Doctor Holliday (Doctors of Eastport General)

Chapter 1

Thursday, December 7

Lucy

Her sister always called at the most inconvenient times. Like now. Lucy Holliday juggled her coffee, her shopping list, and her pen as she struggled to get her phone to her ear. The woman next to her pushed her cart away from the fresh produce bins without looking and rammed Lucy’s cart, and then gave Lucy a look that would kill.

“So much for holiday spirit,” Lucy grumbled, eyes trailing the woman as she made a beeline for the deli.

“What? What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Lucy told Kim. “I’m at the grocery store. What’s up?”

“How’s Callie?”

Lucy suppressed a groan. She loved Kim; she did. They had grown up close; she talked to Kim more than anyone else in her family—besides Callie. She also loved Callie; she loved any excuse to talk about her daughter. But with what appeared to be a quarter of the population of Eastport, Rhode Island, in Fresh Harvest this particular Thursday evening, this wasn’t a good time for one of Kim’s calls. The woman should be in congress, simply because she could talk for hours without breathing. She would be hell on filibusters.

“She’s good.” Lucy propped her phone in the hollow between her shoulder and her cheek and reached for a bright red bell pepper. “Heard back from a couple more schools this last week.”

“Is still leaning toward Notre Dame?”

“Unfortunately.” Lucy eyed the pepper and finally set it in her cart. Somewhere along the line, her sweet, bright-eyed Callahan Rae had grown into a beautiful, compassionate, and intelligent young woman. The little girl who used to wear cowboy boots with her shorts, carry toy six-shooters in her belt, and had an imaginary horse named Star was now a senior in high school and eyeballing the University of Notre Dame. As proud as Lucy was, the thought of Callie packing up her Kia and driving to Indiana next fall was a sharp blade in her lungs.

“How’d her English exam go?”

Lucy and Callie had joined Lucy’s family for Thanksgiving dinner. Callie had spent most of the break with her nose in her literature book, studying for an exam.

“She aced it,” Lucy answered absently. She wasn’t uninterested, but Callie aced most of her exams, and Lucy had moved on to the lettuce. She selected a baby spinach mix, knowing Callie would prefer kale. One thing she couldn’t do for Callie: eat kale.

“Talk to Marty?”

Lucy bit back a sigh. Apparently, Kim didn’t have a reason for calling, other than her usual need for incessant, meaningless chatter. She snuck a quick sip of her coffee, put the cup down in the front of her cart, and continued through the store.

“Not since Thanksgiving.”

“Kade broke his ankle last night.”

Lucy cringed. Her nephew was as serious about his basketball as her daughter was about her GPA.

“Oh, boy.”

“Mm.” Kim hummed. “I think they were in the ER for a couple of hours.”

“Yeah.” Lucy squinted at the ingredients on the back of a soup mix. She needed her cheaters, but since she only had two hands, getting them out of her purse was out of the question. “I heard there was a big pile-up on the interstate. Eastport ER and Memorial ER were both slammed.”

“Whatcha doing?”

Lucy ignored the sound of her sister lighting a cigarette on the other end of the line. She had beat that horse to death on several occasions. If Kim ever did quit smoking, the world might come to a screeching halt.

“Grocery shopping.” Hadn’t she already told Kim that? She put the soup mix back on the shelf and kept walking. “Callie claims she’s gonna have to start eating her shoes because that’s all that’s in the cupboards.”

“Leather’s kind of tough,” Kim said with a laugh.

“Exactly.”

“I won’t keep you,” Kim announced. Lucy knew better than to think that was it. Her sister usually said those words at least three, if not six or seven times, per phone call. “Just wanted to check in. Took Mom to the doctor yesterday.”

“She doing okay?”

The next aisle was busier than the produce department. Lucy took the phone in her hand and rolled her head on her neck. She had put in a full day at the clinic, besides two trips over to Eastport for deliveries—one that had taken nearly two hours. And she was on call. Odds were, she’d be called in before the night was over.

“I think so,” Kim answered with a cough. The same smoker’s cough that had killed their grandpa. The same one their brother had. Lucy had been pissed at the time when she was fifteen and Marty caught her lighting up. He had ripped into her, taken the cigarette from her, ground it beneath the toe of his boot, and tossed the lighter in the trash. And told their parents.

Now she was glad he’d caught her. The embarrassment of having her older brother reprimand her, the fury at the do as I say, not as I do message , had been enough to keep her from picking up another one. Thirty-three years later, she was healthy as a horse. She wasn’t sure she could say the same for either of her siblings.

