Dear Diary (32 page)

She glanced at the clock. Five-thirty. She had just enough time to shower and change to meet Greg by six-forty-five. With a swear word meant for life in general, she prepared herself for the task she dreaded, knowing Greg wouldn’t want to hear that his “almost” fiancée wasn’t in love with him.

“If everything goes well the community will raise enough money for the new obstetric wing by the end of the year,” Greg was saying to the group of coworkers at the outdoor table when Maggie arrived at Foster’s a few minutes late. “That’ll do the trick. The hospital will have to add more staff, too.”

She’d thought Greg had planned a dinner date just for the two of them, but apparently not. She should have known he would invite his hospital ‘posse’. He chose any and all opportunities to pontificate about his favorite subject: his career.

Sandy Francis, a surgical resident at Briar Park Hospital, asked, “What if we don’t get the money?”

“Oh, we’ll get it, and then who knows,” Greg said, slipping an arm over Maggie’s shoulders. “The sky’s the limit.”

His arm felt like a dead weight. It was all she could do not to move it. Forcing her thoughts elsewhere, she gazed across the patio to the sun-dappled green water beyond. Foster’s-On-The-Lake was the only restaurant with lake access, the only one with a dock for patrons arriving by boat. The restaurant also reminded her of Tanner Baines‌—‌they’d had their first date here‌—‌but until today, she’d managed to squelch those thoughts.

“Something wrong?” Greg asked in her ear.

She wasn’t sure how to answer. As soon as she’d realized she and Greg weren’t going to have some time alone she’d had to change her plans. She wasn’t going to be able to end their relationship at dinner.

Charlie Mears, Briar Park’s junior pathologist, said, “Jesus, how long does it take to get served here?”

“Forever, in the summer,” Sandy complained, taking a small handful of the honey-coated peanuts from the bowl in the center of the table.

Greg raised a hand and snapped his fingers at a waitress who was juggling a heavy tray. She nodded at him, and Maggie, who’d spent her summers working as a bus girl to save money for college, said to him, “Just wait. She’ll get to us.”

“Yeah, but in what millennium,” Charlie muttered.

“Hey,” Maggie said.

The group of them comprised some of Briar Park’s brightest young doctors, and they ignored her and went back to discussing the upcoming expansion with an eagerness born of selfishness. More facilities meant more prestige‌—‌and a way to speed up the long trek to the top. And Greg was more than ready to assume additional responsibility and acquire some name recognition along the way.

Maggie didn’t have any feelings about the expansion one way or another, though she wondered if Greg wasn’t being a bit too optimistic. Times were hard and money was tight.

“I heard there’ll be some new administrative positions open,” Sandy said. “Maybe they’ll shift some of the department heads around.”

“Sandy’s hoping Samuelson will be moved out of surgery, giving her a chance to shine,” Charlie interpreted.

Greg said, “We’d all like Samuelson out of the way. He’s holding back the whole department.”

“It’d be a different story if you were in charge,” Charlie said, grinning.

“Damn straight.” Greg shrugged. “I’ve made no bones about what I want.”

“You’d be good,” Sandy told him earnestly. Then demanded, “Wouldn’t he?” as she looked around the table, her sharp eyes asking for support. Maggie smiled, but wondered if it were really true.

The discussion continued, but Maggie’s attention returned to Shelley Baines, Tanner’s daughter. Now there was a problem worth solving. How difficult would it be to help her? Especially since Shelley’s problem seemed as much one of attitude as anything else. And then there was Tanner himself. Maggie was fully aware that she wouldn’t be able to hide from him forever.

“What about our illustrious Dr. Baines?” Charlie asked. “I hear he’s just moved back to the area.”

Maggie shot a glance toward Charlie. “You think he’s considering Briar Park?” she asked.

“That’s the rumor.” Charlie reached for the peanuts, snagged a handful, then tossed them one by one into the air, catching them in his mouth.

Greg said, “Baines’s hand’s ruined. He’s not going to be performing surgery again, as I hear it.”

