Roxanne Rustand - A Man She Can Trust

“He’s got snakes crawlin’ up one arm. A black widow spider crawling down the other.” Hal drew his bushy white eyebrows together. “Not the kind of appearance the town expects of a Walthan.”

“Pretty soon you’re going to run out of relatives. And, if it appears you’ve been capricious, unduly influenced by anyone or have made some…unusual…decisions, there could be family members who try to contest.”

“Your job is to make sure that can’t happen.” The elderly pharmacist set his jaw. “Then just let ’em try.”

Grant jotted a few more notes on the legal pad in front of him. “I’ll write up a new draft, then. When you come back in, I’ll ask you to go over each of your wishes—with a witness present—and I’ll videotape proof that you appeared to be of sound mind. I’ll also ask you for a handwritten summary.”

Hal nodded decisively. “You’re a good man. Thorough. Never should have left town, if you ask me.”

Over the past week, a cadre of the old-timers had trooped into the office, one after another.

Grant had the distinct feeling that a campaign was afoot, after three had given him marital advice, two had told him that he’d been negligent in leaving his father’s practice last fall, and every last one of them had made sly, oblique comments about Doc Jill Edwards being far too pretty to—as crotchety old Leo Crupper had put it—“wither on the vine.”

Grant steeled himself for the inevitable pep talk from Hal. And sure enough, the old guy hesitated at the door and turned back, one gray brow raised.

“The missus doing well?”

“Fine. Just fine.” At least, Grant thought so. He hadn’t seen her for a week now, except for the occasional glimpse of her Sable.

He had a feeling Jill wanted to avoid him just as much as he wanted to avoid her.

Hal fixed him with a piercing look. “You aren’t getting any younger.”

Well, at least he took a different approach from Warren’s other cronies. Who’d probably, now that Grant thought about it, been sent by Warren himself.

“None of us are,” Grant replied.

“You got no kids,” Hal said bluntly. “No grandkids for Warren, and there’ll be none for you either, down the road, if you wait too long.”

Remembering how many grandkids Hal had already disinherited—and then added back into his will—Grant just smiled. “They are a joy, aren’t they? Every last one of them. No matter how unique.”

“Er…exactly,” Hal gave him a narrow look, then stood in the doorway as he shouldered into his coat. “When should I come back?”

Grant flipped the page on the planner lying open on the desk. “Tomorrow’s Friday, and I need to take off early. How about next Tuesday. Another ten o’clock?”

“Good enough.” He clenched his fingers into the thick crown of his beaver-fur hat. “How’s Warren?”

“Much better. He got his IV out yesterday and has started rehab. He’ll be home in a week or two, and not a minute too soon. He’s been climbing the walls.”

“Bet he has. Man never misses a day on the golf course from Easter ’til Thanksgiving, barring snow. He isn’t one to sit around.”

“Well…he’s agreed to take it easy for a few months, if I stay to help out.”

“You’re a good son, coming back like this to take his place. A real good son.”

Grant rounded the desk and walked him to the front door, then flipped the Open sign in the door to Closed as Hal headed down the sidewalk toward Waltham Drug.

At the open doorway Grant took a deep breath of icy, pine-scented air. Thankful, he admitted to himself, that he’d had a reason to come back home to Blackberry Hill for a while.

A couple of blocks down the street, on the corner of Birch and Main, he could see the front corner of Jill’s office, and that brought back all the reasons why he shouldn’t have.

Clean breaks were the best. Especially when there was no hope of ever changing the past, and no wish to create a future.

Yet he’d run into Jill almost every day at the hospital when he’d stopped to visit Dad.

The irony was that apparently they’d both been changing their schedules to avoid each other—and for once in their lives, they had been in perfect harmony.

But in a few weeks Dad would be on his feet and out of the hospital, and then there’d be no need to intrude on Jill’s territory. And that would make life a heck of a lot easier.

PROCLAIMING THAT HE was bored silly on the Skilled Care unit of the hospital, Warren had called the law office at eleven o’clock, noon, one o’clock, and then—apparently he’d been napping—not until almost four.

Grant glanced at the caller ID, amused, as he tapped the speaker button. “Hey, Dad.”

Warren sucked in a sharp breath. “There’s not a client with you?”

“Your friend Hal left a few minutes ago.” Swiveling his chair, Grant looked out the window at the early winter darkness. “Even if there was, I’d guess most people around here know that you and I are related. I’ve been calling you ‘Dad’ since I was in diapers.”

“Doesn’t sound professional.”

Grant had visited Warren every day when he was in the ICU in Green Bay, and had figured he would settle down once he was transferred back to Blackberry Hill. But with each passing day it was becoming more obvious that he viewed his ongoing hospitalization as a form of incarceration.

“How are you feeling?”

“Never better.”

“Not tired at all? The surgeon in Green Bay said—”

“The doc is nuts. I’m fine as frog hair and going stir-crazy in this place. Let me tell you, the day I decide to retire is the day you’ll have to lock me away.”

“Dad, how long has it been since you took a vacation—really went somewhere and did something fun?”

During the long silence they both remembered Marie Edwards’s unexpected death at fifty-five from an aneurysm. Three years ago.

Grant had been working at a prestigious firm in Chicago, but Warren had been so devastated over the loss of his wife that Grant and Jill had come home to help him cope with his practice and his grief.

After Warren’s subsequent heart attack, the intended few months had somehow evolved into several years…with Jill working at an established family practice in town and Grant busy at the Edwards Law Office.

The purchase of a house had signified a commitment to stay for good.

One more painful irony, among the many.

“…so maybe I will.” Warren cleared his throat. “What do you think?”

Grant shook himself out of his memories. “About what?”

“I should call him. Haven’t been down to see him since he and your Aunt Jane built their new house. I expect we could get in a little golf.”

Grant blinked. Uncle Fred and Aunt Jane? Florida?

“That is, if you don’t mind staying on for a while longer.” The hopefulness in Warren’s voice faded as he added, “But I shouldn’t even ask. You’d probably rather move ahead with your own career, and with my secretary gone, the job is damned inconvenient. Doretta sure picked a bad time to retire.”

“I’ve already planned on staying for several more months, anyway. I don’t mind working alone.” Grant smiled to himself as he recalled Dad’s confrontational relationship with his strong-minded secretary of the past thirty years. “It would do you a world of good to get away for a while. And when you get back, you can hire a nice paralegal.”

At a tentative knock on his office door, Grant glanced at his wristwatch. Five o’clock. He’d turned the door sign to Closed when Hal left, which accounted for the knock. “I’ve got to hang up, someone’s at the door.”

Grant dropped the phone back into its cradle and rounded the desk. Out in the waiting area, he pinned a welcoming smile on his face as he opened the front door.