Tina Radcliffe - Rocky Mountain Reunion

“I don’t want to,” Claire responded. She forcibly tugged her hand away and turned her head toward the window.

“We can’t discharge you until you or your father demonstrates the ability to use the meter and administer the injections.”

“He can do it,” Claire said. The words were a sullen accusation, as though Matt had added yet another heap of misery into her young life.

Matt feared she was right.

Across the room, Megan Jansen’s gaze pleaded with Matt to intervene.

“Claire, we want you to get better,” Matt said.

“There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.”

The nurse stood and moved her equipment to the bedside table. “I think it’s time for your father to try. The sooner we get this done and get you home, the better.”

“He’s not my father and I don’t have a home...” Claire’s voice trailed off and her eyes filled with moisture.

Matt’s gut clenched. Could he blame her? Claire’s world had been turned upside down in the past month. She’d gone from living with her mother in Denver one day to living with a man she didn’t know the next.

Confusion registered on the nurse’s face as she looked at him. “I thought you were her father.”

“I am—”

“I want Anne,” Claire interrupted with a pitiful wail.

“Anne?” Megan asked, her gaze moving from Claire to him, her brow furrowed yet again.

“Claire, who is Anne?” Matt asked, as a prickle of apprehension swept over him. Surely she didn’t mean...

“That nurse,” his daughter answered.

“From the emergency room?” he asked.

“The ER nursing supervisor,” Megan clarified.

“She’s the supervisor?” he countered.

“Yes.” She glanced at her watch and nodded toward the door, indicating he should follow.

Matt hobbled outside the room right behind her.

“Why is she asking for Anne?” Megan asked.

“I have no idea. Claire was admitted while I was in X-ray.”

“You know she’s off duty now, right?”

Matt could only nod and raise a palm. What was he supposed to do now?

“My mother is a very close friend of Anne’s. I can call her. She’ll try to get in touch with—”

“No. I can’t... I can’t bother her.” Especially not after his lousy attitude in the exam room.

“I think you’d better.” Megan paused. “What other choice do you have?”

“Why tonight? Can’t we wait until morning? After the doctor checks on her? Claire’s spending the night anyhow.”

“Anne might not even be scheduled to work tomorrow. I think it would be prudent for me to at least have my mother call her.”

“But you said I could do the injections and testing.”

“Look, Mr. Clark, unless you plan to be with Claire twenty-four-seven, she needs to participate in her own care. Sure, I can okay her discharge, but that won’t help you or Claire in the long run. Your daughter has provided us with an option, and if Anne’s presence will engage her, well, then...” She raised her shoulders and stared pointedly at him. “You should be willing to try this route.”

He glanced from the nurse through the doorway to his daughter. Claire’s eyes were closed in an attempt to block out the world. He felt like doing the same thing right about now.

Instead he fought back his pride and battled against the humiliation of the thought of inviting Anne Matson into his spectacular failure of a life as a new father.

Matt took a deep breath. “Okay. If it will help Claire. Yeah. Go ahead and ask your mother to get in touch with Anne.”

Megan left and he moved back into the room to stand at the window and stare out at the Paradise skyline. Clear blue skies, dotted with clouds, stretched as far as he could see. In the distance, mountain peaks hovered at the edge, guarding the small mountain community.

As a child he had looked out windows at the very same view. Always asking the same questions he was asking now. Where are you in all this, Lord? He silently prayed. Are you listening?

How had he come full circle back to the one place on the planet where he felt so vulnerable? Paradise Valley.

He ran a hand over his face and shook his head. Seemed everything had gone from good to messed up; his business, his friend Manny and even Claire. Now he was about to be challenged further. He was about to welcome the woman who’d once destroyed him back into his life. The woman was virtually a stranger to his daughter, yet Claire had chosen Anne over him to support her during this crisis. How was that for irony?

Chapter Three

Anne pulled into her driveway and sat in her pickup, staring at the house and mustering the energy to climb the steps while desperately grasping for a peace she didn’t feel.

Normally she could count on separating her two worlds by the time she had driven home. The sight of the two-story Victorian home signaled the boundary line as she put the day job behind her. The house calmed her, no matter the crisis in the Paradise ER.

But for the first time in her life calm was out of the question. Seeing Matt Clark and meeting his daughter had knocked her world into chaos and she didn’t like it one bit. Her life had an orderly precision and she blamed the past intruding on her present for today being completely out of control.

She began to pray under her breath while staring at the lovely building in front of her. It had wide steps that led to a cherry-red door topped with a stained-glass transom. The siding was painted dark cream with sea-foam-green accents. Scalloped cedar trimmed the second story, always reminding Anne of a gingerbread house. On the left was a small turret room that rose above the second floor.

This year she’d had the entire house repainted. Next summer’s goal was refurbishing the back deck. With a house that was over one hundred years old, there was always something that needed repair.

This particular home was the only connection she had left to family. And that family was only her great-aunt Lily.

Lately Anne never knew what to expect when she arrived home. Sometimes it was the dynamic and formidable Aunt Lily of Anne’s childhood, other days her aging great-aunt was disoriented, showing more and more indications of the insidious Alzheimer’s disease. Their roles had somehow become reversed. Now Anne found herself the caregiver for the woman who’d taken her in as an orphan some twenty years ago.

She gripped the steering wheel tightly, fighting back the questioning resentment that simmered just below the surface as her mind continued to race with thoughts and mental images of Matt and Claire.

For the first time since all those years ago she began to question the choices that were made for her when she was eighteen.

Ten years ago Lily had told her that education, a career and the independence to make her own choices was the important thing. Deep down inside she feared her aunt had been wrong. Those may have been the right choices for Lily Gray, but had they been the right choices for Anne Matson?

And if not, wasn’t it too late to do anything about it anyhow?

When the front door swung open and her aunt stepped outside and waved, urging her out of the truck, Anne did a double-take. She quickly reached for her leather tote and climbed out of the vehicle.

“Aunt Lily, is everything okay? Where’s your walker?”

“Oh, I don’t need that thing.” Petite and trim, her aunt gripped the rail tightly and held herself up with dignity. She always wore a dress, no matter the day or hour, looking for all the world like the queen of the manor.

“Okay,” Anne answered slowly. She glanced past her aunt to the open doorway. “And you aren’t wearing your alert necklace.”

“That’s for people who might fall. I’m fine.”