Author: Kristan Higgins

Joe was next. As he spoke somewhat shyly about his apprenticeship, I stared at his flannel-clad back. My mind refused to shape the words that buzzed around in my head like a swarm of mosquitoes. No. Absolutely not. Stop. Sam turned to me again, and I whirled to face Dr. Whitaker.

“Do you…um, do you talk about anything in particular?” I whispered as the kids applauded for Joe.

“Not really. You’ll be fine.” Dr. Whitaker smiled reassuringly.

I would be fine? What did he mean by that?

Now it was Sam’s turn. My heart rate accelerated even more, my pulse thudding wildly in my ears, and I closed my eyes for a moment, dizzy. This was a nightmare. In fact, the whole scene was a textbook panic dream…sitting on a stage, terror racing through my limbs, heart hammering my chest. Unfortunately, I was wide awake, and in more ways than one. Sam said something that made the kids laugh…. He turned back to smile at us grown-ups because whatever he’d said apparently involved us. His eyes stopped on me for just a second.

Oh, damn it all.

The sandbags in my brain dissolved and the river came roaring over the banks.

I was in love with Sam Nickerson.

Sam. My brother-in-law!

No! my brain hollered. It’s practically incest! Completely wrong! What about Trish? And Danny! You can’t!

But I did.

My mouth was tacky, my throat coated in sawdust. My intestines rolled, my face practically shimmered with heat waves. I opened my dry mouth with an audible clack and sucked in a shuddering breath. Dr. Whitaker looked at me oddly. I stretched my mouth into a smile and blinked stupidly.

“…time to hear from Dr. Barnes.”

Dr. Barnes. That was me. Sam walked back toward me. Could he tell? Did he know? Why was he looking at me like that? Oh, God, he knew—

“It’s your turn, kiddo,” he whispered. “Knock ’em dead.”

My turn? My—oh, Christ. “You want me to do this?” I whispered to Dr. Whitaker.

“Is that all right?” he asked, his bushy gray eyebrows coming together in concern.

“Sure! Just…sure!”

Clenching my jaw against the urge to throw up, I smiled wildly again at Dr. Whitaker and wobbled to the podium. I glanced at Joe, who was staring at the floor. Poor Joe. Don’t look at Sam, I warned myself as my eyes found him. He winked at me, and my stomach clenched as a wave of warmth rolled over me.

“Hi.” My voice came out as a slight gasp. I looked at the kids, squinting against the stage lights. “Uh…I’m, um…I’m Millie. Millie Barnes. A doctor.” A doctor with shaking legs, about to puke on you. I giggled, but it morphed into a slight dry heave. “Sorry. I think I have a little stage fright.” I gripped the podium, my palms slick, and swallowed. Stage fright. Better than looking at Danny and blurting out the truth—I’m in love with your dad! I gave a slightly hysterical laugh.

Dr. Whitaker is sitting behind you, Millie, a rational voice in my brain called against the internal din. I swallowed again. “Okay. Down to business.” I cleared my throat. “I’m a doctor, which I just told you. Um, I work at the clinic in Wellfleet…but pretty soon, I’ll be working for Dr. Whitaker there.”

What else was I supposed to say? They all knew what doctors did! Everyone knew! What was the big mystery? Why did they want a doctor for their stupid Career Day? And where were those stupid note cards? In my stupid pocketbook, under my stupid chair, next to Sa—

“Well, in medicine, there are a lot of fields…um…like uh, orthopedics, which treats…um…uh, it’s from the Greek, ortho, meaning—” What did it mean? Ortho, ortho…My mind was empty. Oh, Sam. “Okay, and there’s, um, well, gynecology…no, let’s not talk about that one. How about pathology? Pathology’s fun. That’s the one with dead people. Autopsies. Cause of death. Stuff like that. It’s fun. Well, not fun…I meant interesting. It’s…interesting.”

This wasn’t going well. “Okay, lots of fields. You choose what you want in med school. Any questions?”

The students were supposed to save their questions for the end, but I couldn’t go on like this. Thankfully, a girl raised her hand.

“What kind of doctor are you?”

“Me? Oh. I’m a family practitioner. I treat everybody, kids, adults, you know. But if you have a real problem, like heart disease or something really bad, we send you to someone else.” Well, that made us sound completely incompetent! “We’re the family doctor,” I backpedaled. “You get strep, you come to us. Um, need to lose weight, we’ll tell you.” I glanced at the audience, searching for inspiration. “Acne? We can help.”

Jesus, deliver me from this stage. “Next question?”

Danny took pity on me. “Millie, why did you become a family practitioner?”

Gazing at my nephew, I felt my terror ebb a bit. I took a deep breath. “Well, um, as you know, Danny, it’s because I—I guess I really want to get to know my patients. Sometimes, when people go to their doctor, it’s just routine stuff, like earaches or rashes or fevers. But patients let their family doctor into their lives, you know? They trust us to help them. There’s medicine out there that’s probably more exciting, like reconstructive surgery or emergency medicine, but in this field, I get to help you in your everyday life. And that’s what I always wanted to do.”

Danny’s smile affirmed that I had—finally—constructed a sensible sentence. Danny, you’re such a good person, I thought.

Just like your dad.

DESPITE HOW IT FELT, Career Day did finally end. I fled as quickly as possible, grateful that I had to be at work to cover the late shift. I squashed my thoughts of Sam and concentrated on the several patients who came in, taking as long with them as possible, trying to avoid any downtime. When I finally got home around ten, I grabbed Digger’s leash and walked with him to Nauset Light Beach. There, listening to the roar and shush of the waves, I gave in.

