Free The Back-Up Plan by Debra Webb

over-prescribing pain medication to patients. Donna had missed the insurance issues, but she’d caught him red-handed in the drug scandal. He’d taken off one too many afternoons to play racquetball or golf, leaving her with his patients as well as her own. The need to flex those jock muscles was his downfall.
    The hardest part for Donna was the stain it had left on her name. Though she was completely innocent in the charges, no one wanted her joining their practice. Maintaining a practice on her own would have been financially impossible in a big city. She’d had no choice but to figure out a plan b. What she didn’t know was that Patty had plotted this back-up plan years ago. She’d always intended to have her sister close by again. Deep down Donna had longed to be closer as well.
    All things considered, despite Melissa’s teacher and the ex-butcher shop sitting a few yards from the train tracks, it was working out reasonably well so far.
    Donna padded to the front hall where several gallons of paint waited for her in a neat stack near the staircase. She took the step ladder she’d borrowed from Sam and set it up at the far end of the kitchen. Melissa’s latest request nagged at her again. Since we have a real house with a real yard, can we get a puppy now?
    Donna cringed. It wasn’t that she didn’t like dogs, she was just afraid of them. Since she was seven and had gotten bitten by a neighbor’s mutt, Donna had been scared to death of dogs. Wouldn’t a goldfish or a Parakeet suffice?
    After gathering the paint roller, pan and gallon of paint marked Lemonade , she set the can on the kitchen counter and opened it. As she stirred the creamy yellow mix, the sunny walls of Hank Bradley’s classroom came to mind. Much to her frustration, that wasn’t the only thing about Hank Bradley that intruded on her thoughts. She groaned as his kiss replayed again and again with vivid clarity. She just couldn’t seem to bury the incident.
    After two sleepless nights of analyzing the reckless moment, Donna felt confident that her problem was sex deprivation. As her sister said, no one could ignore their needs forever and Donna had tried to do just that. The way the man had kissed her suggested he was pretty needy as well. Fat chance he’d been celibate the last six-plus years as she had. According to Patty, women flocked to him like he was the only single guy in the county.
    Somehow Donna had to get past this fixation—and that’s all it could possibly be. Nothing more. Just everyday male-female attraction. It happened all the time, didn’t it? Whatever it was, she wasn’t about to wind up a member of the Hank Bradley conquest club.
    Been there, done that.
    Brick Wallace had swept Donna off her feet. She had been in a vulnerable place. Med school had been draining, physically and mentally. It was her last year and she’d just begun to feel some of the tremendous weight lifting. She’d been so focused on being a student for so long, she’d needed something to make her feel like a woman again. Brick, all flash and charm, had mesmerized her with his golden-boy good looks.
    Like Hank, Brick had been a professional sports figure. A fullback for the Pittsburgh Steelers, but he never attained national celebrity status. Still, being a celebrity by virtue of his teammates had been bad enough. The macho-jock attitude coupled with his old-money background made him unbearably arrogant. He’d broken off the engagement and walked away, leaving her six months pregnant.
    Brick had only seen Melissa the one time. Though she had inherited his blonde hair and blue eyes, Brick wouldn’t know her today if he passed her on the street. Despite the irrefutable fact that he was lower than pond scum, the thought that he didn’t care enough about his own child to get to know her made Donna sad. The idea of how naive she had been to have ever believed in him made her sick to her stomach. It would never happen again. She would spend the rest of