“I know, sweetie. I know you don’t like this. It’ll be over in a second; I promise,” Piper cooed as she gently stuck a large needle into a terrified orange tabby cat. The cat meowed in protest, but the prick was over before he could weasel out of Sam’s grasp and whip out his claws. Piper quickly removed the vaccination, and her unhappy patient settled down a little. She put away the medical supplies and scratched the animal on the head.
“You are such a good boy, Pete. I’m so proud of you,” she gladly praised. Pete promptly forgot about his earlier terror and lifted his chin so Piper could scratch under it. She obliged the tabby and kissed him on the head before turning her attention to his owner. “You’ll be glad to know, Mr. Tate, that Pete is an extremely healthy tom cat. He’s all caught up on his shots now, and I won’t have to see him again for another year.”
Mr. Tate, a well-dressed gentleman in his late forties, lifted his pride and joy and hugged him to his chest. “Wonderful! I knew he was a strong cat.” He then raised his cat’s right paw and waved it at Piper. “Say thank you and good-bye to the nice lady,” he instructed.
Piper smiled and waved back to her less-than-enthusiastic patient. “Good bye, Pete. See you in a year.”
Mr. Tate gently pushed Pete back into his carrier and headed out to the lobby where Piper’s part-time assistant, Heather, was waiting to ring up his bill. When he was gone, Sam cleaned off the examination table while Piper washed her hands.
“How long has it been since you’ve heard from Dean?” Sam asked eventually after a short pause.
“Dean?” The name surprised Piper, and she hit her hand on the faucet as she turned off the water. She shook it in an effort to make the throbbing stop and dried her hands on a nearby towel.
Sam chuckled as she sprayed the table again and furiously cleaned it off. “Yes, Dean. You remember him. Long hair, goofy grin, dreamy eyes.”
Piper rolled her eyes as she replaced the towel and checked her hand for marks. “I know who you’re talking about. I was just surprised. Why do you ask?”
Sam shrugged as she put the cleaner back on the shelf. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s just been a little while, and there hasn’t been any excitement around here.”
“Oh, I see. I actually haven’t noticed at all,” Piper said nonchalantly. She shook her hand one more time and tried to regain her composure. She then turned around quickly and banged her knee into the table.
“Uh huh…sure. Are you all right?” Sam asked as she started to laugh again.
Piper sighed as she furiously rubbed her knee. She squeezed her eyes shut to hold back a couple of tears that were threatening to spill onto her cheeks. “Yeah.” She took a few deep breaths then looked up at Sam. “Do we have any patients waiting out there?”
Sam peeked out the door then glanced back at Piper. “No.”
“Good. Then I’m going to hobble back to my office for a while.” Piper shook out her leg and limped towards her office. The telephone rang as she reached her door. When she heard Heather answer it, she turned back to Sam, who was walking towards the front desk.
“Three days.”
Sam stopped in her tracks and rapidly looked up. “Sorry?”
“It’s been three days since I last saw Dean.” With that, Piper entered her office and closed the door. The minute she sat down, there was a knock at her door. She stopped examining her knee and looked up. “Yes?”
Sam opened the door and hurried over to the desk. “Wait a minute. First, you say you haven’t thought about him, then you tell me you haven’t seen him in three days? Piper, what’s going on?”
Piper sighed and leaned back into her leather chair. “I don’t know. I used to think I had my whole life planned out. Then Dean showed up and sent my life into a tailspin. I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
“Dr. Gallimore?” Piper looked up to see Heather standing in the doorway. “There’s a gentleman for you on line one.”
“Did you get his name?” Piper asked.
Heather shook her head. “No. All he said was that you should know who it is.”
“We’ll let you get that,” Sam said as she ushered Heather out of the room and closed the door.
Piper’s hands shook as she picked up the receiver. Part of her was praying that Dean hadn’t taken her seriously and was on the other end of that call. Taking a deep breath, she pressed the button for line one. “Hello, this is Dr. Piper Gallimore.”
