Free Healing Tides by Lois Richer

very interested.” She waited till he’d served her. “Do you do this often?”
    “Picnic by the sea?” He shook his head. “Not really.”
    “Why not?”
    “When I first came here I used to, but I guess after a while the thrill of living right next to the South Pacific kind of washed off.”
    “Washed off. Very funny.” She leaned back to let the sun bathe her face, rested her back against another rock. “I don’t think I could ever tire of this. I love the water.”
    “Did you go swimming in the Arctic? Is that even possible?”
    “Most years we couldn’t because the water around us was too deep and too cold. But there was a hot springs about ten miles away from our village. My dad drove me there a couple of times in the summer. It was gorgeous.”
    “Is that where you grew up?”
    “My parents were missionaries to the Inuit. My mother felt Inuit mothers were the most skillful women she’d ever known. They taught her how to do their traditional handwork, to cook their way—everything.”
    “Is she there still?
    Glory shook her head. “No. She died when I was ten.”
    “I’m sorry. And your father?”
    “He loved to read. And they loved to hear him read to them. He’s gone now, too.”
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
    His quiet voice helped her regroup.
    “It’s all right. They’re in Heaven now.” She tasted a teaspoonful of the sweet dessert, savored it until she’d found enough nerve to say, “Can I ask you a question?”
    “You can ask.”
    Meaning he wouldn’t necessarily answer.
    “One of the nurses told me Sister Philomena started the mission. That she’s Elizabeth Wisdom’s cousin.”
    “True.” His face gave nothing away.
    “She left me a carafe of tea and some cookies the night I arrived. I’d like to visit her, to thank her.”
    A shadow fluttered through his eyes. A small tic appeared at the side of his mouth.
    “I’ll be happy to take you to meet her another time, but today is out.”
    “Sure. No problem.”
    Dr. Steele had gone from an enjoyable companion to a block of ice in five seconds flat. Glory changed the conversation to something work related, but no matter what subject she touched on, she couldn’t recapture their earlier camaraderie, nor could she suppress a certain awareness that there was something Jared wasn’t saying.
    A few minutes later his beeper went off and the interlude by the ocean was cut short before she could ask why he’d stopped grafting. They hurried back, slipped into their usual roles. Half the afternoon was gone before Glory realized she’d forgotten to thank him for the lunch, but when she had time to go looking, Jared Steele was nowhere to be found.
    That evening for the third time in three days he was unavailable for a consult when patients arrived without warning. Glory and Dr. Potter struggled to handle two children in ICU with drug reactions. A host of other small but needy interruptions kept her moving as her workday stretched long into the night. She fell into bed at 4:00 a.m. for a couple of hours, then was summoned back to the mission, barely making it in time for rounds.
    “Happy you could join us, Dr. Cranbrook.”
    “Dr. Steele, Dr. Cranbrook—”
    “It doesn’t matter, Leilani,” she interrupted, stopping the nurse’s explanation of events from the night before. “Let’s just get on with it.”
    “Finding it difficult to balance party time and work time, Dr. Cranbrook?”
    Glory ignored Jared’s snarky comment, though the same could be said about him. Apparently he’d had an even harder night than she had. His hair hung shaggy and mussed, a growth of beard shaded his jaw and his eyes were sunken and red-rimmed.
    She cut him slack all through the day, but when he disappeared, leaving her on call again that evening, Glory was furious.
    I’m losing my patience with him, Lord, she prayed silently as she checked a four-year-old for nasal infection. Why am I here?
    As usual, the answer wasn’t