Unfinished Business

end of the holiday weekend. As the only doctor in residence, he’d been taking office appointments, making house calls, doing rounds. And missing meals, he thought ruefully, wishing they still stocked lollipops, rather than balloons and plastic cars, for their younger patients.
    He could get by with frozen microwave meals and coffee for a few days. He could even get by with only patches of sleep. But he couldn’t get by without Vanessa. He’d barely seen her since the weekend of the wedding—since the weekend they had spent almost exclusively in bed. He’d been forced to cancel three dates. For some women, he thought, that alone would have been enough to have them stepping nimbly out of a relationship.
    Better that she knew up front how bad it could get. Being married to a doctor was being married to inconvenience. Canceled dinners, postponed vacations, interrupted sleep.
    Closing the file, he rubbed his tired eyes. She was going to marry him, he determined. He was going to see to that. If he ever wangled an hour free to set the stage and ask her.
    He picked up the postcard on the corner of his desk. It had a brilliant view of the sun setting on the water, palm trees and sand—and a quickly scrawled note from his father on the back.
    “You’d better be having a good time, Dad,” Brady mused as he studied it. “Because when you get back, you’re going to pay up.”
    He wondered if Vanessa would enjoy a tropical honeymoon. Mexico, the Bahamas, Hawaii. Hot, lazy days. Hot, passionate nights. Moving too fast, he reminded himself. You couldn’t have a honeymoon until you had a wedding. And you couldn’t have a wedding until you’d convinced your woman she couldn’t live without you.
    He’d promised himself he would take it slowly with Vanessa. Give her all the romance they’d missed the first time around. Long walks in the moonlight. Champagne dinners. Evening drives and quiet talks. But the old impatience pulled at him. If they were married now, he could drag his weary bones home. She’d be there. Perhaps playing the piano. Or curled up in bed with a book. In the next room, there might be a child sleeping. Or two.
    Much too fast, Brady warned himself. But he hadn’t known, until he’d seen her again, how much he’d wanted that basic and traditional home. The woman he loved, and the children they made between them. Christmas mornings and Sunday afternoons.
    Leaning back, he let his eyes close. He could picture it perfectly. Too perfectly, he admitted. He knew his vision left questions unanswered and problems unresolved. They were no longer children who could live on dreams. But he was too tired to be logical. Too needy to be sensible.
    Vanessa stood in the doorway and watched him with a mixture of surprise and awe. This was Brady, she reminded herself. Her Brady. But he looked so different here, so professional, in his white lab coat with the framed diplomas and certificates surrounding him. There were files neatly stacked on his desk, and there was an ophthalmoscope in his pocket.
    This wasn’t the wild youth hell-bent on giving the world a left jab. This was a settled, responsible man who had hundreds of people depending on him. He had already made his niche.
    And where was hers? she wondered. He had made his choices and found his place. She was still floundering. Yet, however much she flailed or stumbled, she was always drawn to him. Always back to him.
    With a faint smile on her face, she stepped into the office. “You’ve got another appointment, Dr. Tucker.”

    “What?” His eyes snapped open. He stared at her as dream and reality merged. She was standing on the other side of his desk, her hair pulled back, in a breezy cotton blouse and slacks.
    “I was going to say code blue, or red alert, one of those things you hear on TV, but I didn’t know which would fit.” She put the basket she carried on the desk.
    “I’d settle for ‘Hi.’”
    “Hi.” With a quick laugh, she looked around the office. “I almost didn’t come in,” she told him. “When I came to the door, you looked so…intimidating.”
    “Intimidating?”
    “Like a doctor. A real doctor,” she said on another laugh. “The kind who uses needles and makes terrifying noncommittal noises and scribbles things on charts.”
    “Hmm,” Brady said. “Ah.”
    “Exactly.”
    “I can take off the lab coat.”
    “No, actually, I think I like it. As long as you promise not to whip out a tongue depressor. I saw your nurse