Read Online Pickin Clover by Bobby Hutchinson - Free Book Online Page B

stone; the awful emptiness of the child’s bedroom at the top of the curving stairway haunted him, the missing place setting on his right, where Susannah had always sat, filled him with pain. She used to wriggle in her chair, her electric energy filling up the room. She’d often spilled her milk on the tablecloth and his trousers, and she’d once laughed so hard and long at one of his silly jokes that she’d choked and vomited her dinner all over the cloth. She’d sometimes rested her small foot on his thigh under the table. And she’d giggled, with that special hitch in her voice, when he teased her.
    “ Oh, Daddy, you’re so silly.”
    Blessedly, the telephone rang.
    “Let the machine take it,” Polly urged. But he was already out of his chair. A moment later he stuck his head into the dining room long enough to say, “Sorry, Pol, I’ve got to go to Emerg. One of my patients was in a car accident.”
    She didn’t protest. Just looked at him and nodded, her expression stony.
    Michael felt irritation niggle at him. This was his job, after all; she knew he had no choice when an emergency arose. He found his keys and then went back into the dining room. “I don’t know how long I’ll be. Don’t wait up for me.” He bent to kiss her, but she turned her face and his lips grazed her cheek. He shrugged into a jacket and hurried out the door, ashamed of the relief that surged through him. And as he got into the car and drove away, he turned a tape on full and forced his mind to focus only on the urgent needs of the patient waiting at St. Joe’s.
     
    Two days later, Polly drove slowly up the back alley of Isabelle’s house and parked alongside the ramshackle picket fence that bordered her mother’s property. It was a sunny morning, and she told herself she was there to make peace with Isabelle over the missed dinner invitation, but the truth was, curiosity about Jerome Fox had drawn her. She slid her sunglasses up over her forehead and sat for several moments, watching the young man working in her mother’s backyard.
    He hadn’t noticed her yet, or if he had, he wasn’t paying any attention, and Polly took the opportunity to study him.
    He was a fine physical specimen, just as Michael had suggested. He wasn’t especially tall, but he looked extremely strong, with sharply defined muscles in his arms. His body was lean and tanned. His gray T-shirt was stained at the armpits and down the back with sweat, and his faded, dirty jeans clung to his muscular thighs and hung low on narrow hips. Thick blond hair curled from under the rim of a billed cap, and his features were strong and well defined. He was lifting rotten boards from a pile and tossing them with ease up and over the rim of the dump bin Michael had had delivered.
    Polly slid out of the car and straightened her short denim skirt. “Hi, there. Wow, it looks better around here already,” she called cheerfully. When he turned toward her, she walked over to him and put out her hand, smiling. “I’m Polly Forsythe. How do you do?”
    “Jerome Fox. Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Forsythe.” He pulled off his work glove and rubbed it down the side of his pants before he shook her hand. He smiled back at her, his teeth even and very white against his tanned skin. He had brilliant blue eyes.
    “You’re Doc Forsythe’s wife?”
    “I am, yes. And please call me Polly. You have no idea how thrilled I am to see this yard getting cleaned up. It’s a total disaster area.”
    He grinned and nodded. “It’s a mess, all right.”
    She had to laugh at his droll tone. “Your little girl’s feeling better? Michael said she had a virus.”
    “He gave us some stuff. She’s lots better today, no cough or fever or anything. Your husband’s a really good doctor.”
    “Why, thank you, sir. I’ll tell Michael you said so. Well, Mr. Fox, I’ll leave you to it.”
    “Just call me Jerome."
    “Okay, Jerome.” She motioned toward the house. “Do you know if my