Where There's Smoke

She jumped as though she’d been caught doing something she should feel guilty for. “Oh, good morning, Nancy. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I’ll say. You were a million miles away.” The nurse/receptionist placed her handbag in the file case and put on a pastel lab coat. “What happened to the telephone in the examination room?” She had come in through the back door before joining Lara in a small alcove where they kept supplies, beverages, and snacks. The kitchen of the attached house remained for Lara’s personal use.

“It was flimsy, so I decided to replace it.”

Because she hadn’t yet sorted out her feelings about Key Tackett’s visit to the clinic, she wasn’t ready to discuss it with Nancy. “Coffee?” She held up the carafe.

“Absolutely.” The nurse added two teaspoons of sugar to the steaming mug Lara handed her. “Are there any doughnuts left?”

“In the cabinet. I thought you were dieting.”

Nancy Baker found the doughnuts and demolished half of one with a single bite, then licked the sugar glaze off her fingers. “I gave up dieting,” she said unapologetically. “I’m too busy to count calories. And if I dieted from now till doomsday, I’d never be a centerfold. Besides, Clem likes me this way. Says there’s more to love.”

Smiling, Lara asked, “How was your day off?”

“Well,” Nancy replied, smacking her lips, “all things considered, it was okay. The dog’s in heat, and Little Clem found a pair of his sister’s tap shoes, put them on, and wore them all day long on the wrong feet. When we tried to take them off, he screamed bloody murder, so it was easier just to let him wear them and look goofy. Tapping feet I can live with, screaming I can’t.”

Nancy’s stories about her chaotic household never failed to be entertaining. She complained good-naturedly about her hectic routine, which revolved around three active children, all of whom were going through a “stage,” but Lara knew her nurse loved her husband and her children and wouldn’t have traded places with anyone.

Nancy had responded to an ad Lara had placed in the local newspaper, and Lara had hired her after their first interview, partially because Nancy was her sole applicant. Nancy was well qualified, although she’d taken time off from nursing to have Little Clem two years ago.

“Now that it’s time to potty train him,” she’d told Lara, “I’d rather go back to work and let Granny Baker do the honors.”

Lara had liked her instantly and was even a little jealous of her. She’d had chaos in her life, too, but it hadn’t been the crazy, happy kind that Nancy experienced daily. It had been the life-altering kind, the kind that wounded and left deep scars. Her calamities had been irrevocable.

“If it weren’t for Clem,” Nancy was saying as she finished her second doughnut, “I’d have killed the dog, possibly the kids, too, and then pulled my hair out. But when he came home from work, he insisted we drop the kids at his mother’s house and go to dinner by ourselves. We pigged out on Beltbusters and onion rings at the Dairy Queen. It was great.

“After Little Clem went to sleep, I hid the tap shoes in the top of the closet so he wouldn’t be reminded of them today. This morning Big Clem dropped the dog off at the vet, where she’ll either get laid or spayed. By the way, if they’ve got a willing sire available, do you want dibs on a puppy?”

“No, thanks,” Lara said, laughing.

“Don’t blame you. I’ll probably

be stuck with the whole damn litter.” She washed her hands in the sink. “I’d better go check the appointment book to see who’s coming in today.”

Both knew that the appointment book wasn’t filled. There were far more empty time slots than confirmed appointments. She had been in Eden Pass for six months but was still struggling to increase her practice. If she hadn’t had a savings account to fall back on, she would have had to close the clinic long before now.

Greater than the financial considerations were the professional ones. She was a good doctor. She wanted to practice medicine… although she wouldn’t necessarily have chosen to do so in Eden Pass.

Eden Pass had been chosen for her.

This practice had been a gift handed to her when she least expected it, though it facilitated a plan she’d been formulating for some time. She had needed a viable excuse to approach Key Tackett. When the opportunity to place herself in his path had presented itself, she had seized it. But not without acknowledging that being the only GP in a small town would be a difficult transition for her.

She had also known it would be an even greater adjustment for the townsfolk who were accustomed to Doc Patton and his small cluttered office in the clinic. She had earned the diplomas now adorning the walls. The medical books on the shelves belonged to her. But the office still bore the former occupant’s masculine imprint. As soon as it was economically feasible, she intended to paint the dark paneling and replace the leather maroon furniture with something brighter and more contemporary.

These planned changes would be only cosmetic. Changing the minds of people would take much more time and effort. Before his retirement, Dr. Stewart Patton had been a general practitioner in Eden Pass for more than forty years and in that time he had never made a single enemy. Since taking over his practice, Lara was frequently asked, “Where’s Doc?” with the same suspicious inflection as Key Tackett had used when he posed the question to her last night, as though she had displaced the elderly doctor for self-gain.

Dr. Lara Mallory had a long way to go before earning the same level of confidence as Doc Patton had held with the people of Eden Pass. She knew she could never cultivate the affection of her patients that Doc Patton had enjoyed, because she was, after all, the scarlet woman who’d been involved with Clark Tackett. Everyone in his hometown knew her as such. That’s why her arrival had taken them by surprise. Lara had wishfully reasoned that once they recovered from the initial shock and realized that she was a qualified physician, they would forget the scandal.

Unfortunately, she had underestimated Jody Tackett’s staggering influence over the community. Although they’d never met face to face, Clark’s mother was crippling her attempts to succeed.

One afternoon when she was feeling particularly despondent, she’d brought it up with Nancy. “I guess it’s no mystery why people in Eden Pass are willing to drive twenty miles to the next town to see a doctor.”

“Course not,” Nancy said. “Jody Tackett has put out the word that anybody who comes near this office, no matter how sick, will be on her shit list.”

“Because of Clark?”

“Hmm. Everyone in town knows the scintillating details of y’all’s affair. It had almost been laid to rest when Clark died. Then you showed up a few months afterward. Jody got pissed and set her mind to making you an outcast.”