Summer of Love by Marie Ferrarella (easy to read books for adults list .TXT) 📕

so he could bail whenever he felt as if he’d had enough. Not that she blamed him, she thought. The man had already given a hundred and fifty percent of his time yesterday, far more than she had the right to expect, and she couldn’t be greedy.

The hell she couldn’t, Lila caught herself thinking. After all, this wasn’t about her. This was about all those people who were counting on her to find a way to keep them healthy—or get them healthy—and at the very least, that involved having a doctor pay them a house call.

“Okay,” Lila said with all the pseudo enthusiasm she could muster as she opened the passenger door for Everett. “Let’s get started.”

“How do you do this every day?” Everett wanted to know after they had made more than half a dozen house calls.

“Doctors used to do this all the time,” she told Everett.

It took him a moment to understand what Lila was referring to. He realized that they weren’t on the same page.

“I’m not talking about the house calls,” Everett told her. “I’m talking about seeing this much poverty and still acting so cheerful when you talk to the people.”

“I’m being cheerful for their sake. An upbeat attitude brings hope with it,” she told him. “And hope and perseverance are practically the only way out of these neighborhoods,” Lila maintained.

Everett was more than willing to concede the point. “You probably have something there.” And then he blew out a breath, as if mentally bracing himself for round two. “How many more people are on that famous list of yours for today?” he wanted to know.

It was already closer to one than to noon. Did he know that, she wondered. They’d been at this for hours and she’d assumed that no matter what he’d said on the outset, she just had him for half a day.

“Don’t you have a plane to catch or a car to drive?” she asked.

“Trying to get rid of me?” he asked her, an amused expression on his face.

“No, on the contrary, trying not to take you for granted and start relying on you too much,” Lila corrected. And in a way, that was true. That had been her downfall all those years ago. She’d just expected to be able to rely on Everett forever. And look how that had turned out, she thought. Determined to pin him down, she asked, “How long did you say you could work today?”

“I didn’t, remember?” he reminded her.

“Right. You said, quote, ‘why don’t we play it by ear and see,’” Lila recalled.

“Well, it still seems to be going, doesn’t it?” he observed, his expression giving nothing away. “Who’s next on the list?” he asked, redirecting her attention back to the immediate present.

Eyes on the road, Lila put one hand into the purse she kept butted up next to her and pulled out the list of patients that she’d put right on top. All she needed was a quick glance at the page.

“Joey Garcia’s next,” she answered. “Joey’s the baby of the family,” she added, giving Everett an encapsulated summary of his next patient. “He’s got two big sisters and two big brothers and he always gets everything after the rest of the family’s gotten over it.

“However, according to my records,” she said, trying to recall what she had entered on her tablet, “I don’t think anyone in the family has had the flu or gotten the vaccine this year.”

“Well, I guess we’re about to find out, aren’t we?” Everett speculated as she pulled the car up before another house that looked as if it might have been new over fifty years ago.

Lila got out on her side and immediately found that she had to pause for a moment. She held on to the car door for support. Everything around her had suddenly opted to wobble just a little, making her head swim and the rest of her extremely unsteady.

Realizing that she wasn’t with him as he approached the house, Everett looked back over his shoulder. “Something wrong?”

“No.” Lila refused to tell him she’d felt dizzy, especially since the feeling had already passed. She didn’t want to sound whiny or helpless and she definitely didn’t want him fussing over her. “Just trying to remember if I forgot something.”

Everett thought that sounded rather odd. What could she have forgotten? “Did you?”

“No,” she answered rather abruptly. “I’ve got everything.”

He played along for her sake. She didn’t look as if she was herself today.

“I don’t know how you manage to keep track of everything,” he told her as they approached the Garcias’ front door.

“It’s a gift,” Lila told him wryly. She forced a wide smile to her lips as she fervently wished that she’d stop feeling these odd little waves of weakness that kept sweeping over her.

Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the front door. It swung open immediately. The next moment, she was introducing Everett to a big, burly man who appeared to be almost as wide as he was tall.

“Mr. Garcia, this is Dr. Everett Fortunado. He’ll be giving you and your family your flu vaccinations,” Lila told Juan Garcia and the diminutive wife standing next to him.

The couple went from regarding Everett suspiciously to guardedly welcoming him into their home.

“The children are in the living room,” Mrs. Garcia said, leading the way through what amounted to almost railroad-style rooms to the back of the house.

As he walked into the living room, Everett was immediately aware of five pairs of eyes warily watching his every move.

Everett did his best to set the children at ease, talking to them first and asking their names. He explained exactly what he was about to do and what they could expect, including how the vaccine felt going into their arms.

When he was done, he surprised Lila by handing out small candy bars to each child. “For being brave,” he told them.

“That was nice of you,” Lila said as they left the Garcias’ house twenty minutes later.

Everett