Evergreen Springs

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_c8b07a86-a013-5c15-b475-75ba002a5388)

WHEN DEVIN FINALLY parked her SUV in the garage and let herself into her house on the lakeshore, it was nearly midnight and most Haven Point residents lay tucked in their beds while the snow continued to fall and the winds blew.

She flipped on the lights of the kitchen, a little light-headed with exhaustion. Her day had started with clinic hours at her practice beginning before 9:00 a.m. Barring those few moments of knitting with Greta, she hadn’t had time to take a breath all day.

Why, again, had she ever wanted to be a doctor?

Oh, yes. Because she wanted to think that some days she was actually making a difference, helping others as she had been helped by so many caring professionals.

Seamus, the friendlier of her two cats, wandered in and rubbed against her leg in greeting.

Devin picked him up. “Hello there, handsome. Anything exciting happen around here? What kind of trouble did you and Simone get into without me?”

He let out a long meow, the tattletale. Both of her cats were rescues from the shelter but Simone had been with her only a few months, a replacement for her dearest and oldest friend, Trina, who had been with Devin since she was a kitten.

The newcomer and Seamus adored each other, which was great, but so far the other cat hadn’t warmed up to Devin.

She was working on it, though. She pulled the kibble out of the pantry and shook the container. A moment later, Simone peeked shyly around the corner. She was still trying to persuade the cat to come closer when her phone rang.

To Devin’s great relief, it was her sister, not an emergency call tugging her back to the hospital.

“Hey, Kenz,” she answered. “What are you doing up so late?”

“I could say the same for you, Dr. Shaw. I was letting Rika and Hondo back inside after their last trip out for the night and saw you drive past. Tell me you’ve been on a hot date.”

She snorted. When was her last hot date? Nothing came immediately to mind. She really needed to do something about that but the dating pool in Haven Point wasn’t very deep at the moment. The town was changing, though, especially now that Caine Tech was developing a new facility on the edge of town at the site of the old boatworks, which had once been owned by the family of McKenzie’s fiancé.

“You know me. I have to fight them off with a scalpel.”

McKenzie laughed. “You would, if you stood still long enough. Have you been working all day?”

“I covered Pat Lander’s shift in the emergency department after work. His grandson had a Christmas concert over in Star and he didn’t want to miss it. Nobody else was available. What are you doing up so late?”

“Ben flew in for the weekend,” she answered. “We went to dinner at Lydia’s place in Shelter Springs and stayed later than we planned. I just checked my email and saw you sent me something about calling out the troops. What’s up?”

Devin slipped off her shoes and sank into her favorite chair in the family room, with wide windows looking out on the lake. Right now she saw only snow drifting past the window but she could imagine it on a summer afternoon with the water gently lapping the dock and clouds rippling past the mountains.

“I wanted to take a couple of quick freezer meals—soups, casseroles, whatever—to a single dad in the area who apparently isn’t very skilled in the kitchen.”

“Oh? Anybody I know?”

This was always a tricky situation. Privacy rules demanded she not discuss her patients, not even when that patient had been a friend to both of them. But how did she let McKenzie know what was needed when she couldn’t give specifics?

“Cole Barrett,” she finally said. “Do you know him?”

“Are you kidding? Yum. Tricia’s brother, right? The sexy rodeo cowboy who lives up at Evergreen Springs. I’ve bumped into him a few times having breakfast when I’m grabbing coffee at Serrano’s. Not a big talker, by the way, but he was one of those on the front lines of the sandbagging during the big flood.”

Earlier in the summer, a dam upriver from Haven Point on the Hell’s Fury had become unstable. The town avoided significant damage, mostly because the town’s mayor—who just happened to be her sister—had quickly mobilized everyone to evacuate and put protective measures around homes in the flood zone.

“Wait a minute,” McKenzie said after a moment. “Cole Barrett is a single father? You’re kidding. I had no idea the guy had a family. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him with kids.”

