4
It was unclear whether Col. Wilder had bought into the no big deal argument, but his wife’s efforts to reassure him were having the opposite effect on Jesse, whose uneasiness was growing.
“She said she would text her father if DeWitt Petty bothers her,” Dr. Wilder reminded everyone, pouring oil on troubled waters. “I don’t think we need to worry about her. Clara’s a smart, capable woman.”
“True enough,” Jim allowed.
Even the Colonel had to concede the point.
Jesse could see that they were ready to move on from the topic, but he wasn’t quite satisfied yet that this DeWitt Petty character posed no danger to an overconfident young fashionista. “What did happen with this guy? Out of curiosity.”
“He grabbed her arm and tried to make her leave with him,” Asher spoke up. “It started a fight at the bar. The bouncer and some other guys jumped on him, and some other guys took his side. People talked about it for days.”
“Did he get arrested?” Jesse asked. “Isn’t that assault?”
“Clara didn’t press charges. He got pretty messed up in the fight. She said she will if it happens again, though.”
“Grace is right, either way,” Liesl interposed. “Clara can handle this. We can trust her to make good choices and keep herself safe.”
He’d always liked Liesl, in a general way. She was a hardworking ranch wife and a good mom who could be tender or tough as needed, and she’d been a friendly but not too affectionate aunt to a wary young foster kid.
Now, for the first time, he wondered if she was as loco as her husband.
“Clara?” He was unable to keep the incredulity from his voice. “We’re talking about the same person? Pretty Princess Clara can keep herself safe? The lady who was doing ninety today with a fully loaded flatbed? Some guy assaults her and she doesn’t press charges? It’s no big deal? ”
There was a pause, as if no one else was brave enough to admit that he had a point.
“I wish Hart was here,” he said without thinking. “Team Clara needs a reality check. I’m disappointed in all of you.”
“Where are you going?” Dr. Wilder asked.
Jesse was putting on his jacket. He caught the set of keys the Colonel tossed to him, opened the front door, and said wearily, “The last place on earth I want to go—karaoke night.”
The night was in full swing when Jesse parked Dr. Wilder’s Maserati behind the Gila Monster. The Supercuts and AT Jesse felt her shrink against him for a second before her friend grabbed her arm and began to pull her away.
“She’s not going with either of you perverts!” Yoli said hotly. “Come on, Clara! Let’s get out of here!”
“I should go with Yoli,” she told Jesse apologetically.
“I don’t really think you should,” he cautioned, with a glance at Petty, who glowered like a man whose big plans for the evening were coming apart at the seams.
“You don’t?” Clara’s harried gaze searched his.
Jesse summoned a gentle smile and his most reassuring bedside manner. “Uh-uh. I think you better stick with me tonight.”
She looked into his eyes again, and though she’d hardly seen him much in the last decade, she must have been reassured by what she saw there. “Okay,” she murmured, and started to smile back at him.
For some reason, it felt like a victory.
“Yoli—” she began.
“You’re not going home with some guy I’ve never seen before!” Yoli said fiercely.
Jesse intervened, speaking clearly and with authority. “I’m Dr. Jesse Flores. I’m staying with her parents. And I’m driving you home, too, Yoli. You ladies are intoxicated.”
“We are not intoxicated,” Yoli argued, but then she tried to lean on a table and fell to the floor, sending Clara into fits of laughter. “All right, we’re pretty smashed. Lead the way, Dr. Flores.”
DeWitt Petty didn’t say anything else, but he watched with a scowl as Jesse hauled Yoli to her feet and ushered the women out of the building.
They dropped Yoli off at her house, staying long enough to be sure that she went inside and locked her door behind her.
As soon as Jesse got back in the car, Clara asked him wistfully if he didn’t want some pie from Betty’s Metro Diner. “Yoli and I always get pie after karaoke.”
And that was how he found himself in a tacky roadside diner at midnight, watching a beautiful drunk woman eat banana cream pie.
“Betty uses fresh fruit in all her pies,” Clara told him around a mouthful.
“You like dessert, huh?” he asked, remembering the coffee cake.
“I sure do.” She pointed an accusing finger at his pie. “It’s good, right?”
Her dark chocolate eyes shone warm and bright in the flickering fluorescent light of the diner.
“Yeah, it’s good.”
They sat across from each other in a duct-taped maroon booth under the large front window, and had a view through the miniblinds of the trees on Main Street wrapped in strands of white LEDs.
“Do you like living in Austin?” she asked.
“Yeah, I do.”
“You probably think we’re crazy for living out here.”
“Yeah, I do.”
She nodded. “I’m worried something’s up with my mom. Not her knee—something else. She’s being really mysterious. What if she wanted you to come out here because she has cancer or something?”
“She’s planning to retire,” he told her. “Probably going to announce it at her birthday party. Isn’t she turning sixty?”
“Fifty-five,” Clara corrected.
