The Next Best Thing (Gideon's Cove #2)(45)

Hot, helpless tears fill my eyes, and I look away, automatically locating Jimmy’s shrine. Handsome, blue-eyed Jimmy Mirabelli, tall and strong. And gone. Just a memory now.

I let go of Ethan and wipe my eyes with the heels of my palms.

“This is where you guys met,” Ethan murmurs. I nod, letting the moment where I might have said something pass. I can’t have everything. Ethan was right.

The kitchen door opens, three servers come in with trays stacked with plates and glasses. Gianni follows.

“Hey, Dad,” Ethan says. “How’s everything going?”

“That idiot Carlo overcooked the chicken and it’s like f**king rubber,” Gianni growls. “Lucy, baby, sorry for the language. You okay? You get enough to eat?” Ethan’s father steps between us, slings an arm around my shoulders. “You’ll come visit us, yeah? It’s beautiful out there. Lotsa flowers. A golf course.” His eyes, like mine did just a moment ago, go to the picture of his son, and his face spasms.

“You bet,” I say, hugging my father-in-law. I feel the big man choke on a sob and hold him tighter, closing my eyes against the sorrow he has to carry for the rest of his life. Poor Gianni. Poor, poor man.

When I look up, Ethan’s gone.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“THE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW,” the receptionist says, earning me the baleful glare of a roomful of women in varying degrees of ripeness.

“She’s my cousin,” I explain. “I’ll only be a minute. I’m sorry.” No one deigns to answer.

I walk through the frosted glass door down the hall to my cousin’s office.

“Hey, Anne,” I say, giving a little knock. “Thanks for seeing me.”

“Sure, kid! How’s it going?” Anne asks.

Cousin Anne ushers me into a seat. Her office is in Newport, and as Newport is the stylish city mouse to Mackerly’s more humble offerings, so Anne is to me. She’s ten years older, extremely gorgeous and wicked smart, as indicated by the diplomas from Harvard and Johns Hopkins that hang on her wall. Her graying hair is short and funky, and her skin is a testimony to sunscreen and good genetics. She dresses in comfortable, stylish clothes in soothing colors and wears great jewelry. Her office is likewise wicked cool…glass desk, green leather chairs, a gorgeous view of the graceful span that is the Newport Bridge. A bookcase holds dozens of medical books, a nice picture of Anne and Laura, and a beautiful glass sculpture of a baby in utero.

“I’m not pregnant,” I say, just to get that out of the way. “And I brought you blueberry cream scones as a bribe.” I set the string-wrapped white box on her desk

“I love bribes,” she says amiably, peeking under a flap. “Yummy.”

“How’s Laura?” I ask, stalling.

“Oh, she’s great,” Anne answers. “Busy with the new school year and all that. We’re heading up to Bar Harbor for the weekend.”

“Sounds fun,” I say.

“It should be,” she agrees. Waits a little more. They must’ve taught that in med school. Sit silently till the patient can’t stand it anymore and blurts it all out.

“So. Things good with the lesbian doctor practice?” I say, swallowing hard.

She laughs. “Can you work on that? I’d really love to hear my mom say, ‘My daughter, the obstetrician’ just once.”

I smile. “Well, she’s very proud. Drops your credentials whenever she can.”

I do have a regular doctor. It’s just that I used to babysit Dr. Ianelli’s kids. And Mrs. Farthing is the receptionist there, and she’s the mother of my old high school classmate. The nurse, Michelle, is a bakery regular (two cheese danishes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and the pounds are starting to pile on, frankly). The physician’s assistant, Caroline, was in Girl Scouts with Corinne. The usual.

Anne nods. “So what brings you here, Lucy?”

I hesitate. “Doctor patient confidentiality?” I suggest.

“You bet,” she answers.

“I’m having anxiety attacks again.” Anne nods. “I mean, I had a few after Jimmy died, of course, hyperventilating, heart pounding, stuff like that, but I haven’t had any for a couple of years. Until a few weeks ago, actually.”

“Had anything changed in your life lately?” Anne asks.

“Well, my in-laws finally left yesterday,” I answer.

She nods and waits.

“And I’m…um, I’m starting to date again. Sort of.” I swallow sickly.

“That’s pretty big, hon,” she says with a kind smile.

My sinuses prickle with tears. “Mmm-hmm,” I murmur.

“How’s it going?” she asks.

“Not awful, not great.” I sniffle, and Anne passes me a tissue box without comment.

“How are you sleeping?” she asks.

“I haven’t slept that well since the accident,” I admit. “A few hours at night, a few in the morning after I’m done at the bakery.”

“Sleep has a lot to do with your mental state, Goose,” she says, reverting to her childhood nickname for me. “How about exercising? Any of that?”

“I ride my bike a lot. Around the island. I rode here today. At my last check-up, the doctor said I was perfectly healthy.”