M.J. Rodgers - Father By Choice

“You could have hurt yourself.”

The worry in her voice was carefully controlled, but it wasn’t superficial.

“Nice of you to be concerned about me.”

Her chin lifted. “I was concerned about our liability insurance. Had you sustained an injury carrying these artifacts belonging to the Historical Society, we could have been held responsible.”

Her cloak of professional indifference was one he donned often enough to see through. “I wouldn’t have sued for much.”

Her head shook in frustration. “Dr. Winslow—”

“Call me Brad.”

“Are you always this stubborn?”

“Stubborn? I’m not stubborn. I’m totally pigheaded and obstinate.”

For a second, a look of overwhelming exasperation claimed her features. Then it vanished and a chuckle—warm and sweet—broke through her lips. The smile that followed was even better.

“There’s a bathroom down the hall where you can wash up,” she said.

“I look that grungy, huh?”

“Try not to break the mirror.”

He got up and headed for the soap and water. As he gazed at the reflection of his dirt-smudged face over the sink, he was grinning. Yeah, it had been really dumb insisting on carrying that damn capsule.

But he’d gotten her to smile. That was worth a few sore muscles.

EMILY SWIPED THE CLUMPS of dirt from Brad’s sport coat with overly energetic strokes of the clothes brush. When he’d all but collapsed on the stairs, her heart had lodged in her throat.

The man was exactly what he proclaimed himself to be—pigheaded and obstinate.

But it was hard not to admire a guy who boldly admitted his faults, even when he seemed to revel in them.

As he reentered the office, his eyes glanced toward his sport coat, which she’d hung on the coatrack. “Thanks.”

She shrugged and gestured toward the chair in front of her desk.

As he settled himself he asked, “How well do you know the guy who had the stroke?”

“Not well. Wayne is one of our senior historians, a longtime friend of Oliver’s. He used to be his accountant at Smithson Pharmaceuticals before they both retired.”

“Sounded as though Oliver still considers him more of an employee than friend.”

“That’s Oliver.”

“So, what do we do first?”

“You go downstairs to the reception and submit to many accolades while indulging yourself with hors d’oeuvres, which I promise you are delicious if you haven’t tasted them.”

“What, the accolades or the hors d’oeuvres?”

She refused to smile. “Both will be, I’m sure.”

“You’re not coming?”

“I’ve already had lunch. Besides, schmoozing is not my style.”

“Not my style, either.”

“Dr. Winslow, there are a lot of important people downstairs who are going to want to shake your hand and pump you for information about how you knew the skeleton was a hundred years old. You achieved celebrity status today. Go savor your moment in the limelight.”

“I’ll pass, thanks. So, what’s the best way to go about this document cataloging?”

His eagerness for the task didn’t sit quite right with Emily. Her suspicions began to resurface.

“Your offer to help with the skeleton is appreciated,” she said carefully, “but being here when I catalog the contents of the capsule isn’t necessary.”

“And you’re saying that because…?”

“Because the chance that something in the documents could lead to the skeleton’s identity is pretty slim. If the mayor at the time had known there was a body being buried with the capsule, he would have said something in the letter he wrote.”

“How did you know the time capsule was beneath the sundial?”

“That’s been common knowledge among local historians since the day it was put in the ground. The date the capsule was to be opened was carved on the sundial as well.”

“Who put the capsule in place?”

“Leading citizens of the community were given the honor of lowering it by rope into the pit. That large sundial was then set over the pit. They later carved their initials on the stone face.”

“Makes you wonder how they could have missed a body. Is it possible the sundial was later lifted and the body dumped in?”

Emily shook her head. “It took a bunch of strong, able-bodied men to set the sundial into place a hundred years ago. For decades afterward that sundial marked the center of town. No one could have lifted it without an audience.”

“So unless the entire town was in on a conspiracy to keep the death of this guy a secret, we’re going to have to look elsewhere for answers,” Brad said. “The documents might give a clue as to who the guy was, even if they don’t reveal how he got there.”

“Your investment won’t be worth the slim chance of reward. This is a time-consuming task.”

“Then we’d better get started.”

“You mean now?”

“You had something else planned?”

“No, I’m just surprised you don’t.”

“Normally, I do work Saturday and Sunday. But I’ve pulled a few double shifts this past week, so, at the moment, I’m looking at a whole weekend off. What do we do first?”

This good-looking, single doctor wanted to bury his nose in old records on his rare weekend off when he could be downstairs making important contacts and letting attractive women come on to him?

Emily looked him straight in the eye. “Why are you here?”

He didn’t so much as blink. “Do you really want to know?”

Did she? She’d purposely avoided this confrontation yesterday because she believed she could keep the truth from him. But if he had somehow found out she’d gotten his sperm, it would be better to discuss the matter openly than to continue to worry about hidden meanings and motivations in everything he said and did.

“Yes, I want to know,” she said.

“I got dumped.”

That caught her completely by surprise. “You what?”

“Woman I’d been seeing over the past few weeks canceled our time together. Seems some fortune-teller read her tea leaves and warned her that everyone whose name starts with the letter B was going to bring her bad luck over the next few days. She decided to spend the weekend in the far safer pursuits of skin exfoliation and incense burning.”

“Where did the dumping come in?”

“Right after I assured her that she would have felt at home with the ignorant savages who read falling tree leaves a few thousand years ago and got the message to sacrifice the village’s virgin to ward off the approaching bad weather.”

Yes, she could imagine him saying that.

“I take it you don’t believe in anything beyond the five senses,” Emily said.

“When someone can’t breathe or is bleeding, science provides the tools that enable me to help them. But, I’ve also seen prayer and nothing but a strong will to live keep someone alive well beyond what should have been medically possible.”

“So you are open to other possibilities.”

“I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But I do believe that whatever gives meaning to someone’s life shouldn’t demean or belittle someone else’s. When a person is branded as a threat simply because the first letter of his name starts with a B, then the line into superstitious lunacy has been crossed.”

He wore the expression of a warrior who’d gone into conversational battle on this subject more than once. And was weary of it.

“After your brother and I got to talking at the bar last night,” Brad continued, “he decided that what I needed was to be dragged to the Founders Day Celebration. Good thing, too, or I’d probably be forced to study for my board certification exams coming up next month.”