Texas Redeemed Read Free Page B

of those people, until the morning she’d
come to the Turner mansion pregnant with nobody else to turn to, and found him
gone.
    He’d disappeared, almost as if he’d never existed, and
neither she nor his grandfather could find him when the girls had been sick …
when Anna had died. “Well, until then,” Valerie said, because any mention of
Lucy’s phantom father always upset her, “study.”

    W ITH THE H ILL Country backdrop still visible
despite the thick storm clouds rolling overhead, and situated just beyond the
town’s Square, Night Sky Memorial Hospital was the same and yet different.
Peyton rested his wrists over the steering wheel of his Lincoln Navigator as he
waited behind another vehicle at the staff security gate.
    He made no promises about putting down stakes here, in a
mountainous town that had remained the way he’d left it: geographically large
with room to roam, but populated with roughly forty-five hundred people who,
based on what he’d gleaned from old Sully Joe Keate during a quick stop at the
town’s only gas station, weren’t too keen on outsiders and Big Business setting
up camp in the place they wanted to keep strictly mom-and-pop. Night Sky’s
infrastructure worries couldn’t top his priority list, though. The truth was that
his grandfather had more years behind him than in front of him, especially now that
he’d endured a stroke, and after almost fourteen years away, it was time for
the prodigal son to return—even if temporarily.
    Johns Hopkins had granted his request for a leave of
absence, giving him plenty of time to weigh his options in Texas. Doctor Miles
Lindsey, Memorial’s chief of staff, had penciled him in for a face-to-face talk
after they’d discussed a potential no-commitment visiting surgeon position. If
anyone could have a poker voice, Chief Lindsey had perfected his. Peyton
couldn’t gauge where he stood with him, but if he had a chance to practice
medicine while grounded in this town, he would take it. So he’d made sure he at
least looked the part, clean-shaven and decked out in a designer suit. But he
was bone weary from the trip from Maryland, since he’d opted not to take a flight.
He loved to drive every chance he got. He darted a glance at the rearview
mirror and could see the fatigue in his face. Still, there was business to be
done.
    After the meeting, he’d visit his grandfather. Then he’d
check in at Blue Longhorn Motel if he wanted bare basics and privacy, or at Peridot,
the only hotel in Wellesley County that had withstood the Civil War, if he
wanted comfort and a continental breakfast that consisted of more than day-old
doughnuts and watered-down coffee. If need be he’d find a room in Meridien, but
from there the city was accessible only by means of the bridge, which was, even
in autumn, quick to bottleneck with tourists coming to and fro like the tide.
    Peyton hadn’t brought much—clothes, laptop, paperwork and
some keepsakes he hadn’t wanted to leave behind in the minimalist Baltimore
apartment he’d sublet to a fellow surgeon who was freshly divorced and out on
his ass. With an excess of amenities, a killer view of the city and the most
incredible plasma screen television he’d ever laid eyes on, the place was a
bachelor pad. But it had never been home, and handing over the keys hadn’t been
hard.
    The car ahead of him continued toward the staff parking
garage, and he drew in a steadying breath before relinquishing his own to a
valet and entering the hospital.
    Though he’d spent more than enough time in this place—as
a patient sidelined with sports injuries growing up and then as a visitor
haunting the place after each of his grandmother’s three heart attacks—the
hospital’s aesthetic changes made the place seem foreign to him, from the
spacious, three-story glass foyer to the array of exotic plants and paintings,
display cases and tapestry. A plump receptionist instructed a guide to give him
a tour of the hospital and