died quite a while ago.”
“Yes. Mom was in a terrible car accident. I was barely ten. And that was when I came to live with my grandparents.”
“But are there other blood kin? Brothers, cousins? Any relatives at all on your grandfather’s side of the fence?”
“No, not that I’m aware of. The Gautiers came originally from France … there may be some distant relatives still there, but none I know of. My grandmother had some family in California, but I never met any of them. They were like second cousins or that distance.”
“What about your father?” Louella leaned over, opened a drawer, lifted a sterling silver flask. “Need a little toot?”
“Uh, no. Thank you.” She added, “My father has nothing to do with this situation. He’s not a Gautier—”
“Yes. But he’s family for you, so he could help you, couldn’t he? Advise you on options you might consider for your grandfather.”
Ginger frowned. So far she’d given more information than she’d gotten. Not that she minded telling her grandfather’s attorney the situation. Gramps trusted Louella. So Ginger did. “My dad,” she said carefully, “is about as lovable as you can get. He’s huggable, always laughing, lots of fun. I adored him when I was little. He brought me a puppy one birthday, rented a Ferris wheel for another birthday party, took me out of school—played hooky—to fly me to Disney World one year. You’d love him. Everyone does.”
“I’m sure there’s some reason you’re telling me this,” Louella said stridently.
“I’m just trying to say, as tactfully as I can, that my dad can’t be in this picture. I love him. Not loving him would be like … well, like not loving a puppy. Puppies piddle. It isn’t fun to clean up after them, but you can’t expect a puppy to behave like a grown-up. Which is to say … I don’t even know where my dad is right now. Whatever problems my grandfather has—I’m his person. His problems are mine. And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him.”
“All right. I always heard the gossip that your father was your basic good-looking reprobate, but I never met him, didn’t know for sure. I’m glad you clarified the situation. I’m sorry that he’s out of the picture for you. That makes Cashner’s circumstances all the more awkward. But I still can’t tell you about his will—”
“I don’t give a hoot about his will. I need to know if he’s paying his bills. If he’s solvent. Can you tell me who has power of attorney? If someone has medical powers? I need to know if I have the right to look into his bank accounts, make sure that bills are being paid, what shape the business is in, whether he’s okay financially or if I need to do something.”
Louella harrumphed, looked out the window as if she were thinking about how to phrase an answer. Ginger was more than willing to wait.
At least she thought she was. A glance at an old wall clock revealed it was well past noon. Apparently they’d been talking—and she’d been running around town—a lot longer than she’d expected. Technically time didn’t matter; it wasn’t as if she was on a schedule. But the queasiness that plagued her earlier in the morning was suddenly back. So was exhaustion. Not exhaustion from doing anything; she just had a sudden, consuming urge to curl up in a ball like a cat and close her eyes, just nap for a few minutes.
She’d never been a napper. Until eight weeks ago. Now she could suddenly get so tired she could barely stumble around. It was crazy. She felt crazy. And in a blink of a minute, she just wanted to go home.
“Well, Ginger. I don’t know how to say this but bluntly. Your grandfather needs to move out of that big old place. But he won’t. He needs to hire someone to take over the tea plantation before it’s in complete ruin. But he won’t do that, either. And the best advice I can give you is to just leave him alone. Go on about your life. It’s what I’d want, if I were in Cashner’s situation. He doesn’t need or want someone telling him what to do, where he needs to be, what rules he should be following. It won’t help. If you want to help, be a good granddaughter and love him. But then just go on with your own life.”
Ginger heard her. Alarm shot sparks straight to her bloodstream. Gramps was in trouble, in ways the attorney knew about, separate from the problems Ike knew as Gramps’s doctor. Urgency made her heart slam. She rushed to her feet—or she tried to.
For the second time that morning, the world turned green and everything in sight started spinning.
“Well, my word!”
She heard Louella’s husky voice. Heard it as if it was coming from a hundred yards away. After that, everything went smoky black.
Chapter Three
When the last patient of the morning canceled, Ruby let him know with a fervent “Hallelujah!”
Ike was still smiling when he heard the front door slam—Ruby did like a long lunch when she could get it. But his mind was really on Ginger, and had been all morning.
There was no question that he’d see her again. She’d seek him out because she had to; he was the best source of information on her grandfather. Ike needed that connection just as much, because he happened to love the old man, and something had to be decided about Cashner before the situation turned into a real crisis.
Still, when the office phone rang, he never guessed it would be Ginger contacting him again this soon. Nor would he have thought he’d hear from Louella Meachams—one of his most reluctant patients. She told him she “had no truck with doctors” every single time he took her blood pressure. Louella was at least part guy. Not gay. Just an exuberantly male kind of female. People trusted her in town. He did, too. She just had a lot of coarse sandpaper in her character.
“Don’t waste your time telling me you’re busy with a patient, Ike MacKinnon. I don’t care if you have fifty patients. I have a woman in my office on the floor. Fainted dead away. Now you get right over here and do something about her.”
“Since you asked so nicely, I’ll be there right away. But in the meantime … do you know who she is, why she fainted, what happened?”
“I don’t care what happened. I want her off my floor. When she went down, it scared the bejesus out of me. I thought she was dead!”
“I understand—”
“I don’t care if you understand or not. You get her out of here somehow, someway, and I’m talking pronto.”
“Yes, ma’am. But again …” Hell. Ike just wanted a clue what the problem could be. “Do you know her?”
“Her name is Ginger Gautier. Cashner’s granddaughter. What difference does it make? The problem is I thought she’d stopped breathing. Almost gave me a heart attack. I don’t do first aid. I had a sister who fainted all the time, but that was to get our mother’s attention. It was fake every time. This is not fake. I’m telling you, she went down. Right in front of my desk.”
“Okay, got it, see you in five, max six.”
“You make that three minutes, Doc. And I’m not whistling Dixie.”
If Louella really believed there was an emergency, she’d have called 911—but Louella, being stingy, would never risk an ambulance charge unless she was absolutely positive there was no other choice. So Ike took the time to shove on street shoes, grab a jacket and scribble a note to Ruby before heading out.
He could jog the distance faster than driving it—the lawyer’s office was only three blocks over, faster yet if he zigzagged through buildings. Pansy let out an unholy howl of abandonment when he left without her, but sometimes, darn it, he just couldn’t take his favorite girl.
Less than five minutes later, he reached the bakery and zipped up the steps to the second floor. When he turned the knob of Louella’s office, though, something heavy seemed to be blocking