Nothing had gone according to plan since I’d come home from my last volunteer stint. Tucker, who I’d sort of expected I’d end up marrying one day, if only to please my grandfather and his parents, had married a dairy farmer, for heaven’s sake.
And then somehow I’d found myself leaving my job in Nashville so I could follow Tucker to the boondocks—not precisely to Licking Thicket, where he lived, but to Great Nuthatch next door—where I’d settled way too quickly into the role of small-town cardiologist. I prescribed beta blockers and cholesterol medication by day, then curled up with a cozy mystery in my little two-bedroom rental or grabbed a drink with Rainbows Over Tennessee, the local LGBT group where I volunteered, by night. I’d made a ton of friends, I’d attended way too many bovine-centric festivities (which was Licking Thicket’s claim to fame), I’d eaten more barbecue than a cardiologist ought, and I was on track to get the mayor’s wife’s coveted secret family recipe for sweet tea since she’d unofficially adopted me. And all of that would have been fine, it would have been excellent, except… I’d been born and raised a Rogers, with every privilege known to man and a bone-deep knowledge that it was my job to help make the world a better place. I had a legacy to protect.
What I was doing with my life did not map to what I knew I should be doing, which meant I’d taken a wrong turn somewhere.
But when you discovered you were lost, the best thing to do was retrace your steps, right? So tomorrow I’d start retracing. And once I got back out in the world and started saving lives, I was confident everything was going to click back into focus, and I’d know what I should do with the rest of my life.
I for sure would not be partying after I landed in Caracas. Tonight was my chance to live a little, let off some steam.
“I’m positive,” I told Alana. “I’m a doctor. A cardiologist. I have a degree from Vanderbilt. I think I know my limits.”
“Alright.” Alana grabbed her soda hose reluctantly. “But if you can’t sleep tonight ’cause you’ve had three full-sugar, full-caffeine Cokes, I don’t wanna hear about it.”
“Hmph.” Opinionated small-town neighbors were incredibly annoying.
And more often than not, correct.
Señor Shoulders made another choking noise from down the bar, and my eyes shifted his way… in concern, obviously. Medical concern. “You okay?” I called. “I’m a doctor, and if you need help, I could—”
I had no idea how to end that sentence. Take your temperature. Kiss your boo-boos. Explore your tonsils. Check you for ticks. Whatever you need.
“Evenin’, Doc Rogers!” Red Johnson clapped me on the back, interrupting my drooling over the random guy’s shoulder. His ruddy face was creased in a smile. “You sure know how to throw a party, son. Cindy Ann’s taking all sorts of pictures to show the rest of the folks on the Thicket Beautification Corps. She’s gonna give you that sweet tea recipe yet.”
I glanced around the ballroom, which was festooned with fairy lights, floral arrangements, and crystal stemware. At the rear of the space was a giant representation of the Rogers family crest done in white and blue flowers. On an easel near the front entrance sat an enormous oil portrait of a blue-eyed woman from the eighteenth century, who reclined on an embroidered divan and managed to look both friendly and bored out of her mind.
It was over-the-top for this neck of the woods, but for reasons I’d never understood, you had to show you already had money if you wanted to raise money, which probably explained why Grandfather had rented this place.
“I wish I could take credit, Red, but I didn’t have a thing to do with it,” I said honestly. “My grandfather was in charge of everything… along with his party planners, of course.”
“Ah. And the lady in the painting by the door. That your grandma?”
“What? Oh, no. No, it’s an ancestor of ours.” One who’d probably been dead two hundred years before my grandparents were born. I explained, “We’re descended from Her Grace the Duchess of MacArtar, which is a Scottish title that transfers through the female line. I was named for her, actually. Carter, like MacArtar? Anyway, the duchess was a renowned philanthropist, so my grandfather likes to display her portrait at all official Rogers Family Foundation events. It’s sort of a lucky charm.”
“Well, it doesn’t surprise me to hear you’re descended from selfless, generous folks. Not after what you’ve done for me and my heart condition. And what you did for my friend Kirt.”
“Oh.” I squirmed on my stool. “No, that wasn’t anything, really. I’m just glad he’s okay.”
“He’s more than okay—he’s over there waltzing with his wife”—Red gestured across the room—“thanks to you. If you hadn’t caught his stroke the day of the Fisherman’s Float out at the lake, it all coulda ended differently. We all figured he was slurring his words that morning ’cause he’d been hittin’ the sauce to ward off the morning chill.”
“It’s common for laypeople to miss the signs of stroke,” I assured him. “Pretty easy to spot when you’re trained, though. No big deal.”
“It was an awful big deal for Kirt’s family,” Alana chimed in. “Like when you convinced Gramma Sophie that her headaches weren’t about needing a new prescription for her eyeglasses but because she had high blood pressure. She got to spend another Lickin’ with her family this past summer, thanks to you.”
The woman had only needed a prescription for her high blood pressure. It wasn’t like I was some kind of medical trailblazer over here. Not like my father, or even my grandfather.
“Well, I’m glad I could help in some small way.” I smiled tightly. “So, Red, how are Ava and Paul’s twins?”
Ava was technically Red’s son’s former childhood sweetheart and not related to their family in the slightest. That didn’t matter in a town like Licking Thicket, though. Red was their honorary grandpa.
“Cricket and James!” Red’s grin widened. “Hang on, I’ve got pictures on my phone here—”
“Excuse me, Doctor.” A tuxedoed waiter appeared at my shoulder. “Your grandfather would like a word with you. He’s waiting for you in the Turquoise Salon.” She nodded toward a paneled door on the far side of the room.
I nodded. I’d been waiting for this summons all evening. Grandfather and I had barely had a chance to greet each other since we arrived, but I knew he was not best pleased with my decision to go “running off, looking for trouble” in South America.
I’d bet money he was going to ask me for the thousandth time in three months if I was really, really sure I wanted to go. He’d already tried threatening, guilting, and cajoling me about it. In fact, I was low-key certain this whole hospital endowment had been an attempt at distracting me from leaving town, which was hilarious because he’d initially been horrified when I’d moved from Nashville to Great Nuthatch, but apparently even Great Nuthatch was better than the jungles of Venezuela.
I was curious what his last-ditch attempt at keeping me in Tennessee would be.
I excused myself from my friends, straightened my tuxedo jacket, and followed the waiter toward the door. But before we got there, a hand reached out from the shadows, grabbed my elbow, and pulled me behind an enormous potted tree.