Page 1 of Doctor Holliday
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 bea 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?”