“Piper, darling!” Emerson’s clipped accent emerged from the earpiece. Piper was both relieved and disappointed, but she tried not to let either show in her voice.
“Emerson, why are you calling me? We just saw each other a couple of hours ago.”
“I know, dear, but I wanted to tell you the exciting news I just received.”
Piper smiled. Maybe some good news from Emerson would take her mind off Dean for a while. “Yes?”
“All right, are you sitting down?”
“Yes, Emerson. What is it?”
Emerson cleared his throat. “I have just been asked to lecture at the National Mathematics Convention in Manchester this weekend.”
Piper’s jaw dropped. “This weekend? Emerson, you can’t lecture there this weekend. We’re going to spend some time in the country, just the two of us.”
“I know, I know, but this would be so much better. I can introduce you to my colleagues, and you can finally attend one of my lectures.” Piper winced when she heard the chiding tone in his voice. She hated when he spoke to her like a spoiled child.
“Emerson, I love you, but I don’t want to go to the National Mathematics Convention this weekend. I want to go to the country,” she said evenly.
“Piper, you’re being selfish again. Not everything is about you.” Once again, he used his chiding tone.
“Selfish? YOU’RE calling ME selfish? Emerson, when have you ever done anything I wanted to do? This is not the first time you’ve changed plans on me, you know.”
“Piper, relax. This will be a good opportunity for us.”
Piper gritted her teeth and grabbed a pen off her desk. In an effort to calm herself, she began to rhythmically click the end of the pen. She was silent for a long time before Emerson had to ask if she was still there. She didn’t answer him.
“I can hear you clicking your pen,” he said.
“Well, I’m glad you can hear something I do,” she blurted as she tossed the pen across the room.
“You’re being unreasonable again.”
“Unreasonable?” She jumped up from her chair and began to pace back and forth. “Unreasonable? Emerson, this is the last weekend we can spend together before the wedding. I don’t want you to work that weekend. Is it too much to ask to spend some time with just my fiancé before our families arrive?”
“Piper, I know you’re upset…”
“You’re damn right I’m upset. I was really looking forward to this weekend. I mean, couldn’t you have talked this over with me before you said yes?” Piper paced faster. “You know, you are ALWAYS doing this. You’re always making the choices for both of us, and I’m tired of it. You should have discussed this with me.”
“But, darling, it wasn’t your decision to make.”
Piper stopped pacing and balled her hand into a fist. It took everything she had not to throw the phone across the room. She breathed slowly and made sure she was calm before she spoke again. “All right, here’s a decision for you. I’m not going with you.”
“Piper, I need you there.”
“No, you don’t. You go. I’ll stay here.”
Just then, the sounds of a guitar began to float through the door. The music was so out of place that it caught Piper’s attention immediately and she almost dropped the phone. Within a few minutes, an off-key male voice joined the guitar riffs.
“What on Earth?” Piper muttered to herself as she walked over to her door and cracked it open. Standing in the middle of the waiting room was Dean playing a guitar and singing to the top of his lungs. Her jaw dropped as she watched him lean across the desk and serenade her two assistants. Sam and Heather just laughed as they applauded his efforts. Faintly, she heard Emerson asking her if she was still there, and she removed the phone from her ear long enough to listen to Dean.
He finished his completely awful rendition of Bush’s “Glycerine” to the sound of Heather and Sam’s ovation. “Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week.”
“Not if we have you arrested first,” Sam smiled.
“Well, yeah, but you wouldn’t arrest me, would you?” Dean slung the guitar onto his back and stood up straight.
“It depends on Piper.”
Dean seemed to stand up straighter when her name was mentioned. “Speaking of Piper, do you think I could go see her?”
Sam shook her head. “Sorry, Dean, not today. She’s in the middle of an important phone call right now.”