“She guilted me into coming here as a precursor to guilting me into buying her practice.”
She looked perplexed. “Really?”
“That’s what I think, yeah.”
“Buying her practice?”
“Yeah.”
“You would never do that, right? You have an amazing job in Austin.”
“Right.” It was true, he loved his work, and his surgical unit was the best in the whole city. On top of that, the chief was about to retire, leaving a tantalizing opening.
“You’re going up against my mom in a battle of wits,” she realized.
“Or wills.”
“This could get ugly.”
“Yep.”
“Better than cancer, though!”
“Infinitely.”
For a long moment she just stared at him, thinking. “Retiring. This explains so much.”
“Like what?”
“She moved the practice into a new building. It’s like, really nice. Maybe she’s getting it ready for you! That’s kind of sweet, if you think about it.”
“Not if you think of it as manipulation.”
She frowned. “Oh. Well, maybe not, I guess.”
They finished their pie in silence, but as they walked out to the parking lot Clara entered a new, pensive mood and began expounding her thoughts on small-town living.
“A dozen different chicken restaurants are so easy to resist,” she was saying as he assisted her into the car. “How many different ways can you cook a chicken nugget, and who cares?”
He shut her door, walked around the car and opened his own door to find that she had not stopped talking while he was gone.
“...and I know me. If I live within a mile of a Chipotle, I’m going to that Chipotle. Maybe every day, Jesse. And it’s like, yeah, there are vegetables, but like, I don’t know how long ago they cooked their rice. Do you know what I mean?”
“I’m…not sure,” he admitted, starting the car.
“I didn’t ever cook when I lived in the city. Didn’t have to. It was great.”
“You lived in El Paso?” That wasn’t surprising. A lot of kids from his high school class had gravitated toward the closest real city.
“No, Austin,” she explained. “Loved it. Worked at Versace in the Domain. Then to New York to work for corporate. Killer job. My parents were proud of me, and I think no one knew I could get a killer job like that. Bet you didn’t know that, Jesse Lu.”
He skipped over the nickname he hadn’t heard in ten years. “Austin?”
“Uh, huh. I moved there after high school. The boys, too. I know you didn’t want to see us because you were going through stuff with your dad, but Nash and I sent you flowers on your twenty-seventh birthday. To the hospital. Anonymously. ” She said the word slowly, with care.
Nash was her youngest brother. “Those were from you guys,” he said slowly.
“Those were from us!” she said happily, giving his arm a light whack. “I’m glad you got them. Anyway, what was I saying?”
“Uh—you had a killer job in New York.”
“Yeah, but I had to live with Hart. That was fine, though. Living in New York made me realize that it doesn’t matter if you live in a city or a small town. The only thing that matters is the circle of people that you interact with on a regular basis. Right? If the circle is good, you can live anywhere.”
“Uh, huh.” Had he ever heard that his little foster siblings were moving to Austin? He didn’t remember hearing that, but maybe it had happened after Dr. Wilder had burned the bridge. He liked to think he wouldn’t have shunned all of them on purpose; the Wilder kids were pretty great, and the three boys had always treated him like a cool older brother.
Clara put her feet up on the dashboard. “My New York circle wasn’t good. Especially after Hart moved away and I had to get a cheaper place with a weird roommate. So here I am, back in Rinky-Dink, Texas, where there’s nothing to do and nowhere to eat.” She yawned. “And I really miss Chipotle. Ugh, don’t get me started on Five Guys! Why’s that so expensive? Why are their grilled onions so good?”
“I’ve never eaten there.”
“Good. Don’t. It’s like, would you rather have a burger or a new blouse?”
He figured that was rhetorical.
Clara had said her say; she slept the rest of the way back to her parents’ house, but woke when he opened her door and unbuckled her. He saved her from falling as she got to her feet, and again as she stumbled up the front steps.
In the foyer he sat her on the bench and pulled off her shoes before removing his own. The Colonel appeared, silent as a shadow, looked them over, and disappeared down the hall again.
Some fathers, Jesse thought bitterly, would have taken over their daughter’s care at that point instead of leaving the task to a virtual stranger.
He ordered Clara up once more and steered her to the staircase, where he bent and lifted her.
“I can walk,” Clara complained, but she was limp in his arms and he wasn’t convinced.
“And fall down, and knock me down, too. No, thanks.”
He put her on her bed, and froze when she took hold of his shirtfront.
“Doctor,” she murmured. Their eyes met. Her gaze was sleepy and playful and utterly without embarrassment. “You could give me a saline drip?”
He gently freed himself and straightened. “Kid, you’d a hundred percent wet the bed.”
That started her laughing.
“’Night, Clara.”
“I don’t get it,” she yawned. “I never get drunk at karaoke. One margarita!”
“The waitress kept refilling your drink.”
“Ohhh. How stupid of me!”
“Yeah,” he agreed shortly, and hit the light switch on his way out.