgeous she was. Her blond hair, like spun gold sprinkled with shards of sunlight and honey, was pulled up on the sides and clasped with a large barrette to keep it out of her face. She wore simple gold hoops in her ears. Khaki slacks and a crisp white shirt were visible under the unbuttoned white lab coat she had over her clothing.
But something about that name rang a bell with him. What had the receptionist said?
And then he remembered. Darling.
Someone named Darling was leading the opposition to his development project.
Great.
Just great, David thought. What else can go wrong?
“I think it’s a case of gastroenteritis,” the pretty doctor said.
David groaned. That sounded serious.
“That sounds...it sounds bad,” he said. “Are you sure? Is he going to be okay?”
Dr. Darling smiled and placed a reassuring hand on his arm. Again.
“It sounds much worse than it is,” she said. “Gastroenteritis is what most people call the stomach flu. Has he had any—”
“Daddy, I have to go to the bathroom.”
“—diarrhea or vomiting?” Spring said at the same time.
David’s eyes widened as he looked between the boy and the pretty doctor. She pointed toward the door.
“Second door on the right,” she told him.
David scooped up his son and dashed for the rest room.
Twenty minutes later and with his son’s diagnosis confirmed, David got instructions from the doctor on what needed to be done.
“He’ll need rest and plenty of fluids for the next few days,” Spring said. “It’s really easy for the little ones to get dehydrated with this sort of illness. He needs plenty of juice, tea or Gatorade. I’m going to give you a prescription. It’s an oral electrolyte replacement. Gatorade has some, but this will ensure that he gets all the fluids and minerals he needs. He may not want much to eat, but be sure you give this to him with food, even if it’s just a bit of banana or some peanut butter. The protein will do him good. But be sure he starts with soft foods.”
“Dr. Darling, I’m not sure—”
“It’s already taken care of, Mr.—I’m sorry. I didn’t get your name.”
“Camden,” he said. “David Camden.” Then, wondering, he added, “What’s already taken care of?”
“The prescription. All you have to do is take this to any pharmacy in town. Common Ground will see to the payment. You just need to make sure Jeremy takes all of the medication, even when he’s feeling better.”
Her cheery explanation grated on David. Here he was in Cedar Springs to help develop its economic vitality and all she could see was a loser who needed handouts. That Carolina Land Associates, and thus David Camden himself, was one contract away from just that stung his psyche like salt in an open wound.
For every degree of warmth in her voice, David’s dropped until ice chips formed on his words.
“I am not a charity case, Dr. Darling.”
“I didn’t presume that you were, Mr. Camden,” she said.
If she was upset or insulted by his tone, it didn’t show.
David had to give her credit. She didn’t snap at him even though he probably deserved it. She spoke the words slowly and evenly. But he did notice an ever-so-slight tightening at the corner of her mouth. If he hadn’t been looking directly at said mouth, he would have missed it.
The irrational part of him felt inordinately pleased. He had managed to ruffle her too-cool feathers and the calm-seas demeanor she wore with the ease she wore that white lab coat with the Common Ground logo and her name—Dr. Darling—embroidered inside a blue oval.
The rational part of him wanted to tell her that he was worried about his kid. He was worried about his own mother, who was also Jeremy’s regular babysitter. The day he’d left for this business trip, she’d taken off for Greensboro, saying she needed to “get away for a few days.”
He was worried about his company and the employees who depended on him to secure the deal with the City of Cedar Springs. And, most of all, he was worried that he would fail every last one of them, including and most especially his son.
And to put a cherry on top of the mess of a melted sundae that was his life, it hadn’t escaped his notice that she had—again—cut him off and was in fact presuming he couldn’t afford to pay.
Was she trying to save him embarrassment?
If that were the case, she did so with a grace and style he could only admire, displaying empathy in a gentle and subtle manner. David had to admit that the line about the peanut butter and banana was smoothly delivered. There was no judgment, no condemnation in her voice, just a statement of fact. He supposed many of her patients here subsisted on peanut butter and bananas, two relatively inexpensive foods that were readily available and nutritious.
After another trip to the little boys’ room, Jeremy sat comfortably—at least for the time being—ensconced in a chair that looked like the command station of a galactic battleship or maybe the mission control room for NASA astronauts. He was fighting hard to stay awake to watch a Sesame Street video, but David knew sleep would win the skirmish with the four-year-old. On top of being ill, it was way past his usual bedtime.
“Clever way to get the kids comfortable while sick,” he said, nodding toward the room where the receptionist had directed him after he’d seen to Jeremy in the restroom.
The doctor smiled, and David knew she’d accepted the olive branch he’d extended by way of a compliment. And he liked the way that smile lit up her face.
“Decorating the children’s waiting rooms in themes they could relate to was actually a suggestion of one of our young patients,” she said, gesturing toward the all-boy space decorated in blues, blacks and silver. Her blue eyes sparkled, and she gave him a grin that transformed her face. “He didn’t care much for the very pink Barbie Dreamhouse that was in a corner and wanted to know why we liked girls more than boys.”
David smiled. “Out of the mouths of babes comes genius and inspiration?”
Spring nodded. “Something like that. Then, before you know it, backed by an anonymous gift to the clinic, there was funding to update and remodel not only two kids’ waiting-slash-recovery rooms, but also all of the common spaces here. Common Ground was very blessed by that donor.
“But back to Jeremy’s care and recovery,” she said.
And just that fast she morphed into the cool and efficient