“All right. I’ll just stay out here and entertain you two until she’s done.” With that, Dean grabbed the guitar again, and immediately went into his version of “Ticket to Ride” by the Beatles. “I think I’m gonna be sad/I think it’s today, yeah/The girl that’s driving me mad is goin’ away.”
As she stood there and observed his performance, a smile spread across Piper’s face. She glanced down at the phone and Emerson’s insistent voice then back to Dean and his off-key singing. All of a sudden, a feeling of peace came over her and right then and there she made a choice.
“Emerson, I’ll see you when you get back. Good bye.” Before her fiancé could answer, Piper clicked the off button. She replaced the phone and ambled into the waiting room.
Dean was completely into the song and hadn’t noticed that she had entered the room. “She said that living with me was bringing her down, yeah/ She would never be free when I was around!”
Just then, Dean whirled around and saw her standing there, beaming at him. He broke into a grin of his own and immediately started another song. “And maybe…you’re gonna be the one that saves me! /After all, you’re my wonderwall.”
Piper let him get through two more bars of the Oasis hit before she finally stopped him. “Dean, what are you doing here?”
He stopped playing and gave her a big, goofy grin. “I’m sorry, but I thought about it all weekend, and I just couldn’t take no for an answer. I’m prepared to stand here for the rest of the day and sing in your waiting room until you agree to come to Cornwall.” He then strummed the guitar for emphasis and prepared to warble through another tune.
“All right, I’ll go.” Piper’s words stopped him in mid strum.
“Come again?” he asked.
Piper sighed. “I said that I’ll come to Cornwall this weekend, but I’m only coming as a friend.”
Dean’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. “Really? You mean it?”
“Yes.”
“What made you change your mind?” Sam asked. For the first time, Piper realized that Sam and Heather were watching them from behind the desk. The two of them were smiling.
“Let’s just say I need a weekend away,” Piper explained and left it at that.
***********
“She’s not coming,” Dean announced as he paced back and forth in the hotel lobby.
“Yes, she is, Dean. You’ve just got to give her time to get here,” JC stated. He sat in a green and white striped chair and watched his friend pace. “Why don’t you sit down? You’re starting to make me dizzy.”
Dean did as he was told. “What time is it?” he asked as he started to fidget.
JC rolled his blue eyes and checked his watch. “Five minutes since the last time you asked.”
Dean shook his head. “She’s not coming.”
“Who’s not coming?” a female voice behind him asked. Dean whirled around to see Piper standing there with two big, blue suitcases in her hands. Her brown curls fell past her shoulders, and her green eyes twinkled. She looked exactly like he remembered her. She laughed. “I’m sorry I’m a little late. The traffic was awful this afternoon.”
Without hesitating, the surfer jumped up from his chair and pulled her into a hug. For a moment, he almost forgot that she wasn’t his anymore. He ran his hand through her curls and breathed in her strawberry scent. It felt as if no time had passed at all. Then her voice brought him back to reality.
“Dean, you can let me go now,” she said.
“Sorry.” They parted and stood there awkwardly. It was as if they weren’t quite sure what to do next. All that work to get her there, and Dean was completely stumped on how to act. JC cleared his throat, and Dean looked up, thankful for the interruption. He led Piper over to his best friend. “Piper, you remember JC, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do, even though I only saw him once at that Christmas party Josh threw.” She hugged JC. “How are you?”
They parted before he answered. “I’m doing well. I’m married with a daughter and have my own restaurant.”
“Married?” Her eyes couldn’t hide her surprise. “Really?”
“Oh, yeah, happily for four years. You’ll meet them tonight at dinner.”
“Wonderful.”
Dean took one of her suitcases. “Shall we go find your room?” he asked.
He felt like a little kid in a candy store. He was so excited that she was there, really there, and he was having a very hard time containing it. There was so much that he wanted to show her that he wasn’t quite sure where to start. He had her for the whole weekend, and he couldn’t have been happier.
“Sounds like a good idea,” JC said as he took Piper’s other suitcase. The three of them then walked to the front desk to get her room key and begin the weekend.