The Magnificent M.D. by Carol Grace Read Free Book Online Page B

or her divorce.
    â€œThe creep walked out on her,” Wilma said. “Just because—”
    â€œHow’s the pie?” he asked, attempting to change the subject.
    â€œNo complaints so far,” Wilma said. “Get you a piece?”
    He nodded. When he and Hayley had shared confidences so long ago, he’d talked about getting out of New Hope and bragged about making a ton of money and thumbing his nose at the world. But Hayley had always talked about a future right there in town with a husband and kids. As if it was a given. Why not? She’d alwaysgotten everything else she’d wanted. He wondered what had gone wrong. Who had she married? Was it anyone he’d known? Whoever it was, it must have been some time ago. She didn’t appear to be suffering now. And if she was, she wouldn’t share it with him.
    â€œIt’s her parents I feel sorry for,” Wilma said, jerking him out of his reverie.
    â€œHow’s that?” Sam couldn’t imagine wasting an iota of sympathy on Georgia and Franklin Bancroft. They were rich and snobbish, and they’d forbidden Hayley to see him. Of course, he was hardly the type of boy they wanted their daughter going out with. Face it, who would want their daughter going out with him? He wouldn’t want his daughter going out with someone like him. Someone with an attitude like his. With parents like his. With a sketchy past and a bleak future.
    â€œLost their money. Bad investments.”
    â€œOh, that.” He took a bite of pie.
    â€œStill got that motorcycle?” she asked.
    â€œNo,” he said. He neglected to inform her that instead of the old, beat-up Yamaha he’d picked up at the wrecking yard outside town, he now had a new Honda CB1000 that would do 160 on the open road. If he ever got out to the open road. So far he hadn’t had time to ride it. Just knowing he could afford it, knowing it was there in case he had time was enough. It was now parked in the garage at his apartment building, awaiting his return, which couldn’t come a moment too soon to suit him.
    â€œYou married?” she asked, wiping the counter clean.
    â€œNo.” Why had he ever come in here today? He wasn’t ready to be grilled by the biggest gossip in town. He would never be ready for that.
    â€œNeither is Hayley,” she said pointedly.
    â€œSo you said.”
    â€œNever cared much for her parents, did you?”
    â€œNever knew them very well,” he said. Actually he knew them as well as he wanted to. His first encounter with Mrs. Bancroft came at about age ten when he’d been passing by their house dragging a stick along their fence…ka-ching, ka-chin, ka-ching, wondering what it would be like to be rich enough to live in a house like that. Vowing that someday he’d have enough money to have such a showplace. That someday he’d be as respectable as they were. As he daydreamed, idly banging his stick, the Bancroft poodle started barking, and Hayley’s mother got up off her lawn chair.
    â€œStop that,” she screamed. He wasn’t sure if she was yelling at him or the dog. In any case, he continued walking around the perimeter of their property, whistling and banging his stick while the dog continued frantically barking at him from the other side of the fence and Mrs. Bancroft became apopleptic. That was indicative of the way things went between him and the Bancrofts from then on.
    Sam laid a bill on the counter and stood up. “Nice to see you, Mrs. Henwood. I haven’t forgotten about your flowers.”
    â€œGuess we’ll be seeing more of you around here,” she said. “Hayley doesn’t do dinners, only breakfasts.”
    He nodded. Every night at the diner with meat loaf, mashed potatoes or chicken-fried steak? Every night more interrogation? More gossip? For six months?
    When he finally did pass through the gate and walk up to the wraparound front porch of the