Bayside Escape, page 15
“She seems happy,” Andre said.
“Most of the time. But she gets real panicky, and when that anxiety sets in, it’s like she gets lost in it. I’ve talked to her doctors and therapists. Vi works with her, and that seems to help, but how do you help a little girl past anxiety and frustration that no one can explain?”
“I’m a pediatrician, and when I was practicing in the States I encountered that often with children, much more so than overseas. Anxiety can come from many directions and oftentimes from several at once. It sounds like you’ve had her evaluated by licensed professionals?”
Rowan nodded. “They said it might have to do with losing her mom and that lots of kids get anxious when they go to school. The docs don’t think it’s unusual, and they say she’ll probably outgrow it.”
“When did you first notice her anxieties?”
“About the third week of preschool, when she was four. She started pitching fits, not wanting to go. I talked to the teachers, and they said it was normal, but it didn’t feel normal. Still, I’m a first-time father, so I tried taking their advice, letting her cry when I left. But that was too hard on both of us. She’s my baby, and she relies on me to take care of her. After a few weeks of constant struggles, I took her out of that school. But kindergarten was the same way, except her anxiety started the first week. She’s six now, and she already hates school. Can you imagine how rebellious she’ll be as a teenager?”
“The two might not go hand in hand. How’d she do with hitting milestones? Did she have any trouble remembering nursery rhymes? Her alphabet?”
“Nursery rhymes?” He scoffed. “She hates them. Even at three and four she mixed them up. That’s why she has such a great imagination. She’s been making shit up for years.”
Down the beach, Joni and Violet were running in and out of ankle-deep water. Andre hated to second-guess other physicians, but his gut told him Joni’s doctors were seeing a different picture than he was. “I may be way off base, but has she been evaluated for dyslexia? Preschool is young to diagnose issues related to dyslexia, but depending on the teaching methods and expectations, it can cause anxiety. It should at least be considered.”
“I assume so. The doctors don’t really tell me what they’ve ruled out. They ask a lot of questions about when Carlo died and our lifestyle. Sometimes it feels like they’re too focused on those things or they just think I’m an overly worried father. Of course she’ll always miss having her mother around, and maybe I am worrying too much. Or maybe I messed her up by taking her out of preschool or by letting her pitch a fit when she’s frustrated. But sometimes there’s no calming her down. Kids should come with guidelines, because the only thing I can think to do is distract her, hold her, make sure she knows she’s loved even if she hates school.”
“Love goes a long way,” he said, thinking of how much Violet would have given for a mother who had seen the trials and tribulations she’d gone through and put her daughter’s happiness above all else. “My buddy is the chief of pediatrics at Hyannis Hospital. He knows the best doctors and specialists in the area. Why don’t I make a few calls and hook you up with him? I obviously haven’t evaluated Joni, but it doesn’t sound like you’re overreacting. David’s a father and an excellent physician. He won’t let you slip through the cracks.”
The look of relief on Rowan’s face was palpable. “That’d be great. Thank you.” Rowan clapped a hand on his shoulder and said, “I’m not giving up on my beautiful girl.”
Andre watched Joni and Violet heading toward them hand in hand and thought, I’m not giving up on mine, either.
Chapter Twelve
“HEY, HOT MAMA.” Emery breezed into the office of the inn Monday afternoon wearing a bikini top and sweatpants and flopped into a chair across the desk from Violet. She crossed her legs, smacking her chewing gum, and tapped her finger on the arm of the chair. “I’m still buzzing from that orgasmic breakfast you and your man whipped up.”
After joining Emery for couples yoga, Andre claimed he wanted to teach Violet how to make eggs Benedict and cranberry muffins. He’d taken full advantage of every second her hands were busy and had made her so hot and bothered by the time their friends arrived, she’d dragged him back to the cottage for a quickie before he started his part-time work at the clinic.
Violet looked up from the bills she was paying and said, “And you thought it was a good idea that I witness your post-orgasmic bliss?” She’d spent the morning responding to inquiries, handling inventory, and working through reservation schedules. When she’d first come to the inn, she had been completely opposed to anything even resembling a schedule. Now she had schedules for the inn, the gallery, the hospital…
Emery blew a bubble, then sucked it back into her mouth and said, “It’s cold in here.”
“It’s September and you’re wearing a bikini top.”
“Last-ditch effort to work on my tan, but it was too chilly.” She smiled and said, “Now that the others aren’t around, you can give me the real scoop on you and Dr. McHottie.”
“Not happening.” Violet went back to paying the bills.
“Oh, come on!” She smacked her hand on the arm of the chair. “This morning you two looked hot doing couples yoga. You were so in sync it was like you’d been doing yoga together for years. That doesn’t come from a week of good sex.”
We are hot. Violet smiled inwardly. Emery was right. It didn’t come from a week of good sex. It came from three months of using couples yoga as a means to try to calm their passion until Violet had been ready to finally make love with Andre.
“Vi-o-let!” Emery hopped to her feet and leaned all the way across the desk, placing her elbows on the schedule Violet had prepared. She propped her chin in her hands and said, “Talk to me. That’s what friends do.”
