Chapter 3
The dog – her dog, wasn’t it? – was back. Dori’s eyes were closed but she could smell the animal, and hear it’s – her – panting breaths. Little Tee, that was her name.
Dori opened her eyes, slowly and carefully, and as she did she remembered. This wasn’t really her dog. The dog had adopted her. She’d tried to save her from getting run over by a truck. And then the truck driver had visited her, and insulted her, and then – then she’d passed out, and now it was three hours later, if the clock on the wall was to be believed.
“I’m glad to see you awake again.” It was the same doctor from before. Dr. Wallace. Lucy.
“Not sure I’m glad to be awake,” Dori said. The throbbing in her head was still there. Not nearly as bad as it had been earlier, but not something she could ignore, either.
“Can’t say I blame you,” the doctor said. “Concussions aren’t any fun. I only ever had one myself. Back in high school. Adam Walker, he was my next-door neighbor, he got it into his head to try and get a squirrel out of a tree by throwing rocks at it. I opened my window to yell at him to stop, and he hit me right in the forehead.”
“You’re kidding!” Dori wasn’t sure why she was surprised. That was exactly the kind of thing her younger brother might have done, once upon a time.
The doctor shook her head. “Swear to God. He grew out of it, though. Believe it or not, he’s the mayor of the town now.” Dori’s brother had grown out of it, too, although he’d taken a different path than Dr. Wallace’s neighbor – her misbehaving little brother Vince was respectable and mature Father Vincent now. “Enough walking down memory lane, though. You probably want to know when you can get out of here.”
“Definitely,” Dori answered. She had a long to-do list here, and a longer one once she got back to New York.
“I’ve got good news and bad news for you,” Dr. Wallace told her. “I want to keep you overnight, not that I really think you need it, but with a concussion, better safe than sorry, especially since you don’t have any family here to look after you. But I don’t see any reason you can’t leave tomorrow morning, once I check you over one more time.”
Dori assumed that was the good news. “That works for me. So what’s the bad news?”
The doctor lightly patted the cast on her leg, not that it even was a real cast. It was one of those walking boots that she saw all the time now. People seemed to have no trouble getting around with them. “You’re stuck here in town for a while. I don’t want you flying for a couple of weeks. An injury like this, you can get blood clots, and on a plane, with the different air pressure, they can move around. You don’t want that.”
A couple of weeks? “I’ve got a business back home!”
“I’m sure,” the doctor agreed. “But here’s the thing. I’ve only known you a couple of hours, but I like you already. And if you dropped dead of a heart attack because I let you get on a plane too soon, I’d never forgive myself. So think about me and be a good patient and follow orders, OK?”
Dori wanted to argue, but she forced herself to calm down and think of this just like any other business deal. The goal was a win-win. Dr. Wallace didn’t benefit from Dori being stuck here two weeks; she was just doing her job. “I hear you,” she said. “I’ll be a good girl. But can you do me a favor in return? I need my phone, I have to call the hotel and let them know I won’t be checking in until tomorrow, and then see if I can extend my stay.”
“Already done,” the doctor said. “I talked to Izzy while you were sleeping and you’re all set. And I told her to give you the room on the ground floor. You don’t want to be going up and down stairs on crutches.”
Crutches? Dori hadn’t considered that, but obviously she was going to be on them for a while. How hard could it be to learn how to use them, though? “Izzy?”
“Izzy Sutton. She owns the Interlude Inn. She’s really sweet. You’ll like her.”
That was probably true. There weren’t many people Dori truly disliked. It hadn’t always been that way, but her work brought her into contact with people from every walk of life, and she’d quickly learned to try and find something to like or admire in nearly everyone she met. The only exception that came to mind was Lucas, the man who’d nearly killed her this afternoon; he clearly had no redeeming qualities at all.
~*~
The afternoon turned out to be a total loss. He had hoped to get a head start on the plumbing repairs and upgrades to the old Scott place on Georgiana St. But when he finally arrived there, after spending much too much time at the hospital, the kitchen was off-limits. Josh Chadwick was hard at work, tools on every flat surface, exposed wiring everywhere you looked.
“Sorry, man,” Josh said. “I promised the boss lady I’d be done tomorrow by noon.”
Lucas didn’t have it in him to try and push Josh out of the kitchen. He knew the electrician’s business was not in the best shape. Better to let him finish up as quickly as he could, so he could get more work lined up and put some much-needed cash in the bank.
Besides, his nerves were still frayed from the accident, and he knew from experience that working on gas lines and hot water pipes when you were distracted was a recipe for disaster. So he bid Josh a good afternoon and headed home.
Home was a cramped apartment on the second floor of a hundred-year-old building. On the ground floor was his workshop and the garage that housed his truck. Besides the apartment, the second floor also housed the office for Romance Heating and Plumbing, such as it was. It was one large, dusty room with a stack of overstuffed file boxes running from floor to ceiling in one corner, and his father’s old desk in another. Sitting at that desk, hard at work on the ancient computer, was his receptionist/bookkeeper/office manager/Jill-of-all-trades, Shelly Martin. She was no expert in any of those roles, but she had one qualification that stood out over every other candidate for the job: he didn’t have to pay her.
“Do I want to know how we’re doing, Aunt Shelly?”
“Not if you want to sleep soundly tonight, honey.”
It was the same answer she gave him every day. Things hadn’t always been this tough; as recently as three years ago, Romance Heating and Plumbing boasted four trucks, a dozen employees and a fat bank account. But that was before one of the huge national HVAC outfits made a big push in the Pacific Northwest. Ever since then, local companies like his were under siege.
“Well, tomorrow is another day. Maybe it’ll be a better one.” It could hardly be worse, and he didn’t wait for his aunt to answer him. He headed to the apartment, took off his shoes, washed his face, and plopped himself onto the couch. He was asleep less than a minute later. And, though he wouldn’t remember it later, he dreamed. Not about unpaid bills or ruthless competitors with shiny new trucks and prices he couldn’t hope to match, though, two subjects that often haunted his dreams.
Instead he dreamed about long, dark hair and floral perfume and a thick New York accent. And a white poodle.