“I covered Pat Lander’s shift in the emergency department after work. His grandson had a Christmas concert over in Star and he didn’t want to miss it. Nobody else was available. What are you doing up so late?”
“Ben flew in for the weekend,” she answered. “We went to dinner at Lydia’s place in Shelter Springs and stayed later than we planned. I just checked my email and saw you sent me something about calling out the troops. What’s up?”
Devin slipped off her shoes and sank into her favorite chair in the family room, with wide windows looking out on the lake. Right now she saw only snow drifting past the window but she could imagine it on a summer afternoon with the water gently lapping the dock and clouds rippling past the mountains.
“I wanted to take a couple of quick freezer meals—soups, casseroles, whatever—to a single dad in the area who apparently isn’t very skilled in the kitchen.”
“Oh? Anybody I know?”
This was always a tricky situation. Privacy rules demanded she not discuss her patients, not even when that patient had been a friend to both of them. But how did she let McKenzie know what was needed when she couldn’t give specifics?
“Cole Barrett,” she finally said. “Do you know him?”
“Are you kidding? Yum. Tricia’s brother, right? The sexy rodeo cowboy who lives up at Evergreen Springs. I’ve bumped into him a few times having breakfast when I’m grabbing coffee at Serrano’s. Not a big talker, by the way, but he was one of those on the front lines of the sandbagging during the big flood.”
Earlier in the summer, a dam upriver from Haven Point on the Hell’s Fury had become unstable. The town avoided significant damage, mostly because the town’s mayor—who just happened to be her sister—had quickly mobilized everyone to evacuate and put protective measures around homes in the flood zone.
“Wait a minute,” McKenzie said after a moment. “Cole Barrett is a single father? You’re kidding. I had no idea the guy had a family. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him with kids.”
“Apparently his ex-wife had custody of their son and daughter but she died a few months ago so the kids have come to live with him.”
“Oh, the poor kids. This is a terrible season to lose a parent.”
If they had been together in person, Devin would have given her sister a tight hug, suddenly remembering her sister had personal experience in that department. She and McKenzie were half sisters, actually, and McKenzie had come to live with their family when she was ten, after her own mother died. That had been around the holidays, too, she remembered, more determined than ever to help Cole and his children through this rough time.
“He needs a housekeeper. Do you know anybody in town who might be looking for a job?”
“I think everybody who’s in the market is applying at the new Caine Tech facility. I can check with a few people. Anita knows everything,” she said, referring to her assistant at city hall. “She might have some ideas.”
“Thank you. Meanwhile, Tricia has been in town helping him out but she can’t right now.” Devin chose her words carefully, mindful again of patient privacy. “I was thinking it would be very neighborly if we called out the Helping Hands to fill up his freezer with a few things he could fix in a pinch while he’s handling things on his own.”
McKenzie spearheaded a loosely organized group of women who gathered regularly to provide service to Haven Point residents who might be struggling.
“That’s a fabulous idea. I’ll send out an email right now. When would you like me to have people drop off their meals?”
She hadn’t thought that far ahead, to actually delivering the meals. That would necessitate seeing Cole again, something that suddenly gave her ridiculous butterflies.
Her tired brain took a moment to scan through her schedule for the next day. “Why don’t we say midmorning tomorrow? That way everybody can see the email first thing and check their freezer inventory. I’ve got yoga class at the senior citizen’s center that won’t be done until ten. Let’s use the store as a central drop-off place, if you don’t mind. I can pick everything up after yoga and take it up to Evergreen Springs. I thought I would make up a spinach lasagna, a chicken and rice casserole and the Gruyère mac and cheese everybody seemed to like at the last potluck.”
“Ooh. That sounds delicious. I wish I had a big bowl of it right now.”
“I’ll save you some,” she promised.
“I was already thinking about throwing together a big batch of burgundy beef stew in the slow cooker tomorrow. Ben loves it and I’ll have plenty of extras for Cole. I’ll just cook it on the stove instead. It’s always better reheated anyway, once the flavors have time to meld.”
“Thanks, Kenz.”
“I’m actually glad to have the chance to do something for Cole. He worked nonstop last summer when the Hell’s Fury flooded and then disappeared before I ever had the chance to say thanks. I don’t think I saw him even take a break for a sandwich. It will be nice to feel like we’re paying him back a little for all his help.”
“That works.”
“And maybe if we’re nice enough to him,” McKenzie went on in a voice that was growing in enthusiasm, “he won’t feel like he has to be such a hermit up there on the mountain. Sexy cowboys hanging around downtown for the tourists to see can only be good for our reputation, right?”
Devin laughed. “You can be the one to tell the man you want to pimp him out for the good of Haven Point.”
“He wouldn’t have to go bare-chested or anything. I would be happy if he just walked up and down Lake Street in his Stetson, tipping it every now and then to the tourists with a random ‘ma’am’ or ‘howdy.’”
She heard a deep voice on the other end—Ben, she assumed. McKenzie said something to him Devin couldn’t hear, then came back laughing.
“Okay, apparently Ben thinks that’s not one of my better ideas. We’ll keep it on the back burner for now.”
“That’s a good place for it. Way, way back,” Devin said with a laugh. “I’ll be by tomorrow to pick up the food.”
She ended the connection, deeply grateful for her sister. McKenzie had come into the family through difficult circumstances but Devin couldn’t imagine her world without her sister’s quirky sense of humor, her creative mind and her deep sense of compassion and loyalty.
Seamus wandered in again and pounced onto her lap. Simone peeked her head around the edge of the door frame, then slunk into the kitchen toward her food bowl with mad ninja skills, as if she were trying to become invisible by being one with the maple heartwood floor.
“Hey, kitty, kitty,” Devin said softly. Simone gave her a wary look, ate a little food, then darted back out of the room.
She petted Seamus for a moment, listening to the quiet sounds of the house where she had been raised—the whoosh of the furnace clicking on, the creak of old joists, the wind moaning under the eaves.
Some people might think it was weird that she still lived in her childhood home. Not only did she still live in it, she had used her inheritance from her father to purchase it from her mother and sister after she decided to come back to Haven Point to practice and went into partnership with Russ Warrick.
The sprawling house was too big for one person, but she didn’t care. She loved it, anyway. How could she not, right here on the lakeshore with a beautiful view of the steep and jagged mountains reflecting in the water?
It had always been a place of refuge. In the midst of all the chemo and radiation and fear—and then later, during the stress and pressure of medical school, residency and internship—this had been her go-to happy place.
She had done