I was in love with Sam. I didn’t know when it had happened, but it had. Looking back over the past few months, I had to close my eyes. The evidence was all there, but I’d never put the pieces together and made the diagnosis. Until today. I loved Sam Nickerson. It was so starkly true that I couldn’t believe a whisper of it had never entered my conscious brain.

Everything I had wanted Joe to be, Sam was. And always had been.

A slight breeze brought the scent of a fire somewhere, the salty, rich smell of the ocean. Digger nudged my hand with his eager nose, and I bent down and rubbed his head before letting him off the leash. I watched as he raced joyously down the beach, his white splotches glowing in the darkness. Then I sat on the damp sand, staring out at the rollers, counting the seconds that it took the beam from Nauset Light to sweep across the ocean.

If I thought I’d been miserable about Joe, I had been kidding myself. That had been choppy water. This was a tidal wave. I was in love with the one man, aside from my dear old dad, who was absolutely off-limits. But hey! If I loved Sam, maybe I should take another look at Dad! After all, I clearly had my head up my ass.

Digger returned, panting and smelling of the sea. He flopped down beside me, his fur sandy and wet. I stroked his ears and watched the sky go from black to navy. In a few hours, it would be morning. When my legs went numb from sitting so long, Digger and I got up and returned home. There was a message on the machine. From Sam, of course.

“Hey, kiddo, just checking in, wanted to see if you were okay. You were pretty funny at the school today. Come for dinner some night this week, okay? Bye.”

Yup. Loved him.

Shit.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

THE FIRST THING I DID WAS nothing. Aside from going to work and taking care of Digger, I didn’t do a damn thing. A whole week passed, and all I could do was reach out and touch the new sore spot in my heart. But then, as I got over the shock of my revelation, I turned to my closest friends.

Katie and I drove up to the Pink Peacock one evening for dinner. Curtis and Mitch had converted the third floor into a spacious, elegant apartment with sweeping views of the long stone breakwater and small lighthouse that stood on Provincetown’s final spit of land. Over grilled striper, I gently broke the news, saying the words gingerly.

“It seems that I’m—um—I’m in love with Sam.” I waited for their alarm, their sympathy, their words of wisdom.

Curtis and Mitch glanced at each other. Katie was silent for a moment, then nodded. “I know,” she said.

“You know?”

She gave a little smile. “Yeah, Mil. I’m sorry to say, it was kind of…obvious.”

“It was?” Mouth hanging open, I turned to Curtis and Mitch. “Did you know, too?” I asked, blinking rapidly.

“Well, no, not exactly,” Curtis answered. “But it does make sense. Sam really is true blue, isn’t he? Definitely more your type than Joe was.”

“Curtis, he’s my brother-in-law!” I yelped.

“Well, technically, not anymore,” Mitchell murmured.

“So what am I supposed to do?” I asked.

“Tell him?” Katie suggested, taking a bite of her meal.

“Right, Katie. He thinks of me as the sister he never had. I’m not going to tell him.” I flopped back in my seat. No more advice was offered.

THE CLINIC WAS WINDING DOWN, and things were already pretty slow. After we closed, Dr. Whitaker was giving me two weeks off before I’d start with him. We’d worked out the details of our arrangement…. He’d cover half my malpractice insurance for the first year, and any new patients would be mine. Although I’d initially be making less than I had at the clinic, it was a good, solid offer, exactly what I’d always wanted. Professionally, I was all set. Personally, I was struggling.

Though it was easy now to see that I had never really loved Joe Carpenter, I nonetheless missed that old image of him. My obsession had unknowingly motivated me to do a lot of things that I might not have done otherwise—embarrassing, slightly humiliating, but true. For so many years, I’d dreamed of a life with Joe.

As for dreaming of Sam, forget it. My friendship with Sam was one of the best things in my life, and I wasn’t about to ruin it with a declaration that he’d never be able to forget.

The thing was, of course, that aside from apparently being the love of my life, Sam was also part of my family. I couldn’t avoid him. And aside from the awkwardness I knew I’d feel, I missed him. So when my mom called and asked me to come over for dinner with Sam and Danny, I said yes.

My heart was thumping as I pulled into my parents’ driveway. Sam’s truck was already there. I wiped my palms on my jeans and went in.

“Hello, darling,” my mom called, hunching down to check the roast.

“Hi, everyone,” I said. Sam was leaning against the fridge, nursing a beer.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said, leaning over and giving me a one-armed hug. “How’s it going?”

“Fine, fine,” I said, quickly extracting myself.

How many times had Sam hugged me in my life? A hundred? Two hundred? More? And now suddenly my mouth was dry, my stomach fluttered and my cheeks grew hot. I scurried across the kitchen and hugged my nephew.

“How are you, tall one?” I asked, grateful to be with someone for whom my emotions were still pure.

“Good, Aunt Mil. Hey, sorry to hear about you breaking up with Joe. He was nice.” Danny gave me a sympathetic grin.

“Thanks, honey.”

“Hey, Mil, remember that, um, project you said you’d help me with?” Danny asked in a low voice.

“The midwestern project?” I murmured back.

“Yup. Got any time this week?”

“Sure. Want to come over one day after school? How about Thursday, around four? You can stay for supper.”