LITMIR.BIZ

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arms.” It took everything she had not to turn and run, clutching her daughters to her. Her own voice sounded almost breathless to her as she answered.

      C’mon, Heather, get a grip.

      Heather tamped down an onslaught of erupting nerves. She needed to calm down before she made a complete idiot of herself.

      Very carefully Ben examined the arms of first Hannah, then Hayley before making his pronouncement. He addressed his conclusions not to Heather, but to her daughters, who appeared to absorb his words as if they were tiny little sponges. Their eyes shone at being treated like adults.

      “I’m happy to tell you girls that there’s no rash here now. Guess the yucky medicine made it go away.”

      “Guess so,” Hayley agreed, solemnly nodding her head.

      Hannah said nothing, only looked at him with her wide green eyes. When he returned her gaze, she suddenly turned shy, shifting closer to her mother. Though part of her face was buried in Heather’s shirt, Hannah kept one watchful eye on him.

      Heather pasted a smile on her lips as she turned to Shayne. “I guess this means I’m not going to be late after all.” She glanced at her watch. “If I hurry to get the girls back home.”

      “Need a ride?” Ben offered. He was aware of the sharp look that his brother gave him. But it was too late to gracefully rescind his offer.

      Heather was already edging her way over toward the front door, drawing Hannah with her. Hayley was another story. “I have my car.”

      “I’ll go with him,” Hayley volunteered eagerly, her eyes all but lighting up.

      Shayne interceded. Without looking at Ben, he squatted down to Hayley’s level. “Sorry, honey, but I need him here. He’s a doctor,” Shayne told her.

      Hayley’s perfectly shaped, tiny golden eyebrows knitted themselves over her nose as she pondered what Shayne had just told her. Looking up at her new hero, she asked, “You’re like him?”

      Shayne placed his hand on his brother’s shoulder as if for the little girl’s benefit. “He’s working his way up,” he responded before Ben could say anything.

      Ben flashed a grin at his brother. “And I’ve got a long way to go.”

      “But you’re bigger,” Hayley pointed out in earnest, looking from one man to the other.

      Amused, Ben assured her, “Size doesn’t matter in this case.” Glancing toward Heather, he noticed that Hannah was now burying her face in the fold of what there was of her mother’s skirt.

      Heather had a great pair of legs. But then, she always did have. He remembered watching her practice cheerleading moves on the field while he and his friends were supposedly listening to the coach give orders. He allowed himself a moment to appreciate the view. For old-time’s sake.

      “Is there anything else while you’re here?” Shayne asked her.

      Heather shook her head, a little emphatically in Shayne’s estimation. “No. Thank you.” She felt behind her for the doorknob. Finding it, she held on as if it represented her ticket to freedom. “I can pay you around the middle—”

      Shayne waved away her words. “Follow-up care. See you girls later.”

      “Um, yes. Thank you,” Heather stammered. With a quick nod at Ben, she turned on her heel and left the premises. She had to almost drag Hayley in her wake. The latter, her gaze intent on Ben, waved madly as she disappeared down the front steps of the porch.

      Shayne waved back even though he knew that the attention was centered exclusively on Ben. The door closed and he turned to face his brother.

      “Looks like you’re a hit with the under-three-foot set,” he commented. Glancing at the day’s appointments, he saw that the next one wasn’t scheduled for another half hour—provided there were no emergency phone calls.

      He knew better than to count on that. But he did need a caffeine hit.

      Since Ben had neglected to take his blatant hint about making coffee, Shayne made his way to the back room and the barren coffeepot. Of late, at a very minimum, he found himself averaging a cup an hour. It was an unabashed intent on his part to stave off exhaustion. The feeling seemed to haunt him more and more these days, though he kept that to himself. Given Sydney’s penchant for reading him like a book, he knew it was only a matter of time before his “secret” was out. Hopefully, by then his energy would make a reappearance of its own volition.

      “Not entirely,” Ben replied, following him into the back. He leaned against the doorjamb, watching Shayne move about the cramped area. With a discarded dinette table in the middle, surrounded with four chairs, the room wasn’t big enough for both of them to move around, and he didn’t want to crowd Shayne. “Her older girl looks as if she’s afraid of me.”

      “Hannah,” Shayne said. “Hannah’s shy. She’s always been the quiet one in her family. She was born without making a sound.” He smiled. “Heather used to bring her in, concerned because Hannah didn’t cry. I told her to be grateful. Once Hayley was born, she realized she’d had a good thing with her firstborn.”

      Ben nodded, only half listening. Another question had occurred to him. Try as he might, he couldn’t see the petite, delicate Heather married to Kendall, a big, burly man who looked far more at home handling steel beams than holding something as fragile as Heather in his arms. “How’s Joe Kendall doing? Is he still a miner?”

      “Not these days,” Shayne told him dryly. Putting the filter in its proper place, he measured out several heaping tablespoons of coffee and then added very little water. The pot began making noises as it heated the water. “He’s dead.”

      “What do you mean, ‘dead’?”

      “The usual definition,” Shayne responded mildly. He replaced the plastic lid on the can of coffee and put it back into the tiny refrigerator Sydney had given him. “Not breathing. Body decomposing, or in Joe’s case, already decomposed.” He turned from the coffeemaker and glanced at his brother. “Did you sleep through the basic course in medical school?”

      “I mean dead how?” Ben pressed. “How did her husband die?”

      “Cave-in at the mines.”

      The words were recited without feeling, but Ben knew better. No one cared more than Shayne about these people. Whenever there was a cave-in, Shayne was the first there to help with the wounded. To go into the bowels of the earth if need be. Shayne coped by keeping a tight rein on his feelings. Just the way he had when their parents were killed.

      Ben thought back to the special he’d watched last month. The one that had triggered his decision to return home. Maybe the footage he’d seen on the Alaskan cave-in had even been of the one that had claimed Heather’s husband.

      Small world.

      He realized that Shayne was holding a cup out to him. Taking it, he looked down at the pitch-black, almost-solid contents. “You know, you should offer to coat the walls at the mines with this stuff, Shay. They’d never cave in again.”

      “Starbucks is approximately a hundred miles due east,” Shayne told him, pointing in that general direction. Just as he took a sip of the dark brew, they heard a bell ring in the front. It was swiftly followed by a low, resonant greeting.

      “’Morning!”

      “That would be Jimmy.” Rather than leave the cup behind, Shayne topped it off then headed out of the small room. “C’mon. Time to make introductions.”

      The coffee jolted through Ben’s system. He’d forgotten just how strong Shayne’s coffee could really be. He smiled to himself as he followed behind his brother. It felt good to be home.

      Heather had no recollection of the short drive home from the clinic. She didn’t remember getting into the car, didn’t remember strapping the girls in, didn’t remember

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