“Apparently his ex-wife had custody of their son and daughter but she died a few months ago so the kids have come to live with him.”

“Oh, the poor kids. This is a terrible season to lose a parent.”

If they had been together in person, Devin would have given her sister a tight hug, suddenly remembering her sister had personal experience in that department. She and McKenzie were half sisters, actually, and McKenzie had come to live with their family when she was ten, after her own mother died. That had been around the holidays, too, she remembered, more determined than ever to help Cole and his children through this rough time.

“He needs a housekeeper. Do you know anybody in town who might be looking for a job?”

“I think everybody who’s in the market is applying at the new Caine Tech facility. I can check with a few people. Anita knows everything,” she said, referring to her assistant at city hall. “She might have some ideas.”

“Thank you. Meanwhile, Tricia has been in town helping him out but she can’t right now.” Devin chose her words carefully, mindful again of patient privacy. “I was thinking it would be very neighborly if we called out the Helping Hands to fill up his freezer with a few things he could fix in a pinch while he’s handling things on his own.”

McKenzie spearheaded a loosely organized group of women who gathered regularly to provide service to Haven Point residents who might be struggling.

“That’s a fabulous idea. I’ll send out an email right now. When would you like me to have people drop off their meals?”

She hadn’t thought that far ahead, to actually delivering the meals. That would necessitate seeing Cole again, something that suddenly gave her ridiculous butterflies.

Her tired brain took a moment to scan through her schedule for the next day. “Why don’t we say midmorning tomorrow? That way everybody can see the email first thing and check their freezer inventory. I’ve got yoga class at the senior citizen’s center that won’t be done until ten. Let’s use the store as a central drop-off place, if you don’t mind. I can pick everything up after yoga and take it up to Evergreen Springs. I thought I would make up a spinach lasagna, a chicken and rice casserole and the Gruyère mac and cheese everybody seemed to like at the last potluck.”

“Ooh. That sounds delicious. I wish I had a big bowl of it right now.”

“I’ll save you some,” she promised.

“I was already thinking about throwing together a big batch of burgundy beef stew in the slow cooker tomorrow. Ben loves it and I’ll have plenty of extras for Cole. I’ll just cook it on the stove instead. It’s always better reheated anyway, once the flavors have time to meld.”

“Thanks, Kenz.”

“I’m actually glad to have the chance to do something for Cole. He worked nonstop last summer when the Hell’s Fury flooded and then disappeared before I ever had the chance to say thanks. I don’t think I saw him even take a break for a sandwich. It will be nice to feel like we’re paying him back a little for all his help.”

“That works.”

“And maybe if we’re nice enough to him,” McKenzie went on in a voice that was growing in enthusiasm, “he won’t feel like he has to be such a hermit up there on the mountain. Sexy cowboys hanging around downtown for the tourists to see can only be good for our reputation, right?”

Devin laughed. “You can be the one to tell the man you want to pimp him out for the good of Haven Point.”

“He wouldn’t have to go bare-chested or anything. I would be happy if he just walked up and down Lake Street in his Stetson, tipping it every now and then to the tourists with a random ‘ma’am’ or ‘howdy.’”

She heard a deep voice on the other end—Ben, she assumed. McKenzie said something to him Devin couldn’t hear, then came back laughing.

“Okay, apparently Ben thinks that’s not one of my better ideas. We’ll keep it on the back burner for now.”

“That’s a good place for it. Way, way back,” Devin said with a laugh. “I’ll be by tomorrow to pick up the food.”

She ended the connection, deeply grateful for her sister. McKenzie had come into the family through difficult circumstances but Devin couldn’t imagine her world without her sister’s quirky sense of humor, her creative mind and her deep sense of compassion and loyalty.

Seamus wandered in again and pounced onto her lap. Simone peeked her head around the edge of the door frame, then slunk into the kitchen toward her food bowl with mad ninja skills, as if she were trying to become invisible by being one with the maple heartwood floor.