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  “Would you sign here for the flowers, please?” the man requested.

  Though she was strongly tempted to refuse the flowers, Lila didn’t want to create problems for the deliveryman, so she did as he had said.

  Then he indicated the flowers. “Where do you want them?” he asked her.

  “Be nice, Lila,” Lucie cautioned, as if she could see that her friend was tempted to tell the man exactly where she wanted him to put the roses.

  Resigned, Lila told the deliveryman, “I’ll take them.”

  When she did, she realized that this vase felt even heavier than the last one had. Looking closer, she saw that the vase appeared to be cut crystal.

  “Have a nice day,” the deliveryman told her cheerfully, retreating.

  “With those roses, how could she do otherwise?” Lucie asked, calling after him.

  “You like them so much, here, you take them,” Lila said, trying to hand the vase over to the other woman.

  But Lucie raised her hands up high, putting them out of reach and thus keeping the transfer from being carried out.

  “You know what this means, don’t you?” she asked Lila.

  “That the price of roses is being driven up even higher?” Lila asked sarcastically.

  Lucie shook her head. She looked very pleased with this turn of events.

  “No. It means that you might think you’re done with this guy from your past, but he clearly is not done with you.”

  Lila had another take on the situation. “Maybe he’s just not used to taking no for an answer,” she countered, frowning, then insisted, “All these flowers don’t mean anything.”

  “You know, you still haven’t answered my question,” Lucie said, watching as Lila placed the flowers on the windowsill beside the other vase.

  Lila didn’t bother fussing with the newest arrangement. Instead, she sat down at her desk again, still trying to focus on the budget that was due. “What question is that?”

  Slowly, enunciating each word for emphasis, Lucie repeated, “What are you afraid of?”

  “I thought I answered that,” Lila told her. “I believe I said I was afraid of not getting my budget done in time.”

  Lucie’s eyes met hers. “You know I’m just going to keep after you until you tell me what’s up with you and this guy.”

  And she knew very well that Lucie would, Lila thought. This had to stop. It was bad enough she was trying to get Everett to back off and leave her alone. She did not need her friend championing Everett’s cause as well.

  “Lucie, I love you like a sister—but butt out,” she told Lucie in no uncertain terms.

  “Sorry,” Lucie replied, looking at her innocently. “That doesn’t compute.”

  Lila rolled her eyes. “Make it compute,” she told Lucie and with that, she ushered the woman out and closed the door to her office because, all distractions and two dozen roses aside, she really did have a budget to hand in before the end of the week. Which meant that she had no time to think about Everett Fortunado and his attempts to get her to give him another chance to shatter her heart.

  * * *

  The roses on the windowsill were beginning to drop their petals. They fell sporadically, drifting like soft pink tears onto the industrial beige floor covering in her office.

  There was something sad about watching the flowers wilt.

  Or maybe she felt that way because, despite the two separate deliveries of long-stem roses, she had not heard from Everett since she’d left him in the restaurant on their one and only lunch date—if it could actually have been called that.

  Lila told herself that she was relieved. If Everett didn’t call, then she didn’t have to come up with an excuse not to see him.

  But amid all that so-called relief, she had to admit that there was just the slightest tinge of disappointment as well. She really hadn’t thought that Everett would give up so easily, or so quickly.

  But he obviously had.

  He’d moved on and he was off her conscience—not that she’d ever done anything to feel guilty about when it came to Everett, she silently insisted. Everett, on the other hand, had a lot to atone for—

  What was wrong with her? she suddenly upbraided herself. Why was she wasting time thinking about Everett or trying to figure out why he’d behaved the way he had? She didn’t have time for all that, she admonished herself. Less time than usual.

  She was in the middle of a very real health crisis.

  Everyone at the Fortune Foundation was. They had been stricken by an unseasonable, full-fledged flu epidemic that was laying everyone low. As a result, they were understaffed, with almost a third of both the volunteers and employees alike calling in sick.

  Being short-staffed when it came to the workers was one thing. But now two of the doctors who regularly volunteered their services, making the rounds and tending to the people in her district, had fallen sick and were out of commission as well.

  What that meant in the short run was that there weren’t enough doctors to administer the flu vaccines or to treat the people who were down with it.

  This directly affected Lila, who oversaw the department that made certain poor families in her area had access to flu shots and to medical care.

  She needed replacement for the sick doctors. STAT.

  Lila had spent half the morning on the phones, calling every backup physician she could think of in the area. All the calls yielded the same results. The doctors were either up to their ears in patients—or they were sick themselves.

  The cupboard, Lila thought, exasperated, was appallingly bare. There weren’t any doctors in or around Austin left to call.

  Frustrated, she closed her physicians’ file on the computer. The people whose trust she had painstakingly worked to gain and whom she had gathered into the fold now needed help, and they were counting on her to come through. They weren’t going to believe her when she said that she couldn’t find any doctors to make house calls.

  But it was true. She was totally out of doctors to call. Totally out of options...

