Her Texas Family. Jill Lynn

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       Chapter Two

      On Tuesday morning, Lucy sat behind a wide receptionist desk in Graham’s medical office and stared at the blinking black beast in front of her. Some might call it a phone. Lucy deemed it an instrument of torture. It boasted a number on the small gray screen—one that kept growing as the number of people waiting for her to answer increased. When Graham’s nurse, Danielle, had trained Lucy on it early this morning, she’d called it the queue. Lucy didn’t have such a nice name for it.

      It scared her more than spiders or spam.

      On Sunday night, she and Graham had hammered out a few details. An agreement of sorts. They’d agreed to give working together a try. He’d put a lot of emphasis on that last word, and Lucy felt an underlying sense of tension that normally didn’t invade her life. Graham probably thought she was completely unqualified for the position. And he’d be right. Which meant she needed to prove herself today.

      She knew her opportunity to work for Graham had everything to do with God and Olivia making it happen and very little to do with her office skills—which were nonexistent.

      On Monday, when Lucy had moved into her above-garage apartment in town—the one her sister had lived in last year—she’d scanned the paper for any other job openings she might be qualified for, just in case working for Graham didn’t pan out.

      There weren’t any.

      Since her move to Texas had come up quickly, Lucy hadn’t had time to save. She didn’t have any reserves for covering an extended period of time without work. And since she absolutely refused to ask her parents or Olivia and Cash for money, she needed this job.

      How hard could it be? she’d thought. Answer a phone. File some charts. But after a few of the calls she’d already fielded this morning, Lucy was afraid to touch the flashing beast in front of her. Since timidity wasn’t in her nature, she took a steadying breath and yanked the receiver up, pressing it to her ear.

      “Dr. Redmond’s office. May I help you?”

      “This is Walt Birl. Who’s this?”

      Another favorite question of the morning. Who was she? What was she doing in town? And from two grandmothers—was she interested in meeting their grandsons?

      “Lucy Grayson. I’m new to town. I’m running from some unsolved crimes in Colorado. What can I do for you, Mr. Birl?”

      Stunned silence.

      Lucy winced and looked at the phone as though she could see his reaction through the small black holes. Oops. Perhaps not her best move. Wasn’t she planning to be professional today? Prove to Graham he hadn’t made a mistake in hiring her?

      When she put the phone back to her ear, loud cackling greeted her. “I like you. Listen, I have a rash I need to discuss with someone.”

      Don’t pick me. Don’t pick me.

      “It’s kind of round, though there’s a few spots—”

      “Mr. Birl, you really need to speak with the nurse or schedule an appointment with Dr. Redmond. I’ll be no help at all.”

      “Okay. Transfer me to Danielle, then.”

      Lucy sighed with relief, then pressed a few buttons on the phone, hoping the call actually went to Danielle’s phone and voice mail in the back.

      She dived into the waiting queue. It took her almost two hours to wade through the calls, partially since everyone had to get the lowdown on her before talking medical business. Finally, the screen didn’t show anyone on hold. Lucy did a happy dance, chair sliding back and forth with her movements.

      “What are you doing?”

      She screeched. Graham had come down the hall during her happy dance...with a patient. Thankfully the frazzled mom with a toddler on her hip simply waved and walked out the front doors.

      Lucy motioned to the phone. “Just celebrating getting through the phone calls.”

      “Oh.” Graham sported the same look of confusion he’d been wearing when he’d stopped to help with her flat tire. “Okay.” He shrugged and disappeared down the hall again. Even slightly snarly, the man still managed to look good. He also had impeccable taste in clothes. A crisp white button-down shirt and black dress pants. A tie that teased some of the lighter flecks of green from his eyes. He reminded Lucy of an actor on a television show she used to watch. Definitely Hollywood for this small town.

      Digging into her purse, Lucy plucked out her phone and texted her sister.

      What are you doing?

      When it beeped a response, Lucy gave a silent cheer. Liv almost never responded to texts during the day because she was normally in the middle of teaching one of her French classes at the high school.

      Between classes. How’s the first day?

      How to answer that?

      Exciting.

      Lol. Yeah, rt. R u still at work? Have u caused any trouble?

      Lucy’s lips curved. Her sister knew her too well.

      Yes and no.

      Though Lucy had simply meant to answer Liv’s questions in order, the humor in it made her perk up. Let her sister wonder a bit at that.

      Lucy?!!!??

      She laughed and slid the phone back into her purse. It took her a few minutes to figure out how to print the updated appointment schedule so she could pull the patient charts for the rest of the day. Once she did, Lucy did a pirouette on her way to pick up the sheet from the printer located in the far left corner of the reception space. Now that the phone calls had slowed, she was doing okay. Maybe she’d get the hang of this job faster than she’d expected.

      Graham walked into the reception space and dropped some charts on top of the pile on her desk that needed to be reshelved, then turned and scanned the files.

      “Just grabbing my next appointment. I’m sure you haven’t had time to pull anything with handling the phones this morning.”

      “Thanks.” That was nice. Maybe the man didn’t just speak in grunts all the time. Actually, she knew he didn’t. She’d heard him being great with the patients. And she’d seen him interact with Mattie the other night. Graham looked at his daughter as if she made the sun rise and set each day. From what Lucy had gathered in the short time they’d been together on Sunday, she agreed with that assessment. Mattie was supercute with her red glasses, glossy hair and bright, inquisitive green eyes that seemed to quietly observe everything around her.

      Seeing Graham act so sweet with Mattie had melted Lucy a bit.

      But he certainly hadn’t sprinkled any of that sugar in her direction. With Lucy, he kept a polite distance and only spoke caveman.

      She considered the way Graham obviously adored Mattie to be his best quality. Second best? His choice in cologne.

      Inhaling, СКАЧАТЬ