Page 5 of Call it Fate

“You be a good boy, you hear me?” I gave Milo a final pat and held my hand flat in front of his face and told him to stay. Until I had a more permanent place to stay, he couldn’t come with me. The last thing I heard as I walked out the door was a pitiful whine.

* * *

Mother Nature must haveher period.

I was only three hours into my trip. The lyrics to the Gilligan’s Island theme song ran through my head as I considered the likelihood of becoming marooned in this late spring snowstorm that wasn’t supposed to be anything more than some flurries back at home. However, instead of a tropical setting of the show, I’d be doomed to frostbite and hypothermia in a ditch alongside the mountain highway. As if the slow traffic on the interstate trying to get out of Charlotte wasn’t bad enough, now, I was stuck behind an eighteen-wheeler that crept around the sharp curves and switchbacks.

My GPS informed me I still had a couple more hours to go. I had four-wheel drive on my truck, but if I couldn’t get around the tractor trailer in front of me, it was going to take even longer, and it was already getting dark, making the journey feel even more treacherous. I briefly considered riding out the storm in a hotel, but since I hadn’t seen an actual town since I left the foothills, I didn’t have a choice but to keep going.

Finally, the road leveled out and opened up to two lanes. I passed the truck in front of me and moved along a little quicker, but not much. The light flurries had turned into fat flakes and were coming down faster. Already, it looked like a couple of inches had accumulated on the side of the road and was beginning to stick to the driving surface.

What was left of the sunlight disappeared as I crested the mountain and began my descent. A painstaking hour passed before I saw a road sign promising me Sterling Mill was only another twenty miles. Thank God.

I could count on one hand the number of other vehicles I’d passed along the way, and three of them had been snowplows. My fingers and shoulders ached from clenching the steering wheel and hunching forward as I navigated the road, lamenting for the hundredth time why I wasn’t back in my nice condo with my faithful dog.

I hoped by doing this favor for Doctor Anders, it would help my chances of getting the coveted surgical residency under him. There was no guarantee just because I was employed by him; there were dozens of hopeful applicants. On paper, I was well qualified, but so were the others.

Anders knew I was driven. Hell, I worked long hours without complaint, continued to oversee, volunteer, and grow my Vets for Vets charity, and single-handedly ran a mobile vaccination clinic one weekend a month. But if sucking up to this small-town clinic gave me a further edge, I’d take it. Besides, it was only for a couple of weeks—a month at the most.

After another forty minutes, the road straightened, and the mountains opened up to what I thought might be fields. I nearly missed the sign that was almost completely blanketed by snow announcing the exit for Downtown Sterling Mill, but fortunately, I hadn’t lost my GPS signal, which guided me the right way.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I navigated the last few miles to the hotel Cynthia had arranged for me until a rental house became available in a few days. She thought it was funny that it was called The Dogtrot given my job but assured me it sounded nice. I’m glad she saw the humor because I couldn’t imagine much of anything out here in the middle of nowhere could be “nice.”

There were only a couple of cars on the street in front of the two-story, white house that was to be my home for the next few days. It was completely different from the two-star motel that smelled like decades-old cigarette smoke and stale ice I’d expected.

In fact, it was the kind of grand home I expected to see in an old, southern town like Savannah or New Orleans. It looked like a plantation-style home with two-story columns connecting a large front porch and second-story balcony. Two one-story wings balanced on both sides of the main part of the house, and another small, one-story structure was attached on the left side by a short breezeway. Warm lights glowed through almost all of the windows, a warm beacon of welcome for a cold and weary traveler.

I dragged my suitcase from my backseat and headed toward the front door. Someone had made the effort to clean the snow from the front stoop at some point, but the snow was coming down so heavily now, there would be no keeping up with it.

I pushed through the front door, finding myself in an outer chamber with a rug that would soak up the slush on my shoes. A bell jingled when I opened the vestibule door and stepped into a large foyer with plenty of space that was only slightly taken up by a polished wood desk that blended perfectly into the grand, curved staircase with a gleaming, hand-carved wood banister. I wondered how many kids over the centuries had slid down its surface.

A living room with a roaring fire was to my right and a dining area to my left, and several arrangements of colorful flowers in crystal or pottery vases were scattered throughout the rooms as though challenging Mother Nature’s fury outside.

“I’ll be right with you,” a female called from around the corner.

Something about the voice caused me to pause. I shook my head. I was tired and hearing things. All I wanted to do was find something to eat and crash for the night.

Her voice drew closer. “Looks like the storm really picked up out there. I was starting to worry you wouldn’t make it.”

I definitely knew that soft, sweet, southern cadence. It was a voice that used to conjure up feelings of warmth. Now, it only sent a chill running down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold weather outside.

CHAPTER3

Emalee

“You’re sure you’re okay with this?” Shannon asked.

I nodded my head at our one staff member while I emptied another bag of groceries.

Shannon was around the same age as me and had started working at The Dogtrot when I left to go to cooking school. It had been the job she desperately needed, the work schedule being consistent with school hours since she was needed at home to take care of her two younger siblings ever since her mom had passed away from cancer while she was in high school.

Her dad was a man barely holding it together and was what a lot of folks around here called a functional alcoholic. He somehow managed to keep his day job working for the town’s maintenance crew, but he spent the evenings pilfering away his earnings at a bar or with a bottle in his bedroom. We never talked much about it, but being a small community, it wasn’t hard to know she’d been called to come drag his butt home late at night several times

But there wasn’t a lazy bone in Shannon’s body, and her sassy spirit was emphasized by her sparkling sapphire eyes and blonde curls with streaks of purple running through them.

Mama still took reservations and greeted guests, but she wasn’t able to climb the steps easily anymore, so Shannon mostly helped me with cleaning the rooms and doing the laundry. But on Tuesday mornings, she came in two hours early to manage the kitchen after I cooked so I could have a few hours for myself while Iain was at school.

Today, however, she’d asked if she could leave early to rush to the grocery store before her brother and sister came home since whatever sun we’d had earlier disappeared behind a thick layer of gray clouds. Already a few flakes had started to fall.

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