  Except for one, she suddenly realized as the thought zigzagged through her brain.

  She hated to do this. Hated to have to call him and sound as if she was begging.

  But this wasn’t about her, Lila reminded herself. This was about the sick people who were counting on her. People who were in desperate need of medical care. Otherwise, some of them, the very young and the very old, might not make it.

  Telling herself not to think about what she was doing, Lila took out the card Everett had handed her during the less than successful lunch. The card with his phone number on it.

  Not his cell phone. She didn’t want this to sound personal, although that, she had a feeling, might get the fastest results.

  Lila squared her shoulders and rejected the thought about using Everett’s cell phone number. She was going to try his office phone number first—and pray that she got through that way.

  Tapping out the number on her landline, Lila found herself connected to a recording with a list of menu options.

  Feeling unusually short-tempered, Lila nearly hung up at that point. But she forced herself to stay on. This was about the kids, she reminded herself. The kids, not her. She needed to try every available possibility.

  After dutifully listening to the selections, she pressed “Number 4 for Dr. Fortunado.”

  That connected her to yet another recording, which asked her to leave her name, phone number and a brief message. The recording promised her a return call within twenty-four hours. It didn’t sound reassuring, but she supposed that it was better than nothing.

  The second the “beep” went off, Lila began talking.

  “Everett, it’s Lila. I’m sorry to bother you like this, but we’ve been hit really hard with this flu epidemic. I’m down two doctors, not to mention a number of s
taff members. Every backup physician I’ve called is already handling too many patients—if they’re not sick themselves. I’m totally out of options, otherwise I wouldn’t be bothering you. I know you’re an internist and not a family practitioner, but to put it quite simply, I’m desperate. A lot of the people I interact with are down with this flu and I need help.

  “If you’re too busy to return this call, I’ll understand. However, I hope you’ll consider it. You can reach me in my office, or on my cell.” She proceeded to recite both numbers slowly. “I hope to hear from you soon, but like I said, if you decide you can’t help, I’ll understand.”

  With that, she hung up and desperately tried to think of some other course of action. Maybe she could try physicians’ assistants in the area. The way she saw it, it was any port in a storm at this point.

  But she just ran into wall after wall.

  Lila was beginning to think that the situation was hopeless.

  And then her phone rang.

  Snatching the receiver up, she cried, “This is Lila Clark,” as she literally crossed her fingers, hoping that one of the many, many doctors she had called today was calling back to tell her that after due consideration, they had found a way to spare a few hours to work with the needy families.

  “Lila,” the deep voice on the other end of the line said. “It’s Everett.”

  Chapter Six

  As the sound of his voice registered, Lila felt as if everything had suddenly ground to a standstill all around her.

  But maybe her imagination was playing tricks on her, or she had just heard incorrectly and thought it was Everett calling her. Someone else might have said that wishful thinking was to blame, but she refused to call it that.

  Rousing herself, Lila asked in a small, stilted voice, “Everett?”

  “Yes.”

  She exhaled a shaky breath before saying his name, as if to make certain that it really was him calling. “Everett.”

  Had he gotten her message? Lila wondered. Or was this just a coincidence and he was calling because she hadn’t acknowledged the roses he’d sent her? Taking nothing for granted, Lila replied, “I called you earlier today—”

  “Yes, I know,” he responded. “About a flu epidemic you’re having in Austin. That’s the reason I’m calling back. If you still need me, I can be there by tomorrow morning.”

  Relief swept over her, drenching her like a huge tidal wave and stealing her breath. Lila was certain she now understood how lottery winners felt.

  “Oh, I need you,” she said with feeling, and then she realized how that must have sounded to him. Mortified, Lila immediately backtracked. “That is... I mean—”

  She heard Everett laugh softly. That same old laugh that used to make her skin tingle and had warm thoughts flowing all through her, fast and heavy.

  “That’s okay, I know what you meant,” Everett assured her. “Are you really that short-handed out there?”

  Looking at the mounting stack of calls on her desk, almost all requesting help, she stifled a groan. “You have no idea.”

  “Well, you can give me a tour and let me see what you’re up against when I get there tomorrow,” he told her.

  She knew that Everett had his own practice and that he was going to have to make arrangements on his end in order to accommodate her, even for one day. It didn’t take a genius to know that that he was really going out of his way for her.

  “I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate this, Everett,” Lila began.

  Everett cut her short. “I’m a doctor,” he replied simply. “This is what I do.” She heard papers being moved around on his end. “I should be able to get in by eight. Where should I meet you?”

  This was really happening, she thought. Everett was actually coming to her rescue, despite the way everything had ended between them the last time they saw one another. Relief and gratitude mingled with a sharp twinge of guilt within her.

  “Why don’t we meet at the Fortune Foundation?” she suggested to him. “And we can go from there.”

  Lila went on to give him the address of the building, although that would have been easy enough for him to look up if he wanted to. She told him which floor she was on as well as the number of her office.