“He could still be department head,” Charlie said, crunching the peanuts in his molars.

“Not in any functioning capacity,” Greg insisted. “Tanner Baines is finished as a surgeon. It’s too damn bad, really. He was one of the best. But he’s no threat to anyone’s career at Briar Park.”

The waitress came and took their orders and their conversation settled into more hospital shoptalk but Maggie’s thoughts drifted away.

Tanner Baines is finished…

A part of her had never gotten over Tanner. That was a fact. There was a corner of her heart that still responded whenever she heard his name. For a thirty-one-year-old woman, it seemed strange that she still suffered the pangs of an adolescent romance, but there was no denying it. She knew part of her problem with Greg was she expected to be swept off her feet again in that same way and it just wasn’t gonna happen.

But she also still recalled how she’d felt that last summer she and Tanner were together when he’d unexpectedly hit her with, “I’m marrying Tricia Wellesley,” the morning after they’d finally made love. They were on his back deck, Tanner leaning against the white wooden rails, Maggie behind him, her arms around his waist, her cheek pressed against his strong back. She’d been too insanely happy to notice his distance that morning. When she’d left him the night before the future had been as open and untouched as a windswept beach.

“Very funny,” she’d responded, smiling against the fabric of his shirt.

She’d felt his shaky intake of breath, the pause that painfully followed. And then she
knew
. Her arms fell to her sides in shock.

Tanner half-turned, his face gaunt and older than she had ever seen it. “Tricia and I are getting married,” he said again, as if he, too, were having trouble believing it.

“You’re not serious.”

“She’s pregnant, Maggie. And I’m the father…”

He turned back to the water and Maggie, reeling inside with disbelief, numbly followed his gaze, seeing sunlight dance on the water, smelling the verdant scent of fir and pine, feeling her crown heat under the early morning sunshine while her insides shivered with cold.

“Things went too far last night,” he said, the words watery and indistinct beneath the roaring in her ears. “I’m sorry.”

Her shock disappeared under an avalanche of anger and pain. She shoved herself away from him. “You’re kidding. You must be.” When he didn’t respond, she half-yelled, “Sorry.
Sorry?
I don’t believe you!” She grabbed his arm and shook it hard. “What the hell is this? Tricia? You said that was over!”

Emotion flashed across his face and she dimly realized there was more to the story than he was telling. “I know what I said.”

“Then you were
lying
?” She was having trouble breathing.
You told me you loved me!

“No, but things‌—‌have changed.”

“Is she really pregnant? Or, is this because of your father?”

“She’s pregnant.”

“Your father’s always thought I’m not good enough for you,” she said heedlessly.

“Maggie…”

“We aren’t good enough. The Holts aren’t good enough,” she went on. “That’s always been the bottom line. You should be with Tricia. That’s what he thinks.”

“It’s not about that.”

“What, then?” When he couldn’t formulate a response, she laughed harshly, fighting back tears of betrayal. “I was just available? Gullible…?
Easy
.”

“No!”

“You want to marry her? You
want
to?”

He struggled to answer and for a moment she held her breath, sensing his deep conflict. But then he shattered her with one word: “Yes.”

Maggie wanted to kill him. To beat her fists against his chest and demand that he take it all back! “How
could
you wait to tell me now?
Why not last night?
”

“Maggie…”

Tanner looked terrible, wrung out, as if wracked by some inner torment, but Maggie was too wounded to care. She sensed him working himself up to tell her more, but she decided she didn’t want to hear it. Her throat felt too tight to cry, too tight for any more words. She turned on her heel and left him, walking stiffly through his home, glad Tanner’s father wasn’t there to witness her devastation. The tears came when she pulled into her own driveway on the outskirts of the city, the least affluent section surrounding Lake Chinook.

For a time, a part of her had believed he would phone and tell her it was all a terrible mistake. She’d half-expected he would call her up and beg her to come back. To ease her pain she’d looked forward to that moment of power, that moment when she would make him suffer just as she’d suffered, only to throw herself back into his arms.