Violet stared at her, thinking about what Andre had said about shutting out her friends from certain parts of her life. Okay, maybe she could give Emery something…But what? Definitely not anything about their sex life. The gossip girls would have a field day if they knew she sometimes totally disappeared into him, turning into a pile of mushy, romantic emotions. Or if they realized she and Andre had found a darker side of themselves and he’d taken her from behind in the shower yesterday morning.
“Why are you blushing?”
Fuck. Violet blurted out, “I’m meeting his parents.”
“Oh my God! His parents?” Emery began pacing. “This is serious. I was a nervous wreck meeting Dean’s parents. We have to go shopping. What are they like? Where are you meeting them? Have you ever met a guy’s parents? It’s the worst experience you could ever imagine.”
Violet dropped her pen and pushed to her feet. “Can you please try to control your giddy word vomit?”
Emery put her hands on her hips and said, “Nope. When are you going?”
“Saturday. Lunch. Boston.” Great, now she was getting nervous again.
“Restaurant or their house?”
“No idea. Shit. Does that matter? Either way I’ll feel like I’m under a microscope.”
Emery crossed her arms and tapped her chin with her finger, squinting at Violet. “It’s lunch, not dinner. So you can be casual, but it’s a first meeting, so not too casual. Maybe slacks?”
“Not a chance.”
“Skirt?” Emery asked hopefully.
“Unless it’s leather and mini, no.”
Emery let out a disapproving sigh. “I think we can do something with skinny jeans and the black fringe boots you bought for Des’s wedding.”
“I have black skinny jeans.”
“The ones with tears?” Emery sat on the edge of the desk.
She didn’t own jeans without tears. “Yes.”
“You can’t meet his parents wearing torn jeans. We need to shop, or I can lend you a pair, but you should have some clothes that aren’t black and…Oh my gosh! You’re wearing a maroon shirt. Holy crap. How did I not notice that at breakfast?”
“Between Dean’s kisses and your egg-gasms, is it any wonder you missed it?” Violet looked down at her shirt and said, “I dress for my moods. Can we please move on? I have no idea what his parents are like, but they’re doctors.”
“Oh, Vi.” Compassion rose in Emery’s eyes. “I know your tattoos are a big part of who you are, but what if his parents are super uptight and conservative? You don’t want to be judged unfairly.”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing, even though it goes against everything I have ever believed in,” she confessed.
“Well, you don’t have to cover them.”
Violet paced, mulling it over.
“You could ask Andre what he thinks,” Emery suggested.
“No. Then he’ll be in a sucky position. Who wants to tell their girlfriend she should cover her ink? Fuck it.” She threw her arms up and said, “I’ll cover up. I’m going to be nervous enough. I don’t need my tats becoming a thing.”
“Okay. So…shopping?”
“Why do I feel like I’m going to regret this?”
Emery squealed and threw her arms around Violet. “Because the best girlfriend-time memories always carry a little regret! Although it’s usually from too much tequila and a guy whose name you can’t remember in the morning.”
Violet pried her off. “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t know about that. I don’t do girlfriend time.”
“You do now!” Emery dragged her out of the office. “I need to grab a shirt, and then it’s girlfriend time!”
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, Violet and Emery sat in a café with shopping bags at their feet and a plate of nachos between them.
“Admit it,” Emery said as she snagged a chip. “You had fun shopping with me.”
“It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever endured.”
“Ha! You liked it!” She picked up another chip and waved it at her. “And I didn’t make you buy a bunch of…What did you call it?”
Violet stifled a laugh. “Frilly shit.”
She’d been stifling laughs all afternoon. She didn’t usually tag along on the girls’ shopping trips, although she’d shopped with Desiree before, and of course she’d gone wedding-dress shopping with Desiree and the girls. But Desiree and the others were always giggling, and Violet might be a lot of things, but she was not a giggler.
“Right. Although I think you’d look hot in a naughty-nurse outfit with a frilly little skirt.” She waggled her brows.
“Where the hell was that suggestion when we were shopping?” Andre would love that. They had a naughty-nurse outfit in their adult toy shop, along with several other sexy options. Hm…
“Hey, do you blame me for shutting up? I was afraid for my life after I showed you the black blouse with the ruffled collar. No way was I going to suggest anything else with frills or ruffles.” Emery sat back and tossed another chip in her mouth. “I wanted to talk to you about throwing a welcome-home party for Des and Rick. I was thinking of using the community center at the resort…”
As Emery went on about the party, Violet’s thoughts turned to Andre. He was a brave man. Not many people would push her, and he’d only ever hesitated to push her with regard to one thing—making love for the very first time. She’d sensed then what she now knew to be true. They’d been so deeply connected from the start, he’d known exactly what she’d needed, and he’d put off his own desires to give it to her.
At least until that proposal had fallen from his lips.
His voice whispered through her mind. I was crazy in love, and I didn’t think through any of that. All I knew was that I wanted a life with you. She smiled to herself. He’d loved her too much to hold back. She’d often wondered if she would have taken off had she not received Lizza’s message, or if she’d stayed, would they have talked about it? Would he have understood that at that point in her life she couldn’t imagine living the structured, stifled existence of a big-city wife? She didn’t have the answers, but she was thankful he was so forgiving and so wise. She wanted to show him how important he was to her, and because of him, she wanted to figure out a way to show her friends how important they were to her, too.