  “I can wait outside the building for you if that’ll be easier,” Lila added.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Everett assured her. “They taught me how to count in medical school.”

  Had she just insulted him somehow? Afraid of saying something wrong, Lila felt as if she was stumbling over her own tongue. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Lila,” Everett raised his voice as he cut into her words. When she abruptly stopped talking, he told her, “Stop apologizing.”

  She took a deep breath, trying to center herself and regroup. None of this was easy for her. Not when it came to Everett. “Um, I guess I’m just not used to asking for favors.”

  Everett read between the lines. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you for a favor back if that’s what you’re thinking,” he assured her. There was another moment of awkward silence on her end and then he said, “All right, if I’m going to be there tomorrow morning, I’ve got a few things to see about between now and then. See you tomorrow,” he told her.

  Everett hung up before she had a chance to thank him again.

  Lila slowly returned the receiver back to its cradle. “Well,” she murmured, still feeling somewhat numb as she continued to look at the receiver, “that at least solves some of my problem.”

  She was still one doctor down, but one out of two was a lot better in her opinion than none out of two, she told herself. She could definitely work with one.

  In the meanwhile, she needed to get the list of patients prepared for the doctors who were coming in so that they could start making those house calls.

  Lila looked down at the various names and addresses she’d already jotted down. The number of people who were just too ill to get to a local clinic on their own was astounding, and growing rapidly. Some of the people, she thought, were probably exaggerating their conditions, but she couldn’t really blame them. The free clinics were always positively jammed from the moment they opened their doors in the morning. Waiting to be seen by a doctor was exceedingly challenging when you weren’t running a fever. Sitting there with a fever of a hundred or more and feeling too weak to win a wrestling match against a flea was a whole different story. If she were in that position, she’d ask to have the doctor come to the house, too.

  Oh, who are you kidding? You could be at death’s door and you’d drag yourself in to see the doctor because you wouldn’t want to inconvenience anyone.

  Lila smiled to herself as she gathered her things together to meet with the physicians who were volunteering their time today.

  The silent assessment rang true. She’d rather die than to surrender to her own weakness, Lila thought, going out the door.

  * * *

  Lila was exhausted.

  Having stayed late, reorganizing supplies and hustling all over the city to beg, borrow or threaten to steal more vaccine serum as well as arranging for more lab tests to be done, she had finally dragged herself home after midnight.

  Too tired to eat, she still hadn’t been able to get right to sleep—most likely because part of her kept thinking about having to interact with Everett after she had summarily rejected him the last time they had been together.

  But she had finally dropped off to sleep somewhere around 1:00 a.m., only to wake up at 4:30 a.m., half an hour before her alarm was set to go off.

  She lay there for several minutes, staring at the ceiling, telling herself that she had half an hour before she needed to get up, which meant that she could grab a few more minutes of sleep.

  She gave up after a couple more minutes, feeling that there was no point in trying to get b
ack to sleep. She was wired and that meant she was up for the day.

  With a sigh, she got up, showered and dressed. A piece of toast accompanied her to her car, along with a cup of coffee that would have been rejected by everyone except a person who felt they had no extra time to make a second, better cup of coffee.

  Sticking the thick-sludge-contained-in-a-cup into a cup holder, Lila started the car.

  There had to be a better way to achieve sainthood, she thought cryptically to herself as she drove to the Foundation in the dark.

  The streets were fairly empty at that time in the morning. The lack of light just intensified the pervasive loneliness that seemed to be invading every space in her head.

  Snap out of it, damn it, she ordered. He’s a doctor and you need a doctor in order to help out. And that’s all you need.

  However, ambivalent feelings about seeing Everett again refused to leave her alone. They continued to ricochet through her with an intensity that was almost numbing.

  He’s not Everett, she silently insisted. He’s just an available doctor who’s willing to help you. That’s what you have to focus on, not anything else, understand? Don’t you dare focus on anything else. She all but threatened herself.

  It helped.

  A little.

  Arriving in the parking lot located behind the Fortune Foundation building, she found that there were only a few vehicles that pockmarked the area at this hour. Apparently the Foundation had a few early birds who liked to come in and get a jumpstart on the day and the work they had to do.

  As she made her way toward the entrance, she saw that one of the cars, a navy blue high-end sedan, had someone sitting inside it in the driver’s seat.

  As she passed the vehicle, the driver’s side door opened and Everett stepped out. A very casual-looking Everett wearing boots, jeans and a zippered sweatshirt with a hood.

  She almost hadn’t recognized him.

  Her heart suddenly began to hammer very hard when she did.

  “I got here early,” he told her, nodding at Lila by way of a greeting. “Traffic from Houston wasn’t too bad this time,” he explained. He saw the way she was looking at what he was wearing. He looked down at his attire himself, just to be sure that he hadn’t put anything on inside out. “I didn’t want to look intimidating,” he explained. “Someone told me that three-piece suits make some people nervous.”