But that moment never came. A month after Tanner told Maggie he was going to marry Tricia Wellesley, he did, and shortly after that he left for medical school in Boston. He’d never come back to Oregon since as far as she knew.

Teenage love. Powerful, dangerous stuff.

“You okay?” Greg asked, noticing Maggie’s long silence. Their meals had been delivered and Maggie had eaten hers without even noticing.

“I’m just tired.”

It was a signal to leave and once the check was divvied up and paid, Greg walked her to her car, holding open the door as she slid inside the driver’s seat.

“I want to talk to Sandy and Charlie a little longer. How about I stop by your office tomorrow?”

“Fine.” Greg closed the door and Maggie rolled down the window, relieved that she wouldn’t have to tell him their relationship was over just yet.
Chickenshit
, she scolded herself, but she didn’t care. There was always tomorrow, after all, and she didn’t want to think about Greg tonight.

He leaned in and gave her a kiss. A moment later Maggie eased out of the parking lot, waving a goodbye. In her rearview mirror she saw him head back toward Foster’s front door.

Restlessness overcame her as soon as she reached Lake Chinook’s city limits. She drove by the familiar storefronts, glimpsing the lake between the buildings where the railroad tracks cut through the center street and wound along the edge of the lake. Lake Chinook, an oasis of affluence, snobbery and beauty just south of Portland, had changed some since Maggie’s childhood. New buildings, shops and businesses lined the main street. A park with pedestrian walkways meandered along Lakewood Bay where Foster’s-On-The-Lake was located. But the big difference for Maggie was, in her youth, she’d been a poor outsider looking in, whereas now she could afford some of the more moderately priced houses in the area. But because of reasons rooted in Tanner’s rejection, she still felt like a poser, like she would never quite fit in. It was something she vowed to get over.

So thinking, she drove right on past her turnoff, choosing instead the meandering roads that threaded through the hills around the lake. There was no rhyme or reason to the roads; they’d been put down by necessity and, to the first-time traveler, were a confusing web with no particular direction. The problem was the lake itself. You had to drive all the way around it to get from Point A to Point B, and the narrow lanes that wound around its banks twisted in and out, like some master plan of braiding gone awry.

Circling North Shore, she crossed a low-walled bridge that provided a barrier from the main lake’s slapping waves, saw the flickering reflection of the houseboat lights shimmering in the dark waters, drove over the railroad tracks again and wound her way higher until once again she was on Skyridge Drive heading toward Tanner’s old house. Gerrard Baines’s house. She’d cast Tanner’s father as a demon‌—‌along with Tricia‌—‌in her teen drama and he’d played the part to perfection. He’d wanted his son to marry Tricia, and well, he had. If Tricia’s pregnancy tipped the scales in that direction, all to the better, from Gerrard’s point of view.

Never underestimate the power of blood, she reminded herself now. In the end, Tanner had done just what his father wanted.

The car glided to stop, and Maggie leaned her elbow against the window’s warm metal frame. Sweet, sultry scents rode on a soft breeze, filling her head, reminding her of another time. Summer and Tanner Baines. For three summers she’d lived with him in her every thought, and the seasons in between hadn’t been able to erase those summer memories. She’d waited through each autumn, winter and spring, looking forward to June when Tanner’s next college vacation would begin, eagerly anticipating that first sighting, first call.

Now Maggie lay her head against the cushions of the seat and listened to the cricket’s song. Since her expedition up the oak tree‌—‌her first real meeting with Tanner‌—‌she’d been smitten. Cupid had done his job well. At least on her part. Tanner’s feelings had always been more difficult to place.

After a moment Maggie reached for the ignition. Someone else lived here now. She could practically feel the hominess as another lamp in the house was switched on, a rectangle of golden light spilling through the window into the soft night. So much for memories, she thought. But as the engine caught she saw the porch light come on and the front door open.