“Hello.” Emery touched her arm. “I said, what do you think?”
Emery was looking at her expectantly, but she’d lost track of what Emery was saying.
“Vi! Geez, what is wrong with you? Are you in for the welcome-home party for Des and Rick the night they come back?”
“Um, sure, but they’re going to be exhausted from the time difference.”
“Shoot. I didn’t think about that. But if we put it off, doesn’t Harper come back the next week, and isn’t that when Andre leaves?”
“Yeah. Thanks for the reminder,” Violet said sarcastically.
“Let’s do a joint party! A welcome home and send-off all in one.”
“Sure,” she said, puzzling out her own idea about how to show everyone they were important to her.
“Great! I’ll have the girls help me plan. Do you want to help?”
“No. I have my own stuff to figure out.” Violet pushed to her feet and grabbed her bags. “Can we go? I’m sorry, but Andre’s going to be back from the clinic soon and I have a few things I want to get done before he gets home.”
“Look at you, working your schedule around a guy. I don’t even know who you are right now.”
“Shut up and get your keys out. I have shit to do.”
“Aaaand she’s back.”
AT CLOSING TIME, the waiting room of the Outer Cape Health Clinic was still packed. Andre texted Violet to let her know he was running late, and then he worked through stuffy noses, stomachaches, injured bones, and a host of other issues. Almost two hours later, he was finishing up his note about the last patient when Perry, the office administrator, poked her head into the room. Two metal barbells pierced her right eyebrow, a ring hung from her septum, and tattoos decorated her neck.
“Did we scare you off?” she asked as she stepped into the room and set a box on the floor. Perry was rail thin, with short jet-black hair sculpted into spiky points that darted out from her head at various angles. She was a professional and efficient administrator with a friendly, though take-charge, personality. She could probably pass for being in her early thirties, but the fine lines around her wise eyes—and her twentysomething daughter, Eliza—suggested she was probably closer to her forties. Eliza also worked at the clinic, overseeing the students from the work-study program with the local high school.
“Hardly,” he said with a smile. “It was a great day. You run a tight ship, and your efficiency makes it easier to see more patients. I really enjoyed getting to know Eliza and the rest of the staff.”
“We have a good group here, and a caring community.” She reached into the box she’d brought in and lifted out a colorful face mask like the ones Violet had made for the clinic in Ghana. “We were so busy today, I forgot to show you these. A local artist makes them for us to use with the children.”
“Are they donated anonymously?” he asked.
“No. Violet Vancroft makes them. She and her sister own the Summer House Inn on the bayside. You should see their place. It’s gorgeous, and they have an art gallery, too.”
“Vi’s my girlfriend,” he said.
“And you didn’t know she made the masks? Well, I guess maybe you two don’t do much talking.”
He chuckled.
She held up a hand and said, “Hey, no judgments over here, but it’s too bad you’re heading overseas. We could use a doc like you during the summers.”
“Not in the winter?” he asked.
“Not as much. Wellfleet and the surrounding areas are tourist towns, tripling in population over the summers. It stays busy until the end of September, but winters are pretty desolate around here.”
“I don’t see myself settling down to one location again anytime soon, but if I do, I’ll certainly keep the clinic in mind.” He and Violet hadn’t talked about the future in any detail. He didn’t want to rock the boat by bringing it up just yet, but he knew they’d have to broach the subject soon.
He was thinking about that as he drove home a little while later.
Violet was sitting on the steps of the main house when he pulled in. She popped up to her feet with a bright smile and strutted across the lawn as he climbed off his bike.
“How was work?” she asked as he pulled off his helmet.
She went up on her toes to kiss him, and he held her tight, taking the kiss deeper. She made a low, appreciative sound that made him want to kiss her all night long.
“It was great, but not nearly as fantastic as that kiss.” He pulled her into another kiss. “Damn, baby. I missed you and we were only apart for a few hours.”
“Me too. Are you exhausted and starved?”
“Nope. I’m exhilarated, and I had a granola bar at the clinic, so I’m good for a while. How was your day? Did you get the scheduling and stuff done for the inn?”
“My day was interesting. I went shopping with Emery.”
“Whoa, really?”
“Yeah. It was good. I enjoyed it, but don’t start shoving me into the gossip girl group or anything.”
He chuckled. “I wasn’t going to, but I’m glad you went.”
“I didn’t get all my work done, but I will. I’m working with Joni Wednesday morning, and volunteering at the hospital that afternoon and Friday morning, so I have plenty of time to finish up.”
“Good. Oh, I almost forgot. I spoke to David today and gave his number to Rowan. Maybe he’ll have some news about Joni by the time you see her.”
“Thanks for doing that. Since you’re not hungry or tired, come with me, and bring your helmet.” She took his arm, leading him toward her bike.
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.” She grabbed her helmet and climbed onto her bike. “Climb on or lose out.”
“Does this involve you being naked?”
