Mac shook her head. "My goal is to keep politics out of it. This is about community reaction and response."

Spring liked that. An elected official, by virtue of office, could be seen to have more sway than an ordinary citizen would.

"I'm looking forward to reading the other side's point of view."

Mac chuckled and pulled her hair back. "You and me both. I have to tell you, I had no idea how much this issue would resonate with people. On both sides."

"Selling a lot of papers?"

"Print circulation is about the same, but our website is going gangbusters."

Any arguments-and she knew David would have many to derail her solid case against the project-would have to be silenced in the short run. Cedar Springs City Council members and newspaper readers alike would only be able to read her words and contemplate her reasoning before offering up their own ideas and alternate opinions on the matter.

As a member of both the Darling family and of the Cedar Springs Historical Society, Spring knew more than most about the history of the city. But for something this important, she wouldn't rely on memory and emotion. This was a task that called for research and action.

She thanked Mac for the opportunity, then, after grabbing her purse and her laptop, she headed to the library. Information from the library's special collection of local and North Carolina history would be just what she needed to supplement her piece.

"Daddy, I want Seuss."

Jeremy and David, ensconced again in their home away from home, had just completed a cut-throat game of Go Fish. Jeremy had come out victorious and declared his prize.

"Go get it," David told him. "It's in your backpack."

"Nuh-uh," Jeremy said. "Grandma spilled chocolate milk. Seuss got wet."

David bit back a grin. "Grandma spilled the milk?"

Jeremy stuck his thumb in his mouth. His sure tell.

"Jeremy?" David put his own thumb in his mouth and pulled it out, showing Jeremy the action he wanted the boy to take. Jeremy would be headed to kindergarten next year, and David did not want his son's propensity to suck his thumb when stressed or fibbing to head to school with him.

The boy released his thumb and confessed. "Maybe I helped her spill a little bit."

That explained the alternate backpack that Jeremy had been toting when he transferred from Grandma Charlotte's car to David's.

This trip to Cedar Springs, David told himself, was just a little father-son overnight. But that wasn't true, and he knew it.

Spring had not returned his calls or text messages. And there had been nothing but silence from her after he'd sent both the flowers and his revised renditions for the site plans. He'd been so proud of the work he'd done on a compromise plan. He and his team had created it following the meetings with the city officials. Coupled with that was the knowledge he'd gained at the intervention by the Magnolia Supper Club and the appreciation he'd gotten for not only the Darling land, but all of the city parcels, after having roamed the length and breadth of the Darling homestead with Spring.

If not turn cartwheels, he thought she would at least express an appreciation for his effort.

"Can we go see my Spring?"

David started to say Spring didn't want to see them, but he reconsidered that and then studied his son. Somewhere along the way, Jeremy had stopped calling her Dr. Spring. She'd simply become my Spring.

Except for that one night.

They'd taken to calling each other around Jeremy's bedtime. Spring would help tuck Jeremy in via the phone. She'd purchased a copy of his favorite book about the train, the turtle and the boy, as well as a few other storybooks, and read them to him over the phone while David turned the pages on his end in Charlotte.

He had suggested a video call over a program like Skype, but the pediatrician said video stimulation before bed wasn't a good idea. Jeremy had a routine that worked, and sticking to it provided continuity. So they'd continued the calls, the stories, lullabies and prayers, falling into a routine that neither David nor Spring talked about. After the bedtime routine, he and Spring would talk for a bit. It was an odd relationship. Anyone looking at it from the outside would a.s.sume Spring was, like many in the region so close to Fayetteville and Fort Bragg, a deployed military mom maintaining the home ties while serving overseas.

And then, a few nights ago, Jeremy was drifting off. Spring had wished him a good-night and Jeremy murmured, "G'night, Mommy."

David wasn't sure he'd heard his son correctly, but then he clearly heard Spring's startled intake of breath and knew he had. Jeremy was knocked out, Beau at his side as he'd been from the day after his emergency surgery. When he took the phone off speaker and lifted it to his ear to talk to Spring, the connection was dead.

David stared at Jeremy. The boy was cute. That was for sure.

Irresistible?

David didn't know, but he wanted Spring Darling back in their lives any way he could accomplish it. And his pint-size buddy might be the answer.

He wasn't proud of the idea that sprouted in his head like a weed in an untended lawn. But Spring and her friends had run an intervention on him. Wasn't it fair turnabout for him and his son to return the favor?

The intercom buzzed in the volunteers' lounge at the Common Ground clinic. "Dr. Darling, you have visitors at the front desk."

Spring looked up from her laptop. She'd had a rush of patients and appointments earlier, but when things had slowed down, she'd opened the computer to work on her op-ed for the newspaper.

Former patients sometimes stopped by to let her know how they were doing or to update her on the situations that had been prayed over.

"My folks never come back to say hi," intoned one of the volunteers who came in twice each month to do general dentistry.

"It's the drills, Patrick," Spring said with a smile. "Just the memory of that sound gives people the heebie-jeebies."

"Just for that," he said, "you get the big one the next time you're in the chair."

Chuckling, she saved her doc.u.ment and closed the laptop, then slipped on her Common Ground lab coat.

