Barbara Dunlop - Hitched For The Holidays - Hitched For The Holidays / A Groom In Her Stocking

“Pretend?” There was a knowing chuckle on his voice. Dwight knew all about Mindy’s dating woes when it came to their father.

“Peaches’s vet. He went as a favor to me, but I’m not sure it was a good idea. I’d like to see him for real, but fat chance of that after I roped him into one of Dad’s infamous interrogations.”

“That bad?”

“No, I guess not. He likes Eric, but I don’t feel good about the phony date. Dad insisted the three of us go sight-seeing together today.”

“Your vet sounds like a good guy to go along with it. He must be interested in you.”

“I doubt it, but even if he is, a full day with Dad will discourage him. Remember when we rented that lake cabin for a week and Josh Arhus came to stay? Dad was so suspicious of his intentions, he scared him away after two days.”

“Well, hang in there,” he said, unhelpful.

Mindy hung up and hurried to get ready for the trip when her plan for the day fizzled like a dud fire-cracker. Peaches gave her the bad news, or at least thought she did as she barked furiously outside the closed bedroom door.

“You little rascal, what’s all the racket?”

She stepped out of her room and saw her father sitting on the couch, bending over and gingerly taking off his sock.

“Dad, what happened?”

“I took that mutt for a walk and tripped on a paving stone on your front walk. Would’ve been okay, but when I tried to get my balance, the dumb dog yanked on the leash and I went down. Lucky I didn’t land on my face.”

“Are you hurt?”

“I think I twisted my ankle.” He touched his right ankle, which was puffy-looking below the hem of khaki cotton slacks.

Mindy glanced at the dressy black wing tip shoe he’d just removed. It looked brand-new and probably still had slippery soles, but she bit back a comment about unsuitable footwear. Dad had worn the same style shoe as long as she’d known him. Pain and suffering weren’t going to change him.

“It doesn’t look good. I’d better drive you to the emergency room.”

“I’m not sitting around all day to have some wet-behind-the-ears intern tell me to take two aspirin. I’ll have your Eric see what he thinks.”

“He’s not my Eric, and he’s a vet, Dad, a vet. He doesn’t treat people.”

“I don’t want treatment. He can just take a look at it. How much trouble is that?”

“Your ankle could be sprained or even fractured. You need an X ray.”

When did her father regress to acting like a stubborn child?

“Just bring me a heating pad and a couple of pain pills. I’ll be ready to go to the ruins in an hour or so.”

“Dad, we were thinking of Walnut Canyon, hundreds of steps down and up again. You have to stay off your ankle until a doctor checks it.”

“Fine. Eric must have learned enough basics in vet school to diagnose a sprain.”

Arguing with him was useless. She didn’t have a heating pad, so he insisted she soak a cloth in hot water and lay it on his rapidly swelling ankle, never mind that she thought an ice pack was the way to go.

She’d been excited, even a little tingly, anticipating a whole day with Eric. Sure, he was only doing her a favor, and her father would be going along as well, but he must like her a little to go to the trouble of pretending to be her boyfriend.

When he got there ten minutes late, dressed in jeans and a faded blue denim shirt for their trip, she didn’t know what to say to him. They couldn’t go through with their plans, but her father would expect him to hang around and be sympathetic as any potential son-in-law would.

“What happened?” Eric saw her father stretched out on the couch, his foot on a pillow with a wet washcloth draped over his ankle.

“I twisted my damn ankle,” her father said impatiently. “The dog tripped me.”

“Not exactly,” Mindy said, unwilling to let Peaches get all the blame.

“Take a look. Tell me what you think,” her father said to Eric.

“You need to ice it, keep it elevated,” Eric said without examining the puffy ankle.

“I told Mindy a vet can handle the little things,” Wayne said with satisfaction.

“Dad, that’s commonsense first aid, not a diagnosis.”

“I’ll drive you to the emergency room,” Eric offered.

“I’m not sitting around there all day. Take a look. I trust your judgment.”

“If I were licensed to treat people, I’d order an X ray to see if it’s fractured. Look, it’s as big as a soccer ball and turning purple.”

Her dad sputtered and protested while she double-bagged some ice cubes and wrapped them in a dish towel.

Fifteen minutes later Eric finally convinced him to hobble out to his SUV. He settled Wayne on the back seat with his foot elevated, a pillow under his ballooning ankle and the makeshift ice bag on top of it.

An hour and fifty minutes later Wayne was wheeled in a chair into the examining area of Community General Hospital after telling Mindy to stay behind in the waiting room. A TV droned on in the cheerless tan-and-brown room, although no one among the day’s minor casualties was paying the slightest attention to it.

“We’ve got to break up,” Mindy said in an urgent whisper to Eric.

“Break up?” He laughed so loudly a health-care worker in a pink smock gave him the evil eye. “We can’t break up.”

“You know what I mean. Dad will expect you to stay by my side in this hour of crisis. I can’t ask you to hang around all day listening to his war stories.”

“Your father was in the military?”

“Accounting war stories. Tax payers versus the IRS. You’ll hate it.”

“I’m always willing to hear out an expert. Maybe I can pick up some good tax tips.”

He was teasing her. She was trying to let him off the hook, and he thought it was a joke.

“Please, Eric, I really appreciate what you’ve done…”

“Pretending you turn me on?” His teeth actually sparkled when he smiled like that.

“Be serious. This has gotten too complicated. Either I have to tell my father the truth, or we break up.”

“Here? Now?”

He looked across the room where a sallow-faced teenager was holding his arm over his chest. Beside him a gaunt woman with flamboyant hennaed hair quickly averted her eyes when Eric looked at her. Apparently she found them more entertaining than the talkie Sunday intellectuals on the tube.

“What do we do?” he asked. “Yell at each other, stage a fight? What’s my motivation in this scene?”

“I’ll just tell Dad it wasn’t working between us.”

“How will you get home from the hospital if I leave?”

“Cab,” she suggested listlessly. “Or I can call my friend, Laurie Davis. She’s not doing anything today.”

“I’ll take you and your dad home.”

“It really would be easier if we split up before Dad’s done here.”

“We’re not going to now. You dad is going home tomorrow. Let him leave happy. You’ll meet someone eventually. That’s the time to tell him it didn’t work out between us.”

“I don’t like taking advantage of you. If Dad weren’t so darn pushy…”

“He is who he is.”

Easy for him to say, she thought glumly.

“He’ll expect you to stay for dinner,” she warned.

“Can you cook?”

“We brought home lots of leftovers from yesterday’s dinner.”

“How about ordering Chinese?”

“Dad won’t eat it. Might have MSG in it.”

“Mexican?”

“Too spicy.”

“Pizza? He does eat pizza, doesn’t he?”

“Thick crust with Canadian bacon and mushrooms. Green peppers give him heartburn.”

“Is he your real father?” he asked with a grin.

“So I’ve been led to believe. Fortunately he’s kind, generous, loyal, honest and all those other Boy Scout virtues except when he’s trying to run my life.”