“Doctor said her sugar’s too high.”

“Any wonder?” Lucy mumbled. “She’s got more of a sweet tooth than any kid I know.”

“I think we should get them a new TV for Christmas.”

Ahead of her, at the other end of the grocery aisle, a guy who looked very much like her ex-husband stood and studied the array of Mexican food ingredients as if he would be tested on them. Lucy froze for a moment, unwilling to get caught up in conversation with him. Then again, she hadn’t seen him in at least ten years. He wouldn’t want conversation any more than she would.

Probably wasn’t him, anyway. Lucy wasn’t sure he hadn’t left Eastport years ago. They had no relationship left, and the jackass had rarely done anything for Callie.

“What do you think?” Kim asked.

Lucy had no idea if she had said something other than the thing about getting their parents a new TV for Christmas. Her phone clicked. She had another call coming in.

“Sounds good,” she told Kim. “I gotta go, Kim. I’m on call.”

“Oh, I won’t keep you,” Kim said again. “Just wanted to talk about Christmas.”

Lucy held her breath and pulled her phone away from her ear to look at the screen. Not the hospital. Her friend Cheri. Relieved that she wasn’t being summoned in for a delivery, wouldn’t have to retrace her steps around the store, putting things away, she focused on her call with Kim.

“Are you hosting?” she asked.

“Marty and Deanna want to.”

That was new. Lucy felt her face morph into a mask of surprise.

“Oh.”

“You okay with that?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” She snatched a couple of cans of green beans from the shelf and put them in her cart. Callie ate them straight from the can when she wanted a snack.

“Well, you and Deanna had that go around.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “Three years ago, Kim,” she reminded her sister. “And I wouldn’t just not go to their house for Christmas because Deanna and I got into it over Kade and his girlfriend.”

Never mind that at the time Kade had been thirteen, and in Lucy’s eyes, much too young to be allowed to be alone in his bedroom with his fourteen-year-old girlfriend.

“Oh!” Kim laughed softly. “Darrell got the promotion I told you about.”

“That’s great!” Lucy said sincerely. She pushed her way through the crowded aisle, past the man who didn’t look nearly as much like her ex as she originally thought. She headed into the next aisle and stopped to peruse the baking items. Callie always had friends over during the holidays—and the holidays in their house started just before Halloween, so they had been ongoing for weeks already—and they liked cookies and fudge and cupcakes. Lucy would wonder how they all stayed slim and healthy, but she’d been a kid once, and had inhaled her share of junk food during those years, too.

She squatted to study the bags of baking chips, finally choosing a bag of Heath chips in addition to a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips.

“Should be a nice Christmas,” Kim said now. “Listen, I won’t keep you?—”

“Glad you called,” Lucy interrupted her before she could ping from those words straight to some other random bit of news that could wait until the next time they spoke. “I’m gonna get these groceries home and check on Callie.”

She didn’t need to check on Callie. The kid had been pretty independent since she was eleven or twelve. But that didn’t mean Lucy liked leaving her home alone all the time.

“Bye, Luce.”

She breathed a sigh of relief, but the phone rang in her hand before she could slip it back in her purse.

Cheri again.

“Hey.” She made eye contact with the angry lady from the produce aisle as she answered this call. The woman scowled, nearly vibrating with disapproval over Lucy’s use of the phone in the store.

“Come down to The Hydra,” Cheri said by way of greeting.

“Oh, man, I can’t.” Lucy hoped she sounded sufficiently disappointed. Most evenings, she would be happy to join her friend at their favorite dive bar for a drink before going home. But she was exhausted, and since she was on call, she couldn’t have a drink, anyway. “I gotta?—”

“Oh, come on. Jade and Echo are here.”

Jade and Echo. Lucy sighed. She loved her coworkers—they were good friends. But the thought of going home and curling up in the recliner with a book was so enticing.

“I’m on call,” she reminded Cheri.

“So come have a soda before you go home. Jade’s dishing about her blind date the other night.”

Lucy chuckled softly. “I have groceries I need to get home?—”

“Luce, it’s twenty-six degrees. The groceries will be fine for one soda.”

“Fine.” She groaned and laughed as she moved further down the aisle. Making eye contact with the woman from the produce aisle again, Lucy flashed her a big smile. “Happy Holidays.”

“Are you talking to me?” Cheri asked her. “Is that your new way of telling me to f?—”

“No!” Lucy yelped. “No. Someone at the store. Lemme get off the phone so I can get moving.”