She heard Jeremy's voice before she got to the lobby. He was proudly, and in the loud voice that only a four-year-old thinks is quiet, informing someone that he had a scar from the hospital. A pang of longing shot through her. She'd missed her little man. But hot on that thought was that if Jeremy was there, so, too, was his father. The Spring of a few days ago would have turned on her heel and proceeded with haste out the back door. The new Spring scoffed at such cowardice and instead boldly strode to meet the Camden men.

Her breath caught when she got sight of them, and her heart seemed to swell with a fullness that she would have found overwhelming had it not felt so good.

They'd not yet spotted her, and she soaked in just seeing them. They were dressed in identical outfits. Khaki pants, short-sleeve blue b.u.t.ton-down shirts and sneakers. And they both looked as if they'd stopped at a salon for cuts and styling before coming to the clinic. Father and son sported trim but spiky hair that looked as if it had a mousse or gel in it. She grinned at their "me and mini-me" looks.

"This is for Spring," Jeremy announced. "I picked it out myself."

"I'm sure she'll love it," Shelby replied. She noticed Spring and added, "Well, look at who I see."

Jeremy whirled around and let out a whoop.

She was ready for the torpedo launch of his embrace and hugged him tight.

"I missed you. You didn't read me a story."

"I know, baby," she cooed. "I'm sorry. Did you get to sleep all right without me?"

Jeremy nodded. "Beau helped me."

"And where is Beau?"

"At the hotel. He couldn't get a haircut, so he had to stay there."

In the time she'd been talking with Jeremy, she'd felt David's eyes on her but hadn't looked at him. She feared that everything she felt for them would show on her face and in her eyes. But when Jeremy said at the hotel, her gaze lifted and met David's.

He was watching them with an intensity that made Spring unconsciously hold Jeremy even tighter. When he wiggled in her arms, she let him down.

"I picked out a flower for you," he said, thrusting a half-crushed pink carnation at her.

Although she knew it had little or no scent, she buried her nose in it to give her a moment to regroup. "It's beautiful, Jeremy. Thank you."

"Can I go to s.p.a.ce station?"

"Sure," Spring and David answered at the same time.

She blushed. "I'm sorry."

"How about I show you what we've gotten since you were last here," Shelby said, taking the little boy's hand and giving Spring a conspiratorial wink.

"h.e.l.lo, Spring."

She couldn't stall any longer. The time was now for the new Spring to let go of the past and face the future. She didn't know if the future for her held this man, but she wanted to find out.

"Hi, David."

And the next thing she knew, she was in his arms.

Spring didn't know-or care-who moved first. She just soaked in the warmth and strength and rightness of the moment.

"I missed you, too," he murmured in her hair.

"Oh, David." His name was longing and hope tinged with despair.

When she pulled away from the embrace, she wiped at her moist eyes.

"What are you doing here? Is it time for your meeting with the city council?"

He gave her an odd look. "That's not until next week. We just came for the weekend because Jeremy-because I wanted to see you."

Spring's smile was tremulous. "How did you know I'd be here?"

"It seemed like the best place to begin," he said. "If you weren't here, the hospital would have been the next stop. And then the farmhouse. And since I don't know where you live, if you weren't there, either, I was going to call Cameron Jackson."

"I'm easy to find," she said. "The phone book."

"Ah, old-school technology. It never crossed my mind."

She shook her head in amus.e.m.e.nt. "You two hit it off, huh?"

"Chief Cam? Yeah, he's a stand-up kind of guy."

This time she did chuckle. "Everyone says that about him. And using exactly those same words. I don't exactly know what it means, being a stand-up kind of guy, but he makes my sister happy and that's all that matters to me."

He took her hand in his. "I'd like to matter to you, Spring Darling, to make you happy."

Chapter Fourteen.

She didn't get to respond because the front doors burst open and a group of people running and shouting tumbled in. A man had a bleeding girl in his arms, a woman and an older woman were both wailing in Spanish.

"Medico, por favor! Medico. We need doctor. Somebody help us."

"Shelby! Patrick!" Spring hollered as she jumped into action. She pulled gloves from her pocket and snapped them on. "What happened?"

"La cortadora de cesped. Un accidente! Un accidente!" another man with the group kept saying. He was drenched in sweat and was alternating between crying out and looking as if he may pa.s.s out.

Spring's Spanish was rudimentary. All she got out of that was that it was an accident.

"I'm a doctor," she said. She tapped her chest and said, "Medico."

The girl had cuts all across her legs. Spring couldn't determine from what. All she knew was that they needed to stop the bleeding first, get her hooked up to an IV and transported to the hospital as quickly as possible.

"It was a lawn mower accident," David said.

Spring glanced at him with grat.i.tude. "You speak Spanish?" When he nodded, she said, "Thanks."

At that moment, Patrick came on the run with a gurney.

Shelby was already on the phone with the emergency department at Cedar Springs General and ordering an ambulance.

David got out of the way and watched the small volunteer medical crew work. At the same moment he turned to look for Jeremy, he felt a tug on his pants leg.

"Daddy?"

He lifted a wide-eyed Jeremy into his arms and turned him away from the b.l.o.o.d.y scene and the noise of frantic parents and relatives.

"She's hurt."

"Yeah, buddy."

Jeremy twisted around, trying to get a look at what was happening, but David carried him toward the children's waiting room, hoping that the toys and colors would distract him.