Historical societies and their hysterical members were the bane of his existence.
“Daddy, my stomach hurts.”
David looked up from the open laptop on the desk. Jeremy sat on the pullout sofa in the hotel room they were calling home for the next few days. He closed the email from his best friend; the missive spouted the attributes of someone named Susan that she wanted him to go on a blind date with. As if he had time to date. He was a single dad with a floundering business to run.
“Hey, buddy,” he said, rolling the desk chair over to the sofa. “What’s this about a tummy ache?”
David crouched before his son. He pressed his hand to the boy’s forehead and frowned.
Jeremy had a fever.
Guilt flashed through David. His son hadn’t been cranky because he was four. Jeremy had been irritable and out of sorts because he was sick.
David wiped a hand over his face and weighed his options. They were few. A sick kid and important business meetings coming up.
He sighed. It was moments like this that he really missed having the support of a wife.
He didn’t know any doctors here in Cedar Springs, let alone where he might find one at this time of the night. It was already after seven, probably closer to eight. He’d lost track of time with emails and reading the online newspaper.
So he did what anyone else in his situation might do: he called the front desk and asked for recommendations.
* * *
Dr. Spring Darling was looking forward to tonight. The Magnolia Supper Club’s dinner meetings were always a highlight after a busy workday. And following the stress of this week, she needed the therapy of a relaxing evening with good friends and stimulating conversation that had nothing to do with work. They’d probably review the latest data they’d each gleaned about the mayor’s proposed boondoggle—a condo development and shopping center—as if the city needed more of either.
She logged her notes from the last patient and was heading toward the volunteer lounge at the Common Ground Free Clinic and Health Center when a ruckus at the front receptionist’s desk caught her attention.
“I’m sorry, sir. We’re closed for the evening. The emergency room at Cedar Springs General can—”
“You don’t understand,” he said. “I...I can’t go to the hospital. I was told to come here. Please, is there a doctor who can see him?”
The clinic’s hours made no difference to Spring when a patient was in need. She quickly made her way back to the front, where Shelby Peters was trying to send a man on his way.
The man was holding a small boy in his arms and pleading with the free clinic’s by-the-book receptionist.
“What seems to be the problem?” Spring said, stepping forward.
The man’s gaze connected with hers, and Spring felt as if a bolt of lightning had hit her. She knew there were people who claimed to know on first sight that someone was The One. Spring had always been the practical Darling sister and didn’t believe in such nonsense. Getting to know someone over time, discovering mutual interests, shared values and overall compatibility—those were the qualities that mattered, the elements that determined if a relationship had a chance at being successful. But this was different, and her breath caught from just one look at the man.
The feminine side of her noted his dark eyes, sandy hair and the way he held the boy. She sensed in him a quiet compassion and strength, something that appealed to her on a visceral level. Spring wondered at her reaction to the man as she registered the flushed look of the boy’s face. Tamping down thoughts of relationships and the appeal of a dark-eyed stranger, the clinician in her was already running through the paces, assessing the child’s demeanor.
“Dr. Darling, you can’t keep doing this,” Shelby said. “The clinic is not a twenty-four-hour operation.”
“Maybe it should be,” Spring said. Then to the man holding the boy, she said, “I’m Dr. Darling. Follow me.”
“Exam room five is prepped,” Shelby said, resignation in her voice.
Spring led the way to the examination room. As they went down the hall, she asked, “What are his symptoms?”
“He was complaining about a stomachache earlier,” he said. He put his precious load on the white-paper-covered examination table in the room. “I thought it was too many jelly beans. We got them free at a shop downtown.”
Spring nodded. “Sweetings,” she said as she went to a small sink, washed her hands and then slipped on a pair of examination gloves. “They give kids free samples.”
“The lady must have felt sorry for him—or us,” the man told her. “She filled a big bag and gave them to Jeremy. I didn’t think he’d eaten that many.”
Spring checked the boy’s vitals.
“He has a temperature,” he continued. “I don’t have a thermometer, so I don’t know how high, but...”
“It’s a low-grade fever,” Spring confirmed a moment later. “You said his name is Jeremy?”
The man nodded, his gaze boring into Spring’s. She felt as if she’d been overcome with a fever herself. She found it disconcerting but, oddly, not unpleasant.
Shaking off the sensation, she told herself it was compassion, not attraction. The people who came to the Common Ground Free Clinic often had no other available recourse for health care. While her specialty was pediatrics, she, like all the other volunteer physicians, nurses and physician assistants, practiced general medicine here, doing what she could for the patients on-site and making referrals as warranted. Often the clinic picked up the tab for those specialty referrals.
The free clinic’s clients were typically the unemployed or underemployed, the working poor who had low-wage jobs with no or inadequate benefits. And then there were the homeless, an ever-growing population in the city of Cedar Springs.
She wondered which category the man and the boy fell into.
He’d said he couldn’t go to the hospital. And then there was the overly generous handout at the downtown bakery and sweetshop. Spring could make a fairly educated guess about their financial situation.
She sent the man a reassuring smile, then gave her full attention to her young patient. “Jeremy, sweetie, does it hurt anywhere?”
He let out a moan in response.
The man winced, a reaction that didn’t escape her. He hovered near the top of the table and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“My stomach hurts,” came a small voice.
“Well, I’m Dr. Spring, and I’m going to see about that, okay?”
Jeremy nodded.
She gave him a cursory exam, feeling along his abdomen and chest, watching his reaction as she pressed or prodded.
The boy moaned again.
“Is he going to be okay?” The father’s concern and fear compelled Spring to reassure him in some way, even though she knew she couldn’t give him the blanket promise she knew he wanted to hear.
“May I see you for a moment?” she asked him.
He glanced at his son and then nodded. “I’m going to be right over here, buddy. You hang in there—the doctor’s going to make it better.”
They took a few steps away,